Geoffrey A. Moore - The Infinite Staircase

Contents

Praise for The Infinite Staircase

Geoffrey Moore has crossed the chasm from marketing to metaphysics. The result is breathtaking.

Guy Kawasaki

For many years Ive had the benefit of sage advice from Geoffrey Moore, one of the worlds most influential business strategists. In this profound, remarkable work he explores the meaning of human existence and opens our minds to a new paradigm for understanding our place in the universe and a set of strategies for living an ethical life.

Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce

At IDEO we apply design thinking to our clients toughest challenges. In The Infinite Staircase, Geoffrey Moore has used his own design thinking skills to take on the challenge of embracing a science-based understanding of how life emerged on Earth and finding within it the foundations for leading an ethical life. It is a tour de force in its own right and a book for our times.

Tim Brown, chair of IDEO and author of Change by Design

Who are we? The answer to this question, the central question of the humanities, has prompted many different answers. None of the better-known answers to that question, as Geoffrey demonstrates, are wrong; each is merely incomplete, a piece of the puzzle. With this puzzle assembled, Geoffrey turns to the second critical question: How should we behaveand why? He then deftly points out that the answer to this question flows from the answer to the first: ethical behavior is advantageous to us as individuals and necessary to us as societies, and does not require the added directive of religion.This is a daring book, to be surea dare that Geoffrey has answered with his trademark concision and clarity. And like all daring acts, it produces a thrillone for which I always will be grateful.

Harry Beckwith, New York Times bestselling author of Selling the Invisible

Geoffrey Moores The Infinite Staircase is an elegant exploration of grand questions that will change how you see the world. To the mix of physics, business, and history found in Loonshots, Moore has added biology, chemistry, linguistics, and ethicsa spectacular combination.

Safi Bahcall, international bestselling author of Loonshots

Also by Geoffrey A. Moore

Crossing the Chasm

Escape Velocity

Inside the Tornado

The Gorilla Game

Living on the Fault Line

Dealing with Darwin

Zone to Win

The Infinite Staircase copyright 2021 by Geoffrey Moore Consulting, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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First E-Book Edition: October 2021

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020058097

ISBN 9781950665983 (trade cloth)

ISBN 9781953295378 (ebook)

Editing by Glenn Yeffeth

Copyediting by Karen Wise

Proofreading by Sarah Vostok and James Fraleigh

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Text composition by Katie Hollister

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To Marie,

the love of my life,

and

to the family we both love so much:

Margaret, Daniel, Alayna, Michael,

Anna, Dave, and Noah

Contents

L et me say at the outset that this book is a departure from my prior published work. By profession, I am a business strategist serving the high-tech community. I have the privilege of assisting Microsoft, Sales-force, Intel, and other companies both large and small in figuring out how they can best compete and succeed in a rapidly changing market-place. My first book on strategy, Crossing the Chasm, has sold over one million copies since its initial publication in 1991 and is still required reading in many business schools and entrepreneurship programs. Subsequent books have allowed me to continue my practice as author, speaker, and adviser to the present day. It has been a great ride, and I have no intention of stepping down anytime soon.

In that context, you might be surprised to learn that I started my career as a professor of English and a Renaissance scholar. My first book-length effortforeshadowing the work you have in handwas a PhD thesis titled Strategies for Living. It was an analysis of Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene, an epic poem first published in 1590. Spenser offered it as a gift to Queen Elizabeth I, explaining that his aim was to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. My intent for the book you have in hand is not all that different.

Like any good strategist, Spenser derived his advice about how people should behave from his understanding of how the world works. That understanding was anchored in a conceptual model called the Great Chain of Being, an idea that held sway in Western civilization from Classical antiquity to the Early Modern period. In it, God is positioned at the apex of creation, from whence descend all the different orders of beings, beginning with various classes of angels, descending further to mankind, then to animals, other living things, and finally down to the material elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The resulting worldview was one based on a hierarchy of value, with each link in the chain having its assigned place, all leading to a social, political, and economic order that was both stratified and conservative.

That order persisted into the Renaissance, but by the 17th century, it had become so encumbered by numerous unjust and oppressive entitlements that it spawned a series of rebellions. These began with the Enlightenment, followed later by Romanticism, and later still by Modernism. Each of these movements distanced itself further from a legacy of religious narratives, replacing them with increasingly secular story lines instead. Hierarchies were still acknowledged, but they were no longer divinely authorized. Instead, rather than having order imposed from above through intelligent design, it was increasingly seen as spontaneously emerging from below, evolving into layers of increasing complexity, driven by impersonal forces.

How such a thing could possibly happen is as miraculous a tale as has ever been told. Today the story is more or less complete, but it exists in pieces, captive to various academic disciplines, accessible primarily to specialists in those fields. The goal of this book is to pull those pieces together into a single coherent story using everyday language appropriate to a generalist, intellectually curious reader.

In this context, the first part of The Infinite Staircase