A Silicon Valley billionaire's 30 years of business experience: All the goals I pursued in the past were foolish.

Author: Deep Thinking Circle

Have you ever considered that the goals you relentlessly pursue might actually be the very things that prevent you from succeeding? Promotions, raises, titles, social status—these seemingly self-evident life milestones might actually be trapping you in a carefully designed snare. Recently, I watched a video where Chamath Palihapitiya, an early Facebook executive and renowned investor, summarized his 30 years of business experience in 13 minutes. One sentence he said completely resonated with me: "It took me 30 years to realize that all the goals I relentlessly pursued were foolish." This isn't some clichéd platitude; it's a profound reflection from a billionaire after countless successes and failures.

Chamath's resume is legendary enough. He was a core member of Facebook's growth team and later became the founder of the venture capital firm Social Capital, investing in countless successful tech companies. What would you think if someone like that told you that most of what he pursued over the past 30 years was wrong? When I first heard this viewpoint, I felt resistant. It completely overturned the success philosophies we were instilled with from childhood. We were taught to set goals, make plans, and systematically achieve milestone after milestone. But Chamath tells us that this way of thinking is inherently flawed.

Why your target becomes your enemy.

Chamath's first core point made me think for a long time: you can never stop. It sounds strange, but he explains that most people frame their lives as a series of goals. The problem with goals is that once you've achieved enough, you think, "I've succeeded, I can stop now." This mindset can cause you to lose motivation at some point and lose your reason to keep going.

I deeply understand that feeling. At some point in my career, after achieving some of my self-set goals, I did experience a sense of emptiness. That "what's next?" uncertainty left me unsure of what to do next. Chamath observed that many people he once greatly respected stopped in their fifties. They were no longer active in their industries, no longer challenged themselves, and no longer learned new things. In his words, "They were no longer in the arena."

Instead, he cited Warren Buffett as an example. Buffett was still working at 95, only recently beginning to step back. And Charlie Munger, who essentially died while still working. What do these people have in common? They aren't committed to achieving a series of goals, but rather to continuous learning, constant risk-taking, and associating with interesting people. It's this mindset that keeps them sharp and energetic.

This perspective made me re-examine my career planning. I did set many specific goals in the past: reaching a certain position at a certain age, earning a certain amount of income, achieving a certain level of financial freedom. But now I realize that these goals themselves can be harmful. Because once achieved, you lose the motivation to keep going. But if you focus on the process—continuous learning, constant growth, challenging yourself—you'll never stop.

Chamath said that if someone had told him this earlier, he would have made very different decisions. He would have been less focused on optimizing his finances and would have taken on more risks, even more than he had when he was younger. This statement is particularly interesting because it reveals a counterintuitive truth: true success is not achieved by optimizing short-term goals, but by persisting in the process over the long term.

Three boundary conditions: How to live in the process

If you're going to abandon a goal-oriented life and embrace a process-oriented one, Chamath believes you need to set some very good boundary conditions. These boundary conditions aren't goals, but principles—the bottom line you can't cross under any circumstances. He proposed three specific boundary conditions, each of which resonated deeply with me.

The first boundary condition is: no debt. This sounds simple, but Chamath explains that debt is something that makes you stop. It stops you from learning, stops you from taking risks, and makes you start pursuing short-term goals, most obviously, money. All these short-term optimizations will have a huge impact on your life over the next 20, 30, or 40 years.

I completely agree with this view. Debt is not just a financial burden, but also a psychological shackle. When you're burdened with debt, your decision-making becomes distorted. You might turn down an interesting but lower-paying opportunity for a boring but high-paying job simply because you need to pay off debts. You might stay at a company you don't like for longer because you need a stable cash flow. Debt deprives you of the freedom to choose, and the freedom to choose is the most important prerequisite for living life to the fullest.

Chamath specifically points out a phenomenon that is particularly dangerous for the younger generation: people spend a significant amount of time on social media watching people who are essentially lying to them showcase their fabricated lives. Too many people are deceived by this false life, believing it to be real, and then begin to pursue the same lifestyle. It all revolves around money. No one is ever truly praised by society for dedicating their life to the process. Perhaps Kobe Bryant was an exception, but unfortunately, he is no longer with us.

This passage reminds me of the ostentatious displays of wealth on social media. Designer bags, luxury cars, and lavish travel—these images constantly fuel the consumerist desires of young people. To achieve this lifestyle, many go into debt, mortgaging their future. But in reality, many of those showcasing their extravagant lifestyles on social media are already burdened with huge debts, or their lives are far less glamorous than they appear. Pursuing this false lifestyle will ultimately trap you in a debt snare, preventing you from focusing on what truly matters.

The second boundary condition is: manage your life with humility. Chamath says this is a lesson he took a long time to learn. What does humility mean? It means you must be extremely honest with the reality of today. Only then can you truly see the essence of things, share the truth with others, and create genuine resonance with them.

This idea struck me. Humility isn't self-deprecation, but rather an honest assessment of one's own abilities and limitations. In my entrepreneurial and professional lives, I've seen far too many failures stemming from a lack of humility. Some are overconfident, unwilling to admit their mistakes, and end up going down a dead end. Others are afraid to expose their weaknesses, always trying to cultivate a perfect image, thus missing opportunities to genuinely connect with others. True humility is admitting "I don't know," being willing to learn, and daring to say "I was wrong."

The third boundary condition is: surround yourself with people younger than you . Chamath says young people see the world in completely different ways. Their biases are different, their thought frameworks are different. Although many times he felt he had learned enough and didn't need to be told he was wrong, the opposite was true. The more time he spent with young people, the more he realized that everything he knew was trapped in a certain point in time.

This is a very profound insight. Our knowledge and experience are always time-sensitive. What's right today may be outdated tomorrow. What works today may fail tomorrow. Young people are like an early warning system for the future; they can help you see how the world is changing. Chamath says that at some point, the way he thinks things should work will be the complete opposite of how they actually work. This realization takes courage because it means acknowledging that your knowledge is becoming obsolete.

I've had similar experiences myself. When I talk to people 10 years younger than me, I'm often amazed by their perspectives. Their understanding of technology, their use of social media, and their acceptance of new business models far exceed my expectations. If I cling to my own ideas and refuse to listen to young people, I'll quickly become rigid and outdated.

Those foolish goals

Chamath frankly listed some of the "foolish goals" he had pursued in the past. When he was a director, he wanted to be a vice president. When he was a vice president, he wanted to be a senior vice president. When he was a senior vice president, he wanted to be a principal at a venture capital firm, and then a general partner. At Facebook, he was part of the management team and wanted more equity. These were all foolish goals.

This confession struck me deeply. Because these goals don't seem foolish at all. They are what most professionals dream of. From director to VP, from employee to partner, from management to owning more equity—isn't this the career path we're taught to pursue? But Chamath says these foolish goals distanced him from his 100% authentic self. They turned him into a caricature of himself, amplifying certain small aspects of himself, allowing them to represent a larger version of himself. Not only to himself, but also to those around him.

I understand what he means. When you pursue these external goals, you unconsciously adjust your behavior to conform to the expectations of that role. You might suppress some of your traits and amplify others because you believe this will help you achieve your goals. But in this process, you gradually lose yourself. You become a distorted version of yourself, not your most authentic and complete self, in order to achieve your goals.

Chamath admits that what he's saying can only be learned over time. Everyone in their 40s and 50s who hears him will nod in agreement. But everyone in their 20s and 30s will think, "This isn't for me." So you have two choices: the easy way or the difficult way. The easy way is to do these simple things. The difficult way is to spend 30 years learning this lesson yourself.

This reminds me of a classic paradox: in our youth, we have time and energy, but lack wisdom and experience; in our old age, we have wisdom and experience, but have lost time and energy. How much time and energy could we save if we understood these principles in our youth? But the problem is, these principles often require personal experience to truly understand. Simply hearing about them from others is not enough.

