Mapping the Idea Maize
Peter Thiel’s notion of the secret has become a standard question among the entrepreneur set. In brief, he asks “Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?” or “what is the thing you believe that others don’t?”
Hearing other entrepreneurs ask and answer this, it quickly becomes clear that your mileage may vary.
Many answers are of the red pill variety, as Venkatesh Rao explains: they are self-congratulatory statements that identify tribal affiliation but nothing that is actually secret, among others who took the same red pill.
The more interesting secrets are related to the adjacent possible. The adjacent possible is Steven Johnson’s concept from his book “Where Good Ideas Come From”. As I understand it, its the space of possibility next to what you know, the frontier.
When you’re new to a field, the adjacent possible is known by most others. There are few secrets.
When you’ve taken the red pill, the adjacent possible is known by your network, but not by others. This feels like esteem and belonging and most of us will stop there.
When you’re truly on the frontier, the adjacent possible is only known by a handful of others, who probably arrived there independently of you.
The Idea Maize
Chris Dixon and Balaji Srinivasan talk about the idea maze, but they fixate on reading the maps of the maze that have come before you. I prefer thinking about the idea maize, a maze made of corn.
The main purpose of using maize (besides being a delicious pun) is to remember that the territory can change even while you’re in it. Even if the map was the territory when you started, it might not be anymore.
If you want practice with this feeling, I recommend using Apple Maps more often.
When you’re new to a field, you just arrived at the clearing of the maize. You might feel amazed to be there, but everyone else is there too who wants to be. Its probably already on Periscope, and you should look for maps.
When you take the red pill, you might move further into the maize with friends. You find new territory that you haven’t seen before, but it is likely mapped by someone, you just don’t have the map yourself. Be wary of maps you find, but they can help.
When you reach the adjacent possible, this is when you get lost in the maize and you find yourself pushing through to unknown, wild, overgrown territory. Territory unmapped by anyone else, except by accident.
How to map the maize
This seems counterintuitive until you think of each field as a collection of maps. When you synthesize two fields, you receive roughly 75% of the usable maps in each field. Combine them and you may now have a map of previously uncharted maize.
My maps
Most careers consist of memorizing maps made by others and then getting as far into the maize as you can. Along they way you hope to find updated maps as needed, or others who have ideas about the maize, or perhaps you just find a place in the maize where you can settle and cook some popcorn.
In trying to define my career and answer the persistent question “what do you do again?” I’ve arrived at this answer: I make maps.
I don’t steal your map and tell you where you are: that is a consultant.
I don’t wander the maize with a map from someone else: that is LARPing.
I don’t run as fast as I can into the maize with a memorized map: that is for finite game master players.
I don’t recruit a tribe to follow my maps: that was Steve Jobs.
I certainly don’t pitch investors to put money into the expedition using my map: that is for deferred life startups.
No, what I do is produce crude maps and then use them to dive into the uncharted parts of the maize.
Here are some parts of the maize where I’ve collected crude maps:
- The company man has been replaced by companies persons, entrepreneurs are the new labor, and the Century of the Self will be followed by the Century of Selfies and favela chic
- Technology has not solved the problem of bowling alone, it has instead lowered our standards of what it means to be connected.
- It is possible to live anywhere in the world and maintain this new lower standard of social connection.
- Software is eating jobs as we know them but the actual implications on work are uncertain.
- Marketing automation, for example, proves our ability to form complex systems is in its infancy and certain jobs will last longer than we think.
- Trust and attention are the scarcest resources and marketing is a tax paid for being unremarkable.
- 99% of the content online about the self help big three (fitness, sex, money) is a scam — but it is possible to filter for the 1%.
If you’re nodding your head at any of these, it proves they aren’t actually that unique — but we would make good friends :)
More interesting is the intersection of these maps, where there is still some uncharted territory:
- Self help and technology: we’re seeing the same patterns take place in location, vocation, and love, where one choice for a lifetime has been replaced by a series of shorter time choices, FOMO, and the reluctance to commit to just one. Each of the three areas is creating similar disruption but (because of cultural norms) different solutions.
- Location and Networking: no one knows yet how to connect to a new country when they are living online: they choose to be ghosts, or activists, or native. There is space for a new paradigm to emerge.
- Technology and Free Agents: major knowledge work can be containerized the way micro services are containerized, with every free agent bringing a toolbox to the job that can interact with the toolboxes of others. Right now, a freelancer might use Slack, Hipchat, Yammer, Basecamp, Asana, Trello, just for communication and project management. Tools like Zapier make it possible to connect these, but this maintains the MVC architecture. A future generation of integrations will separate model, view, and controller.
- Location, scams, and self help: because of location independence, there is room for more experimentation in the self help big three (sex, money, health) and here the frontier is moving not to sanctioned zones, like the Special Economic Zones, but to unsanctioned microzones.
- The next Silicon Valley won’t emerge because of government support, it will emerge because of a popup ghetto of Silicon Valley expats making micro investments.
This second set of ideas are closer to the adjacent possible. How do I know? I’ve never met anyone else who could articulate them.
I’m excited to map these out.