Any degree of self-interest mixed with the goal of serving customers creates a 'decay function.' Over time, this small percentage of selfishness compounds through countless micro-decisions, inevitably degrading the quality and integrity of the final output. Purity of intent is a functional requirement for long-term excellence.
Related Insights
The belief that your current product is "a giant piece of shit" is a powerful motivator. This mindset ensures you are constantly seeking limitless opportunities for improvement. If you can't see flaws and feel a degree of humiliation about what you offer the public, you shouldn't be designing the product.
Prioritize sustainable, long-term growth and value creation over immediate, expedient gains that could damage the business's future. This philosophy guides decisions from product development to strategic planning, ensuring the company builds a lasting competitive advantage instead of chasing fleeting wins.
To avoid ethical slippery slopes, project the outcome of a small compromise over time. Exaggerating a claim by 2% for better results seems harmless, but that success creates temptation to push it to 4%, then 8%. This compounding effect pushes you far from your original ethical baseline before you notice.
A founder's deep, intrinsic passion for their company's mission is critical for long-term success. Even with a sound business model, a lack of genuine care leads to burnout and failure when challenges arise. Leaders cannot sustain success in areas they consider a distraction from their "real" passion, like AGI research versus product monetization.
The conventional wisdom that you must sacrifice one of quality, price, or speed is flawed. High-performance teams reject this trade-off, understanding that improving quality is the primary lever. Higher quality reduces rework and defects, which naturally leads to lower long-term costs and faster delivery, creating a virtuous cycle.
The most powerful way to build a business is to focus on a 'divine lever'—an action that is both a causal force for growth and is objectively good, serving demand purely without self-centered motives. This creates a sustainable, meaningful foundation for a company.
Business is a unique domain where you can pursue selfish goals (building a large, profitable company) and selfless ones at the same time. By building a successful company with ethical, people-first practices, you force competitors to adopt similar positive behaviors to compete, thereby improving the entire industry for everyone.
Focusing relentlessly on giving value to your audience without expecting an immediate return is the foundation of brand building. This selfless approach, embodied by the "jab, jab, jab, right hook" model, ultimately creates more selfish gain (sales, reputation) than a transactional, sales-first mindset ever could.
Many companies claim customer-centricity, but few are willing to provide value to a degree that seems unbalanced. This relentless focus on the end-user, whether in product, service, or content, is a rare and powerful competitive advantage that builds a sustainable brand.