Chris Lewicki

The greatest gift remains with me because I discovered something profound:

I'm rich enough to give this gift too.

And so are you.

Who will you give it to this week?

Since that day, I've tried to give that same gift to others.

The founder pitching me their idea. The team member with a problem. My wife at the kitchen table.

Phones away. Laptop closed. Nothing more important than right now.

Here's what I learned:

You don't need to be a billionaire to give this gift.

You just need to be willing to give someone the thing everyone craves but few receive:

Your complete, undivided attention.

That gift changed me.

Not because of who he was, but because of what he gave.

In a world of divided attention and constant interruption, total presence is the rarest gift you can give.

Think about what an afternoon costs someone running a company touching billions of people.

The meetings canceled. The decisions delayed. The opportunities passed.

That time is gone. He'll never get it back.

An hour became two. Two became three.

Complete presence. Total curiosity. Pure engagement.

The realization crept up on me: I was experiencing something I'd never felt before.

And may never feel again.

We talked for hours about satellites, space mining, internet constellations.

Anyone can give you 5 minutes of attention.
Rare people can give you 30 minutes of focus.

But I started noticing something as the afternoon went on...

Glass-walled conference room.
Two walls facing the office.
Two walls facing California sun.

Zuck on a beanie chair. My co-founder and I on a corner couch.

Two others in the room who never spoke.

No one interrupted.
No laptops.
No phones visible.

2014. I got an email from "Zuck" asking about laser communications for small satellites.

At Planetary Resources, we were building tech to mine asteroids. He wanted to talk about connecting the world.

After a video call, we flew to the Bay Area.

The greatest gift I ever received was from Mark Zuckerberg, and he'll never recoup the cost.

Not because it was expensive. Because it's impossible for him to buy back.

Risk management is about catching the preventable.

But sometimes you need to cultivate the possible.

That's why I built @RiskThing.

Join the waitlist: RiskThing.com

The backup plan wasn't protecting me from failure.

It was preventing me from discovering what success actually required.

There are two types of risk:

1. The risk of failing
2. The risk of never jumping

I'd spent my career managing the first while ignoring the second.

When I got home, I called the real estate agent.

Put the house on the market.

Told my co-founders we were all-in on Seattle.

No more backup plan. No more safety net.

"Real explorers burn their boats," he said.

And I knew instantly he was right.

I hadn't really committed. I was playing it safe while pretending to be bold.

I showed up uninvited at his $1B company. Got 20 minutes with him.

He looked at me with that stare—not through me, but INTO me.

The kind that sees what you're hiding from yourself.

But I had a backup plan.

"If this crazy thing fails, I can always go back to JPL."

It felt smart. Responsible. A safety net.

It was actually the thing that was going to kill my startup before it began.

I'd just left NASA. My dream job.

Two Mars rovers. Phoenix Mars Lander. Exceptional Achievement medals on the wall.

Joined an ultra-stealth asteroid mining startup as co-founder #1.

I thought I'd made the leap.

In 2009, my thesis advisor looked at me with that 1000-yard stare and said something that changed everything:

"Chris, real explorers burn their boats."

Here's what he saw that I couldn't:

This would be an incredible mission to witness. @richardbranson and @JeffBezos have both experienced their own vehicles. It’s time for Elon to do the same, and Jared can support his mission.

Here's an idea: @elonmusk and @rookisaacman should visit the International Space Station before they consider accelerating its destruction. Go on a spacewalk to perform some maintenance.

YouTube video by Story & Science (Formerly S3) "NEW SPACE" Frontier Film

Great, inspirational film featuring a lot of friends and pioneers. Looking forward to it feeling dated in just another year — things are moving fast!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOlp...

Moved to tears 20 years ago, on January 15 2004, a little before 2 AM Pacific time, was the payoff.

20 years ago, on January 15 2004, a little before 2 AM Pacific time, was the payoff.
It was cause for celebration.
But first, I wept. 😂
medium.com/@interplanet...

This photo is beautiful beyond words in a techno-architectural way.

More beautiful to me than a Starship at sunset, or mach diamonds from a new rocket.

My thanks to NASA's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Sciences teams for capturing this historic moment. 3/3

They also hold some secrets for our future. The material you are looking at could be converted to fuel for space transportation, raw materials for manufacturing, or key ingredients to build an industrial capability in space. And quite probably, for things we have yet to imagine. 2/3

Absolutely incredible. This is raw material gently recovered from the surface of an asteroid has been orbiting the sun for billions of years after it condensed into this solid matter. These dark fragments hold secrets to the origin of our Solar System. 1/3
www.nasa.gov/image-articl...

If you’ve been able to overcome a failure and benefit from it, I'd love to hear your failure story.

Ever wondered what it feels like to destroy a Mars mission? This is my Mars Rover failure story.

chrislewicki.com/articles/fai...

Hey. What’re you up to Thursday?

www.crowdcast.io/c/newcorey-r...