All outliers are rebels, but not all rebels are outliers

My journey of entrepreneurship taught me this lesson the hard way.

A few years back I heard Warren Buffett say that one of the most common mistakes founders make is being "People stupid" — and even though he mentioned that most people struggle to understand it, I brainwashed myself to believe I know what he was talking about.

All outliers are rebels but not all rebels are outliers.

All of history's greatest founders were rebellious and there is no doubt about it, but new age founders who are getting started misinterpret that into:

Being rebellious = successful.

But that's the wrong equation. Rebellious is only one trait, and something that is more common in all of the greatest founders is that all of them showed traits of outlier behavior early on.

Bill Gates: At 13, he spent thousands of hours programming on a teletype terminal when most adults had never even seen a computer.

Jeff Bezos: As a teenager, he was building mechanical and electrical contraptions at home, treating real-world problems like engineering projects.

Elon Musk: At 12, he taught himself to code and sold a video game he built, years before software was a mainstream skill.

Yes, it is true that in order to do something big and lead, you must sometimes disagree and fight for what you think is the truth. But the market has never been kind to an ego-filled man who never at least gets the work done.

Being a rebel, combined with being good at what you do and being consistent with your actions, is a better rule for life.

For this reason, I find myself only partnering up with people who have already shown signs of greatness. This filter flushes out people who have no idea what they are talking about and gives you more time to focus on things that matter.

Truth is nobody is evil at the top. Everyone just wants to get better and live a good life, and the faster you cultivate this energy, the faster you attract people with the same energy.

— Moghal Saif