Editor's Note: In the crypto industry, growth is often understood as fundraising, listing, market making, marketing, and narrative expansion. However, Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan's path is almost the opposite: no VC money, no paid market making, no actively pursuing CEX listings, and no reliance on a large marketing team.
This article, by summarizing Jeff Yan's public statements, outlines the underlying methodology of building Hyperliquid: completely decoupling money from motivation, not aiming for profit maximization; assembling an extremely small team based on capabilities and principles rather than industry experience, maintaining high-density execution with 11 people; focusing the product entirely on user value rather than catering to investor returns; rejecting VC intervention in capital strategy to maintain protocol neutrality, including rejecting a $1 billion financing and airdropping 31% of the tokens to users; emphasizing extreme discipline and long-term commitment in execution.
This methodology ultimately points to a key word: subtraction. Hyperliquid chose not to create short-term hype through capital, marketing, and tokenomics but by reducing conflicts of interest, noise, and unnecessary features, focusing resources on engineering capabilities and real user needs. Its significance lies not only in demonstrating how an efficient team operates but also in providing a "contrarian" building model: how a founder's values translate into protocol design and further shape a long-term structure for the ecosystem.
The following is the original text:
Recently, a community member compiled 31 observations from Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan on life philosophy and product development methods, which were synthesized from his interviews and public speeches.
Let's Start with Numbers
Before delving into the principles, it is necessary to provide some context: $1.1 billion in profit, 11 employees, approximately $100 million in profit per employee, efficiency 20 times higher than Anthropic / Claude
Jeff Yan: 31 years old. At 18, he won a Physics Olympiad gold medal. A Harvard graduate, ranked first in algorithms. Starting with $10,000 in Puerto Rico, he founded a trading company, achieving returns of several thousand percentage points, then closed the company and founded Hyperliquid.
The Philosophy: Six Dimensions
Below is a structured breakdown of these 31 principles, categorized by theme.
The original post divides them into six categories: Money, Team, Product, Venture Capital, Discipline, and Strategy. Each category reveals Jeff Yan's underlying logic in building Hyperliquid.
Money: On Value and Detachment
The first four rules discuss Jeff's perspective on capital and returns:
Rule 1: Money is just a number. A transaction will teach you that first.
Rule 2: "He really has nowhere to spend money."
Rule 3: If you can't answer "What value have you created," then leave.
Rule 4: Do interesting and valuable things, and everything else will naturally follow.
The core insight is: Jeff has detached money from motivation. This is an ultimate clarity. When profit and extraction are not the primary goals, the choices in protocol design also become different. You don't have to maximize revenue sharing; instead, you can focus on optimizing user value.
This philosophy directly shaped Hyperliquid's airdrop design: on day one, 31% was allocated to users; the team had no share, and VCs had no share.
Team: Recruit Based on Principles, Not Experience
Rules 5 to 10 cover team building and leadership:
Rule 5: Hiring the wrong person is worse than not hiring at all.
Rule 6: Smart, motivated, principled, honest people are enough.
Rule 7: The team has only 11 people. Only 2 have crypto industry experience, the rest are math and computer olympiad winners.
Rule 8: Don't micromanage. Give a complex task and then step back.
Rule 9: The more things one person can do independently, the better.
Rule 10: The team is so small that it's impossible to do everything, forcing you to focus only on the most important things.
The core insight is: Jeff has built a team that is completely opposite to a typical crypto team. Instead of hiring based on market experience or industry connections, he chose raw ability and principled individuals. The constraint of an 11-person team forces them to stay focused and only do truly important things.
Product: User First, Everything Else Second
Rules 11 to 15 define Hyperliquid's product philosophy:
Rule 11: Create a product that people love and are willing to pay for, it's that simple.
Rule 12: Listen to real users, not to "user experts".
Rule 13: Progress = User gain value, not investor make money.
Rule 14: If it doesn't have to be done by yourself, don't do it yourself.
Rule 15: The application serves the user, the system serves the application. This is thinking at different levels.
The core insight is: this is a user-centric philosophy. The purpose of a protocol is to serve the user, not the investor, nor to create token price appreciation expectations. Blockchain infrastructure should be invisible, serving the application; the application itself should also be invisible, serving the user.
