There is No Playbook

In his recent chat with Marc Benioff, David Sacks talks about learning from Elon Musk and Peter Thiel at Paypal. "If you go back to the 90's, no one knew how to be an entrepreneur. There was no YC, there were no blogs."

Now much more advice and high-quality content is available. Yet I'd argue there's still no teacher like experience. One can listen to Ray Dalio and his principles all day, but in the end, one must learn by doing.

Every impactful business solves a new problem in a new way. I googled for Cedric's amazing write-up on the idea maze and discovered his case library is even more extensive now. Last year though, it looks like he came to the same conclusion: "finding a path to a working business is always unique."

Sacks also mentions how Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff defied expectations in achieving the Gaza hostage deal. I haven't read much about the situation or facts, but Sacks's brief explanation makes sense to me. How could experience closing big complex business deals not help build diplomatic muscle?

There are playbooks for going to the gym. You can read about weightlifting technique, watch youtube, hire a trainer, and simply copy others.

But imagine a gym where the machines magically transform into new unseen variations each day. Rather than doing any of the above, the best move here might be to just dive in. Start trying stuff yourself at 6am when the doors open.

In case it isn't clear, the magic gym I'm describing is life.

I'll always bet on people inclined to take this kind of 6am head-first approach. Are you someone who likes to write your own playbooks?