From 0 to 1: unlocking the secrets of business and the future

Chapter 5 Future Challenges

Whenever I interview a candidate, I ask this question: "On what important issue do you disagree with everyone else?"

This straightforward question sounds easy to answer, but it is not.It challenges the intellect, because the knowledge that everyone receives in school has been affirmed and must be approved by others.It's also psychologically challenging, because everyone trying to answer has to say something they know they don't agree with, and that takes courage.There are few brilliant answers, and what these ideas lack is more courage than wisdom.

Usually, the answer I hear is something like this:

"Our education system is flawed and urgently needs to be reformed."

"America is extraordinary."

"There is no God in this world."

None of these answers are good.The first and second statements may be true, but many people have agreed with them.And the third simply applies one side of a common debate.A good answer follows the pattern: "Most people believe X, but the truth is the opposite of X." I'll give my answer later in this chapter.

So what does this anti-mainstream question have to do with the future?Viewed in a small way, the future is just a collection of moments that have yet to come.But what makes the future so unique and important is not that it didn't happen, but that the world in the future will be different from the present.In this way, if our society does not change in the next 100 years, then the future is more than 100 years away.If the world changes in the next 10 years, the future is within reach.No one can predict the future with precision, but we know two things: the world will inevitably be different, but the change must be based on the world today.Most answers to this counter-question are different views of the present, and a good answer should allow us to see the future as much as possible.

From 0 to 1: the future of progress
The future we look forward to is progressive.Progress can take two forms.First, horizontal progress, also known as extensive progress, means copying the experience that has been achieved - directly from 1 to n.Level progression is easy to imagine because we already know what it looks like.Second, vertical progress, also known as in-depth progress, means to explore a new path - from 0 to 1 progress.Vertical progress is harder to imagine, and one needs to try something that has never been done before.If you build 100 typewriters from one typewriter, that's horizontal progress.And if you have a typewriter and you build a word processor, then you've made vertical progress.

At the macro level, horizontal progress can be replaced by one word, namely globalization—promoting useful things in one place to all parts of the world.China is a paradigm of globalization, and its 20-year plan is to become what America is today.China has directly copied the useful things of the developed world: 19th-century railways, 20th-century air conditioners, even entire cities.Maybe this kind of copying can save China a few steps on the road of construction-for example, it can directly realize wireless communication without installing land lines, but this is still copying.

Vertical progress can also be summed up in one word, technology.The rapid development of information technology in recent decades has given Silicon Valley the title of "Technology Capital", but technology is not limited to computer technology.Any new method, any method that makes things easier to do is technology, and this is the correct understanding of technology.Because globalization and technology are different forms of progress, they may exist at the same time, one or the other, or neither.For example, between 1815 and 1914, technology developed rapidly and globalization spread rapidly.From World War I to Kissinger's visit to China in 1971, technology developed rapidly, but globalization was slow.Since 1971, globalization has accelerated, and technological development is limited to the field of information technology.

In the era of globalization, it is not difficult to foresee that the world will become more integrated and more homogeneous in the coming decades.Even everyday language shows that we somehow think the technological age is over, such as the so-called developed versus developing divide, which suggests that the "developed" countries have achieved everything they can, while the lagging developing countries have achieved everything they can. The country just needs to catch up.

But I disagree.My answer to the anti-mainstream question above is: most people think that the future of the world is determined by globalization, but the truth is - technology has more influence.Without scientific and technological innovation, China's energy production may double in the next 20 years, but the resulting air pollution will also double.If hundreds of millions of families in India lived like American families do now - with only modern tools, the result would also be devastating to the environment.If the whole world uses the same old method to create wealth, then what will be created is not wealth, but disaster.Today, when resources are scarce, globalization without technological innovation will not last long.

New technologies never emerge naturally in the course of history.Our ancestors lived in an immutable zero-sum society where success meant taking things from others and keeping them for yourself.They rarely create new sources of wealth, which in the long run leads to scarcity and hardship.From the beginning of primitive agricultural life, to the windmill in the Middle Ages, and the invention of the celestial observatory in the 16th century, human society has only made sporadic progress for tens of thousands of years. It was not until the steam engine appeared in the 18s and until around 60 that the modern world did Suddenly there was a flurry of technological advances.The end result is that we have inherited a society richer than any previous generation could have imagined.

No generation expects this progress to last as our grandparents and parents did in the late 20s. They hoped for a 60-day work week, energy so cheap that it didn’t need to be metered, and vacations to the moon. But these are just imaginations.Smartphones make us lose sight of our surroundings and how old things are around us: only computers and communications have grown enormously since the mid-4th century.But that’s not to say our parents’ generation was wrong to expect a better future—they just made the mistake of thinking that this better future would come by itself.The challenge we face today is to create new technologies that will make the 20st century more harmonious and prosperous than the 21th.

entrepreneurial thinking
Startups are often the birthplace of new technologies.From the Founding Fathers in politics, to the Royal Society in science, to the Fairchild Eight in business, small groups of people come together on a mission to make the world a better place.The simplest explanation for the phenomenon of "small groups" is negative: because it is difficult to develop new things in a large organization, and it is even more difficult to do it alone.The bureaucracy is slow and inefficient, and vested interests are unwilling to take risks.In extremely dysfunctional organizations, telling people you're at work is more important than rolling up your sleeves for your chances of advancement. (If this is the case at your company, you should quit now.) At the other extreme, without community, a lone genius might create classics of literature and art but not entire industries.Startups operate on the principle that you need to collaborate with other people to get the job done, but you also need to scale to make the organization work.

On a positive note, a startup is convincing a group of people to plan and shape a new future together.The most important strength of a new company is new ideas, and new ideas are even more important than flexibility, and only a small scale has room for thinking.This book raises the questions that must be answered to be successful on the road to innovation: it is not a guide, nor is it simply a source of knowledge, but a thought exercise.And it is precisely this thought exercise that every startup company has to do: question existing concepts and re-examine the business they are in from scratch.

(End of this chapter)