The best founders often exhibit a very low attachment to identity.

Written by: YettaS

In our industry, there are always some self-introduction templates that are most frequently mentioned: "I was one of the earliest in this industry," "I come from a pure technical background," "I am a believer in this field," "I graduated from an Ivy League school." They seem to be just background information, but unconsciously, they become anchors for some people's sense of value, even part of their identity.

At the same time, when you are questioned, "Weren't you a staunch supporter of XX back then? How come you've changed now?" do you feel ashamed? Are you brave enough to look back at your past statements from a few years ago? Can you calmly end a relationship that has become ineffective without denying your initial judgment? Can you accept the version of yourself that was once "not smart enough, not mature enough"?

In today's society, the discussions that are most prone to losing control often revolve around these topics: gender, politics, and religion. Once a topic is raised, rational dialogue quickly devolves into hostility and division. This is not because these issues cannot be discussed, but because they are highly tied to individual identity. Once a certain stance becomes part of "who I am," the discussion turns into a trigger for self-defense mechanisms. Thus, debate becomes defense, logic gives way to emotion, and correction becomes a threat.

In contrast, if you discuss whether DeepSeek's model algorithm is better or whether the pretraining strategy is more advanced, such topics, while they can also spark intense debate, usually remain at the level of "technical correctness." Because everyone assumes these questions can be verified, updated, or overturned, it becomes a debate centered around facts and logic.

Opinions can be falsified, and thus can be corrected; whereas the self cannot be falsified, making it difficult to touch.

This psychological mechanism is particularly crucial in the context of entrepreneurship. Whether an excellent founder can quickly adjust direction in the face of market feedback and failure, without viewing the adjustment as a denial of self-worth, is often a decisive factor in whether they can navigate cycles and break through bottlenecks. We categorize this psychological trait as Low Ego.

A Strong Psychological Core

Through long-term observation of entrepreneurs, we have found that truly outstanding entrepreneurs often do not stand out due to a particular talent or skill, but rather exhibit a sense of internal psychological structure's integrity and stability when facing uncertainty, conflict, and fluctuations. This structure is not reflected in explicit labels or resumes, but is a deep order that runs through each of their choices and responses.

We summarize four particularly critical psychological traits that constitute a founder's strong and flexible core:

• Low Ego — Low self-perception
• High Agency — High autonomy
• Natural Curiosity — Strong curiosity
• Strong Execution — High execution ability

Today, we will focus on Low Ego.

We greatly admire a type of founder: one who has a strong sense of direction but is not bound by self-labels; one who can hold onto beliefs while being flexible in adjustments; one who has high self-esteem but is not obsessively arrogant. This may sound like an idealized persona, but behind it is a very clear psychological structure supporting it — Low Ego. They have a very clear yet relaxed grasp of "who they are."

Defending Opinions, Not the Self

The entrepreneurs we want to support are those who can defend opinions, not the self. How do we observe this?

In our communication with founders, we not only listen to them talk about their vision and look at their resumes, but we also repeatedly dig into a core question: how do they define themselves? Technical routes, industry labels, personal backgrounds — these elements are not inherently problematic, but once they are viewed by the founder as part of their "identity," it is easy to form a cognitive path dependency. They no longer judge right or wrong; they are merely defending "I am this kind of person." Once their beliefs are challenged, it is more about defending "I am right."

In our Founder Assessment Form, we deliberately observe the following dimensions to discern whether a founder is prone to ego-driven decision-making:

• Do they frequently emphasize past achievements, especially repeatedly mentioning early accolades?
• Do they often name-drop or resort to labels in conversation, such as "We are friends with XX"?
• Do they habitually interrupt, eager to maintain their position rather than deeply understand the essence of the issue?
• Do they tend to rationalize failures afterward, avoiding admitting their own judgment errors?
• Is there a single authoritative figure dominating the team, with no healthy tension to challenge each other?

