August 01, 2021 ·
The act of starting a company has never been applauded this much in the history of time, it's great. The phrase I'm starting a company is immediately met with a reflexive congratulations! Personally, I never thought I'd work in the oil industry growing up. Children don't think about oil, I was more concerned with remote controlled cars and video games. I only realized as an adult that oil makes up both these things. Oil somehow converts a few times over and end up as toys and video games. Plus knowledge. Oil and its derivatives are deeply embeded in almost all aspects of modernity. But that's not a common view it. Within the industry it's some departmental metric or what the newspaper is saying about it, or the worst; in terms of a suit wearing MBA’s powerpoint. This is to say that most folks, including professionals in the industry aren't fascinated with oil converting a few times over to become things, video games, toothpaste, the street outside, and even a Patagonia vest. Instead, fascination with oil is ironically frowned upon. Prab! Don't you know? We’re trying to move away from it, not encourage it. So starting an oil company doesn't work in 2021.
The good part about working at an oil super major (I'm probably supposed to say energy company, surely it's the preferred norm) is access to every single part of the oil molecule’s supply chain. Most either do not have access to that in its entirety, or they aren't fascinated by oil’s transformations to look into them. This explains why people at parties talk about the energy industry in a way that makes no sense to industry professionals. Professionals on the other hand talk about the industry in a completely esoteric, confusing manner. So the list of people that can describe oil supply chains in simple English is short. By supply chains I mean the journey an oil molecule takes once you start to convert it to other things. In this sense, renewable energy has a long, long way to go before it replaces oil entirely. This is why oil companies must increasingly transition away from oil. If we try all the innovative ideas we have on optimizing energy production and consumption, we might transition off of the oil molecule in a few decades. At the very least a few decades. That's if we hurry. Because there is a lot to be done. Decades worth of stuff. I actually appreciate Shell for doing the right thing, minus middle managers optimizing local maxima. In retrospect, the infinite stream of knowledge and expertise in technical subjects is what's most fascinating about an oil super major. Shell's engineering feats have long stood the test of time and continue to be of value to the world. Lindy compatible.
In 2018, I discovered my grandfathers notebooks. It was an unforgettable moment to realize that he had entire notebooks full of handwritten notes in 5 different languages specific to oil. Wait, what? The experience sent me down a rabbit hole. What else did he care about enough to have notebooks full of multilingual notes on? And if he knew so much about oils and machines, why did he not start an oil company? Oil distributors (private-equity owned oil companies) in America often have that as their origin story: my grandfather found it. Why not mine? Oil distributors must have many notebooks full of such notes from their grandfathers, describing oil, machines and all that. It's not a coincidence that you hear the phrase my grandfather found it hundreds (maybe even thousands) of times in the oil industry. Men just want one thing and it's disgusting: to continue down the path their ancestors gave them. I remember my grandfather talking to me about machines that fascinated him, saying how they existed in America. Listening to him talk, fast cars and strong machines sounded like a dream to me. In that sense, moving to America and working at Shell was a dream come true. But what do you do next? That’s a tough question.
Oil is a dirty word in many circles. It takes burning some fossil fuel to even criticize fossil fuels; the irony. If one does not consider oil's infinite manifestations in their entirety, then it seems like an optional commodity that someone somewhere is doing something with, but it doesn't concern one as an individual. It's not even physical in that worldview, it’s just a concept. Which means it can be replaced with a better concept, and replaced quickly. So let's replace it and be done with it, right? Wrong. Replacing the infinite number of things linked to oil will take time. We could try making it take less time. We probably need more market competition for that. So again, why aren't more people starting new oil companies? Why do all new companies started recently seem to be software companies instead? Maybe because software can also convert a few times over to end up as toys and video games.
Software companies are oil companies that don't sell oil.
Oil companies don't even call themselves oil companies anymore, so it's wise to not open another. But if the phrase data is the new oil is to be taken seriously, software companies can be referred to as oil companies. Are they? I wonder what my grandfather would have thought. I think he would have moved to America, he always talked about it. I already did that, check. He also would have loved to spend time with the latest and greatest machines known to mankind. I've spent over 10,000 hours doing that at Shell, check. But I think, given the time and resources, he also would have started a business that I could say my grandfather found it about. I imagine he would have used the internet to enable machines and people to do valuable things, and he would have continued capturing his knowledge in a notebook somewhere. I'm certain of that. I don't know what an oil company that doesn't sell oil does...but sell software. I will figure out the details as I go, but this feels like the right path.
I'm Prabhchintan Randhawa, and I just quit Shell to start an oil company.
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