Good evening.

Today’s update is a bit more meta. When I started this newsletter last month I wanted to focus on exploring the innovation stack that will power wealth creation and human prosperity in a post-COVID world. In my December 29 update, I wrote:

Already in 2020 we’ve seen the distribution of healthcare, education, and work into private homes. Resilience and sustainability will take on new meaning and climb higher on the board room agenda. Here, brand-building, digital, and value investing each plays a key role in disruption and wealth creation.

Further afield, the second decade of the 21st century may mark the beginning of sustained human presence in space, funded by a vibrant private sector that brings out the best of capitalist competition and the human spirit.

For basic level-setting, over the last two weeks I’ve pored over surveys others have done, taking advantage of the Internet’s wonderful attribute of an infinite abundance of niches. While almost all of the reports were insightful, I found a particular style to be not only the most convincing but also motivating: effective data analysis combined with storytelling.

The most public and longest-running report of this style is probably Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. In this annual series, Meeker works data as a master quilter works her cloth and tells a spellbinding narrative of what’s happening in tech, why it’s important, and what opportunities may be discerned for the savvy investor, analyst, or entrepreneur.

But I want to drive a finer point. What differentiates Mary Meeker’s report is not so much that there is an abundance of data, but the ratio of data over words is so high. While it’s standard practice for most reports to feature a thematic narrative with data as support, Meeker’s report drives the narrative predominately with data, and visualized data in particular, and sprinkles text only as absolutely necessary.

The psychology of how all of this works has become better documented and publicized in recent times. Ironically, if we cast our glance at history, the power of visualized storytelling has long been understood and worked into our vernacular:

* A good sketch is better than a long speech. (French: Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours.) — Napoleon Bonaparte

* A poet would be overcome by sleep and hunger before being able to describe with words what a painter is able to depict in an instant. — Leonardo da Vinci

* To see once is better than to hear a hundred times. — Ban Gu

For readers interested in more examples of this presentations style, I have included a few links below.

* Europe, Unicorns, and Global Tech Diffusion by Benedict Evans

* The State of the French Tech Ecosystem in 2020 by Alexandre Dewez

* State of AI Report 2020 by Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth

Which brings me back to why I believe this is a superpower in entrepreneurship, and that is an entrepreneur’s effectiveness at ethical persuasion. Remember, in business, a picture is visualized data analysis. Use it well, and use it often.

Thank you for your support. If you’ve been forwarded this update, please consider subscribing below.

From Aspen, Colorado 🇺🇸

Victor

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iondrive.substack.com