Trust: the single most challenging problem in science and entrepreneurship

When I was a kid, there was this advertisement on TV: Gerson de Oliveira, the outstanding soccer player from the Brazilian national team that won the ’70 world cup, asked the audience “do you want to take advantage?” while explaining why they should buy a particular brand of cigarettes.

Many years later, the advertisement became notorious. It represented the kind attitude that was ‘ruining’ our lives in society. Suddenly, ‘Taking advantage’ was ‘the root of all evil’ and a forbidden desire.

But it is easier to take out the advertisement from TV than people’s will to take advantage. Our brain evolved (and we still live) in a world with (many) limited resources. Taking advantage could mean the difference between pain or pleasure, satiation or starvation, life or death. We may not say it in public or on the TV anymore, but we still (and I’d bet we forever will) love to take advantage.

The idea that someone is always trying to get a competitive advantage over us, however, made us very suspicious. Some people more than others, it is true, but in general, we are very suspicious. Me, for example, I laugh, out of fun and terror, of the statement that “every negotiation has a fool. And if you don’t know who the fool is, that means it is you”.

"No ducks!" The day I found out a negotiation can be positive sum after all. Another great extended lunch with Scott Fahrenkrug #business #biotechnology #science pic.twitter.com/inJtFihmLN

— tagomago | Mauro Rebelo (@tagomago_me) September 23, 2022

Scientists are not different. We may be suspicious because it is in our nature, the same way as curiosity. But maybe academia has become such a competitive environment, with so limited resource, that we are now always watching over our shoulders.

However, lack of trust corrodes relationships. And because the era of individual achievements is gone and now, specially in science, we create in group, lack of trust is a major set back in having, sharing and executing ideas.

Let me tell a short but significant anecdote. In 2012, I went with a Brazilian delegation to visit the technology park in Stavanger, Norway. We had the chance to see a presentation from the director of the iPark incubator. Their process, from selection to funding and incubation of a company, took 6 weeks. When I asked how they manage to have such an expedite process, he wondered for a while and answered me with another question “why not?” To him, there was no reason to be otherwise. Noticing that I was still longing for an explanation he said: “Here, at the technology park, we are close to industry and university. We bump into each other all the time. It is hard that someone that we never heard of come to present a proposal. And if it is the case, we can easily get out of the building and ask people around”. I remembered the statement from my friend, NASA scientist and science diplomacy specialist Robert Swap “Rigor and reputation are built upon integrity, transparency and accountability”. Those Norwegians have a network of trust. When I turned to the manager of a major Brazilian granting agency on my side, kind of asking for his opinion, he bounced immediately: “this will NEVER happen in Brazil”. If Norway wasn’t so cold and Rio so beautiful, I might had stayed there.

Networks of trust are the major competitive differential of successful scientific, business and entrepreneurial communities. Steven Casper in his interesting article from 2007 shows how networks created the advantages that led San Diego and Boston to have more biotech companies than all the rest of the world together.

Those of us outside these circles are not doomed to live in a world of mistrust. There are many things that we can do to increase trust.

In 2014 I had the chance to attend to the workshop ‘Weak ties and Innovation’, led by Andrew Maxwell, at the Industry Research Institute conference in Denver. They discussed specific behaviours (see the picture illustrating this post) that impact relational trust, showing the trust dimension and examples of actions that could build, damage or violate trust.

The main point of the workshop was the importance of building trustful relationships, because it is impossible to innovate in a mistrust environment. In the absence of mutual trust, we need lawyers, other lawyers and some more lawyers. Risk analysis they undertake may have serious consequences for businesses and people, so the lawyers take their time. Time that innovation do not have. If we need to wait for clearance from the legal department to discuss ideas… the competition will overtake us. It is fundamental that we behave in trustful ways, with our collaborators, partners and stakeholders, in order to build a trustful reputation that foster communication and innovation.

However, the workshop showed the challenges of behaving this way. As a biological scientist, I know that our working memory is able to manage only 8 concepts at once, whenever we are doing something. Just to remember all the topics on the list above, I’d need 2 or 3 times my working memory. However, as the Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa once wrote: “We cannot increase our head to fit everything else”.

Because of that, we have outsourced trust to other institutions: notaries, certifiers, risk agencies, courts of law and so on. But these institutions, like science, are also made of faulty people. And even though this institutions may be doing a good work overall, trust is still a major issue in our world.

Are you feeling hopeless by now? Don’t. There may be a solution. What if we could outsource trust not to other humans or institutions, but to software and math algorithms?

It turns out that the popularization of technologies that are about 10 years old, such as the blockchain and smart-contracts, are giving us, for the first time in history, the chance to do so. With encryption, distribution and proof-of-work, we won’t have to trust parties in a deal any more, or outsource it to intermediates. We can just set the terms of the deal in a smart-contract and rest assure that the deal will go through if, and just if, the terms are met. Like a soda machine that gives you a drink every time that you put enough coins on it, or gives your money back. Just better, because unlike the soda machine, it never get jammed or hold your coins. Also, nobody can ‘break the glass’ and corrupt the machine. Encryption guarantees that!

I suggest you don’t trust me and go learn about all the terms I mentioned in the last paragraph, for yourself. Just like I did. “With great powers comes great responsibilities” (don’t we all just love to quote uncle Ben?!). I took some money that I could allow myself to loose and I played with Bitcoin and Ethereum. By doing so, I started to see the power that this technologies have to change our lives, as scientists, entrepreneurs and citizens.

Then, it was inevitable for me to join a group and create a blockchain company. I wanted to be a part of this movement. I wanted to solve these and other problems. No more “in god we trust”. I wanted to trust math and cryptography! I’m ready to trust encryption more than other people. More than journal editor, PI’s and grant reviewers. More than financiers. More than the government. How about you?