Peter Thiel's brilliant interview question

Peter Thiel has a question that he likes to ask in interview settings: Tell me something that is true that very few people agree with you on. He explains:

The business version of this question is what great business is nobody building? And these questions turn out to be quite hard to answer for two somewhat different reasons. One of them is it's always hard to come up with new truths that people have not yet understood. Secondly, it also requires a bit of courage because you often have to go against social convention in pursuing certain lines of business. People discourage you from doing things that are strange and new.

It turns out that what defines entrepreneurial brilliance is also the mark of true Christians. What do we hold to be true that very few people agree on? Jesus is Lord.

Sure, we're allowed to have that as a "personal religious belief," but not to believe that it is actually true, and true for everyone (whether they know or accept it or not) and that He is actually making all things new. That is the scandal and the glory of Christian faith.

Thiel is absolutely right. It takes courage to affirm unaccepted truth in public. It takes wisdom and perseverance to act on that truth when very few others can see it. This is true in entrepreneurship. Steve Wozniak believed that a personal computers could be useful and ubiquitous. It is true at the leading edge of science. Copernicus made claims that contradicted what had been the established scientific consensus for centuries.

Contrary to the conventions of our culture since the Enlightenment, religious faith is not a distinct and inferior class of knowledge. It too, makes public claims of truth that contradict prevailing assumptions. It is news. It is good news.

So consider this scenario. You're a bright young entrepreneur, invited to visit Peter Thiel, who is interested in investing in you and your venture. And he asks you: Tell me something that is true that very few people agree with you on. Do you have the courage and confidence to say to one of the most clever and accomplished entrepreneurs and investors, "Jesus is Lord"?

Honestly, it is a whole lot easier for me to come up with a half dozen heretical business ideas. Thiel's question has forced me to look squarely at the truth of the Gospel and the courage it takes to affirm it in public.

Thank you, Peter.

Gospel entrepreneurship as Christian formation

I have the bad habit of reading too many books at once - and therefore not reading very quickly at all. At present, I'm reading Lesslie Newbigin's A Word in Season, James Hunter's Death of Character, Michael Hyatt's Platform, and (as of today) Desiring the Kingdom by James Smith.

One of the things that slows me down is finding so much wisdom and insight with which to interact. For example, today I came across this paragraph in Desiring the Kingdom:

“Because our hearts are oriented primarily by desire, by what we love, and because those desires are shaped and molded by the habit-forming practices in which we participate, it is the rituals and practices of the mall - the liturgies of mall and market - that shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world. Embedded in them is a common set of assumptions about the shape of human flourishing, which becomes an implicit telos, or goal, of our own desires and actions. That is, the visions of the good life embedded in these practices become surreptitiously embedded in us through our participation in the rituals and rhythms of these institutions. These quasi-liturgies effect an education of desire, a pedagogy of the heart. But if the church is complicit with this sort of formation, where could we look for an alternative education of desire?”

Smith's word 'complicit' jumped out at me in describing the 'habit-forming practices' of the market that 'shape our imaginations and how we orient ourselves to the world.' He's saying that we're doing something wrong, and that we need to 'look for an alternative education of desire.' I think that there is an even more exciting possibility.

Given the habit-forming power of the practices of participation in human culture to shape our vision of the good life and human flourishing, we need to lean into them, not away from them.

Let me explain why. Over the past two months, I have been meeting regularly with a young gospel entrepreneur who is prayerfully, thoughtfully, actively moving into "the market." He is scheming good for his neighbors in ways that proclaim and embody the gospel. Our work together has has a formative impact on me and my family. Our brainstorming sessions in my living room in which my daughter doodles in crayon on the block paper where we're mapping neighborhood assets and needs is formative.

This rhythm of life of gathering to pray, dream, and work together to create a new business that is a sign, instrument and foretaste of the kingdom is shaping our desires. It is forming in our children the assumption that the impulse of Christian participation in public life is love, not covetousness. They're learning that the fact that the market and the mall are disfigured is precisely why they need redeeming.Our formative practices of leaning into the broken world of commerce in obedience and faith is the enacted prayer, "Hallowed be your name; Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." This, I hope and trust, will shape my children's imaginations to see all the glorious possibilities of God's redemptive work in us - and in that a tiny foretaste of the consummation of redemption.

Why won't you buy this?

My eight year old daughter loves to make things. And now she wants to sell them. Her motives are great. She wants to give money to the Rehoboth Children's Home in India (which is supported by the gifts of our church). But she's baffled that people aren't leaping at the chance to pay for her pieces of art.

She is stumbling onto something really important that she'll need to wrestle with for the rest of her life. In order to participate in value exchanges, you have to provide something that people value. At this stage, her work doesn't yet meet their criteria of fine art.

The critical question for her is not Why won't you buy this? but What can I offer that solves a problem for you? At this stage in life, she is a fantastic "mother's helper," who can take competently care of younger children (while an adult is present in the home) so that the parent can get other things done - like read a book! At $3/hour, that feels like a tremendous amount of money for my daughter, and a bargain for our friends who need a breather.

