Behind the Newsletter
The Cost of Trust
I write these to figure things out. Dig into an idea all week, try to get it straight, then send it Sunday. A lot of the time, someone's reply is clearer than what I wrote.
The newsletter that started it
StartUp Founders: Cheat?
Game theory says cheating is the best strategy in a one-shot game. But startups are an infinite game made of finite battles. Finite battles reward transgression. Infinite games reward trust. The founders who win know when the game changed.
Read the full newsletterA reply worth keeping
After StartUp Founders: Cheat?, Coen Olde Olthof wrote back. Made me smile. Short and clear. He said what I'd been dancing around: trust isn't the same as certainty. If you can't get hurt, it's not trust.
Could have been the whole newsletter. I'm posting it here so Coen gets the credit, and so you see what a useful reply looks like.
Where it went next
I was already writing about game theory and trust between founders. Coen put it in one line: trust only exists where you can take damage. No damage, no trust.
Thank you to Coen. This week's newsletter is exactly that: how to better understand trust as a founder. Read it here.
Credit where it is earned.
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