In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses. We want to build the services that enable this. This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by superintelligence.
Everybody wants to flourish-to experience joyful, meaningful, shared growth. The problem is, we've been trained to approach the most important parts of our lives as if they are games to win, when they're more like gardens to be grown. Flourishing isn't about being smarter-it's about taking simple actions that foster the ecosystem of your life.
I don't take founders here for exercise. I take them here because the controlled environment of a boardroom practically demands rehearsed answers. The trail does not. I don't prepare a script for these walks. In fact, that's the point. The pitch is already done; I know the metrics. Now I want to know the human.
Some of the significant partnerships emerging today are less about bolt-on capabilities and more about re-architecting how financial services show up inside everyday workflows, be it taxes, shopping, or rent. They are being designed to be invisible to the end user, yet foundational to how money moves, decisions are made, and trust is established.
A colleague and I launched a new company after our previous employer closed. We divided responsibilities so she handled manufacturing and distribution while I managed digital content and marketing. My side of the business grew steadily. But within six months, her operational area began to falter. I began to step in to keep physical projects moving, and key infrastructure on her side wasn't maintained. Despite having access to shared digital project management tools, she frequently framed it as a communication problem.
Search beyond major job engines by using niche job boards, Google X‑ray searches, industry trade directories, company filings, supplier and client lists, local business registers, conference speaker lists, and professional association directories; cross-reference these sources, build a prioritized spreadsheet, and set email or RSS alerts to track when small employers post trainee or entry-level opportunities, and monitor sector-specific hashtags and community Slack/Discord channels for unadvertised roles.
But if you're innovating within your industry, it's a problem you should expect and prepare for because it means having to operate in two realities-the internal reality where you know the challenges in your industry and how you're going to solve them, and the external reality where nobody else has recognized the problem that needs to be solved. In a highly regulated industry like healthcare, safety, and stability create an inertia that often works against innovation.
