it feels good every time i publicly acknowledge the fact that i don't know whether $QR is going to work out.

i try to do this reasonably often.

the opposite would be to say it's inevitable or that it will work as a matter of fact.

i understand the value of doing this, of delusional confidence, both held and shared.

i understand it can be self-fulfilling.

and sometimes it is.

but most founders who express such confidence constantly and publicly end up failing in the end, not because of that specifically, but just because most founders fail, and so the result for them is that the "inevitable" "sure thing" that "will happen" did not happen, disappointed followers, and lost holders money as a result.

you said it was going to work.

when you said that, you lied.

even if you didn't know it, even if you didn't mean to, and even if you genuinely believed it was true, you did.

i don't want to lie.

i consider myself to be an unusually reasonable person, perhaps to a fault, if unreasonable thinking is a prerequisite for success as a founder.

i am open to the idea that it may be, or at least, it may help your chances, but i am going to try anyway without that unreasonable certainty, without trying to change who i am, and without trying to fool myself into the kind of confidence which if shared could fool others.

i can tell you that i think $QR has massive potential, and i certainly believe that potential is possible, but i also believe that the outcome could fall anywhere between that great potential and a total failure.

i could probability weight a bunch of possible outcomes on the spectrum between those extremes but there is no way i can sit here and tell you which one it's going to be.

moreover, i am aware that there are many possible outcomes which i am not currently able to foresee.

such is the nature of the future.

so you won't hear certainty from me.

there is no inevitable future I have to sell you.

what you can trust is that as long as i am working on $QR, i must believe that doing so is worthwhile, in the context of a universe of an infinite number of other things that i could be doing with my precious time, because i am not beholden to do so by anything or anyone other than myself, but rather, motivated by a desire to live up to my potential.

for now at least, i have not raised money from VCs with the understanding that I would be working on this for some number of years, and i have never promised that publicly to you nor anyone else.

i know that i have never done this because my word is very important to me and if i told you i was going to work on this for 10 years no matter what then I would expect to actually do that.

there goes my freedom.

i'd have made a 10-year commitment.

i may do that some day, but not today.

i do not say things like that lightly at all.

it is easy to talk but hard to follow through.

those who talk without as much care for their word can say they will do more because they don't need to follow through.

that may be an advantage as well, like delusional confidence, for being a founder.

i don't know, but it's not for me.

if you're going to get on board with me for $QR or for anything else i do in the future i want you to know what i'm about.

that's a part of why i share my perspective so publicly.

200+ blogs posts, 200+ podcasts, and however many casts and tweets.

i would rather have fewer people get on board with a better understanding of what they are getting on board for than more people get on board with some misunderstanding.

i have some of the best supporters in the world and i greatly appreciate them because i know they appreciate me for who i am and how i think and why i do what i do because it's not some fake version of me that does all the blogs and the pods and the tweets.

if you're reading this to the end, you're probably one of those people.

thank you for believing in my uncertain success with me.

i don't know that it's going to work, but i do have faith.