Many years ago I sat behind a mixing desk at the end of a long day and night recording session. I sat across from the artist who I’d been producing, an artist whose life was inextricably linked to elusive musical ideas. It had been a heavy day recording through a song that hadn’t been finished before the studio sessions started and was failing to connect during the recording sessions. If I remember correctly, by this stage we’d consumed various stimulants.

“It’s like,” I remember him saying, “I’m not just writing a song. I’m wrestling with the fundamental indifference of everything and trying to convince myself that this matters.” It was a sentiment, I suspect, a glimpse into the soul-crushing reality that lurks beneath all musicians. Endless hours, invisible human cost, the casual exploitation that fuels the need. It was later after moving into technology and product building and many similar conversations with friends and founders that I drew the line to all things that are created.

We are, after all, living in an age of conjured realities. At the touch of a screen, a ride appears. A meal materializes. These digital sleights of hands are now commonplace, woven into the fabric of our daily lives. We’ve come to expect these miracles.

Silicon Valley is a shimmering oasis of venture capital, utopian and dystopian dreams with an entire system for elevating these creations. The rituals, the pieties, unspoken anxieties and the tension that underlies the relentless pursuit of growth and innovation. The pursuit itself—often disconnected from true human need, becomes its own justification—a self-perpetuating cycle of creation and consumption.

The act of building products becomes less about solving a problem and more about validating a belief, an almost religious conviction in the mind of the person who concocted the vision.

That’s the miracle of creation—song-writing, filmmaking, art, product building: the ability to conjure something from nothing. Freedom is never given; it is earned. And in the same way, a successful product is not simply created; it is willed into existence, through sheer determination, relentless effort, and unfaltering belief in its potential.

These are deeply human emotions. Creating is subscribing to hope. And anybody who has truly been through this process knows the pendulum of testing your own abilities while creating meaning.

Which leads me to the idea of leadership—a role that is deeply entangled with creation. Conjuration rarely remains with the self, it is usually quickly shared. The best builders lead with the self and then with everyone outside of them. They show people the way through educement, not inducement. This resonates with me on a visceral level.

We are so often seduced, as product builders, by the illusion of mastery. It’s not about forcing others to conform to your vision but about creating the conditions in which they can flourish within the vision. The alternative is tyranny—a system of control that stifles creativity and innovation.

I often think of friend’s building companies, creating musical works and other astounding artistry, and they are not consumed by a desire for fame or fortune. Their motivation, as far as I can tell and from my own feelings, is a genuine belief that these things can help people cultivate inner peace and resilience in a world that is increasingly chaotic and overwhelming.

In these quiet acts of creation is the glimmer of something truly meaningful. A refusal to be defined by the world’s indifference.