Chapter 3. Career Options - Great Ways to Be a Foresight Leader

4. Entrepreneur

[Examples: Christopher Ahlberg (RF), Paul Allen (AIBS,AI2) Chris Anderson (TED), Chris Anderson (3D Robotics), Clem Bezold (IAF), Ulf Boman (Kairos), Harry Blount (Discern), Daniel Burrus (BR), Joseph Coates (C&J), Bill Cockayne (Nota), Edward Cornish (WFS), Ross Dawson (AHTG), Peter Diamandis (Xprize,Sing U), Cindy Frewen (APF), Thomas Frey (DaVinci), Steve Gullans (EVM), William Halal (TechCast), Bill Gates (BMGF), Jerome Glenn (TMP), Michael Jackson (ST), Alex Karp (Palantir), James Lee (StratFI), Richard MacManus (RWW), Martin Mayer (YouMeo), Bill McKibben (350), Elon Musk (SpaceX,Tesla), Tim O’Reilly (OM), Larry Page (Google), Christine Peterson (HA), Byron Reese, Peter Schwartz (GBN), Peter Thiel (PayPal, Palantir)]

Elon Musk, SpaceX, Tesla

Elon Musk,
SpaceX, Tesla

The entrepreneur (for-profit and nonprofit) is another major and yet commonly underappreciated social role for the foresight leader. These individuals seek to build the future by leading an enterprise to commercial success in useful new products and services. Thus this role is particularly important to building both economic wealth and the social options that emerge from that wealth, and includes many nonprofit leaders or social entrepreneurs. It also includes intrapreneurs, folks doing their entrepreneurship within existing organizations, both when it is allowed and when it isn’t, as in stealth internal R&D efforts. Others do entrepreneurial activities externally and independently of their organizational roles, part-time, until they gain market traction.

Entrepreneurs must manage the transition from idea to startup company, provide value to customers, and find a profitable business model for their creations, or they will go out of business. They must therefore be business, team and community builders, and new product or service innovators. Between these two drives their entrepreneurship is typically their primary creative drive, with innovation a close second, as starting, growing and keeping their business alive is the basic challenge. They can be for-profit entrepreneurs launching private businesses, nonprofit entrepreneurs founding NGOs, or social entrepreneurs mixing for-profit and non-profit motivations in a hybrid.

Some entrepreneurs are vision- or command-driven (working on top-down agendas of change) others are service- or consensus-driven (taking a more bottom-up, facilitation-based, or democratic approach). Entrepreneurs view themselves as having the dual responsibility of building both a market-useful new product, process, or service and a sustainable new enterprise, community, team, organization, or social environment.

Those consultants or innovators who are driven to build both a new product or service and a new business team, with one or more full time employees, are by definition also a particular type of entrepreneur, and usually see themselves as entrepreneurs first and consultants or innovators second. Again, asking people their top self-described goals and responsibilities is often necessary to understand which of these social roles currently fits them best when forced to choose, as we all continually are. We discuss some helpful entrepreurship professional communities under specialty associations in Chapter 1 and Appendix 2 (Leaders).

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Table of Contents

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Chapter 2. Personal Foresight – Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 2: Personal Foresight

Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 4. Models – Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 4: Models

Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 7. Acceleration – Guiding Our Extraordinary Future

Chapter 7: Acceleration

Guiding Our Extraordinary Future (In Process)

II. Global Progress: 5 Goals, 10 Values, Many Trends

Innovation: Our Abundant Future
Intelligence: Our Augmented Future
Interdependence: Our Civil Future
Immunity: Our Protected Future
Sustainability: Our Rebalanced Future

III. Universal Accelerating Change

Great Race to Inner Space: Our Surprising Future
Entropy&Information: We’re Running Down & Up
The Puzzle of Meaning: We Have No Einstein Yet
Trees, Funnels & Landscapes: Intro to Evo Devo
Big Picture Change: Five Scales of Accelerating ED
Transcension Hypothesis: Where Acceleratn Ends?
IDABDAK: Social Response to Accel & Developmnt
We’re On a Runaway Train: Being Accelaware

IV. Evo Devo and Exponential Foresight

Seeing It All: Accel., Diverg, Adapt, Convrg, Decel.
Natural (I4S) Innovation: The Evolutionary Drive
Natural (I4S) Intelligence: The Human-AI Partnership
Natural (I4S) Morality: Why Empathy and Ethics Rule
Natural (I4S) Security: Strength from Disruption
Natural (I4S) Sustainability: The Developmental Drive
S-Curves: Managing the Four Constituencies
Pain to Gain: Traversing the Three Kuznets Phases
Hype to Reality: Beyond Hype Cycles to Reality Checks
Exponentials Database: Measuring Accelerations
TINA Trends: Societal Evolutionary Development
Managing Change: STEEPCOP Events, Probs, Ideas
A Great Shift: A Survival to a Sentient Economy

