I was reminded recently of a tendency in Americans. Multiple individuals pointing out the same phenomena. We don't accept the word "No" for an answer. Many times in our history, we were told things were impossible. The Panama Canal, dredging the Mississippi, winning a war on two fronts, sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to earth. Our response as a collective, "We can do it."
We have traveled far. In many cases, we have gone astray. In some cases we are prone to delusions. But the truth is that whether or not the rest of the world likes to admit it, we are the best hope. One may view this as "ignoring the facts" or "tragically optimistic" or a dozen other things, but in the end I believe most of the world would agree with such a description of Americans.
As I've said before, we are the center of the empire. The only threat to us being the internal decay that happens to all empires. We must adapt to survive. In some ways, we do this extremely well. However, we have some obvious failings. This is the country of Microsoft, Google, and Apple. However, it was also the country where Atari rose and fell. It is the country that built and destroyed IBM
For we are a country that was built on rugged individualism. Many cynics will indicate that we were founded by wealthy slave owners. This is true, but they did not build this country. The first 2 years of our founding Revolution were fought by militias. An organized army and intervention by the French brought it to an end, but it was started by a bunch of farmers standing before the line of trained soldiers. We now use terms like "guerrilla" and "insurgent" and forget our birth.
Our story continues from there. We as a colony declared our independence. We declared war on our owners. We spent years as an uprising. We spent years as a "problem" that Great Britain had to deal with. Then we presented a legal argument for separation. The nerve.
We have stumbled, but ever since then we have looked upon the "impossible" and labeled it "difficult". By 1900, people such as Nikola Tesla were coming to the United States. Two American bicycle mechanics, not an Oxford trained physicist, developed controlled flight. The Victorian era ended with, whether the continent of Europe would agree with me or not, the rise of a new empire. An empire with territories that spanned half the globe.
We have allowed ourselves to fall in recent years. Our rise too meteoric not to end with some decline. However, our errors are obvious and can be easily corrected. Carnegie built U.S. Steel regardless of who changed the name. When it was sold to a financier, its demise became inevitable. Atari destroyed itself by turning on its founder. Apple rose and fell and rose again with Steve Jobs. Bill Gates built Microsoft, Steve Balmer presides over its decline.
Strong-willed individuals allowed this country to rise. Committees, boards, and focus groups have chipped away at it for decades. Private industry has tried to model itself after government instead of the other way around. I am certainly not saying that publicly controlled organizations cannot grow and flourish. They just do not do so here. A strong-willed individual is by definition someone that does not fit in with the crowd. Groups, collectives, and societies are able to do good things. However, it is my opinion that only individuals can have the singular vision to do great things.
The founder of a company will always be referred to as such. He or she is the individual with vision. Now as none of us can continue a task indefinitely, the titles of Chairman, President, CEO, etc. are passed on, but the title of Founder cannot be. A founder creates something. We often find founders simply leaving companies after they have reached stability. They are inventors. They are visionaries. Their replacements can be well chosen. The do not seem to have been often in the last 50 years. A venture capitalist should never be involved in day-to-day operations. An accountant should only run an accounting firm. An investor should be bought out as soon as possible. Money does influence many things in our culture and many will say that the purpose of business is simply to make money. If this is the case than "businesses" are lifeless things that will never create or adapt.
Money keeps the doors open so you can do what you do. The moment an organization forgets that, it has resigned itself to failure.
