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Embracing Discomfort & Low Expectations: The Unconventional Secret to Startup Triumph
What Nvidia's founder, surfing legend Laird Hamilton, and top startup operators all have in common.
Kyle Thomas
March 23, 2024
“The road to success is paved with setbacks, resilience, and... surprisingly low expectations.”
JOB SEARCH STRATEGY
EXPECTATION SETTING.
Stanford Business School.
Harvard Business School.
MIT.
Google.
Facebook.
Apple.
It’s common to see these names listed on startup candidate resumes.
Being accepted to and succeeding in these schools or in these tech giants is no small feat.
Many consider it to be the pinnacle of success.
But what follows those high highs of achieving a degree from a top program or a seat in a FAANG company can be high future expectations.
And those expectations that served you well in the academic environment may be just the thing that is creating a miserable, unfulfilled, “unsuccessful” career.
In an era where the startup world idolizes high expectations and lofty goals, a paradoxical approach quietly shapes the success stories of some of the most influential figures.
This week I dive into the wisdom shared by Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, professional surfer Laird Hamilton, and CEO of Ohalo Genetics David Friedberg, revealing a counterintuitive truth: the secret to success in startups might just lie in cultivating low expectations and learning to embrace pain and suffering.
RESILIENCE AS A CORNERSTONE
THE PARADOX OF LOW EXPECTATIONS.
No company is hotter in Silicon Valley today than AI chipmaker Nvidia.
Even though the company was founded 31 years ago, founder Jensen Huang is only now making his debut on the radars of most Americans.
Earlier this month, Huang spoke at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy at Stanford University.
During the hour-long conversation, he was asked, “What advice would you give Stanford students to improve their chance of success?”
His answer laid bare his philosophy: low expectations breed resilience.
High achievers, like many of you reading this newsletter, achieve and achieve and achieve.
With that high achievement comes high expectations and with high expectations, low resilience.
If you’re used to always winning and have never experienced a setback or a loss, when one comes, it can crush you.
For those who aren’t accustomed to dealing with failure, your time in the startup world is going to be a very rude awakening.
The name of the game in startups is not success.
It’s resilience.
Just look at the stats.
Most companies will not make it to their next round of funding.
Startups solve new problems in new ways, which means trying and failing every single day until you find what works and then continuing to try and fail to figure out how to scale the thing that works.
Huang calls this “pain and suffering” and I have experienced plenty of it in my time in startups.
The most successful people I know in startups have not only learned to approach every opportunity with low or realistic expectations, but they have also learned to love the pain and suffering.
They crave an environment that rewards experimentation, failure, iteration, and execution.
As Huang said so well…
Greatness is not intelligence.
Greatness comes from character.
And character isn’t formed out of smart people.
It’s formed out of people who suffered.
Unlike pursuing unattainable goals, setting realistic expectations fosters a mindset geared towards endurance and adaptability – key traits for navigating the unpredictable waters of startups.
Expecting smooth sailing and never-ending achievement will actually impede your ability to weather storms.
Here is the clip…
And the full one-hour interview…
RIDING THE WAVE OF EXPECTATION
NO EXPECTATIONS, NO DISAPPOINTMENTS.
While it may seem that startups and big wave surfing have little in common, they actually have very similar situations.
Constant Failure - You don’t surf every wave perfectly. You fall, get back up, find your board, and paddle back out.
Persistence - Whether you’re successful or not, after one wave passes, another one will surely come in its place. You need to get back on your board and out there, or you’ll be crushed.
Potential of Death - In startups, there’s running out of funding, competition, and changing customer dynamics. In big wave surfing there’s… real death.
Laird Hamilton is a renowned big wave surfer known for riding some of the most dangerous waves ever to break.
He invented tow-in surfing, a version of surfing in which you are pulled into the wave using a Jet Ski to surf waves so big they would crush and kill anyone trying to swim out to them.
He pushes the limits of the possible, like top founders and startup operators.
Except he risks his life to do it.
