The Art of Zooming Out
Why sustainable finance—and my own work at Wangari—requires stepping back to see what really moves the world.
This is my last post before two weeks of complete silence. Tomorrow, I’ll set aside screens, speech, and even writing as I enter a 10-day Vipassana retreat.
Taking time off may sound indulgent—or even counterintuitive—for a founder. But I’ve learned that stepping back isn’t a luxury. It’s how deep insights happen.
Our current core product of Wangari itself was born from such a zoom-out moment: during a holiday on a remote Dutch island, I finally realized that financial models needed causal inference—not more correlations. That single insight changed everything: it led to our first truly marketable product, early clients, and the cofounders who joined soon after.
And I’m not alone. Bill Gates’ “Think Weeks” helped shape Microsoft’s future. Warren Buffett spends much of his time reading and thinking rather than reacting to markets. Across fields, leaders have discovered that zooming out is what lets you see the levers that move entire systems.
Wangari Came From a Zoom-Out
Wangari itself was born from stepping back.
A year ago, I took my first real holiday in nearly a decade: ten quiet days on a remote Dutch island in the Wadden Sea. Long walks along endless beaches, reading in the dunes, hours of simply doing nothing.
Up to that point, I had been running on survival mode. I’d left academia and particle physics with the hope of doing something more impactful, more immediate. I worked in insurance, modeling weather disasters so actuaries could price risk better. It wasn’t my ultimate calling, but it taught me something vital: there’s a deep, systemic link between weather and money.
I knew that finance held immense power to solve sustainability challenges, but my early approach with Wangari was still narrow—I built statistical correlations between ESG and financial variables, hoping to enhance analysts’ models. It made sense logically, but no one wanted to buy it.
It wasn’t until that holiday—stepping away from the grind—that I saw the bigger picture. Analysts didn’t just want to know what variables moved together. They wanted to know why.
Somewhere between the dunes and the quiet ferry rides, the term causal inference surfaced. It clicked instantly: what I had been doing in particle physics—digging beneath observation to uncover the rules of why the universe behaves as it does—was exactly what sustainable finance needed.
That insight reshaped Wangari’s mission. Within months, we had our first sale to a hedge fund, and soon after, two talented cofounders officially joined.
It wasn’t a book or a business hack that brought those breakthroughs. It was stepping away.
Why Zooming Out Matters in Finance
In sustainable finance, we’re inundated with metrics: carbon emissions, water usage, social impact scores, governance ratings. The temptation is to zoom in on one variable, tweak it, and hope it makes a difference.
But reality is systemic. Our recent analysis of carbon emissions and stock prices showed that looking at emissions alone explains very little. The true story emerges only when you zoom out, map the causal links, and see how emissions influence regulation, which shifts costs, which alters investor behavior.
That’s the ethos of Wangari: uncovering hidden roots so companies can stop reacting to noisy data and start acting on what truly drives long-term value and sustainability.
This mirrors what Vipassana aims to do at the individual level: uproot mental conditioning, clear away surface-level reactions, and restore clarity so you can stop living in survival mode and start thriving.
The Pattern of Stepping Back
I’m not alone in discovering this. Many leaders have realized that progress often comes not from grinding harder but from creating intentional space:
Bill Gates’ Think Weeks: Twice a year, Gates retreats alone with books and ideas. Microsoft’s early Internet strategy, its security overhaul, and key philanthropic shifts emerged from these secluded weeks.
Warren Buffett’s Reading Days: Buffett spends much of his time not in meetings but reading and thinking. His success comes from seeing the market’s long arcs rather than its daily fluctuations—a direct product of zooming out.
Mindful leadership retreats: Executives from Silicon Valley to Wall Street increasingly use meditation and silent retreats not as escapism but as tools to gain perspective and make wiser, long-term decisions.
Across time, philosophers, scientists, and reformers—from Newton’s countryside years to Wangari Maathai’s time planting trees away from politics (the company is named after her)—have found that stepping outside the noise is often when they see the deepest truths.
Breakthroughs Are Rarely Linear
Even within Wangari, many pivotal moments came when I least expected them:
After founding Wangari, overwhelmed by marketing, coding, pitching, and surviving financially, I couldn’t focus on building a real product. It took that Dutch island holiday to realize what was missing.
Months later, while traveling again, I realized—with my cofounders’ help—that my own emotional bottlenecks were clouding the team’s effectiveness. Another form of zooming out—honestly voicing “negative” emotions like anger or frustration instead of eating them up myself—brought more clarity than any new tool or strategy.
Somewhere in-between a brainstorming session and waiting for pizza to arrive, my cofounders and I decided that we’d take this whole sustainability thing to the next level: not just doing some financial-ESG modeling, but modeling whole entire companies with all data possibly available.
These moments weren’t planned, nor did they appear during late-night grind sessions. They came from pauses that let me see myself and the business differently.
Why I’m Doing Vipassana Now
This retreat takes zooming out further. Ten hours of meditation a day. Nine full days of silence. No screens, no talking, no writing. The practice is about observing the mind until its conditioned patterns unravel, layer by layer.
I’m not going in expecting a business breakthrough. Expecting outcomes, I’ve learned, often blocks true insight. The goal is simply to purify the mind.
But experience tells me that when we create real stillness, unseen patterns reveal themselves. And when we return, we re-enter life and work with a renewed ability to see root causes clearly—whether in ourselves or in the systems we’re trying to change.
Looking Ahead
When I return on August 19, Wangari will continue its mission to bring causal inference to sustainable finance. We’ll be launching pilots with financial institutions that want to go beyond surface ESG correlations and understand what truly drives their financial and sustainability outcomes.
Just as Vipassana uproots suffering in individuals, Wangari aims to help organizations shed survival-mode thinking and move toward thriving—making decisions rooted in genuine understanding rather than reactive metrics.
The Bottom Line
Zooming out isn’t idleness or luxury. It’s often how we see the bigger picture, how we make leaps rather than incremental tweaks, how we stop surviving and start shaping lasting change.
For me, that means ten silent days. For others, it might mean a cabin filled with books, a week of reflection away from the office, or simply pausing long enough to question old assumptions.
I look forward to stepping away now so that I can return with steadier hands and clearer vision—ready to zoom out even further and help financial systems thrive alongside the world they serve.
Wangari’s Curated Reads
In this reflective piece, Quiet Wisdom invites readers to reclaim mental clarity and creativity by intentionally slowing down and disconnecting from constant digital noise. It argues that slowness isn’t laziness but a path to deeper living—allowing space for presence, emotional awareness, and more meaningful connections. With practical steps like phone-free mornings and daily “slow hours,” it offers a gentle challenge to step out of life’s relentless pace and rediscover peace in stillness.
Rebecca Sun essay traces the rise and unraveling of corporate DEI initiatives, arguing that much of the past five years amounted to performative optics rather than deep, structural change. As companies now dismantle DEI programs, Sun suggests that true progress must shift from institutional slogans to quieter, grassroots efforts that genuinely integrate equity into decision-making and culture. For readers navigating today’s corporate and cultural landscape, this is a sharp, candid look at how meaningful inclusion may survive—and even strengthen—beyond the “gilded age” of DEI.
This gentle guide from quiet growth chronicles offers 11 simple, soulful ways to make a weekend feel quietly special without big plans or spending. From creating a “main character morning” to inventing tiny traditions and letting time pass without agenda, it’s an invitation to romanticize ordinary moments and reclaim time for yourself. Perfect for readers seeking softness and renewal, it reminds us that the most radical weekends are often the most unremarkable to anyone else—yet deeply restorative to us.