Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners, is popularizing the concept of “proentropic” startups – businesses designed to not just survive, but benefit from increasing global instability. This shift in thinking comes as climate change, geopolitical tensions, and rapid technological change accelerate the rate of disruption across industries.
The Rise of Proentropy
Gracias coined the term proentropic to describe companies that actively prepare for and exploit chaotic conditions. The idea stems from the second law of thermodynamics, which states that all systems naturally move toward disorder (entropy). Instead of fighting this inevitable trend, proentropic businesses embrace it.
He first began considering this framework in 2013, anticipating that deglobalization and technological shifts would reshape power structures worldwide. Now, with a world demonstrably leaning toward chaos due to population growth and technological disruption, the need for such preparedness is more urgent.
What Does a Proentropic Startup Look Like?
These are not simply companies in stable markets, but those that predict future instability and build strategies around it. A key trait is “probabilistic thinking” — an assumption that anything can change at any moment. This means factoring in extreme scenarios, and positioning to profit from them.
SpaceX is often cited as an example: it isn’t only successful in the current space market, but structured to adapt to unpredictable changes in technology, geopolitics, or even catastrophic events.
Beyond Survival: Moral Courage and Opportunity
Gracias believes that success in this era requires not just adaptability, but also “moral courage” – a willingness to challenge prevailing narratives. He points to the intersection of climate, energy, and hardware, citing Tesla as a model for integrating software and hardware effectively.
He rejects the common fear that AI will lead to widespread job losses and unrest. Instead, he sees the rise of low-code/no-code tools as empowering more people to start companies, unleashing productivity on an unprecedented scale. Ultimately, he believes that the future is not predetermined: “We will decide whether we have a utopian future or a dystopian future.”
The emergence of “proentropic” thinking signals a growing recognition that survival in the 21st century depends on building businesses that are not just resilient, but fundamentally designed to thrive in uncertainty. This is no longer about avoiding disruption; it’s about leveraging it.
