The Builders of the Next Century
Why thinking in decades—not quarters—unlocks the biggest opportunities
👋 Hello! My mission with Beyond with Yon is to ignite awareness, inspire dialogue, and drive innovation to tackle humanity's greatest existential challenges. Join me on the journey to unf**ck the future and transform our world.
Key Takeaways
1️⃣ Short-termism is an existential risk. When we fail to think long-term, we make decisions that serve the next election, not the next century. Climate policies get overturned every four years. AI is built without safeguards. Infrastructure collapses. Playing the long game is necessary for the survival of our civilization.
2️⃣ Long-term thinking unlocks the biggest opportunities. The greatest companies—Amazon, Tesla, Apple—weren’t built for quick exits. The most ambitious innovations—SpaceX’s Mars plans, longevity science, and AI alignment—require patience and vision. The founders and investors who think in decades, not quarters, will define the future.
3️⃣ Existential innovation demands a 100-year mindset. We can’t engineer superintelligence, climate stability, or multi-planetary civilization with short-term incentives. The future will belong to those who dare to build for the next century, not the next funding round.
The Builders of the Next Century
We live in an era obsessed with immediacy. Political leaders think in election cycles. Corporations chase quarterly earnings. Social media reduces discourse to reactionary soundbites. Yet, the existential challenges we face—climate change, AI governance, biosecurity, and interplanetary expansion—are not problems that can be solved in quarterly reports or four-year terms. They demand thinking in decades, not months.
When we fail to think long-term, climate change worsens: policymakers prioritize reelection over difficult but necessary reforms.
When we fail to think long-term, economic inequality deepens because companies chase shareholder profits at the expense of generational wealth-building.
When we fail to think long-term, AI governance lags behind technological progress, leaving civilization vulnerable to uncontrolled exponential intelligence.
When we fail to think long-term, healthcare remains reactive, prioritizing short-term cost-cutting over long-term investments in longevity and disease prevention.
When we fail to think long-term, infrastructure collapses because projects are built for today’s demand, not the next century’s needs.
Short-termism isn’t just inefficient—it’s existentially reckless.
Now it’s as good a time as ever to reclaim a mindset that prioritizes endurance, multi-generational responsibility, and innovation designed to shape humanity’s trajectory for centuries to come.
Long-term thinking matters.
When it comes to climate change, we should be thinking about a 100-year commitment, not a 4-year policy.
Most government climate initiatives are built around election cycles, yet climate action demands commitments that span generations.
Let’s take The Netherlands for reference, which has been engineering against rising seas for over a thousand years. Their Delta Works project, a system of dams, sluices, locks, dikes, and storm surge barriers, was planned decades ahead and is being expanded to prepare for sea levels in 2200, not 2025. Meanwhile, in many countries, including the U.S., climate policies are overturned every four years based on political ideology.
We need multi-decade energy and conservation strategies, not reactionary policies designed for short-term votes.
With AI, we’re racing to build superintelligence, but are we designing the guardrails necessary to prevent catastrophic failure?
Short-term thinking in AI governance will lead to data monopolization with a handful of corporations controlling AI development, AI arms races with governments prioritizing geopolitical competition over alignment, and unchecked automation with economic disruptions and no transition plans.
AI is going to serve humanity for centuries, and so its foundations must be engineered for long-term ethical alignment today.
Most modern cities are built for cars, not for people. We must think about infrastructure and urban planning in a multi-generation manner, not based on the recent traffic reports.
Look at Rome—a city designed over 2,500 years ago, where many roads and aqueducts still function, and contrast it with Las Vegas, which faces potential collapse within decades due to water scarcity.
Short-term planning is unsustainable. We need to create megacities that are built for resilience, designed to support climate adaptation and exponential population growth. We need to design sustainable transportation with high-speed rail, urban density, and pedestrian-first infrastructure. We need to ensure that our cities are self-sustaining with smart water management, renewable energy integration, and modular architecture built to last decades, and even centuries.
Most healthcare systems focus on treating diseases rather than preventing them. But what if we approached medicine with a 100-year mindset?
