Naval Ravikant & Kapil Gupta: The Truth About Hardwork
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful conversation, Naval Rabbikan and Couple Gupta delve into the nature of truth and hard work. They discuss how truth resonates with an individual's core, often bypassing intellect and causing an emotional response. The dialogue shifts to examine hard work, challenging the notion that it is a goal in itself. Instead, they argue that hard work is a byproduct of desire and necessity, and in an era of leverage, judgment and choosing the right tasks matter more. The conversation highlights the importance of aligning with one's strengths and passions, and the inefficacy of merely working hard for its own sake. They also touch on societal perceptions of failure and success, and the need to recognize and reward true talent and effectiveness.
Takeaways
- 🧘♂️ **Gut Feeling as Truth**: The first indication of truth can be a gut feeling or an inner resonance that goes beyond intellectual understanding.
- 🔮 **Predictive Power of Truth**: Truth is also defined by its ability to predict future outcomes, with greater predictive accuracy correlating to a higher degree of truth.
- 🤔 **Intellectual vs. Emotional Truth**: There's a struggle between the intellectual understanding and the emotional or intuitive grasp of truth, with the latter sometimes providing a clearer insight.
- 👶 **Childlike Perception of Truth**: Children often speak the truth in a straightforward manner, which can provoke strong reactions from adults who are not prepared for such honesty.
- 💪 **Hard Work as a Byproduct**: Hard work is seen as an effect of genuine interest and commitment rather than a goal in itself, especially in an era of high leverage and amplified impact.
- 🛠️ **Judgment Over Hard Work**: In the modern world, judgment and decision-making are often more critical than the sheer amount of hard work put into a task.
- 🎯 **Alignment with Desire Drives Action**: Individuals with a strong desire for a goal will naturally work hard without being compelled to do so, as hard work is a reflection of their commitment.
- 🧗♀️ **Climbing the Wrong Mountain**: Many startups and individuals work hard but fail due to a misalignment with market needs or a lack of product-market fit, not because of insufficient effort.
- 🌳 **Nature as a Metaphor for Effortless Action**: Nature operates without 'hard work,' following its own rhythm and necessities, which should be a guide for human action as well.
- 💰 **Effort vs. Efficiency in Business**: Society often overvalues effort, sometimes demonizing those who achieve more with less perceived work, indicating a need to reevaluate the metrics of success.
- 🚀 **The Role of Leadership**: Leadership is about inspiring a desire in others to achieve goals, rather than dictating what to do, which can be counterproductive.
Q & A
What is Naval Ravikant's definition of truth?
-Naval defines truth as something that feels true to him and also as something that has predictive power, allowing for more accurate predictions of the future.
According to Couple Gupta, what is the significance of an immediate emotional response to a statement in determining its truthfulness?
-Couple Gupta believes that an immediate emotional response or resonance to a statement, even before intellectual understanding, is a strong sign that something is true because it bypasses intellect and resonates with our core.
What does Naval Ravikant think about the societal emphasis on hard work?
-Naval Ravikant views hard work as an effect of something that needs to be done, rather than a goal in itself. He believes that in the current era of infinite leverage, judgment matters more than hard work.
Why does Couple Gupta believe that hard work is often done out of fear and anxiety?
-Couple Gupta thinks that hard work is often a prescription followed out of fear and anxiety, where it becomes a competition and a game in itself, rather than a means to an end.
What does Naval Ravikant consider to be a more important factor than hard work in achieving success?
-Naval Ravikant believes that the choice of what to work on, who to work with, and the intensity of one's desire are more important than just the raw hours put into work.
How does Couple Gupta view the concept of hard work in relation to play and one's superpower?
-Couple Gupta suggests that what feels like play to an individual is their superpower, and that people should focus on what feels like play to them, as this is where they will outperform others.
What does Naval Ravikant suggest is the reason behind the romanticism of hard work in society?
