Editor’s Note: The following is the 3rd chapter of the book “The New Prince“, a collection of essays on the counterintuitive lessons Marco Trombetti, founder of Translated and VC firm Pi Campus, learned by building and investing in startups. We agreed with the author to publish all 12 chapters of the book through a guest post series. Also check out the previous chapter.
Happiness
Every human being pursues happiness. We give it different names and we try to achieve it in all manner of ways but, at the end of the day, we are all looking for it.
Our work often takes up the vast majority of our time and energy. Strangely, we use our work to produce money in order to buy happiness. Why not create happiness directly?
Naturally, you should buy happiness with your money as much as possible. But there is a limit to the amount you can buy. Money is just one of the tools we can exchange for happiness. Protection, love, esteem, and a vision for a better future are some of the other great tools we can exchange for happiness.
Many companies, even those that have a great vision for the future, fail to make happiness one of their goals.
Unfortunately, there are also countless companies that don’t create happiness at all. They simply accumulate money by subtracting it from somewhere else. They don’t even create wealth – they move wealth.
There are easier-to-build companies whose success is based on taking advantage of human weakness and harder-to-build companies that inspire and help people to do other great things. I love the latter unconditionally.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if it is possible to build a company whose mission is to create not only wealth but also happiness, and if there is a path that a company can follow to achieve this goal. Finding that path would be so magnificent that it is definitely worth searching for it.
