Hey friends 👋

TechGames = Games x Maths x Startups.

This weekly note is how we coordinate the network to help you win.

Each week:

• 👾 Incoming Games: curated Tech Games in your city

• 🧮 Startup Game Theory: maths applied to startups

• 🫂 Community Shoutouts: celebrating us all

• 🚀 Accelerating you: asks and intros to help you win

👾 Incoming TechGames

Aug 21 | ♦️ Tech Poker Games #34 (London 🇬🇧)

A high-signal evening for top-tier founders, operators, and investors to connect, compete, and read each other like a term sheet - over high-stakes poker. APPLY here.

Sept 4 | 🐑 Tech Catan Tournament #4 (SF 🇺🇸)

Settle, trade, and outwit at the world’s largest curated Catan gathering for extraordinary tech builders, change-makers, and leaders. APPLY here.

Sept 4 | 🐑 Tech Catan Tournament #2 (Zürich 🇨🇭)

The Swiss edition of our legendary curated Catan nights. Out-trade and out-build alongside Europe’s most exceptional founders. APPLY here.

Sept 11 | 🐑 Tech Catan Tournament #2 (Berlin 🇩🇪)

Europe’s sharpest tech minds meet over roads, cities, and sheep. The most curated Catan room in Berlin. APPLY here.

Sept 19 | ♦️ The SF Tech Poker #3 (SF 🇺🇸)

Elite founders, operators, and investors face off in an evening of cards, reads, and calculated risk — poker as a founder’s sport. APPLY here.

Sep 21 | 🎮 Tech “Among Us” Games #1 (🌍 Online)

By popular demand, we’re taking TechGames online. First up: Among Us - the ultimate test of persuasion, strategy, and reading people. Relax, scheme, and laugh with fellow big-brain founders from SF, London, NYC, and beyond. As always, curated crowd only. APPLY here.

Sept 25 | ♟️ Tech Chess Tournament #3 (London 🇬🇧)

Precision, patience, and bold plays. Battle London’s top tech talent in a room where every move counts. APPLY here.

🧮 Startup Game Theory - If founding startups was a poker hand, what would that be?

Imagine you managed to sneak in a $1B+ founders tech poker game co-hosted by Techgames.xyz and Marc Andreessen.

We’re playing custom rules we call “founder rules” - that’s standard low-stake Texas Hold’em with two extra house rules:

1. The addition of bounties depending on the hands you flop (you get it even if you fold).

   • If you flop a straight flush (~0.001%), we give you $500M (best-case scenario)

   • If you flop a quad with a non-pair hand (~0.01%), we give you $50M

   • If you are dealt AK (~1%), we give you $2M

   • If in any other scenario (~98%), we give you $700k (worst case scenario)

2. The ante is special - each time you want to get dealt cards, you need to sign a contract with the dealer that locks you in professionally for a salary-less job for 10 years starting from now.

You pause for a moment, scanning the table, trying to read the room. No extra info comes your way.

Then another thought creeps in.

You're 25 y.o. Let’s say your most productive years are between 25 and 45. Your ante of 10 years to play is pretty much 50% of your “productive years” stack. That’s big.

You keep thinking.. And then when it hits you.

“This is the same as the startup game!”

And indeed, it is! Why?

• In 0.001% cases, you “complete the startup game with 99% of achievements unlocked”, i.e. building a decacorn. You cash out $500M+ post-tax.

• In 0.01% cases, you beat the last boss of the startup game, i.e. you build a unicorn. You cash out $50M+ post-tax.

• In 1% cases, you finished the tutorial but didn’t manage to finish the game, i.e. you managed to get a “successful” acquisition and cash in ~$1.5M post-tax across secondaries & the sale. Adding in cash comp of $100k/year, this brings it to a total $2M post-tax roughly.

