Add(venture)

Lemons + sugar water = lemonade

Some sugar water is better than others.  We have just 12 years to harness capital flows for sustainable global change.  The origins of venture capital and the definition of entrepreneur prove instructive.

It's hard to be hopeful that your ship will return with a bounty of blubber after more than a couple years, so capitalists rely on a diversified portfolio.  That said, the captain defies mispriced odds as the bearer of risk (e.g., see Shackleton's formational role in Type III fun).  At the intersection of risk and capital, roles and responsibilities were clear then.  So what changed?

Aiming for "impact" where needed most, we added capital to excess.  In the face of misadventure, we failed to build real businesses while ironically citing "sustainability."  We've spent decades talking about it.  The best intentions have splashed the pot with concessional capital, destroying markets.

The recipe is clear:
+ add value
- reduce venture (i.e., risk capital)
∆ dogmatically measure, tweak and try again

We have a denominator problem, measured in time - we can no longer afford to be idle or patient.  We must add more value or underwrite risk better.  Hence value(venture) or add(venture), although there may be a third low-investment path worth seeding.

These principles consistently deliver sustainable growth and need only be applied to this problem.

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