(2021-08-18) On Deck Organizing The Worlds Ambition

OnDeck: Organizing the World’s Ambition. Below we share five independent ideas at the core of On Deck, and attempt to weave them into an updated, ambitious vision of the future:

1. Silicon Valley is a mindset, and it lives on the Internet

in 2020, something changed. The world undertook a grand experiment called "working remotely" ...and it worked!

It’s not just the radical thinking and risk-taking that makes SV special. It’s the support for that kind of philosophy and behavior, the relentless ambition and curiosity, and the positive-sum mentality — all creating a culture of empowerment.

2. Education is continuous: Find your people (tribe), learn to build (maker), build to learn

The old way of doing education is broken—we can all see that

The half-life of the average professional skill has fallen to five years, and less than three years for technical skills. To get ahead—or even just to not fall behind—you need to be constantly learning.*

Over the last decade, many have tried to unbundle the university. Massive open online courses (“MOOCs”) unbundled the education component, but largely fell short of the hype, failing to grasp a critical component of the process: ‍Learning is defined by who you learn with — the context, respect, and perspective you develop among the camaraderie of the “classroom.”

On Deck is special because it re-bundles community with learning and a commitment to outcomes.

3. Stanford University was the linchpin of early Silicon Valley, organizing ambition and making it legible to the “market”

Stanford University's most significant contribution to early Silicon Valley was that of organizing, catalyzing, and amplifying the ambition of those who wanted to get into the technology industry.

the University became a marketplace of ideas, talent, and capital.

Competitive entry, a strong entrepreneurial cultural undercurrent, and proximity to inspiring role models reduced the cost of coordination such that talented people could find one another, complementary ideas, and capital to pursue their ambitions faster.

4. Organizing the world’s ambition

Google’s early years were defined by a now-famous slogan: "Organizing the world's information."

5. The Market for Solutions

Financing is cheaper than ever

We believe the following three statements are simultaneously true, but shouldn’t be:

There are trillions of dollars of value locked up in unsolved problems

There is substantial “human capital” sitting on the sidelines.

One way to try to frame this contradiction is as a market failure.

Weaving it all together

On Deck is a network of networks — a global community where ambitious, talented people start and scale companies, accelerate their careers, learn and build together.

Humanity primarily progresses through technology; great technology companies all start out as startups—but for everyone starting a company today, there are hundreds more sitting on the sidelines.

As Stanford was to Silicon Valley, On Deck will be to the internet: helping hundreds of thousands of talented people find the right collaborators to build with, and access a rich talent asset for future hiring; find the right problems to work on, and validate them with access to early customers and advisors; access capital from the right backers at the right time, with innovative early financing products and connections to downstream investors, and learn the right skills at the right time, and access knowledge as they need them.