When you look at unequivocally foundational figures, like Mark Zuckerberg, Dylan Field, and David Karp what do you see? They were all outliers. Now, I could go on for another 5000 words about how I find myself as the odd one out every time, or I can just give it to you straight:
You will never succeed if you aren't an outlier.
Look at the people around you. The startups around you. The things that your friends do. The things that you're forced to do (by the rules of the world).
Now compare the things that you do every day, and compare the delta between everything I just mentioned and what you do. How big is that delta? Are you an outlier? How far of a difference is there?
For me, personally, the delta is bigger than anything you (yes, you) can imagine. My peers are all high schoolers with no intent to build, no drive to iterate, and no will to do anything foundational. I write papers on agentic metacognition & make sure codex/Claude Code aren't running into blockers during English class, while my peers are learning about conjunctions. It's a delta that I can barely put into words.
Now, being an outlier isn't ALL about your actions. It's also about your intent. Your drive. What drives you? What keeps you up at night? What makes you disgusted with yourself when you're lazy?
For me, that's realizing that I can do so much more than just stay in a classroom and eventually go get your run-of-the-mill tech job, because I'm capable of building things that not even my wildest dreams could envision. I have dreams about Claude Code.
Now, going back to the foundation of it all: Look at them. Mark Zuckerberg, Dylan Field, and David Karp.
Mark Zuckerberg was not at the top of his class (@ Harvard), but he built Facebook. He left Harvard approximately 2 years in (during his sophomore year). He didn't choose the foundational path, and he instead decided to move off of his own conviction. He is an outlier.
Dylan Field dropped out of Brown for the Thiel Fellowship. Figma was not supposed to be the design behemoth it was today, but he scaled it to be. He is definitely an outlier.
David Karp is unarguably one of the biggest outliers in this trio. David dropped out of high school at 15. He dropped out at the age I started building actual public products. David proceeded to scale Tumblr into the $1B exit that we know of today. He is THE outlier.
"What's the point of all this, though? Why be the outlier? Does it even bring any sort of gain? Will I benefit from it now?"
No. Your life will be miserable for quite some time, as you adjust to the isolation that it brings you.
I spend most of my days in isolation. All I have is my MacBook(s). Your life will be completely miserable, as you learn to skip events, skip classes, narrow your vision, and lose full nights of sleep, smashing your keyboard endlessly. Your parents are going to dislike the fact that you're taking the path less travelled. You are always going to be the odd person out, and your opinions will form heavily towards the contrary during regular peer discussions. Your behavior (like skipping classes to work) will seem completely unjustified and outright rebellious to those who govern you.
But have you ever heard of the "law of compounding effort"?
For every day that you sit in Starbucks without ordering anything, for every night that you delay getting in your bed for "one last feature", for every time that venture firm you really wanted passes on you, you get closer to the infliction point.
Now imagine if you weren't an outlier:
I think the differences are pretty clear.
To be an outlier, you also have to be obsessed. I like a quote from the movie "Hustle":
You can be the greatest outlier in the entirety of San Francisco, but none of that sh*t matters if you aren't obsessed with what you do. What's the point of being an outlier if you stay up all night two nights and take naps every 5 hours for the other 5 days of the week?
You have to be obsessed. Do you think Mark, Dylan, or David got anywhere near to where they are today by being lazy, despite their talent? No. They stayed up plenty of nights, and worked excessively in the chase of greatness.
If you aren't the outlier, someone hungrier than you, more disadvantaged than you, with less to lose will beat you in every possible way you can think of.
So please, for the love of God,
Go be an outlier.