On Competition and Collaboration

“Winning isn’t enough. Everyone else has to lose.” — Larry Ellison (in his younger years)

It amazes me how deeply the pull toward rivalry is wired even into the most accomplished people. And it shows up precisely where, on paper, there’s nothing to fight over.

I’m doing an Executive MBA at Skolkovo. You’d think the students have already proven everything — each of them has serious wins behind him. In the first days, getting to know one another, we worked through business cases in small groups. But the moment it came time to present — it instantly turned into a contest. Teams gave themselves names like “The Firsts,” “The Winners,” “The Best,” ribbed the others for their slip-ups, and presented their results as if the whole point were to win. The room was practically saturated with testosterone. The funny part is that no one was even comparing us from the outside — there was no actual reason to compete at all.

On one hand, it makes sense: the thrill, the drive to win, that’s a powerful fuel. On the other — where’s the line between rivalry and working together?

The groups could have completed each other: name the strong points in the others’ solutions, fold the conclusions into one. Instead of a pile of separate presentations we’d have had a single, whole answer. So why do we so often reach for competition as our default pattern?

On the leadership track they showed us a clip about how Arnold Schwarzenegger became Arnold Schwarzenegger. Athlete, actor, politician — a living legend. But what was underneath all that success? Arnold told it himself: his father constantly pitted him against his older brother, Meinhard — who’s faster, who’s stronger, who’s better. Even breakfast had to be earned. The whole thing was built on hard competition.

The example was offered as inspiring. But a different thought came to me — this is pure survivorship bias. We see the handful who managed to turn pressure into fuel and break through. And how many didn’t make it? How many kids were left with a mangled psyche? Far more — we just never hear about them.

Arnold’s brother died at thirty, drunk behind the wheel. Arnold didn’t even come to the funeral. A year later his father died — he didn’t fly in for that one either. What’s the price of a race like that? Where’s its limit?

A “competitive phase” can be useful as a temporary stage, a push forward. But to build something truly big and meaningful, you need a different logic — collaboration. It’s not about being “better than others” (too subjective a yardstick), it’s about doing more together. The kind of thing no single person can pull off alone.

Here’s to building something larger than ourselves… together with partners, teams, organizations, society, civilization! 😎