FP1 is a small institution working on a large problem: how to think clearly about a transition that is happening faster than its institutions can metabolize. The work has three surfaces. Weekly publication for institutional readers. A methodology track that builds research instruments in public. And commissioned analysis for organizations making consequential decisions under genuine uncertainty.
Principals
Co-founded by an operator and a researcher.
FP1's two principals divide labor cleanly. One handles the operational and strategic work that keeps the publication running and the instruments shipping. The other drives the long-form research and theoretical scaffolding the correspondents stand on.
David Lovejoy
Operational Lead · Co-FounderDavid is the operational lead at First Principles First. He runs the publication, the methodology track, and the briefing pipeline that put FP1's work in front of institutional readers each week.
His background is in growth-stage company building, strategic advisory, and product design across software and services ventures. He holds an MBA in entrepreneurship from the University of British Columbia and a BA from the University of California, Irvine, and has lived and worked in the United States, Japan, Korea, and Canada.
At FP1, David's role is to convert the analytical work of the correspondent stack into the instruments and publications institutional readers depend on. The Novacene Composite, the Belief Index, the State of the Transition cadence, and the FP1 Terminal all sit on his side of the house.
John Henry Clippinger
Intellectual Lead · Co-FounderJohn is the intellectual lead at First Principles First. His five-decade body of work spans complex self-organizing systems, decentralized governance, and the institutional design problems posed by emerging technologies.
John was a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab from 2011 through 2025, with the Human Dynamics Group and later the City Sciences Group. He founded and co-directed the Law Lab at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and served as a senior research fellow there from 2005 to 2009. He is a founding board member of the Active Inference Institute, whose science foundation underpins several of the analytical frameworks the FP1 correspondents work in.
His earlier work includes co-founding ID3 with Sandy Pentland at the MIT Media Lab, founding the Token Commons Foundation in Zug, Switzerland, and senior advisory roles with the World Economic Forum's Big Data Working Group, the Institute for the Future, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Aspen Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in computational linguistics and AI from the University of Pennsylvania, and is the editor of From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond: The Quest for Identity and Autonomy in Digital Society.
At FP1, John drives the long-form research agenda. The Novacene Correspondent Briefings, the Transition Atlas, and the theoretical scaffolding behind State of the Transition all sit on his side of the house.