V. Evo Devo and Exponential Activism

Building Protopias: Five Goals of Social Progress
Normative Foresight: Ten Values of Society
Top & STEEPCOP Acceleratns: Positive & Negative
Dystopias, Risks, and Failure States
Three Levels of Activism: People, Tech & Universe
A Great Opportunity: Exponential Empowerment

 

Chapter 8. Your Digital Self – The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

Chapter 8: Your Digital Self

The Human Face of the Coming Singularity (In Process)

I. Your Personal AI (PAI): Your Digital Self

Digital Society: Data, Mediation, and Agents
Personal AIs: Advancing the Five Goals
PAI Innovation: Abundance and Diversity
PAI Intelligence: Bio-Inspired AI
PAI Morality: Selection and Groupnets
PAI Security: Safe Learning Agents
PAI Sustainability: Science and Balance
The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

II. PAI Protopias & Dystopias in 8 Domains

1. Personal Agents: News, Ent., Education
2. Social Agents: Relat. and Social Justice
3. Political Agents :  Activism & Represent.
4. Economic Agents:  Retail, Finance, Entrep
5. Builder Agents :  Work, Innov. & Science
6. Environ. Agents : Pop. and Sustainability
7. Health Agents :  Health, Wellness, Death
8. Security Agents :  Def., Crime, Corrections

III. PAI Activism & Exponential Empowerment

Next Government: PAIs, Groupnets, Democ.
Next Economy: Creat. Destr. & Basic Income
Next Society: PAI Ent., Mortality & Uploading
What Will Your PAI Contribution Be?

Chapter 10. Startup Ideas – Great Product & Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs

Chapter 10: Startup Ideas

Great Product and Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs (In Process)

I. 4U’s Idea Hub: Building Better Futures

Air Deliveries and Air Taxis: Finally Solving Urban Gridlock
Ballistic Shields and Gun Control: Protecting Us All from Lone Shooters
Bioinspiration Wiki: Biomimetics and Bio-Inspired Design
Brain Preservation Services: Memory and Mortality Redefined
Carcams: Document Thieves, Bad Driving, and Bad Behavior
Competition in Govt Services: Less Corruption, More Innovation
Computer Adaptive Education (CAE): Better Learning and Training
Conversational Deep Learning Devsuites: Millions of AI Coders
Digital Tables: Telepresence, Games, Entertainment & Education
Dynaships: Sustainable Low-Speed Cargo Shipping
Electromagnetic Suspension: Nausea-Free Working & Reading in Cars
Epigenetic Health Tests: Cellular Aging, Bad Diet, Body Abuse Feedback
Fireline Explosives and Ember Drones: Next-Gen Fire Control
Global English: Empowering the Next Generation of Global Youth
Greenbots: Drone Seeders and Robotic Waterers for Mass Regreening
High-Density Housing and Zoning: Making Our Cities Affordable Again
Highway Enclosures and Trail Networks: Green and Quiet Urban Space
Inflatable Packaging: Faster and Greener Shipping and Returns
Internet of Families: Connecting People Over Things
Kidcams: Next-Gen Security for Child Safety and Empowerment
Kidpods: Indoor & Outdoor Parent-Assistive Toyboxes
Microdesalination: Democratizing Sustainable Fresh Water Production
Noise Monitors: Documenting and Reducing Noise Pollution
Oceanside Baths: Sustainable Year Round Beach Enjoyment
Open Blood Scanners: DIY Citizen Health Care Sensor Tech
Open Streaming Radio: User-Centered Audio Creation and Rating
Open Streaming Video: User-Centered Video Creation and Rating
Open Values Filters: Social Rankers, Arg. Mappers, and Consensus Finders
Personal AIs: Your Private Advisor, Activist, and Interface to the World
Pet Empowerment: Next-Gen Rights and Abilities for Our Domestic Animals
Safe Closets: Fire-, Earthquake-, and Intruder-Proof Retreat Spaces
Safe Cars: Reducing Our Insane 1.3M Annual Auto Deaths Today
Safe Motorcycles: Lane Splitting in Gridlock Without Risk of Death
Shared Value Insurance: User-Centered Risk Reduction Services
Sleeperbuses and Microhotels: Demonetized Intercity Travel
Space-Based Solar Power: Stratellite Powering and Weather Management
Stratellites: Next-Gen Urban Broadband, Transparency, and Security
Touch DNA: Next-Gen Home Security and Crime Deterrence
View Towers: Improving Urban Walkability, Inspiration, and Community

Chapter 11. Evo Devo Foresight – Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Chapter 11: Evo Devo Foresight

Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Appendix 1. Peer Advice – Building a Successful Foresight Practice