Play Long-term Games With Long-term People
The title is not an original. Also, this is not really a blog, just a dump of what has been running in my mind for the last few days
The story starts with Bangalore and Twitter. I can say I am fully immersed in both things for more than a decade now. Bangalore Tech Twitter is like a large community which has the most influential people in Startup circles. You often get this feeling that if you are not part of this network then you are missing out. Lately, I have found myself straying away from the platform more and more since every content feels like it’s polished just for more engagement (similar thoughts in this post which I found on HN). There are a few gems but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack and really not worth the time and energy. So I try to find some alternate platforms, stumble across some niche discord or telegram group. Then I discover these in-person meetups which feel just right. It all starts well initially, but eventually you realise it is the same group of people telling the same cock-and-bull story. It is all one massive disappointment, but I digress.
Lately I have started to realise that there are a lot of people within my current org itself who are extremely smart and deeply care about their craft (yes, 10x Engineer/PM is not a myth). These are people who launched new profitable businesses, built large scale products or rewrote the entire platform from scratch. Just being in an organisation that constantly hires the top 10% and constantly focuses on fostering talent, gives you access to some of the best minds in the country. Maybe the politics of an office environment creates a negative bias to truly appreciate the talented folks we work with. I also have a greater admiration for my ex-colleagues, knowing how they were able to create something valuable despite significant constraints. I guess I am just able to understand the true meaning of Dunning-Kruger effect or maybe I am just discovering what gratitude is :)
One proxy metric for this is the people that I refer in my circles. Just yesterday I connected 2 amazing people — an ex-team member and a founder. Both were work colleagues in different settings and I see them as extremely smart people. There was a sense of joy knowing that they might work together and create something of great value. I make it a point to only refer people I'd want to work with again or hire if I were starting up. Those who work with them can't stop praising the impact they make in their new roles. These strong relationships are only built when you play long-term games with long-term people.
PS: there is enough literature about how you see compounding returns when you invest for the long-term. Naval Ravikant popularised this in his podcast https://nav.al/long-term (same title as this post). While I understood the core concept, I never truly understood this until recently.
That’s it. Have a great day! 👋