More from Principles
How to find (and operate in) your Zone of Genius:
A few weeks ago, I shared a thread—How to Win (without talent or luck)—that got a lot of attention.
One of the most popular insights I shared was the idea of operating in your Zone of Genius.
But I got a lot of questions about how to practically achieve that...
Your Zone of Genius is where your interests, passions and skills align.
Operating in it means you stop playing *their* games and start playing *yours*.
This thread shares my framework—built through personal struggle—for finding and operating in your Zone of Genius:
First, let's get one thing straight.
Everyone has a Zone of Genius.
"Genius" here is a relative term, not an absolute.
It's not about being top 1% at something—it's about the unique space where your relative strengths are accentuated (and relative weaknesses masked).
Furthermore, everyone’s Zone of Genius is different and unique to them as an individual.
The goal of a founder, startup, or organization, therefore, is to build a team with complementary—not conflicting—Zones of Genius.
This is where 1+1=3!
A few weeks ago, I shared a thread—How to Win (without talent or luck)—that got a lot of attention.
One of the most popular insights I shared was the idea of operating in your Zone of Genius.
But I got a lot of questions about how to practically achieve that...
How to Win (without talent or luck):
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) October 16, 2021
Your Zone of Genius is where your interests, passions and skills align.
Operating in it means you stop playing *their* games and start playing *yours*.
This thread shares my framework—built through personal struggle—for finding and operating in your Zone of Genius:
First, let's get one thing straight.
Everyone has a Zone of Genius.
"Genius" here is a relative term, not an absolute.
It's not about being top 1% at something—it's about the unique space where your relative strengths are accentuated (and relative weaknesses masked).
Furthermore, everyone’s Zone of Genius is different and unique to them as an individual.
The goal of a founder, startup, or organization, therefore, is to build a team with complementary—not conflicting—Zones of Genius.
This is where 1+1=3!
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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
