You see it everywhere. Some guy—maybe a tech founder, a creator, or a niche investor—starts making moves that look absolutely chaotic from the outside. People on Twitter are laughing. The comments section is a dumpster fire of "this won't work." But if you look closer, past the noise, you start to realize that what he's doing is very smart because he isn't playing by the rules of 2010 anymore. He's playing the 2026 game.
The world has changed. Honestly, the old ways of building a brand or a business are dead. In a world of infinite noise, being "reasonable" is the fastest way to become invisible.
The Strategy of Intentional Friction
Most people think success is about being liked. They're wrong. It's actually about being remembered. When you look at high-level players like Elon Musk or even niche figures like Alex Hormozi, they lean into friction. They say things that are technically true but phrased in a way that makes people want to argue.
Why?
Because the algorithm feeds on engagement, and nothing drives engagement like a disagreement. If he posts a video saying "saving money is for losers," half the world gets angry. They comment. They share it to mock him. The other half listens to the nuance—that he means investing in yourself is better than a 0.5% savings account—and they become die-hard fans.
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This is the barbell strategy. You alienate the "middle" to deeply attract the "ends." It's a calculated risk. By being polarizing, he's filtering his audience in real-time. He doesn't want four million lukewarm followers; he wants one million people who would follow him into a fire.
Digital Leverage and the Death of "Trading Time"
We were all taught that hard work equals results. That's a lie. Hard work is a prerequisite, sure, but the real needle-mover is leverage.
Think about the way he's structuring his day. He isn't sitting in meetings. He isn't answering emails. He's focused entirely on "high-leverage" activities. This usually means code, content, or capital. If he spends two hours recording a podcast, that podcast works for him forever. It's a digital clone that sells his ideas while he sleeps.
Naval Ravikant, the founder of AngelList, famously talked about this in his "How to Get Rich" manifesto. He pointed out that "permissionless" leverage—the kind anyone can access through a laptop—is the great equalizer. What he's doing is very smart because he's stopped trying to work harder and started trying to work wider.
He uses automation to handle the boring stuff. He uses AI to research. He uses a small, decentralized team of freelancers instead of a bloated corporate office. It’s lean. It’s fast. It’s impossible to compete with if you’re still worried about "office culture" and "water cooler talk."
The Power of the Personal Monopoly
What's a personal monopoly? It’s when you’re the only person who does what you do.
If you're a "marketing consultant," you're a commodity. You’re competing with every other consultant on LinkedIn. But if you're "the guy who helps B2B SaaS companies use 19th-century military strategy to win market share," you are a category of one.
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He’s found his intersection. It might be weird—like mixing keto dieting with medieval history—but that’s the point. It makes him uncopyable. You can't out-compete someone who is just being themselves.
Risk Management vs. Risk Aversion
People confuse being "smart" with being "safe." They aren't the same thing.
In fact, being safe is often the riskiest thing you can do. If you have one job and one boss, you have a single point of failure. If that boss decides they don't like your face, your income goes to zero.
He’s diversified, but not in the "mutual fund" kind of way. He has multiple "irons in the fire." He has a newsletter, a consulting gig, a small equity stake in a friend's startup, and a YouTube channel. If one of those gets nuked by an algorithm change or a market shift, he’s fine.
It looks like he’s scattered. It looks like he’s doing too much. But really, he’s building a resilient web. He's "anti-fragile," a term coined by Nassim Taleb. This means he actually benefits from chaos and volatility. While everyone else is panicking during a market dip, he’s buying the fear because he’s built a system that thrives on it.
Perception is Reality (The Narrative Game)
Let's talk about the optics. What he's doing is very smart because he controls the narrative. He doesn't wait for a PR firm to tell his story. He tells it himself, every single day, on every platform.
He shares the wins, but he also shares the "smart" losses. By being transparent about a project that failed, he builds massive trust. We live in an era of fake perfection. When someone comes out and says, "Yeah, I lost $50k on this experiment, and here is exactly why it happened," we trust them more than the guy claiming he’s never made a mistake.
That trust is a currency. It’s more valuable than Bitcoin. Because once you have people's trust, you can pivot. You can sell a book today and a software product tomorrow. The audience stays because they aren't buying the product—they're buying him.
Breaking the "Credential" Trap
We’ve been conditioned to believe we need a degree or a certificate to speak on a topic. He’s completely ignored that.
He’s proving his expertise through "proof of work." Instead of showing a diploma, he shows a portfolio. Instead of a resume, he shows a case study. This is the new standard.
If you want to know if someone is a good coder, you don't look at their GPA; you look at their GitHub. If you want to know if they can write, you read their blog. He’s realized that the gatekeepers are gone. You don't have to wait for permission to be an expert. You just start doing the work in public.
This scares people. It makes them uncomfortable because it removes the excuses. If he can do it without a "pedigree," then why can't they?
The Long Game of Compound Interest
Everything he’s doing is designed to compound.
- Relationships: He isn't networking; he's building a tribe.
- Knowledge: He’s learning "mental models" rather than just memorizing facts.
- Assets: He’s building things that grow on their own.
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world, but it doesn't just apply to money. It applies to reputation and skill. For the first two years, it might look like he’s failing. The growth curve is flat. But then, it hits the "elbow." Suddenly, everything explodes.
Most people quit during the flat part of the curve. He didn't. He understood that the big payoff requires a long time horizon. He’s willing to look stupid for a year so he can look like a genius for a decade.
Actionable Steps to Emulate This Strategy
If you want to move toward this kind of "smart" execution, you have to stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an owner of your own life.
- Audit your leverage. How much of your income is tied directly to your hours worked? If it's 100%, you're in a dangerous spot. Start building an asset—a blog, a YouTube channel, a side product—that can exist without you for 24 hours.
- Pick a fight (nicely). Find a commonly held belief in your industry that you think is wrong. Write about it. Don't be a jerk, but don't be a wallflower either. Clear, strong opinions attract high-quality people.
- Learn in public. Don't wait until you're an "expert" to share. Share the process of becoming one. It builds a "moat" around your personal brand because people feel like they’ve been on the journey with you.
- Simplify your focus. Stop trying to do ten different things halfway. Pick one "core" engine and pour all your energy into it until it’s automated or self-sustaining. Only then do you add the next layer.
- Ignore the "noise" metrics. Likes and followers are vanity. Focus on "conversion" metrics—how many people are signing up for your email list? How many people are actually reaching out to work with you? That's the only data that matters.
The reality is that what he's doing is very smart because it’s sustainable. It’s not a "get rich quick" scheme. It’s a "build a life that is robust and interesting" plan. It requires guts, a bit of a thick skin, and the ability to see the world as it is, not as we were told it should be in high school.
The internet has fundamentally rewritten the social contract. You can either complain about it, or you can learn the new rules and win. He chose to win. And honestly, it's the only logical move left.
To start, identify your "Unique Ability"—that one thing you do better than anyone else with the least amount of effort. Double down on that and outsource or ignore everything else. Success isn't about being a well-rounded person; it's about being a "sharp" person who cuts through the noise. Start today by publishing one thing that feels slightly "too honest" for your usual professional persona. That's where the growth is.