Chamath Palihapitiya: The Next Most Successful Person Will Be The One That Is The Most Whole
September 14, 2018. I was 800 meters away from billionaire CEO of Social Capital. Former senior executive at Facebook. Owner of the Golden State Warriors.
Did I meet him?
No.
I didn’t know anything about him.
I had no idea that only 800m away, one of the smartest people in the world was breathing the same air as me. The ground floor I was standing on, could very well have been the same floor he walked across when he was a student studying engineering.
Boy, am I glad the internet exists.
Introducing: the man who will change your perspective on everything.
Let us begin…
Do what’s hard. Change the world.
Here are examples of hard problems:
- Climate Change (48.8% of millennials say climate change is their top concern…so why is there even the “is it a myth” debate?)
- Curing cancer (not just suppressing it)
- World Hunger
- Obesity (this is ridiculously ironic…😒)
- Ozone Layer Depletion (how many of you want skin cancer)
- Endangered Species (cue the middle-schoolers posting on IG stories)
- Housing
- The E.U. (are all the countries in Europe equal?)
- Energy Sustainability
- Extreme Poverty
- Over Population
- Lack of Human Empathy (Prejudice)
- Food and Water Security (guys…these are some basic needs)
- Personal Security
- Figuring out how to get enough niobium/aluminum wires to make more damn quantum computers accessible.
The list goes on…
Chamath believes that the only way to reach a true state of happiness is if you find a hard problem that really upsets you, and you work on it.
Every pothole of insecurity or doubt gets filed in. Working on stuff you genuinely care about is deeply motivational. The patience, discipline and commitment it necessitates are what differentiates you from the typical human being.
The easy thing to do is leave. The hard thing is to double down.
There is no alternate universe where, when the going gets rough (as it always does), you’ll stay for the shit you don’t care about. Working on hard problems is Chamath’s way of saying ‘find your purpose’. If you don’t, imagine how dull and boring your whole damn life will be.
Being Right Is Overrated.
You’re either right, or you’re learning.
Take a moment to internalize this. Chamath points out that most people act with the “if I’m not right, then I must be wrong” mentality. Sure, it might seem logical, but the idea is to have a change of mindset. Let’s think this through rationally…which mentality provides you value?
Being ‘right’ gives you a (positive) emotional reaction to the social validation that you receive, based purely on society’s general belief that:
Being Right = Being Smart = Life Success
Through no fault of your own do you subscribe to this idea. From a young age, we are placed in a binary system that conditions us to believe that ‘being correct’ equates to ‘being smart’. This system grades us on a scale of least-to-most-correct, and allows us to define our future by these ratings of ‘smartness’.
This is literally how school trains you to think: those who get more questions on a piece of paper ‘correct’, receive higher marks, those who receive higher marks, receive ‘greater job opportunities’, those who receive greater job opportunities, theoretically ‘live a better life’.
We attach our social image and sometimes even our self-worth to ‘being smart’ so much so, that we forget the values that really matter.
Changing our mentality from ‘being wrong’ to ‘learning’ conditions our mental models to take a more curious, data-driven approach.
When we prepare ourselves to learn, we open our minds to the possibility of not knowing, and revert back to our almost childlike curiosity. We allow ourselves to be wrong, to ask questions, and to find sparks of joy in seeking knowledge.
We value the idea of being right so much, we often forget being open to risk is necessary in order to make an impact.
The truth is that,
realizing your failures will teach you more than your success
With success, it’s easy to conflate luck and skill.
You can never tell what exact factors led up to your success, and you get all these nasty unconscious feelings of satisfaction and social validation that drive your ego and shape your self-worth in a way that is neither sustainable or accurate.
Super corrosive stuff.
Chamath likes to use the ‘gold star’ example.
When society gives you a gold star (a good grade, dream job…really anything that makes you feel powerful and above others), you become so enthralled by the gold star, you’re obsessed. Everything you do is done to protect that gold star.
You go risk-off. You’re tunnel visioned, driven by the desire to protect your gold star. Your self-worth is attached to this position in a way that makes you feel as though losing it would be a detrimental loss to your identity.
