The Importance of Vector Choices

It’s better to be decisive and wrong than to not have made a choice at all.

Author’s Note: I’ll be in London next week and meeting great UK-based investors / founders / angels / advisors and hosting an event (link here) on Tuesday, July 2nd. If you have recommendations for places to go or people to meet, shoot me a ping at rguo@a16z.com.

On to the essay.

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Every turning point in my life traces back to a single, irreversible decision. I became a consultant at McKinsey straight out of college because I hadn't yet figured out what I wanted. It seemed like the smart thing to do—prestigious firm, good exit options, interesting work, smart people. But really, it was a non-choice. An unconscious admission that I didn't know my own values yet beyond continuing on a "good path." My values were actually other people’s values, a mirror of what other people also wanted.

That non-choice actually ended up changing my life. I was randomly assigned to a consumer retail project even as a healthcare / biotech guy, and my manager on that project Lena was close friends with another manager, Sylvia. Sylvia happened to have interned at Riot Games, and left soon after to join the company full time. I’ve grown up playing games my entire life (top 200 in PUBG lfg!) and so when working in big pharma was not fulfilling my inner calling there was one choice on my mind.

I got the job at Riot, gave notice, moved to LA, and went all in on my passion for gaming. And LA is where I met my girlfriend of four years. None of which I could have predicted as a young scrappy 22 year old right out of college. But here's what I've learned since: while my non-choice to work at McKinsey paid off, I got lucky. I happened to have set myself into the right place with a lot of smart people and increased my serendipity, but it was the conviction in leaving, in moving, and in taking a somewhat unconventional path that led me to where I am today.

The most important skill I've developed over the years is making actual choices with direction, vector choices—quickly and with conviction. So let’s talk about why that matters.

Author’s Note: This is a personal essay and any views expressed here are my own and not reflective of a16z or representative of the firm.

Everything is Compound Interest

Compound interest isn’t a finance concept; it’s a life mechanic. Every choice you make either compounds or it doesn't. Every day you spend in the wrong market, building the wrong skills, or with the wrong people is a day you're not compounding in the right direction.

Take my move into gaming. Now looking back, I joined during the COVID bull market when gaming was the hottest thing on the block. The Quest 2 was making record sales, investment into games was flourishing, and consumer spend in games writ large was at an all time high. But it wasn’t just hype; there were a lot of smart, talented people creating generational products like Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3. And I spent three years going all-in on that bet. Built deep relationships, learned the industry inside-out, landed multi-million dollar deals, and led substantial projects for the company.

But markets matter more than effort. No matter how hard you work, if the market isn't there, the compound interest doesn't always accrue. Gaming has been flat for the last few years after covid (you can check out some of the data here), PC and console in particular. There’s been mass layoffs across the industry. For those that stay in the gaming industry, jobs are less stable, career progression is not guaranteed, and projects that devs have poured many years into might get cancelled at no fault of their own. That’s not to say I don’t believe in the future of games; I still play a lot of games in my free time, cherish the friends and mentors I’ve met, and deeply appreciate what I’ve learned. The games market will recover. But I learned a painful lesson: choosing what to compound matters as much as the compounding itself.

This principle applies everywhere:

• Relationships compound: Some of the people I met back in college are now running successful startups or have become important executives at notable companies. And more importantly, your relationship with your family and significant grows and strengthens over time too.

• Skills compound: Ten thousand hours matter only in markets still growing. The world’s best flash dev in 2025 earns nostalgia, not leverage.

• Geography compounds: Every year in a central hub (NYC, SF, etc.) adds to your network in ways that are hard to replicate elsewhere. The people you meet, the relationships you build and the roots you grow slowly alter your life in remarkable ways.

Vector Choices

I've come to realize there are two types of choices that matter:

1. Vector choices: Pick the hill

2. Commitment choices: Climb it hard

Most people, including younger me, obsess over commitment choices while avoiding vector choices. We'll optimize our morning routine while staying in the wrong job. We'll work 80-hour weeks climbing a hill that we may not want to summit.

