Think Like a Startup, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 14 DNA is DESTINY

This thing goes deep.

We all know that life is a great adventure, but the pictures our mind conjures up when we hear the word ‘adventure’ most often relate to holidays, travel and physical challenges. Economically, it seems, we prefer smooth sailing to turbulence. We prefer the financial side of our life to be predictable, stable and linear. The alternative seems like something for crazy people with an ill-considered appetite for risk. I’m hoping you’ve seen the other side of the argument, the emergent truth in the connected economy, and now understand that the riskiest play these days is now the opposite of the industrial era model. And given that all humans are natural adventurers, I know you can cope with an economic adventure too.

We are all born entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is inextricably linked to the human experience. To explore, to understand, to invent and to embrace risk-taking — these are what we’ve always done best as a species.

We know how to embrace change to create a better situation for ourselves and the people around us; it’s why we’ve got this natural drive. Knowing we will fail, and learning to endure if not enjoy our failures along the way, can be the most satisfying part of adaptation.

I wonder if deep down in our human code there is not some hidden program for entrepreneurship, the willingness to take on something new, to carve out new paths and cross oceans. As a species we’ve settled in every part of the globe, and we ...