You’re a slave.
A slave to the social validation represented by the gold star.
With failure, it’s almost like being at ground zero.
You’re forced to unpack what about the situation was you, the timing, the environment. You receive moments of clarity where you can really figure out where your strengths and weaknesses lie. It is within these moments of hardship and tenure that (granted you don’t get caught up in your self-image and failure), you analyze, obtain data, and learn the most.
Setting your mind up to be constantly learning, instead of failing, is where you will derive power from.
Self-Awareness = Power
People often say that freedom is power. Yet we don’t even realize that our greatest of impediments do not come from external forces…they are fostered within ourselves. So…where do you feel free?
(Because I found this idea so invaluable, I found it difficult to pick one that embodied this whole notion…so I chose multiple 😀. Enjoy.)
Know what makes you unbalanced
Know what ticks you off, what makes you happy, and what your biases are. The idea is so simple, yet so underrated. During his Hack the North talk, in front of a giant auditorium of promising waterloo engineers, Chamath said,
The next most successful person in this room will be the most whole
The underlining goal here is to understand what you value. Chamath very candidly admits that he values 3 things:
- Professional Accomplishment
- Social capital (affiliation and belonging to the people around you)
- A few really deep, profound, emotional relationships
It is when one of these are so out of wack in his life, that he would act least rationally.
Coming from a difficult parental background, I’ve thought about what makes people lash out irrationally, even to people they claim to love so dearly, and what Chamath said here just makes sense.
You are made up of what you value. Your actions and reactions are driven by your fundamental, core values. When one of your values is being impacted by external situations, there is a degree at which it will make you feel out of balance, and will affect your behaviour elsewhere.
I very much value my personal relationships. When I’m at a row with my closest friends, I’ll think about how to mend things every second of the day, up until the moment we’re ironing out the argument about whether or not pineapples go on pizza. (We agreed the argument itself is stupid and that whoever posts on Instagram about killing anybody who disagrees with them needs a life.)
Understanding basic triggers that make you feel the universal human emotions, helps you to know where/how to optimize how you live your life and be in control of your emotions (and therefore yourself).
There is work that you can do on yourself that puts you in a position to be excellent. It is thankless work because no one sees it, nobody values it, everybody derives it if you talk about it, and it needs to get destigmatized because we all carry it with us and the minute you unshackle yourself from it and leave it, you are powerful.
Say IDK
Saying “I don’t know.” is basically an out-right admittance of your ignorance. Imagine how liberating that must feel.
Our society is so enamoured by bullshit.
We love the drama…the flourish…the bold, daunting moves. For the regular teen, how many ‘DECA gods’ do you look up to who, when asked, “How do you do it?” they reply, “I just bullshit!” What about eloquent debaters who masterfully whip words into sharpened swords? I’ve seen first-hand society’s unspoken correlation between ‘being articulate’ and ‘being qualified’. My cousin, who mastered both DECA and debate, now studies Economics at the prestigious Harvard…(Alex, I still deeply respect you and your work ethic please don’t call my mum😃).
There are so many other instances where this hold true…a job interview, a date…and how can we forget the oh-so-powerful politicians? An orange thumb bullshited his way to the greatest seat of power in America.
Oddly-enough, for a society that says they care so much about educating people, we’ve developed a culture with an attitude of a bunch of know-it-alls. Everybody doesn’t know everything. If you think you do, Chamath, one of the smartest people in the world, will ask you;
“how the-fuck can you ever learn anything?”
The truth is that, there is so much power in being able to acknowledge and admit that you don’t know something. It takes a level of self-awareness and confidence (that’s becoming increasingly rare) to be able to admit your lack of knowledge.
Oh, and…even pop stars understand this concept:
Change Your Mind
Really good scaled leaders want the right answers. They’re fine with capitulation. With change. They’re fine with it because they’re so invested in finding the right answer.