At McKinsey, I was great at the commitment choice. Top percentile of my class, working late nights, taking on the hardest cases. But I was climbing the wrong hill, at least for me personally. Consulting teaches you to analyze other people's businesses, rather than build your own. And the leverage is wrong: you trade time for money, and your best work helps someone else capture the value. Better to have real equity and ownership over the things you build.

The vector choice is hard because it requires admitting you might be wrong, or that your values have changed over time. I chose to study biomedical engineering and work in biotech because of my love for science and understanding how the world works at a fundamental level. But I realized that the day-to-day of working in a wet-lab or a big pharma co was not appealing to me. I chose to not study computer science because I wanted to work on “real-life” engineering (mechanical, electrical, biomedical, etc.). But now working in technology it’s definitely a crutch to not be as technical as I would like. Hindsight is tuition.

The Cost of Hedging

My biggest weakness has always been hedging. Keeping options open feels safe, but it's actually the riskiest strategy. Consulting is the epitome of hedging; you can try new industries and verticals for quite a while until you make a real choice about where you want to dedicate time. And while you're hedging, someone else is committing fully and capturing all the compound interest.

I see this constantly in founders now. The best ones aren't hedging. They're not keeping their day job while exploring their startup. They're not flippantly jumping from idea to idea when it doesn’t work. They pick a big market, make a bet, and commit fully. If they're wrong, they're wrong fast and can make another bet. If they're right, they capture all the upside. The opportunity cost of not finding the right hill to climb compounds silently.

The Paradox of Choice

Here's what's counterintuitive: making more decisions makes future choices easier. Every time you make a real choice—leaving a job, moving cities, starting something new—you build the mental model. You learn to distinguish between real risk and perceived risk. You learn that the cost of a wrong choice is usually lower than the cost of no choice.

When I was 24, leaving McKinsey felt impossibly risky. Now, having made that jump and many others, I realize the real risk was staying. I don’t regret moving to LA or working in gaming or now working in VC. Sure not all my bets panned out (see discussion about the gaming market above), but that’s life. And it’s taught me a lot about how to make better bets and better choices in the future. You only gain wisdom through making decisions, and more wisdom through wrong decisions.

Making Better Choices

So how do you make better choices? A few principles I've learned:

On vector choices:

• Look for fundamental shifts, not incremental improvements. The internet, mobile, and AI were all vector changes that created entirely new opportunities.

• Avoid consensus hills. If everyone agrees it's the right hill to climb, the opportunity is probably already captured or there’s not that much alpha.

• Talk to people one step ahead, not ten steps ahead. They remember the actual climbing and are still in the trenches.

• Rank your own values—industry, lifestyle, culture, location, impact—then test new commitments against that list.

On commitment choices:

• Small daily decisions compound more than big yearly ones. Writing every day beats planning to write a book.

• Automate habits: decide once, then let defaults carry the weight.

• Conviction follows action. Prototype, ship, adjust—thinking alone never closes the loop.

• Work hard once the hill is chosen. There’s no substitute.

Where I Am Now

I've made a choice to go all in on tech, and I’m committed to learning, writing, and building my way to success. I was a student of science and now I’m a student of software. The nice thing is, there are some transferable skills I can tap into. I have a background in Biomedical Engineering and healthcare, which proves useful for understanding the healthcare GTM and business models. Gaming has a lot of crossover lessons around growth, monetization, and design for any consumer facing applications I look at. After all, both games and apps are really tapping into core human behaviors and motivations and incentives. I choose to go in on these areas not because it's safe—I’m actually at more of a disadvantage being non-technical and not from the Bay Area—but because I see fundamental shifts happening. AI is creating new surface areas for consumers. The compound interest potential is massive.

But more importantly, I'm committed. No hedging. No keeping one foot in "just in case." Every day I'm not building in the right market is a day of compound interest lost. A wrong decision made with conviction is better than indecision and staying put. See you in SF.