Kitty’s Reflections from the All-In Summit, Part 1: What are our action items?

Sep 21

Coco and I attended the All-In Summit last week in the capacity of LAUNCH portfolio company founders (Thank you, JCal!). It was an absolutely incredible experience all around, including the "Athenian Agora" vibes of the top-notch speaker lineup held in the spectacular Royce Hall on UCLA's campus.

Naturally, this was quite inspiring to us, and even though he shared less than encouraging information, we felt particularly privileged to hear Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio's talk on the rise and fall of empires and where the United States is in this cycle (you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8&themeRefresh=1).

If I understood Ray correctly (I am paraphrasing here), the United States' engine has stalled so to speak, and we are now in freefall, almost to the point at which we can expect to enter into conflict with an aspiring World #1, which always leads to a reset of the World Order. And then the cycle begins again. No previous empire has escaped this fate.

I am not an entitled American who expects to be at the top of the food chain in perpetuity, and I think a sustainable + peaceful world order of the future involves partnerships based on shared core values, dignity, and respect. That being said, I have serious concerns about what the apparently inevitable looming world order reset means for humanity. The thing that perhaps bothers me the most is thinking about the harsh realities of life our children could face in a conflict and post-conflict world.

Ray presented the factors that govern these predictable cycles in such a qualitative, historical, comprehensive framework that even my extreme optimism can't envision a positive outcome for this nation without some type of bold, unprecedented action or movement occurring.

Towards the end of his talk, the Besties asked Ray a series of questions (paraphrasing again) to the effect of:

If America wants to stay in the lead position, is there a political solution that allows us to avoid the end of empire? Or is our decline a function of physics?

I think Ray was trying to be positive and realistic; he stopped short of saying that there's nothing we can do and said that we must tackle some big, urgent items:

China-US relations;
Finance (our debt);
Tech; and
the Climate

My interpretation of Ray's message is that the future could be terrible or amazing, and whether we stay on the path toward terrible or make the jump to amazing depends heavily on how we address those issues. And we've got to address them in ways we haven't tried before if we are expecting results that differ from previous periods of decline.

What we must determine is whether there are enough people in this country who a) understand and acknowledge where we are in the cycle; b) recognize the need for a radically new approach; and c) are willing to at least try to be the first humans to engineer a way out of what has until now been a principle, a law, of our existence - this concept of inevitable rise and fall.

How does Ray think we can break the cycle?

a strong middle
reform everything (to close the education, opportunity, and wealth gaps); and
unity

I believe the Bestie response was a mix of: is that naive or feasible?/no, one party, one path has to win.

Most people I talk to don't think achieving these things is possible under current conditions, but I remain hopeful and would like to exchange ideas if you feel strongly on these topics - especially if you have ideas about tackling these issues in novel + tech-enabled ways.

One question I have for AIS attendees specifically is: we had the good fortune of being presented with world-class knowledge, perspective, and energy at this event. Theoretically speaking, do we have obligations associated with that privilege? Should we leave with action items? Has someone taken the lead on that? If we aren't coming up with a plan, who is? Who should be? What do you think? I don't have answers, but I'm very curious to hear other viewpoints.

In related news + coming soon:

Part 2: Why it is irrational to expect our politicians to save us (which I mean with no disrespect); we must save ourselves

Part 3: A few ideas to consider (I will talk about Ray's bipartisan cabinet idea and out-maneuvering our established archetypes)

Part 4: Imagining what a better future looks like; engineering a way for us to collectively manifest and work towards that vision

If you've made it this far, hello and thank you! I hope to hear from you!

Kitty