Bullshit Minimization

A framework for understanding ambition and bullshit

There has been a lot written about having a hyper ambitious life. Building a billion-dollar company. Making a billion dollars. Working hard, hustling. Making it and being a celebrity. The collateral damage that comes with money and fame — the bullshit, the drama — no one talks about how to handle those things. It’s considered part of the game.

I’m a hyper-ambitious person. I wanted to go to Harvard, and I wanted to be a great inventor and entrepreneur like Thomas Edison, since I was five years old. I’ve achieved much, and I’m still in the process of achieving.

But after experiencing the drama and bullshit one faces in being hyper-ambitious, and second-hand experiencing the bullshit my friends go through, I don’t think this is a sustainable way to live. Some of my friends became centi-millionaires and billionaires by the time they were 30. I didn’t do too badly myself by age 30. But some of my friends also went to jail and had partners take advantage of them. Is that an acceptable amount of risk to take? For me, no.

Figure 1. Optimization equation for maximal success with minimal bullshit. C is likely a high coefficient since humans are more pain-adverse than achievement-happy.

I don’t think it’s true that you have to necessarily deal with the collateral damage of hyper-ambition. I think it is possible to construct a life that is maximally ambitious with minimal bullshit. Mathematically, I think there is a way to maximize ambition while minimizing bullshit. See Figure 1.

Now, it’s important to define bullshit and construct strategies to avoid it.

What’s bullshit? Unnecessary pain and drama. It’s like the definition of pornography. We all know when we see it.

Results of bullshit

• Betrayal of a trusted friend

• Attracting the wrong life partner

• Being taken advantage of

• Drug & alcohol problems

• Committing crimes

• Going to jail

Root cause of bullshit

• Fame

• Greed

• Resources

• System that enables bullshit

• Ego

Fundamentally, ego is the singular enemy that causes bullshit. If there is no grounding force to stabilize the ego at each step of success, ego achieves escape velocity. The more sudden the success is, the less the system is able to stabilize the ego. Hence, drama and bullshit.

Figure 2. The groundedness equation.

See Figure 2. I posit that when groundedness is sufficiently negative, ego achieves escape velocity, almost surely not recovering and “coming back to the ground”.

So, therefore, within this framework, one clear way to manifest hyper-ambition without collateral damage from bullshit is to make steady progress such that the ego can be controlled every step of the way.

Further, it is important to note that each profession puts you in a system and culture that rewards and punishes different behavior. It is important to pick the right profession that aligns with your objectives.

Figure 3. The four quadrants of ambition x bullshit

See Figure 3. I posit that as a celebrity, it is nearly impossible to NOT achieve escape velocity of ego, since you are in a system that rewards egotistical behavior. Hence more drama, more bullshit.

As a venture-backed startup CEO, I’m constantly faced with bullshit. Now that I have articulated a framework for myself, I’m trying to do the correct optimization, namely by achieving Figure 1. I’m probably stuck in a local maximum, but I hope to continue to find better optima as I go.

I wrote about the pursuit-based life as a means to achieve happiness and peace. The Monte Carlo process of optimizing for Figure 1 (solving for alpha and beta) can be seen as the aforementioned process.