There are 2 paths to success:

1. Be Top 1% in the world at 1 thing
2. Be Top 25% in the world at 3 things

Top 25% is achievable by most people.

The problem is most people focus on being Top 1%.

Work on combining “3 pretty goods” and stay at it.

It’ll pay off big.

The ultimate hack to 10x your career:

Enter the Side Door.

Let's break it down 👇👇👇

Let’s set the stage. Imagine you’re in college and it’s Friday night.

It’s been a long week and it’s the party of the year at the local bar.

Awesome - you’re all set to go.

You get there and run into a huge problem.

There’s a massive line outside.

You do what most people do.

You stand in line in the freezing cold for an hour.

You’re tense and starting to worry.

You frantically call a friend of yours who managed to get in.

- Is there room inside?
- Any way you can talk to the bouncer for me?
- Is my (questionable...at best) ID going to get me in?

You leave your destiny up to the fate of the universe.

This is what most people do with their careers.

They take the front door AKA they do what everyone else is doing.

And what happens?

Well they get the same results as most people.

It’s hard to stand out and get the job you want.

Hot Take:

The metaverse is going to make everything more extreme.

Here’s how the world is about to go on tilt and what it means for you 👇👇👇

My friend @ShaanVP had an awesome thread on the metaverse a few weeks ago.

He set a clear, understandable definition of the metaverse:

The metaverse is a time, not a place.

It’s when our digital life is more important than our physical life.

If you believe in that definition (I do), then it pushes an interesting second order question.

What happens when that shift occurs?

I think everything gets a lot more extreme.

Why?

The world doesn’t get any bigger, but our surface area of exposure increases exponentially.

We have more insight and visibility into everything that’s going on.

This will put more pressure on the proverbial pressure cooker.

Here are 10 examples:

1. Opportunity

As more economic activity moves online, constraints and barriers go away.

You can be 10,000 miles away and considered as a candidate for a job.

Measurement pushes away from inputs (politics, facetime) to outputs (deliverables).

India is on the verge of a once-in-a-generation explosion in edtech.

I've invested in 2 co's that are growing like wildfire and want to do more. Let's talk if you're building in this space.

Here's what's going on and why you should pay attention now, if you weren't before:

1/ There are 5 factors that are simultaneously driving the rapid rise of edtech in India.

- Favorable demographics
- At scale internet adoption
- Deteriorating incumbent quality
- Declining budget / capacity
- Cultural relevance

Let's talk about how all 5 are interconnected.

2/ The quantum of "digital first" Indians that will need to be educated is like nothing the world has ever seen.

India has:

- 500M+ people under 25
- 125M+ English speakers
- 250M+ people that will be added to its population over the next 40 years (est. peak is 1.6B)

3/ In parallel, increased internet accessibility at very low prices has resulted in a massive surge of online users

- 830M internet users in 2021 (+83% from 2019)
- 860M smartphone users in 2022 (+84% from 2017)
- 8.3GB monthly data consumption (+100x from 2014)

4/ India's existing education system is rampant with outdated curricula, low quality instructors and inflexibility. India:

- Ranks 49/50 in higher ed
- Spends <5% GDP on higher ed
- Teaches "to the test" - the system is oriented around entrance exams

I interviewed 100 legendary investors, founders and executives.

Collectively, they have created over $1 trillion of value for the world.

Here are 20 practical career lessons they shared with me 👇👇👇

Always strive to simultaneously be overrated and underrated.

Contrary to popular belief, being overrated is good. It opens doors and gives you credibility.

But don’t let this go to your head. Stay hungry, humble and hardworking.

Most people overinvest in expiring skills & underinvest in permanent skills.

Expiring skills are tactical; their relevance diminishes with time and technology

Permanent skills are evergreen and create disproportionate impact

E.g. communication, judgement, trust, empathy

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable

If you get advice from enough people, the advice will cancel out.

You can find 2 smart people to take opposite sides of the argument on virtually every topic.

Focus on developing your instincts and trusting your own intuition.

Surround yourself with open minded people vs. close minded people

Open Minded People:
- Ask genuine questions
- Insatiably curious
- Listen attentively

Close Minded People
- Make statements instead of ask questions
- Focus on being right
- Speak more

There’s a lot of bad advice out there on how to pitch your startup.

Last year, I invested $1M+ and heard 200 companies pitch.

Every great pitch I've heard nails 5 ingredients.

In this thread, we'll go through each to help maximize your chances when fundraising

Let's dig in👇

1/ Every pitch should have 5 ingredients:

- Problem: Is this an issue
- Solution: Do you have the fix
- Market: Is this a big enough issue
- Business: Can you make money
- Team: Are you the people to do it

The best pitches nail all 5. Good ones hit 4. Subpar hit 3 or less.

2/ PROBLEM

The problem statement is an explanation of why a set of circumstances is painful for a set of users.

There’s one word in that sentence that is most important: painful.

If your problem is not painful enough, it's a vitamin.

The best startups are pain killers.

3/ SOLUTION

The solution statement is an explanation of how you address the pain felt by your users. If you don’t have the right solution, you won’t get customer traction.

Customers don’t buy your thesis on the pain point. They buy the actual thing that solves their pain point.

4/ MARKET

In tech, only businesses that have outsized potential get funded.

To have outsized potential, you have to either be in a:

(a) small, but rapidly growing market or
(b) large existing market that can be resegmented

If not, the business is not venture backable.

The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine.

Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument.

Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels.

Living solely for achievements is like skipping ten hours of your life to taste one second of joy.

"You won’t have inner peace until you give up your war against the world."

@naval

The fate of those who do not make others dependent on them:

Sooner or later someone comes along who can do the job as well as they can — someone younger, fresher, less expensive, less threatening.

For not many men, the proverb says, can love a friend who fortune
prospers without feeling envy;

and about the envious brain, cold poison clings and doubles all the pain life brings him.

His own woundings he must nurse, and feels another's gladness like a curse.

-Aeschylus