Silicon Valley has dominated the startup/venture scene for the last generation. When I was a kid, the largest companies in the world where all industrial. Now the largest companies in the world are dominated by IT.

Capitalism hasn't brought us much joy, and the world is in dire need of change, due to a complex of problems succinctly dubbed the Metacrisis and Polycrisis by some (I will not go into defining those and use them loosely).

We're being lied to, and we know

Tech billionaires have increasingly sought to solve the crisis with wild speculative futures in the form of longtermism and silly ideas like colonizing the universe. This is not helpful, because it is not practically possible to achieve these goals, or even assess their feasibility in a far future to any meaningful level of certainty. Let's look at some funny examples.

Going to Mars

Some billionaires, you know who, want to colonize mars, as a backup for earth. This is an utterly insane idea, because solving earth's problems is many orders of magnitude easier than solving the problems caused on earth by colonizing mars.

When I was a little fed up hearing about the idea I ranted on the Fediverse:

Before I take seriously any dreams you may have about terraforming Mars, buy a few acres of the worst farmland in your area, and build a no input farm on it that feeds your family year-round.

If you can't even do that, no mention of living on Mars please.

I got a lot of responses explaining that living on Mars without earthly resupplies would be hard for many more reasons than I mentioned. I won't list them here, for brevity. The idea that someone incapable of taking care of themselves here without exploiting others would lead a successful colonization of a distant planet, is absolutely ludicrous of course. And that is all the argumentation I need, so let's not get into the sheer physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and ethics of it. I would hardly know where to begin.

AI will fix it all for us

Some of the broligarchy think that AI will help us solve problems like climate change. The best and shortest refute to that was put way better than I ever could by Timnit Gebru:

“First, you kill the environment in the process of getting to so-called AGI, and then that AGI is going to somehow magically stop forest fires and storms and the wind?” Gebru asks, dumbfounded. “It doesn’t make any sense. There are no specifics of how this could happen.”

There are older, and less obvious lies. I will not to too deeply into them before you stop reading because of my radicalism. Suffice it to say that this rabbit hole runs deep.

The lies we are told obfuscate that:

- rich people go skiing by superyacht and helicopter on the last remaining snow on the planet,

• nature reserves are destroyed to build golf courses,

• people die while CEO's get bonuses.

Everybody knows. But enough of the cynisism. What can a small group of entrepreneurial priviliged people like Squads do that doesn't perpetuate this insanity?

What does work?

To refind purpose and meaning and joy, and to feel grounded in our long term future we clearly need something else than unlimited growth and long term sci-fi fantasies. We even need something other than thinking seven generations ahead, or to cultivate loving kindness. Those are good things, but they are not very practical.

We need actions we can take to feel better right here and now.

There are a lot of self-help and wellness kind of things we can do to ourselves, but no amount of sauna's and massages and healthy food can take away the overwhelming feeling of dread the current course of humanity is giving me (and many others like me I presume).

My real joy comes from building real solutions to the challenges of this world. And that doesn't mean building an AI driven adtech platform for SDG minded CEO's (I'm sure it exists, I'm not going to link to it, please don't point it out to me if you happen to find it, I don't care one bit).

I would like to highlight a few startups that I invested (mostly time) in over the past couple of years, that I think are examples of things that we should be doing.

De Graafse Akker

It's Dutch, you won't be able to pronounce it, but let me tell you it is awesome. The general idea is that a bunch of local squatters has created an urban farming community that over the years has produced some excellent results. From it, and the linked local anarchist communities have sprouted:

• A community owned social housing

• Yearly local camp/festival

• Community garden feeding hundreds

• and many more cool things

AReL

Action for Refugee Life (AReL) is a refugee-founded social enterprise operating from Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Their mission is to bridge the gap between digital education and employment for forcibly displaced youth and host community members across Africa. They provide free, market-relevant training in tech and business, supported by mentorship, job placement, and entrepreneurship programs. AReL's model connects refugees directly to the global digital economy, enabling them to earn a dignified living while contributing meaningfully to the world.

What stood out to me most about AReL is the real, measurable impact. Young people who've lived through displacement are now earning a living by building websites, analyzing data, launching digital businesses, skills that weren’t accessible to them just a few years ago. It’s not charity. It’s not hype. It’s transformation. They’ve helped hundreds break out of survival mode and step into global opportunities. They are making a decent income. The ripple effect is real families supported, confidence restored, dignity reclaimed. We didn’t come in with a big plan. We just supported where we could, helping streamline their systems, and raise some funds. But honestly, they’re the ones doing the work that matters most. And it gives me hope.

FarmToHome

FarmToHome is a good example of where things can actually change for the better. It’s a startup that connects local farmers directly to people’s homes, skipping the big supermarket chains. It sounds simple, and that’s exactly the point. No need for AI magic or world domination plans – just a solid team building something real that makes food systems more fair, transparent, and local. We backed them through the Squads Member Fund, and what I love is that it’s not about scaling as fast as possible, but about staying true to the mission: better food, closer to home.

So, is the end of venture capital near?

Probably not. The money machine will keep spinning for a while. But more and more people are waking up to the fact that it’s not working – for the planet, for our communities, or for our own peace of mind.

That doesn’t mean we stop building. It means we build differently. Slower maybe. With less buzzwords. With people we trust, for people we care about. We stop pretending we’re going to save the world with exponential growth and start doing the actual work of helping, repairing, reconnecting.

At Squads, we’re still entrepreneurs. But we don’t want to be the old kind. We want to build things that matter. And if that means stepping outside the usual venture logic – so be it.

Maybe this isn’t the end of venture capital. But it could be the start of something better.