-Naval Ravikant implies that society values effort as a form of arrival and a sign of doing the right thing, which leads to the romanticism of hard work and the demonization of those who are efficient.
How does Couple Gupta define work and distinguish it from activities that one enjoys?
-Couple Gupta defines work as a set of things that one has to do that they don't want to do; if one wants to do it, it's not considered work.
What does Naval Ravikant believe is the key to avoiding burnout in work?
-Naval Ravikant believes that aligning oneself with work where one is not suffering is key to avoiding burnout, and suggests that people should stick to what they are good at and enjoy.
Why does Couple Gupta think that hard work is often used as a door prize or an excuse for failure?
-Couple Gupta suggests that hard work is used as a door prize or an excuse for failure because it provides a response to the mind when it questions why one didn't succeed, and it is seen as more forgivable socially.
What does Naval Ravikant suggest is the real reason behind company failures?
-Naval Ravikant suggests that companies fail not when they run out of cash, but when the founders and team run out of energy and desire to continue.
How does Couple Gupta view the concept of desire in relation to success and failure?
-Couple Gupta believes that a sufficient degree of desire is crucial for success, and that failure often stems from a lack of true desire rather than a lack of hard work.
What does Naval Ravikant think about the idea that everyone can be anything?
-Naval Ravikant suggests that the myth that everyone can be anything contributes to unhappiness in modern society, as it sets people up for disappointment when they don't achieve what they aspire to.
What does Couple Gupta mean by 'teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea' in the context of leadership?
-Couple Gupta is referencing a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, implying that a true leader inspires a deep desire in others, rather than simply instructing them on what to do.
How does Naval Ravikant view the concept of 10x performers in the context of compensation?
-Naval Ravikant believes that while society acknowledges the existence of 10x performers, it is socially unacceptable to compensate them at that level, which often leads to these individuals leaving to start their own companies.
What does Couple Gupta think about the societal frameworks that restrict the acceptance of truth?
-Couple Gupta believes that societal frameworks, such as morality and concepts of fairness, often restrict the acceptance of truth because it must fit within these established frameworks.
Outlines
🤔 Exploring the Concept of Truth
In this paragraph, Naval Ravikant and the unnamed guest, referred to as 'Couple Gupta', delve into the nature of truth. Naval starts by expressing uncertainty about the exact meaning of 'truth' and offers two definitions: one based on personal feeling and resonance, and another on its predictive power. The guest agrees with the feeling-based definition, emphasizing an immediate, visceral reaction that transcends intellectual understanding. They also discuss the social implications of truth, such as the candid remarks of children and the societal expectations that often discourage directness. The conversation hints at the idea that truth can be both self-evident and challenging to articulate, and that societal norms can sometimes hinder the acceptance of truth.
🔨 The Myth of Hard Work
The second paragraph shifts the focus to the concept of hard work. Naval challenges the notion of hard work as an end in itself, suggesting that it is often a result of anxiety and fear. He contrasts the romanticized view of hard work with the idea that it should be a means to an end, driven by desire and necessity rather than societal pressure. The guest agrees, noting that hard work is not a goal but a byproduct of pursuing something one truly wants. They also touch on the idea that efficiency and the right choices can be more important than the amount of hard work put in, and that societal values often misplace the emphasis on effort over results.
🎯 The Value of Desire and Alignment
In this segment, the discussion centers on the role of desire and alignment in achieving success. The guest argues that hard work is not something one needs to be told to do; rather, it is a natural outcome of having a strong desire for something. They emphasize the importance of doing what feels like play, as this is where one's superpower lies. Naval adds that people often fail not because they don't work hard enough, but because they don't truly want it or are not aligned with their desires. He shares an anecdote about an engineer who worked fewer hours but was more effective, illustrating that talent and alignment with one's work can be more important than the hours put in.
