(2020-05-08) Maples How To Build A Breakthrough

Mike Maples Jr: How to build a breakthrough: the secret of Backcasting (Working Backwards) Marc Andreessen’s call to arms — It’s Time to Build is a powerful manifesto for a more ambitious future. If you haven’t read it already, you should. (2020-04-18) Its Time To Build Andreessen Horowitz

Marc closes his post by asking what ideas people have for building breakthroughs

But we also need tools for how to do this. I would like to share the best method I have found: Backcasting.

People make the future. It’s not a destiny or hope; it’s a decision.

So, how do legendary people make the future? How can you be a legendary builder of a breakthrough idea? That’s where Backcasting comes in.

Breakthrough builders are visitors from the future, telling us what’s coming.

an important additional job of the builder is to persuade early like-minded people to join a new movement.

Getting out of the present and standing in the future is the first key to finding a breakthrough. (cf Optimistic Near Future Vision)

Since most people live in the present, they try to predict the future by forecasting, which projects forward from what is already known

Starting from the future and working backwards is the second key to finding a breakthrough.

Step 1: Look for Inflections

Technology inflections involve exponential improvements in the price/performance of technologies like computation, sensor accuracy, bandwidth, and the like.

Adoption inflections involve nonlinear changes in the adoption rate of a technology.

Regulatory inflections involve changes in regulations that open up massive new opportunities.

Belief inflections involve contradicting long-held beliefs. Some ideas that are now considered heresy but might someday be viewed as reasonable.

Inflections should be understood even before markets. Entrepreneurs who live in the present tend to make the mistake of starting with the market first

For instance, if you are looking for breakthroughs in elder care, rather than studying the elder care market and looking for pain points and market openings, consider first asking which technology, adoption, regulatory, and belief inflections create the conditions for an exponential breakthrough.

Step 2: Backcast from Potential Futures

more exponential and surprising futures, which I refer to as “Plausible,” “Possible,” and “Preposterous.”

Preposterous futures seem crazy to almost everybody. The poster child for building these futures is Elon Musk.

When Elon talks about reasoning from first principles, he is naturally harnessing the power of multiple inflections on the horizon and pulling them together into something seemingly impossible.

Step 3: Gather breakthrough insights

People build things all the time; Those who build breakthroughs realize not all opportunities are equal.

it’s crucial to ask the right types of questions and to make sure you are not talking to people who are overly tethered to the present.

From the diagram below, you observe that insights can exist at different points in the future (horizontal axis) and can involve different levels of “surprise” (vertical axis).

It’s best to collect multiple insights and compare and contrast them.

Ultimately, an Insight is like a “bet.” (Thinking in Bets)


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