The Opportunity Stack
Empowering individual agency and scaling the American Dream
In college, I spent some time working at a company called Andela. Andela’s business model is largely based on education and staffing - training software developers across Africa and connecting developers with engineering teams around the world looking to hire top talent. The underlying foundational belief behind Andela’s work is summarized by the now-commonplace saying that “brilliance is evenly distributed, opportunity is not”. Perhaps the most important and enduring piece of knowledge I took away from my time at the company was just how much there was left to work on under this premise of the distribution of opportunity, and just how broad and multi-dimensional that work is.
I’ve sometimes struggled to succinctly name the spaces, verticals, or industries that I am interested in. The projects, startups, and organizations that I have been compelled by have spanned consumer fintech, education, incubators, staffing, and the now-ubiquitous space of ‘creator tools’. Yet while I’m certainly very interested in each of these spaces in their own right, there is a particular theme of products and services across these spaces that I have been most drawn to dedicating my time and attention for the past couple years - those that enable the expansion of opportunity, defined as the ability for individuals to exercise agency over their own lives and futures regardless of their original circumstances, at scale. Indeed, the mission of expanding opportunity is in itself a great factor in my interest in the broader ‘technology’ industry as a whole (whatever that phrase may mean ) - the internet enabled one of the greatest expansions of opportunity in history, and much of what has been built or is being built on top of it has similarly proved an expedient means of expanding opportunity directly or otherwise supporting the expansion of opportunity.
In some ways, technology products as a means of expanding opportunity is simply a dimension of technology expanding access to all things in general. The idea of technology as a means of expanding access to legacy services and institutions is well explored, perhaps most prominently by Union Square Ventures’ third iteration of its investment thesis (thesis 3.0):
“USV backs trusted brands that broaden access to knowledge, capital, and well-being by leveraging networks, platforms, and protocols.
We think of knowledge, capital, and well-being as each encompassing multiple components. Knowledge includes education and learning, but also data driven insights and access to new ideas. With capital, we include financial capital from financial services innovation, whether in the current system or emerging financial platforms like crypto, but also human capital and technology infrastructure. And with well-being, we think about health and wellness, but also entertainment, connection, community, and fun.”
This thesis is a clear and precise articulation of some domains that companies can expand access and the ways they may do so. Many of these domains, like financial services, health and wellness, and education are also supporting the expansion of opportunity in general beyond their specific verticals (more on that later). Rex Woodbury has a fantastic essay exploring examples of how tech broadens access across three critical industries, namely financial services, education, and healthcare. Nikhil Basu-Trivedi has further analyzed the methods by which companies democratize access, putting forth the framework that companies broaden access by offering products that are free, cheaper, or more convenient. Indeed, one of the most foundational features of technology - from the wheel to the railroad to the personal computer - is that it makes the same tasks cheaper to accomplish, and as such most technology should be expanding access to something almost definitionally.
Expanding opportunity is a closely related phenomenon to expanding access, and in some ways a particular subset of expanding access. A second order effect of broadening access across various domains is that it enables more individuals to achieve a level of knowledge, capital, and well-being (as specified in USV’s thesis) that in turn enables them to control their own lives by their own achievement and ability - be that in the form of economic and social mobility or by some other definition - regardless of their prior circumstances. It’s much easier to achieve one’s dreams and see greater returns on hard work and achievement with access to a robust ecosystem of critical ancillary services like financial services, healthcare, education, connectivity, and government services. Instances of technology expanding opportunity by virtue of expanding access include the enablement of self-directed education in many fields and of internet entrepreneurs and businesses.
A point of clarification is due here - what exactly do I mean by ‘opportunity’? I’ve hinted at it previously, but I should clarify that I am using a somewhat expansive definition of the concept, largely centered around economic and social mobility but also focusing more fundamentally on the exercise of individual agency. Opportunity, then, can be considered the ability for one to make determinations about and actualize one’s dreams, regardless of one’s external circumstances - meaning one (1) determine their dreams and (2) achieve their dreams regardless of external barriers. Economic and social mobility is likely the most common form of this opportunity, but it can include pathways to achieving other dreams and goals as well. The products, services, and organizations that I am discussing here are thus those that enable this expansion of opportunity and individual agency massively to more people (i.e. expand opportunity at scale). Many components of this concept of opportunity regardless of one’s circumstances overlap greatly with the American Dream as an ethos and ideal that underlies the belief around the world of the United States as the land of opportunity. As such, I refer to the idea of working on things that massively expand opportunity and make this ideal a reality for more people as scaling the American Dream.
