🎮 Issue #5: On Gamesmanship & Craftsmanship
How to thoughtfully think about your career on a 2D axis and two Claremonster IPOs you should know about
💬 Welcome to issue #5 of Between the Lines
I know, I know….it’s Thursday and not Friday. We’re new to this and still figuring out the best day of the week to get our publication in front of your eyeballs. Anyway, I’m excited to share a new Between the Lines feature called “Community Voices.” Instead of just hearing from young JT and me all the time, we also want you to hear from….well, each other. First up is the inimitable Dan Goodwin, check out what he has to say about career development below! 📣
My Best, Miles
p.s. THANK YOU to all of you who shared our post last week on female entrepreneurs. Over 20 of you shared it, we hit over 8K impressions on the article, and we’re almost at 500 subscribers! Josh and I will be sending out a lil surprise once we hit 500 subscribers - you won’t want to miss this one. Share Between the Lines with a college friend who’d love to hear from you 👇
📢 👥 Community Voices: On Craftsmanship & Gamesmanship
Author: Dan Goodwin
Dan Goodwin is currently finishing up his PhD Thesis in the Synthetic Neurobiology Group at MIT. Previously, he was co-founder of MileIQ (acquired by Microsoft in 2015) and Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the global design firm IDEO. He graduated from Harvey Mudd in 2008 and completed a master's degree in Stanford in 2011. His journeys have taken him across the spectrum of experiences, from living out of his car in Silicon Valley to snowboarding out of a helicopter in Alaska.
Because I'm mathematically inclined, I often distill complex ideas into the fewest dimensions. In the case of professional development, I see it made of two principal components: your craftsmanship and your gamesmanship.
Thinking mindfully about my craftsmanship and my gamesmanship has been helpful to me throughout my career. I share this observation with the Between the Lines community to see if this shakes up thoughts across the years of alumni and students.
Consider this framework: your development of craft is independent of your development in playing social games. That means we can draw this framework as a 2D axis. We all start with strength in one, either craft or games, but no matter what your career choice, it is essential you develop a bit of the other.
Note on language: ‘Craft’ is evident, but the word ‘Game’ needs a quick definition. I use ‘game’ in a technical sense and say it respectfully. Athletes win sports games; animals evolved to succeed in their particular ecosystem's niche or game, all of our work sits inside some economic system or game. I also use “manship” intending to be inclusive (“personship” sounds sterile), and to be clear, I have experienced the excellence of men and women alike that uniformly spans the 2D space of craftsmanship and gamesmanship. Years ago, I heard the evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein (the professor from Evergreen State if you remember that story) make the excellent remark that "humans are the only animal that gets to choose what game it plays," and it transformed how I interact with the world.
I say ‘social game’ because we brought on a world-class CEO to the company I co-founded, and I don't know a better phrase for what he did. Gamesmanship is establishing your value in a social system of people you need to like and respect you (investors, acquirers, competitors, recruits, etc.). Seeing this CEO in action made me start thinking about games: When he first joined the company and I assessed his work from my technical craft lens, I was initially disappointed. "What is this guy doing all day?" I wondered because if I measured him like an engineer, he sucked. But then I slowly discovered that I simply didn't yet have the tools to measure what made him great: in a room with other executives, including the network he brought to the company, he was magnificent. He knew how to speak internally to the whole company, positioning the importance of the individual’s work in the big picture. He knew how to time conversations with partners and investors to generate maximal interest and competition. Ultimately, he led the company to an excellent outcome, and it was I, not he, that was missing something.
My realization that I lacked the tools to appreciate a significant portion of professional excellence is why I like to share this framework in mentorship conversations. I think people who start technical, like myself, often overlook the importance of gamesmanship. We believe that because we get good grades and do well on class projects that we're set for life. But, for those younger readers of this article, I want to impress upon you that focusing solely on your craft will make your trajectory limited. If you subsist solely on tasks other people feed you, you're up for a dull existence with a high probability of being replaced in a decade by an AI or a younger person with less life to conflict with work.
But similarly, those who are strong in gamesmanship need to prioritize the development of craft over time. Naturally, strong game players can charm their way into any room, change minds to see the game player's view, and project a leadership aura around them fueled by some magical momentum of all the fantastic things already going on for them. Natural talents at games are just as much a gift as natural talent in the craft. But eventually, that excellent gamesman is going to level up and suddenly be in a room with other world-class gamesplayers, and how will she continue to stand out?
I draw the examples on the chart above from the worlds I know, and I keep the examples sparse for clarity. A junior engineer can subsist on those other tasks but won't become a leader until she demonstrates abilities to choose problems that people care about. A junior venture investor might be that person who can charm his way into any room, but to become a partner that rises above the other game players, he'll have to demonstrate that he technically performed and has grown intellectually. A few career locations -- artists, research professors, and startup founders -- shoot people into a world in which they suddenly have to be excellent at both. The professor one might be a shock, but if you need to raise grant money every two years, your work better be incredible and you better be excellent at selling it. Furthermore, a powerful corollary to the gamesmanship/craftmanship framework is that the marginal benefit of personal development changes depending on your professional environment.
