A Foreword for Disruptors

Knowing my background in philosophy, Brad Feld and Dave Jilk recently invited me to contribute a foreword for their new book, The Entrepreneur's Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors. It's now available and I highly recommend it; click here to get your copy. Here's the foreword I wrote for it.

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Nietzsche is a troubling and troublesome philosopher. In different decades and contexts, even scholars have formed radically different interpretations of his work. Nietzsche lends himself to these conflicting interpretations because he philosophizes with an aphoristic hammer and an intense literary style. While the many subjects of his attacks are clear, the reasons and implications of his critique can lead to many different interpretations. Nietzsche deploys this approach in pursuit of bold originality and self-creation. This is what makes him such a good patron philosopher for entrepreneurs. 

Entrepreneurs frequently seek to disrupt an industry by creating new products and services based on changing technologies and markets. Nietzsche sought to disrupt the philosophy of his day through stylistic aphorisms that challenged staid, traditional academic methods. Entrepreneurs develop their companies with new company cultures and new business models. Nietzsche developed his philosophy through a shift of frame, a metamorphosed question, a poetical imperative. Entrepreneurs compete by speed, originality, and strategy—providing modern solutions to classic problems. Nietzsche competed by tearing down old systems of philosophy—replacing old idols (values, religions) with modern humanity. 

As Dave and Brad note in this book, Nietzsche himself dismissed commercial activity and those who engaged in it as crass and dully unambitious. Most of the businesspeople in his day, after all, were local shopkeepers and bourgeoisie, locked into the rote patterns and conventions of daily commerce. Whereas Nietzsche, in contrast, felt that the highest pursuit of the human soul was to seek human evolution: evolution of identity, of culture, of new mind. Even more specifically, evolution to absolute originality: the creation of the never-seen-before. 

In these aspirations, Nietzsche encapsulates entrepreneurship. Build the new. Renovate institutions. View markets and customers as evolutionary—and join them in their evolution. Nietzsche was a disruptor, in the ways that entrepreneurs are also disruptors. Where philosophers and philologists studied the classics to honor and entrench history, Nietzsche wanted to cast down those idols to create a new philosophy. Where companies and industrialists have achieved a market position, they work to keep that industry and market roughly where it is. In contrast, entrepreneurs strive to revolutionize industries through new products and services based upon new technologies and alternative business models. 

But beyond anointing an outstanding philosopher of entrepreneurship, why is this book important? 

Nietzsche also looked forward—to what humanity could and should become: Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man”). In parallel, some of the best entrepreneurs are also great humanists. Since we often experience entrepreneurs first and foremost as capitalists or technologists, some may find this surprising. But thinking about who we are as humans and who we can become parallels how entrepreneurs shape the evolution of products, customers, and markets. 

This is partially why philosophy can be fundamental to entrepreneurship. There are, of course, many entrepreneurs and businesspeople who think that philosophy is useless or worse. In this view, entrepreneurs and philosophers reside on opposite ends of a utility spectrum: entrepreneurs are pragmatic doers with common-sense theories designed to fulfill the actual wants and needs of the public they serve; philosophers generate grand but abstract theories that may be intellectually impressive but do not survive engagement with the world. 

Surely there are philosophers who do lose the trees for the forest. But when you put thought and action together, you have a very powerful combination. 

One of my favorite expressions is: in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. The implication: in practice, there are significant differences between theory and practice. Nevertheless, both are critically important. Theory-driven practice—where you improve your theory from practice—is the strongest approach. Philosophy teaches you how to think in general theories. Philosophy teaches you precision in thought and language. Philosophy teaches you how to construct a theory, test it for truth, and then evolve that theory. And so does entrepreneurship if you’re doing it right! 

Other disciplines—from physics to economics to psychology—focus on more specific domains and teach you how to evolve theories in those domains. But philosophy’s generality is the attribute that makes it a preferred part of an entrepreneur’s toolset. Entrepreneurs frequently are doing something original with their business: a new way of acquiring customers or engaging customers, a new technological platform, a new business strategy or operational approach, a new business model. These innovations generally escape current theories and frameworks, so they need new formulations to express them—as goals, as strategies, as new systems. Philosophy provides the general terms to formulate a new theory. 

Finally, philosophy mostly concerns itself with human nature. Philosophy is the love of wisdom, the pursuit of truth and knowledge. Theories of human nature underlie this pursuit: Who are we such that we seek truth and knowledge? What sorts of truth can we grasp? How do we act with respect to those truths?

I believe that a theory of human nature underlies every entrepreneurial pursuit. Who are we, such that we will want this new product or service over existing products and services? Who are we, such that this new means of acquiring customers will succeed? Who are we, such that we will remain deeply engaged with this new product or service? 

Because I believe that entrepreneurial projects require a specific theory about human nature, I frequently start with a philosophical observation when I deliver public talks on investing. For example, for nearly two decades I have been saying that investing in the consumer internet means investing in one or more of the seven deadly sins. Business school students usually think that you become adept at investing by learning about concepts like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Lifetime Value (LTV), operating margins, competitive differentiation, and so on. However, every entrepreneurial project targets a future CAC or LTV, so how do you get there? Who are we, such that we will stay engaged with this product at scale? Philosophy helps you think sharply about your theory of human nature and how it ties to your entrepreneurial goals. 

Returning to Nietzsche, let’s examine why he in particular is such an apt patron philosopher for entrepreneurs. Nietzsche was rebelling against a stultifying philosophical practice that exalted the past—specifically the ideals and images of former thinkers and former leaders. He wanted to refocus on the now, on what humanity was and what it could become. 

As part of his rebellion, Nietzsche philosophized with a hammer: he wanted to destroy the old mindsets that locked people into the past, and thus better equip them to embrace the possibility of the new. Nietzsche’s desire to shift mindsets is also why he emphasized new styles of argument. Whereas most philosophers would typically open an argument in a classical form or by reviewing a historical great, Nietzsche would lead with an arresting aphorism or a completely new mythological narrative. 

He was, above all else, a disruptor of pieties and convention, always in search of new and original ways to be contrarian and right, never satisfied with the status quo. 

This is exactly the kind of mindset entrepreneurs should adopt. This is why a daily practice of philosophy can be the way that an entrepreneur moves from good to great. And, why a daily practice of Nietzsche is a great practice of philosophy for entrepreneurs. 

In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche exclaims, “To live alone, you must be an animal or a god—says Aristotle. He left out the third case: you must be both—a philosopher.” 

The entrepreneur’s version might go like this: “Aristotle says that to envision a new product that changes the model, one must either be a mad person or genius. Forgetting the third case, both—an entrepreneur.” 

In the end, Nietzsche’s fierce allegiance to the new made him troublesome—and valuable. Change always brings trouble—for example, the trouble that entrepreneurs make when they create “disruption.” To achieve a new and better future, you must first reject the old. One of America’s most effective modern civil rights heroes, the late Congressman John Lewis, had a great way to describe trouble as essential. “Get into good trouble, necessary trouble,” he used to say. Good trouble is how we progress, in markets and in societies.