The document discusses four postulates about ignorance, iteration, and entrepreneurship. The first postulate is that an approximate answer to the right vague question is better than an exact answer to the wrong precise question. The second postulate is that minor changes or improvements do not matter much. The third postulate is that optimism is important for entrepreneurs. The fourth postulate is that iteration and learning from experience are needed to address ignorance.

1. Ignorance, Iteration and the Entrepreneur Paul Kedrosky Apr 17/08

3. Four Postulates

4. Postulate #1

6. Postulate #2

7. Far better an approximate answer to the right question , which is often vague , than an exact answer to the wrong question , which can always be made precise . J. Tukey (1962), Annals of Mathematics and Statistics 33:1-67

8. Postulate #3

9. " What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work." -- Sherlock Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet", Arthur Conan Doyle

10. Postulate #4

12. Ignorance Questions Focus Optimism

13. How You Do What You Do

17. If I am interested in, say, the distribution of the intensities of hurricanes , I cannot just “collect data more frequently”: I will just have to wait for the next hurricane to arrive. Source: R. Rebonatto, Plight of the Fortune-Tellers (2007)

18. Gorillas in our midst

20. Scratch Peripheral Perspective Data Gorillas Iterate

21. Tomorrow is going to be wonderful since today, I do not understand anything . - Niels Bohr

22. A challenge.

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