People love asking, "Where do you see yourself in 3–5 years?"
It's a fine question for a job interview — but the wrong mindset for building anything meaningful.
Real products, companies, and movements take 5–10+ years to materialize. If your idea depends on today's trends, you're already late. To build something that matters, you have to think about where the world will be in a decade, not where it is today.
The Trap of the Present
A 3-year plan is planning for a future that's already here.
The tech, infrastructure, and market dynamics of the next few years were shaped years ago.
If you build for the present, you end up competing, not innovating.
Better questions:
- What will seem obvious in 2035 but looks insane right now?
- What infrastructure will the world need once the hype fades?
The Decade Advantage
Long-term thinking has the least competition.
Most people operate on short cycles because that's how incentives are set.
Almost no one is willing to work on a problem that won’t pay off for 7–10 years.
If you can endure the quiet, unglamorous early years, you eventually end up alone in the arena — not because you beat everyone, but because no one else stayed long enough.
Don’t build for the weather tomorrow. Build for the season that's coming.