III – Solving for The Village
Good morning founder,
Throughout history, from Marcus Aurelius to Balaji Srinivasan, visionaries have understood that building the future requires more than just technical innovation - it demands a deep understanding of human nature and historical patterns. The lessons they leave us form a roadmap for building sovereign futures.
Here's my three-part exploration of how we can build for the next frontier:
I. Solve for the Village
Marcus Aurelius wrote about bees contributing to their hive through pollination - a perfect metaphor for how founders should approach building. This pattern repeats throughout history, from ancient Rome's citizens contributing to the res publica, to the American Founders building institutions for future generations, to Elon Musk making life multiplanetary with SpaceX.
The key insight emerges clearly: great founders optimize for collective flourishing rather than personal gain. Their metric isn't personal wealth, but village wealth - measured in health, technology, and sovereignty. The future belongs to those who build for the collective good while maintaining the sovereignty of the individual.
II. A Tribe of Mentors
This is where you face your alter ego. History's greatest innovations emerged from powerful mentor networks: Socrates teaching Plato, who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander. Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club sparked conversations that helped birth America. The PayPal Mafia reshaped modern technology.
Think of powerful minds like rough diamonds with an incomplete form, never fitting any ring. Give it a little mentoring, a touch of deep iterative thinking with peers, and the diamond rapidly takes shape into a well-formed piece of value. A tiny dose of mentoring for the right apprentice can alter society's direction. In the next frontier, these connections become easier to access. We're no longer constrained by locality. Communities are gathering. Here lies an unfulfilled mission for the next frontier of founding.
III. Moral Innovations
The next frontier of villages and communities springs with wealth of technology, health, wealth, happiness, and public discourse. This is the re-alignment of the Network State blueprint - a key moral innovation bringing together global citizens aligned by shared premises.
This future version of civilization brings us closer to hunter-gatherer communities, away from the constrictions of borders and states. Not bound by geography, but by morals. To get there, we must rethink the laid-out tracks. Test reconfigurations of how we ought to spend our lives. Our current way of life does not have to predetermine our future. Never settle on one path, but stay open to exploring higher levels of equilibrium between humans and nature.
As a wakeful human today, with access to a globe of atoms connected through gravity, let the desire for good bring Earth to a future generation in as bright and sovereign a configuration as you believe possible. The next generation of founders won't just build products - they'll build sovereign futures. This requires a deep understanding of historical patterns, the ability to leverage human networks, and the skill to apply technological innovation while engineering moral systems.
Like a bee serving the nectar of the hive, humans must accord to the good and evil of what surrounds us, backed by first-principles reasoning. Your mission isn't to create another consumer product. It's to build the systems and technologies that enable human flourishing at scale. The question isn't whether these systems will be built - they will be. The question is whether you'll be part of building them.
The next founding won't be about creating another Coca-Cola, but about building the medtech company that cures diseases caused by the former. Are you ready to serve the village?
Absolutely loved this read, Alf. Need more. Eager to build brother! 🏴🏴🏴