Andreessen Horowitz recently made a comment about how you shouldn't bring your authentic self to work. The point being that your personality, with all its eccentricities, is not appropriate for the workplace.

Part of me wants to scoff at this. To complain about how oppressive corporate life is, how depersonalizing it can be.

But it's one thing to dislike the physics and another thing to be in denial of them.

Cultures have their own kinds of physics. Rules that govern behavior between people: what gets rewarded, what gets rejected, what gets you fired, what gets you promoted. There may not be hard and fast mathematics, but cultures do have rules—ones you can violate or abide by.

The game of corporate life, played well, usually means being a certain kind of personality. Behaving in certain ways. Conforming to certain expectations.

Here's what I've come to believe: the power lies not in judging the rules, hating them, or loving them—but in knowing them. Being aware of them gives you mastery over them.

Think about chess. If you never learn how the knight moves—that strange L-shaped jump—or how many directions the queen can travel, you'll constantly be told you're doing something wrong. It doesn't matter if the rules don't make sense to you. Why does a horse jump in an L-shape? Why is the queen the most powerful piece? Why does a pawn become a queen?

It doesn't matter. These are the rules. This is the way the game is played.

The same applies to any game in life. Learning the parameters—even if you don't like them, even if you don't fully understand them—is how you gain agency. Once you know how the pieces move, you can start to play well.

And you always have a choice: play this game, or choose a different one.

But if you choose to stay in the game? The rules are your friend.