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Lessons from Moneyball

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Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#41

Post by pron »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #38
noahnoahnoah wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm the author of the original post, and obviously I work at 37signals, so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt.) Why do posts make it to the front page? Because enough people upvote them, so there must be something that appeals to at least some people. If you have comments on how I could have made this post more interesting or relevant to you, or improvements in my writing style, I'd certainly apprecia…

Hey Noah, I can't speak for the OP but I will speak for myself here as I share a similar sentiment. You can't please everyone all the time and I wouldn't expect anyone to start taking advice on how to make a post more relevant to me personally. I would simply find another blog that fits my interests. There are plenty. You know the audience and you did a good job of engaging them. Your writing style is great too. You…

This is honest self analysis, and perhaps some of it applies to me as well, but the fact remains that it's hard to rely on HN's front page for the best stuff here. The "unwarranted negativity" perhaps relates to how I chose to express my reservations, but I used harsh statements simply to get attention to the subject.

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#42

Post by pron »

noahnoahnoah wrote: post #40
pron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry if I have offended you, that was not my intention. There is nothing terribly wrong with the post. It's fine. That is not the point. My point is that there seems to be a certain cult following to several persons/companies in the industry among HN readers, which doesn't entirely surprise me, but does disappoint me. I think this community should be more free-thinking and not drink anyone's KoolAid. In fact, I'…

Absolutely no offense taken, and I actually share your desire to avoid KoolAid drinking. Every post should be evaluated on it's merits, and while I can only speak for myself, I hope that things that I write only end up on the front page when they have sufficient merit.

Actually, I think the way a post gets to the front page is this: first, it has to get about 4 upvotes during the half hour or so it stays on the first "newest" page (depending on the time of day this could be longer). This is the critical point. After that, most upvotes are received by posts that have made it to the front page and are somehow distributed among them, possibly based on merit, points for discussion etc. But it's that crucial stage of getting those 4 votes or so in such a short period of time that excludes much of the good stuff, and lets "brand-names" a certain spot.

In addition (once on the front page) there's this whole cult following thing. E.g., anything about GitHub is certain to get a whole-lotta love.

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#43

Post by tristan_juricek »

If you haven't read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" it really summarizes the problems in a lot of decision making in a very clear way.

I'm still reading through, but, you have two major actors in your brain. A "fast" side, and a "slow" side. The fast side makes gut decisions, and the slow side, well, applies more complex judgements and can include a more unbiased view of the world. There's a ton to this process, but importantly, the fast side is very happy to jump to conclusions when presented with missing information.

The lesson of Moneyball, then, was that the "fast side" thinking clouded judgements of baseball prospects by filling out ridiculous statements like "he's got a hot girlfriend, must be able to have the confidence we need on the field".

I'm not sure how you can use the baseball metaphor in terms of software design, though.

But, you could easily say that we're presented with an incomplete amount of information when building software. (What's going to happen when it runs? Who knows! Just build a nice API and continue.) So we definitely all probably have a lot of "quick learning" techniques and processes we just adopt to. For example, Googling before you just stop and think. Or using the UI techniques of other applications, because "that's how the big profit-making companies do it".

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#44

Post by pron »

noahnoahnoah wrote: post #40
pron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry if I have offended you, that was not my intention. There is nothing terribly wrong with the post. It's fine. That is not the point. My point is that there seems to be a certain cult following to several persons/companies in the industry among HN readers, which doesn't entirely surprise me, but does disappoint me. I think this community should be more free-thinking and not drink anyone's KoolAid. In fact, I'…

Absolutely no offense taken, and I actually share your desire to avoid KoolAid drinking. Every post should be evaluated on it's merits, and while I can only speak for myself, I hope that things that I write only end up on the front page when they have sufficient merit.

Also, there is a problem with the voting process here (and on other sites, obviously) in general. If everyone upvote what they like, this is almost certain to ensure that the most interesting stuff never makes it to the front page, because I may like something that is truly original and thought-provoking, and also something nice about, say, GitHub (I'm just focusing on GitHub as an example. They're A-OK). The result is that the mainstream stuff gets lots and lots of votes, but what really interests us doesn't. What you don't upvote is just as important as what you do. I've just posted (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3559105) an interesting lecture by Noga Alon about voting paradoxes.

In addition, I think (though I may be wrong) the HN algorithm makes second chances nearly impossible. If something doesn't make it to the front page within a couple of hours since its posting (or even 30 minutes), it never will.

