Hugging the X-Axis - David Perell

In a Harvard commencement speech called The Trouble with Optionality professor Mihir A. Desai defines optionality as “the state of enjoying possibilities without being on the hook to do anything.” With enough optionality, you can always change what you’re doing in order to pursue something better. Desai critiques students for seeing optionality as ... See more

In matters of the heart, commitment brings meaning. In matters of the mind, commitment brings knowledge. And in matters of the material world, running towards the responsibility that comes with commitment takes courage — and with courage comes achievement. People can only become world-class at things they commit to.

Early in my career, I was also the guy who kept up with ten different industries so I wouldn’t have to define myself by any single one of them. But recently, my values have started to change. I now want multi-decade friendships and a professional life where I can build things that compound in value at an exponential rate; I want a place I call home... See more

Long time horizons change our incentives, usually in good ways. This is one of the core findings of game theory: people treat each other better when they intend to interact repeatedly in the future.

Problems arise when people associate freedom with a lack of commitments. The kind of freedom that ultimately fulfills and uplifts us comes from making the right kinds of commitments. Only once these commitments are in place can we climb the Y-Axis. In business, if you want the freedom that comes with wealth, you have to commit to a company by inves

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Western culture over-indexes on novelty. It suffers from commitment phobia. I see this in our culture of digital nomadism, job-hopping among yuppies, and listening to books at 3x speed instead of reading them deeply.