As part of its inaugural trek to Silicon Valley, a group of students under the banner of The Future Society, co-founded at the Harvard Kennedy School to illuminate on future issues at the intersection of governance and technology, visited the sunnier coast of America to learn from a host of companies and startups that are changing the world.

One of our goals was to nurture a dialogue between the world of policy and technology. Why this is important is obvious in the transportation industry when it comes to questions of how ride-sharing companies like Uber or Lyft affect the municipal transportation system. Indeed it is those bigger questions of how we live together as a society that matter as the train of technology marches forward.

In a world that is digitally connected, it can seem old fashioned to go visit companies, yet it is this kind of dialogue between different stakeholders in society that facilitates solutions that impact society at large.

However, we also wanted to share a few practical insights that we gained from the conversations we had with venture capitalists, founders and early stage employees. Often we couldn’t disclose names to protect identities. The notes are not reflective of the entire experience, but give you a good glimpse into some of things we learned. I tried to keep it as simple and short as possible.

From a rising fintech startup we learned how time is the best indicator to decide what we actually want to do. This sounds obvious, and it is, but especially at elite universities where most people end up in the same kind of jobs, this is important to understand. How committed are you really to what you are doing? Make sure that you are committed to the mission you are working on for many years.

When it comes to launching your idea, any idea might look good, but often the idea that no one things will work ends up working. When it comes to finding a partner for your startup, be careful. Divorcing your business partner can be harder than your spouse, and feel like those times with the Catholic Church when you need the blessing from the Pope to get divorced, which in your case means your investors.

How do you choose a good partner? A good team of co-founders has complementary skills in product, market and business. Plus, each of them need to feel that they are part of building the idea from scratch.

Another great thing I learned was understanding better what other people want. What are you thinking about? For example, one CEO talked about how an early employee made himself part of the company just by asking what he needed at the time when the company was in its early stage. He later joined the startup in a foundational role.

Essentially this is what seduction is about, getting into people’s head and helping them in a constructive way. Listening and tethering, as my friend Nico Miailhe said, and helping them to move their thinking forward while actively listening. Good seduction means provocation at the right time.

One founder told us that he believes that in the future everyone will know how to code and coding will become simpler and more abstracted. Sounds plausible. It will also become more flow based. This was a big question among participants, as policy folks aren’t too tech savvy. Very likely more tools will spring up as has already happened that will allow people to express themselves and build value on top of existing platforms.

On our trip to the NASA campus, we learned amongst other things that there was an important law passed in space legislation that allows private companies to mine asteroids and keep the profits. While this is not happening yet, it incentives startups to start investing in that space.

From the few days, it is not so much that we came away with perfect answers, but we felt that beginning the dialogue, as surely other groups have done already, was important. In the end solutions that affect multiple stakeholders in society come from a dialogue that involves everyone. In that regard, our trip was merely a beginning. The Future Society hopes to bridge that gap between the world of government and technology. We hope that more people will innovate at that intersection, as many technology problems are related to governance. In that way we need both side to come to a better understanding of what it means to collectively live the good life as a society.