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> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're just saying that he might be dangerous because of his ego, not necessarily his ideas. Y'know, I'm not going to disagree there. But taking that big ego for granted, a "search for hidden secrets" is still one of the most socially productive ways you might use it for. Jumping on the bandwagon of a dubious social consensus can be a lot worse.
He literally funded Trump. “Productive” sometimes isn’t desirable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you're just saying that he might be dangerous because of his ego, not necessarily his ideas. Y'know, I'm not going to disagree there. But taking that big ego for granted, a "search for hidden secrets" is still one of the most socially productive ways you might use it for. Jumping on the bandwagon of a dubious social consensus can be a lot worse.
He literally funded Trump. “Productive” sometimes isn’t desirable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He literally funded Trump. “Productive” sometimes isn’t desirable.
Was surprised by that too and am wondering what he could have gained out of that. Thiel is an intelligent guy but something about him seems dubious but can’t really point my finger at it.
> Sometimes, our sense-making machinery has a glitch too. Many years ago, a McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive. Based on that study, they held off on launching a smartphone for another three years. Around that time, an anthropologist who had recently returned from Chinese refugee camps saw how people would sacrifice half their disposable…
> McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive Just goes to show what all those fancy consultancies are worth. Same applies to Gartner and their "predictions". When are people finally going to stop for the scam of the big five brands?
Discovering and acting against an erroneous consensus is easy to claim in hindsight, to boost your image as some kind of special "thinker." Maybe we need a version of pre-registration for thinkers, like what we now have for some branches of science: You have to document your ideas somewhere, before you test them, in order to get credit for the idea afterwards. And report both the right ideas and the wrong ideas.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> McKinsey study concluded that nobody in the developing world would buy smartphones because they were too expensive Just goes to show what all those fancy consultancies are worth. Same applies to Gartner and their "predictions". When are people finally going to stop for the scam of the big five brands?
big five?
Not sure why Microsoft always gets left out...