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NASDAQ for Minds
Turning diamonds in the rough into iconic investable assets
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Gray Matter Assets
Human ingenuity has been the engine of progress and prosperity since the dawn of civilizations. Minds of many kinds enabled societies to solve important problems, advance life conditions, and achieve future-shaping breakthroughs.
What’s more, unlike gold and diamonds, humanity’s gray matter is naturally abundant and universally distributed. It’s found everywhere in its raw state. And its sheer diversity is in and of itself a vector of unfathomable value that’s waiting to be unlocked.
Gray matter is humanity’s naturally-occurring supercomputer, and its most valuable resource. Yet, for thousands of years, discovering natural gray matter deposits and extracting their immense value was mired in chance.
But history offers a glimmer of hope. Throughout history, civilizations that sought to discover and develop their local human potential progressed and rose to power and prosperity. Those that didn’t, seeded their demise and fell far behind.
Lost Leonardos
Without doubt, Leonardo da Vinci’s ingenious inventions changed the world. His prescient achievements in science, technology, engineering, aviation, astronomy, architecture, and the arts shaped the world we inhabit today.
Leonardo was a genius but super lucky. Lucky to have lived in Florence, the Renaissance epicenter of human potential development. Lucky to have acquired his skills under the tutelage of Florence’s leading mentors. And lucky to have had the financial and social patronage of the Medici family, Florence’s storied banking dynasty and Europe’s richest family.
Luck was clearly on his side.
Fast forward half a millennium. The likelihood that someone, somewhere can realize her or his unique potential still overwhelmingly depends on the luck of the draw. And as luck would have it, most people around the world are just unlucky. Lack of access to capital and networks remains the biggest barrier that stands in the way of billions of young people. Their potential remains unrealized. Their aspirations remain unfulfilled. Their potential value lost forever.
The future of humanity cannot continue to depend on luck. We can, and should, do better!
New Thinking
Ascend is the world’s pioneering Mind ExchangeTM. It offers the first global marketplace where people worldwide can turn their unique minds into iconic investable assets. Individuals that qualify to list their mind on Ascend are able to issue smart securities, such as MindsharesTM and MindrightsTM, to secure the capital they need to acquire skills, develop their talents, build their human capital, realize their potential, and change the world.
Ascend enables qualified investors, including sovereign, strategic, and financial investors, to invest in the minds of the future as they put their talent and energy towards leading businesses, achieving breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering, and innovation, creating new art, and breaking new ground in future domains we can’t even conceive of today.
Listing a mind on Ascend is not limited to raising capital. Listed minds gain access to invaluable knowledge, services, networks, and communities that contribute to value accretion. Listed minds are also discoverable and accessible to a host of market stakeholders.
Ascend’s groundbreaking technology, combined with its rigorous listing qualifications, value signaling, and exchange microstructure, creates a trusted platform that enables participants, investors, and a host of stakeholders to unlock mind capital and create immense value.
Reimagining Capitalism
Capital markets are the engine of invention, innovation, knowledge accumulation, business formation, job creation, and long-term economic growth. In addition to asset owners and capital providers, they pull in additional stakeholders that create value in myriad ways. Well-functioning markets create incentives and expectations about the future that produce virtuous cycles of value creation. In fact, the miraculous growth of the 20th century would have been impossible without vibrant capital markets.
Yet, our concept of capital markets, and that of capitalism itself, must be transformed to encompass a new worldview where luck is factored out, entry barriers are brought down, hierarchies are flattened, the human spirit is empowered, and ownership of the future is democratized en masse.
Ascend is a technology, an exchange, a data platform, and a bold company—but, fundamentally, it is a new way of thinking about the future. Creating a capital market that’s centered around the world’s minds opens the opportunity to unlock value never before imagined. We view Ascend as a moonshot that strives to reimagine the future, unlock human ingenuity at scale, and unleash innovation, while accelerating progress, transforming lives, distributing wealth, and altering the trajectory of global GDP. We choose to build it not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. It’s a challenge we’re unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win. It’s the road not taken, and that shall make all the difference.
Want to help? Get in touch“The best investment you can make is investment in yourself”Warren Buffett
