“When the Industrial Revolution released a gusher of usable energy from coal, oil, and falling water, it launched a Great Escape from poverty, disease, hunger, illiteracy, and premature death, first in the West and increasingly in the rest of the world. And the next leap in human welfare the end of extreme poverty and spread of abundance, with all its moral benefits, will depend on technological advances that provide energy at an acceptable economic and environmental cost to the entire world”

Enlightentment Now - Steven Pinker

I decided a little while ago that I wanted to write more. Over the last few years I have started reading quite widely. After a typically narrow minded adolesence, I’ve always been pretty interested in questioning everything. Trying to understand why the world works the way it does, what the really big problems the world is facing are, and if and how they can be combatted. As I started to read fiction and non-fiction to learn more, I’ve come to realise there’s a piece of the puzzle missing, and recently stumbling onto James Somer’s blog, I have realised it is writing. Reading is about answers, but writing is about questions. Unless you write, you don’t realise what the answers are for. James puts this much better than I do, but it changes your perspective on the media you consume.

So that’s why I am starting my blog. It’s not for anyone, and by definition I am no expert and probably have below average knowledge in what I am writing about - but that’s why I am writing it. It’s to organise interests in my mind, and write about the questions I want answers too. I’m holding my own pontification to account. I read in the intro to Lord Alanbrooke’s war diaries about the importance of purpose in writing a diary. In other words: who are you writing too? And to be honest, I don’t know yet. The first blogs will be an eclectic mix of tones and subjects, but I’ll find my way after that.

I wrote the above in October 2023 and obviously progress… slowed. I wrote a brief book review in December which I will publish, but my focus has been on Ecofit’s acquisiton , an operation and effecitvely living out of a rucksack while trying to work out where to live for my new job.

However, now that’s done I thought I would quite like to write down a few thoughts I had about the process of growing and selling a business, how I think startups can be successful and the differences between a startup and a big company. Not really for anyone else, but for myself in the future to remind myself of what I was thinking at the time. So that will likely be the next post before hopefully many more on the subjects I originally intended.

(PS. the quote at the top probably doesn’t fit with what this post has become, but I like it so I’m keeping it)