@Forbes just named me one of America's greatest living optimists. #76! It was a huge honor. After all, while pessimists might be “right” for the time being, optimists do everything that drives progress. All the great successes I know are huge optimists. Supporting optimism is my life. Free email sounded crazy to pessimists. But Hotmail was built by optimists, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. Free phone calls and video calls sounded even crazier to pessimists. But Skype was born by optimists, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Fries. An electric car company and a private space company? Crazier still to a pessimist, but Tesla and SpaceX were built by the biggest optimist anywhere, Elon Musk. Satoshi Nakamoto is an optimist, willing to transform the entire global economy with a trusted 3rd party in software around Bitcoin. Every one of those started with an entrepreneur painting a picture of a world nobody had seen yet. My job was just to believe in the world they were creating, and to say yes to them and encourage them forward. So the award really belongs to the founders. They supply the optimism. I just keep buying it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2026/10/20/forbes-250-americas-greatest-living-optimists/