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Asymmetric Careers

Asymmetric careers are type of careers with a unique distribution of outcome: outsized returns for the top percentile, and little rewards for the average. For contrast, a median accountant or lawyer can usually make a living. Even in the hardest of times, companies tend to fire the bottom quartile, leaving the median performer intact.

Asymmetric careers only reward the top 1%. During my kick-off call with Y-Combinator back in 2021, a partner gave us a wake-up call:

Top 1% of YC founders will become billionaires, but most, will be left with nothing. Asymmetric careers in other fields work in similar ways. Top writers, artists, musicians, creators, and entrepreneurs are subject to this skewed distribution.

Most careers will be in a spectrum of extreme asymmetric and extreme flat distribution of outcomes. The earning gap between the top 1% and top 5% of accountants will be smaller than the top 1% and top 5% of tech entrepreneurs, which would imply tech founders probably have greater asymmetric distribution than accountants.

Go Big or Go Home

For these distributions to happen Asymmetric Careers tend to have interesting characteristics when it comes to the upside.

Let’s take an example of music streaming. If a piece of music goes viral, the upside can be tremendous. Beyond just streams and revenue the upsides a single viral song can lead to 100x plus upsides. Justin Bieber famously sold his music rights for $200m to Hipgnosis Song Capital.

That level of virality tends to embed an exponential growth rate. No one getting a 100 billion streams by selling 10 albums a day. Outsized outcomes require rapid growth.

Finally, there is no artificial cap. There isn’t a group of people huddled around a board room saying “well maybe Justin should get a PhD before he’s allowed to break a million streams” or “we’ve had too much pop streams lately. We should cap Ariana’s stream this month, and have people listen to some jazz”.

I’ve taken music as an example, but similar characteristics can be found for creators, entrepreneurs, and artists.

Base Asset as Enablers

Now, there is a reason why a certain breed of careers tend to be more asymmetric than others. That’s because these careers have base unit of assets that are conducive for these upsides. Words are an example, which we can walk through.

• Non-rivalrous and exhaustive: You reading my newsletter right now, doesn’t prevent others from reading it at the same time. You reading these words don’t depreciate the value of these words either.

• Zero-marginal cost: Replicating these words cost almost nothing, which means they can be infinitely replicated.

• Non-permissioned: This one borrows Naval’s concept, and it’s that these assets can be created without someone’s permission.

These characteristics structurally enables the very large outcomes that come with exponential growth and non-artificial barriers. As long as the demand is there, the supply side of these assets do not become a problem.

Software and media follow these characteristics closely, which is why many asymmetric careers are highly tied in those sectors.

Many Games, Many Strategies

Of course, there are exceptions that rely entirely on the opposite of scalable supply. Artists making physical objects or athletes with a unique set of skills rely on the exact opposite characteristic of scarcity. 

And while building a career in prominent organizations like McKinsey, Wachtel, Google, and Goldman probably falls outside of scope of asymmetric careers, these would hardly be unsuccessful ones. Others that focus on impact, which aren’t necessarily accompanied with prestige and money, of course, can be successful careers as well.

There are many ways to play the game, but The Super Upside Factor explores Asymmetric Careers, where the top 1% thrive.