I shared an early draft of this essay with my friend Ari Wes, another Claremont alum who works in medicine to see if any of this rung true, and I thought what he had to share was invaluable, so I’m including it here:
“In surgery, an obvious physical craft, the juxtaposition between craftsmanship and gamesmanship couldn't be more evident. And unsurprisingly, you end up with an inordinate number of people who have been selected throughout medical school and residency for only their craftsmanship. There are very few ways to excel throughout early medical and surgical education that aren’t essentially 'hitting your mark' academically. In my mind, surgery (and almost certainly medicine more broadly) highlights the fact that when there is a relative deficit of either craftsmanship or gamesmanship within a field, the relative professional impact of even a small dose of the rarer trait is that much greater.”
As you think about this framework in your career, consider that each component of craft/game has its analog in the other dimension. These questions shown below can also help you compete in your primary domain, and how you choose to compete is another subtle aspect of your profession to meditate on.
The purpose of the community, especially one like the Claremont Colleges, is to assist in our growth as individuals. Through the unique group of individuals I went to school with, I have become lifelong friends with masters of both craftsmanship and gamesmanship. My friends who inspire me as excellent craftsmen have always shown me that there are more abilities to develop and more room for care in my work. And the world-class people on the gamesmanship side have made me stronger by realizing the importance of contextualizing my work, architecting personal momentum, and picking the best challenges to tackle. As my initial condition was that of a craft-first person, it's been a pleasure to share my journey in mentoring conversations and to see it resonate as a novel idea. The truth is that people on the extreme ends of gamesmanship and craftsmanship don't often talk. That is what is unique about a diversity of perspectives and why building bonds of friendship and trust can make mutual improvement happen. So, are you a gamer or a crafter?
Interested in having your thoughts published by Between the Lines? Drop us a line!
🤔 Follow-up Questions
Is it generally better to have more gamesmanship or craftsmanship, or is it completely context-dependent? Which one is easier to learn and what one is more innate? How can we get people on the extreme ends of gamesmanship and craftsmanship to talk and share ideas more together? Is there a 3rd dimension you would add to this axis?
Leave a comment below and jump in on the conversation!
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
by Josh Tatum
Butterfly Labs, founded by CMC grads Hiroki Butterfield and Dhruv Manchala, is a recently funded LA-based startup moving medical diagnostics from the lab to the home. 💉 🦋 🏠 They’re hiring for the following positions and are especially looking to snag a fellow Claremont alum or recent grad:
Operations Generalist (In-Person) — looking for someone enthusiastic and process-oriented for this jack-of-all-trades position
VP of engineering (Remote) — if building healthcare infrastructure is your dream, look no further!
If you want to connect with the founders directly - shoot them an email!
CMC grad, Julia Cole, founded her company June last year, and they are planning on doubling in size by the end of the year. June is a digital health company designing the next generation of care for women and families, and they are hiring for numerous roles (make sure to name drop Between the Lines in your application 😉):
Mammoth Biosciences is a biotech company that is harnessing the diversity of nature to power the next generation of CRISPR products. The company was founded by PO grad, serial founder, and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna. 🧬 The company currently has an elephant-sized list of exciting job openings, including internships like:
Many more!
CMC grad, Dave Meyers, is hiring for his team at Atlassian. Atlassian is a software company that makes tools like Jira and Trello that are used by thousands of teams worldwide. Currently, Dave is hiring here for Product Managers:
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines! Or if you are an employer and are looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, hit us up and we’d be happy to explore shining a spotlight on your career needs!
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
by Josh Tatum
This week’s top read….or top listen I guess 👂🔥
Check out this podcast featuring PO grad Shahram Seyedin-Noor. Shahram is a superstar biotech entrepreneur and investor, having previously founded Rgenix and currently Founder & General Partner at Civilization Ventures - a fund dedicated to health-tech and biology-driven innovation 🎧
Claremont companies hittin’ the streets….wallstreets at least 🐂📈
Congrats to PO grad Jennifer Doudna and Caribou Biosciences on their recent IPO! This is now Doudna’s 3rd public company that she has founded🤯. The biotech company is saving lives with their CRISPER technology and also just so happened to rake in over $300M in their IPO 🧹💰
Congrats to HMC grad Michael Beebe and the rest of the Matterport team on their IPO via SPAC with Gores Holdings this week! Michael is a 4X Founder, and Matterports 3D and virtual reality models of real-world spaces have been killing the game during the pandemic 😎
Everything else you need to know….📖
A little Olympic joy to spark your feed this week courtesy of legendary VC with a heart of gold, Yohei Nakajima at Untapped Capital (click through the link, we promise it’ll put a smile on your face) 🏊
This is easily the craziest thing I’ve seen all week, brought to you by Dan Goodwin himself - true craftsmanship at its finest by Mr. Brady. 🏈 Whether or not it’s real…he’s still the 🐐
An interesting thought on wealth by two-time Founder of BitTorrent & Samba TV and CMC grad, Ashwin Navin 🤔
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✅ Takeaways:
📝 Start gaming and crafting…no matter who you are or what side of the axis you may lean, we can always improve our “gamespersonship” & “craftspersonship.” Think about what one you might need to work on more and get after it!
📉 Claremont companies seem to be great gamers AND crafters….our companies are breaking down Wallstreet’s doors. In the last 3 years, 8 different 7C-founded companies have IPO’d! Stay tuned for an article down the road about this 🤫
📣 We want to hear from you all…if writing something like this piece that Dan Goodwin wrote sounds interesting to you, hit us up!