Audacity economy

Money makes world go round and creates optionality. Entrepreneurship is on the rise.

Two plus two equals four.

There is nothing wrong with public performance of ultimate passion and burning enthusiasm, that’s the entire point of being on your own — to do what you really care about and provide others with best of what you have to offer, but let’s for a moment not pretend that none of that is about money. Because it is.

Living from pay check to pay check is not life, it’s hamster wheel of survival. No, there is nothing wrong with that either, theoretically. There was a time when that meant something, when it provided stability, predictability and even security. Today, your permanent job is equally temporary as any short-term contract since world changed dramatically and everyone at some point became so easily replaceable.

Naturally, we responded and adjusted.

New world order, but not the one you might think of

We probably didn’t consciously long for this day, but we are definitely seeing it: the day when "opportunity" became most elastic word ever, in any language. Stretch it far enough and you can cover so much bullshit with it. Combine it with “audacity” and you will really hit the bull’s eye.

In this gig economy era, it’s so easy to think about yourself as a businessperson. It’s even easier to fall into false sense of overconfidence and forget common decency while building something you expect others to pay for.

Yes, it’s really pain in the ass not having generational wealth to burn while playing with ideas of own business, freedom and success. And yes, you probably deserve more from this life than you struggle with today, aren’t we all. And that’s about where my understanding stops.

There are those familiar patterns we’ve been seeing and bitching about for years: countless interview rounds for jobseekers where they expect to deliver parts or complete projects as an interview assignment, for free, just to prove their skills; then there is unpaid internship after which you might or not get a job offer; then there is “professional development” wrapped into significant amount of unpaid working hours once you are employed. And while we are still actively bitching about all of it, they are still existing as “opportunities” for whatever you can come up with.

But now, humanity evolved and expanded this concept even further in an unimaginable ways.

Fed up with what corporations have to offer, we embraced gig economy and idea of honest earning and living of our own skills, competence and potential in a better way. Isn’t that great!

Suddenly we feel important enough to shamelessly ask others to contribute with their own skills, competence and ideas to build our business while offering them — big fat nothing.

Few crash courses in marketing later and big fat nothing is now called “opportunity” for those willing to participate — for some to build something meaningful and be involved in something from the very beginning, for others to validate skills and knowledge like eternal beginners, for other others to be seen and feel even more important. All that carefully packed in zero promise and no guarantee for any proportionality in ROI nor actual relevance for their own success metrics.

Excuse my French, but it’s neither vulnerability nor boldness to say “I don’t have money to pay you so why wouldn’t you do it for free instead and be a good person and world will hear about you”. Did anyone ever become successful and renown — I intentionally don’t say rich — by building businesses for others, for free, out of goodness of their heart? Not much virtue in that to be so proud and loud about it, I dare to say.

Perpetuation of exploitation through manipulation

There is some serious dissonance between mutual understanding and mutual interests between two parties that might be able to support each other in achieving their individual goals on one side and self-absorbed audacity to publicly guilt-trip others to provide free labour with single open ambition: to profit from it with nothing to offer and yet, somehow, everything to accept.

Fascinating. Highly illogical, but fascinating.

The fact that one person's financial ambition dressed in nonchalant business enthusiasm and passion manages to trigger so much compassion, while we confused mutual support and opening doors for others with entitlement, privilege and audacity is just another low we hit.

Innovation vs. reinvention

Indeed, we have to constantly innovate in order to remain relevant. So we constantly innovate what sells best. Reinventing on the other hand is really bad for business. To reinvent the wheel is the most terrible idea. But an innovative wheel, possibly with some in-built AI capabilities is very different story.

Unfortunately, we apply same logic to the very noble idea of honest earning and living of our own skills and competence and up to our full potential. Finding innovative ways to gain competitive edge is somehow much better for business than reinventing business itself around your core values and those very things that were your very reason to pursue your dreams and passion. Why?

That game is rigged is the worst possible excuse to continue playing it. Can we collectively stop pretending that we are not doing whatever we are doing to earn money?

Can idea of small scale entrepreneurship, side hustle and gig actually be the catalyst for the change we are seeking for ourselves, instead of being an extension of manipulation game and public performance?