What is a zero-sum game?
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A zero sum game is where if someone wins, someone else loses. A lot the routine games that we talk about are zero sum, someone wins while the opponent loses. Chess, checkers, tic tac toe, tennis, battleship, etc are all zero sum games. Some games, like a marathon, we don’t say are zero sum. If winning means finishing the race, then there is no limit on how many winners there are. Or if winning means having a good time, then there are no limits to how many winners there are.
The idea is often brought up in terms of business or politics. Performing an endeavor as if something is a zero sum game means that you are determined in winning because if you don’t win, it means you lose. This is especially true in things like business and politics. If a business is #2 in their field, and they make millions of dollars and have great products and employees then it sounds like they are prosperous. However, if the CEO views the business as a zero sum game, it means that the CEO considers the business a loser because it’s in second place. Someone like this might lash out at employees or maybe pursue some underhanded tricks to either make the company appear to be doing better on some metric, or sabotage the success of a rival company.
That’s kind of the core of it – a zero sum game means that all participants are rivals rather than collaborators, and one of them will be a winner and all the others are losers. It is often a pretty dismal way to look at the world.
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