2026-07-07 17:03:00
A hundred and fifteen years ago, Christian Larson wrote one of the first popular self-help manifestos. The Optimist’s Creed argued that it was a choice, and a useful promise. Not to promise the world, or the boss, or the market. To promise ourselves. Optimism is not a mood. It’s a discipline.
Last week, Reid Hoffman reminded us that the urge to build is also a choice. That we are homo techne, the species that shaped the tools and is shaped by them in return.
Each of these ideas argues that the future is not something that happens to us. It’s something we make, together, on purpose, or not at all. A potential promise, or a series of promises, that enable a better future.
In the words of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: The future begins tomorrow. Perhaps we can show up to make it better. In fact, we must.
1. To see optimism not as a prediction but as a choice. Pessimists are sometimes right, but they rarely build anything.
2. To remember that the future is not a place we’re going. It’s a thing we’re making. Every day, with every choice, whether we admit it or not.
3. To be so busy making things better that you have no time to explain why things can’t improve.
4. To understand that “it might not work” is not a reason to stop. Plan for the downside and commit to the contribution.
5. To trade the comfort of certainty for the possibility of contribution. Certainty is for spectators.
6. To be too generous for hoarding, too curious for cynicism, too committed for despair, and too busy shipping to permit the presence of Resistance.
7. To stop waiting to be picked. The world doesn’t care about your credentials. It only cares about what you create.
8. To begin. Before you’re ready. Because you will never be ready.
9. To ship. Not because shipping is easy, but because unshipped work helps no one.
10. To make the tool serve the human, and not the other way around.
11. To remember that every tool is a teacher. The hand shaped the stone and the stone shaped the hand.
12. To fight and refuse “at scale” as an excuse for “without care.” Scale is a multiplier. It multiplies harm as it multiplies good.
13. To sign your work. Not to take credit but to earn trust.
14. To fix the thing, not the blame.
15. To honor the boring parts. Infrastructure is effort made invisible.
16. To know the difference between building something people need and needing people to want what you built.
17. To ask, every time, possible for whom? A lever that lifts only the people holding it is not a lever.
18. To be just as enthusiastic about the success of other builders as you are about your own. Scarcity is a story; possibility compounds.
19. To remember that four billion people got the phone before they got the library or the bank. The phone became both.
20. To teach what you know. Generosity is the only moat that makes the world bigger.
21. To take responsibility for the means as well as the ends.
22. To welcome the skeptic without becoming one.
23. To argue about the how without abandoning the whether. We can make things better. Let’s argue about how.
24. To measure what matters. It doesn’t matter how much money you raise, what sort of buzz you were able to generate, or which bridges you trolled under. What matters is the benefit created. Not engagement, but enrollment.
We are not users, we are people.
25. To embrace the real choice between the possible and the likely. When your work has impact, playing the lottery is not a moral option. The downside may belong to other people.
26. To take the long view on the purpose and the short view on the action. Plant trees. Ship today.
27. To remember Socrates was right that writing would change memory. He was wrong when he insisted it would diminish us.
28. To notice that every era has its printing press, and every era has people who burn the books.
29. To hold the lever of possibility and technology with both hands. One hand for ambition, one for responsibility.
30. To remember the mistakes of the past, learn from them, and press on. Guilt is not a strategy. But experience, repair, and commitment are.
31. To realize that the whole world will never be on your side, and yet we must commit to building for the whole world.
32. To understand that this creed is not about technology. Technology is just the newest name for the oldest promise: that tomorrow can be better than today, and that it’s ours to make.
The stone is in our hands. It’s already shaping us.
What are we shaping back?
HT to Reid, Christian, and Kevin Kelly.
2026-07-06 17:03:00
The world is like this and therefore I feel like that.
That seems right. It’s raining, so I’m sad. The person cut me off in traffic and so I’m angry. Ford makes better cars, so I like them more than Chevys.
Occasionally, this cause and effect is what happens. But more often, it goes in the other direction.
We find ourselves with feelings, and then we find (or invent) ‘facts’ to justify them.
This happens in elective politics all the time. It’s not the policies that drive voters, it’s emotions. The policies come later. It also presents in personal interactions, families, workplaces and branding.
When in doubt, don’t argue about the facts. Look for the feelings. Everyone has their own feelings, whether you agree with them or not. When we validate feelings, we create connection that gives us a chance to examine the facts together.
2026-07-05 17:03:00
The more often we succumb to the urgency of the moment, the more urgency we create.
The next minute is probably not the last minute, but when we treat it this way, it will be soon followed by another last minute.
2026-07-04 17:03:00
Freedom is responsibility with a sexier name.
250 years in, democracy still matters. Click to upvote the ones that resonate and please share.
2026-07-03 17:03:00
“I blame myself.”
Said no one, ever. At least not the consumers I know.
When a careless woodworker loses a digit on a table saw, they almost certainly blame the design and instructions of the device, not their lack of care.
On a less gruesome note, the user who fails to read the website before ordering, the instructions before using, or the interface before clicking is unlikely to associate good things with an interaction that failed because of their own lack of care.
The more people interact with you, the more your brand and reputation are at risk.
There are three sorts of operator errors to consider:
One alternative is to prepare your responses and excuses in advance. “Buyer beware!” “RTFM!” “Sorry.”
It might be more productive to limit how people interact with your products and services. To design operator error out of the process. A few people saying, “it didn’t let me do everything I wanted, the way I wanted,” is better than, “it let me break it (or me).”
Letting your clients fail may give them a sense of agency, but it might not be the best way to make the impact you seek with your work.
Great design leads to a better user experience. And “No.” is a complete sentence.
2026-07-02 17:03:00
It’s difficult to ride a bicycle in the pitch darkness. We need to see where we’re going to avoid obstacles. And it’s hard to maintain our balance.
When we choose to avoid the conversations that make us uncomfortable, we’re pedaling in the dark.
Talk about it. Turn on the lights.
