- Tournaments are everywhere in life.
And the sooner you can identify them,
the better you can compete.
College admissions, getting into grad school,
getting your first job, raising money, hiring a team,
making partner at a law firm, getting promoted to executive,
getting YouTube subscribers, getting tenure as a professor,
you name it.
All the things that people want are on the other side
of a competitive process.
The first part of the game is showing up.
So glad you're here, let's get started.
(upbeat music)
In my career,
I've won a few tournaments and I've lost a few.
When I was at Stanford,
there was a prestigious program called
the Mayfield Fellows Program.
People like Kevin Systrom from Instagram
and Justin Rosenstein from Asana were selectees
during their times at Stanford.
I applied, but I was not selected.
(womp womp womp)
For a moment, it was crushing to get rejected.
Here were gatekeepers to my future,
and they said I did not pass.
I was at Stanford and these professors,
I thought knew something I didn't.
In the moment I thought shoot,
what if I'm not cut out for being a startup founder?
I'm glad I sold it on though.
It was just another tournament that I entered,
but I didn't win.
Today in my career I know not to believe
that the tournament gatekeepers
have some special clairvoyant knowledge.
They're doing their best with incomplete information.
And also the heuristic people apply
may not be verifiably accurate over the long term.
When I got rejected from Mayfield in 2001,
the program had only existed for about six years.
It was probably too soon to know if the criteria
they were using for the program was predictive or relevant.
Two really big lessons here.
First, don't get mad at the gatekeepers,
they are doing typically their best
with imperfect information.
Second, don't get discouraged if you don't get in.
I knew I was a good engineer and I could ship
any kind of user experience,
and I love to do design, I knew my strengths.
There were definitely people in that program who did get in,
who had better resumes than me at that time,
but they couldn't have bought the skills that I had.
Believe in yourself.
These tournaments show up everywhere,
they happen anytime there's a finite resource:
college admissions, grad school, job applications,
incubators and accelerators, fellowships, academia,
getting press for your business, raising money.
These are all tournaments.
For all of them here are some generalizable rules
that I think you should keep in mind,
no matter where you are in the world
and what stage of career you're in.
One, be aware of the tournament,
two, find out what the criteria are for each,
three, applied to lots of them,
four, talk to people who have won the tournament before
and get advice.
And five, if the door's closed try a window.
First, be on the lookout for competition.
If you don't know something is up for grabs,
how can you even win?
In high school I was oblivious to the competition
that was going on and luckily it didn't hurt me too much
since I was into something very fringe,
something that turned out to be valuable
which was computers.
Competitions are everywhere,
at your job like it or not,
you and your peers are probably competing
for the same bonus pool and or who will you promoted.
That's just how it works, be aware of the competition.
Don't be a dick about it, but know it's happening.
Second people who are great at tournaments
find out what the criteria is to win upfront.
Get specifics.
For instance for college admissions,
every college is looking for different things.
Every incubator too, every workforce, every boss,
know the specifics.
I realized getting Stanford as an undergrad in 1999,
for me it was a function of being obsessive
with consuming information
from the Princeton review online forums.
My parents didn't have money,
and my public school guidance counselors
knew nothing about how to apply to the best universities,
but I went direct to the internet early
when lots of people didn't have that advantage.
I realized through that forum,
I could learn how wealthy kids in prep schools got in.
And I learned by osmosis.
Through that forum, high SATs check,
extracurriculars check, great essays check.
I improved my sat score by over 400 points by studying.
And I learned I could do this
hearing about how others had done it.
Funny enough for something that was basically
a marketing tool for Princeton review,
the community actually recommended
that I just buy the 10 real SATs book.
Just take them over and over again,
until you could regularly get the score that you wanted.
It was simple and it costs me $20
instead of thousands of dollars, and it worked.
The same internet advantage can be yours
in whatever tournament you are entering.
Every tournament has criteria,
if you find out early sometimes years in advance
of the outcome, you will get a massive leg up.
Remember people knowledge is power.
Third, if there's a tournament,
know that there is randomness.
Remember that nobody is clairvoyant.
The selection committees are operating
on limited information.
So in the face of randomness
increase the odds of you winning.
If you had a 5% chance of getting into any given school
or any given tournament,
odds would dictate that you should apply to 20 schools
or 20 such programs to stand a good shot of an accept.
This goes for raising money,
getting a job or really any tournament in life.
It's usually a mistake to get too obsessed
with one particular school workplace or investor.
That being said,
don't run around saying that,
it's always a two way street.
Gatekeepers often use,
how much do you want us specifically as a top criteria?
This is just human nature.
Remember that Princeton Review forum
I was telling you about?
That was one thing that forum taught me,
don't get one itis.
This goes for many tournaments.
Fourth, tournament's have a repeating nature,
and that's great because there are lots of people
who have come before who can give you tips
on that tournament.
Whatever you are going through preparing for that tournament
will rarely be the first time.
So find people who have done what you want to do
and seek them out.
People help them along the way,
so you will be surprised how often people will take time
out of their day to help a stranger.
I got a lot out of talking with YC alums
when I was applying to YC.
And even today I try to help my future YC alums.
Links in the description for more of my Y Combinator
application and interview advice videos.
People want to help, so all you have to do is ask.
Finally, when you receive a no be thoughtful,
I'm not saying never quit,
but there are some tournaments you can't win
and that's okay.
It's important to find the tournament's where you can win,
but also don't let no turn into a no forever.
It's almost always a no for now.
And then there are people who when the door is locked,
they find a window.
I always think about the time Apoorva Mehta from Instacart
got an email from me saying,
no it would be almost impossible to get you in right now.
YC was over half done at that point,
it was only a 10 week program and five weeks had passed.
He took that know as a maybe.
And he sent me a six pack of beer with his new service
that he had just brought online.
We accepted him at Y Combinator the next day,
and Instacart's now worth over $17 billion.
If you find the door is locked, try the window.
Okay, can we talk about one thing that has been bugging me?
Some people have decided to opt out of all tournaments.
They say the game is rigged.
They're not completely wrong,
the system is not fair, has not been fair,
and sadly probably won't be fair anytime soon.
And in the face of that you can still decide to play.
You're not going to win every tournament,
and not every tournament is worth playing.
In fact a shocking few actually are,
but that doesn't have to define you.
One thing I am thankful for about these tournaments
is that they are the times for us as individuals
to become our best.
The unhealthy way to look at tournaments is that
there's zero sum,
when someone else wins, I have to lose,
but there is a better way.
The Latin root for competition is actually compete,
which means strive together.
That's a powerful concept,
and I think that underscores how these tournaments
help us become the best we can be.
And here's the coolest part.
If you win enough,
someday you will design a tournament for others.
And trust me, that's the real game.
And when you do you will be so excited
that you got to be the one to push it
in the right direction.
But remember even when you're the one creating it,
it won't be completely fair, but you can do your best.
I know I'm trying.
That's it for today,
as always thank you for watching.
I'm doing this channel because look actually,
I'm not different than you.
I worked my way up, came from modest beginnings,
and now I want to see you all succeed.
Please click the like if you did enjoy this video
and check out the rest of my channel where we sit down with
the next billion dollar startup founders to learn
their hard won secrets.
And I want to walk you through more lessons like this
and others that I learned the hard way.
Learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of my friends,
so you can make new bigger and better ones.
Then come and teach them back to us.
I'll see you next time.
(soft music)