What Tech Entrepreneurs and Polynesian Explorers Have in Common

Crossman above the Marum lava lake. (Image: Sam Crossman)

Ambrym Island – a rugged shield volcano in the South Pacific complete with a roiling pit of lava – may not be everyone’s idea of a refreshing vacation. But for a certain demographic, it’s precisely the sort of trip that recharges mental batteries and satisfies cravings for adventure. Sam Crossman is a member of this tribe; on a recent expedition, he joined Geoff Mackley and George Kourounis for a leisurely rappel into an active crater for a closer look at the Marum lava lake.

In his day job, Crossman is embedded in the Bay Area entrepreneurial start-up circuit, having bailed on a job in the medical devices industry to work at Quake, an erstwhile tech company. He’s currently at Xola, a software platform for tour providers and adventure guiding companies.

To Crossman, these are mutually reinforcing aims – the start-up lifestyle and the wide-ranging adventuring – each incorporating the same philosophy of pragmatic risk acceptance. “I have a certain comfort level with risk,” he explains. “I’ve always been willing to step out on a limb and trust that it will hold my weight.” Indeed, in the venn diagram of adventure junkies and start-up entrepreneurs, there’s a lot of overlap. Weekend warriors in the trenches hike, bike, and climb during their time off, documenting their exploits with GoPro cameras. Richard Branson has spun off thrill-seeking enterprises Virgin Oceanic and Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos spearheaded an expedition to recover Apollo 11’s lost engines.

J. Scott Zimmerman is the founder of Xola and a key player in the Bay Area adrenaline junky scene. “There’s something intellectually and emotionally connected to thinking outside the box when you’re taking risks and pursuing challenges,” he explains. Zimmerman is particularly active with MaiTai, a group largely comprised of company founders that gathers in far-flung locations to kitesurf. “Wind-powered sports tend to be very popular among engineers and tech entrepreneurs,” he notes, citing Branson and Google’s co-founders – as well as a disproportionate number of female founders – among the tribe.

Both extreme adventuring and venture-backed business creation are perilous, high risk – high reward endeavors, trading on the appeal of excitement and transformational impact (and, in the latter case, money). In both cases, you’re charting your own path, determining your own future in an empowering way. And while both pursuits may occasionally seem reckless or foolhardy on the individual level, a certain frequency of risk-takers confers a substantial societal advantage.

This has certainly been true for the last several centuries, as human cultures dispersed around the globe and ultimately re-converged, each discovery presenting economic, resource-based, or scientific opportunities. This grand arc of global history may not have been possible without a select few people willing to risk everything for an unknowable return on investment. We don’t all need to hop in a canoe without knowing where the nearest island is, or sit on top of a temperamental rocket, but it’s pretty helpful if someone’s willing to roll the dice. The Polynesian rowers who discovered Easter Island likely had no idea what lay ahead as they set out several weeks previously, but their journey provided an opportunity to colonize new lands.

Today, physical risk-taking is less necessary for human advancement than in centuries past: not only are paradigm shifts less tied to the discovery of new physical realms, but those that are primarily occur by robotic proxy. The contemporary analog is start-up culture, where you almost always strike out, but the home runs frequently have tangible impact on a global scale.

There are, of course, key differences, as failure in volcano-diving carries more dire consequences than your dotcom going out of business. Paradoxically, past misses are often considered a plus in the start-up world, providing learning opportunities, however painful and emotionally scarring they may be. “Silicon Valley has a very unusual perspective on failure,” explains Crossman, “it’s almost a badge of honor. If you were brave enough to attempt something and grasp for something greater than you, good for you. If you can jump back up, you’ll eventually make it.”

The risk-taking parallels could speak to something deeper. As David Dobbs cogently explained in National Geographic, a propensity to explore and seek new opportunities may be genetically encoded in a variant of the dopamine regulating gene DRD4. Several studies have linked heightened incidence of the DRD4-7R version to migratory cultures, as well as riskier behavior (both good and bad). So while contemporary manifestation of DRD4-7R may be disproportionately associated with start-up entrepreneurs, a growing appreciation in business circles of other sensibilities – deliberation, emotional intelligence, long-term planning – could temper its influence in interesting, unexpected ways.

Tapping into risk-taking behavior is a challenge that all societies must address; a proper calibration could be the difference between stasis or self-destruction and dynamic innovation. In the meantime, thrill-seekers will continue to test their limits and hone their mental toughness, skills that Crossman believes are transferable to other aspects of life. “I’m just very passionate about experiences, adventures, and sharing those with others in a meaningful way,” Crossman says. “I hope we’ve helped people to identify something that really lights their fire in life and do everything needed to achieve it.”