Newsletter 90: on hustle, ambition, and becoming antifragile
Last week, I read how sequoia trees rely on stress to survive. The heat from forest fires warms up the tree's pinecones, causing them to open and thus drop seeds into the newly clear ground. Apparently, sequoias depend on raging fires, nature is truly fascinating.
Contrary to what many may think, I believe people are pretty similar. We need struggle to thrive.
If managed cautiously, placing heavy demands on our body and mind helps us to grow.
Think of exercising. The beginning is hard. Most probably, the first few weeks at the gym will suck. Your muscles will hurt, and you won’t even know how to lift weights properly. In turn, that would cause embarrassment and insecurity when exercising in public.
Yet, the more you go through that pain, the better results you will get. Over time, you’ll understand the best practices in exercising. Then, you’ll adapt to lifting even heavier weights next time. In the process, your muscles, confidence, and health will likely improve.
It will never come effortlessly, though. I still learn after years of lifting weights and practicing martial arts. It feels like every few weeks, I discover something new. A new diet. A possible improvement in my posture. Better breathing techniques or other ways of optimizing exercise to results ratio. But that’s the beauty of it; it’s a never-ending process of self-development and growth.
Having said that, it is crucial not to overwhelm the body. This is quite evident when playing video games. If a game is too hard, we give up promptly. On the other hand, the same happens if a game is too easy as well. No one enjoys predictable games. But playing a game that’s just challenging enough is when the magic happens. We find ourselves playing for hours, losing a sense of time.
“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”
Nassim Taleb
So, in theory, avoiding problems does you no service. To become antifragile, we have to embrace hardships.
What does not kill you makes you stronger antifragile
It’s easy to understand the benefits of stress in fitness and games. But even in health, we rely on stressors to build immunity. For example, consider how vaccines give you a small dose of the disease to teach your body to resist a more potent form of the virus.
Yet, few people carry that mental model to other parts of life. Yes, we have all faced moments of crisis throughout our careers. But, when that happens, most people try to avoid such experiences at all costs. In fact, there has been a slow but steady movement towards shorter working weeks and a better work/life balance. People, especially in developed countries, start prioritizing self-care over hustle. That’s quite evident in Europe, where many of my friends receive incredible work perks. More than 30 days of annual paid leave. Working four days a week. Having strict policies of not opening a laptop when you are off are just some examples that come to mind. As a result, concepts like finding meaningful work become secondary to having a well-balanced life. Over time, many start looking down on hustling, billionaires, and the value of work in general.
While I do see some merit to that thinking, I do not ultimately agree.
First, it is true that if we are burned out of work, depressed, or mentally exhausted, we are unlikely to find happiness. Or build anything of value to society. Yet, similar to how sequoia trees need forest fires to survive, people thrive in difficult situations. I will dive into how to balance hustle with health later.
Second, at first glance, only founders and investors are primarily incentivized to build new companies. Regular employees do not share the same upside, hence why it does not make sense to work as hard. Once again, a valid argument. At the same time, the past few decades have normalized ESOP policies. Unlocking a ton of economic upside for regular employees as well. The system is not perfect, but it’s improving (e.g., Uber and Airbnb’s IPOs created 6000 new millionaires). Having said that, we probably won’t reach a state of entirely equal upside through ESOP, and that’s okay. If you want the same compensation as a founder, you should take the same risk, stress, and an incredibly demanding lifestyle. Otherwise, it won’t be fair to expect the same rewards.
Third, I would like to address another common argument. How many people can truly become the next Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Larry Page? The probability of becoming an outlier is incredibly low. Nothing guarantees you building a successful business, especially on such a scale, no matter how much work and hustle you are willing to commit. In fact, you may never even join great companies like SpaceX and Google, given how hard it is. Therefore, encouraging people to dream of changing the world will naturally make many feel like failures. But what’s the alternative?
“In my opinion, a society looking to maximize its outliers needs shots on goal. To get one SpaceX, you need thousands of attempts. Thus, if we're encouraging less people to try to be the next Elon or build the next SpaceX, we'll get less Elons and less companies like SpaceX.”
Erik Torenberg
The alternative is a failure of imagination and thus a failure of action. A failure of action leads to satisfaction with the status quo and unwillingness to push our boundaries. Is that the world we want to live in?
Having said all that, I do not think we can find purpose only in building companies. Perhaps, the most important priority in one’s life is to have a happy family. We are wired to feel better when our families are happy. Having a group of people who deeply care about us is something that no career achievements can replace.
Therefore, I believe the intersection of having a happy family while still pushing our limits at work is where greatness lies.
The barbell strategy
It is entirely understandable why people want to avoid uncertainty and harm. But there are ways to expose ourselves to stressors without causing lasting damage. In his book “Antifragile,” Nasim Taleb speaks of the barbell strategy. The idea of playing it very safe in some areas of our lives while taking risks in others.
Investing is an excellent example of an area where you can leverage the barbell strategy. For example, put some of your money in relatively safe bets like index funds, perhaps 50% of your net worth. Then a smaller percentage of your wealth can be allocated to riskier investments (e.g., startup investments or volatile assets like crypto), think of 10%. Of course, you can most likely lose the 10%, but you are also exposing yourself to a massive upside if things go well.
Another example of the barbell strategy is getting a job at a funded startup. On the one hand, you’ll most likely have a decent salary. Depending on your line of work (e.g., engineering, sales), it might be even higher than what incumbents pay. There is a massive shortage of good talent in tech but plenty of capital, even in today’s crazy markets.
On the other, securing a job at a funded startup will expose you to plenty of discomfort and stressors. Startups grow at rates that were unseen before the internet era. No one can go through such massive growth and have their sh*t in order.
“A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.”
Paul Graham
The work environment never gets dull or comfortable. At any given time, something breaks. New products are launched. Markets move. Technology moves. And at each of those steps, you make mistakes.
You miss-hire people, causing havoc across the company. Focus on the wrong products. Misjudge the competition. Or fail to raise capital at the right time. The list goes on and on.
“When you’re growing quickly, there will always be fires—inventory shortfalls, servers crashing, customers whose calls aren’t answered. You won’t always know which fire to stamp out first. And if you try to put out every fire at once, you’ll only burn yourself out. That’s why entrepreneurs have to learn to let fires burn—and sometimes even very large fires.”
Reed Hoffman
All that leads me to think that startups are incredibly conducive to growth. The more time you spend working at one, the more antifragile you become. Meaning that joining a funded venture will give you a decent salary that can support your lifestyle. At the same time, it will expose you to stressors that will help you push your limits. In the process, you may do the best work of your life.
Favourite tweets of the week
Here you go a few tweets that made an impression in the past week:
