My sense is it would be useful to share my story since so few people have had this experience, let alone roadmaps or awareness of the intense challenges involved. Curious how this rough synopsis lands, and any ideas or resources for navigating the writing/publishing process!
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Part post-mortem and part playbook, weaving 5 years of experience building a celebrated humane tech product (Siempo) and living into the inquiry: what does society / life on Earth demand from the next generation of founders? What awarenesses, capacities, experiences, values must we be nurturing our rising leaders with? How can we find, learn, and integrate these without reproducing the same problems that we seek to transcend?
Much has been written on how to infuse tech and business with mindfulness and spirituality, or sustainability and ethics. Building off the work of The Center for Humane Technology and others, this book would aim to paint an evermore holistic picture of the ingredients that ought to be considered for humane tech in this historical moment, as determined by a diverse group of stakeholders. Research will be conducted to push the edges of understanding, highlighting and integrate what our human family has learned through time; from children, indigenous elders, systems thinkers, poets, witches, frontline activists, philosophers, capitalists, farmers, plants, elements, ministers, academics and more. Resulting in a tangible guide that one can use as a humane operating system for their project.
Between COVID-19 exposing the fragility of our systems, and Silicon Valley falling from grace with cautionary tales the likes of Facebook/Uber/WeWork/Theranos, it is becoming clear that the products and organizations and systems we create are expressions of who we are, what we value, our fears and biases and traumas, our stories. We need new stories and resources and guidelines, especially for the young, male, achievement oriented founders who think they need to be successful by conventional metrics in order to be loved (part of my story).
Going beyond the traditional startup post-mortem into the emotional aspects of bringing a transformational product into form, and my personal journey in that fireāspending as much time as I could learning about myself and the world, connecting with people and communities carrying different pieces of the puzzle that could inform how to steward new-to-the-world innovations in a time of transition in an omni-considerate way. Itās an edgy and vulnerable story filled with peak moments of synchronicity. Call to adventure. Meeting the mentors. Cultural awakening. Rising into leadership. Sand Hill Road. Burning Man. Visions. Delusions. Messiah complex. TechCrunch. Good Morning America. Saving lives. Coming out. Big Tech activism. Billionaire retreats. Celebrity dinners. Executive meetings. Silicon Valley shenanigans. New economy. Burnout. Pivots. Running out of $. Selling nest egg. Failure. Enigma. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Letting go.
This book is primarily intended for entrepreneurs, investors and engineers want to learn how to bring innovations into the world in a good way. My hope is that it would fall into the hands of educators and students, researchers and more.
Iāll definitely stay close to this community forever. And Iāll post more in the coming weeks, for sure. Readup has a lot of exciting updates (paid Readup!) coming very soon.