🚀 The Role of Experimentation and Leadership
The fourth paragraph explores the idea of failure and the role of experimentation in achieving success. The guest suggests that there is no failure, only experimentation, and that true failure is not reaching one's ultimate goal. Naval agrees, stating that people fail not because they don't work hard enough, but because they don't have a strong enough desire. They discuss the importance of speed of iteration and the role of leadership in inspiring desire in others. The conversation highlights the need for leaders to enable others to want to do something themselves, rather than simply managing them.
💡 The Misunderstanding of Talent and Compensation
The final paragraph addresses the topic of talent and its recognition in the workplace. The speakers discuss the concept of '10x performers' and the societal and systemic reluctance to compensate them accordingly. They argue that acknowledging and rewarding exceptional talent is crucial, but societal norms and expectations often prevent this from happening. The conversation concludes with a critique of societal constructs of fairness and morality, suggesting that they can be counterproductive and hinder the recognition and reward of true talent.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Truth
💡Hard Work
💡Efficiency
💡Desire
💡Play
💡Talent
💡Iteration
💡Leadership
💡10x Performers
💡Failure
💡Effort
Highlights
Definition of truth as something that feels true and resonates with one's inner self.
Truth as having predictive power to accurately foresee the future.
Truth often felt viscerally before intellectual understanding.
Hard work is an effect of something needing to be done, not an end in itself.
Modern era offers infinite leverage, making judgment more critical than hard work.
Hard work is often done out of anxiety and fear, not genuine desire.
Hard work can become a game, replacing the ultimate goal.
Effort is romanticized by society, often misrepresenting success.
Nature and its elements do not 'work hard' but operate according to their own rhythm.
Talent matters more than hard work in the current era of leverage.
Speed of iteration is more important than hours spent on a task.
Desire and wanting something are more critical than just working hard.
Leadership is inspiring others to want to do something, not just managing them.
10x performers exist but are often not compensated as such due to social norms.
The belief that everyone can be anything leads to unhappiness due to unmet expectations.
People fail not because they don't work hard enough, but because they don't truly desire it.
The importance of aligning one's work with their passions to avoid suffering.
The idea that hard work is a door prize, used as an excuse for failure.
The role of a leader is to inspire a yearning for the vast and endless sea, not just to build a ship.
Transcripts
this is naval rabbikans i'm here with
couple gupta
and we're just having a conversation as
two friends who like to
explore topics fairly deeply uh
and in a way that we're just trying to
understand
the truth and the truth is a word that
gets thrown around a lot
um so i'm not even sure exactly what
that means
definition that i like to use is that
you know
there are multiple definitions in fact
this might be a good question how do you
know
when something is true in my mind very
often
i know something is true just because it
feels true to me uh
it feels very true you you know it when
you hear it even if you don't like it
another definition i've used is that
truth is that which has predictive power
you can use it to predict the future a
little bit uh the more
accurately you can use something to
predict the future the more true it is
but i'm sure you couple have very
different definitions so why don't you
give me a definition or two
of how you know something is true
i very much agree with your first answer
which is that it
it relates very much to feel oftentimes
when you hear truth
uh the the inner sensation that you get
of um of a resonance
is beyond the intellect and i think that
is a
a great sign because oftentimes
uh we'll feel something that someone
says and we'll feel it viscerally
as soon as it is said and we will have a
heart at the very same time
we'll have a hard time intellectually
framing it and understanding it
and that that is a very good sign that
something is true
because in very many ways we are beings
in spite of our intelligence
we tend to use our intelligence as
uh the the machinery with which to
process things
however that's a very limited domain
intelligence
and so when it cuts straight through
that into the essence of something
something within our core for which we
have receptors so to speak
um seems to grasp that and i think
that's that's a very good sign of truth
and and very often it can sometimes it
just leaves you silent sometimes it
actually creates an emotional response
especially if it's aimed at your
identity or your ego
you know like little kids have a way of
telling truth in a way that adults don't
like a little if you're fat and little
