Pursuits That Can’t Scale

Theory #31 | For people who aspire to build things that do

The famous phrase “do things that don’t scale” has a silent clause:

Do things that don’t scale in service of building things that do scale.

It refers to what startup founders should do to kickstart a company’s engine: manually recruit customers, service those customers, even act as a human-in-the-loop for a nascent software product.

I can’t help but notice though that after a successful stint at building things that do scale (or at least giving it a really good, long try), many people seem to gravitate towards building things that don’t scale.

I have a theory that chasing things that scale makes you need therapy, and the therapy is pursuing things that can’t scale.

II

I once wrote that every entrepreneur’s dream is to succeed at building an impossibly hard business and then finally open a local coffee shop to be happy.

I got a flurry of replies with people swapping out “coffee shop” for their preferred lifestyle enterprise — farm, ranch, restaurant, pub, orchard, bookstore, sports club, gym, ice cream parlor, hot dog stand, falafel stand, landscaping business, movie theater, library, flower shop, music studio, beach bar … there were more.

Even among high profile people, we see examples. One extreme case in point: Zuck (fka Mark Zuckerberg). He’s arguably built the biggest scale thing. As of some time in 2023, Facebook had more than 3 BILLION monthly active users.

Yet these days, a lot of what we see and appreciate from Zuck (and what it frankly seems like he gets a disproportionate amount of joy from) are his pursuits that can’t scale. He’s picked up martial arts and dedicated himself to mastering it. He’s adult-boyscouting with skills such as archery. Now he’s picked up cattle ranching too. And all of this seems integrated into life as more of a family man.¹

Of course, he hasn’t given up on the impossibly hard, massive scale business thing. Unlike many ex-CEOs of similar status who’ve bowed out to the leisure life, Zuck’s still grinding away at the helm of Facebook, perhaps as an unrelenting competitor, perhaps on principle.

III

Chasing scale seems to be a kind of early life affliction. The more you chase it, the bigger the thing you chase gets. Perhaps it’s a natural desire to see how important we can be or at least how important our creations can be to the world (and hence how important we can be by proxy …). A desire to take on a seemingly insurmountable challenge, perhaps a noble one (though not always), and see if we can conquer it.

For most of history though, our visions of grandeur were limited by what we literally could scale. In recent decades, we’ve shattered these limits. Maybe the worldwide internet takeover and pay-per-flight space tourism (and yes, text-to-video AI) were the last things that had to happen to shatter the illusion of human limits once and for all.

Yet without limits, we try to find them. This is true on many levels, whether it’s about how big we want our creations to become or how people should be able to lead their personal lives or how much candy kids can eat after a Halloween haul. But I think having no limits is unnatural. Chasing scale to the level we do is too. Whether we succeed or not, it stresses the system and inevitably burns us out.

Then a new motivation seems to surface, a desire to pursue something that can’t scale. See, my theory is that chasing things that scale makes you need therapy, and the therapy is pursuing things that can’t scale. The antidote to burnout and the existential inquiry it brings seems to be doing things that don’t scale in pursuit of things that can’t scale. It becomes exciting not to see what you can do without limits, but to see what you can do with them.

What are these pursuits that can’t scale? They could be skills, like archery or chess or cooking. They could be close relationships, like making friends. Maybe it’s building a truckload of IKEA furniture. Or maybe it’s starting a local small business. These pursuits could be considered hobbies or something more serious. It doesn’t matter so much what it is than that it has a clear and visible ceiling.

IV

Most people who flirt with the heights of scale once could certainly try again. Some do. Others don’t, and maybe even choose to do nothing for a while after.

But most people eventually pick up a new pursuit. Often it’s something that they’d always had an interest in but wouldn’t have deemed “enough” before (scale demands compromise). One of my favorite stories in this distinctly weird startup world is of Audrey Gelman, the once high-profile founder/CEO of the Wing, who after moving out of the spotlight, started a country store in Brooklyn.

One way to rationalize this is that after being in the driver’s seat of such a large-scale, fast-paced effort, it’s hard for people to do nothing at all or go back to working for someone else. So pursuing something that can’t scale is a happy medium — maintaining full autonomy and control without the stress of chasing scale (and all that comes with it in terms of customers, investors, attention, etc.).

I think another driver of this sentiment and behavior is that chasing scale strips you of some humanity. It puts your head too high up in the clouds. It removes you from what happens in the real world with real people. Pursuing something that can’t scale does the exact opposite: it grounds you. It’s a comforting and healing next act.

Perhaps most instinctually, people just want to do things and get better at them. It’s an innate drive that even the wisest and most determined people can’t so easily turn off. I don’t imagine that people who summit Mount Everest decide to never climb another hill again, no matter how much it’ll pale in comparison. There’s always something to learn, to improve upon, even at low altitude.

Skeptics might say that this kind of exploration is only available to people who’ve “made it” financially or status-wise. I’d concede that any privilege makes something that feels like risk easier, but does this mean people without the privilege are fated to keep chasing scale forever? I don’t believe so. I increasingly see people who aren’t “post-economic” (or from wealthy family backgrounds) starting to question the pursuit of things that scale. They’re also questioning the traditionally hailed approach to chasing these lofty goals.

V

The natural next question is: why don’t we just do this from the start? Why do we need to go through the ups and downs of chasing scale only to come back down?

I don’t have the definitive answer, but I think it lies in our self-image — that humans are explorers by nature. “One of our gifts as humans is our ability to picture ourselves in places or situations that we have never been.” Yet, not everyone has the same urge to chase scale. Perhaps some people are relieved of this drive by their peers and mentors. Or maybe they were just born that way.

One of my favorite pieces of modern wisdom ever uttered comes from Jim Carrey:

“I’ve often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so that they could see that it’s not where you’re going to find your sense of completion … No matter what you gain, ego will not let you rest. He will tell you that you cannot stop until you’ve left an indelible mark on the earth, until you’ve achieved immortality … As far as I can tell, it’s just about letting the universe know what you want and working toward it while letting go of how it comes to pass. Your job is not to figure out how it’s going to happen for you, but to open the door in your head. And when the door opens in real life, just walk through it.”

There’s nothing wrong with the pursuit of doing something big, especially if the desire sprouts organically through action and even a sense of duty. But there are trap doors along the way. “Scale” can hide within it the vices of grandeur — of chasing wealth, fame, status, and the rest. Regardless, once “scale” is within your grasp, it starts to look less marvelous. That’s when you start to reconcile in earnest what matters and how small anything we do is in the grand scheme of it all.

Chasing scale will always be a part of the human experience. So the best advice I give myself and anyone else will listen is to stay grounded in your pursuit. Don’t abandon the myriad interests and opportunities that come your way just because they can’t scale. Don’t defer them for “later,” for your soft retirement plan.

Society tends to paint a picture that the final act of every big dreamer’s journey is in scaling up to unimaginable heights, but I think it’s the opposite — it’s actually in scaling back down after trying to reach the proverbial top. Make time to pursue things that can’t “scale.” I’d bet it does you as much good as “real” therapy ever could.

If this essay resonated with you, you might enjoy these spirtually related pieces:

• Status Limbo, about the place you land when you step off the career ladder

• Love the Mission or Love the Game, about finding your core motivation

• Rise of the Silicon Valley Small Business, about scaling with small business values

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1. It’s not lost on me that some of this could also be in service of a personal rebrand to make us and the governmental agencies like him more, but I don’t believe it’s just that.