The Entrepreneurial Age: Networks and a fragmenting world — with Nicolas Colin

Podcast Notes

In this episode we’re speaking to Nicolas Colin, co-founder & director of The Family, a pan-European investment firm founded in 2013 and headquartered in London. Nicolas publishes an extremely valuable newsletter European Straits about entrepreneurship, finance, strategy and policy, with a European perspective. He’s also the author of three books, one of which is Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age and member of the board of directors at Radio France, and a former commissioner at CNIL (the French personal data protection authority). Nicolas also contributes to several other outlets, such as co-host at Nouveau Départ with his wife Laetitia Vitaud (in French), and as columnist at Sifted.

In this conversation, we try to unpack why Nicolas thinks the current crisis is going to accelerate the transition to what he has recently called a more “mature entrepreneurial economy” and what he means with the Entrepreneurial Age is, a concept he uses to describe the networked computing-powered world where individuals — or users — are more important than having fixed assets on a balance sheet. We also talk about the balance between building organizations based on attracting outsiders and the need to be resilient to sudden drops in users, which some tech companies seem to get wrong.

To find out more about Nicolas Colin’s work:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nicolas_Colin
• Newsletter: https://europeanstraits.substack.com/
• Nicolas Colin (2018). Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age: https://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Greater-Safety-Net-Entrepreneurial/dp/1718917082

Other references and mentions:

• Structural Shifts podcast by Aperture, “Previewing the post-Pandemic World”, with Nicolas Colin, Laetitia Vitaud and Ian Charles Stewart: https://medium.com/aperture-hub/previewing-the-post-pandemic-world-17-7be38279c2c7
• Babak Nivi coined the term “Entrepreneurial Age” (2013): https://venturehacks.com/the-entrepreneurial-age
• Carlota Perez’ work on technological revolutions: http://www.carlotaperez.org/
• Balaji Srinivasan On The Argument For Decentralization — Part 1, Pomp Podcast #295: https://youtu.be/SU6H-5kA0FA
• Fernand Braudel, on Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, in 3 volumes: https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Century-Vol/dp/0520081145:
• Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast
• Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on May 29th 2020

Key Insights

1. The Entrepreneurial Age, first coined by Babak Nivi in 2013, refers to an economy that’s supported by computing and networks, where individuals are empowered by technology to enterprise and are connected through networks. The entrepreneurial age is not a society in which everyone is an entrepreneur: it’s a society in which organisations or businesses compete on entrepreneurial capability. It’s also a time to fully reckon with the fact that there’s more power outside than inside organisations.

2. Relying on networks and individuals (users) implies a high level of instability, since you cannot “own” users like assets on a balance sheet, only attract them to play in your court. In the Entrepreneurial Age, organisations thus need to be paying a lot of attention to what individuals need and be ready to experiment at a very fast pace in order to capture network effects that can be converted into profits (knowing that you cannot “count” on them as a stable status quo). A strong core of “insider entrepreneurs” are needed to provide resilience for organisations in this fast changing context. How to keep and attract this core? Provide stability, predictability and dignity allowing them to be proud of their contribution.

3. In the context of a fragmenting world, we’re likely to see several expressions of the Entrepreneurial Age. Nicolas believes that Europe will soon be “on its own”, as opposed to forming that Western bloc with the US, providing (more than only a threat) an opportunity to push our local ecosystems and to build European capitalist empires, while generating surplus that enables Europe to remain among the most advanced and developed regions in the world and invest in a new social contract fit for the Entrepreneurial Age.

? Boundaryless Conversations Podcast is about exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous.