In praise of looking stupid

When a senior friend resigned his job as chief executive of a highly respected media group to teach about joy, he looked stupid.

When Michael Karnjanaprakorn left his job as ceo of SkillShare, took a year-long sabbatical to figure his life out after building two successful companies, and decided to be a YouTuber and make content online, he looked stupid.

I have a few personal experiences of when a decision I took looked stupid. One of those was when I decided to return to Nigeria after a stint at Harvard. I know people who called me stupid for making that decision. Yes, they did to my face. Or was it when I moved from the city where things were ‘happening’?

I remember how in a private 'hangout' with Sam Altman some years ago, he shared how though being an investor fit his natural strengths and his way of interacting with people, he still chose to run OpenAI as an operator. At that time, he was terrible at managing people. This was some years before GPT-3 was publicly available. He was willing to look stupid, and frankly miserable, as an operator, so he could work on an important problem.

Looking stupid is a good way to master the moat of low status.

It is a decent entrance into setting aside the glory of previous achievements and continue the journey of evolving.

A lot of good decisions we make will look stupid. That's not a problem if we can cope with being misunderstood for a little while. It becomes a problem when it makes us feel stupid.

We shouldn't try things out only when it is obvious to everyone. Or when there is a public concensus that it is honourable to do something.

We often won't look beautiful during the phase as we evolve. We may not be able to defend the decisions in convincing ways - which confirms our 'stupidity'.

But the result of doing the right things in the right sequence, over time, becomes the proof.

It is better to look stupid for a while and become better, than become stupid by doing nothing about that longing in your heart¹.

1. In this context, stupid is used to explain a lack of sound judgement.