Some advice from Jeff Bezos

When I first read that quote in early High School I didn't understand it. It was the kind of thing that ate at me, I could not get what he was trying to say. To me, consistency was an important part of life; the old adage that you stick to your word. However, that quote transcends the idea of being consistent, because when you often make decisions without all of the information (especially in startups). As new information becomes available, you have to incorporate it into your decision. Sometimes it makes you look like a dick, or someone that doesn't know what direction they want to go to, but that's where different skills (leadership and sales) come in to be able to hold people together.

It's a very basic concept. Changing your mind almost necessarily involves admitting you were wrong in the first instance — if you do not admit it outright, someone else will likely confront you on it.

People don't like admitting they were wrong. It makes one look bad, and provides one's enemies with ammunition.

A subtly different view: The hypothetical cleverest, most correct person possible would be right close to 100% of the time because they would change any wrong opinion almost immediately.

And with this view, the closer you are to that person, the better you really are.

So the analogy can also turn around and bite you here. If a researcher in Quantum theory were to get hung up on the apparent contradictions between her own research and the implications within one of the other models, she'd risk being distracted and lose the fruitful path of research within her given domain. In this case, a certain level of myopia is helpful.

Did Einstein's tremendous resistance to Heisenberg and Bohr impugn his accomplishments in any way? Of course not. I don't think anyone would use that as an example of diminished intelligence on Einstein's part.

Your broader point is valid: be open to other viewpoints. But at another level, taking up a position and defending it has its practical advantages, when the position/opinion shows fruitful results.

In software, I think of DHH's 'opinionated' approach to Rails and how that has informed and guided the whole Ruby community. For many programmers Rails' implicit, "magical" approach to coding is not as good as, for instance Django/Python's more explicit philosophy. Both points of view are valid, but the strengths of each would be diluted if they tried to do both. I also think of the Torvalds/Tanenbaum debate over Kernel architectures. Deciding which is correct is way above my pay grade, but it seems clear to me that Linus had to take up a position here and commit to it in order for Linux to thrive the way it has.

I also think of the common criticism of JavaScript's OO structures, that it's a confusing hybrid of Prototypical and Classical OOP, leading to inconsistent or confusing structures. Perhaps a thorough commitment to one or the other would have been better?

So, on the one hand a certain openness and teachability is necessary, but then at strategic points in the development of an idea, a certain stubbornness and myopia seems to be equally important to the ultimate execution of a vision.