“Are you tearing up?” I ask my colleague as we stand at the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. “A little,” she admits. I cannot even turn my head. My eyes are locked on the horizon, trying to take in the immensity.
Eventually, I confess: “Me too. This is… incredible.” Some views are so vast, so beautiful, that our consciousness cannot contain them. The best we can do is surrender: to stand still, to observe. To let the incomprehensible beauty of Nature wash over us in awe.
That moment reminded me of Ron Swanson’s quote from his “Pyramid of Greatness”:
Ron was right about the Grand Canyon. When I could finally move again, I got closer to the low stone wall at the edge of the path and sat quietly, letting the details emerge—all the ridges, the shadows, the countless layers carved over millions of years. I followed the cuts of the water in the rocks with my eyes, trying to understand where the canyon actually ends.
And then, all of a sudden, an American family walked up to where I was seated. A bearded, lumberjack-looking dad, holding his child’s hand, plants himself beside me. He looks left, then right, and with the solemn tone of a settler declares:
“Hoooooooooly fuck.”
Damn right, my man. Damn right.
Travelling — The Way of the Founder
Being a founder often means being in motion. You need to meet with customers and investors, attend conferences, speak at panels, give presentations, be seen, and be heard, while hearing what is happening in your industry. On one hand, it’s an exhilarating journey. On the other, you trade long flights for routine, meetings for meals with your loved ones, stimulation for sanity.
Travel is part of the deal, especially for a tech founder. New cities, new faces, new pitches. Constantly in a state of discomfort. What happens is that between the noise of logistics and the pressure to always be “on,” it is very easy to forget to look up and actually see where you are.
Last week, I was in Albuquerque for IEEE Quantum Week with two of my colleagues from Entropica. It was our first time in New Mexico! And we decided to take a few days off to travel to Arizona after the conference and visit the Grand Canyon.
Like many founders, I hesitated. For a week, I debated whether I should fly straight to San Francisco for more meetings. I felt guilty about taking time off. In the end, what convinced me was the chance to ride a mule along the canyon rim. A done deal.
Fill your Eyes with Beauty
While gallivanting around Arizona and New Mexico, I sent tons of pictures to my friends (aggressive spamming). One of them, Martina, replied with a sentence that stopped me in my tracks:
“Riempiti gli occhi di bellezza che qui ne hai di diversa.”
In English: “Fill your eyes with beauty, because here you have a different form of beauty.”
She later added something even more profound: “Diversify the beauty you take in—it helps you develop great ideas.”
I loved that thought very much. The few days spent exploring the great American wilderness have filled me with joy, a stronger sense of excitement and adventure and yes, also with new ideas. Beauty provides contrast, enabling us to examine our problems with fresh eyes. Beauty shakes you awake, like plunging into cold water. It sharpens your senses, calms your mind, and forces you into the present. It equilibrates your being with your surroundings, and stops you from rushing back to Founder mode.
For me, this time, it was the Grand Canyon. For you, it might be a painting that makes you pause. Or maybe the modern architecture of a city you love. The form does not really matter. What matters is that we keep filling our eyes—and our souls—with beauty, so that our ideas, our companies, and our lives can grow richer.
As founders, as humans, we owe it to ourselves to keep filling our eyes with beauty.
