what if the emperor knew they were naked

it’s not always cool to pop bubbles

a parable as old as time - someone engages in a delusion, everyone else cheers them on, some of them are uncertain if other people realize the delusion, until someone brave calls them out.

great story right? supposedly the moral of the story is to encourage people to buck the trend - to think independently, and avoid following crowds.

the hero of that story is the kid who calls out the emperor - not knowing any better, not aware of the stigma, and willing to stick it to the man armed with nothing but the truth.

but what if the emperor knew he didn’t have clothes on? what if everyone knows it too? what if the whole scene were taking place at a nudist festival and everyone’s talking about clothes metaphorically?

ok that’s pretty hard to follow, so i’ll run a playground analogy. imagine you’re playing with some kids on the playground and someone says “i’m superman“ and runs around with a red cape billowing behind them. and everyone’s playing tag and pretending to be various superheroes. and now you go up to “superman” and say “i bet you aren’t superman”

and everyone stares at you funny

and then you say “if you were superman you could pick up that giant rock over there - i bet you can’t do it”

and everyone stares at you funny

and then you go “well i’m just trying to show that they aren’t really superman - you know in case they were delusional and everyone is just humoring your delusions”

and everyone stares at you funny

the same pattern is taking place. someone’s engaging in delusion. everyone else is entertaining it. you’re bucking the trend. but now you’re not the hero anymore.

why is that?

so when is it ok to call out the emperor?

the difference is obviously that in the story of the emperor - the emperor isn’t self aware about the delusion. and the crowd isn’t self aware about the emperor’s awareness - they’re going along with it out of fear, and not because they think it’s fun

but on the playground, “superman” knows they’re not superman they’re playing a fantasy. and the other kids know they’re not superman, and they also know that “superman” doesn’t think they’re superman. so you’re not delivering any new information. you’ve just turned into the “well akshually” meme that everyone else is still aware of.

simple right? it’s not that deep - tell the emperor they’re naked if you think they don’t know, or if you think there’s coercion happening, or if you think the delusion is causing harm to the world.

nope.

• sometimes people lie after being called out due to embarrassment - what if the crowd says “we knew that, we were just entertaining the emperor, where’s the harm in letting him think he’s clothed you spoilsport”

• sometimes different parts of the crowd are different levels of self aware. what if you the east side of the crowd is going along with it out of fear - and if you said it on the east side you would’ve been cheered, but the west side is self aware? then if you said it on the west side they’d rightfully respond defensively

• sometimes you aren’t sure if the emperor’s actually naked and you just say “are we sure that the emperor’s wearing anything, i can’t seem to tell” - which is probably always the kinder way of delivering that message. however, that might cause some people to get defensive anyways. or it might make you look stupid for not knowing that everyone else is going along with it in a self aware manner

• and sometimes, you say that “i’m pretty sure the emperor is naked, but maybe if X were true then i’d change my mind” and you get hit by a deluge of “you’re such a piece of shit, have you considered that actually X is true?”

in other words:

• if majority [significant amount of] of the crowd is not self aware and the emperor is not self aware - then the call out is justified

• if majority [significant amount of] of the crowd / emperor is self aware - then the call out is unjustified and you’re a dick

• defensive people and well-akshually-bro-self-aggrandizement complicates things

*footnote: fuck i hate that this is starting to turn into a matter of “just be more correct and you’ll be fine” situation

is he calling out the emperor?

this whole thought-chain was started by me feeling like i’m on the wrong side of history w.r.t. this tweet

• apparently everyone thinks he’s a dick for saying this

• effectively, he says hackathons are mostly a waste of time [for building useful products] outside of X and Y reasons [meeting cofounders, few exceptions, internal company hackathons]