Laird was interviewed the same week as Jensen Huang and asked an almost identical question, “What’s some advice you would give to yourself that you wish you would have known at the start of your career?“
His words echoed those of Huang…
The truth is you have to go through the process… I wish I could say I would have been able to learn better from observing others’ mistakes but I don’t seem to learn without crashing myself.
Once again, the theme of pain and suffering emerges.
You can read about the challenges startups go through.
You can talk to people who have experienced the challenges, and they can give you all the warnings in the world.
But until you experience them for yourself, you don’t become resilient, and you don’t learn.
This resilience makes you and your career anti-fragile.
You know that no matter the obstacle put in your way, regardless of whether you’re crushed by it or succeed through it, there’s learning on the other side, and you will become better because of it.
When asked about how he gets back on track after hitting a roadblock his final message was one of expectation setting…
No expectations, no dissapointment.
Watch the full interview here:
CHIPS ON SHOULDERS
AN UNHEALTHY AFFINITY FOR SUFFERING.
I’m not trying to scare anyone off from joining a startup.
I’m just trying to present a very realistic view of the mindset you need to have to be successful in this environment.
I remember speaking with the CRO at my previous startup about how hard it was to operate our Series A company.
He said, “You had so much success at Uber. I don’t know why you’re jumping into this again.”
I vividly remember responding, “I can’t really explain it. I guess I’m just one of the crazy people who likes the chaos, pain, and suffering.”
David Friedberg was one of Google's first 1,000 employees, a successful entrepreneur, and is currently the CEO of Ohana Genetics.
He described himself as having " an unhealthy affinity for suffering” and perfectly described why high expectations and low resilience can be so damaging to building a career in startups.
There's a reason a lot of people that have had success in their career don't end up being great entrepreneurs because as soon as you're faced with failure for the first time it doesn't pattern match to what's happened to you historically.
I go to a good school I get good grades I go to Stanford I get a degree.
Every step, you're told if you do X you will get Y.
Then you do X and you get Y and you repeat, and at some point you're considered successful in your education in your career and so on.
If you then decide that entrepreneurship is the path for you, you realize that there is no if X then Y.
There is, if X maybe Y maybe Z maybe a hundred other things that'll smack you in the face.
That experience is shockingly different for people that have historically followed a path of success of what's defined as success culturally and socially.
Watch his take on resilience in startups below…
WHAT TO DO
APPLYING THE PHILOSOPHY.
At this point, the successful startup mentality is clear.
Low expectations + high resilience developed from failure and hard work.
So what can you do with that to make your startup job search and startup career more successful?
Be Realistic / Lower Your Expectations - Do everything possible to identify companies with a high likelihood of success (here are some great questions and characteristics to help you choose a winning company) but be realistic that the odds of you hitting the jackpot are low. Go in with clear eyes, knowing that it will be hard work, but that hard work will pay off exponentially with accelerated learning, increasing your odds of winning.
Control The Downside - After choosing companies you believe have the highest likelihood of success, control your downside by prioritizing the skills, experiences, and network you will build in your role and the teachers you will learn from. The company may close for a million different reasons, but you’ll retain the skills, experiences, network, and teachers and be better because of it.
Learn To Enjoy The “Pain And Suffering” - If everything were easy and there were clear answers, then everyone would do it. The fact that it’s hard means the satisfaction you receive when it’s over will be far higher than if the result was just handed to you. Learn to get excited when faced with resistance because on the other side of resistance is immense growth.
If you approach the startup job search with these three things in the front of your brain, you’ll be far more successful and will be able to weather the challenges that you’ll inevitably experience.
Low expectations and resilience win.
I love startups and think they’re the best combination of interesting problems, passionate people, hard work, and lucrative upside but that comes with a cost.
The cost is uncertainty and significant challenges to build, grow, and maintain the business.
But if you’re able to crave that environment and see the opportunity in it then there’s no ceiling to your level of success and fulfillment.
Let’s become career champions together 🏆
Kyle
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