November 23, 2020

5 Steps to Winning Career Tournaments: Competitive jobs, admissions, promotions, or startup funding | Garry Tan

Life is made up of tournaments:
- Hiring a team
- Getting into college
- Getting promoted at work
- Gaining YouTube subscribers
- Raising money for your company
“All the things that want are on the other side of a competitive process” – Garry Tan
5 steps to winning a tournament:
- 1) Be aware of the tournament
  - Tournaments usually happen around finite resources like college admissions or promotions
- 2) Find out the criteria to win at it
  - Every tournament has criteria, if you find out early, you’ll have an advantage over other players
- 3) Play many tournaments
  - The more tournaments you play, the higher your odds of winning at least a few tournaments
- 4) Talk to before who have won the tournament before to get their advice
  - Tournaments tend to have a repeating nature. Find people who have accomplished what you’re trying to do and ask for help.
- 5) If the door is locked, try the window
  - Just because you lost a tournament today, it doesn’t mean you can’t win tomorrow. Keep playing and eventually, you’ll win.

Life is made up of tournaments:
- Hiring a team
- Getting into college
- Getting promoted at work
- Gaining YouTube subscribers
- Raising money for your company
  - “All the things that want are on the other side of a competitive process” – Garry Tan
The first part of winning a tournament is showing up. You aren’t going to win every tournament you play, but if you don’t show up you won’t ever win.
Some tournaments use gatekeepers to select the winners. The gatekeepers aren’t perfect and have to make a decision with imperfect information.
- Two takeaways:
  - Don’t get mad at gatekeepers, they’re doing the best
  - Don’t get discouraged. A “No” today is not a “No” forever.
“You’re not going to win every tournament and not every tournament is worth playing” – Garry Tan
If you win enough tournaments in life, you’ll get to design your own tournament

Here are 5 steps to winning a tournament:
- 1) Be aware of the tournament
  - Tournaments usually happen around finite resources like college admissions or promotions
- 2) Find out the criteria to win at it
  - Every tournament has criteria, if you find out early, you’ll have an advantage over other players
- 3) Play many tournaments
  - The more tournaments you play, the higher your odds of winning at least a few tournaments
- 4) Talk to before who have won the tournament before to get their advice
  - Tournaments tend to have a repeating nature. Find people who have accomplished what you’re trying to do and ask for help.
- 5) If the door is locked, try the window
  - Just because you lost a tournament today, it doesn’t mean you can’t win tomorrow. Keep playing and eventually, you’ll win.