So I've been really diving deep into applied game theory and it's got me thinking about a whole bunch of stuff. But there's a pattern of behavior I've noticed in every entrepreneurial or business networking group/community/forum I've spotted where people behave in one of two ways:
Positive-sum game is when all players can be successful and win, regardless of what the other players are doing. Your success isn't contingent on someone else winning or losing. For example, if wealth were divided into pie, if you wanted more pie, you can just make more pie without taking anyone else's piece.
Zero-sum game is when at least one player has to lose in order for another to win. Zero-sum games aren't inherently bad but are often aligned with competitions of status (think sports games, chess, etc.) and how, before innovation and the First Industrial Revolution, the wealthiest countries were generally the ones with the most land and people. In this case, there is a fixed amount of pie and you can only enlarge your piece by taking from someone else's.
Negative-sum game is when all players have lost, it's just a matter of who loses the least. In no scenario does anyone ever come out the victor, it's just different degrees of losers (sociopolitical "debates" on social media are great examples of this). In this case, the pie's already eaten, you're just fighting over the crumbs.
At worst, I'd find myself looking at business in a zero-sum light and that didn't sit well with me. It's not that I was unwilling to compete with others but I feared (wrongly) that in order to be successful, you need to allow yourself to be a bit sociopathic and not care about how your moves affect anyone, especially if they're competing with you for a given market, title, or salary.
But working on content creation, I saw plenty of examples of positive-sum game where people create value from virtually nothing but their energy investment and what little equipment they need to create their content (such as Twitch streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers who all do what they do professionally and make at least seven figures.. even if they're rare, they're still there). There are plenty of brick-and-mortars, ecommerce sites, consultancies, etc. that also adhere to a positive-sum mindset and do exceptionally well. Once I started to focus solely on positive-sum kinds of scenarios, things started to improve very quickly.
I've noticed too that sometimes when people ask questions, they're bombarded with vague answers, especially from people operating in the same industry. I get the need to not enable spoon-feeding information to people and encouraging others to find the answers by doing.. but often there's very little encouragement there, just condescension as the responder forgets we all start somewhere (unless we have the benefit of daddy's money or a lucky crypto call to get our own start).
You don't need to give people your entire playbook to be positive-sum either.. you don't need to take it upon yourself to mentor every person who has a question. But the crux of my question is the same: do you see business and entrepreneurship through the lens of abundance and building value.. or through scarcity and trying to monopolize on what's perceived to be a fixed amount of value?
And mind you, I'm not calling people out; respond and interact on here as you see fit, not my place, not my problem. But for those who feel more inclined towards the scarcity/zero-sum/negative-sum side of the spectrum, doesn't it get tiresome? What's so bad about trying to get as many win-wins as possible?
I might just be rambling but idk, just popped into my head and figured I'd ask.
- They either see the world in a positive-sum light.
- Or they see the world in a zero-sum light... or even worse, negative-sum.
Positive-sum game is when all players can be successful and win, regardless of what the other players are doing. Your success isn't contingent on someone else winning or losing. For example, if wealth were divided into pie, if you wanted more pie, you can just make more pie without taking anyone else's piece.
Zero-sum game is when at least one player has to lose in order for another to win. Zero-sum games aren't inherently bad but are often aligned with competitions of status (think sports games, chess, etc.) and how, before innovation and the First Industrial Revolution, the wealthiest countries were generally the ones with the most land and people. In this case, there is a fixed amount of pie and you can only enlarge your piece by taking from someone else's.
Negative-sum game is when all players have lost, it's just a matter of who loses the least. In no scenario does anyone ever come out the victor, it's just different degrees of losers (sociopolitical "debates" on social media are great examples of this). In this case, the pie's already eaten, you're just fighting over the crumbs.
At worst, I'd find myself looking at business in a zero-sum light and that didn't sit well with me. It's not that I was unwilling to compete with others but I feared (wrongly) that in order to be successful, you need to allow yourself to be a bit sociopathic and not care about how your moves affect anyone, especially if they're competing with you for a given market, title, or salary.
But working on content creation, I saw plenty of examples of positive-sum game where people create value from virtually nothing but their energy investment and what little equipment they need to create their content (such as Twitch streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers who all do what they do professionally and make at least seven figures.. even if they're rare, they're still there). There are plenty of brick-and-mortars, ecommerce sites, consultancies, etc. that also adhere to a positive-sum mindset and do exceptionally well. Once I started to focus solely on positive-sum kinds of scenarios, things started to improve very quickly.
I've noticed too that sometimes when people ask questions, they're bombarded with vague answers, especially from people operating in the same industry. I get the need to not enable spoon-feeding information to people and encouraging others to find the answers by doing.. but often there's very little encouragement there, just condescension as the responder forgets we all start somewhere (unless we have the benefit of daddy's money or a lucky crypto call to get our own start).
You don't need to give people your entire playbook to be positive-sum either.. you don't need to take it upon yourself to mentor every person who has a question. But the crux of my question is the same: do you see business and entrepreneurship through the lens of abundance and building value.. or through scarcity and trying to monopolize on what's perceived to be a fixed amount of value?
And mind you, I'm not calling people out; respond and interact on here as you see fit, not my place, not my problem. But for those who feel more inclined towards the scarcity/zero-sum/negative-sum side of the spectrum, doesn't it get tiresome? What's so bad about trying to get as many win-wins as possible?
I might just be rambling but idk, just popped into my head and figured I'd ask.
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