“That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement”
- James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (1931)
Why does opportunity matter?
Before we examine different dimensions of expanding opportunity, let’s establish some foundational reasons for which the product and services in this category matter, beyond the well-explored business cases in favor of them (namely that they reaches new users and thus expand market size or create new ones, that they enable new economic ecosystems and could thus be investments in compounding growth, and that they meet the moment of changing labor needs and the demand for new forms of economic participation, among others).
Beyond these considerations, the work to expand opportunity is absolutely critical for a number of more fundamental reasons:
Restricted opportunity means we lose out on human progress. Raj Chetty and the team at Opportunity Insights have researched this phenomenon extensively, highlighting that there are large discrepancies in who becomes an inventor in the US, such that we are likely losing out on innovations and growth due to ‘lost Einsteins’, who would have had high-impact contributions had they become inventors. If talent is unable to flourish because of a lack of opportunity, humanity as a whole loses out on progress. Moore’s Law is not natural law, and developing at the frontiers is an all-hands-on-deck project, necessitating the massive expansion of opportunity.
Access to opportunity is a necessary part of a functioning social contract. Everyone having the opportunity to pursue and build the life of their choosing - along with the belief that one has this ability - is part of a common, popular understanding of participatory society. A failure to maintain this access to opportunity, then, can lead to social dissatisfaction, unrest, and compounding effects on cultures and societies at large.
The most important reason to work on the expansion of opportunity, in my opinion, isn’t related to the strategic considerations of the benefits of access to opportunity like the previous two. Instead, it is simply a normative belief that the ideals and values of the American Dream that have helped make the United States the greatest country in human history are fundamentally good, and we should work to maintain and grow them as a reality. It is important, then, to democratize opportunity simply because of our values and normative beliefs - we need to believe, passionately and affirmatively, in these ideals. I find that many people often find the need to justify working on particular problems with some kind of consequentialist argument, but I think it is enough to simply believe that the principles of the American Dream are good in themselves and work to achieve those ideals.
The Opportunity Stack
Let’s examine some examples of companies and organizations working to expand opportunity through this framework. These categorizations and examples represent one possible framework of identifying products and organizations that contribute to scaling the American Dream. Note that, while I framed this discussion in the context of technology companies, I am not only considering technology or companies - the examples below include numerous institutions of higher learning, philanthropic initiatives, and other non-company resources and organizations.
Career Change & Skills Education
Organizations working in the career change and skills education space help scale the American Dream by enabling individual agency over work, via expanding the range of professions accessible - through afford to a given person.
These organizations create scalable programs and platforms that enable individuals to transition between or enter new fields of work. Many programs are built around helping people transition into the technology industry. Some, like Lambda School, are generalist programs that both provide both education and a new incentive-aligned financing model for students to transition into technical roles. Others focus on building training and employment-pathway programs for specific groups; for instance, Shift focuses on career advancement for current and former members of the US military transitioning into civilian jobs. These programs exist beyond the technology industry too. Companies like Dreambound and Avenify provide support and incentive-aligned financing models for nursing education programs. Furthermore, I believe that one aspect of career-transition programs with very high potential is the creation of programs that expand the affordability and accessibility of trade careers, such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical workers.
On a separate but related dimension, companies working to provide incentive-aligned financing for education programs in general (e.g. Stride Funding) serve a similar function in expanding opportunity by enabling a greater level of access to different types of education and, in turn, more individual choice over the education and subsequent life decisions one pursues. ISAs - as an alternative to student loans - are less likely to constrain graduate options in terms of career or life choices, by removing the burden of fixed student debt loads that stay constant despite different graduate financial situations or choices.
Career Advancement & Upskilling
Products and services that enable many more individuals within a career to reach their next phase or otherwise level-up in their profession are another component of scaling the American Dream. This support for ‘leveling-up’ can take many forms. Some prominent examples include Guild Education, which provides various educational opportunities for working adults by offering these programs as an employment benefit; apprenticeships, like Multiverse (f.k.a. WhiteHat), allow individuals to ‘level-up’ by obtaining training and a professional education through an alternative model to traditional forms of career preparation if they so choose; and platforms like Degreed provide upskilling opportunities to employees in a more integrated platform with a better user experience.
