“Entrance to Heaven” by Oscar
It’s been an interesting 2012 so far. And if the world happens to end by december, then I have spent the last days on earth working for nothing. My guess is that the world is not ending. My guess is that a new age is being born, the age where our little friend the micro chip and us will be more intimate than ever.
“Spheres” by Oscar
Since I began my quest to interpret the world and encapsulate my perspective through art, I have found many things that I would never have expected. The first thing that I found, was that art is not just visual, as a matter of fact, its not just physical. Art can be found everywhere from Architecture and Engineering to Medicine and Business. Its all there, staring back at you with the memory of one thousand exponential ancestors. The craziest thing is that the more you know about everything, the more you begin to make sense of things that once were invisible.
“Pythagorean Sky” by Oscar
One of the first artists I knew and my favorite artists till this day is Salvador Dali. I had the pleasure of seeing his amazing work in various part of the hemisphere.
“Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory” Dali, 1954
Most of his work I understood immediately. It was the surreal content that he became famous for, but there was other work that made no sense to me. It was his late work. Fast forward a decade or so, and I have finally begun to figure out where he was in his intellect and his understanding, fascination and frustrations of the world. As I learned more about life in my terms, I began to assimilate to the work he was creating. Is as though every so often when I would figure something out about life, I unlocked a new concept in one of his paintings.
“Gala looking into the mediterranean sea” Dali, 1976
And this is why even after all these years, the madman that everyone carelessly forgot about, resonates so deep in my yet to be made memories. It makes me exited and looking forward to all the new things I will learn as I go.
“The Swallow’s Tail” Dali, 1983
An other artists that inspired me to make the leap into the unknown is Da Vinci. I always wondered how he became so smart and so creative, in ways that seemed more than human. I mean he created art and a bunch of crazy machines and innovations, like the crossbow:
or wings!
He also created “The Last Supper” depiction which brings me to the entrepreneurship…
You are probably familiar with the famous image of Jesus having his last meal with his disciples. But you rarely see this image in the actual wall it was painted on. As you can see on the image above, the image was painted on a wall and that wall contains other images. The images above the last supper are emblems, shields of the family that commissioned Da Vinci to paint the famous painting. What does this have to do with entrepreneurship you ask? Well, the fact that Da Vinci did not create the painting to satisfy his fascination and intellect. He made the painting because his business was art. He was an entrepreneur that got paid to make ideas and then got paid more to make them come to life.
Not all creative people are successful entrepreneurs. The ones that are not fearless enough to make a business of their own art end up becoming apprentices or assistants to the artists that took the leap. One of my favorite inventors was Nikola Tesla, one of the smartest and craziest people that the planet has seen. You would think that some one that smart would be able to capitalize on his creativity.
The truth is that he died a bankrupt, lone man. Some of his innovations were far superior than other innovators at the time, like Thomas Edison. The difference is that Edison knew money and how it worked, resulting in Tesla working under Edison. Had Tesla mastered money the same way that Edison mastered it, the world may have been a bit different. The lesson here is that Ideas are cheap and if anyone got rich by coming up with ideas, I like any other artist would be billionaires. The bottom line is that an idea is worthless in our Capitalistic world. In order for an idea to be influential, it has to make money. Just look at the last supper painting by Da Vinci, its still making money even today.
This brings me to my own endeavors. As I sit here looking for inspiration to keep on going with my bootstrapped ideas, I made an observation that is encouraging me to keep on going. I noticed that the shields on top of the last supper look like badges.
I take this as a sign that the company I co-founded, Badger Media Inc. has a chance to make it. The same way that a noble family made a shield to represent their kingdom, people can create a badge to represent their wisdom.
We are in the process of rolling out a new website that will allow people to explore and participate in the mapping of things easier and to share not only with other people on badger, but with people in other networks like facebook or twitter. There is more coming too!
The truth is that being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. It take more than guts, it takes fearlessness and a bit of recklessness. In today’s society, we are taught to follow rules, stay inside the lines and to take others into consideration. These are good rules, it makes great workers. As an entrepreneur that sees flaws in the current system, I realize that the status quo is wrong. You cannot expect to have a kick ass company if all your “workers” are followers. Its kind of like a team that requires the acknowledgment of its captain before doing anything; that team will clearly not win any games. What you need is thinkers that will talk the talk and walk the walk. Thinkers that deliver. Of course that is all an optimistic point of view on business. So I will seattle for people who are willing to push the status quo just a tiny bit.
As you can probably tell by my blabbing, I’m clearly a rookie at entrepreneurship. I feel like I’ve been in an internship to learn how to make companies come alive, build them from the ground up. And from the looks of it, i’m only getting started. Stay tuned for more companies. Companies are the new art… or are they the new black..?
…in other news, the Enterprise zoomed by NYC today:
original by rui here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rux-shots-here/6972894844/in/photostream