• In the remaining ~98.5%, you didn’t go through the tutorial (although the hardest of any games). If we average things out to a $80k salary per year over 10 years (modelling: suppose a low salary for the first 4 years, say $80k, then take 1 year of no-salary in the likely event of failure, then assume the remaining is average salary in tech of 120k). Pre-tax, that’s 920k. Post-tax that’s approx $700k.

The dealer looks at you: “so, are you in?”

You keep thinking. Because the blinds are neglictible next to bounties, the question in a nutshell is:

1. Do I want to bet 10 years, i.e. 50% of my productivity stack for…

   1. 0.001% for a $500M+ payout

   2. 0.01% for a $50M+ payout

   3. 1% to get $2M payout

   4. 98% for a $700k payout

The founder poker game has an EV of ~$700k, a huge variance, very weak tail, unbounded return, power-law type.

On the other side, you’re thinking if you wouldn’t want to play the corporate game of big tech instead 🤔

1. Supposing 3, 4, and 3 years are respectively spent at entry, mid-level, and senior level, that’s a salary of respectively $100k, $140k mid, $200k.

2. That’s approx $1.5M total pre-tax, and ~$900k post tax.

3. Odds of this happening? Say 80% if you take it seriously.

4. Odds of being stuck mid level for 2 extra years mid-level longer instead and not moving to senior = 20%. In that scenario, you’d get overall $1.34M pre-tax, so ~$800k post-tax.

The corporate tech game has an EV of ~$880k, extremely small variance, bounded returns.

GTO play: what do the maths say?

In a nutshell, while the EVs might look similar on paper, the distributions are worlds apart. Your “productivity years” stack is limited - you can play that game only a small number of times. Assuming both games provide similar enjoyments/pains (philosophically, both are about pushing the frontiers with technology), given the extreme odds, and assuming you quietly sit down & play the cards the dealer randomly dealt you, the rational solution is pretty obvious. Playing the startup poker is degenerate gambling. You’d better off get that extra $180k by using your ante on the tech corporate game.

HOWEVER, for some people, startup poker is mathematically the optimal choice. And if you want that too for yourself, there is only 1 way to get there: you have to change the maths.

This means finding ways of changing the game/environment to improve your odds of hitting the big hands, for example cheating by getting extra cards in your pocket, taking the dealer in a corner and managing a deal with him where you split 10-90 gains if he deals you a pair, asking to shuffle the deck but in reality you cheat & put cards at the top, or asking Techgames.xyz/Mark Andreessen if they’d be down to change the payouts (or ask other people if they’d want to pay you extra with these odds), etc.

In practice, this means:

1. Picking a market where the payouts are bigger (i.e. get bigger payouts than $700k/$2M/$50M/$500M at respectively 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%)

2. Picking a business area where the starting costs are lower (i.e. you’re not betting 10 years)

3. Building in a space where you have asymmetric information or a skill set that other players do not have (i.e. you know the top 3 cards on the deck already)

4. Raising from investors - this flattens the curve by increasing your EV but reducing the payouts. You’re basically changing a bit the shape of the distribution.

Then, and only then, does playing the startup game become the financially superior decision.

What do you think? Would you play startup poker? And if you’re playing it, why? Let me know by replying to this email.

🫂 Community Shoutouts

People say you can see someone’s brain by how they play Catan. What about how they set up their Catan pieces? 

Shoutout to Rami A Habib, CEO @ Querio, at the Tech Catan in London for this engineering feat. I’ve played hundreds of games of Catan in my life, never seen anything like this.

Note: Talking about Catan, we do actually have the US National Catan Champion in here - curious to know if he’s seen something like this or not 👀 

🚀 Accelerating you

We’re looking into facilitating connections between you, i.e. some of you are really insane AI engineers looking for a job while others are founders that are hiring. If you want us to put the network at your use, please fill this below form!

💌 See you Next Week!

If you want to chat about anything, hit reply - we read everything!

Please give us your feedback below to the content - help us iterate & help you win! 🙏🏼

Also, if you know insane people who think like us here, please bring them in!

A lot of stuff is brewing, we can’t wait to announce it & build it all with you!