truths

from sdan.io

Information asymmetry The biggest arbitrages emerge when you know something most relevant players do not. In academia, the process of becoming ‘great’ is built on publishing your best work openly so you or I can work on top of it, though times are changing. Credentials and experience can sometimes be a way of justifying years spent within an institution. If you can learn anything in 2 weeks you can act, uncover new information, gather more information, and be part of the 0.1% who run the world. Break down walls, seek the truth, and don’t be weird.

Focus Focus is saying no to something that with every bone in your body you think is a phenomenal idea, you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you are focusing on something else. - Jony Ive.

Focus I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. When you are a racehorse, the reason they put blinders on these things is because if you look at the horse on the left or the horse on the right, you’re going to miss a step. That’s why those horses have fucking blinders on. And that’s what people should have. When you’re running after something you should not look left and right. What does this person think? What does that person think? No. Go! - Jimmy Iovine

Legacy as narrative Every empire, religion, and revolution began as a story that refused to die. Great people, nations, and products shape narratives others want to share. Rockefeller won’t be remembered for Standard Oil or Venrock, but for the narrative that reshaped American industry and etched him permanently into our collective consciousness.

High Agency

Audacity, ambition, and the ability to inspire form a force that bends reality. High agency summons people and opportunities into existence through sheer will. Others recognize it because you’re on the same tempo.

Mandate of heaven

Some victories feel so perfect they seem predetermined, as if the universe intentionally aligned for your success. Not mere luck, but a kind of divine permission that thousands of others can’t replicate. This goes both ways. Certain people/families/entities inevitably rest on the same fate, not from incompetence but because they simply lack the mandate.

Trust Economy

Every introduction is a trade in trust. Expertise is everywhere; trust isn’t. Short-term trust compounds financially; long-term trust compounds relationally. Know exactly what you value, and make it clear to others what game you’re playing.

Speed Kills

Action—even without perfect information—creates momentum, which generates confidence, attracts talent, and then reveals signal. Speed itself isn’t is relevant, but often puts out a ‘Bat-Signal’ that compounds with secrecy.

Resistance

Pushback signals that someone or something cares. If there’s no resistance, people either don’t care about you, your ideas are trivial, or your message isn’t clear.

Love of the Game

Replace ego with love of the game. Your work should be a labor of love, amplified with people who share this passion instead of chasing status. Status, like money, is fleeting if pursued directly rather than a byproduct of mastery with people who succeed together.

Against mediocrity

Most people, companies, parties, etc. don’t matter on an 80 year time horizon let alone an 8 month horizon. Most are mediocre and die living mediocre lives. Develop a sense of what mediocrity looks like and blacklist(unless vouched by someone). There’s 8 billion people, someone younger wants to always prove they’re not mediocre.

Against mediocrity Most people, parties, etc. fade on an 80 year time horizon, let alone in 8 months. Put a date filter and go to 2009 or 2015, on WSJ or YouTube and you’ll find a sea of passion projects started by founders who defaulted to fate over forging their destiny. Developing a sense of what mediocrity looks like helps you hire, fire, and promote ruthlessly. Stay away from people who are mediocre at all cost.

Just Ask

If you don’t know something, ask directly. You would be surprised how available 99.99% people are and the 0.01% are available if you have some agency. It’s also much cheaper and faster to pay consultants to get this information.

Perceived Age

Each year can feel shorter than the last due to routine, dopamine fatigue, and lifestyle creep. Fight this aggressively. Always do more, experience new things, and stay expansive.

Up the intensity You are a product of exploring every opportunity times your ability times the current state of the market. You can crank up your clock speed to the point where you are exploiting “life” and not exploring “opportunities”. Some of the worst people I have worked with have no discernible clock speed or seriousness to the opportunity cost in which you or I could be working elsewhere. You can get a sense of seriousness if you’re thinking about where else you can find a flow state in, instead of not working at all. Working somewhere for the status often times backfires because serious people will backchannel, far worse for you than fully pushing your weight elsewhere.