Be the source, not the stream.
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Was watching the Rams / Panthers playoff game and the commentators were talking about Ram's head coach Sean McVay. "When he came in he took the league by storm and was giving defenses fits. Now you look around and you see it everywhere." The specific innovation they mentioned is using 3-4 tight ends who can all catch AND block. McVay didn't invent the tight end. He just saw something others didn't and built a system around it. Now every offensive coordinator in the league runs some version of his playbook. And yet... The Rams just finished one of the best records in the league. With one of the oldest quarterbacks. Running the same concepts everyone copied. McVay didn't protect his innovation. He didn't pivot to something completely new just because others caught on. He stayed in motion. Kept refining. Kept finding the next edge within the same system. I think about this constantly with AI. If you build something that works, a framework, a methodology, a way of extracting value, it will get copied. That's not a risk...That's a certainty. The barrier to imitation has never been lower. And I know it's coming for whatever I build too. Here's what the McVay example clarified for me: 1️⃣ Being copied is confirmation, not competition: If nobody's borrowing your approach, it probably doesn't work. The copiers are the signal that you're onto something real. 2️⃣ The source is always ahead of the stream: Copiers are inherently reactive. They're implementing your last move while you're already two moves ahead. They see the formation. You see the defense adjusting to the formation. You see what comes next. 3️⃣ Motion compounds while imitation stalls: Every iteration you make builds on your last one. Every copy someone makes builds on your last one too, but frozen in time. They're starting from your chapter 3 while you're writing chapter 7. The instinct when copied is to get protective. To build walls. To pivot away from what's working just to stay "differentiated." But McVay didn't do that. He just kept being McVay, faster. Be the source, not the stream. The stream can only flow where the source has already been. Stay Curious, Check out my SubStack to find the... |
