I've spent the first few years of my adult life trying to understand the systems that determine how people find and secure opportunities. The frameworks we're taught to use in elementary school, high school, and even college seem to break down in the real world.
Traditional advice operates on assumptions about scarcity, signalling, and selection mechanisms that no longer hold. This has created a generation of young people facing repeated rejection, wondering whether something is wrong with them or if they've entered adulthood at a time when the world doesn't need them.
The generational knowledge gap is real: previous generations' frameworks for securing opportunities don't translate to current competition dynamics. Every major opportunity in life has become more competitive, from university admissions to job applications and immigration visas. Even informal opportunities like research positions or startup roles now require competitive positioning.
The result: constant social pressure to do better, to be more competitive in all aspects of our lives. People have adapted to this, almost too well. Goodhart's law is in full effect.
Contemporary systems of human competition are analogous to games in game theory — adversarial systems where outcomes depend on not just your move, but everyone's.
Becoming competent
What does meritocracy actually mean? We usually interpret it as "select the most qualified person." But what does it mean to be qualified? Does it mean you've worked harder than everyone else? Does it mean you're the least risky option? Or does it simply mean the decision-maker prefers to give the opportunity to you?
We often misinterpret "merit" as being about what we have done to earn the right to be chosen. In practice, it's better to define merit by the needs and incentives of the gatekeeper.
This is why it sometimes feels like less competent people are chosen over us in arenas like the job market, dating, or startup funding. We fixate on formal measures of competency, assuming they align with the game's incentives, but they often fall short.
A good modern example is the diminishing value of college degrees. Over the past 50 years, a degree has shifted from being a high-signal indicator of fitness to merely a prerequisite for entry. Although the work required to earn the degree hasn't changed, its leverage has plummeted. The credential has become misaligned with the actual incentive of the game: hiring someone with a high probability of doing the job well.
Contextual competency
Competency is highly context-sensitive; it must be aligned with the incentives of the game you're playing.
The challenge is that sometimes incentives are difficult to read or not communicated at all. Incentives are somewhat structured in games like the job search, applying for research grants, university admissions, and scholarships. Even in these games, there are hidden policies and incentives at play, often outweighing the stated incentives.
In other sorts of games, incentives are not as clear — like writing a cold email, asking someone out, or convincing someone to mentor you. Although these games are harder, the reward for success is often much higher. It's very important you participate in these kinds of games.
Know your gatekeeper
There are usually only 1–2 people who make the decision on whether to select you for an opportunity: a university admissions officer reviewing your file, a hiring manager screening candidates, or an immigration official evaluating your visa petition. Knowing who this person is and the incentives they have to select or reject you is critical to building your competencies.
MVP (Minimum Viable Persona)
To become competent in your domain, you need to understand deeply what your MVP is. A good way to think about this is to ask yourself: "If I were [gatekeeper], who would be the least competent person I could still justifiably give this opportunity to?"
Building for the long term
The MVP is not meant to be competitive but rather a starting point. Building for the long term means making decisions that give you a competitive advantage difficult to replicate in the short term, leaning into your inherent unfair advantages.
Some examples of actions:
- Practicing competitive programming or math
- Building a large professional network
- Becoming fluent in a language
- Creating a relationship with a good mentor
- Developing good study habits
Some examples of decisions:
- Choosing a target school for your desired career, or not going to school at all
- Choosing roles that prioritize learning, prestige, or pay depending on your goals
- Moving to a city with a high concentration of talent as opposed to one you're more comfortable in
Appeal to incentive structures
If I were to suggest focusing on anything in your effort to seek opportunities, it is this step. This is the most critical gap to close, as it is the literal gap between you and the opportunity you seek.
Incentive structures are the dynamic systems that emerge from the interplay between environmental constraints (budgets, laws, organizational policies) and the underlying motivations of all stakeholders. Almost any result you get out of life comes from appealing to some sort of incentive structure, whether you realize it or not.
In simpler terms, the incentive structure is the reason your gatekeeper has to choose you for the opportunity, as opposed to someone else, or no one at all. Not selecting someone is also a choice.
Some examples of incentive structures to appeal to:
- Internships: Main incentive is return offers, potential tax credits, and access to early talent.
- Graduate school: Admissions committees favour applicants with high potential for achievement who can contribute to school reputation.
- Immigration: Prioritizes applicants that fit current policy goals and demonstrate a high likelihood of positive economic impact.
