In this internal Slash talk (2019) we covered: 1) the underlying dynamics that accelerate the exponential change we're seeing across society, tech and climate. 2) We summarized 2 books and highlighed key ideas: - Thank you for being late (Thomas Friedman) - Homo Deus (Yuval Noah Harari) 3) the implication for Slash

1. The age of acceleration
and great societal shift
Prepared for Slash Office talk
Phnom Penh, 21 November 2019
1

2. Slash (www.slash.co) – Hi Tech Startup Studio
2016
founded
3
offices
Singapore
Phnom Penh
Bali
45+
people
Engineers
Product builders
Venture builders
2

3. 30+
clients
Slash: We build startups. We help clients.
fintech
logistics
enterprise software
education
media
property
insurance
travel
government
1 sold
3 killed
6 growing
10
startups
9+
industries
3

4. THE FUTURE IS FASTER THAN YOU THINK
www.slash.co 4

5. YOUR FIRST 100 CUSTOMERS
BOOK
SUMMARY +
NOTES
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6. THE CHESSBOARD LEGEND
www.slash.co 6

7. FORCES SHAPING THE WORLD
www.slash.co 7

8. 21st CENTURY MUST BECOME “CENTURY OF ENVIRONMENT”
www.slash.co 8
“Nature’s last stand? Are we the last generation that can experience true wilderness …?”

9. 9
#1 Computational
Abundance (Moore’s Law)
#2 Tech as Open Interfaces
& Building Blocks
#3 De-monitization #4 Capital Abundance

10. ASTRO TELLER GRAPH
www.slash.co 10
Mr Astro Teller

11. REDUCE CHALLENGE TO 4 NUMBERS
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1bn
Middle class + elite
secure assets
high and secure income
2bn
new urbanites
1.5bn
“in transition”
2.5bn
rural poor
moved to cities <15y ago
some assets, income
feel nervous, work pressure
by globalization & tech
recently moved to cities
virtually no assets or income
roadside stalls etc
subsistence farmers
not joined global economy
if climate change: migrate
or…?

12. DO WE PADDLE, OR STALL?
www.slash.co 12
“If you drag paddle too
long, you flip over! ”
“Only way to steer a fast
moving canoe is to paddle
fast enough to keep up.”
“…but we need to cushion
or stall the worst…! ”
The Canoe Metaphor

13. CAN EVERYONE KEEP UP?
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Industrial
Economy
Key resource
=
physical capital
low-skilled labor
Service
Economy
Key resource
=
Intangible assets
(methods, designs,
software, patents)
Knowledge
Economy
Key resource
=
human capital
(talent, skills, empathy,
creativity, tacit know-how)
Algorithmic
Economy
Key resource
=
data, algorithms, and
human-machine
collaboration
Perhaps the most important question of our time ….

14. 14
"The 1-2-3 industrial revolution was a couple of ten-million people
story. This 4th industrial revolution is a “couple of billion person”
story. And we are just at the beginning of it…”
- Thomas Friedman
“The factory of the future will have only 2 employees, a man and a
dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to
keep the man from touching the equipment”
- Warren Bennis, management speaker

15. YOUR FIRST 100 CUSTOMERS
BOOK
SUMMARY +
NOTES
15

16. 16
More people die because of lifestyle diseases
(cancer, heart, etc) than of hunger and war.
Coca Cola and McDonalds are becoming
more dangerous than falling bombs ...

17. 17
With problems of “human survival” (disease, hunger,
war) increasingly being solved in 21st Century …
… humans will set their dreams higher and focus on
God-like pursuits of immortality, enduring
happiness & wellbeing and creating/destroying life.

18. 18
From Homo Sapiens … … to Homo Deus

19. 3 WAYS HUMANS ARE BECOMING GOD-LIKE?
www.slash.co 19
Synthetic happiness
on-demand
Immortality
Live “forever”
Super-human,
God-like capabilities
to create & edit life

20. 20

21. THE GREAT ”DECOUPLING” OF FEELING & REASON
www.slash.co 21
AI Sapience (“ability to reason”) beats Human Sentience (“ability to feel”)
Non-conscious AI will know us better than ourselves.
We’ll rely on algorithms to guide our life, love and work.

22. “I ❤ YOUR ALGORITHMS”
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New ‘religion’ or ideology of
Dataism, gives rise to an algocracy.
Algorithms have power.
We replace a homo-centric
worldview in favour of a data-centric
worldview.

23. THE INTERNET OF ALL THINGS (AKA THE MATRIX)
www.slash.co 23
If humankind acts as a single data-
processing system
our output will be
the creation of a new and even more
efficient data-processing system,
aka “Internet-of-All-Things”
Once accomplished what will “Homo
Sapiens” become?