This also explains why Hyperliquid does not pay for integration or exchange listings. If users really need it, they will naturally demand it; if users do not have the demand, forcing it in will only make the system more complex.
Venture Capital: The Cost of Capital
Rules 16 to 21 discuss funding and VC relationships, with a very contrarian viewpoint:
Rule 16: A four-word manifesto: No investors, no paid market makers, no team allocation, no insiders.
Rule 17: VCs owning 50% of the network is equivalent to leaving a lifelong scar on the protocol.
Rule 18: VCs create the illusion of progress. Valuation rises, product pays the price.
Rule 19: "If Bitcoin had gone through a VC round, it wouldn't be Bitcoin."
Rule 20: Rejecting a $1 billion funding round. Neutrality is more valuable.
Rule 21: Airdrop: 31% to users on day one, day one value $12 billion. The team has no allocation on day one, VCs have no allocation.
The core insight is: this is the most crucial point in understanding Hyperliquid's development trajectory. Jeff rejected a $1 billion funding round. Most founders would think this is crazy, but his judgment is: neutrality and alignment with user interests are more valuable than capital.
When VCs own 50% of the network, the seeds of permanent conflict of interest have already been planted. They need an exit, they need growth, they need narratives and hype. But Hyperliquid does not need that. It can optimize real utility, reject CEX listings, reject marketing gimmicks, and even reject tokenomics games. It can airdrop 31% to users, and that act is genuine.
Discipline: Personal Asceticism
Rules 22 to 26, Transitioning from Ideation to Execution:
Rule 22: Working hard is more important than working smart. Long-term dedication will naturally yield quality.
Rule 23: Work over 14 hours a day and over 100 hours a week.
Rule 24: Wear only one outfit: Lululemon shorts and a T-shirt. 15 pairs of shorts, 10 T-shirts, three of each color.
Rule 25: Cut your own hair.
Rule 26: Rest time: Sunday morning.
The core insight is: personal discipline mirrors protocol discipline. Uniform dressing reduces decision fatigue, a high-intensity schedule reflects continuous commitment, there is little rest but it is consciously preserved.
Here is a pattern: founders obsessed with growth often also obsess over external image; Jeff's obsession is with subtraction—fewer decisions, less distraction, fewer people, fewer features. The protocol reflects the founder himself.
Strategy: Winning by Doing Less
Rules 27 to 31 encapsulate his strategic tenets:
Rule 27: It's okay not to know the endpoint. What's more important is to keep moving in the right direction.
Rule 28: Not listed on any centralized exchange. "The needed will come."
Rule 29: No marketing department. The community does it better.
Rule 30: No major announcements: When ready, launch straight to production.
Rule 31: Win by doing less. Less hype, less noise; more engineering, more real users.
The core insight is: Rules 28 to 31 embody his venture capital philosophy at the operational level. Not listing on centralized exchanges is a bet on real utility; having no marketing department is a bet on the product itself; avoiding major announcements is a bet on credibility. Each rejection illustrates who this protocol truly serves.
The organizer's final note is crucial: "Out of the 31 rules, 11 are about rejection. Most founders obsess over growth, while Hyperliquid obsesses over subtraction."
Deeper Patterns
Ultimately, a coherent philosophy emerges: detach from money; hire around capabilities and principles; optimize for user value; reject capital that will compromise neutrality; execute with extreme discipline; win by saying "no."
Each layer reinforces the others.
If you need hype to support a high valuation, you cannot reject VC funding. If you optimize for investor returns, you cannot truly optimize for user value. If you engage in aggressive expansion, you cannot build a small, focused team.
At every crossroads, Hyperliquid made a different choice.
Why is This Important?
In the Crypto industry, we have been immersed in a narrative of growth, scale, and disruption. However, Hyperliquid's case illustrates that the opposite approach—subtraction, focus, and alignment with user incentives—may be more powerful.
Hyperliquid was built by 11 people, with only 2 having a crypto-native background. There was no VC control, no CEX operation, no marketing budget. Only relentless execution around real user needs.
These 31 rules were not written by Jeff Yan himself but were compiled by a community member based on his public interviews and tweets. Yet, they reveal a process: how the founder's philosophy translates into protocol architecture and further transforms into ecosystem strength.
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