31–40 of 87 posts
We spend too much time focusing on survivors, when I feel like the best learning comes from looking at failure.
I'd be willing to be there's a lot of failed / failing companies out there doing the exact same thing as the "most effective founders", so what makes them different? I'd be interested to know.
I'm honestly more interested in studying the most ineffective founders. We spend too much time focusing on survivors, when I feel like the best learning comes from looking at failure. I'd be willing to be there's a lot of failed / failing companies out there doing the exact same thing as the "most effective founders", so what makes them different? I'd be interested to know.
I'm honestly more interested in studying the most ineffective founders. We spend too much time focusing on survivors, when I feel like the best learning comes from looking at failure. I'd be willing to be there's a lot of failed / failing companies out there doing the exact same thing as the "most effective founders", so what makes them different? I'd be interested to know.
Like that anecdote about the studying the WW2 planes that went down vs the ones that made it back to see where to add more armour.
I'm honestly more interested in studying the most ineffective founders. We spend too much time focusing on survivors, when I feel like the best learning comes from looking at failure. I'd be willing to be there's a lot of failed / failing companies out there doing the exact same thing as the "most effective founders", so what makes them different? I'd be interested to know.
The whole "25 things that successful people do" completely ignores the entire question of whether unsuccessful people also do those things, and therefore whether those things have anything to do with success.
Survivor bias is so prevalent in any thinking about "what makes someone successful?" that yes, it would be much more effective at this point to consider "what makes someone unsuccessful".
I'm willing to bet that the things we consider to be signs of success are actually table-stakes, in that both successful and unsuccessful founders do them, and the thing that actually marks the difference between successful and unsuccessful founders is luck.
Self help pablum for aspiring founders. I'll just highlight a couple of the ridiculous things in there. "Minimize unnecessary micromanagement". There's just a ton in there. First, micromanagement already has a negative connotation so recommending to minimize it rather than eliminate it is just an obnoxious hedge. Then it doubles down on recommending minimizing only "unnecessary" micromanagement. You just go right ahe…
Don't "Protect the team from distractions." and "Invite disagreement." contradict a bit each other?
Can you expand further on why you think these are contradictions? In my book, you can actively have both. Protecting from distractions often means helping the team feel like they can say no to anything that isn't the most critical work. Inviting disagreement simply means that you tell your team you want dissenting opinions. For example, if you feel like the team is working on a few unnecessary projects, you can help…
And I think it's already pretty obvious what to do.
But what it's difficult is always the grey area. "Let's support Bitcoin as payment gateway". And this two tenets become contradictory.
I'm honestly more interested in studying the most ineffective founders. We spend too much time focusing on survivors, when I feel like the best learning comes from looking at failure. I'd be willing to be there's a lot of failed / failing companies out there doing the exact same thing as the "most effective founders", so what makes them different? I'd be interested to know.
Probably a good point. Like that anecdote about the studying the WW2 planes that went down vs the ones that made it back to see where to add more armour.
I’d say examining survivors is useful and can provide information, but you need to be careful to correct for survivorship bias. But that’s not to say you cannot gain any information from examining cohorts of survivors.
I think most people probably under-correct for survivorship bias so it’s good general advice to highlight it.
Has anything big come out of Google's Area120 incubator?
Self help pablum for aspiring founders. I'll just highlight a couple of the ridiculous things in there. "Minimize unnecessary micromanagement". There's just a ton in there. First, micromanagement already has a negative connotation so recommending to minimize it rather than eliminate it is just an obnoxious hedge. Then it doubles down on recommending minimizing only "unnecessary" micromanagement. You just go right ahe…
I was with you until you started with the credentialism stuff.
- expertise or at least competency related to the domain
- social currency, ability to influence/convince people
- stamina and fortitude
Most of the points in the very short article are about "don't be an asshole to your employees", which is certainly a good thing and what people should be doing. But I can think of quite a few outrageously successful founders who have been insufferable dickheads.
I think my second point above might be the single most important one. I have no data to back it up, but I feel like if you can just make people do what you want in some way or another (and that includes customers, workers, partners etc.) then you're set up for success. At least short or midterm (a few years).
I think this is a bad thing because it is quite arbitrary and stupid. I say that in a loving way. I wish we (humans) were not that dumb.