Keith RaboisManaging Director, Khosla Ventures

If You Allow People To Outwork You, They'll Outperform You - Keith Rabois

Name: If You Allow People To Outwork You, They'll Outperform You - Keith Rabois
Uploaded: 2020-09-17T07:00:03+00:00
Duration: 50 s
Channel: Keith Rabois
Description: In this monologue, Keith Rabois reflects on his early career as a lawyer, emphasizing how competing with exceptionally smart colleagues and adversaries…

17 Sept 2020 · 1 min

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In this monologue, Keith Rabois reflects on his early career as a lawyer, emphasizing how competing with exceptionally smart colleagues and adversaries taught him a pivotal lesson: talent alone is insufficient in a competitive environment. He recounts that while his academic path through undergraduate studies and law school felt relatively easy, confronting top legal professionals forced him to match—or exceed—their work ethic to succeed. This realization, which he describes as a clear epiphany, led him to conclude that in any competitive field, allowing others to outwork you inevitably results in them outperforming you. Consequently, he argues that success requires a blend of insight, originality, talent, and a relentless work ethic equal to the best peers.

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I started my career as a lawyer, which fortunately a lot of people forget. And one of the most important things I learned at the high end of law is that there's a hell of a lot of smart people that I was competing with both internally for promotion and externally in terms of litigation. And that although academically, undergraduate education, law school is fairly easy for me. Once I encountered the top professionals in the planet in the legal profession, there was no possibility of not working as hard as them and outperforming them. And it was a very clear epiphany. And I think that applies to almost any competitive field, which is that even if you're quite talented, if you allow other people to outwork you, they're going to outperform you. And so I think you need to be both insightful, original, and, you know, very talented, but also need to be working as hard as the next best person.