Future Design Inquiries. June 2026
Hello from ENSO, a future design company. We’re sharing the things that make us think, bring us joy or shift our perspective.
What we’re reflecting on
Our belief deficit
By many measures, this is a remarkable time to be alive. Cancer death rates are falling, clean energy is cheaper than ever, new businesses are being formed at record rates, and AI is putting capabilities into ordinary hands that didn’t exist for anyone five years ago. And yet: 45% of Americans would choose to live in the past, three times the 14% who would choose the future. A minority of young Americans believe the American Dream is still possible. Just 10% of Americans are more excited than concerned about AI.
America has a belief deficit.
Belief in the future is the foundation that fuels progress in American life. Joel Mokyr won the Nobel for showing that sustained growth depends less on headline breakthroughs than on millions of ordinary people who believe tomorrow can be better, and act like it. The same will be true of AI: the culture of creation we build around it will determine what the technology actually delivers. Yet today, the ideas of fear dominate: in news cycles, political movements, culture wars, even in the well-meaning diagnoses of the people trying to fix things. Just as climate doom dulls climate innovation, AI doom will dull what AI can deliver. Pessimism is a tax on dynamism.
The future needs advocates, not propaganda. It needs cultural work that makes the solvers and solutions more famous than the problems. The future needs tangible ways people can participate in shaping it. This is what ENSO is spending time working on with some friends and collaborators; let us know if you’re thinking along similar lines and we should talk. Reigniting belief is about both shifting mindsets and real action that people can see and be a part of. Restoring it is the precursor to any progress. If you agree, let’s talk. (HS & SB)
The mismanaged phenomenon
Think of an organization that has descended to its worst possible outcome. Coercing customers. Disrespecting legacy. Corrupt leaders, authoritarian apologists, and monopolistic tendencies.
And yet, here we all are again, infatuated with the World Cup. Why? It thrives in spite of FIFA, not because of it. It thrives because it’s one of the few times we get to opt out of cycles of stress, fear and dysfunction and just enjoy a spectacle of shared drama. We get to speculate on winners, follow unlikely storylines, witness moral beauty and forget about everything else. Bruce Feiler wrote a lovely article about rituals, and why they matter so much to us. “The most successful rituals welcome people with joy, promote compromise, build empathy and end with a moment of hope,” the very things so many people yearn for these days. In his view, ritual is the antidote to a lonely modern life … and of course, sports are the most massive of all rituals.
The World Cup was planned by Jules Rimet and a small group in 1928 — having been scarred by World War I, Rimet wanted to create something that would foster peace and ‘the reconciliation of peoples’. Mass rituals can be designed. Who will design the next global phenomenon? (SB)
The most powerful technology isn't AI
Here’s a strange thing: the people most concerned about AI are the young, who use it most, and know it best. Overall, just 10% of Americans are more excited than concerned, and 57% feel they have little control over how it shows up in their lives. Feeling like AI is happening to you, rather than for you — a loss of agency — is a terrible place to be.
While the industry pours hundreds of billions into datacenters, the most powerful technology in human history has gone woefully underfunded: the shared story. Yuval Noah Harari’s central insight is that humans rule the planet not through strength or smarts, but because we cooperate around shared fictions (currencies, laws, countries). The story enables the collaboration; the collaboration enables progress. Consider the trajectory of nuclear energy: among the safest, lowest-carbon energy we've ever built, yet its destiny was decided less by physics than by narrative.
AI, meanwhile, arrived wrapped in dystopian Hollywood plots, then got boosterism from the industry and doomerism from many — including its own CEOs. No wonder young people doubt whether their education, or their prospects, are fit for purpose.
The answer is a story authored by many, not imposed by a few. Every school, company and city council could be asking, not 'should I be afraid?' but 'what would make this exciting?' As Demis Hassabis put it: “make sure you double down on your own agency. The future is still to be written — don’t listen to anyone who says it’s not.” AI's destiny, like all major innovations, will be determined by the culture we build around it. (SB)
Sport was designed to unite us. It can be redesigned.
The institutions and structures of sport have drifted far from their original intent. Mike Geddes (of 17 Sport) and I wrote a piece for Fast Company, published today, on the opportunity to redesign. (SB)
These nuggets curated by ENSO leaders Sebastian Buck and Hanna Siegel
6 things that made us think, gasp, share and/or laugh:
- We can’t let my former venture capital colleagues buy off our democracy
- NYC’s Baklava Guy
- “A.I. is here. It will be used. But how it is used, for what and by whom are meaningful questions. A.I.’s benefits will not emerge automatically or inevitably…[but] When A.I. is pointed at the right problem, in the right way, the results can be remarkable.” - Ezra Klein starting to sketch out ideas for where to go with AI
- Back to back Knicks-mania and the World Cup are good for our health
- “The American bathroom will become a health coach” and other ways AI may change our homes
- On July 4th, America’s time capsule will be buried in Independence National Park until it’s unearthed in another 250 years in 2276. All 50 states, DC and US territories contributed something, as did the three branches of government, including casino chips (Nevada), a print-out of Claude’s prediction of 2276 (California), a diamond (Arkansas) and an International Space Station medallion (Iowa).
What we’re working on
ENSO is a small, senior team, so that we can work on just a few initiatives at a time. This allows us to go deep on some of the biggest challenges/ opportunities. Recently, we’ve been working on a few main missions with our partners:
- Reimagining the future of the seas, and exploring what a new frontier in maritime might mean for the world
- Rallying Atlanta towards a future where no child suffers a preventable death
- Designing the largest day of service ever, with a coalition of 80 for-profit, non-profit and civic organizations
- Helping artists sustain an artistic life over the long term, and designing the space and tools to help artists everywhere thrive
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