Just Win, Baby
Just Win, Baby. These famous three words by Al Davis have resonated for decades within NFL lore. It’s a simple phrase, yet beneath the boisterous nature of it, lays an important attitude many should learn to embrace. Pure determination and brazen irrational confidence are needed at times, you execute in a rational manner, but you have an irrational belief in the first place that you will succeed.
There exists two groups of people on the opposite end of a spectrum, neither are particularly good groups to be part of. One is those who are full of unjustified confidence, who believe that mere will and headstrongness will lead them to their desired goals. The other group believes strongly in probability and are completely risk-averse, rarely taking action unless they have practically guaranteed odds in every decision they make. While this second group, in my opinion, is better to be part of, it still presents issues if your goal is to achieve a somewhat difficult or ambitious task.
In both instances, perhaps if your goal is not difficult or if you get lucky, you may achieve what you set out to do, but, for those who would like to achieve ends with a higher degree of difficulty and to do so with minimal luck, a balance between these two groups of people must be achieved. It is not that you should not have strong confidence, and you certainly need to be risk-averse, it’s simply a matter of finding the right balance and degree, as confidence with no thinking, or complete risk aversion makes it difficult to achieve difficult and large goals. To clarify, you certainly should always have a high degree of risk aversion and humility to maximise your long-term chances of success, but sometimes your best odds, no matter how great your analysis and ability, due to factors within and outside of your control, will not be close to a guarantee. I would further clarify my point, with the example of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. While the individual investments made by Buffett are of an extremely risk-averse nature, where Buffett will wait years on end to find a potential asymmetric return investment, with minimum risk and high odds of returns, if you were to set out to achieve what he has achieved in his investing career, it would be extremely hard to rationally justify your potential to recreate his success as a whole. In saying that, if that is your ultimate goal, you must have a degree of irrational confidence to believe you can consistently outperform all your competitors for decades on end, and the way to best maximise your chances of doing this is to make the most rational decisions possible after this point.
Be rational in life, but as part of being rational you may recognise your ultimate goal is an improbable one. If that is the case and you are still steadfast in your goals, you need to be irrationally confident as the most rational path to success. Irrational confidence can funnily create rational success.
Perhaps no better example of irrational confidence, and the importance of it, exists than those who dare commercialise technology. The venture capital industry so far has been built on successful bets in a field where the majority of companies and investments fail. Yet in the face of these odds, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs find a balance. You take calculated risks, and you follow your rationality to achieve the best products possible, all of this with the odds being stacked against you. And in the face of these long odds, you can do nothing else other than to push forward with the task at hand as best you can, with the hopes that your product will gain traction before the coffers run out as it does for most of your competitors and friends. There’s a beautiful balance of irrational confidence in your survival and success, but a calculated rationally and risk-taking to ensure you do not become too foolhardy in your decision-making. When this ethos is achieved, some wonderful things can happen, one only needs to look at the value these technology companies have provided to the world to see what results can happen when you combine belief with rationality.
As a side note, venture capitalists have a better probability proposition for survival most of the time as they are able to diversify across a few companies in their investments, but for entrepreneurs, they tend to only have one or a few opportunities in their lifetime to make their company a success. Some entrepreneurs who possess superior insights and traits may have an advantage probability-wise as they themselves affect the odds of entrepreneurship success, but as a general guide, venture capitalists play a safer game.
As Nietzsche once wrote, “I know of no better aim of life than that of perishing, animae magnae prodigus, in pursuit of the great and the impossible.” The acknowledgement of your potential for failure, but maintaining confidence in the face of this, and continuing forward is the first mark of acceptance of reality. Anything worth pursuing in life will be difficult, and when your backs are against the wall and you’ve done all the rationalising and planning, all you can do then is to move forward and say Just Win, Baby.