The Relativity of Ambition

We are all navigating the wild maze that is a human life. Some lives feel like a wonderful expression of possibility. Others feel like a long streak of could haves.

Here’s one of my favourite images of all time, from the legendary Tim Urban:

It powerfully conveys that at any given point in time, countless paths are open to us. While we cannot change who we were yesterday, we can decide who we want to be tomorrow.

But what actually tilts the trajectory of a life upwards?

Some forces seem obvious. There are our innate abilities: how smart, charming, or disciplined we are, and the external circumstances we’re born into: our health and wealth. We can influence these to some extent by working hard and smart, staying healthy, and exercising.

Gigantic industries exist to help us do exactly that. The education system tries to make us smarter, the beauty industry tries to make us prettier, and the sports and self-help industries try to make us more disciplined and healthy. All of them promise to make us richer.

Yet two more forces are both underestimated and, to a surprising degree, within our control.

In the wild jungle of possible lives, how do we know which one to choose? Inspiration is how we learn what a path even looks like.

Outlier people and outlier stories expand our understanding of what is possible in life. They are walking this earth as living expressions of what our future could look like.

Consider two inspirational path expanders in my life.

First, Mark Zuckerberg. Now, hold your horses. Not new Zuck (come back to the bright side, it’s nicer here), but old Zuck who had the ambitious, albeit naive, plan of connecting the world. It turns out there are all sorts of downsides that came with this endeavour, but I remember being absolutely exhilarated by the idea more than a decade ago. The concept of the social graph fascinated me, and I initially found immense value in connecting with my friends and family online.

Beyond that, Zuck showed us all that you can drop out of Harvard at age 19 and build a gigantic business, even if you’re a total nerd and communication isn’t your strong suit. He showed us that this life path exists.

In a similar way, I was inspired by Shonda Rhimes. A pioneering writer and TV producer, she has created a series of incredible successes, ranging from Grey's Anatomy to Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and Bridgerton. When she introduced diverse characters into her shows, she didn't get fazed by the backlash, simply stating "I refuse to create a show that doesn't represent me." Every time she launched a new show, viewers would complain, but no matter what, her viewership grew and grew because the content is fantastic and all else follows from there.

Shonda was a huge inspiration to me in starting to write more. She made me see the path.

Today, an entire attention economy runs on the currency of inspiration. Venture capitalists expose early-stage founders to successful entrepreneurs who have won big. Influencers and creators use social media to share their stories and make us realise how many life paths exist. From being an ex-ballerina now owning a farm with a boatload of kids to being a highly specialised nature conservationist - if you are extraordinary, chances are you will inspire others to see that your life path is possible.

There is a also downside to this. Social media bombards us with constant inspiration about all the life paths we could take, showing us a distilled stream of the most incredible success stories. That is hugely inspiring but can also feel draining. It can seem that while the world is achieving and succeeding nonstop, we are treading water.

How can we tilt our own trajectory upward and turn inspiration into action?

That is where the second piece comes in.

A small amount of strong and weak ties influence the trajectory of our life. While Mark Zuckerberg, Shonda Rhimes and all the halo successes out there make us realise that a life path exists, they don’t do much to tilt our own trajectory upwards. I don’t work with Shonda on a day-to-day basis and can’t exactly call her to ask for her advice when the going gets rough (but should you read this, dear Shonda: my dms are open 🥹).

Instead, a small number of social connections shape our path most powerfully. Our friends and peers are the people we spend incredible amounts of time with and are heavily influenced by. Excellence feeds on proximity and a feeling of likeness. Research now consistently shows that the friends and peer networks of high school kids have an outsized impact on their life outcomes, from educational attainment and career paths to habits and wellbeing.1

To achieve greater success in life, we need to examine the peer networks that form us. Ambition breeds excellence, which in turn breeds more ambition.

This is the beauty of Silicon Valley. Things just work differently there. People are connected so tightly and exposed to such dense excellence that most know at least one very successful founder. This excellence compounds, leading many people to think and work at a different speed than elsewhere in the world.

In comparison to Silicon Valley, localism has been Europe’s Achilles heel. By siloing excellence in local optima, it is the ultimate thief of opportunity.

So what do we do about this, concretely? How do we build the peer networks that will define our trajectories?

Enter Relativity Collective.

Relativity Collective is a new pan-European student founder programme, championed by the best universities across Europe and inspiring European founders.

We are turning a fragmented European ecosystem into a central community, unlocking potential that is stuck in various local optima.

We believe that peers matter most. A limited number of strong and weak ties strongly define our life. Ambition is not fixed, but shaped by proximity. The people we surround ourselves with define our ceilings. We’re here to raise those ceilings - one connection at a time.

We also believe that physicality matters. Strong bonds and trust are formed in person. Unfortunately, us Europeans have been made to believe that we are far away from each other. We’re here to show we don’t have to be.

Every six months, we connect a cohort of Europe's most ambitious student founders. Twenty-five students, selected from applications across European universities, come together for an intensive 3-day programme, join a digital community, and participate in local events throughout the year. Our focus is simple: form the deepest bonds in the shortest time. We believe that incredible pan-European companies built at global ambition and scale will follow.

I've seen this power firsthand. Through scholarship programmes for gifted students and my time at CDTM in Munich, my trajectory changed entirely because of the peers I was surrounded by. If we let such networks compound over a decade, the impact becomes exponential. We've seen similar patterns across the UK, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and France. Now we're bringing this ambitious spirit of community to a pan-European level.

As the most influential European scientist, through his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein taught us that nothing is fixed. The mass of an object can, through its gravity, curve things we assume to be absolute - even spacetime. He inspired us to see that there is nothing a strong enough group of people cannot achieve.

When we die, the person we are comes face to face with the person we could have become. Let’s make this a joyful meeting by giving this one life - and continent - the very best shot we have.

Europe, yours forever.