On its 50th birthday, Star Trek still matters to entrepreneurs -- and the world

So it’s the 50^th anniversary of Star Trek.

As the baby boomers grew up and embraced entrepreneurship, I was surprised to learn how many successful business-builders were rabid Trek fans. One entrepreneur even named his company “Star” to honour the show. He, like many others I met, was inspired by Star Trek’s hopeful vision of the future, its embrace of diversity and inclusiveness, and its core values of science, peace and discovery. Entrepreneurs embrace its lessons in leadership, diplomacy, and solving problems using your imagination at least as often as your phaser.

It was easy to be negative in the 1960s and ’70s, as issues such as crime, racism, unjust wars, and the atom bomb hung like black bunting over the world. But Star Trek rejected those petty divisions, and foresaw a universe based on equality, collaboration and optimism – the same values espoused by so many of today’s ambitious tech startups.

It seems to me that today’s geopolitical struggles – right vs left, democracies vs radical fundamentalists – reflect the same division now: between people who see things getting better, and those who see the world falling into decay and despair. A gulf lies between people who embrace and advance societal change, and those who fear the future.

Star Trek was one of the first TV shows to regularly address important issues of race, society and politics. In its message of hope, it echoed that of Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Roosevelt went on to describe fear as the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

If a society does not advance it decays.

What a good word Roosevelt chose: “Advance.” It’s pretty much synonymous with “Boldly Go.”

Trek On, captains and crew, for another 50 years.

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In a lighter vein, below is a poster reprising a column I wrote in PROFIT magazine 20 years ago: “Everything I know about business I could have learned from Star Trek .”