kids come up and say hey you're fat
right in a way that adults won't and
sometimes i can provoke
a reaction from an adult uh because
they're not ready for that that level of
truth you're not supposed to
go around saying society it's not
socially acceptable
anyway yeah i don't get caught up in
definitional games too much i wanted to
get into a specific topic
which is you recently wrote a discourse
about hard work
which i thought was really really
interesting um
and you know i have a bunch of views and
hard work
maybe i'll start off with a very high
level like i think hard work is
important
but i think hard work is an effect of
something that you
know needs to be done like if you need
to do hard work
to get something done that you care
about then you work hard
but a lot of what i see going on these
days is hard work for its own sake
and i think we live in a very different
era
than one that we evolved in we live in
an era of almost infinite leverage
and that means like when you are working
your decisions
mean they echo larger so there's code
working for you there's people working
for you there's money that's working for
you
so there's there's machines working for
you it isn't just that you're standing
there with your bare hands and tearing
at something your tools
were tool uh bearing the creatures and
so
because of all these tools available our
judgment matters much more than hard
work so even though i think
sometimes you do need to work hard you
should never shy away from it
if that's what it takes to succeed in
whatever you want i do think that it
gets overplayed in society so that's
kind of my
view on hard work but i think it's
probably a little more conventional than
yours
so i just wanted to explore it together
with you a little bit
how do you think about hartford
i think hard work is yet another example
of
a prescription to be honest with you i
think it's done largely out of anxiety
i think hard work is done largely out of
fear
i think one of the common things that
you will um
often hear in the world of sports and
business is that if if you're not
working hard and the next guy
is and if you're only putting in four
hours he's putting in 12.
and so hard work has become its own game
it's like meditation
meditation becomes a competition so the
thing that you were really seeking
actually becomes replaced by
the game of hard work and hard work like
effort
becomes sort of its own goal and
when and that seems to be the pattern
behind things is when you follow a
prescription
or an intermediary then that
intermediary tends to replace
the ultimate goal and that becomes your
new game so
hard work it isn't you know the person
who needs to work
hard will work hard but it isn't
that he needs to be told to work hard
and he needs to
strive towards working hard i think hard
work is
the result of something i think whatever
needs to be done when a person has
a sufficient and requisite degree of
desire
he will do and from the outside that
will come off
and reflect his hard work to those who
are looking but
but it isn't the opposite it isn't that
it isn't that if i work hard then i will
get this
because then that introduces what i call
a gap and that gap
is that i must introduce some step in
the middle
that i am being promised that if i if i
fulfill that step
that some powers that be or some some
force out of the universe
will grant me what i want because i have
satisfied
that step and i think that's that
is the default i think that is the
the way that everyone looks at things
and is being taught
to look at things um many things are
named and in the naming
problems exist and problems arise so
if someone wants to become the you know
arrive at the top of their field
you know does that mean that they don't
work hard
no but they would never view it as
working hard
they would view it as i will do whatever
needs to be done
to get there and i don't consider that
work
necessarily yeah consider that the
necessities
you know you look at the experts and to
them what what may look like hard work
from the outside to them is play from
the inside
that's right in fact one of the things i
really think people should focus much
more on is figuring out what feels like
play to them what looks like work to
others
that's right because that's your
superpower and that's where you'll just
outperform everybody
um you know i see with startups all the
time i see
lots of people who work really hard but
still fail uh
and often you know the most common
reason is they just pick the wrong thing
to do
uh the world is a big place it's very
hard to
figure out what's going to work before
it works uh product market fit this
thing that gets thrown around
uh coined by mark andreessen uh it's a
is a very difficult thing to achieve so
you're trying to predict what the market
wants you're trying to build a product
exactly to the market
and sometimes hard work alone won't get
you there i think what you choose to
work on
and who you choose to work with uh and
actually kind of
how badly you want it which is more than
just working hard or more important than
