The lone wolf dies, the squad thrives
The rise of digital squaddom brings powerful opportunities
The competing strategies of collaboration vs competition is a battle as old as time. Both have the ability to improve the survival of an individual and species.
However it is collaboration that is a stabilizing force. It is peaceful. Competition on the other hand, is much more forceful and results in winners and losers.
As a result, it is collaboration that is the higher form of strategy, and a more stabilizing one.
One only has to look at the behaviour of social animals such as chimpanzees or wolves to understand how our own psychology and values have been shaped by our evolutionary past.
Survival is a harrowing game. As animals, one has to compete against other animals seeking food, shelter and mating partners. When one is asleep, one is vulnerable to attack. When one is sick, it marks the end.
This is why the principle of collaboration, of tribes, of wolfpacks and squads came about.
By watching each others backs, by searching for resources together, and by working together to stave of enemies and attackers, our survival can be enhanced, but so can our quality of life.
The pack brings benefits
That is, strong coordination decreases transaction costs, enabling greater productive capacities and financial opportunities as a group.
The pack provides major benefits, should you make the effort to coordinate:
- Safety (from present dangers)
- Security (future resources, what happens when I’m sick, future of my family, etc.)
- Ability to aim for larger opportunities (hunt the mammoth)
- Skills and knowledge acquisition (Iron sharpens iron, pack learning translates to all members)
- Greater efficiency (Less time spent working to achieve same outcomes)
- Increased meaning (Life has the added element of being useful to others)
Can you think of any more?
How is modernity different?
The modern lifestyle runs a bit counter to the idea of the pack.
We have become disaggregated from our larger social structures that facilitated paradigms of coordination that imbued the individual with a strong sense of identity, safety, meaning and purpose.
Now, we are lost, alone and anxious. Religion is a fading memory, relegated to superstition in an age of science. Families are seen as hindrances, psychological incubators that hold us back from our “true selves”. Friendship, an ephemeral tool to achieving your goals.
In this always-on hustle culture, the tribe, the community, the company and the communities are all seen as hindrances and distractions from living “your best life”.
Such false beliefs are the reason we have negative mental health.
We were never meant to live “just for ourselves”. Our lives don’t exist in isolation.
News flash, they never did!
Yet, all is not lost.
Amidst the collapse of civilization, the young heroes of tomorrow have found a way to survive and even thrive in this chaotic diaspora.
This is the (re-)birth of squads.
What are squads?
Simply, a group of people. But I mean more than just that. There is a tight-knit relationship between these people. They exist in a larger collective, with a shared purpose, beliefs and views on the world.
You could have squads formed around religion, your school, your swimming teammates, your family squad, and so on.
Each squad is defined by what brings them together, and how they view the world.
Is a squad a whatsapp group? Yes.
But it’s more than that too.
Due to the rise of the digital age, modern technology allow squads to create a feeling of availability and prescence to each other that was not possible a few decades ago.
Because of this digital edge, squads can be global.
A squad consists of members who all value the squad as important and at times, greater than themselves. They work for the squad, to make the squad better and happier. More fun, more vibes.
Squads function best at small numbers, due to the network of tight relationships amongst all members. As more members join, the number of individual relationships that need to be built grow exponentially.
A squad of 4 people has 6 1-on-1 relationships in it. A squad of 10 people have 45 1-on-1 relationships. A squad of 50 has 1,225 individual 1-on1 relationships. If everybody had to have a 5 min coffee with each other, that’s about 102 hours consumed every week. Quite unmanageable.
A squad is like a community, but its tighter than that. A community will often be made up of multiple squads. The smallest building block of a community (apart from the individual) are squads.
The Spaces of Squads
“First we define our tools, then our tools define us”
Modern technology enables squads to interact in various ways, and for various functions.
If your squad is centered around the game Rocket League , you might be on Twitch or Discord as the main activity hub.
If your squad is about the memes while you’ll hustle the daily corporate grind, a Whatsapp or Telegram group might be your thing.
As more software gets utilized, the squad takes on a digital presence across platforms, which enable the squad to interact and create value for each other in various ways.
Squad Production
The squad exists for itself. It often comes together for the generation of “vibes”.
Culture, content, ideas and laughs.
The squad is your space and your people.
Most of the norms around squads are informal/ unspoken yet taken seriously. There is free flowing communication. As squads grow in size, they become more formal, more rigid, and need more effort towards coordinating events and ideas.
Squad Wealth
Squads are first and foremost cultures, not businesses. Financial maximization is not their primary objective — squads just want to keep the vibes going.
When squads choose to become economic engines, they can generate immeasurable creative content. Podcasts, newsletters, Youtube channels and e-Commerce empires all sprang from the fertile ground of the squad.
Individuals may have limited access to compounding returns, but groups have greater flexibility to move along the risk-reward curve. Many opportunities are better when you come in with size.
Contributions to the squad are positive sum. And in return for their contribution, members have access to an expanded set of opportunities, claims on future economic flows and guarantees backed by the group. By risking together, a scrappy group can gain access to multiplicative yields — the path to SQUAD WEALTH.
Squads value creative expression, but celebrate the group rather than individual authorship. For the squad, the autonomous is always collective.
Big Squad Energy
Squaddom is about new ways of being together, learning, and making meaning in an increasingly complex world. Squads are groups fueled by vibes, memes, and values, but they are not mindless swarms.
Rather squads are proto-institutions that engage the world on their own terms.
Squads = autonomy + community + equity
Squads are to individuals what molecules are to atoms.
We are more stable when we are in a squad.
As such, we should all be paying closer attention to how we treat the squads we are already a part of.
Specifically, if we want to achieve a certain goal, we should ask ourselves the following:
How can I leverage the power of the squads to increase my chance of success and have more fun along the way?
Action step: Share this with your squad to start a more productive discussion
