Aki Anandam

There will be many people who may tell you that something isn’t possible, especially for things that typically are very hard to do. Some may even make it seem like you are arrogant or overconfident for trying to do one of these things, or for thinking that you are able to do them. In fact, it is the opposite. They are the arrogant ones.

To say that something isn’t possible is to presume to know everything. Only if you know everything that is possible in the world can you definitively say what isn’t possible. By contrast, simply acknowledging that maybe something is possible, that maybe if you go for something you might succeed, is actually humble in the sense that you acknowledge you don’t know enough to definitively say something isn’t possible.

There is a power law to opportunities in life that favor going for the big prize, and that favor encouraging others to go for theirs. It is true that, in many scenarios like running a startup or becoming a famous musician, only a few will make it and the rest will not succeed (it’s up to you to decide whether that’s failure). Statistically, then, the person who advises people not to pursue such high risk ventures will be almost always be “right” (if the point is to discourage those who won’t succeed, to save them the shame or cost, whatever that is). However, that ignores the enormous cost, both to society and to the individual, of discouraging someone who would have made it. If you discourage the next major startup founder or musician, the cost to society is large, and even more important is the cost to the individual in terms of the future life you will be depriving them of. I posit that you cause more hardship by discouraging one person who would have made it than you would cause in encouraging 10,000 people who will end up crashing and burning.

Some claim that it’s a bad thing to encourage someone to pursue a venture which you believe they have no chance of success at. They’ll say that the person would have been better off just pursuing a stable or normal profession than endure the hardship and cost of their failed venture. Like I’ve said before, those people are arrogant. They are arrogant in the sense that they think they have an accurate assessment of someone’s prospects. It could only possibly be sensible if they know for certain that the person has a 0% chance of success. From an expected value lens, if there’s even a .1% chance of $1bn, that’s still a million dollars. I don’t think there’s anyone who is smart enough to be able to bring that .1% chance down to 0%. There will always be some uncertainty that favors going for the venture. People get lucky all the time. If for no other reason, maybe someone pursuing a venture will just get lucky. You can’t know ahead of time that they won’t get lucky, so you can’t be sure they won’t actually succeed.

Further, having a venture that doesn’t succeed isn’t as bad as some may think (it certainly doesn’t outweigh the cost of discouraging someone who would’ve succeeded spectacularly). I won’t lie, it can suck. And it definitely can be very costly (financially at the minimum). Nevertheless, if you’re pursuing the right thing, it’s usually worth the risk. One solid litmus test to determine if you’re pursuing the right thing, is that if after several years it doesn’t succeed, how would you feel? If the answer isn’t “ok” maybe reconsider. Spending several years of your life isn’t so bad (especially if the alternative is spending several years, or decades, of your life doing a “stable” job you hate). You’re going to die in the end anyway. None of the years you spend, whether succeeding or failing, will matter in that respect. Just go for it. I’ll see you at the finish line.