just the raw hours you put in there are
lots of people running restaurants and
uh you know kind of meat space
businesses not in the startup world who
outwork startup entrepreneurs
uh but yet they don't succeed or if they
do succeed with much lower numbers or
much lower magnitude
right and i i and i would say that
a large a large reason for that is
that society has been has been uh sold
romantic ideas romanticism is a very big
part of things um
society very much seems to value effort
effort is a big deal and effort is um
sort of a a um
sort of an arrival of sorts uh
for for society that look how hard i
work look how much effort i'm putting in
and therefore i'm doing
i am doing the right thing by by doing
that and
and the problem that arises from that
oftentimes is those who are very
efficient
are demonized because very often you
will find in
every domain those who don't work nearly
as quote hard
as everybody else but they get 10 times
the results
and they're considered to be lucky and
so i think
i think if you look at i like to pattern
things around nature and if you look at
nature
it doesn't work hard if you look at
gravity
it doesn't work hard if you look at a
tree and a leaf falling off of a tree
it doesn't work hard if you look at a
water going down a river it doesn't work
hard
so everything everything moves
according to its own rhythm and whatever
necessities are there
they're there and therefore they need to
be worked around
we're working hard is an added extra
romantic step
in order to put another feather in the
cap which says
i succeeded by working hard
yeah it's also i think there's a
sometimes i
also think of work as a set of things
that you have to do that you don't want
to do
if you want to do it it's not work so
example is like you know you might be
grinding at work for 10 hours
and it's it's suffering it's painful and
then you get home and to relax
you play video games but to an alien
watching from the outside playing a
video game is more intense than whatever
you're doing at work you're running
around with a gun shooting at people
you're jumping
over collecting mushrooms gold coins
whatever it is
that could be construed as hard work but
because you want to do it
uh because you can lose yourself in it
uh
it there's not suffering so i don't
think it's people get burned out on work
they just get burned out of work they
don't want to do
which is a form of suffering so not and
every
thing that you need to do not every step
of it is going to be pleasant of course
uh but it's really important to align
yourself and work where you're not
suffering so when i find like engineers
who are out trying to be sales people or
sales people who are out trying to be
engineers it's better to team up with
someone who really enjoys the other side
of it
uh and stick to what you're good at um
and you know team up so that that's
where that's why i think founding teams
are very powerful
where you have one person who can build
and one person who can sell
because then neither one feels like
they're doing hard work
each one is doing what they enjoy uh but
together the company
from the outside looks like it's working
really hard and as we know
in a billion dollar company the
employees aren't working any harder than
a million dollar company they're just
doing the right thing
and the right people are doing the right
things in the right way
and and i think one of
perhaps the the
the key element of hard work which i
must say is an elephant in the room
which is rarely discussed in the world
is that
hard work is considered to be a door
prize it seems to be sort of the
preparing of the bed of failure
i think that a lot of times hard work is
done in order
to have an excuse for the mind when the
mind comes attacking and says
how come you didn't make it and if a
person is armed
with the ammunition that i have worked
hard
then he has an answer for the mind
whereas if he just had on the couch
and did nothing he would not have that
ammunition so many times
people do hard work in order to have an
answer for the mind because they know
they're going to fail anyways
and externally if i'm an investor in a
company that fails the entrepreneur
worked hard that feels more forgivable
socially
than someone who's just like oh i tried
it i took a shot the market didn't want
it i gave up quickly
um i used to have an engineer uh who
worked for me
who was absolutely brilliant and uh he
would create great products
um and he would work an hour two hours a
day
and then he would very blatantly sit
around watching qriket matches
or playing uh counter-strike which was
this uh online game
uh while all the other people in the
office were just looking at him
and he just looked really lazy and
people complained to
me about him all day long but he added
tons of value by creating the right
product the right way at the right time
yeah so he could get away with it
and he didn't have this pretense of
sitting around the water cooler
and talking or going to meetings he
didn't want to waste time on those
things he
basically either enjoying himself or he
