I'm generally not a competitive person so this is so strange to me. Even as an introvert on the spectrum, this sounds terrible. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun. I'd rather do my best to study ahead of time, have fun, and see where it takes me during the competition.

>For me, I would stand there and keep reciting difficult words. And although I was slightly dyslexic, I still won every freaking spelling bee. With this simple trick, I dominated it so much to the point that my teachers, who loathed me for being a slacker, once tried to rig it in favor of their obedient A-students (I still won).

>I used to be a pro gamer, and when my friends and I picked up a new video game, everyone would follow the game's instructions and do the obvious thing. On the other hand, I would explore the edges of the game. I'd explore every weird build, every different weapon, and frankly look like a noob for a long time. That's good. They'll underestimate you. But you're compounding. And eventually, you'll go vertical, creating a massive distance between you and the next participant before they know what hit them.

You just put way more effort, that's it. That's the real advice - put effort into things and make consistent progress. Be curious.

>Think of Apple and how taking privacy and security seriously—despite competing against Microsoft, which didn't care about either at the time—created a lasting consumer trust advantage.

Yea, because Apple is saint :D

Choose your gurus wisely.

I think this is a very insightful post. On why people made products like Replit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195

"Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project" (2021)