Category: Uncategorized

A single type of mistake has personally cost me millions of dollars in my career: failing to constrain scope. Specifically, letting a deliverable drag on for months without simplifying it.

Having a vision is both a strength and a curse. You have a clear picture of the destination. You have the motivation to push forward. But it makes it easy to hallucinate where you currently are today. You can toil for months on a project without any progress, but think you’re doing great. The vision in your head is overriding reality.

The solution is to ship deliverables on a regular basis ⏤ ideally weekly. If a week goes by and you haven’t shipped, cut scope and try again. At a minimum, ship an update. This is especially important when you’ve got a big vision → the bigger the vision, the stronger the potential hallucination.

I have a complicated relationship with junk food, especially chocolate chip cookies 🍪. I love the idea of them. I love the initial taste. But, more often than not, I regret eating them.

When I’m presented with many options — when I need to make a choice — I get similar vibes. The idea of having a choice is exciting. It empowers me. I feel in control. The reality, however, is often paralysis. I may feel anxious, tired, or indifferent. I wish someone would just choose for me.

Iyengar and Lepper (2000) did an experiment at a grocery store. Two tasting booths were set up — one with extended varieties of jam, and one with a limited set. More people stopped at the extensive choice booth. But a significantly smaller percentage actually made a purchase there. Limited choice more reliably converted to the desired action — making a purchase.

The USA is the richest country in the world. Why can’t we buy our way out of this mess? Why can’t we buy the essentials that other countries have plenty of?

Our shelves aren’t just empty of toilet paper. We also lack life-saving equipment for medical personnel. This isn’t a global problem. Many countries, far poorer than the USA, have both TP and PPE.

Why do we not have these things? It’s simple: we refuse to pay the price. We have an allergy to market prices.

This isn’t a metaphorical claim. Paying a price higher than expected — $5 for a mask that used to cost $0.50 — is painful. It breeds resentment. It creates outcries for government intervention.

Rather than having access to essentials at higher prices, we choose to go without. At least it feels fair. Alas, this isn’t the capitalism I signed up for.

If you think you’re not an expert in something, you are probably wrong.

A simple concept may convince you: I call it the ladder of expertise.

Many view Experts as separate from Novices. Like Gods floating in the clouds. They are the only ones suited to educate.

Instead, I propose to view expertise as a ladder: At every rung, there are people above and below. Expertise as a continuum.

Those you initially identify as experts eventually become equals. Later, they may become your students.

At any given time, there are novices right below you. Many are eager to follow in your footsteps.

The challenges you’ve recently overcome feel simple, in retrospect. But they didn’t seem that way before.

Share your experience with the world, no matter where you are on the ladder! It can be way more helpful to others than you realize.

Judo is the art of turning your opponent’s momentum to your favor. When an enemy is hurtling towards you at full speed, Judo says don’t try to stop them. Instead, stick your leg out and their momentum will take care of the rest.

If you’re Carnival Cruise right now, you can try to downplay the risk of pandemic. Alternatively, you can embrace the situation. Cruises have the opportunity to be the only safe form of travel in a world of COVID-19. Test everyone in advance and you’re guaranteed that fellow passengers are healthy.

Recently, I’ve been frustrated by an aspect of my startup’s product experience. Regulatory requirements demand some additional friction that seems superfluous. My first reaction was to downplay it. My cofounder took a different perspective. Why not highlight it? Emphasize the benefits to the user. Discuss the cool technology that makes it possible. That’s Judo.

San Francisco is trying to cap the fees on food delivery apps. Economics 101 tells us what will happen when prices are forced down: supply falls. In this case, expect less food delivery. This assumes the market is functional, people are rational, etc.

I believe economics 101 tends to hold and constraining delivery of food is probably a bad idea. But, I also want to give policy makers the benefit of the doubt. What if they know all this, and still choose to limit prices? Which “side effects” may be intended effects?

One rule of thumb I use when encountering dumb-sounding top-down policy making is that unintended consequences may be intended.

This is a more complex, and interesting, conversation than proclaiming politicians as ignoramuses.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been worrying a lot these past few weeks. One of my bigger concerns now is over social unrest. Every week that passes means more people boiling over with frustration from not being able to work. Even worse, they may have loved ones suffering from this strange disease.

I don’t think the odds of a social collapse are high. I do think they’re notably higher than this time last year. Maybe 2% now?

I notice I'm confused.

I think there's a greater than 1% chance that we see complete societal meltdown in the next year. I also notice I'm not taking drastic action to prepare.

— Gary Basin 🍍 (@garybasin) April 5, 2020

Yet, I notice I’m not doing much about it. I’ve stocked up food, sure. But I’m still living in a major city. I don’t have a stack of cash at home. I definitely don’t have a gun (OR DO I?). It’s not obvious what level of preparation makes sense.

I should be doing more, but I’m not. Noticing this confusion is half the battle.

There are two variables to watch when predicting a trend: its velocity and acceleration. The hard part is knowing which one is more important at any given time.

I have a personal tendency to focus too much on acceleration — how quickly the rate of change is increasing or decreasing. This is great for predicting something early on that may have outsized consequences. Kind of like we’re experiencing now. But beware: it can be very noisy — you don’t have much predictive power.

Paying attention to the current velocity is typically more useful.

“What happened recently? We’ll probably see more of that going forward.”

Online shopping has been growing for decades, and will probably continue to grow in popularity for another decade or two. These big secular shifts are all around us, staring us in the face. It’s easy to overthink it.

I think COVID-19 is “probably like the flu”, and simultaneously I am in favor of taking drastic action to control its spread. Precaution is warranted here.

This raises a question: When should we be concerned about a future threat?

Bryan Johnson has a fantastic tweet hypothesizing why COVID-19 caught the world by surprise:

Number three is tricky. How do we know something may go exponential? As a first approximation, we can study history. We know many diseases spread exponentially.

The precautionary principle states that we should use excessive caution when dealing with something new. We can’t always be this careful — it would be impractical. However, when all three conditions listed above are met, it seems wise to be cautious.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman

The easiest way to fool yourself is with memory. We tend to paint our past selves in a generous light.

There’s a way to stop letting your memory trick you: keep a decision journal. Every time I make a big decision, I write down my reasoning. One way is to write an email to yourself and snooze it for the future.

A recent entry of mine:

“Deploying 25% of my cash here into US stocks — especially sectors beat up over COVID. This doesn’t feel like the start of a recession, but I’m not willing to go all-in on that.”

Today is a perfect day to start. You may be making some big decisions right now with your health or finances. Choosing not to act is also a decision. It’s often the right one, but you can leave that analysis to your future self.