1080, the Cannonball Run & the Entrepreneurial Spirit

In this unusual period, there are so many amazing things going on in the world.

Take Gui Khury as an example. This dude is an 11-year-old(!) skateboarder from Brazil that just landed the world's first-ever "1080" on a vert ramp (three full spins on a standard half-pipe ramp/check out the insanely gnarly feat here). And he is definitely our kind of guy: blowing off studying and virtual school to take skateboarding to a new level.

Or how about all the people breaking the Cannonball Run records recently? For the uninformed, this is the completely illegal but simple non-stop road race across America against a clock. The unofficial official starting point is at the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan and ends at the Portofini Inn in Redondo Beach, California. There is no set course and no governing body, but nowadays everyone is filming their runs in order to timestamp for verification and infamy. Get this: taking advantage of a nation in lock-down and reduced traffic in the last five weeks, the record has been beaten an astonishing seven times! The new record is now a mind-boggling run that was clocked at less than 26 hours (get more details here)!

Both examples, in our opinion, exhibit the important components of the entrepreneurial spirit.

Know this: there is no standard definition of the entrepreneurial spirit. It is not genetic or taught in a classroom. It is forged within. You get possessed by it. Possessed by approaching life and business with a mindset of relentless optimism, rigorous independence, and unshackled autonomy. Possessed by an indomitable will to do what it takes to get stuff done. Possessed by a way to build something or accomplish something that is advanced by continuous improvement, innovative thinking, and an unstoppable passion to execute. This perpetual pursuit of triumph sometimes ends in failure, but when you are possessed by the entrepreneurial spirit, you will keep trying no matter what.

Khury and the Cannonball Run teams used all the above. The former found his triumph skateboarding on a ramp. He was possessed to land a trick no one on earth has ever landed. The Cannonball Run teams, possessed by their need for speed, relentlessly attacked a challenge with total preparedness, project management smarts, and technology in order to put up times that were unthinkable in recent years.

In broad terms, we like to think the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well right here, right now. And it is the entrepreneurial spirit that can get us out of this unprecedented economic quagmire. Pathetic politicians and policymakers or bullshit bureaucrats cannot do it. The entrepreneurial spirit needs to be unleashed if we want to avoid the long U-shaped recovery that followed the 2008-2009 Great Financial Crisis.

Why do we say this?

We form our strong (but loosely held) opinions about the future by talking to business owners and operators - entrepreneurs - in diverse industries in order to get the lay of the land. We ignore "top-down" macroeconomic predictions and other pseudo-intellectual babble. There is no doubt that some businesses are screwed for an extended period or even forever - think hospitality, leisure, travel, and entertainment industries. In the more cyclical industries (e.g. logistics, electronics, manufacturing) there is movement under foot to improve efficiency, provide better supply chain management, market in new channels, and generally do things better than in the past. If these companies were confused when the crisis first hit, they are determined now. Internal change is quickening due to necessity.

When the entrepreneurial spirit has been unleashed, look out.

Our guess is that the improved efficiency will cause improved productivity. Ultimately, economic growth will follow. We are excited to see the outcome.