24. IS ”TECHNO-HUMANISM” OUR FUTURE?
www.slash.co 24
We will turn to tech to
upgrade ourselves
Biological (genetic)
engineering, cyborg
(bionic) engineering and
computer (AI) engineering)

25. DOOM SCENARIO: RISE OF A ”USELESS”-CLASS?
www.slash.co 25
Cost of upgrading will be
expensive and reserved to a tiny
elite.
The masses may see their jobs
disappear and may not be able
to sell their labor. Perhaps only
their own data?

26. CAN WE CREATE A MORE
HUMAN INCLUSIVE FUTURE?
www.slash.co 26

27. How does this impact
the way we run Slash?
Prepared for Slash Office talk
Phnom Penh, 21 November 2019
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28. SOME PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR SLASH
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1) Our culture focuses on helping you become the best you and become
future-proof. Grow, evolve, grow! We do this by running a freedom-centric
organization where everyone has a role, and roles can evolve.
2) As a business we can inspire positive impact with our actions and our profit.
We believe in PURPOSE and PROFIT, and a “People-Profit Happy” business.
3) Technological products have the power to help societies find a path where
humans still own their future. We need to become top-class at Tech, Product
and bringing them to Market.

29. WE ARE BUILDING A HUMAN COMPANY
IN AN AGE OF MACHINES …
www.slash.co 29

30. WHY DO WE RUN A
FREEDOM-CENTRIC ORGANIZATION?
www.slash.co 30

31. Netflix put it better than we ever could

32. Our model is to increase
employee freedom as we grow,
rather than limit it,
to continue to attract and nourish innovative people,
so we have better chance of
sustained success

33. Most companies curtail freedom as they get bigger

34. Why Do Most Companies
Curtail Freedom
and Become Bureaucratic
as they Grow?

35. Desire for bigger positive impact creates growth

36. Growth creates complexity

37. Growth also often shrinks talent density

38. Chaos emerges

39. Process emerges to stop the chaos

40. Process-focus drives more talent out

41. A highly-successful process-driven company
–With leading share in its market
–Minimal thinking required
–Few mistakes made – very efficient
–Few curious innovator-mavericks remain
–Very optimized processes for its existing market
–Efficiency has trumped flexibility
Process brings seductively strong near-term
outcomes

42. ● Market shifts due to new technology or competitors or business
models
● Company is unable to adapt quickly
• – because the employees are extremely good at following the
existing processes, and process adherence is the value system
● Company generally grinds painfully into irrelevance
At some point, the Market Shifts and turns on you …

43. 1. Stay creative by staying small, but therefore have less impact
2. Avoid rules as you grow, and suffer chaos
3. Use process as you grow to drive efficient execution of current
model, but cripple creativity, flexibility, and ability to thrive when
your market eventually changes
How to resolve? 3 seemingly bad options...

44. ● Avoid chaos as you grow with ever more High Performance
People
– Not with rules
– Then you can continue to mostly run informally with self-
discipline, and avoid chaos
– The “run informally” part is what enables and attracts creativity
The 4th Option

45. Key = increase Talent Density faster than Complexity Grows

46. Increase talent density
• Attract high-value people through
freedom to make big impact
• Be demanding about high performance
culture
• Good compensation and perks

47. Minimize complexity growth

48. With the Right People,
Instead of a
Culture of Process Adherence,
We have a Culture of
Creativity and Self-Discipline,
Freedom and Responsibility

49. Is Freedom Absolute?
Are all rules & processes bad?

50. 5
0
Freedom is not absolute
It’s like Free Speech.
There are some exceptions to “freedom at work”

51. 1. Prevent irrevocable disaster
– Financials produced are wrong
– Hackers steal our customers’ credit card info
2. Moral, ethical, legal issues
– Dishonesty, harassment are intolerable
3. Respect and professionalism
Freedom is not absolute. Two types of
Necessary Rules

52. ● Just fix problems quickly
– High performers make very few errors
● We’re in a creative-inventive market, not a safety-critical market like
medicine or nuclear power
● You may have heard preventing error is cheaper than fixing it
– Yes, in manufacturing or medicine, but…
– Not so in creative environments
Mostly, Rapid Recovery is the right
model

53. •“Good” process helps talented people get more done
– Letting others know when you are updating code
– Spend within budget each quarter so don’t have to coordinate every spending decision across company
– Regularly scheduled planning and progress meetings
• “Bad” process tries to prevent recoverable mistakes
– Get pre-approvals for $20 spending
– 3 people to sign off on demos, deployments, creatives
– Permission needed to hang a poster on a wall
– Multi-level approval process for projects
– Get 6 people to interview each candidate
Good vs Bad process

54. ● “Bad” processes tend to creep in
–Preventing errors just sounds so good
● Opportunity to try to get rid of rules when we can, to reinforce the point?
Rule Creep

55. There is no clothing policy at Slash, but no one comes to work naked
Discussion: how many policies do we need?
“Act in Slash best interest”

56. EVERYONE HAS A ROLE TO PLAY
TO MAKE THE SLASH VILLAGE RUN
www.slash.co 56

57. 57
QUESTIONS?
andries@slash.co