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#45

Post by dj_axl »

brandnewlow wrote: post #32
its_so_on wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(below may include spoiler) I thought the real lesson was "massively outperform the limits of your shitty resources beyond anyone's expectations, by thinking outside the box and concentrating on algorithms and data modeling; and still not succeed. Then if someone is impressed and offers you more personal compensation than you can imagine, to do the same thing but for them, while actually being given enough resources…

That whole scene there at the end really killed me. It was not made clear to me why the protagonist made the choice he made. I wonder how he feels watching that scene in the film every time he attends a screening.

> It was not made clear to me why the protagonist made the choice he made.

He was rejecting the hoity-toity New Englanders and their fancy tea served in fancy porcelain teacups. However yes I'd agree that wasn't sufficient explanation. Maybe there are more details in the book?

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#46

Post by rmc »

asianmack wrote: post #5
funkah wrote: post #2

A/B testing and the like will only guide you to local maxima. Human thought and intuition, ie design, will retain its importance as the impetus for original ideas which can then be optimized through testing. And users will continue to evaluate software as they do today, "with their own eyes and emotions." Sorry, nerds.

Why test when you can wait for 37signals to publish their successful results? Then just copy that.

Because your audience might not be the same as 37signal's audience, and hence might react differently to different things

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#47

Post by ssharp »

n72 wrote: post #36
ssharp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Even a 162-game sample isn't enough to get any great level of confidence, but it is certainly better than a 3-5 game sample of the first round or 4-7 of subsequent rounds. Beane and the A's were mostly focusing on offense, because that's were they could find value. It's significantly harder to find value in pitchers, and pitchers can help damper some of the "luck" factors in the postseason, though it's very…

"Beane and the A's were mostly focusing on offense, because that's were they could find value." This is not true. One, the big three of Zito, Hudson, and Mulder is one of the best front ends to a pitching staff in baseball history. Moreover, Isringhausen, Bradford, Mecir, and others on that staff were all players undervalued by the traditional ways of evaluating players. They had a team ERA+ 122. That is not a team w…

I worded my post poorly. I meant to imply that their big value finds in free agency came through offense. They were able to adequately replace Damon and Giambi (Jason) with much cheaper counterparts. It would have been much more difficult to find cheap replacements for the big three.

Zito, Hudson, and Mulder were all draft picks. I think Moneyball did discuss the A's strategy to draft college pitchers instead of high school, as Beane found high school pitchers to be over-valued.

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#48

Post by InclinedPlane »

brudgers wrote: post #22

The problem with Moneyball as an analogy for web software development is that software development is not a game with a finite pie outcome model, i.e. there isn't a winner for every loser or vice versa. For web software development there isn't even a clear way to determine winners - e.g. market share or brand awareness may trump revenue as a measure of success depending on the purpose for which web development is und…

The way to get butts in seats is to have compelling games. The way to get compelling games is to have a competitive team. The way to get a competitive team is to find high quality players. I doubt any of this was not in the minds of the team's owners and management.

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#49

Post by brudgers »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #48
brudgers wrote: post #22

The problem with Moneyball as an analogy for web software development is that software development is not a game with a finite pie outcome model, i.e. there isn't a winner for every loser or vice versa. For web software development there isn't even a clear way to determine winners - e.g. market share or brand awareness may trump revenue as a measure of success depending on the purpose for which web development is und…

The way to get butts in seats is to have compelling games. The way to get compelling games is to have a competitive team. The way to get a competitive team is to find high quality players. I doubt any of this was not in the minds of the team's owners and management.

Winning often correlates with butts in seats.

However, it is unlikely that a strategy optimizing dollars/win is the same as dollars/season. Merchandising and TV contracts play too big a role (not to mention ticket prices). Stars sell merchandise and seats even for losing teams.

Re: Lessons from Moneyball

#50

Post by sambeau »

Where I find Moneyball (and a lot of A/B testing) falls down is in the complexity around the player (or mechanism).

Teams often contain players whose value is off-pitch or subtle: leaders, morale-boosters, supporters.

The system that Moneyball demonstrates would struggle to find the a manager that would uses a Moneyball-type system. Where are the stats for the team-picker?

While I'm definitely not saying that there is magic in sports (nor any successful website that ignores A/B testing) I am saying that sometimes a talented spotter (or a talented designer) can produce a fit that a spreadsheet cannot.

(yet.)

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