Optionality: Maintaining the freedom of choice

One of Chamath's most important principles is to maintain optionality at all costs. He says he strives to be selective in business and in negotiations. Finding win-win opportunities is a very powerful thing and has helped him a great deal.

What does optionality mean? It means maintaining your choices and not trapping yourself on a single path. When you have choices, you can adjust flexibly according to changing circumstances. When an opportunity isn't right, you can say no. When a better opportunity arises, you can seize it immediately. But when you lose your choices, you're trapped. You must accept the options before you, even if they aren't the best.

Chamath explains that the benefit of being selective is that it protects relationships, others' self-esteem, and their emotions. It forces him to be more restrained, listening more and speaking less. Many people have proven to self-destruct by doing foolish things. For him, this framework has helped him avoid that as much as possible.

I wholeheartedly agree with this view. Throughout my career, decisions made selectively have consistently yielded better results. For example, I once turned down a high-paying job with a long-term contract, opting instead for a more flexible but lower-paying opportunity. A few months later, a better opportunity presented itself, and because I wasn't bound by a contract, I was able to seize it immediately. My colleagues who accepted the long-term contract, on the other hand, could only watch the opportunity slip away.

Debt is the greatest enemy of optionality. When you're in debt, you have to make monthly payments, which means you need a stable income. This requirement limits your choices. You might have to accept a job you don't like simply because it provides a stable income. Without debt, you're free to explore, take risks, and pursue opportunities that may not bring immediate income but have greater long-term value.

Chamath also shared a more philosophical thought. He said that if we really lived in a simulated world, there's a layer in the game that actually reveals these secrets to you and gives you an opportunity. He's almost 50 now and has discovered these secrets are being revealed to him. He said, "Wow, it's incredible. I didn't know these things when I was younger, and even when someone tried to tell me, I ignored it." So he's just offering this advice, knowing that most people will ignore it too, but ultimately everyone will go through this process.

This analogy is quite interesting. Life is indeed like a game, and some secrets are only unlocked after you reach a certain level. But ironically, by the time you truly understand these secrets, you may have already missed the optimal time to use them. This is why listening to the advice of those who have gone before you do is so important, even if you may not fully understand it at the time.

Complete honesty in relationships

When discussing relationships, Chamath shared the most important lesson he learned: it is crucial to marry someone who is 100% supportive of you. And the only way to gain that support is through complete honesty.

He admitted that honesty is very difficult for many people. He himself didn't know how to be completely honest. He would share most things, but not everything. It was part of the lifestyle he learned in his family. But if you don't learn this lesson, it will bite you back.

Chamath says that having your co-founder, your wife, by your side in a relationship is truly important. He went through a divorce, which he said felt almost like the death of a family member. What was missing in his first marriage? Complete, raw, unfiltered, pure honesty. When things are good, you can celebrate together. But when things are bad, you can point it out, name it. They didn't do that. His second marriage was completely different, he says, finding that kind of relationship is a blessing.

This passage reminds me of many problems in marriages or partnerships. Many people believe that keeping some secrets and embellishing some truths in a relationship is necessary to protect the other person or maintain peace. But Chamath's experience tells us the opposite. A lack of complete honesty plants a time bomb in a relationship. Small problems accumulate into big ones because they are not pointed out in time. Misunderstandings fester into resentment because they are not clarified.

What does complete honesty mean? It means speaking up when you're unhappy. It means admitting your mistakes. It means being honest when you're afraid. This takes immense courage because honesty makes you vulnerable. But it's through this vulnerability that truly deep connections are built. Only when your partner knows the real you, including your weaknesses and fears, can they truly support you.

The same applies to business relationships. The most successful partnerships are often built on complete honesty. When you can openly discuss differences, admit mistakes, and share concerns with your partners, you can tackle challenges together and make the best decisions.

