Y Combinator often talks about "maximizing the surface area of good luck." You publish content. You ship code. You talk to users. You increase the odds of something great happening.
But there is an inverse to this law that nobody talks about: The Surface Area of Bad Luck.
The Founder's Paradox
Every time you leave your house, you expose yourself to the chaos of the world. The random events. The outliers. The things you cannot control. As your company grows, so does your visibility—and with it, your exposure to risk.
"The founder is the single point of failure for the company. If something happens to you, the vision dies. The team scatters. The mission fails."
This isn't paranoia. It's probability. When you're building something that matters, you become a target—not necessarily of malice, but of randomness. The world is chaotic, and chaos doesn't discriminate between the prepared and the unprepared.
The Golden Armor Mindset
In Minecraft, you wear armor not because you expect to be attacked every second, but because you want to survive the one second you didn't see coming.
This is the mindset of preparation. It's not about living in fear—it's about removing fear from the equation entirely. When you know you're protected, you can focus completely on building.
What Changes When You're Prepared
- Confidence compounds. When you're not subconsciously worried about safety, you project more authority.
- Risk tolerance increases. You can take the meeting in the unfamiliar city. You can walk through the conference crowd.
- Focus sharpens. One less variable in the chaos equation means more mental bandwidth for what matters.
The world has changed. High-profile founders are more visible than ever. Social media amplifies both success and the attention it brings. The asymmetry between what you're building and what a random event could destroy has never been greater.
The Modusware Puffer isn't about expecting the worst. It's about respecting probability while refusing to let it limit your ambition.
Minimize the surface area of bad luck. Maximize your impact.