Once ego takes the upper hand, the founder's cognition loses elasticity. In the highly populist and transparent market of crypto, this rigidity is particularly fatal.

We have seen too many founders with beautiful products and smooth financing, yet they are unable to truly unite the community. Fundamentally, this is because the founder has already "set a position" for themselves; they cannot open up externally and will not yield internally. There are also some founders whose backgrounds are not glamorous and whose products are not perfect, but the community is willing to give them time, patience, and trust because they sense a "sense of community" from the founder; they are not teaching you how to think but inviting you to think together.

These differences may seem to stem from different communication styles, but they are essentially rooted in a deeper difference in the founder's self-identity.

When a founder internalizes labels like "I come from a technical background," "I am a fundamentalist," "I have an elite school background," or "I am contributing to the industry" as part of their identity, it becomes very difficult for them to truly listen to feedback and empathize with the community. Because in their subconscious, any questioning of the product direction is a denial of "who they are."

Self-Labels Stem from Deep-Seated Fear

Labels should be tools for external communication, used to help others quickly identify your position, expertise, background, or value proposition. They are a socialized symbolic system that facilitates categorization and dissemination. However, for many people, labels gradually become pillars for constructing their inner selves.

Behind this lies a deep-seated fear of "self-collapse."

In the past, a person's identity was structured and certain. Who you are depended on where you came from, what you believed in, and what profession you engaged in. This information constituted a stable social order and source of self-perception. But today, with the decentralization of geography, profession, and values, individuals must actively "construct who they are." Thus, labels become the most convenient substitute, providing a seemingly certain psychological illusion.

You only need to say, "I am a tech geek," "I am a liberal," "I come from a certain university," to quickly gain others' understanding, recognition, and even admiration. This immediate identity feedback acts like dopamine, reinforcing people's dependence on labels. Over time, labels become not just tools but substitutes for the self.

Thus, the less internal order and stable structure a person has, the more they tend to use labels as psychological scaffolding. They may repeatedly emphasize statements that sound like experience, such as those mentioned at the beginning, and the true function of these statements is not to communicate information but to serve as dependencies for constructing their sense of self and anchors for their existence.

They will continuously emphasize their identity positioning, defend their existing stance, and refuse cognitive correction, not because they genuinely believe in a certain viewpoint, but because once the label is shaken, the entire illusion of "self" will collapse. They are not protecting facts; they are protecting the "self" that is pieced together by external evaluations.

Thus, Dovey often says: "The hardest people to communicate with in the world are not those without culture. It is those who have been indoctrinated with standard answers and believe the world revolves around them."

Freedom of Thought Begins with Detachment from Identity

The best founders often exhibit a very low attachment to identity. This does not mean they lack a self; rather, they possess a highly integrated and stable sense of internal order. Their self-identity does not rely on external attachments like "elite school background," "celebrity investor endorsement," or "certain industry labels," but is rooted in an internal capability structure: insight into the world, psychological resilience in the face of uncertainty, and the ability to continuously adjust their models in a dynamic environment. They do not anchor their self-worth to positions, opinions, or role labels.

On the contrary, the stronger the sense of identity, the more easily thoughts become constrained by it. When you fear "overthrowing your past self," you begin to build walls and limitations cognitively; you become more concerned about how others evaluate your "consistency" rather than whether your current judgment is correct. Thus, you start to find reasons for your old viewpoints instead of seeking solutions for reality. This is the most dangerous blind spot in strategic judgment.

True cognitive evolution begins precisely with the acknowledgment that "I am not what I said in the past." A free-thinking individual does not need to say, "I am type X but also understand Y," but rather completely relinquishes the psychological dependence on "I must be type X." They can change without anxiety and update without fear.

Only when you no longer rely on labels to stabilize your self-perception and truly have an internal sense of control over "who you are," can you loosen your obsessions, detach from roles, and enter a space of free thought. Perhaps this is the starting point of what Buddhism calls "no-self": not the dissolution of existence, but allowing cognition and action to no longer be hijacked by the self.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。