Chris Burggraeve is a good guy, who used to be the #CMO of AB InBev. He believes that a brand needs a ‘galactic’ mission to be viable in today’s economy. By Galactic, he literally means companies should be thinking about their brand in space. I like Chris, and was always open to it, but I never fully bought into it.

Until now.

Compare these two recent events and you’ll understand why.

Event 1:

On April 20th a $10 billion Space X Starship rocket exploded 90 seconds after liftoff. "Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch," Elon Musk tweeted minutes after the explosion. His response was broadly heralded as a brilliant visionary leader who learns from explosive mistakes.

Event 2:

In January, Goldman Sachs #ceo David Solomon was excoriated for posting a $3 billion loss in its consumer banking venture, Marcus. Three months later, Goldman, in partnership with Apple, attracted a record $1billion in deposits in 4 days (4 DAYS!) into its newly launched high yield savings account. No one congratulated Solomon for having ‘learned a lot for the next launch.’  Even though he did. 

Goldman CEO David Solomon

The only difference between these two incidents is that Goldman rebounded from its mistake and SpaceX hasn’t. At least not yet. 

Storytelling and vision are indispensable economic assets for the modern leader. A leader who can articulate how the world will be transformed can make billion-dollar mistakes without denting investors confidence. We are seduced by bold, Galactic vision. Storytelling serves as an astounding insurance policy against $hitty news.

Conversely, a company which is considered greedy, or elitist, or predatory will be monitored for every misstep. Every failed experiment is seized on as confirmation that the end has finally arrived. The ice they skate upon cracks with the slightest misstep.

The same paradox played out when #Apple launched the iPad in 2012. A week earlier reports surfaced of horrific conditions at Foxconn, its Chinese supplier. No one cared. The iPad was one of the most successful product launches in history.

Compare that to GAP in 2004. Gap’s sales, stock, and brand value all plummeted when child labor was discovered in some of its offshore factories in 2004.

It's eye-opening to see how little impact Goldman's success is having on its reputation or investor sentiment. It's equally shocking how a $10billion explosion wins a round of applause, literally.

Maybe it all come down to the power of a galactic brand.

The average Fortune 500 investment bank is 127 years old. And the average investment banker makes $372,000 per year. The only stories that come to mind about the industry are middle-aged, millionaire men, buying bottle service at a strip club. And then the next day giving each other high fives for closing a deal on a powerplant that contaminates a river bank in Flint, Michigan. Sorry to be crass - but it’s not untrue. 

And yet, the entire world economy would shut down without investment banks. Governments, businesses, and people would suddenly have their assets frozen. All monetary transactions would come to a sudden halt. It is an industry which is significantly more indispensable than SpaceX or Coca Cola or Nike. 

Usually I have a strong call to action in these articles, and I don’t have one here. Just a big, hairy puzzle. How could a bank like Goldman Sachs mesmerize the world like Elon Musk just did?