was working on what he thought was
effective
and i think his talent to some extent
allowed him to get away with it but
just given the the era that we live in
talent matters
so much more than hard work uh yeah and
he would exemplify that
yes and it's interesting because all the
books that have been coming out
in recent years from from outliers to
all the books related to talent being
secondary to hard work in the 10 000
hours
and everything it's the exact opposite
message
that that hard work supersedes talent
and i think that's a separate sort of
discussion but but there is you know
there is a truth to the fact that
um humans tend to do many things
in order to satisfy those who are
watching them
and they also do tend to do many things
in order to satisfy
the idea of having tried and
romantically failed
failure is also something that is
considered
not only okay but
almost lauded now you know
as i as i say these words i'm certain
that some in the audience
are getting ready to say that one must
fail in order to succeed
and quite frankly i've never looked at
that as failure i i've
when i when i say failure i've always
looked at it personally as
ultimate failure not getting to where
you want to go ultimately
everything besides that to me i call
experimentation i think everything is
everything is experimentation there is
no failure along the way
yeah i agree i mean especially i think
the speed of iteration
is what drives learning so you know in
gladwell and others they say 10 000
hours of grinding
i think it's quite that simple if i do
the same thing for 10
000 hours that's not going to be very
effective
if in 10 000 hours i run 100 experiments
that's great but it's not as effective
as if i ran a thousand experiments or
ten thousand experiments
so the speed of iteration matters uh
that said it's still not hard work alone
because i could play golf for ten
thousand hours and i would never be
tiger woods
tiger woods played golf for 10 000 hours
yes it was hard work but it was also for
the sheer love of it like he enjoyed
every
you know he enjoyed most of those days
most of those times
uh and it was sort of in his nature and
character by some point
to not look at hitting the the you know
golf length of hard work he looked at
that as the thing that he most wanted to
do that day
um so this idea of suffering and
sacrifice
all that's romantic and it levels the
playing field a little bit
i think it also misleads us it misleads
us into thinking that everybody can be
everyone
uh one interesting hypothesis i heard is
that in modern society
one of the reasons we have more unhappy
people is because of the myth that
everyone can be everything
excuse me so yeah so if you think you
can be uh you know larry page or steve
jobs or jeff bezos
or mark zuckerberg but you didn't make
it it's because you didn't work hard
enough and then you feel lousy about
yourself
whereas the reality is like their
talents uh intersected in the right way
at the right time and they put in the
hard work
uh for the thing that they were meant to
create and your talents are gonna
intersect in a completely different way
uh in a different place at a different
time and and a lot of life is just
searching for
uh what it is that you're uniquely good
at and
where and when to apply that thing
that's exactly right
the last line that you mentioned
absolutely i think is is the key
um i don't you know this
sort of may sound um sort of
really counterintuitive
but i don't think anybody fails because
of
not working hard enough i don't think
that that creature exists
i think that people fail because they
didn't really want it
i don't think that that a sufficient
degree of desire
exists in a given person but
because he just didn't do quote do
enough work that he failed i don't
really buy that
i think i would say that if he didn't do
the quote
work or do the leg work or do whatever
needed to be done
it's because the desire you gotta look
more upstream i think the desire wasn't
there
i don't think the desire is bursting
through you and you choose to hold back
that desire
and not do it i i don't i don't i don't
think that's the case
yeah i've i've always had a belief that
companies don't fail when they run out
of the cash
they fail when the founders and team run
out of energy
when they basically say okay we're done
here
at some level you have to give up on
something and just because
and it's pragmatic there are other
things that you want to do more by that
point
but if you have an unswerving desire to
do something then
usually you'll get it yeah although i
think i think in this modern age we tend
to have too many loosely scattered
imitative desires correct um there's
that great old chinese thing like
man who chases two rabbits catches none
yes
um so a lot of it is just about
cultivating your desire and being ready
well there there's the want with the
small w then there's a want with a big w
yeah i'm reminded that antoine is an
exuberant line where he basically said
something like
if you want to uh you know uh build a
ship and hit the high
