Poverty Is Often a Huge Advantage: Learn to Leverage It

What are platform gaps and industry gaps?

Many years ago, Li Si said: they’re all rats. No difference in ability. The ones in the granary eat their fill and take afternoon naps; when humans show up, they don’t even bother to hide. The ones in the latrine scramble to eat… and still can’t make it before it’s cold.

In truth, it all comes down to one question: why should you be the one earning that money?

The rich don’t compete for money they disdain. But for money they covet? They’ll fight you for it. If a thing can be made easy or scaled up, it will absolutely never land in your hands. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Can’t be optimized? It can’t. Not at all. The moment there’s a way to optimize, the entire industry gets swallowed by capital.

The poor have three virtues not to lose: diligence, steadfastness, and attention to detail.

What does that mean?

Do the work for whoever pays the most, and do it exactly how they say.

Go ask around the labor market: does any electrician, plasterer, or carpenter care about “career prospects”? They only care about money. Who pays more gets the work; they make every day count.

Only naive college grads chase “the future.” For 3,000 bucks a month, they’ll grunt along for years until some company stamps “manager” on a certificate — more title, same pay. They’ll trot along happily, convinced they’re advancing. Then at 35, they hand them a “graduation ceremony,” beat gongs and drums to usher this “talent” into the real world… and only then do they wake up.

Sha Gu survives precisely because she’s humble. She only picks up what others discard, so no one bothers to harm her. Sha Gu’s real danger is lacking self-awareness — if she isn’t content with scraps but covets what others still want, then with her meager skills, how many episodes before she gets sent off in a box?