💡 Musings of the Angry Optimist: Creating small crises for oneself

My thoughts, tips, and other tidbits that I believe are suited for a fact-based optimist. This newsletter is for you who are a Premium Supporter at Warp News. Feel free to share it with friends and acquaintances.

🏴 The value of small crises

If you'll excuse me, I'd like to get a bit personal for a moment.

There are some decisions in my life that I'm especially pleased with. They haven't been the easy choice, have been questioned by others, and have created small crises in my life.

Mini-crisis one

The first was to leave politics. I had a good political career. Member of Parliament with increasingly important assignments, such as member of the Finance Committee and economic policy spokesperson. If I had stayed, I would have run for party leader. I wouldn't have been the favorite, but Johan Pehrson came in last in the party leader vote when Jan Björklund was to be replaced and is now the party leader. This doesn't mean I would have been in his place now, but there was reason to consider that my political future had potential.

I realized this when I decided not to run for re-election. I enjoyed politics, but had found something even more important to me – Warp Institute – but also extremely much more uncertain. Everything had to be built up from scratch, by myself and my co-founders.

Building up Warp Institute and Warp News has been very difficult and worthless for my personal finances. But still completely worth it.

Mini-crisis two

The second decision was linked to an involuntary crisis. Warp News ran out of money in the winter of 2022-23. We were growing too slowly. People who discovered us liked what they saw and a high proportion became paying members. But too few knew we existed. I got an offer from a venture partner, with two people I would have gladly worked with. But something gnawed at me. What would actually change? Nothing, probably. In 12 months we would need money again and if we didn't change anything fundamentally, the same problem would remain.

But I really had no choice. Warp News' money was gone and so was my own. Maybe it was time to end this hobby and get myself a lucrative (and probably fun) job in tech?

No, I decided (with strong support from my wife) to say no and implement a major change. Costs were reduced to a minimum. All freelancers and everyone else working with Warp News had to go. It stung for everyone, but I saw no other way forward. I managed to hook up a new investor who gave us a three-month lifeline. It was enough, but in May we were very close to going under.

But what this did was free up my time. Instead of being a rather poor CEO, I focused on things I'm good at. I started writing everything myself and had time to get speaking engagements and appear in other media. It went slowly, but more and more new readers found us.

Above all, this gave me the opportunity to deep dive into generative AI and not least experiment myself. AI wasn't in my thoughts when the decision was made, but emerged as an unexpected opportunity. My AI engagement has made the demand for talks increase significantly, which provides both revenue and readers to Warp News.

Mini-crisis three

The third decision I've made very recently. The demand for my AI talks has, as mentioned, increased and it would be very good both financially and reader-wise to say yes to most of it. Instead, I've decided to severely limit my speaking engagements for a while.

The reason is that I'm focusing on writing a new book about AI. I'm taking a broad approach to AI and have much higher ambitions than for my previous book. I wrote that book quickly, but this time it's going slowly. The research is extensive and I'm also conducting several interviews.

If I were to say yes to all lectures, while producing news and my own texts for Warp News, the book would probably never be finished. I believe the book has a greater chance of becoming a lever for Warp News than anything else. I gain deeper knowledge, become better at storytelling and get lots of interesting insights and contacts through the interviews. If the book sells well, many will find Warp News. If the book sells poorly, I've still achieved several positive aspects that will help Warp News.

We'll see how this third decision plays out. However it turns out, I'm satisfied that I've resisted the easy decisions. It would have been easier to continue in politics, to shut down Warp News and work in tech, or to now cash in readers and money through talks.

Not making the easy decisions creates small crises. It's tough, but incredibly developing.

Mathias Sundin
Angry Optimist

❗ Other stuff

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🌏 China will not dominate the world unless it becomes a democracy

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Warp NewsMathias Sundin