seas then don't gather the men and start
giving orders and chopping the wood and
building a fire and
you know building a ship instead teach
them to yearn for the vast and endless
sea
yeah and and that is a lot of the role
of a leader it's to inspire people
absolutely another great definition i
once heard was that you know management
is telling people what to do
leadership is getting them to want to do
it themselves
correct yes i think a leader is far
more hands-off than what
sort of the business world tells him he
should be
i don't think it's about managing
anybody i think it really is
becoming someone that others look at
that leader
and see in him what they would love to
see in themselves
yeah i was actually talking to a founder
the other day of a company that's now
worth almost 10 billion dollars and he's
done
obviously quite well and i asked him
like what would you do differently if
you were doing it again
uh and he said he would micromanage
people less
which i thought was really interesting i
did not expect that answer i thought it
would be some
other answer about how he could have
been even bigger but he actually just
felt like he made a mistake by
constantly trying to order people around
and well and i think and i think and i
and i think it also matters how what you
just said is going to be heard
because oftentimes things are heard
through the lens of morality and right
and wrong and correct
and incorrect and good and bad and so
that might be heard as
you are right it is wrong to micromanage
people
you should leave them alone and and i
would say that
and i would say it's far more and i'm
sure that he meant it
this way as well that it's far more that
it wasn't that that was
quote wrong or immoral that that was
ineffective
exactly exactly yeah
uh you know so when we get to morality
for example
uh one of the things that silicon valley
likes to talk a lot about is 10x
engineers and now it's been broadened a
little bit to be a little more
politically correct 10x performers
but it is true that you can have
individuals especially when they're
leveraged through code
or capital like on hedge fund managers
or engineers or
even on the sales side where someone can
literally accomplish
10x what the next closest person in the
organization can and the easiest way to
see this as founders a founder can build
a company
one founder can build a company that's a
thousand times more valuable the next
founder
and so there's kind of this idea of 10x
performers
and obviously it can't be through hard
work because they're not doing 10x the
work that's impossible everyone's
working hard so then we pay lip service
it's idea of 10x performers
and everybody wants to hire them but
then we go around paying them 1x or 1.1
x or 1.2 x
because society doesn't want to hear
this idea of that you can actually pay a
10x performer 10x
so what happens is 10x performers all
end up leaving and starting their own
companies
because they're not getting paid 10x
otherwise the only way to do it
so we have a few socially acceptable
areas
where you can get paid 10x basically if
someone else is not making a decision
if you made it by yourself or for
yourself or you at least steered the
ship long enough
that you managed to capture more of the
value for yourself than you get to be a
10x performer
but i think one of the things that's
utterly broken in the startup ecosystem
is that we all know and acknowledge that
10x performers or higher 100x thousands
exist
especially within certain circumstances
and situations
yet we do not compensate them at those
levels because it is socially
unacceptable to do so
that one's worth covering another
discussion it's a longer discussion but
i think that
it's just an example of how uh you know
real truth
is hard to speak because it offends
people it hurts a sensibility
of equality it hurts a sensibility of
how the world ought to work
it hurts your sensibility of morality
but you can always fix things in other
ways it's better to
acknowledge how the world actually works
uh and then figure out maybe how you
want to change it as opposed to
live with your head in the sand and
everyone has to speak the same way in
the same language and the same coded
words
and you may actually end up just denying
how the world actually works that
process you end up deluding yourself
yes yeah i think that i think humans
seek truth to some degree so long as it
has conditions
it must fit within the framework already
established or it's not accepted
and so the so the problem isn't that the
truth is wrong
the problem is that there's too many
frameworks there's
you know every everyone's walking on
eggshells because
so many eggs have been created you know
morality
to what is correct what is right what is
what is fair
um then society societies and
institutions created around the very
idea of enforcing fairness you know
quite honestly the jungle in the wild is
far more
fair and equitable and moral
than any fabricated society in this
world
i think we'll end on that thank you
council
yes sir yes sir yes sir
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