The economist Robert Gordon identifies the 1920s as a critical period in the history of American economic growth. The colossal industrial buildout of 1870–1920 had transformed the country into an economic superpower, but one that did not yet know its strength. By the 1920s, it knew. At work, Americans witnessed a revolution in manufacturing, as factory electrification, machine automation, and mass production techniques became widespread. At home, Americans started seeing life-changing innovations appear at an unprecedented rate: electric power, refrigerators, cars, and more. Henry Luce wouldn’t coin the phrase “The American Century” until 1941, but by 1921, the promise was there.

Against that backdrop, President Calvin Coolidge delivered an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. To appreciate the context, one needs to remember that newspapers were a booming business in the 1920s. The analogous audience today might be the leaders of America’s most important AI companies. Coolidge said in part:

Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort. In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture. Of course, the accumulation of wealth can not be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it.

The challenge with old texts is that the easiest interpretation is the modern one. One way to read Coolidge’s speech is as the standard defense of capitalism. The profit motive may not seem virtuous, but it drives the innovation and free-market competition that create economic growth, with positive effects for everyone.

That idea is certainly present in the text. But a closer reading reveals a second, deeper idea that is perhaps less familiar: the idea of capital as a duty to the future. Elsewhere in the speech, Coolidge talks about the “double purpose” of the press, and suggests that newspapers that merely make money while shirking that double purpose are doomed to achieve only “ephemeral” results, and that they will have “no permanent effect” upon American history. The exhortation is for newspapers to use their capitalistic success to fulfill the ideals of journalism. The purpose of the capital that the American economy is entrusting the papers with is to achieve those ideals. “So long as wealth is made the means, and not the end…”

Under this view, excessive consumption is undesirable — something that modern laissez-faire-ism would have little to say about. Every mega yacht or trophy property is a missed opportunity to increase one’s commitment to the mission to Mars or the achievement of safe AGI. If you take your telos seriously, you are obligated to be highly invested in it.

We think these are under-rated ideas, and that they’re highly relevant to our moment in time. The 2020s are shaping up to be even more tumultuous than the 1920s. The role of risk-capital is bound to change in a post-AGI economy, and this technological revolution will have effects that are even more profound than electrification and mechanization were a century ago. It’s useful to have a mantra for remembering the fundamental role that capital is supposed to play in this setting.

It’s also useful to have a mantra for how an individual firm should operate. We at Bain Capital Ventures are announcing a new $1.6B fund today to make early- and growth-stage investments in outlier technology businesses. We feel fortunate to have the resources and capabilities to help founders achieve their chosen missions — or, in the spirit of this article, their duty to the future. While Bain Capital is large today, approximately $225B in AUM across its many strategies and geographies, the firm began with just $37M in 1984. In 1987, the early partners sat down to codify their principles for running the firm into a simple mantra. In 2026, we feel that mantra is the right one for an investment firm at the beginning of technological revolution:

Make Money, Have Fun, Live with Integrity.

BCV Fund XI | 2026.09.16