6. “General agreement among researchers
that nearly all stock pickers, whether they
know it or not – and few of them do – are
playing a game of chance.”
[x] fluxx
22. "The alternate name we came up with for
500 Startups was 'fail factory,‘…... "We're
here trying to 'manufacture fail' on a
regular basis, and we think that's how you
learn. Getting used to that, bouncing back
from that, being able to figure out what
people hate and turn that into what
people love...if you're not willing to take
the risk of failing and not experience
failure, you're never going to figure out
what the right path is to success."
[x] fluxx
24. “…….people don’t want to
acknowledge the role played by
accident in heir lives, there is a
reason for this, the world doesn’t
want to recognise it either”
[x] fluxx
What is luck – luck is the random, the unknown, the events and variables within and outside life, over which we have no controlCome ot thin ko fit – greater / lesser extend - luck shapes our lives
We don’tlike to accept that life is random – hate the thought that we could be the one that gets picked out of the herd
Religion way of rationalising randomness – by Cocoon the mind in plausibility
our brains are so good, at spinning such convincing narratives around what are essentially random eventsDanielkahnemannSystem 1 – impetuous, quick, emotional fast side of our brandssystem 2 – considered, rational slowWhen we let system 1 work without system 2 – safe, orderly, believable view of life – but one whch doesn’t necessarily conform to the reality of any given situation
Tend to under estimate the role luck plays in our livesActively choose not to see luck in our lives
Darwin -
Even the month when you’re born – an event over which we have little control – we now know is a key determinant of life success
Luck is this fascinating concept – Aspects to the way we live and work which are no necessarily based on face
this blindness to luck / product developemnt / lean methodology
Conditions of extreme uncertaintyWe have no way of really knowing – whether a customer actually wants our productOur system 1 has overtaken our ability to rationally consider the endeavour in which we’re engagedWe act as is luck isn’t a variable - as if we are in control
What lean methodology does – does the opposite - forces us to stop using system 1 and engage system 2Here’s ericreis – the father of lean startup thinking talking about the movementActually from a longer – 15 min presentation he gave at
Not about having better ideas – have a better processLean gives us as many chances of being lucky as possibleby giving us a flexbileframework in which to change course with our projects – in a methodical, controlled wayTo build on the learning that the variables we couldn’t see have taught us“if we can increase our time between pivots, we can increase our odds of success, before we run out of money”
Instead of building complete,finsihed products – which of course they never are – maximum productInstead the process becomes centered around getting a product in front of our customers as soon as possiblechanging and iterating that productIf we do this – in effect engaged system 2 - we quieten our system 1 – instead of guessing – we have real world data – did customer like it – did they buy it?
May be thinking this sounds risky seems like gambling – but in actual fact – it’s the oppositeThe gamble is to believe we’ve found everythign, we’ve engineered out luck and randomnessGoogle, facebook, amazon and others explode off the back of this thinking – starting to look like a much safer way of developing productsShow you a couple of instances where this sort of thinking has
Billy beane’s case he was stopping the partial reliance on luck – and instead, giving himself the greatest chance of winning, by increasing his odds of success – as “card counters, at the black jack table”Reference is actually an oblique nod to another sector which has adopted this thinking which we all have a little more awareness of since 2008
Chap called Edward ThorpHe was the first person to develop an odds based system to win at blackjackMuch of his theory, became the basis of the hedge fund industry
Even napolean – played the odds
We can teach the processes, the methodlogiesKey psychologial pin we need to
Letting go is how we get there – we accept failure as a natural part of our life and work
google
500 startups – one of the largest and most successful technology incubators in the US – they call themselves a “fail factory”
Have to get more comfortable failing – and critically – absorbing the lessons of that failurenot wallowing in it – but understanding where the failure came from, so we can improve in the future