With that experience under her belt (and the referrals that flow from doing a good job) she'll be ready to take on "real" babysitting jobs when she's old enough to do that. In the process she will have learned that she doesn't have to twist people's arm into buying something they don't want. She simply has to ask what she can do or provide that others will gladly pay for. After all, that's what most artists do while they refine their craft such that people gladly want to pay for their art.

Why spotlight this nonprofit?

In response to my recent Cardus essay on Value, Values and Valuation, one reader challenged one of my examples:

Perhaps Charlottesville Investment Collaborative is not the example you are looking for. I find the website indicates the cooperative concentrates on training, and is willing to lend money.  How effective the cooperative actually is will depend on the successes of the values created by the participants. Nothing on the website is dedicated to explaining and expounding the new found values, [but rather to] providing 'free advertising' for the participants.

Why did I choose CIC as an example if it has these apparent shortcomings?

1. Value Creation: CIC is creating value by doing something that no-one else in our community is doing by enabling the marginalized to start new businesses. Training and lending IS the value provided. The participants have no other access to such opportunity or resources, and therefore could not otherwise start new enterprises.
2. Participant Success: The reader is right that success hinges on the entrepreneurs/participants' value creation and values. The proof will be in their flourishing.
3. Free advertising? Providing 'free advertising' for participants is also value creation. The poor - by definition - don't have the social networks we do. Getting the word out about the value that they're creating is mission critical for their success and the flourishing of our city.
4. What values? The reader is also right that "nothing on the website is dedicated to explaining and expounding the new found values." CIC is not a Christian organization. I have the privilege of collaborating with my non-Christian neighbors who, by common grace, are doing good and creating value for their neighbors. Into that good work I speak these words. Indeed, I think that is precisely the value that we as Christians need to bring to the table - the embodied and spoken values of the Kingdom. That, I truly hope, is public theology for the common good.

The return of gospel entrepreneurship

For a time, I actively blogged here. For quite some time, this blog has been inactive. The time has come for a revival.

Yesterday Cardus published my essay on Value, Values and Valuation. The confluence of writing that piece, and being involved in a couple of exciting social ventures have convinced me that it is time to renew this blog.

I should make a connection between Cardus and value. Cardus' magazine Comment and the Economist are the only two print magazines I consistently read. Both continue to create consistent value within their spheres. While other magazines are faltering, these two are leading.

So, check out the Comment essay, and subscribe to the rss for many connected strands of thought.

Humility and Self-Promotion

Today I had lunch with a very capable Christian writer who said, offhandedly, "I guess it is that writer's shyness. I don't want to engage in self-promotion." He's right. We shouldn't want to engage in self-promotion, because that's ugly and disfiguring. So what is a Christian entrepreneur (whether writer or otherwise) to do? Creating Value The foundation of all entrepreneurship is the creation or provision of value. We solve a problem in a novel way. That solution may be a book, or a product, or a service. Whatever it is, it must add value. If it doesn't, it isn't entrepreneurship; it is hoodwinking. The Christian who creates value ought not to be ashamed of this good! If what is created and offered truly adds value, then offering it (whether a book, patent, product, service, or whatever) can be love, not self-promotion. Indeed, clearly understanding the value that one is creating and offering is the best protection against self-promotion. It has to be good for others, and not merely for oneself, in order to add value. Love Creates Value This gets to the heart of gospel entrepreneurship. Love creates value for the good of others. Love is the heartbeat of gospel entrepreneurship. Its aim is not profit, but value. Profit is the proper adjunct of value creation, not its purpose. I have used my friend Joshua as an example before, and here again he is a great example. Joshua is a pharmaseutical salesman. He goes office to office to encourage doctors to prescribe the drugs his company develops and produces. On the surface, it would seem like it is in Joshua's interest to tell everyone to prescribe his drugs. But it isn't, and Joshua knows it. He is more concerned with adding value than selling his drug. So when a doctor describes a case for which the drug isn't a good fit, Joshua says, "My drug is not appropriate for that." If that sounds like the worst think a drug rep, who makes a living based on sales, could say, you need to think in terms of value. Joshua just added value by telling the truth. So doctors trust him more than the reps who "sell, sell, sell." And Joshua is consistently one of the most profitable salesmen in his region. Profit is the adjunct of value. By caring for his clients and telling the truth, Joshua adds value. I encouraged my Christian writer friend, "You have written this book to add value. You don't need to be ashamed of that. It isn't self-promotion to share value with others." I didn't say it then, but I should have concluded, "It is LOVE to share value with others. The fact that you created that value is an expression of that love."

Hallowed be your Name

The litmus test of authentic Christian action in the world is whether it is the enacted prayer, "Hallowed be your Name." There is much good that can be done and is done without reference to the Name. But being born again means being reoriented to the Name. The Christian who rises in the morning to pray, "Hallowed be your Name," is - or ought to be - asking: In all of my public and private actions, bring honor to your Name. It is not, "Let me seek the common good." No, the good we seek has been radically redefined by the One who says, "No one is good except God alone" (Mk 10:18). It is, therefore, His good that we seek in the world. We know by experience that the honor of His Name IS good - and we therefore must seek it in prayer and in public action in the world.