Talk
Creating a Powerful Future Together in an Age of Disruption
Care, connection, creation — and why the places that have already lived through the worst of it understand this fastest.
We grow stronger through the storms.
Civilisation did not begin with fire or the wheel. It began the first time one human being cared for another. Everything since — stone, steel, silicon — has been an extension of our capacity to do that at scale, and the tools have never been more capable than they are now.
Which is the argument: the future belongs to whoever can care more deeply, connect more broadly, and create more boldly. Not to whoever has the most capital, and not to whoever is loudest about disruption.
This one was built first for Sarajevo, a city that knows what it is to rebuild from hardship and turn conflict into design. It works anywhere that has been underestimated, and it works especially well in rooms that are tired of being told disruption is an opportunity by people who have not lived through any.
Best for
- Cities and regions rebuilding, or reinventing
- Conferences with a social-impact or resilience theme
- Mixed audiences of founders, institutions and civil society
- Closing a day that has been heavy on tactics
What the room leaves with
- Three forces — care, connection, creation — and what each one actually requires of a founder.
- Why collaboration beats competition on the evidence, not on sentiment: connection builds trust, and trust accelerates opportunity.
- A worked example from the pandemic, when founders across four countries built better solutions together than any of them could have alone.
- The three things everyone in the room already carries: scar tissue, relationships, and imagination.
Also available
The rest of what I speak about.
Don't Just Start a Startup, Launch a Personal Revolution
Kennedy's two-a.m. question in 1960, my father's answer to it, and the argument that nobody is coming to ask us — so we ask each other. Closes on building a bridge, in both directions.
Read →U.S. Market Entry: Five Lenses for Crossing Borders
Why Texas and Austin specifically, the second valley of death nobody plans for, and how to pick a beachhead small enough to actually win. Run as a conversation, not a lecture.
Read →Why Austin Is Overtaking Silicon Valley
What international founders get wrong about the United States, and the three things you need before you land: mindset, relationships, and ecosystem fluency.
Read →Bring it to your city