The Trust Pandemic
Here are a couple of truths to start this post about Truth and Trust:
I didn’t start HERE because it was 2025 and trust was completely broken. I would have started it, if I’d been able to, in 1985 or 2005 or whenever.
Normal business runs on trust. Always has and always will. (Abnormal business runs on corruption. But that’s for another post).
I don’t talk much about trust when I’m out pitching the HERE service to Portland business people. I talk about referral networks, word-of-mouth currency and why the multiplier effect matters to our local prosperity. These are all important concepts.
But I’ve lately come to realize that everything I’m doing and building is anchored tightly in place by one mighty principle.
And that’s trust.
I can sense in myself an almost manic fever to elevate my trustworthiness in response to the trust pandemic we’re living through. I hardly need enumerate. We can’t trust the government or it’s proclamations, statistics or election-tampering claims. We can’t trust the internet with it’s bots, cybercriminals and algorithmic field-tilters. We can’t trust LLM’s because of biases in how they’re trained and programmed. We can’t even trust our own eyes anymore because of deepfakes, cheapfakes and the crisis of provenance.
Why am I so obsessed with getting right back to people? Showing up on time for meetings? Following through on every offer? Leading with generosity? Writing my own emails? It’s good business practice, sure. But more than that, it’s a response to this pandemic. “Hell yes you can trust me. You better believe it. Believing is all we got. WE are all we got.”
And it’s not just my trustworthiness that obsesses me. I’m hyper-tuned to yours as well. It maybe didn’t used to matter quite so much if our actions didn’t perfectly align with our claims and words. Lemme tell ya, it matters a hella lot now. I WANT to trust you. Then I want others to trust you. That’s how this word-of-mouth thing actually works. I’m attracted to your trustworthiness, as you’re attracted to mine. When we know that about each other, our immune systems are stronger.
It’s funny that we use a colloquialism, “word of mouth,” to describe the most valuable currency we have as humans — our reputations. Our record of trustworthiness, as judged by others.
As the trust pandemic rages on, reputational currency appreciates.
Networks of trusted humans who reliably join together to meet business and community needs, will become the most valuable networks. Virtual networks will depreciate.
Certain trusted networks like HERE will end up being more important than a currency even, because of their rootedness in place. The most valuable networks of all will become living infrastructure that provides provenance, access and a defense against the many breaches of untruthfulness.
If HERE was born 20 or 40 years ago, I think it’d have been cool and successful.
It would not have been as urgently necessary.