Are Long-Games Real? I Suspect Mostly No | #292

“If we act upon the desire to emulate those growing faster than us, we are more likely to imitate short-term optimization than competence .”

If you were fully “in it” in the tech scene of the 2010s, it may have felt like a game you would play forever. But a lot of what was happening was short-term games and short-term optimization.

Most people did not want to participate for 30+ years or even 10+ years. They wanted to secure the bag, a literal exit, or to downshift to a more comfortable... See more

more charitable interpretation of what’s going on in Silicon Valley is not that there are people thinking long-term at all but that an environment exists where being more generous and helping others succeed is rewarded and this is different than many other parts of the economy.

He proposes that long-term games can be described as follows:

1. First, long-term games are a series of connected short-term games toward a long-term objective, and you play short-term games NOT to win them but to increase the odds of success


2. One of the most important things in a long-term game is to know and avoid common sources of failure.


3. To play a

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Ultimately, a long-term game must be unique to the individual . This is because to maximize the odds of success and design against failure, you must design a strategy around your unique advantages and disadvantages.

For the most part, I don’t blame anyone. But what’s concerning is that this spirit of exit is becoming the de-facto goal of many people.

• People want to hit it big with equity compensation at the right company


• Work for the highest paying companies no matter what they have to do


• Founding companies just for the chance of an exit, even if they don’t care

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