Of course, a company can invest in all kinds of ways: creating new products, marketing to customers, learning and development for employees, etc. And while this is all critical to the lifeblood of a company, I want to introduce a new form of ROI that deserves its own unique acronym:

‍ROW. Return on Wisdom. 

Traditionally, most companies already invest in ROK, Return on Knowledge. But, in a world in which knowledge is a commodity (especially due to AI) and is becoming obsolescent more quickly, maybe it’s time to invest in wisdom in all kinds of ways: in hiring seasoned leaders and pairing them with young brilliant entrepreneurs, creating a means for teams to grow what they’ve learned and how to share that metabolized experience to benefit others (as we say at MEA, “wisdom is not taught, it’s shared”), and valuing institutionalized wisdom within an organization.

I was asked to capture some of my key wisdom from my 7+ years helping the Airbnb founders take their tech start-up and make it the most valuable hospitality company in the world. This practical paper resulted from that distillation: Why Successful Leaders Value Wisdom. 

Feel free to share it far and wide, as the world needs to learn how to integrate ROW into their workplaces and communities. The marketplace is constantly changing, and the water seems to be rising. I’d rather be ROWing than being a ROK, which just tends to sink.

- Chip