Why time is the successor to investment space
I recently read Alex Danco’s thesis on Prediction as the successor to Post-Modernism, and it struck a chord that resonates deeply with how we design innovation systems.
Danco argues that we are exiting the “Post-Modern” era of business defined by subjectivity, infinite choice, and “capital-at-risk”, and entering the “Predictive” era. If Modernism was about progress (force of will) and Post-Modernism was about innovation (managing risk), Prediction is about order (contributing information).
It is a brilliant piece of cultural analysis. But if we look at this through the lens of system architecture there is a fundamental physics problem that Danco touches on but doesn’t explicitly name.
The shift isn’t just cultural. It is dimensional.
We are finally moving from an economy obsessed with Space to an economy obsessed with Time.
The Spatial Trap of Post-Modernism#
For the last forty years, Venture Capital and Innovation Strategy have been solving a spatial geometry problem.
We built portfolios. We mapped “market landscapes.” We looked for “white space.” The entire Post-Modern VC model (the “Power Law” playbook) is essentially a game of coverage. If you cover enough surface area (invest in 100 startups), one of them will hit. It’s a brute-force approach to spatial probability. Afterall, what is an investment thesis other than a spatial map of the market?
Danco calls this “Post-Modernism,” where truth is relative and success is about “rendering” the right product for the right niche. In this system, “Product-Market Fit” is a static coordinate. You find the fit, you lock it in, you scale.
But this model ignores the most critical variable in the equation.
Relativity Finally Coming of Age#
In the midst of the Modern era, in 1905, Einstein published Special Relativity, proving that Time is not a constant background track; it is a dimension as malleable and critical as Space. He fused them into Spacetime.
Yet, business strategy has remained stubbornly “Newtonian”. We treat Time as a linear constant: a timeline on a Gantt chart rather than a dynamic variable that changes the value of everything else.
It has taken a century for this scientific reality to permeate the zeitgeist. We are only now realizing that the “Space” (the Idea, the Market, the Product) is irrelevant if the “Time” coordinate is wrong.
The 42% Variable (The Bill Gross Insight)#
If we want to operationalize this, we have to look at the data. In what I consider a canonical piece of innovation research, Idealab founder Bill Gross analyzed 200 companies to isolate the single biggest factor for success.
He looked at five variables:
- Idea
- Team
- Business Model
- Funding
- Timing
The Silicon Valley orthodoxy (the Post-Modern view) would bet the house on the “Team” or the “Idea.”
The result? Timing accounted for 42% of the difference between success and failure. Watch the talk:
Airbnb launched during the 2008 financial crisis, right when people needed to monetize their spare rooms. YouTube launched exactly when broadband penetration hit critical mass and Flash solved the video codec problem.
This isn’t “Product-Market Fit.” It’s Product-Moment Fit (thanks for this phrase Alex Danco!).
In the Post-Modern era, we tried to solve this by ignoring it. We sprayed capital across the spatial landscape hoping to get lucky on the temporal one.
Prediction Markets: The Financialization of Time#
This is where Danco’s thesis becomes a roadmap for system design.
He suggests that Prediction Markets are the successor to the “Innovation” model. Why? Because a prediction market is the first financial instrument that explicitly prices Time.
When you buy a contract on Kalshi or Polymarket, you aren’t just betting on what will happen (Space/Idea); you are betting on when it will resolve. The contract collapses the infinite subjective possibilities of Post-Modernism into a single, objective, time-bound truth.
In the old model, a startup was an “assertion of power” (Modernism) or a “calculated risk” (Post-Modernism). In the new model, a venture is a contribution of information to a temporal ledger.
Designing for the Fourth Dimension#
What does this mean for how we build?
It means we need to stop designing static organizations and start designing temporal systems.
- From Portfolios to Streams: Instead of holding a static portfolio of assets, modern venture builders need to manage a stream of decisions. The value is in the delta (rate of change), not the static position.
- From “Is this a good idea?” to “Is this the right time?”: We need to rigorously assess the why now. Is the underlying infrastructure ready? Is the consumer psychology ready?
- Monetizing the Z-Axis: If Prediction is the new atomic unit of value, then the businesses of the next decade won’t just sell products; they will sell certainty. They will sell the ability to navigate the time dimension.
Einstein gave us the math in 1905. Bill Gross gave us the data in 2015. Alex Danco has given us the cultural theory in 2025.
The architecture of the next generation of value isn’t about finding space. It’s about mastering time.