Wealthy, successful people are a net positive to the world. They can help not only themselves but also contribute meaningfully to make other people’s lives better.

In his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams points out that successful people:

• Give more than they consume.

• Don’t cause stress or worry for the people who love them.

• Become role models for other people to emulate.

• Can help other people more effectively with money and resources.

Most successful people have created something new. They’ve added to the pool of resources everyone can pull from. In this way, their wealth creation is a positive sum game. 

What’s A Positive Sum Game?

A positive sum game is a concept from game theory where the total gains and losses in the “game” are greater than zero - hence the positive sum. In other words, no one wins at someone else’s expense. These are “win-win” scenarios.

For this to happen, resources must increase during the process and then be distributed to everyone’s benefit.

For example, say that a computer science class has 70 students. The professor normalizes a grading curve so that only eight students may receive an “A” grade. This means that all the students in the class will have to compete at a higher level to earn a good grade.

At the end of the term, only eight students earn an “A.” But everyone in the class benefitted from what they learned, no matter what grade they got. The collective knowledge of the class increased - it was a positive sum game.

Sometimes, resources may increase due to the success of only a few. And then that success translates into future capital or opportunities for everyone involved.

Think of the first winner in an emerging industry. One company wins BIG, while most other companies lose, but this win actually helps the industry develop as a whole and benefits everyone involved in the long run.

Positive Sum Vs. Zero Sum Games

The opposite of a positive sum game is a zero sum game - a game where someone else has to lose for you to win.

A winner-take-all poker game is an example of a zero sum game. Someone’s gain is directly correlated with another person’s loss. If there is $1,000 total in the pot, that money is made up of each player’s contributions. For someone to win the $1,000, everyone else has to lose their contribution.

Status, as Naval Ravikant points out in a blog post, is another zero sum game:

Status…is a very old game. We’ve been playing it since monkey tribes. It’s hierarchical. Who’s number one? Who’s number two? Who’s number three? And for number three to move to number two, number two has to move out of that slot. So, status is a zero-sum game.

This is why battling against people on the internet is such a waste of time. It’s a zero-sum game that forces you to take people down for you to rise.

Wealth Creation Is A Positive Sum Game

Wealth creates more resources for everyone, not only the big “winners.” The more wealth that’s created, the more opportunity and resources are available to society as a whole. It’s a positive sum game.

Here’s Naval again:

Wealth is not a zero-sum game. Everybody in the world can have a house. Because you have a house doesn’t take away from my ability to have a house. If anything, the more houses that are built, the easier it becomes to build houses, the more we know about building houses, and the more people that can have houses.

One intrinsic characteristic of business is that it creates more value than before it existed. It creates products and services that increase the total pool of resources.

Positive Sum Games Are Still Competitive.

Just because wealth creation is positive sum does not mean it’s not competitive. Many people are vying for a limited amount of resources (even when new resources are created all the time). Here’s Naval one more time:

To some extent it is competitive. It’s a positive sum game, but there are competitive elements to it. Because there’s a finite amount of resources right now in society. To get the resources to do what you want, you have to stand out.

How can you stand out? Naval has an answer to that, too: Escape competition through authenticity.

Don’t focus on status. Play the positive sum wealth creation game and lift as you rise.

Start now.

Special thanks to Emma Cranston for her help in creating this article.

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You can read Naval Ravikant’s post Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status here.