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Happy Sunday morning and welcome back to our 112th edition of The Sunday Morning Newsletter!
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#1: Leaders Need Scenario Planning to Survive
Daniel W. Rasmus - Chief Learning Officer
The world we live in, and its future, is incredibly uncertain, with a myriad of possibilities ahead of us. Leadership has often neglected this fact throughout history, positioning the background conditions of laws, democracy, protection, public trust, climate stability, reliable institutions, and more as facts of life—not things that need to be maintained and made prosperous.
Even now, most leadership programs still teach people how to manage what’s going on right now as well as possible. Manage current crises, solve problems, and teach people what they need to do now. Unfortunately, this is reactive leadership, and the world needs more proactive leadership today.
These skills matter—don’t get me wrong—but what matters most is understanding how the underlying world is changing, adapting with that change, and looking ahead to how today’s world may differ from tomorrow’s.
The solution? Scenario planning is a foundational leadership skill that should be more commonplace, rather than reserved for occasional yearly planning sessions or siloed in one position. Rasmus says it well:
Traditional scenario planning often begins by distinguishing relatively predetermined forces from critical uncertainties. Demographics, infrastructure cycles, capital intensity, regulatory trajectories and technological diffusion have often served as relatively durable drivers around which scenarios could be constructed. The method still has value. But leaders must now recognize that many forces once treated as durable social infrastructure have proven more fragile than assumed.
If you are a leader, invest in yourself and learn how to be more future-oriented. If you’re a follower, encourage leaders around you to look to the future and understand scenarios of what may be coming.
#2: Elon Musk’s Risk Philosophy
Guillermo Flor - LinkedIn
“Failure is irrelevant unless it is catastrophic.”
What would our world look like if we all held this mindset?
In creating Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures, Elon has embedded this idea throughout his enterprises, to great success.
This contrasts best with SpaceX’s approach to rocketship building compared to historic examples. At SpaceX, the philosophy is much more fail fast, figure out what doesn’t work, then iterate and do it better next time. Historically, however, the philosophy was more like: we need to plan, strategize, and double-check everything because we only get one chance, so it needs to be good.
Most founders take this approach—they think one failure proves they aren’t a good founder. Those who get back up, and keep getting back up, succeed in the long run.
Knowing the difference between a wound and a fatal blow is critical.
#3: Google & Constellation Announce Landmark Agreement
Constellation Energy
Google and Constellation Energy announced last week a long-term partnership to create 890 MW of new, reliable nuclear capacity for the grid. For reference, this equates to around ~3-4 full-scale nuclear reactors.
Over the next 20 years, the agreement will enable investments in new equipment and technology at 11 Constellation-owned nuclear units in the Northeast.
Additionally, this agreement supports roughly 4,000 existing jobs and creates over 7,000 new construction jobs during the building period, with over $4B in investment.
Underpinning this agreement is strong demand from manufacturing, industrial electrification, and digital infrastructure, which is accelerating the need for energy (clean energy) across the United States and the broader globe.
This isn’t the first time a large technology provider has partnered with a utility provider to secure access to future energy, but it’s one of the largest partnerships to date.
Electricity costs are already rising with this demand, and those looking to the future are preparing for the inevitable.
#4: Why Your Grocery Bill Will Get Worse
Kathleen Kingsbury & Peter R. Orszag - The New York Times
In a new paper, Peter Orszag argued that geopolitically driven supply shocks, rather than demand fluctuations, best explain economic volatility.
This exhibits itself in a few ways. For instance, the current debt-financed AI boom could pose economic risks to the United States and the broader world, potentially disrupting major markets if it crashes.
Given the current state of the world, the Federal Reserve is likely to raise rates further, signaling higher grocery prices.
At the same time, despite the recent trend toward nearshoring and onshoring, the United States’ technology infrastructure and growth largely depend on Taiwan.
For decades, the United States expanded globalization, increasing the diversity of sourcing goods and services. Now, the global economy is fracturing. We’ve built tremendous supply chains with multiple single points of failure, all threatening to collapse at any moment.
Any variation in economic or business activity is largely coming from the supply side, not the demand side, ushering in a new era of economics and policy. How do you manage the economy and geopolitical situations when supply is critical but demand continues? How do you mitigate sources of potential collapse?
#5: Solar Boom is Transforming Emerging Economies
Kira Schacht - DW
Renewable energy is cheaper than ever, thanks to Wright’s law scale factors.
Access is more widespread than ever.
As emerging economies and global living standards rise, emerging economies and developing nations are increasingly investing in renewable electricity.
Current conflicts worldwide, especially in OPEC nations, have shown the world’s continued dependence on fossil fuels—prices are skyrocketing, causing ripple effects across economies, cultures, and individual lives.
Emerging and developing economies crave access to domestically sourced renewable energy and its benefits, which can enable long-term success.
These countries have less energy infrastructure built around fossil fuels and are therefore better placed to roll out renewable energy sources faster. Fossil fuel-centric countries are now trying to transition to renewables, but centuries of legacy infrastructure hold them back.
In most cases, solar power is now cheaper to produce than fossil fuel energy, and unlike traditional oil or gas plants, which take years to build and require millions in investment, solar and wind farms can be built quickly and at much lower cost.
That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.
Drew Jackson
Founder & Writer
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