Original author: YettaS (X: @YettaSing )
In our industry, there are always some most frequently mentioned self-introduction templates: I am one of the earliest people in this industry, I am from a purely technical background, I am a believer in this track, I graduated from Ivy League. They seem to be just background information, but unknowingly, they become the anchor of some peoples sense of value, and even a part of their identity.
At the same time, when you are questioned, Didnt you firmly support XX at the beginning? Why have you changed now? Would you feel ashamed? Do you dare to look back at your black history of speeches a few years ago? Can you calmly end a relationship that is no longer effective without denying your original judgment? Can you accept the self who was not smart enough and not mature enough in the past?
In todays society, the most easily out-of-control discussions often revolve around the following topics: gender, politics, and religion. Once the topics are raised, rational conversations can quickly turn into hostility and division. This is not because these issues themselves cannot be discussed, but because they are highly tied to the individuals identity. Once a certain position becomes part of who I am, the discussion becomes a triggering of a self-defense mechanism. As a result, arguments become defenses, logic gives way to emotions, and corrections become threats.
In contrast, if you discuss whether DeepSeeks model algorithm is better or whether the pretraining strategy is more advanced, such topics can also trigger heated debates, but they usually remain at the level of technical right or wrong. Because everyone assumes that these issues can be verified, updated, and overturned, this is a debate centered on facts and logic.
Opinions can be falsified, and therefore can be revised; but the self cannot be falsified, and so is difficult to touch.
This psychological mechanism is particularly critical in the context of entrepreneurship. Whether an excellent founder can quickly adjust his direction in the face of market feedback and failure, and not regard the adjustment as a denial of his self-worth, is often the decisive factor in whether he can cross the cycle and break through the bottleneck. We classify this psychological trait as Low Ego.
Strong psychological core
In our long-term observation of entrepreneurs, we have found that truly outstanding entrepreneurs often do not stand out by relying on a certain talent or skill, but rather by showing the integrity and stability of an inner psychological structure when facing uncertainty, conflict and fluctuation. This structure cannot be reflected by explicit labels or resumes, but is a deep order that runs through every choice and response they make.
We have identified four particularly critical psychological traits that make up the strong and flexible core of a founder:
Low Ego
High Agency
Natural Curiosity
Strong Execution
Today I will focus on Low Ego.
We admire a type of founder who has a firm sense of direction but is not bound by self-labels; who can stick to their beliefs but can adjust flexibly; who has high self-esteem but is not arrogant. This may sound like an idealized personality, but there is actually a very clear psychological structure behind it - Low Ego. They have a very clear but loose grasp of who they are.
Defend your ideas, not your ego
The entrepreneurs we want to support are those who can defend their views rather than defend themselves. How to observe?
In the process of communicating with the founder, we not only listen to his vision and read his resume, but also repeatedly dig into a core question: how does he define himself? Technology route, industry label, personal background, these elements are nothing wrong in themselves, but once they are regarded as part of the identity by the founder, it is easy to form cognitive path dependence. They no longer judge right or wrong, but just defend I am this kind of person. Once the belief is challenged, it is more about defending I am right.
In our Founder Assessment Form, we will deliberately observe the following dimensions to identify whether a founder is prone to ego-driven decision-making:
Do you frequently emphasize past achievements, especially repeatedly mentioning your early glory?
Do you frequently name-drop or resort to labels in conversations, such as We are friends with XX?
Are you prone to interrupting and rushing to defend your position rather than understanding the essence of the problem?
Do you tend to rationalize failures after the fact and avoid admitting your own errors of judgment?
Is there a single authority within the team, without healthy tension to challenge each other?
Once ego takes over, the founder’s cognition will lose its flexibility. In the highly populist and highly transparent crypto market, this rigidity is particularly fatal.
We have seen too many founders with great products and smooth financing, but they have never been able to truly unite the community. The root cause is that the founder has set a position for himself, and he cannot open it to the outside world, nor will he cede it to the inside. There are also some founders whose backgrounds are not gorgeous and whose products are not perfect, but the community is willing to give them time, patience and trust, because they feel a kind of community consciousness from the founder. He is not teaching you how to think, but inviting you to think together.
These differences may seem to be due to different communication methods, but in reality they are due to deeper differences in the founders’ self-identity.
When a founder internalizes labels such as I am a technical person, I am a fundamentalist, I have a background in a prestigious school, and I am contributing to the industry as his or her own identity, it is difficult for him or her to truly listen to feedback and empathize with the community. This is because in his or her subconscious, any questioning of the product direction is a denial of who he or she is.
Self-labeling stems from deep fear
Labels are supposed to be a tool for external communication, allowing others to quickly identify your position, profession, background or value proposition. It is a socialized symbol system that is easy to classify and spread. But for many people, labels have gradually become a pillar for building the inner self.
Behind this lies a deep fear of self-collapse.
In the past, people’s identities were structured and deterministic. Who you are depends on where you come from, what you believe in, and what you do for a living. This information constitutes a stable social order and source of self-awareness. But today, with the decentralization of regions, professions, and values, individuals must take the initiative to “construct who they are.” As a result, labels have become the most convenient substitute, providing a seemingly certain psychological illusion.
You only need to say I am a technology geek, I am a liberal, I graduated from a certain university to quickly gain the understanding, recognition, and even praise of others. This kind of immediate identity feedback will strengthen peoples dependence on labels like dopamine. Over time, labels are not just tools, but substitutes for the self.
Therefore, the more people lack internal order and stable structure, the more they tend to use labels as psychological scaffolding. They may repeatedly emphasize statements that sound like experience, such as the rhetoric I mentioned at the beginning. The real function of these words is not to communicate information, but to build their sense of self and anchor their sense of existence.
They will constantly emphasize their own identity, constantly defend their existing positions, and refuse to revise their cognition, not because they truly believe in a certain point of view, but because once the label is shaken, the entire illusion of self will collapse. They are not protecting the facts, but protecting the self that is collaged from external evaluations.
So Dovey always says: The most difficult people to communicate with in the world are not those without culture. They are those who have been indoctrinated with standard answers and think that the world revolves around them.
Freedom of thought starts with detachment from identity
The best founders often show very low identity attachment. This is not because they have no self, but because they have a highly integrated and stable sense of internal order. Their self-identity does not rely on external attachments such as prestigious school background, star investor support, or certain industry labels, but is rooted in the internal ability structure: insight into the world, psychological resilience in the face of uncertainty, and the ability to continuously revise their own models in a dynamic environment. They do not use positions, opinions, or role labels as anchors for their self-worth.
On the contrary, the stronger the sense of identity, the easier it is for your thoughts to be framed by it. When you are afraid of overthrowing your past self, you begin to build walls and set limits on your cognition. You will care more about how others evaluate your consistency rather than whether your judgment today is correct. So you start to find reasons for your old views instead of looking for solutions to reality. This is the most dangerous blind spot in strategic judgment.
True cognitive evolution begins with admitting that “I am not what I said in the past.” A free-thinking individual does not need to say “I am type X but also understand Y”, but completely lets go of the psychological dependence of “I must be type X”. They can change without anxiety and renew without fear.
Only when you no longer rely on labels to stabilize your self-awareness and truly have an inner sense of control over who you are, can you loosen your obsession, break away from your role, and enter a free thinking space. Perhaps this is the starting point of the so-called no self in Buddhism: it is not to dissolve existence, but to allow cognition and action to no longer be hijacked by the self.
