What I'm Leaving Behind In 2025
- Emin Askerov
- Jan 5
- 1 min read
The one thing I’m leaving behind in 2025: three-five-year thinking for problems that take decades to solve.
FOAK work has a way of breaking your intuition about time. Climate hardware doesn’t respect annual KPIs, shareholder meeting cycles, or fund lifetimes. Market acceptance, permitting, supply chains, and learning curves all move to their own rhythms.
Yet we keep trying to force them into slide-friendly horizons.
I’ve seen too many good projects struggle, not because the technology was wrong, but because the time horizon was mispriced. I, guilty as charged, for trying to fit FOAK schedules for investors’ required payback periods, rather than for real construction and ramp-up time.
Going into 2026, I’m trying to be more explicit about this with founders and investors alike: take a long view. How do you reconcile long physical timelines with short financial ones in your work?
