Facing Chaotic Times as Early-Stage Investors
Usually, at the start of the new year, it’s natural to make predictions about the year ahead. But this year is different.
As 2023 begins, the world is simply too chaotic for realistic predictions. Anyone who thinks they know what’s going to happen this coming year is fooling themselves and everyone around them.
With a festering war in Europe and all the associated consequences it brings, global warming’s disruptive hand pounding across the globe, rising tribalism, economic instability, fraying social fabrics, and a myriad of other shocks to the world system, we have never faced this much uncertainty at the macro level.
So as early-stage investors, whose choices are made on an analysis of future value, what do we do?
It’s tempting right now to etch scenarios of despair, destruction, deconstruction, and dystopia from the world around us. We could be looking at hard times a hundred times over in the months ahead. But as investors, we must fall on the side of optimism.
History says, however bad things look, the future is actually likely to be on the bright side. Humankind has plowed its way through dark skies many times — it will surely navigate its way through the current turbulence, one way or another.
While we need to be careful and conservative in our decisions, we also need to retain our sense of hope and potential, celebrate the courage and genius of the entrepreneurs we serve, and do our part to transform the tiny penlights our young investments represent into blazing torches that will light our way forward.
By Managing Partner Mike Edelhart
@MikeEdelhart
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