The opposite of hindsight

We all know the story: a company born from a simple idea, then growing into a trillion-dollar titan, making early participants wealthier than a lifetime of conventional work. The allure of that early Google, the possibility of a truly life-changing financial outcome, is undeniably powerful. We all want to be part of that company, or build one for ourselves.

But hindsight is a map to yesterday's battles; it offers no advantage today. The events are set in stone; timing is everything. You cannot go back in time and claim those benefits.

Even today, countless "Day 1" Googles, Facebooks, and Alibabas are emerging. The central question then becomes: how do you identify them now? What did Google actually look like in its first 100 days? This is the essence of the opposite of hindsight.

When seeking this 'opposite of hindsight,' your perspective shifts dramatically. Unlike looking back, where you sift through an abundance of events, histories, and evidence, here, you're presented with no data. This moment is the newest point in history, the furthest edge of evolution. It's the frontier where history is actively being made. It's akin to standing on the edge of a vast unknown, looking out.

In this context, "find" feels like a misleading word. There is nothing to find. Perhaps "found" is a more appropriate term, which explains the prevalence of "founders" in places like San Francisco.

This brings us to a fundamental shift in perspective. The hindsight view implies a pre-ordained answer or blueprint that simply needs to be found—a logical fallacy when facing the unknown. To illustrate this, consider evolution: organisms evolve through biological traits. They experiment with their DNA, keeping the best, eventually becoming what they are. They don't start with a blueprint of their future form, nor do they 'find' an ideal existence. Some even cease to exist in the process. There's no guaranteed path.

Humanity, arguably past purely biological evolution, now experiments largely through its creations. We build, iterate, and the most effective become necessities in our daily lives—think railways, electricity, or electric cars. We've clearly come a long way.

The consistent theme, however, is experimentation, often accompanied by cost. When moving forward through history, the feeling isn't about finding an answer, but about giving your best try while striving to stay viable.

So, what then is the opposite of hindsight? What might the next Google truly look like in its first 100 days? It isn't a guaranteed success or a neatly packaged opportunity. Instead, it likely presents as an experiment: a nascent endeavor that, if successful, promises tremendous impact, and, crucially, carries a reasonable chance of succeeding.

Sam Altman captured this mindset: 'I want to choose a project where, if successful, makes the rest of my career look like a footnote.' This isn't about pinpointing a specific company from a list of potentials. It's about a first-principles approach to the most fundamental questions: What holds true value? What truly matters to society, to human interaction? What are the most impactful breakthroughs on the horizon? What are the profound implications of nascent changes? Why are things structured the way they are today?

When an experiment of this magnitude succeeds, society assigns it immense value, and that's when people get rich. We often underestimate long-term potential. It's far easier to grasp a project's vast potential—that it could make the rest of your career a footnote—than to precisely calculate its future dollar worth. The strategy, then, is to pursue projects with high potential, ensure you don't get ruined in the pursuit, and trust that if you contribute your best work and the sector takes off, history will reward you handsomely.

Our inability to accurately value new things often leads to market bubbles. This is an almost inevitable part of cutting-edge endeavors, and it can be both an advantage and a disadvantage for a founder.

A less obvious, yet crucial, point: these impactful experiments often carry less true risk than commonly perceived. When a technological breakthrough is identified as truly century-defining, society invests enormous resources into making it a reality. In such cases, it's almost certain someone in the industry will figure it out. Consequently, everyone benefits—from the resulting products, the underlying technology, or new research. While pinpointing the ultimate winner might prove challenging, the entire sector generally thrives. The clear winner often captures the most, but along the way, ample opportunities for wealth emerge for those who build the right skill sets aligned with the unfolding problem, regardless of the specific venture they're on.

At Berkeley, I was lucky enough to know the founders of many breakthrough startups when they were early: Databricks, Brex, Zoom, Imbue to name a few. At the time, I found them impressive, yet still perceived them as too early and "risky." All went on to become $1bn+ companies far faster than I'd anticipated. We all carry biases, but perhaps it's a superior bias to lean towards early rather than late. To believe it will happen sooner than you think; you'll likely be right more often than not.

For an individual, cultivating a unique skill set for the most important problems is a high-leverage move, if not arguably the highest.