I built my business in order to run a successful research program, including for the analysts that work at Bismarck. The priority often there is intellectual growth, accumulation of this type of human capital; basically research progress if it can be achieved, but of course, it’s also a for-profit entity. So there is a question of, well, is there research that is close enough to applicable to be something that might be profitable for clients, or at least of supreme interest to them? So I vaguely classify these two big buckets of stuff. One, research that is on specific organizations, institutions, where the correct answer is useful enough for their ongoing efforts, their ongoing strategy; in that case you actually have to know quite a bit about the client. On the other hand, it is something that you could consider philanthropy but it’s almost like fundamental intellectual curiosity, like things that just, in an ideological sense to the person in question, they would want to hear answers. They would want to understand. You can get all sorts of interesting research funded. You can get research funded on the distant history of mankind, when exactly civilizations arose, the question of in which conditions political violence arose, which kind of straddles the border between this large intellectual curiosity and something very practical. Obviously, you need to think about how stable is a country, how stable are the conditions in a country. You might be especially targeted if you stand out in some way. You might get anything funded from research into the distant history of mankind, research into what are the bottlenecks on technological research in the modern era, which western governments are perhaps the most flexible and are the likeliest to undertake serious reform or stuff that’s oriented towards questions of nuclear war or global pandemics or any of that other stuff that starts becoming more conventionally philanthropic over time. And a lot of these people, they’re very alive, especially if they are self-made in some sense like if they created their own fortunes, which in Silicon Valley is often the case; very intelligent, passionate about questions and often they’re just really short on time. They’re really short on people. So these are the two big buckets. One of them requires you to know a little bit more about the person. The other one requires you to know a little bit more about the world and also make a differential case that you in particular are the correct person to solve this puzzle or at least to contribute to it substantially.
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PS: The IndieThinkers community is hosting three great events in the next few weeks. Study and discuss the literary and philosophical revolution of Romanticism with member Timothy Wilcox (PhD) on May 19. Learn how to teach yourself piano with member Daniel Garner, inventor of the Pattern Method, on May 12. And finally, member Geoff Shullenberger will be teaching an 8-week course on René Girard, starting in mid-June; download the reading list and you’ll receive an email when we open enrollment.