Instead of treating heart disease, we should eliminate it at the genetic level. Instead of managing age-related decline, we should invest in regenerative medicine and longevity therapeutics. Instead of temporary pharmaceutical band-aids, we should develop biological rejuvenation treatments.
The longer we think, the healthier we can become.
History shows us how long-term thinking can change the world.
The Apollo program is a great example of thinking beyond one presidency. When President Kennedy announced the moonshot in 1961, he knew it would take nearly a decade to achieve.
The Apollo missions required multi-administration cooperation, which meant that NASA had to think beyond political cycles. It needed decades of technological R&D, which led to advancements in computing, materials science, and aerospace. And it needed a long-term investment mindset - as evidence, the U.S. spent over $25 billion (in 1960s dollars) to fund a vision that wouldn’t pay off for years.
The long-term commitment didn’t just land humans on the moon—it drove a half-century of technological progress.
Another excellent example is Japan’s Keiretsu—A 100-year business strategy. Unlike Western corporations that prioritize quarterly returns, Japan’s Keiretsu (business conglomerates) take multi-decade investment approaches. Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo don’t just plan in five-year roadmaps—they build 50- and 100-year business models. Toyota’s long-term hydrogen fuel initiatives would be unfeasible under Western short-term shareholder pressure, and Sumitomo’s 400-year-old business ethos has been sustained through wars, financial crises, and economic shifts.
Long-term thinking is an opportunity.
The world optimizes for short-term wins. That means those who dare to think long-term—who build with patience, resilience, and multi-generational impact in mind—have an unfair advantage. It’s not just about sustainability; it’s about unlocking massive opportunities that short-term thinkers will simply never see.
For builders, the biggest payoff will come to those who think in decades.
Focus on creating enduring businesses, not disposable ventures. Some of the world’s largest companies—Amazon, Tesla, and Apple—weren’t built for quick exits. They were built with a 50-year roadmap. Think like a founder who is building for the next century, not just the next funding round.
Solve problems that require patience. The biggest opportunities—space, AI safety, climate solutions, longevity—can’t be solved in a few years. Founders who commit to these deep, complex challenges will be the ones who define the future.
Leverage compounding advantages. Time is the greatest multiplier. Whether it’s network effects, deep expertise, or intellectual property, the builders who invest in long-term moats will dominate industries while short-term players fade out.
For organizations, it’s about prioritizing endurance over short-term profits.
Playing the long game in R&D: Short-term trends are fleeting. The biggest breakthroughs come from fundamental research, not chasing hype cycles.
Developing multi-decade roadmaps: Like SpaceX’s Mars colonization, the most ambitious projects require vision beyond quarterly results.
Optimizing for resilience: The companies that weather crises are the ones built on long-term thinking—investing in people, innovation, and sustainability.
For governments, focus on policy that outlives political terms.
Establish intergenerational impact funds: Future-proof against economic downturns by investing in infrastructure, education, and sustainability.
Foster global cooperation on existential challenges: AI governance, climate solutions, and space governance—these require coordinated, long-term planning.
Redesign governance structures for resilience: Election cycles kill long-term policy. Governments must prioritize multi-decade investments over political expediency.
The biggest returns—financial, societal, and existential—belong to those who think in decades, not quarters. Playing the long game is the ultimate advantage.
Long-term thinking is key to Existential Innovation
Existential innovation—solving civilization-scale challenges—demands patience, vision, and sustainable planning. We cannot engineer longevity, energy abundance, or interplanetary civilization on a quarterly earnings schedule. Ensuring AI safety and alignment requires building ethical superintelligence for decades, not years. We need climate engineering that ensures planetary stability for future generations, not election cycles. Building space infrastructure that pioneers the establishment of a multi-planetary civilization before existential risk strikes requires a long view. Unlocking longevity means long-term investing in radical life extension research to redefine human aging.
The future belongs to those who think beyond their lifetime.
Do we want to be remembered as the generation that optimized for the next financial quarter—or the one that transformed the next century?
Thanks for reading,
Yon
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AI assistants were used to help research and edit this essay.
Letter’s thumbnail credit: Matt Noble via Unsplash.