gambling, a skillset for success. just my random thoughts :) "hi,

i am john doe, yy university '29, currently on a gap year.

i would like to withdraw my acceptance.

thank you so much!

best,

john doe" this was the email that a student-founder in sf, who was accepted to an ivy league school for the class of 2029, sent to the university last week. as the email clearly states, he was on a gap year, so his matriculation was held back by a year. now, he has completely cut off the prospect of going by withdrawing his acceptance. what really caught my attention was the caption his co-founder, also a high school dropout, used when he posted it on x: "hypergamble into success." gamble, according to merriam webster's dictionary, means to bet on an uncertain outcome. so when you take something that isn't sure to happen and make a choice or decision as if you knew it would happen, you are gambling. in this case, he is betting on the fact that his startup will be successful and he won't need a degree to get a job and make a living. roughly 95% of startups fail, so he is betting on something that's very highly unlikely. it's something that might come back to bite him in the future, or it could also be something that he looks back on and says, "damn, that was the best decision of my life." i have been addicted to reading success stories since forever, so i know most famous people's success stories off the top of my head. so when i saw that caption, something clicked and i thought, "what if that mindset is actually required to succeed in life? what if betting on things that will most likely not happen is a vital part of making it in life?" walk with me. in 1977, bill gates wrote a letter to his harvard senior tutor. he told him he wanted to take a break from harvard so he could focus on building micro-soft (now microsoft) full time. as we all know, he never returned. he went on to build microsoft and was the world's richest man for quite a long time. throwing away a harvard degree in 1977 for a company that was just showing potential? hypergamble. in 2004, mark did the same and dropped out to work on facebook. mark would become the world's youngest self-made billionaire. his record was broken by alexandr wang (founder of scale ai), an mit dropout who became a billionaire at a younger age. wang's record was also broken by 3 high school dropouts this year. hypergamblers, the lot of them. does hypergambling mean dropping out of school? absolutely not. i use it because it's probably the greatest gamble most people can think of. the thought of academically gifted people dropping out of school always baffles people. if someone who has struggled academically drops out, it's like "not good but not bad." but when someone who has always been a bright spark and academic genius drops out, eyebrows are always raised. so i think dropping out of school is probably the most relatable form of hypergambling. another easily relatable one would be taking an unconventional career path. like an engineer at google giving up his well paying job to build a business that wasn't already booming before he gave up his job. cursor's ceo and founder, michael truell, who recently became a billionaire, rejected offers from multiple faang companies after graduating from mit. he didn't even have the idea of cursor yet. he just knew that he wanted to build something. hypergamble. content creators are also a good example of hypergamblers. mrbeast was sent out of his home by his mom because he wouldn't get a job and was only creating videos for youtube. ishowspeed's mom hated him streaming because it made him focus less on his books. that same boy is now shaking hands regularly with men of great caliber. hypergamble. i am not in any way promoting dropping out of school. i firmly believe that the educational system has its own benefits that would be difficult to replicate in another environment. but for some people, it curtails growth. for such people, who i think are a minority (i mean a 0.5% minority), dropping out would probably be a better option than wasting money. the earlier such people leave, the better it will be for them, and subsequently the world, because of the solutions they will create. so, the major point of this piece is to encourage risk taking. success doesn't come easy. you need to do some unusual things and make some unexpected decisions, which will probably be very tough. most times, they will mean taking away what you wanted to use as a backup "in case things don't work out." it might be sticking with something religiously while everyone else does other things and moves forward, leaving you behind. it might be learning something that seems totally worthless. you will seem like a fool doing it, trust me. but if you are convinced enough about something, i think it's good to give it your all. do your very best and take the hard decisions. when you do this, success becomes almost inevitable. i will hypergamble into success. that's my commitment. unconventional thinker,

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