A Meaningful Share From Ishan

My good friend, comrade, and collaborator Ishan Shapiro shared something pretty awesome to our Metamaps Google Plus community today. It's about why he chooses this work that we choose. Basically what it says is that today, now more than ever, Ishan is all in for this work. And I am too. Read on to know what work I mean. The following are his words.
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This is a personal share with this community. Today I got offered a job. To take the reins as CEO of an already funded and growing tech company based in Vancouver. 

The founder/funder went on and on about the merits of their technology, what they had built, why it was a recipe for success - also how any millions they were going to raise in their series B round of financing, what reputable PR company they are entering into a $100k contract with. I don't make any judgement on their vision - they're trying to build a powerful and secure collaboration platform for groups to work together. 

I asked him, why me. I'm not proven CEO talent. I've got no huge notches in my belt, successful companies run and revenue generated. He said, because he wanted creativity, and vision - someone young who could lead the company and navigate over the next 5-10 years.

It didn't take long for me to tell him that I wasn't the right person for the job, and wished him the best of luck in his team's endeavors.

Why did I say no? Is it because I couldn't bring success to the company? No. I feel I'm capable enough to lead a team to building technology and 'bring it to market'. But that's not what drives me, what inspires me. I'm in this for a different reason than the money, that bringing a product to market and exploiting a customer base and come up with an exit strategy isn't what this is about. I said no because I am not willing to align myself with a vision which calls their users customers. Not willing to engage in a broken VC model that is fundamentally not aligned with the evolution of value exchange in our society and culture. I told him no because there's no way that he could wrap his head around an open value network, distributed p2p protocols and no centralized control.

The Metamaps project is not about a bottom line. Its about changing the nature of our relationship with ourselves and our communities, through technology. Its about increasing our collective capacity to self-organize and address the wicked challenges we face today and into the future - individually and collectively.

I am so grateful to be doing this work with all of you on Metamaps, with this slowly and steadily growing community, a nascent value network. And I'm thankful to all of you for participating and involving yourself in this diverse and evolving vision - which I am honored to be a part of.

Onwards!
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Feeling magnificently grateful for my friends and collaborators Robert Best, and Ishan Shapiro.

Robert, Ishan, and I at Emerging Leader Labs, August 2013