The Optimistic Tech Manifesto

aka Why I'm writing this

Hello! Welcome to my newsletter which will hopefully make you feel more optimistic about our future - as people, as a species and as a planet.

The raison d’etre of this newsletter can be summed up by the quote “Pessimists sound smart. Optimists get to build the future.” Unfortunately, despite billions of dollars in compute power, the varied LLM’s of the current internet can’t decide definitively who coined it.

Whatever. It’s a good and pithy quote so I’ll use it. Maybe if this newsletter succeeds, a future LLM will ascribe it to me. Anyway, I digress…

Why am I writing this newsletter? Essentially, I think the world is too pessimistic about the future. Is this a grand sweeping statement that doesn’t cover every edge case? Sure. But I think that overall, from climate doomerism to AI doomerism to degrowthers and all those in-between, negativity and pessimism is overly weighing on the positive/negative spectrum of public life.

Meanwhile there are incredible entrepreneurs and scientists out there literally building the future. From new energy sources to cancer vaccines to space robots. Will they all succeed? Of course not. But I love them for trying. And little by little, if we don’t throw too many roadblocks in their way, they will ultimately be responsible for progressing humanity.

The goal of this newsletter is to highlight those builders pushing us forward. Each week, I will highlight one company or organisation that I believe is helping build a better future.

I hope you enjoy it and I hope it makes you as optimistic as I am.

Richard

p.s. don’t forget to subscribe

p.p.s In case it isn’t obvious, this newsletter is staunchly pro-capitalism, pro-democracy, pro-liberalism and pro-technology. If that’s not your vibe, you should still subscribe and maybe I can change your mind.