Humanity's Propulsion System - Storytelling

Stories are engines

At sequel this month we launched our media arm. Hoping to make our own small dent in the future of human progress. We tell the stories of modern day heroes. The top 0.1% of athletes, artists, entrepreneurs and investors. Follow our media arm on X, TikTok, Instagram, or Youtube.

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Issus, 333 BCE. Alexander the Great stood on the front line beside his Companion Cavalry, the Persian Empire stretched before them, a wall of glittering steel. Dust swirled, horses trembled, and his generals whispered caution. Alexander lowered his helmet, mounted Bucephalus, and prepared to carve his name into the fate of continents.

But this moment was born years earlier, in the quiet halls of Pella, where a young boy sat at Aristotle’s side, gripping a marked copy of The Iliad. The philosopher didn’t just teach him Achilles’ deeds, he ignited them inside him. Achilles became more than a hero. He became a template. A destiny to chase. A myth to surpass.

This is the power of stories. They don’t merely inspire; they sculpt identity, bend ambition, and create new realities. Sometimes, they even remake the world through the people who believe them most.

Investors and founders often talk about the power of storytelling from a capital raising perspective. While it is true that this is a skill required to accumulate resources - this is a crude simplification of the importance of storytelling to mankind.

Stories are not simply vulgar tools for short-term gain. Stories are not relics. They’re not dusty records of what once happened or flat instruction sheets for what might.

Stories are engines. Sparks that detonate in the minds of the next generation and push humanity forward.

Every breakthrough begins as a story believed before the world is ready for it. Heroes heard tales of courage long before they ever stood in danger. Innovators imagined new worlds because someone else once sketched the outline. Stories shape identity, sharpen ambition, and plant the ‘dangerous’ idea that the impossible is simply the unattempted…

Civilizations advance through this cycle: a story inspires a mind, that mind creates a leap, and the leap becomes a new story for those who follow. Storytelling isn’t entertainment. It’s the mechanism of progress. Humanity’s propulsion system.

It’s how we move forward.

Since 2011 the average daily media consumption of Americans has increased by more than 30% to 12 hours 42 minutes per day.

During the same period - algorithms have won the war versus curators. As a result we have seen an explosion of clickbait, negativity and now AI slop.

This begs the question: if inspirational stories are the engine of humanity - do we face a slowdown in civilizational progress with human attention increasingly consumed by negativity and slop?

At sequel this month we launched our media arm. Hoping to make our own small dent in the future of human progress.

We tell the stories of modern day heroes. The top 0.1% of athletes, artists, entrepreneurs and investors.

Behind every great leap forward, there is an athlete who sacrificed their childhood. An artist who broke every rule. A founder who wouldn’t take ‘no’. The investor who believed first.

At Sequel, we tell their stories. Because stories build belief. And when stories are told, heroes rise. And when heroes rise - the world moves forward.

Our first guest was Patrice Evra - a remarkable man who rose from a background of child abuse and sleeping on the streets of Paris to the pinnacle of world sport and a powerful voice for other survivors.

Follow our media arm on X, TikTok, Instagram, or Youtube.