Pursuits That Can't Scale

The arc described here reminds me of the “hero’s journey” where there are two distinct phases.<p>First, the going out and away to slay dragons, which is unnatural, corresponding the to the conquest of scale.<p>And then there is the return—a homecoming-where one applies the transformative lessons to one’s more local and immediate life.<p>The journey is not complete without the “return”.

Zuck example was misleading I think. Since he’s been doing athletics since his teenage years, including combat sports (fencing and wrestling IIRC). His parents wanted him to be good at 3 sports, at least one of them being a team sport…I think.<p>Also, instead of “things that don’t scale”, I think it’s probably being more of a craftsman. Being at scale necessarily means “giving away your legos”[1]. Which can make your impact very detached. Being a craftsman brings you back. But idk, never been a CEO that’s scaled :)<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;review.firstround.com&#x2F;give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;review.firstround.com&#x2F;give-away-your-legos-and-other...</a>

If you only do things that can scale, the universe of interesting and useful things that are possible to do gets much smaller.

I view this all on a much more fundamentally human level. You figure out how to survive and how to be desirable as a mate fundamentally (however you define that success, social acceptance, admiration, status, cash, etc) then indulge in the other things (the curiosities). And then people weight priorities differently. “Scaling” is a proxy for that first bit - making money.

You can attempt things that don&#x27;t scale, fail, learn and apply to things that do scale. It&#x27;s a process, not always an outcome.

To scale is to externalize, acquire population, and watch the 80&#x2F;20 static-to-dynamic ratio slide leftward into inflexibility.