Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs • Hacker News Board

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#131

Post by s3cur3 » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

smallgovt wrote: post #53

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not taking sides, but your example is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man fallacy.

It's not. He's directly refuting the claim made in the title of the blog post. That is: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs. In the title, the author is seemingly making the claim that all ex-post startup advice is BS. The commenter is debunking that claim by providing sound ex-post advice.

A more generous interpretation of the article’s claim interprets “BS” to not necessarily mean it is false. For instance, if I were to speak condescendingly on a topic I know nothing at all about, I might (unbeknownst to me) actually say some true things... but most people would consider this BS regardless (both the false and the incidentally true things).

This common-sense interpretation of BS agrees with epistemologists’ definitions of “knowledge”—they invariably define it in such a way that a belief must not only be true, but also true for the right kinds of reasons, to count as knowledge (though there is a lot of disagreement about what those right sorts of reasons are). See for instance the “justified true belief” definition and its critics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#132

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

_ptgt wrote: post #121

tlb wrote: post #2

Not all ex-post theories are BS. For example, I slam my hand in the drawer and theorize, "Slamming hands in drawers hurts; one should not do it." That theory is pretty solid. It doesn't cover all the edge cases, but following it is better than not following it. There are lots of startup theories that are equally solid, despite being ex-post. I know a startup that didn't pay payroll tax for a couple years, and it ende…

The difference is the prior. There's strong prior reason to believe not paying payroll tax is not going to end well. The theoretical basis is simple, clear, well-reasoned, and supported by strong evidence in adjacent realms (i.e. the IRS takes taxes taxes pretty seriously). Whereas the prior on the validity of something like "early-stage founders should live with their customers" is much weaker. Even though the advic…

> Whereas the prior on the validity of something like "early-stage founders should live with their customers" is much weaker.

There's a pretty strong theoretical reason for that as well: startups succeed because they make something customers want; the more time the person making product decisions spends with times with customers, the more information they can gather about what the customers want; and the more the customer trusts and has a rapport with the founder, the more willing they'll be to share candid feedback.

There are some practical problems that make living with your customers a little problematic if you're not Brian Chesky, namely that they may not want another roommate, you may not want a roommate, they or you may already have a family, or you might just get on each others' nerves.

But if you extend the general principle to "spend a lot of time with your users" (and being able to extend to a general principle is a big advantage of having theoretical reasoning), there are a lot of other companies that have found similar success. Facebook was another one where the founder literally lived with his first users. Google, for all intents and purposes, lived with their first users (it's grad school, after all). DropBox, Reddit, and Instacart were their first users. Apple, Stripe, Clerky, Twitch, etc. were in regular contact with their first users.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#133

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

_ptgt wrote: post #121

tlb wrote: post #2

Not all ex-post theories are BS. For example, I slam my hand in the drawer and theorize, "Slamming hands in drawers hurts; one should not do it." That theory is pretty solid. It doesn't cover all the edge cases, but following it is better than not following it. There are lots of startup theories that are equally solid, despite being ex-post. I know a startup that didn't pay payroll tax for a couple years, and it ende…

The difference is the prior. There's strong prior reason to believe not paying payroll tax is not going to end well. The theoretical basis is simple, clear, well-reasoned, and supported by strong evidence in adjacent realms (i.e. the IRS takes taxes taxes pretty seriously). Whereas the prior on the validity of something like "early-stage founders should live with their customers" is much weaker. Even though the advic…

There's good reason to believe tons of sociological theories. The problem is figuring out whether the pro or con factors win out, and figuring out if you've nailed down every single factor.

Being simple, clear, and well-reasoned in the realm of people's behavior is not enough to give you very good accuracy.

The kind of priors you get by reasoning in a vacuum just aren't good enough in some realms. Bayesianly combining those priors with anecdotes doesn't really help.

Some ex-post theories are fine but I don't think you've hit upon the way to distinguish them.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#134

Post by ci5er » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

AznHisoka wrote: post #41

Reminds me of the book "Good To Great". The author took a bunch of successful companies, and found patterns that they all had in common. But just because all these companies did X, didn't mean that made them successful. It could've been because of survivorship bias. So yes, most business/startup advice is curve overfitting, imo.

I don't recall "Good to Great" coming to this conclusion - it was the later critical pieces. (Poor guy - it was a lot of analysis!)

IIRC, the book "First, Break all the Rules" actually challenged the "Good to Great" methodology a bit on this point.

(The other point, IIRC, was that first you have to find the right questions, before the right answers can be considered).

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#135

Post by rl3 » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

Many years ago I read a ton of books on trading psychology. The best books—widely considered to be bibles of their field—came to the following conclusion:

There's many valid approaches, and often these approaches are radically different. Regardless of whatever approach you choose, if it is to be successful, it must be both reasoned out by—and compatible with—you.

I can't name a single great entrepreneur that didn't have very strong opinions, or that largely relied on outside advice. These things must come from within, and critical thinking is no exception.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#136

Post by compiler-guy » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

"To what do you attribute your success?"

"We listened to the people who gave us advice."

"We didn't listen to the naysayers."

One hears stories of both types.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#137

Post by twothamendment » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

My marriage advice is always this: "Don't listen to any marriage advice except mine". I suppose if I wrote a longer version it would sound like this article.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#138

Post by monikgandhi » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

I really like this thinking, its more independent and logical. Just because the idea worked for one, doesn't mean its gonna work for all. We need to create our own paths to freedom.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#139

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

drblast wrote: post #117

It's fun to read older business books like Built to Last and Good to Great that use the "let's study successful businesses to see what they do" methodology. It's fun because many of the companies featured in those books either are bankrupt today or facing some sort of existential difficulty. It's survivor bias bullshit wrapped up in feel-good propaganda and people eat it up every time. Study successful people and emu…

   in order to be successful you have to be naturally smart, tall, and attractive, work about as hard as everyone else, and be well-connected and lucky."

I can write a short pithy book on that one :-)

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#140

Post by _ptgt » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #133

_ptgt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the prior. There's strong prior reason to believe not paying payroll tax is not going to end well. The theoretical basis is simple, clear, well-reasoned, and supported by strong evidence in adjacent realms (i.e. the IRS takes taxes taxes pretty seriously). Whereas the prior on the validity of something like "early-stage founders should live with their customers" is much weaker. Even though the advic…

There's good reason to believe tons of sociological theories. The problem is figuring out whether the pro or con factors win out, and figuring out if you've nailed down every single factor. Being simple, clear, and well-reasoned in the realm of people's behavior is not enough to give you very good accuracy. The kind of priors you get by reasoning in a vacuum just aren't good enough in some realms. Bayesianly combinin…

>There's good reason to believe tons of sociological theories. The problem is figuring out whether the pro or con factors win out, and figuring out if you've nailed down every single factor. Being simple, clear, and well-reasoned in the realm of people's behavior is not enough to give you very good accuracy.

This is all argument in favor of a weak prior, not to ignore the existence and utility of a prior completely. Ideally, you have solid (relevant) empirical data that informs your prior but if you're seriously evaluating "advice" then I'd venture to say that you're probably lacking such data.

Imo, the critique to be had of what I said above is that there's no clear general way to form good priors and thus the advice is somewhat empty. But that's just life -- there's no magic bullet algorithm to discover truth and one has to use his/her brain to do the best they can. Many who seem to well in this area tend to like the Bayesian framing of beliefs, and personally I've found it useful to guide my own thinking as well.