Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
No winning, only ahead or behind
Being ahead means the current approach is working, which is the moment to distrust it. The rules change, the leader falls behind, and innovating begins again. Micky Malka would rather be behind: he learns more there, gets more energy, and is a better person for it. He asks only whether a decision puts him ahead or behind, and then keeps playing. James Dyson likes being behind for the same reason.
Fintech shows the pattern. In 2021, 2022, and 2023, incumbents seemed to be catching up, and a financial product from a bank looked much like one from a neo-brand. AI changed that. It became a rocket for founder-led companies like Stripe, Robinhood, Nubank, and Revolut, which are still as hungry as on day one, and they are moving ahead again.
Where did the infinite game idea come from?
The idea comes from James P. Carse, a religion professor at New York University, who published Finite and Infinite Games in 1986. He described finite games as played to win, with fixed rules and an end, and infinite games as played to keep the game going, with rules that can change. Simon Sinek brought the framing to business readers in his 2019 book The Infinite Game.
Why do market leaders so often fall behind?
Harvard professor Clayton Christensen studied the disk drive industry for his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma. He found that leading firms listened closely to their best customers and kept improving existing products, while smaller rivals built cheaper products for new customers. Those products improved until they met the needs of the main market. Many leaders in one generation of disk drive failed to lead the next.
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