- Research grants: Committees prioritize research that aligns with their goals and demonstrates strong potential for breakthrough.
- Seeking a mentor: Successful people mentor those who demonstrate high potential and are likely to reflect positively on the mentor's reputation.
- Investment pitches: Investors prioritize startups that address a significant market need and align with their portfolio strategy.
Information asymmetry and adversarial games
To master incentive structures, you must recognize that every competitive opportunity is defined by two forces: information asymmetry and adversarial dynamics.
In any selection process, the gatekeeper holds a hidden checklist of internal priorities, while you are a black box to them — gauged only through proxies called signals. The gap exists because the gatekeeper fears selecting someone who looks good on paper but fails in practice, and you likely present your value in a way that is hard for them to verify.
To close this gap, you must identify the costly signal — a piece of evidence so difficult to produce that a low-competency person cannot fake it.
- Research opportunity: Good grades are a standard signal. A self-directed literature review or a GitHub repo replicating the PI's latest experiment is a costly signal.
- Co-founder search: A great idea is a standard signal. An MVP with 100 paying users is a costly signal.
- University admissions: A standard essay is expected. A national-level award or a niche, high-impact community project is costly.
The adversarial nature of the game
You are not just playing against the requirements — you are playing against the Default No. For a gatekeeper, "No" is the safest choice. It costs nothing and carries zero risk. "Yes" puts their reputation and resources on the line.
- Add risk to the "No": Position yourself so the gatekeeper feels they are losing a significant opportunity by rejecting you. If you're a potential co-founder who already has the technical infrastructure built, the other person loses months of progress by saying no.
- Identify the proxy: Gatekeepers rarely measure what they actually want; they measure a proxy. A PI doesn't just want a "smart student" — they want low-maintenance productivity. They use your technical skills as a proxy for how much time they'll spend training you.
- Align your incentives with the gatekeeper's: Rather than forcing judgement in your favour, try to align incentives so that your success and their success are the same. If you're truly a good option and the gatekeeper is rewarded for good judgement, this alignment occurs naturally.
How to build trust
In these kinds of games, much of trust is downstream from reputation. Cultivate a good reputation and make it easily verifiable.
- Leverage social proof: Use warm introductions, referrals, personal connections, publicity, and virality. These are powerful advantages to showcase good character.
- Proof of stake: If you can leverage experience, showcase it front and center. If you possess rare or exclusive achievements, center your strategy around them.
Searching for opportunities
This step seems obvious but is incredibly easy to skip. Taking time to understand what kind of position you'd like to see yourself in makes the following steps much easier. A key theme of this article is tailoring and targeting people, positions, politics, and incentives. Having a clear understanding of who and what you want to become is a prerequisite to playing the game well.
There are good heuristics for identifying good opportunities. You can use role models as proxies for the type of pathway you should take. You can work backwards from a final goal, using other people as a reference to see if those steps are realistic. Or, you can just be delusional.
Cold outreach (don't be annoying)
Cold outreach is often portrayed as a shortcut to competitive opportunities. Over the past few years this method has kind of been patched — but only if you do it in the conventional way.
You should structure your cold outreach to appeal to incentive structures, so that when your name pops up in the gatekeeper's inbox, it's seen as a potential asset rather than a burden.
- Reach out to people that you can truly impress and help — this reduces decision fatigue.
- Have a clear ask to help the reader determine exactly what they'd be committing to.
- De-risk the fulfillment process — minimize how much the gatekeeper stands to lose by helping you.
Key themes
- Focus on first principles: Analyze the incentive structure. Every gatekeeper has a specific problem. Solve that problem to become the obvious choice.
- Close the information gap: Open the black box of your profile. Provide verifiable value immediately.
- Prioritize legibility: Excellence requires visibility. Use costly signals and high-fidelity proof. Make your competence impossible to ignore.
- Target the persona: Humans make the final decision. Study the individual making the choice. Identify their anxieties and personal wins.
- Eliminate friction: Rejection is the default state. Design the "Yes" as the path of least resistance.
- Apply strategic intuition: Use incentive structures as a map when information is missing.
This might break as well
Selection processes change. Human behaviour shifts over time. These principles reflect current and historical patterns.
The nature of competitive games will transform over the next decade. Tactics have expiration dates. Strategies fail as more people adopt them.
Your primary task is to seek new information. Apply first principles to every situation. Use your own judgment to navigate new environments. This remains the only timeless framework.