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Hi, Matt Slater here. I started Stateless after many years of investing both personally and through my prior investment funds. Stateless is the culmination of my investment thesis. It summarizes how I'm placing my bets over the next few decades.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw

Translating this quote to todays world, I argue that all progress depends on the Unreasonable Founder. Founders are the net driver of progress.

During a media tour in 2007 in which Steve Jobs showed the device to reporters, there was one instance in which a journalist criticized the iPhone’s touch-screen keyboard.

“It doesn’t work,” the reporter said.

Jobs stopped for a moment and tilted his head. The reporter said he or she kept making typos and the keys were too small for his or her thumbs.

Jobs smiled and then replied: “Your thumbs will learn.”

I believe we are still in the beginning stages of the technology productivity boom. In the industrial revolution, we multiplied our productivity per capita by using machines to generate leverage on physical labor. The engine, tractors, electricity, automobiles, planes and the assembly line multiplied our productivity output.

Now, technology is taking us on 100 year

What are assumptions people have about the world that everybody believes. But, they are fixed in our minds, not in reality? Some examples are:

1) Does education need to be taught as a formal 4 year college institution? Can we give the young generation the technical skills via 3 month online coding courses?

2) Do we need to solve climate change by reducing carbon emissions or can we solve it by taking out the carbon of the atmosphere faster than we put it in?

3) Are trains and jet-fuel powered airplanes the most efficient way to get around the world? Could we circumvent the globe using sub-orbital flight?

4) Are Tanker ships the optimal way to ship goods around the world? Could a hydroplane boat be better?

5) Is the current cell tower based model of the optimal solution to mobile internet penetration? Could a satellite mesh network be 10x or 100x better?

6) Is the USD the best form of a world reserve currency we have? Would a digitally native, store of value present a better alternative?

7) Is medicine the best way to cure an infected organ or can we regrow the organ using stem cells?

8) Is a bits based transistor computer the optimal way to build a computer? Or could a quantum design computer be a better design?

All of these questions share one thing in common. They question reality using first principles. By removing our human biases for “how we’ve always done things,” we can think more freely about the specific problem we are trying to solve. It is only from a first principle approach that we can arrive at a novel solution. A 0 to 1 solution.

Here are some common traits of good ideas that look like bad ideas:

- Powerful people will dismiss them as toys

- Western union dismissed the telephone when it was invented – they said Why do we need voice? WE have Morse code

- Why do we need email when we have fax machines?

- Why do we need online shopping when I can go down to the mail?

Skype

- Unbundling the functions done by incumbent businesses

- Emerge first as hobbies

Betting against the status quo can be daunting. It can feel like you are alone in space. However, that feeling, of being ahead of the crowd is a good indication you are headed in the right direction. The best companies create their own sectors.

That is why we founded Carbon Ventures. To back incredible founders as they venture into the unknown and to give them both the financial and social capital to push the envelope that much further.

As investors, we are always looking for companies that present asymmetric risk reward. Where the risk is capped (1x our investment) but the reward may be many times the initial capital. 100-1000x multiple potential.