4 ms·

> the interesting implication is that it seems a fantastic time to build new long-term things. If you can get the resources and talent, you could build somethin

by bmitc 5y ago

> the interesting implication is that it seems a fantastic time to build new long-term things. If you can get the resources and talent, you could build something to win the next decade while everyone else is scrambling to grab what is sitting right in front of them. I have been having some thought experiments on company models that I think would be interesting. I've used the phrase "I like to move fast to move slow" to describe to people worried about rate of progress or deadlines on how long term thinking is actually faster in the end. Someone also recently reminded me of Phil Dunphy's "slow is smooth and smooth is fast". Another thing is that I think it would be interesting if a company acted almost as a non-profit in spirit, adjusting for sustainability of the company, quality of products, livelihood of its employees and customers, and not for growth and short term goals. However, I am stuck for lack of good, concrete ideas. Some things that have become interesting to me are conservation, recycling, the ocean, social programs, etc., but I don't yet understand how to turn these around as businesses. One thing I see is the explosion of space companies, but I don't understand their business model outside of government contracts. So I can imagine a parallel of ocean-tech companies, although I don't see where the rubber meets the road. The idea of a recycling company is interesting to me, because I like the view that the company's goal should almost be to make the company shrink and not grow in that it should provide backwards pressure against the amount of stuff needing to be recycled at the end stage (e.g., providing companies with more sustainable products or materials that can be reused or recycled upstream). Do you have any ideas? Who is thinking and writing about this? How does one capture the excitement and hype of space to the actual importance of the ocean? It evens seems like a law to me that anything actually worth doing that will actually help people and the environment is not something that will make money.

sleepysysadmin 5y ago
>Do you have any ideas? Who is thinking and writing about this? How does one capture the excitement and hype of space to the actual importance of the ocean? Bioplastics are probably a big factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic Dont need to clean up plastic in the ocean if it properly biodegrades. We need to get it to scale and costs low enough to replace oil based plastics. Which might be virtually impossible because if oil stops being used for fuel, it'll end up increasing and becoming cheaper for plastics. Eventually though the scarcity of oil and the extensive availability of corn and potatoes means you win.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  >Eventually though the scarcity of oil and the extensive availability of corn and potatoes means you win. Or hemp for that matter[1]. Might be possible to dominate a luxury niche first, then move into mass-consumption; one thing I think Tesla Motors demonstrated very well is that people will pay a premium for an untested product that might do good for the world, so long as there's a status signal involved. [1]https://hempzoo.com/products/hemp-filament-3d-printing https://hempzoo.com/products/hemp-filament-3d-printing
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
I'm so glad you asked! I have two or three, I'd love to have any of them critiqued or stolen. First one or two are not ocean-based but might be intrigueing all the same. Essentially, people flip houses, but there's not much flipping of land itself. And yet, a lot of land can be bought for relatively little money because of either nutrient degradation or soil contamination. So the business model would be slow but simple - buy distressed or contaminated land, practise slow but inexpensive means of remediation[1], flip it for a profit once it's remediated, and use that to buy more distressed land. There's actually a company in South America named Adecoagro that does this as one of their business segments. From what I could gather via their investor reports, the major bottleneck to this business is finding people with the expertise to do it. Adecoagro works on quite large farms, but I have the idea that if one did it with smaller parcels and combined the remediation efforts with hosting permaculture or similar courses, it might be a better way to bring in the necessary expertise. Possibly the same or possibly an adjacent idea is phytomining[2]. Find land that either has been mined out and is distressed, or that a local community will sell cheap rather than have it go to a conventional mining company. Mine the soil via phytomining over a longer period of time, possibly in tandem with other regenerative land management techniques. And the ocean one - there are techniques for recycling plastic for a fairly low cost[3]. With a basic plastic shredder and press, it should be possible to clean up the seas and make artificial islands[4] in situ. Combine with an ecotourism or seasteading brand and it should be quite interesting to people with money. Like I said, I'd welcome any feedback! They're all very early-stage ideas (besides the land-flipping one, which exists but has an early-stage twist on the standard execution) so I'd be very interested in hearing how others would modify them. [1] e.g. https://www.amazonmycorenewal.org/ https://www.amazonmycorenewal.org/ [2] e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43258437_Method_for_phytomining_of_nickel_cobalt_and_other_metals_from_soil https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43258437_Method_for... [3] e.g. https://preciousplastic.com/ https://preciousplastic.com/ [4] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Island

by bmitc 5y ago

sleepysysadmin 5y ago

>Do you have any ideas? Who is thinking and writing about this? How does one capture the excitement and hype of space to the actual importance of the ocean? Bioplastics are probably a big factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic Dont need to clean up plastic in the ocean if it properly biodegrades. We need to get it to scale and costs low enough to replace oil based plastics. Which might be virtually impossible because if oil stops being used for fuel, it'll end up increasing and becoming cheaper for plastics. Eventually though the scarcity of oil and the extensive availability of corn and potatoes means you win.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
>Eventually though the scarcity of oil and the extensive availability of corn and potatoes means you win. Or hemp for that matter[1]. Might be possible to dominate a luxury niche first, then move into mass-consumption; one thing I think Tesla Motors demonstrated very well is that people will pay a premium for an untested product that might do good for the world, so long as there's a status signal involved. [1]https://hempzoo.com/products/hemp-filament-3d-printing https://hempzoo.com/products/hemp-filament-3d-printing

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

I'm so glad you asked! I have two or three, I'd love to have any of them critiqued or stolen. First one or two are not ocean-based but might be intrigueing all the same. Essentially, people flip houses, but there's not much flipping of land itself. And yet, a lot of land can be bought for relatively little money because of either nutrient degradation or soil contamination. So the business model would be slow but simple - buy distressed or contaminated land, practise slow but inexpensive means of remediation[1], flip it for a profit once it's remediated, and use that to buy more distressed land. There's actually a company in South America named Adecoagro that does this as one of their business segments. From what I could gather via their investor reports, the major bottleneck to this business is finding people with the expertise to do it. Adecoagro works on quite large farms, but I have the idea that if one did it with smaller parcels and combined the remediation efforts with hosting permaculture or similar courses, it might be a better way to bring in the necessary expertise. Possibly the same or possibly an adjacent idea is phytomining[2]. Find land that either has been mined out and is distressed, or that a local community will sell cheap rather than have it go to a conventional mining company. Mine the soil via phytomining over a longer period of time, possibly in tandem with other regenerative land management techniques. And the ocean one - there are techniques for recycling plastic for a fairly low cost[3]. With a basic plastic shredder and press, it should be possible to clean up the seas and make artificial islands[4] in situ. Combine with an ecotourism or seasteading brand and it should be quite interesting to people with money. Like I said, I'd welcome any feedback! They're all very early-stage ideas (besides the land-flipping one, which exists but has an early-stage twist on the standard execution) so I'd be very interested in hearing how others would modify them. [1] e.g. https://www.amazonmycorenewal.org/ https://www.amazonmycorenewal.org/ [2] e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43258437_Method_for_phytomining_of_nickel_cobalt_and_other_metals_from_soil https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43258437_Method_for... [3] e.g. https://preciousplastic.com/ https://preciousplastic.com/ [4] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Island