What’s common across these organizations is that they enable many more individuals to access this career advancement at lower cost than in the past, by providing these educational programs and resources in a more scalable manner. Furthermore, it is possible that these programs improve both quality and user experience by providing the training and education embedded in an employee’s actual work and career.
Employment & Hiring
There is another category of companies that focus on helping individuals obtain employment, usually specializing in either a particular vertical or a particular job function. These companies differ slightly from those focused on enabling career change for individuals, in that they largely focus on serving individuals already within a profession or field seeking employment, rather than those seeking to enter a field.
These companies are specialized along different dimensions. Some focus on a particular industry or particular professions. For instance, Cluster matches mechanical, electrical, and other hardware engineers with jobs in aviation, defense, and other industries. For tech jobs in big tech and startups, Pathrise provides recruitment and interview training, as well as mentorship for navigating the hiring process for various functions (engineering, design, etc.). Other companies, namely Placement, have a more generalist focus and differentiate themselves by providing ‘talent agent’-style services, as well as unlocking opportunity for job seekers in multiple geographies. Some companies can also differentiate by focusing on particular job functions in particular regions - e.g. Manara, a hiring solution for software engineers in the Middle East.
Entrepreneurial Talent Support
A particularly interesting category is those organizations that seek to expand opportunity to and support talented people building new things. This category of program is somewhat more amorphous than the previous few, as finding and supporting talent is an incredibly multifaceted and itself amorphous activity.
The functions of these programs can be loosely grouped into discovery (finding talented people that may have been overlooked or with otherwise limited access to opportunity), support (financial support or other kinds of structure that can enable people to pursue creating their project), and development (providing individuals with the non-financial support, such as connections, knowledge, and community, such that they can better pursue their projects). Some organizations in this category perform all of these functions together - for instance, Pioneer discovers talent from all corners of the world through monthly tournaments, and provides community, knowledge, and in-kind and sometimes financial support. Others specialize in one or two elements of this category - for instance, On Deck focuses on the talent development element by providing curriculum and communities, mostly based on the internet, for their fellows, and also allows undiscovered talent access to greater resources and opportunities. The Thiel Fellowship, as a philanthropic vehicle, focuses primarily on providing its fellows financial support, as well as supporting talent development through community and other resources.
Organizations that work in this category could perhaps provide the greatest delta for talented individuals pursuing independent projects or ideas with limited opportunities, as they provide a multi-component program of support for these projects and are often focused explicitly on expanding opportunity for their participants.
Creator Monetization
So much has been said and written about the category of creator tools by people much more knowledgable than myself about the field. I am instead focusing here on how tools that enable creator distribution, monetization, and access to capital are a vehicle for expanding opportunity at scale. Tools that enable creators to (1) access greater distribution at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional distribution channels and gatekeepers, (2) monetize their work more accessibly, consistently, or in a more incentive-aligned manner, and (3) access the capital to enable their creative work as their livelihoods. Creative work as a profession becomes much more viable through these tools, as it enables the long tail of creators to bypass traditional gatekeepers and access the time and resources to create and distribute their work previously reserved only for a small minority of creators. This expansion in the viability of creative work as a profession is a textbook example of expanding opportunity at scale. In some ways, tools that enable and lower barriers to establishing independent e-commerce businesses (Shopify, Etsy, etc.) enable an expansion of opportunity at scale in a similar way.
While tools that enable distribution and monetization for creators affords more creators the opportunity to make a living from their work, creator tools (i.e. those tools that enable creators to produce their work) themselves can also be considered a vehicle for expanding opportunity, as they reduce the costs of and make accessible professional-level tools to the long tail of creators.
Alternative Education
While most of the other categories discussed here have been concentrated around startups and organizations founded somewhat recently, this category includes a much wider range of institutions. I am defining alternative education in this context as any form of formal education program that differ noticeably from the most conventional forms of pedagogy (for the purposes of bounding the discussion, I am not considering self-directed learning or informal education within this category, though these forms of education could certainly be classified as alternative education).
