A Thanksgiving Toast to Entrepreneurs

This Thanksgiving let’s give thanks to entrepreneurs.

You are all amazing. It’s hard to put a precise number on it, but $100 trillion is a pretty good place to start—that’s the aggregate value of the global stock markets. Not impressive enough? Let’s add $300 trillion, the value of the global debt markets.

Every single one of those dollars is a bet that tomorrow will be more lucrative than today. And entrepreneurs are the engines that power that collective optimism.

Of course, to ensure your company gets its piece of this global gold rush, you need to effectively tell a story that explains why you and your work are worthy. Your company narrative is what translates your countless hours of hard work into something that the outside world can see exploding in value just beyond the next milestone.

The crazy thing is that the future didn’t used to be financially fashionable.

Just a few hundred years ago, the global economy was seen as a zero-sum game. If you opened a new bakery, you were just taking business from someone else. Debt and equity as an investment idea made little sense.

This is partly why it took Christopher Columbus 8 years to convince the king and queen of Spain to fund his quest for a faster route to India.

The returns he provided his venture investors, along with the burgeoning scientific and industrial revolution, shattered the economic pessimism that had trapped mankind for essentially the entirety of history.

Here is what happened next: ?

Look around today, of course, and it’s easy to see the problems facing us—and frustratingly, many (most?) of them are of humanity’s own making. They can seem overwhelming.

But there is also an extraordinary story of success of which we need to remind ourselves periodically.

So as we sit down for Thanksgiving this year, know that the work you do is fundamental to the success of the human experiment.

When you’re writing those Problem/Solution slides for your deck, editing the headline of your new website, or telling someone about your crazy big idea over cocktails, spend a moment to appreciate that your entire endeavor rests on the shared but historically anomalous assumption that there is still enormous room for new wealth-creating inventions.

The Magic of Tomorrow is perhaps the most exciting story humanity has ever devised. Your startup is the latest chapter.

Tell that to any relatives dubious of your career choice around your holiday table this Thursday. And perhaps yourself, during any dark moments.

But also ask yourself—are you writing your chapter as effectively as you can?