Dr. Peter H. Diamandis (www.diamandis.com) is the famous author of Bold and Abundance. He is also a superpreneur and amazing innovator. A good picture about him is given by Tim Ferriss in Tools of Titans. Peter Diamandis is one of the co-founders of Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company in which the Luxembourgish government invested. Peter has a set of rules that should be an inspiration for any superpreneur. You can download the 28 Peter’s Laws here.
I would like to detail some of them that can really help you to build breakthrough companies and impact the world.
“Rule # 3: Multiple projects lead to multiple successes”
While we have often been told to focus to one project at once, I am on agreement with Peter Diamandis. Look for example at Elon Musk. He didn’t find any company able to launch rockets at affordable costs, and then he created SpaceX. He could not find any electric car that he would love himself to drive, so he created Tesla. He is using many top-notched and innovative manufacturing techniques developed for SpaceX for the manufacturing of Model S and Model X. He also founded SolarCity and you can recharge your car using solar energy in your home. Hence, working on multiple projects can actually lead to multiple successes, moreover if the various projects are part of a global strategy. In the case of Musk, his long-term vision is to establish a permanent basis on planet Mars, and all the technologies developed in SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity will be required at some point.
“Rule #17: The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!”
The creation of Planetary Resources is the perfect application of this rule. Mankind has always dreamed to live in the outer space. But how to achieve it? Peter and the other co-founders of Planetary Resources have a simple but bold vision. Let’s extract the resources required to build equipment, machines, living spaces, … directly from space. In particular, the asteroids have thousands of tons of the minerals and other materials that we need. Thanks to 3D printing, a fascinating exponential technology, it is then possible to build anything we want directly into space. In-space manufacturing is at early stage today but it will be a major area in coming years. In one sense, we can state that the founders of Planetary Resources are creating themselves the future!
“Rule #20: If you think it is impossible, then it is … for you”
This rule should be the motto of any superpreneur. If you want really impact the world and create something extraordinary that can solve big problems we are facing today, then yes, probably, many people think that it’s impossible. Tim Ferriss tells it differently
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do”.
Don’t we think that war will always exist because fighting is deeply anchored in the human nature? The survival crocodile brain … Well, perhaps, but why some superpreneurs could not create Universities/Schools that learn the peace? War is teached in military academies. But why peace could not be teached too? Why is it impossible to train a new generation of super diplomats that are master in peace?
Google, Airbus and many others are working on flying cars. Imagine a world where there is no traffic jam any more, simply because we use the third vertical dimension in addition to the current 2D earth surface with the roads. Impossible should challenge you, as a superpreneur, rather than stopping you!
“Rule #22: The day before something is a breakthrough it’s a crazy idea”
When I was a child I loved to watch Star Trek. Do you remember Captain Kirk and his team using a small pocket phone where they could see each other? This was certainly a crazy idea in the sixties. A few decades later, Steve Jobs created the iPhone and everybody said that it was a breakthrough idea.
“Rule #27: The world’s most precious resource is the persistent and passionate human kind”
Elon Musk spent 10 years before having his first successes with SpaceX. He was persistent and passionate. I had the chance to participate in the mass digitalization of the cinema in Europe through a Belgian startup, and we took almost 7-10 years before really become a sustainable large company. We were persistent and passionate. I should probably add persistence and passion together with super-efficiency, boldness and smart thinking as prime qualities/skills to be developed by any superpreneur.
Another interesting set of rules which can inspire superpreneurs are the Google Innovation Rules, as follows:
- Focus on the user
- Share everything
- Look for ideas everywhere
- Think big, start small
- Never fail or fail well
- Spark with imagination
- Be a platform
- Have a mission that matter
Rule #1 points out the importance of the user experience. You can have the best idea but it will be useless if the user experience is miserable.
Rule #2 is the essence of the sharing economy.
Rule #3 is just nothing else that cultivating curiosity, open-minded spirit which is prevalent in the globalization characterizing the age of acceleration.
Rule #4 is another way for the [amazon_textlink asin=’0887306667′ text=’Law of Category’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’superpreneur3-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’6d4d4a0d-26e4-11e7-86d9-49bd123a40a3′]
Rule #5 admits that if you do not fail often, you are not trying hard enough
Rule #6 points out the importance to be super creative and this shall ignite breakthrough projects. This is very like Peter’s Law #22
Rule #7 argues that anything should be a platform. It’s true that most of the biggest business successes today are built around a platform. Look at the GAFA companies. Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are all platforms. However, I bet that some tomorrow major successes will not especially be platforms. Think for example at Planetary Resources mentioned earlier.
Rule #8 is nothing else that any superpreneur should try to impact the world. Larry Page, Google’s founder, said it once very clearly
“I now have a very simple metric I use: Are you working on something that can change the world? Yes or no? The answer for 99.99999% of people is ‘no’. I think we need to be training people on how to change the world.”
As I hope you should now understand from my blogs, a superpreneur is someone who would answer ‘yes’ to Larry Page’s question!
