I don’t understand how people associate Elon Musk with sustainability or invention. He didn’t start Tesla. Sustainability would come with fewer roads and cars. Musk is building more roads, including underground with the Boring Company, and as many cars as he can. For comparison and context, Eli Whitney invented a new type of cotton gin. As I understand, his goal was to decrease the need for labor in picking cotton.[…] Keep reading →

Interviewers often ask “If you were a benevolent dictator, what would you do to solve our environmental problems?” They all frame sustainability as something you have to convince people to do or use coercive, authoritarian tools like passing laws that don’t yet have popular support. I identified a big fork in the path of people promoting sustainability. It comes if you’ve found, as I have, that the more you live[…] Keep reading →

I see an ever clearer path to humanity achieving sustainability, including governments, corporations, and eight billion individuals. A big part of that vision emerging is seeing that the path isn’t hoping for the best. It will result from people acting in their personal interests as much as they can, helping others. Here’s a first pass at describing that path as I see it now. I call it our entrepreneurial strategy.[…] Keep reading →

A friend who runs a business found the book Profit First by the guest of my podcast Mike Michalowicz. He shared in a private forum how much it helped him. Mike and I email, so I shared with him my friend’s post on how much his book was helping him, taking out the personal details. Mike loved learning he helped an entrepreneur, so I’m glad I emailed him. Recently I[…] Keep reading →

A month and a half ago I wrote about Eugene’s reflections on finishing the ninth of the ten exercises in my book Initiative in my post The Life-Changing, Inner-You-Revealing, Passion-Unleashing Magic of Initiative. He finished and posted about the tenth exercise at his blog: Method Initiative (Round 4) – Exercise 10: 10 Valuable People (And final Initiative methodology thoughts), and it’s as inspiring. Read the whole post for all he[…] Keep reading →

A lot of solar companies are competing for the home solar market. I once read an estimate of fifty million homes for $30,000 per home on average, meaning a $1.5 trillion market. Since most people can’t spare $30,000 for an investment that could take decades to pay itself back, if ever, these companies are marketing higher end homeowners. They are positioning themselves like BMW or Lexus. My only source of[…] Keep reading →

I’ve shared Eugene’s public postings of his experience doing the exercises in my book Initiative. At each stage, he learns more about himself and making his world work for him. Taking initiative forces you to learn your values, not in some abstract way, but: How do I want to spend my time, money, energy, and resources? How long do I want to follow other people’s values, or the worn path[…] Keep reading →

I’ve posted about my September 11, 2001: We called the company I co-founded Submedia. We filed the patent in 1998. Our first investment came in 1999, enabling us to pay ourselves salaries and hire people to develop prototypes and create partnerships with subway systems. Atlanta’s system signed first, followed by the PATH system connecting New York City and New Jersey. Coca-Cola signed in 2001 as our debut advertiser, beating Nike[…] Keep reading →

I can tell by how much people throw out and how many Amazon.com boxes litter the streets that people buy a lot that they don’t want. I presume Amazon’s people have found how to control people to buy junk. People like the act of buying things. Maybe also receiving packages and opening them. They probably regret many of the things they buy, but they liked that feeling and the site[…] Keep reading →