Career advice for young people

Chamath offered very specific advice to young, ambitious people. The first and most important piece of advice was: You must go to Broadway (referring to the main stage).

He explained that it depends on what you want to do. If you want to go into politics, you need to go to Washington, D.C. It might take one or two detours to get there; you might need to go to a state capital first, but start there and then go to Washington. If you want to do finance, you need to go to New York or London. If you want to do cryptocurrency, you might need to go to Abu Dhabi. If you want to do technology, simply put, you need to go to Silicon Valley. There are no shortcuts to these decisions.

This advice seems simple, but it takes courage to implement. It means you might need to leave your hometown, leave your comfort zone, and start over in an unfamiliar city. But Chamath's point is that you have to go where the fish are. If you want to catch big fish, you can't stay in a small pond.

I completely agree with this viewpoint. Geographical location has a far greater impact on career development than most people realize. In the right place, you'll meet the right people, access the right opportunities, and learn the right things. In Silicon Valley, you're surrounded by entrepreneurs and investors, and you'll naturally absorb that entrepreneurial culture. In New York, you'll connect with elites in finance and media. But if you're in a place unrelated to your career goals, you'll miss out on countless opportunities.

Chamath's second piece of advice is: Don't optimize for salary. That's why you need to live humbly. You should optimize for opportunity. When an opportunity to work with people smarter than you comes along, and it feels like a rocket ship, you jump on and grab it. When you don't do that and instead put all that other nonsense in front of you, you'll fail, and eventually you'll look back and you'll be miserable. But that's because you let all those silly indirections get in your way.

This advice is the complete opposite of what we're taught from childhood. We're taught to fight for the best pay and to bargain for our worth. But Chamath argues that early in your career, opportunities for learning and growth are far more important than salary. A low-paying job that allows you to grow quickly is more valuable in the long run than a high-paying job that keeps you stagnant.

Chamath specifically mentioned young people talking about work-life balance. He said he didn't even understand what it meant. When you're in a vibe state and a flow state, it means you're working in a way that gives you purpose, you're living in a way that gives you purpose, and you're merging them together. That's what you want. You're in a continuous process of adding things that make your life better.

This viewpoint may be controversial, but I understand what he means. True work-life balance isn't about strictly separating work and life, working eight hours a day and then completely disconnecting. It's about finding a way of working where work itself becomes a meaningful part of your life. When you love your work, when it aligns with your values, and when it gives you a sense of accomplishment, the boundaries between work and life become blurred, and that's not a bad thing.

The experiment with mice and water

Chamath shared a stunning experiment. Scientists placed mice in large jars filled with water and measured how long they would take to drown. On average, it took about four and a half minutes. They then repeated the experiment. They put the mice in and took them out about 30 seconds before they were about to drown. They dried them, comforted them, and then put them back in the water. This time, the same mouse survived in the water for an average of 60 hours.

What's the difference between a rat that drowns in four minutes and one that survives for 60 hours? No one knows except what we can speculate: the brain. It's the brain that unlocks the rat's resilience and survival abilities. This is what everyone should find: a place that allows you to delve into the depths of the brain and unlock levels you thought you couldn't reach.

This experiment deeply moved me. What did the mouse that was put into the water a second time know? It knew someone would come to rescue it. It had hope. And hope increased its survival ability nearly 800 times. What does this tell us? It tells us that human potential far exceeds our imagination. When we believe it's possible, when we have hope, we can do what we thought was impossible.

Chamath said, "Navy Seals talk about this, athletes talk about this. But in business, the great thing is we don't have an expiration date. Unlike Navy Seals or athletes who have a 10- to 15-year physical shelf life, we can play this game forever. So you have to find a place where you can be that rat struggling in the water for 60 hours, because it profoundly changes you in a way you can only understand by experiencing it yourself. Then you look at everyone else and you just don't understand why nobody understands this."

