Two Grant Williams + Ben Hunt Quotes I Can't Shake

We live in an age of techno-doomerism and accelerationistas.

I hate that I only sort of know what those words (or their similar variations) mean, and I hate even more that I know exactly how I feel whenever somebody starts spouting just how bleak/bright the future is.

Self-Evident Truth: Tech is forever saving the world or destroying it and we humans love to sit around and talk about it.*

The increasing problem with trying to have productive versions of those conversations, however, is either (self-evident sub-truth alert!) the loneliness epidemic, where people want to talk about this stuff but don’t have any friends to talk to, OR the echo chamber problem, where people only talk to people who share the same views as them regarding these topics and then they get all wound up when they meet someone or some group who believes the complete opposite.

Ben Hunt calls it the widening gyre, and says its a feature of the great ravine, while optimistically opting (or least urging us) to keep the faith because we can figure it out.

Grant Williams sees it as a function of the evolution of life over time, and despite mourning the positive bits in a past he clearly remembers, he optimistically opts to believe the pendulum has to swing far enough out on its arc to freeze in spacetime before inevitably swinging back in the other direction.

Personal aside

(but adjust the math and see if you feel this too):

Is the great advantage of being 40ish and talking to someone who is 60ish that they remember 20 years of life before you, and then a bunch of common times with a 20-year perspective-offset lens?

Is the great advantage of being 40ish and talking to someone who is 20ish that you remember 20 years of life they do not, and then a bunch of common times with a totally new perspective-offset lens?

Did Kyla Scanlon warp my brain into thinking this way or was it Neil Howe? Or was it both? And what’s THAT age difference?!

Grant Williams and Ben Hunt joined me on a special episode of Excess Returns to talk about the world, post Election 2024. They said lots of interesting things. Tech, doom, markets, anxieties, optimism, they’re all in there. But there are two quotes I’m still replaying in my mind. I’ve shared them here and here already too, but I’m writing them in the Personal Archive here because I can’t shake them.

The first quote comes from Grant. It’s about the societal change in allegedly thinking far too much about the share prices of companies instead of the purposes companies serve. It’s as harsh a brush stroke as it is a broad one, but think about it in terms of purpose, and why a man of his age and experience would be thinking this way:

Now, the marketable value of something has always mattered, and cigarette companies of yesteryear weren’t out there hawking a better humanity via reinvested Surgeon General denying profits. But, the level of abstraction, and the reality that he feels it matters (back to the earlier idea with this reminder: I was finishing high school in 1999 when Philip Morris copped to cancer causing research, while Grant was already well into his career).

Note: There’s a shift Grant feels in the attention we’re paying to building, growing, and reinvesting in sustainable stuff for the long-term.

The second quote comes from Ben Hunt. It’s linked to what Grant just said. Because it notes the shift at play. This shift isn’t the norm. It isn’t fully understood. But it’s the optimist’s under-pinning to letting go of the folly of predicting the future, or at least how far the pendulum can maybe swing, and fully embracing the challenge of being productive in the present moment.

Note: In the wake of everyone chasing their favorite dopamine hit via their smart phone screens, family, home, and personal expertise are the most reliably valuable investments we can (yes, still) make. 

In Grant’s terms, Ben’s expressing how to live a sustainable life, how to teach your kids to do it, how to invest and reinvest in the things that make you “YOU,” all extended far beyond the stock price abstractions being hunted down by some CEO who has 5 tips for morning success routines that he’s only preaching about on LinkedIn because some kid in marketing read a Tim Ferriss book and totally doesn’t want to get fired or something.

I know it feels dark, but there’s a lightness inside of everything.

A present-tense lightness that really matters.

The kind of lightness that requires seeing the cracks in order to see the light. 

The business isn’t the price of its stock as much your job or political party of favorite football team isn’t your identity. 

Knowing yourself isn’t selfish, it’s essential.

These are all parts of reality, but you get to pick what matters to you and where you focus, and if you can put the cell phone down for even an extra second today to think about it, it will be worth it.

More conversations like this, please. 

*Tech is forever saving the world or destroying it and we humans love to sit around and talk about it, and yes, maybe I’m part of the problem, but I’m as much trying to find a solution for myself as I am trying to share it with you. Listen all you people, and not just to the anxiety inducing bits, listen between the lines for what matters and why:"

ps. The best fellow-40ish-something offset conversation I’ve recorded, which is FULL of a sense of optimism rooted in the values Ben describes, has to be this one with Mark McCartney and Sean DeLaney. They’re all about feeling the present tense while taking positively productive steps forward in your, and your family’s life.

pss. OBLIGATORY SOUNDTRACK