Alternative education creates opportunity by enabling a wider range of options for individuals in the education they choose to pursue. This greater range of choice is critical for individuals to have agency over their own lives and futures, particularly for those that may not find conventional educational paths the most suitable for themselves. Some alternative education options are focused on adapting traditional curriculums and pedagogy for the current era (e.g. Minerva), or improving upon traditional forms of learning (e.g. AltSchool/Altitude Learning). Other options are longstanding institutions of learning founded on a specific vision of education - such as Deep Springs College and its ‘three pillars’ of academics, labor, and self-governance. Other institutions that provide an alternative form of education include St. John’s College and its focus on education through the Great Books or The Cooper Union and its focus on free (currently discounted) education in the arts and engineering.
SMB Enablement
This category of products and services makes challenging but valuable processes previously primarily available to large companies accessible to small businesses, through a reduction in cost or through simplifying a complex process. Examples include Stripe’s Atlas for incorporation, MainStreet for tax credits, and withco for real estate ownership by owner-operators. These products enable small businesses, often regarded as the backbone of the American Dream, to better and more reliably serve as a vehicle for economic and social mobility by making these processes more accessible - in terms of affordability and simplicity.
Ancillary Verticals & Services
It takes a village, as the saying goes. In the case of the grand project of expanding opportunity and scaling the American Dream, the village is a myriad of ancillary categories that create an environment conducive to opportunity. These include financial services, connectivity, healthcare, information, government, and research around opportunity. Access to services in these categories can be critical to supporting these expansion of opportunity. Some facets of each of these categories are listed in brief below.
Financial services
Access to financial services and financial wellness tools, including personal financial management, investment tools, and credit access, as well as structural systems being built by companies like Nova Credit to solve protracted barriers to financial access.
Retail investing and the enablement of ownership. Meera Clark of Obvious Ventures has an excellent article around the societal and cultural shifts towards retail investing. Some products built around these shifts include CommonStock, Public, Rally, Republic, Alto, and more.
Bespoke financial services. As financial profiles become more heterogenous due to different or new forms of work (gig workers, creators, etc.), financial services tailored towards specific profiles may better serve individuals in their pursuit of economic mobility.
Macro-level financial inclusion at the monetary level. Open Money Initiative has some interesting research on how people use money in closed economies, and how financial inclusion can be enabled in closed or collapsing financial systems.
Generally increasing economic activity around the world (e.g. Stripe’s mission statement).
Connectivity
LEO satellite internet constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink, to massively enable connectivity in under-connected (largely rural) areas.
Last mile connectivity networks, such as mesh networks provided by companies like GoTenna.
Fixed broadband deployment in rural high-cost areas, where necessary.
Healthcare
Expanding access to healthcare the insurance-level. For instance, the tying of health insurance to employment can limit the range of opportunities viable for individuals by reducing access to other kinds of work arrangements.
Expanding access at the provider-level - both in terms of access in general and access to quality care.
Everything in between, such as healthcare logistics (e.g. Zipline).
Information
Broad access to information is a critical component of expanding opportunity, and one of the most successful instances of generally making information widely accessible is Wikipedia.
Government
The role of public policy in general in expanding and maintaining opportunity must be emphasized here. This role spans numerous domains and is far too nuanced and complex to describe succinctly here.
Reducing bureaucracy and friction in access to government services, as emphasized by delivery-driven government advocates like Code for America.
Providing a robust and sustainable social safety net to limit catastrophic downside risk to individuals seeking to pursue an opportunity.
Research
Research about issues in access to opportunity and programs/policies that could help expand opportunity, such as that conducted by Opportunity Insights, is critical to developing ways to grow and maintain opportunity.
Projects like Our World in Data help provide context around broader issues that may have an impact on access to opportunity.
Scaling the American Dream
To expand opportunity at scale is an ambitious project involving so many different pieces, but it is undoubtedly a critical one to human flourishing and progress. The different pieces to expanding opportunity are complex, and I certainly don’t claim to be an expert, nor is this article by any means comprehensive - my intention in this article is simply to suggest a framework for understanding how work being done across different verticals can be viewed as working towards an expansion of opportunity. While many of the examples given fall loosely within the technology industry, this work is certainly not unique to tech - tech is simply currently the most prominent and high potential way to scale the American Dream.
Over the last few years, I’ve found expanding opportunity to be a common foundational theme across so many organizations, products, and services. I think the framework of an “opportunity stack” can highlight how these disparate categories contribute to massively enabling opportunity and individual agency, and how products and services can further enable economic and social mobility going forward.