The Hard Part is the Transition

I had a great lunch with some very smart people on Wednesday: Nabil Harfoush, Joe Dee, Mark Kuznicki and Sean Howard and with this bunch of people the conversation is going to get good. (Even though it started off with 3 out of the 5 complaining to Mark that he brought vegetarians to a dim sum lunch.)

Nabil brought up a point that sits with me long after I digested the tofu. We were talking about innovation that is required to set the planet on a course that isn’t destructive. We were talking about how product innovation to “reduce greenhouse gases” or ” reduction of fossil fuel consumption” is still a path to destruction. He was saying that the real innovation is required on the business model side. We have to collectively come up with models for creating wealth and health that don’t rely on CONSUMPTION as its core tenet.

When you think about how many business models require the consumption and repurchase of things as the basis for existence, it’s quite obvious that a system of those models is not sustainable.

The good news is that there are lots of people out there who are trying really hard to come up with solutions to these problems and are doing a good job with renewable power sources, food sources, transportation, etc. Being a bit provocative, I suggested that it would be a lot better to let companies like GM die and let new, sustainable companies take their place. Even use the bailout money to fund those startups. In fact, I bet a lot of startups could use the sort of expertise that GM has because the people at GM are probably pretty good. It’s the business model that is screwed up and if you took good people and let them thrive in new business models that are struggling to get going, there might be a fast path to planetary rejuvenation.

Nabil then brought up the point that I found very interesting which is in a lot of cases people have innovated around the answer to these most vexing problems. The really wicked thing is how to manage the transition. How do we get from here to there? We have an idea of what the “there” is, we just haven’t figured out how to do it without mass poverty, famine, war and disease. Good luck getting a politician to commit to a program that has the right answers with the aforementioned unpleasantries being a necessary effect.

This bodes well for my business seeing as I help people work through transitions. Maybe Capitalism 5.0 (or wherever we are) is a big business opportunity but maybe the transition to it will be my $3 exa-trillion line of business. I better start hiring!