Outlast

book-to-be from Eric Markowitz https://www.eric-markowitz.com What can the world’s oldest companies—and nature’s most resilient lifeforms—teach us about longevity? Over the next 12 months, I’ll travel the globe—from Central American rainforests to centuries-old businesses in Europe and Asia—on a quest to answer one question: what allows a rare few systems to outlast?

OUTLAST is my journey to deconstruct and uncover the hidden principles of endurance, from 1,000-year-old family-run companies to resilient biological systems (ranging from sloths to ants to 5,000-year-old trees).

Why I'm writing OUTLAST—a book about resilience (and hope) - Nightview Capital | Fundamental equity investors

What began as a newsletter on long-term investing in the midst of the pandemic became something else… a deeper search into meaning. A quiet obsession with resilience. A fascination with real quality. Not just about investing and compounding, but how to live long enough to see the exponential fruits of compounding itself.

The cause of this shift was deeply personal—and painful. A near-death experience cracked open my sense of time, space, and wonder.

Surviving my ordeal made me ask altogether new questions I couldn’t seem to ignore: what endures? What survives chaos? What lasts in a world that has become relentlessly focused the short-term?

I’m writing a book. It’s called OUTLAST. It’s a field guide to resilience: to building a life, a business, an investment strategy that can lead to exponential outcomes over time. It’s both a love letter to my daughters—and a plea to my readers to be more optimistic. To think long-term. To build things that last.

In April, I signed a book deal with Scribner

Though the book will be out in 2027, I’ll be sharing insights and field reports exclusively to The Nightcrawler readers as I go.

I’m writing a book called OUTLAST, to be published by Scribner

But over time, I noticed something quieter, yet far more powerful: beneath the chaos, the systems that endure all around us follow a different tempo—one rooted in patience, resilience, and ancient wisdom.

OUTLAST is my attempt to reclaim that rhythm—to learn from the enduring, and to pass along their wisdom.

Yes, it’s a book—a “business book,” technically—but it’s also a mission, a lens, a way of seeing the world.

At its heart, it’s a practical philosophy for anyone trying to build things that last in an age obsessed with what’s fleeting.

What survives chaos? What carries forward across generations?

As both an investor and a writer, I became fixated on a single question—one that drives my research every day:

What can the world’s oldest companies—and nature’s most resilient lifeforms—teach us about longevity?

That’s OUTLAST.

This isn’t just an academic question of what outlasts—but why it does, and how we can apply those ideas, frameworks, and stories to improve our lives today while setting ourselves up for exponential outcomes tomorrow. I’m also rebooting my life as a former magazine journalist to tell this story with the depth and detail it deserves—through immersive reporting and narrative storytelling designed to surprise and captivate even the most seen-it-all readers. And perhaps most relevant to you—I’ll be sharing parts of the journey in real-time.

And it’s for anyone trying to build something that lasts—in business, in life, or across generations:
→ Entrepreneurs thinking in decades → Investors focused on compounding and quality → Engineers designing for long-term impact → Company leaders navigating for the next generation → Politicians thinking beyond election cycles → Teachers shaping minds for the future → Students searching for meaning in a chaotic world → Retirees looking for a second act with lasting purpose → Tradespeople committed to honing their craft over a lifetime → Artists, educators, and institutional stewards → Anyone who wants to leave something meaningful behind...

It’s a book about systems that bend—but don’t break. Families that persist. Stories that carry power. Traditions that outlive empires.