Long Term Bets

For the next 50 years

Today’s while talking to one of the interns that work with me (HS), I told her, “I have all the time in the world for the people that I want to be with for the next 50 years.“

And once the conversation got over, the gravitas of the statement hit me. Hard. In my face.

Lemme repeat it. And decode it for you.

“All the time in the world”

In a world where attention spans are reducing by the ~~minute~~ second and time is increasingly becoming THE most important ~~commodity~~ asset (if it weren’t already), its impossible to commit “all the time.”

“For people that I want to be with”

This is easy. People that I want to be with.

“With” means people who I work with. People I live with. People I eat and drink and sleep and make merry with. People that I travel the world with. People I want to make memories with. The ones that make me better. Push me. Nudge me. Disagree with me (and yet stay with me). And vice versa!

People who I’ve known for years. People that I will to know in the next 50. And more.

“For the next 50 years.”

To give context, I am 35. I dont even know how 50 years look like. The longest “relationship” apart from my family has been with a friend who I know since I was 7 or 8. Thats 27 years. The second-oldest friend, I know him since I was 17. Thats 18 years.

And the number of people (apart from family) that I know for over 20 years and I am in touch with is not even a handful. And here I am talking about being together for the next 50! You see the challenge?

But…

But, but the thing is, the statement is the sum total of all that I have learnt over the last 35 years! It means that…

I care deeply for my people. So much so that I am willing to make large commitments. And public ones at that.
I am in it for the long term. 50 is as long as they come. 2/3rd of the average lifespan of humans. And “it” means things I do.
I am more aware and mindful of the commitments I am making. Because as we go along, the only currency that we’d have is our reputation. And that gets built over time. With consistency. And delivery.
I understand that relationships are hard work. It takes a LOT of effort to nurture relationships and I am willing to do the hard work required.
I am aware of the fact that if I have to ~~make a dent~~ ~~change the world~~ make the world a better place, I can’t do it by myself. I need people to back me up and stand by me.
And I want to share the rewards. There is no way that great things wont happen if people are together for 50 years. More than anything else, we would be happier and healthier. And that would enable us to do more for others. I dont know if there is any other meaning to life.
We (my people and I) can tackle problems that would take 50 years to solve! This essentially means that we can take on large challenges. Which one do I want to attack right now? I want each human being in the world to realise their potential and live happier and healthier. Large. And scary. You get the drift why I need long-term orientation?

There is more. There has to be. Will discover as I go along.

***

Thing is, while I was talking to her, I wasnt trying to be someone who I am inherently not. It just came out naturally and I stand by the statement. I mean it. I can make a promise that I will stick around for long. Really.

And looking at this from the other side, each person that chooses to work with me, they need to be oriented for the long run as well. If long-term is not your thing, we probably will not gel well together.

Why long term?

Because anything worth doing usually takes long!

Plus if you want to make impact at a scale, it WILL take long. Unless you are extremely lucky. Which I will probably get as I work alongside great people with the long-term orientation.

Plus remember that quote? That “compounding is the 8th wonder of the world“? If I stick with people for long, our relationships WILL compound and WILL create a giant unfair advantage for all of us!

And finally, if people like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Prof Bakshi, Jeff Bezos and others believe that long-term thinking is advantageous, I am not questioning them.

In fact I was seeing this video by Ray Dalio’s where he talks about his principles for success (SEE THIS VIDEO NOW – 30 minutes and totally worth all the time) and the belief in the long-term orientation got reinforced. Since I saw it just yesterday, the thought was fresh in my head and it came out in my conversation with HS!

If you still need more evidence about long-term thinking, I’d just say that Rome wasnt built in a day and I will leave it at that! That’s about it for the day. Over and out. Lets go build our Romes. While we are together for the next 50, time is less.

Any you know why that cover image? It’s from Whole Earth Catalog and it speaks about how you ought to Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish. And I really think that if I am to walk the long road and make the world a better place, I need to have some great people walking alongside me.

In 5 years

Someone I was interviewing ~~today~~ yesterday for C4E asked where I see it in 5 years.

I was bamboozled. I hadn’t thought of it. I am in my fools world and I am probably enjoying the ride (juggling three four balls in the air) so much that I hadn’t focused on the future with any one thing at all! This is probably why I need a board.

So when this guy asked me, I cooked up something on the spot. I rambled out whatever shit came into my head and if he had a bull-shit detector installed in his head, he would’ve seen right through me.

I said something like…

I want to be in the business of entertainment and I want to entertain EVERY person on the planet. That means 7+ billion people. And I want to be able to reach there in less than 10 years. In 5, I want to reach the whole of India, if not Asia.

We will not be just an events management / live entertainment company, but will have multiple divisions catering to multiple facets of entertainment. This means we could be a movie production company, a TV channel, a content business or something like that. In terms of drawing parallels, we would be like a Marvel or a Disney of today.

And while we do it, we will remain small. Tiny actually. May be we model ourselves on Berkshire Hathaway? May be we dont. That is not clear to me. But the thing that is clear is, that we would be a key player in the business of entertainment in the next 5 years.

And how will I do it?

Now that I am thinking about it, I will establish C4E as an events business. Because despite the limited reach that a corporate events company has, the company will throw the much needed cash back at the business.

We will use that cash to seed other businesses that will reach larger audience. These could be startups, old wine in new bottles, fancy business models and what not. And I will also seed people and partnerships along the way. And with time work hard to make sure that these partnerships blossom as we go along.

Pretty simple! And of course we will make mistakes. Of course we will be wrong as we try. But then what is the point if we dont make mistakes and dont try?

And here’s the thing. Why dont you help us create an awesome business? I am on sg@c4e.in.

A BMW

From my calendar.

Last year, on 26th July, I promised one of my mentors that I will have made enough money to buy a BMW by 26th Jul of 2015.

When I made that promise, I did not really have my eyes on a top end model, but on a simple X1. Which I thought was pretty doable – after all I am full of hope and I know I will do well in the future. Just that this future never comes. I have been full of hope for some 20 years now.

And thus the 26th of July in 2015 came and went and I am farther away from the beemer than I was on this date last year. In fact if I were to monetize all my assets and go to a car shop, I think I’d be able to afford a Tata Nano. May be. May be not. Depends on the shape of stock market.

And no, I am not proud of it. Instead, it sucks. And sucks like crazy.

Thing is, a BMW is not really important. Its just a placeholder. Placeholder for affluence, success, fame, impact, love, relationships and other things that you use to measure the grandness of life, measure the success, measure the respect that you get from the world around you and all that.

I mean, at my age, you ought to have achieved at least one of the following…
– create an unicorn
– make a ding in the world
– own a fleet of cars – including a Batmobile.
– earn enough money to retire at an island like the Necker
– use the leftover money to help others (not via NGOs) but via a ‘skills imparting business’
– make a trip to the space
– date a supermodel (Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Julia Roberts etc.)
– ~~win~~ cash the WSOP ME
– exchange vows of life with the love of your life (after you found her of course)
– discover the purpose of your existence and thus the life
– travel the world
– etc…
and more.

But I haven’t done any of these. I am more than half-way my useful life span and I am miles away from any of these.

The least I could have done was to get myself a car. May be a BMW X1?