Don’t allow your biases to hold you back from changing your mind. Humans have a natural tendency to try to defend their ideas and beliefs because they hold them so close to their identity. Psychologists have even identified a word for it, called the endowment effect. A simple example is when you meet someone new. Although first impressions are notoriously prone to error, we just can’t stop ourselves from making them — and it only takes a tenth of a second to form a judgment about another person’s character, even from a still photograph. Once that first impression is made, your mind automatically picks up observations that support your mind’s initial claim.
You build up all this superficial logic to reinforce it.
You have a bias towards yourself, to have excessive self-regard for yourself, and it’s detrimental to your decision-making skills, your business, and yourself. True power lies in being able to recognize this bias, take control of it and embrace true confidence; learning to change your mind when you need.
Ah…memes…a wonderful way to teach a lesson. 👍
Be Data-Driven
Chamath has had a plethora of experiences that embedded this attitude within him. Luckily for you, this bit of wisdom is being handed to you on a silver platter (or a bright screen, rather).
The reality is actually that, the ability to be data-driven is an important attitude portrayed by many leaders of the world.
Chamath (a super successful billionaire) strives to divorce himself from attachment. Not in a bland, cold way, but in a logical, unbiased, stoic way.
Chamath understands: emotions and ego make a super disruptive force inside a company. 😬
🔑Develop the skill to uncover lore, and create fact-based decision making.
I'm an emotional 16-year old girl, but the fluctuating biochemical reactions firing off in my brain still isn't stopping me from observing myself; my biases, mental models, decisions, and attempting to be super logical and rational with my decision-making. No excuses.
Give it a try.
Have An Opinion That Actually Matters
Want true diversity? Do you even know what that means? Allow the following to enlighten you.
Each person has a unique experience and perception of the world. Not everyone has a unique opinion about it.
Today’s world is brimming with universities, companies, and political cabinets attempting to ‘show diversity in the workforce’. So…basically…we need 2 brown kids, 1 east-Asian, 3 humans in possession of the female genitalia, and let's throw in somebody from the LGBTQ+ community just for good measure.
I’m a young girl looking to disrupt the tech industry so *duh* I like seeing my 👑queens👑 rule the world.
…but the truth is, headlines like this:
don’t satisfy me.
I frankly don’t care if my political leader is gay, lesbian, or prefers the pronouns she/her. I don’t even care if I’m working in a team full of women, men, coloured or non-coloured people. I care about their merit. Their experience and opinions.
What makes you different than the person next to you? You can have a birthmark here and someone else a birthmark there but…when you die, your body decomposes the same. When you are diseased, your mind deteriorates similarly.
What makes you truly different is how you experience the world.
When you see a mountain…do you climb it with shorts and a tee shirt, dragging your sandal-wearing friend along with you, like Nadeem Nathoo? When you see (or hear) danger, do you feel inspired to run towards it, like Jennifer Brown? What about when you graduate an exceptional student from high school, on the road to your chosen path in university, and when offered a job at a start-up, immediately defer your acceptance and follow the unconventional route (hint hint, wink wink Nazra Noushad)?
For those of you in The Knowledge Society, you know who I’m referring to. We are amazingly lucky to be surrounded by head-strong, smart people who genuinely seek to create an impact on society every day. These are the people who have a unique perspective of the world, and challenge themselves daily to live it. Make sure you do.
You have a moral imperative to make sure that you have a point of view that matters
Force yourself into states of discomfort. Test your mental models and yourself. Place yourself into situations where your world view is moulded and shaped in ways you control.
In the end, it’s not going to be about what shade of colour your skin is, or the gender of your partner, it’s going to be about a diversity of worldviews.
“The more diversity of those views, the more rational actors we have, and the more of a balanced, fair system.”
Want true diversity? Create it. For yourself and for others.
So am I sad that I didn’t get to meet Chamath?
No.
(okay kinda…)
But would I trade meeting him for everything I’ve learned? Absolutely not.
Coming from a familiar environment and background, Chamath Palihapitiya has inspired me endlessly. His candidness with himself, attitude on life, and thoughtfulness when it comes to his mental models, is what makes him utterly unforgettable. I hope as you inevitably stalk him on youtube, twitter, medium etc. you find him equally as intelligible and entertaining as I have.
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