National Service Series: Yancey Strickler
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My guest today is Yancey Strickler (@ystrickler). Yancey is the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter. He's also the author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World. Strickler's book transformed my thinking. He helped me view decisions from a values perspective rather than solely a financial one.
Yancey and I discussed the origins of Kickstarter, how benefit corporations operate, his values system called Bentoism, the 30 Year Theory of change, and much more. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
The purpose of this podcast series is to talk through problems facing the United States and explore the ways in which national service may solve those problems. The more feedback, the better. If you have any questions, comments, or follow-ups to this conversation, please reach out!
Selected links from the show:
Show notes:
1:10 - What is Kickstarter?
5:05 - What makes Kickstarter unique?
8:05 - What is a benefit corporation? And how did Kickstarter become a benefit corporation?
13:10 - Making decisions based on financial maximization versus values maximization.
17:20 - Lack of money doesn't prevent you from making values maximizing decisions.
18:38 - Inflection points can reveal life beyond financial maximization.
21:50 - What is Bentoism?
28:21 - Using your Bento to guide tough decisions.
33:45 - "The real leveling up comes with having a vision for who you want to be and making decisions consistently in that direction."
36:25 - How to apply the Bento to COVID-19.
43:25 - People often overestimate what they can do in a short time and underestimate what they can do in a long time.
45:15 - How The 30 Year Theory of Change applies to national service.
48:50 - How to "sell" compulsory national service to the public.
51:37 - Compulsory service might be easier to sell if it were paired with UBI.
56:40 - Yancey's most influential books.
58:25 - Yancey shares his work.
