Non-Traditional Non-Profit Non-Boring Business School

September 22, 2023

You are a natural resource.
 
And not only that, but you’re also some of the last natural resources up for grabs. The last battlefield on which generational wealth can be built in one lifetime. The Jeff Bezos kind of generational wealth.
 
As such, there is a constant war for your eyes and ears.
 
Allow me to explain.
 
All of the great natural resources are tied up. If you’re not already at the table, you can’t get a seat in one lifetime.
 
For example, want to earn billions of dollars mining gold? It’s not going to happen in your life. Yes, perhaps you could scrounge and scrape and set your descendants up for success. But it’s just not happening before you die. Someone else already owns all the gold mines or the rights to the gold in the earth. That was tied up long before you even had a chance.
 
How about oil? Can’t you just drill a well and start pumping? Not in enough quantity. Someone else already tied up the rights to all the major oil deposits in the world long before you even had a chance.
 
Want to be a timber Barron? Someone else already owns all the millions of acres of timber forests. Which means if you started from nothing in the timber industry, in one life you could never amass enough money to buy the millions of acres that you’d need.
 
Go ahead, try any other natural resource. I have yet to find one in which you could start from nothing, collect that resource, and end up becoming one of the richest people on earth in one lifetime. Depressing, I know. All the great natural resources are already owned.
 
Except for you.
 
People – audience – are the last great resource up for grabs. Free to anyone who wants to claim their share. All you have to do is be more interesting or more helpful or more convenient and you can amass an audience.
 
That’s all Jeff Bezos did.
 
He created something, in a garage, that was a better option than what was previously available.
 
And before him, Sam Walton did the same thing.
 
And before Sam, Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck amassed an audience.
 
Google, is one of the most powerful companies on the planet. Their resource? They amassed an audience by being helpful.
 
Mark Zuckerberg?
 
You get the point.
 
Once you have an audience, you can either sell to them yourself, or you can rent out your audience and let others sell to them.
 
But either way, you can do it in one lifetime. Because, unlike gold, oil, and trees, people can get up and walk off. They have a choice.
 
Which leave us with one last question.
 
Are they choosing you?
 
– Zac Smith, VC