Take a look at these maps. What do you notice?

On the west side of Africa, the Portugese sweep from Lisbon all the way down to Namibia with great confidence and elan.

But rounding the cape to Mombasa, the game slows dramatically. They trade boldness for caution, dropping padrões at every turn.

Why did they need 15+ bases along the Cape and Indian coast? Could it be the vicissitudes of the wind? Or perhaps, the torment of the unknown.

Facing novel waters, teams pursue incremental, linear expansion. They reason from present to future, bootstrapping forward from empirical observation.

Here at DIY Lithium we reason in the opposite direction, from future back into the present. This style of innovation prioritizes logic and prediction over headlines and groupthink: "If the Earth is curved, we eventually reach east by sailing west".

So that's the big secret. Contrarianism is really just prediction, which in turn is high pressure / high stakes logic. Spain versus Portugal. Theoretical versus experimental physics. DIY Lithium versus venture capital. God versus gossip.