Street Smarts: Learning the Unwritten Rules

Larry Chiang’s playbook is not built on formal credentials, it is built on noticing patterns nobody wrote down. He calls the core move External API: instead of inventing a new format, you find one that already works and copy it, changing one element to make it yours. Street smarts, in his world, means clocking that structure fast, in a room, in a negotiation, in a hallway conversation.

Larry’s own line is that he changed one word, Harvard to Stanford, and that decision alone became a franchise. Unwritten rules show up before anyone says a word: who walks in first, who holds the door, who checks their phone. That is why SuperModel exists as a checklist, not a metaphor: dress deliberately, keep a pen in hand, hold your listening position, leave your phone alone.

Larry says the pen in your hand does two things, it makes you look prepared and it gives you something to do besides fidget. Preparation beats improvisation, and PQRST, preview, question, read, summarize, test, is how you walk in already knowing a room’s unwritten rules.

Karma is part of the same street sense: Larry says a simple thank-you note helped him land Nike as a sponsor, tracked and channeled, not left to chance. None of this is about being the loudest person in the room, it is about being the one who already understands how the room works.

Skip the unwritten rules and you negotiate from behind before you even open your mouth. Learn them and you walk in calm, because you already know what everyone else in the room is still guessing at.