Chapter 2 Do the Time Change Your World, Not the World Something you hear all the time in Silicon Valley is, “We’re going to change the world!” and, “We’re revolutionizing the world of ________!” Great. I understand it’s exciting to believe that, and that you want your mission to be meaningful. But my sense of what truly changes the world falls somewhere along the lines of the people who developed the polio vaccine, the radio, food refrigeration, electrical systems, or inspired millions into nonviolent revolution. If you’re making a Web-based sales tool, invoicing solution, mobile document syncing solution, travel app, or a new way to share pictures with people, it maybe doesn’t fall within the world-changing category. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important for you and your team to do meaningful work. It’s not that these aren’t great things, it’s just the world will get there one way or another without them. There are reasons Sergey Brin is working on autonomous cars, and Elon Musk on unlimited solar energy. What you can do is make your world better by appreciating all the tangible ways in which you’re already helping the people you work with, serve, or inspire: • You can seed new companies and new opportunities for the rock stars on your team, and create a virtuous cycle of innovation. When I look back at the first startup I co- founded, the management team has since spun out three new innovative venture-backed startups out of it. • You can create real, new jobs for people. Truly creating new, good jobs — not just poached engineers from other startups — but great new jobs that didn’t exist before, including jobs that provide for families. • You can help buy people homes. Money is always nice, but making people enough money one way or another to buy their first home is a good thing. David Ulevitch is proud that selling OpenDNS helped his people — beyond making many of them millionaires, it helped a lot of them pay off debt such as longstanding student loans.