This passage reminds me of a common characteristic of truly successful people. They have all undergone some kind of test, some experience that pushed them beyond their cognitive limits. It might be an extremely challenging project, a comeback after a failure, or completing a seemingly impossible task under extreme pressure. These experiences changed them, making them realize that their potential far exceeded their imagination.

The beauty of business lies in the fact that, unlike sports, there are no age limits; you can continue to pursue breakthroughs. A 60-year-old can still start a business, a 70-year-old can still learn new skills, and an 80-year-old can still make contributions. Buffett and Munger are prime examples. This characteristic of having no expiration date makes business the perfect stage for lifelong learning and growth.

Status is a trap

Chamath's perspective on status is perhaps the most subversive in the entire video. He says the most important thing about status is: it's entirely man-made and completely irrelevant. It's something people use to deceive others into wasting their precious time. If you know this, one of the most powerful things you can do is ignore all the ways society tries to give you status.

Why? Because what society is actually doing is putting a little hook on you to pull you back. If you start believing these things, things that are externally validated by others, then someone can judge you to some extent. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. When you chase enough of these things, chase enough of status, you become completely at the mercy of people who don't care about your best interests.

Chamath says he learned this in a difficult way because there were so many things he always wanted because he thought they mattered. Being on this list, joining that club, being invited to this event. But none of that matters because it's all artificial. You twist yourself, sometimes you even bend your expectations and behaviors to be a part of it or to be recognized, and then you become less whole.

This perspective made me think a lot. Our society is filled with status symbols: degrees from prestigious universities, titles at large companies, luxurious offices, expensive cars, and memberships to exclusive clubs. We are taught to pursue these things because they represent success. But Chamath tells us that these are all traps.

Why is it a trap? Because once you start caring about these status symbols, you'll adjust your behavior accordingly. You'll do things that elevate your status, even if it's not what you truly want to do. You'll avoid things that might harm your status, even if it might be the right choice. You'll care about what others think of you, about where you stand in various rankings. This concern binds you and robs you of your freedom.

Chamath argues that status is a completely artificial, corrosive thing that society uses to hold you back. The more you break free from it, the more of a superpower it becomes. This may sound radical, but consider those who have truly changed the world; many of them didn't care about traditional status symbols. They followed their curiosity and did what they believed was important, not what society deemed important.

I'm also working to break free from my obsession with status. I've found that I feel freer when I stop caring what others think of my choices. I can pursue projects that truly interest me, even if they don't bring me conventional success. I can associate with anyone I find interesting, regardless of their social standing. This freedom is priceless.

My thoughts

After reading Chamath's sharing, it took me a long time to digest these points. They challenged many of my long-held assumptions. I've always believed that setting clear goals is key to success, but now I realize that focusing too much on goals can make me miss what's truly important—the process of continuous growth.

I've also started to re-examine my definition of success. In the past, I might have measured success by job title, income, or social status. But now I ask myself: Am I continuously learning? Am I challenging myself? Am I doing things that I believe are meaningful? If the answer is yes, then I am successful, regardless of my title or how much money I have in my bank account.

Chamath's experience also made me reflect on the value of time. He said it took him 30 years to learn these lessons. I'm in my 30s now; how much time and energy could I save if I could understand and apply these principles now? But at the same time, I also realized that some lessons may indeed require time and experience to truly internalize. The important thing is to remain open-minded and willing to learn from the experiences of those who have gone before, even if I don't fully understand them yet.

Finally, I want to say that Chamath's advice isn't about becoming a billionaire or building a great company. It's about living a more fulfilling, authentic, and meaningful life. Regardless of your career goals, these principles apply: focus on the process, not the goal; maintain humility and a willingness to learn; protect your freedom of choice; be honest in relationships; and ignore societal status symbols.

I believe that if more people can understand and practice these principles, we will see a different world. A world where people work not for external recognition, but for inner growth. A world where people don't climb the ladder of success defined by others, but walk their own unique paths. This may be a more difficult choice, but it is definitely a more meaningful one.