Embrace Uncertainty

 

I was surfing around social media as am, too often, prone to do.  I came upon a YouTube of a Commencement Address:  Noubar Afeyan to the Class of 2024.  Noubar is an alum of MIT having received a PhD in Biochemical Engineering in 1987. 

I met Noubar in New York in the early 1990s. I had the opportunity to be in a few meetings with him as part of an Armenian organization.  He was dynamic and impressive from the first time I met him.  For maybe a nanosecond, I thought we were peers.  With the passing of that instant, it was clear he was already operating on a totally different plane and was destined for greatness.  He was off the charts smart, very well-educated, and impressively self-confident.  Since then, he founded Flagship Pioneering cofounded Moderna, of COVID vaccine fame, and founded two humanitarian organizations:  The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and The Future Armenian.  He is on the Forbes list of Real Time Billionaires.

There are two quotes of his that are memorable to me.  The first is from a November 24, 2020 he gave on KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles: 

One of the only unfortunate advantages Armenians have had by having gone through a genocide and having spread around the world is that we do have an experience of escaping and of immigrating and of constantly restarting.  That feeling of restarting … turns out, is very similar to what you need to have a startup of a company or to innovate.

The second was from the commencement address he just gave.

You need to keep immigrating.  You need to leave your comfort zone, to think in new ways, to acclimate to the unfamiliar, and embrace uncertainty.  If you imagine, innovate, and immigrate, you are destined to a life of uncertainty.  Being surrounded by uncertainty can definitely be unnerving.  But it's where you need to be.  This is where the treasure lies.  It's ground zero for breakthroughs.  Don't conflate uncertainty as risk or think of it as extreme risk.  Uncertainty isn't high risk.  It's unknown risk.  It is, in the essence, opportunity.

I have dabbled around these concepts and can certainly relate to the necessity to keep imagining, immigrating, and innovating intellectually.  I have certainly experienced uncertainty in doing so.  I never looked it like Noubar framed it.  In fact, I often wondered if the uncertainty was more a curse than a blessing.  Noubar made me realize it is indeed a blessing.  The world moves forward, positively, from people who embrace that uncertainly, gain vision, and then work hard to seize that opportunity.  While there is risk involved in making the opportunity into something that can help the world, but as he said, “Don't conflate uncertainty as risk or think of it as extreme risk.”

His words are inspiring.  He rooted this in his Armenian heritage and, for that reason alone, his message resonates with me.  It is beyond that.  Imagine, immigrate, innovate, and embrace uncertainty.  I wish I had this mindset many years ago.  It matters not.  In the spirit of continuous improvement and life-long learning, I am delighted to be contemplating these insights now.

Embrace uncertainty.  Thank you Noubar.