Founder essay: building something extraordinary requires taking your bubble far too seriously
DominiqueCAPaul · x · 2026-09-13
A founder reflects on START Global, the student association that shaped his entrepreneurial path, and draws a counterintuitive lesson about microcosms:
- Every START cohort rebuilt the organization from scratch and believed they were the most interesting people on campus — until leaving revealed how small that world was.
- His argument: to do something meaningful, don't escape the microcosm — lean into the one you believe in, immersed enough that its importance seems obvious, even incomprehensibly so to outsiders.
- He jokes about Anthropic employees imagining they might one day be the world's only private company — clearly never having set foot on factory floors — yet argues that distorted perspective is exactly what building extraordinary things requires.
- Perfect perspective makes nothing worth years of your life; instead, find ideas worth living for and allow yourself to take them far too seriously.
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