Members of the Elixir community often receive the question: "why should I use Elixir?" The answer to this nuanced question remains elusive, because the answer is not primarily technical. This talk provides a history of functional programming, of Erlang and Elixir more specifically. This talk argues that the success of Elixir will be marked by how we learn from the mistakes historically made by the functional programming community. More importantly, this talk presents a strategy for the Elixir community, which centers around community-building, based on real-world experiences and historical analysis. More details here: https://codesync.global/speaker/osa-gaius/