I grew up in a small town in West Bengal where people defaulted to doubt. You never let give keys to your neighbor. You counted change twice, then counted your fingers. It felt normal then. Later, as I moved through bigger cities and some countries, I learned that trust; this invisible social credit; decides the slope of your life. It makes or breaks people, companies, and nations. Where trust is high, everything moves like water. Where trust is low, everything grinds like sand.

Trust is the lowest-latency protocol. Everything else is a workaround with fees.

We like to tell ourselves that growth is about capital, talent, and technology. It is. But underneath all of that sits the unpriced infrastructure of trust. When you trust, you hire faster, you ship with fewer meetings, you say “yes” without a 99-page contract, you try the crazy thing. When you don’t, you add gates, guards, copies, CCs, and committees. The work doesn’t just get slower; it gets smaller.

Low-trust societies pay a permanent coordination tax: more verification, less creation.

I’m watching two places drift towards even more trust deficit. In India, trust was always negotiated so we preferred families over forms, favors over rules. As ambition accelerates, the default is tilting even lower: more paperwork, more selfies with IDs, more ‘sir kindly approve’ loops. In the USA, the place that once ran on handshake optimism, the floor feels thinner too: more disclaimers, more helmets for the soul, more product design that assumes the user is a threat. I used to read the phrase “handshake deal” and used to question how is it even possible! The specifics differ, but the sensation is the same; institutions starting to treat citizens like adversaries and citizens returning the favor.

Institutions are frozen trust. When they melt, you get flood or drought: chaos or apathy.

Technology is complicating the story. We built “trustless” systems that let us transact without knowing each other. That is useful. But it also trains a habit: verify everything, assume nothing. Useful for a ledger; corrosive for a life.

Trustless tech can clear payments. It cannot raise children.

The cost isn’t just emotional; it’s architectural. In companies, low trust shapes org charts: more layers, less ownership, dashboards instead of judgment. We call it “process.” Often it’s just prophylaxis against betrayal. Startups know this instinctively: the fastest teams run on earned trust and small, tight promises.

The smallest unit of trust is a kept promise. Ship tiny promises on short loops.

And yet, I don’t believe the curve must only slope downward. Trust is not magic. It’s craft. It’s designed, practiced, earned, and defended. If distrust spreads like mold in the damp, trust spreads like warmth in the sun: slowly, then suddenly.

The opposite of trust isn’t doubt; it’s hedging.

If you think this is sentimental, try building anything meaningful without it. Try shipping a product when marketing doesn’t trust engineering, and engineering doesn’t trust leadership, and leadership doesn’t trust users. Everyone is smart, busy, and …paralyzed. The smartest person in the room becomes the person who can still take a risk.

I’m writing this because I don’t want to live in a place where the default is to assume the worst. I’m not asking for naïveté. I’m asking for a bias that says: let’s start with a small bet, and let’s keep it if it works. You don’t rebuild trust at the level of nations; you rebuild it in the trivial, stubborn details of a boring Saturlay afternoon.

Trust is the only compounding asset whose interest is paid in time.

Suspicion can protect you. Only trust can move you. We can still choose which tax to pay.