• the image is basically a modern “emperor new clothes calling out kid” meme

the majority of the dogpile is people saying what about X and Y reasons? (that he already caveated for)

the more thoughtful commentary is that “no one ever goes to hackathons for these reasons in the first place - he’s arguing a strawman to seem cool”

if that’s true - and everyone is self aware that people don’t build important things at hackathons and it’s all fun and games - then AGM is obviously just a “well-akshually bro”

but i feel like i’ve been to enough hackathons w/ vc awards and prizes that i’ve met enough people who genuinely believe that you can build important products at hackathons.

and the more people gas up a hackathon - the more it appears people think the products being churned out are meaningfully important. [search “gundo” on twitter to see what i mean]

so are people self aware and they’re just doing it for fun? or are they actually mostly delusional and some well meaning defenders of “buildoooors” are rushing to their defense?

are they mostly self aware but when the 5-hour-energy is hitting on the 25th hour of the hackathon and you’re deep in an all nighter - you can hype yourself up and think that this is the most beautiful code anyone’s ever written, so you write some gassed up tweets about changing the world while sleep deprived but it’s all in good fun anyways?

fuck i’ve probably just written too much about this

i’m the well-akshually kid

if you had to ask me what the world needs more of: more blind encouragement or dose-of-reality, i’m likely to say “dose-of-reality”. i’m liable to say that while feeling the righteous bravado of a kid standing up in a procession in front of a naked emperor - only to find out i’m pointing at another 12 year old in a red cape./

someone i really respect told me that as a founder i should believe that everything good in the world comes from outliers. the exceptions.

maybe if i want to spend all my time focused on reality and base rates - i should go be a lawyer. or crisis management. or a short-trader.

but i’m not convinced.

but aren’t delusions necessary to building outlier outcomes? by definition exceptions to the rule?

a friend of mine asked me as I was ranting about this:

which was interesting - because i haven’t be confronted by the “why pop other people’s delusions” on its merits before. why do i hate delusions so much? especially when I’m a founder and i should believe that all great things are done by outliers and exceptions to the rule?

my problem with it is that it detracts from the point. the substance of why something is important to do in the first place. i think that you build great things by being deeply grounded in reality. by knowing exactly what your odds of success are - and placing careful bets to try to bring that number up (w/o ever feeling delusional about the odds of any of those bets panning out)

you should persist with a sober feeling about the risk of the unknown unknowns, because thinking WAGMI gives you a rush of dopamine that’s inclined to make you think you’re more ready than you are. delusions are dangerous - and one of the most cancerous things to let grow in the world. they fester. they grow. they cause people to say “that’s just the way it is”.

imagine you’re building a skyscraper and you’re dreaming it can be 828 meters tall. and any time someone asks “how the fuck are you going to do that” you screech “all great things start with a delusion“

we’d all recognize this person is silly.

the way you build the burj khalifa is by being ruthlessly grounded in reality. you have to know exactly “how the fuck you are going to do that” or “what else do we need to figure out before we can make it work”. you need to subject the blueprints and 3d models to the most ruthless simulations you can imagine to make sure the physics and civil engineering is sound.

and if shaking it on a simulation cuases the tower to fall - that’s not the hater ruining your dream, that’s your dreams being too shit to stand up to reality

real dreams aren’t throwing your hands up and saying “let them dream”, real dreams are the result of ruthlessly interrogating your priors and asking everyone to tear your thesis apart,a nd having a strong and resilient enough belief that lets you push through all of it regardless.

am i delusional?

i tell everyone who evaluates joining us that we are almost certainly going to fail, and at a higher base rate than most startups. most startups go for a lean approach scaling on revenues they can see in a very lean prototype, but we’re trying to build 20 years of data infrastructure with 10 people in 6 months.

i understand where we fall apart. the critical risks we all face when we face the market.

and i think it’s worth trying anyways.

it’s worth trying despite the downside risk because of the potential rewards. the rewards are huge. and only when a sober awareness of the potential upside overshadows a sober and realistic assessment of the [in]surmountable odds is it worth it to do something great.