The joyless world of data-driven startups • Hacker News Board

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#61

Post by lmm » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 10:16 AM UTC

justizin wrote: post #40

baddox wrote: post #7

> Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s critical. But sometimes it fails, or results in unintended consequences that we may not notice for years. > Data-driven journalism gave us Buzzfeed > Data-driven music gave us X-Factor and Pop Idol > Data-driven movies gave us 25 Hollywood sequels planned for this year > Data-driven education gave us Key Performance Indicators and Teaching to the test These first three examples ar…

> A ton of people love all of those things. This is exactly the problem with completely data-driven decisions. First, do people really love those things, or given an ever-increasing trend toward those formulaic things, are those the particular formulaic things they have chosen? Obviously, it's important to use whatever data is available, but isn't the entire notion of a startup to throw away _ALL_ of the prior data a…

Journalism was always a distraction.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#62

Post by icebraining » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 11:33 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #47

baddox wrote: post #7

> Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s critical. But sometimes it fails, or results in unintended consequences that we may not notice for years. > Data-driven journalism gave us Buzzfeed > Data-driven music gave us X-Factor and Pop Idol > Data-driven movies gave us 25 Hollywood sequels planned for this year > Data-driven education gave us Key Performance Indicators and Teaching to the test These first three examples ar…

> These first three examples are awful examples. A ton of people love all of those things. So what? A ton of people loved smoking cigarettes, segregation, creationism, and tons of other BS stuff too. The idea about culture is also making value judgements, not just bending over to whatever "people like" as if mere enjoyment is the be all end all of arguments. Especially since what people "like" is not the objective, "…

The idea about culture is also making value judgements, not just bending over to whatever "people like" as if mere enjoyment is the be all end all of arguments.

But isn't that what the article is about? The song it points as the thing to strive for is Bohemian Rapsody (and not, say, Enter, Evening) exactly because people loved it.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#63

Post by Tycho » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 11:33 AM UTC

api wrote: post #8

baddox wrote: post #7

> Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s critical. But sometimes it fails, or results in unintended consequences that we may not notice for years. > Data-driven journalism gave us Buzzfeed > Data-driven music gave us X-Factor and Pop Idol > Data-driven movies gave us 25 Hollywood sequels planned for this year > Data-driven education gave us Key Performance Indicators and Teaching to the test These first three examples ar…

The failure is the failure to generate novelty or adequately explore alternatives. Enough people might reliable go see 25 sequels, but none of those films will be memorable. None will advance the art of film-making. None will change anyone's life or mentality or affect the culture in any meaningful way. Being data driven means chasing the biggest, loudest signal in your data set. It means pandering to that signal, be…

disagree about sequels not advancing the art of filmmaking

although the Star Wars prequels were not great IMO, they certainly brought a ton of technological innovations which have had enduring impact on filmmaking in general

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#64

Post by tormeh » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 11:51 AM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #34

Lazare wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's seems clear that any content that advances the art is better than a content doesn't advance the art. Better in what way? Let's say Movie A is a well loved blockbuster that millions of people see and enjoy. Movie B is a very mixed piece that isn't really enjoyable to watch, but "advances the art" in some key ways. Movie C is an even more well loved blockbuster than movie A, which even more millions of people wi…

B does not exist for the sake of C, which is profiteering from B. B exists for D, which will be better than B. Isn't this the history of progress in creative human activities?

Sounds like an exploitation vs. exploration discussion. The correct answer is that both is worthless without the other; executing movies well is worthless without exploring new movie ideas and vice versa.

Given that we've been exploring for quite some time I guess exploitation is generally preferable if we had to choose.

Executing a movie with new ideas well is not an option as you're relying on the new idea being good i.e. dumb luck.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#65

Post by zb » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #10

api wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failure is the failure to generate novelty or adequately explore alternatives. Enough people might reliable go see 25 sequels, but none of those films will be memorable. None will advance the art of film-making. None will change anyone's life or mentality or affect the culture in any meaningful way. Being data driven means chasing the biggest, loudest signal in your data set. It means pandering to that signal, be…

> The failure is the failure to generate novelty or adequately explore alternatives. Perhaps you value novelty more than the average person. What might not be "adequate" for you might very well be adequate for a huge portion of people. Throughout this comment you mention several potential goals of content producers (being memorable, advancing the art, changing someone's life, etc.), but you make no argument for why t…

It's possible to make that exact argument in reverse. Those goals are, if not quite universal human values, products of a rich and extremely broad-based cultural tradition.

In contrast, being data-driven means selecting goals that are easy to measure without any attempt to justify them as intrinsically more valuable than other, more difficult to measure goals.

The reality is that goal-selection is always at least somewhat arbitrary, and words like 'data' and 'science' can be and often are used as a cudgel anyone who might support different (arbitrary) goals.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#66

Post by SnacksOnAPlane » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 2:55 PM UTC

Data-driven decisions will get you into local maxima, but you'll get stuck there when there's a good chance that a more radical change would help much, much more.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#67

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

api wrote: post #8

baddox wrote: post #7

> Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s critical. But sometimes it fails, or results in unintended consequences that we may not notice for years. > Data-driven journalism gave us Buzzfeed > Data-driven music gave us X-Factor and Pop Idol > Data-driven movies gave us 25 Hollywood sequels planned for this year > Data-driven education gave us Key Performance Indicators and Teaching to the test These first three examples ar…

The failure is the failure to generate novelty or adequately explore alternatives. Enough people might reliable go see 25 sequels, but none of those films will be memorable. None will advance the art of film-making. None will change anyone's life or mentality or affect the culture in any meaningful way. Being data driven means chasing the biggest, loudest signal in your data set. It means pandering to that signal, be…

> ...25 sequels, but none of those films will be memorable.

* Back to the Future 2 * Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom * Army of Darkness * Goldeneye * Evil Dead 2 * Terminator 2 * Ghostbusters 2 * Captain America: Winter Soldier * Batman: The Dark Knight

Yeah, none of those sequels are memorable. We should stop making sequels and only make original films so we don't waste money on travesties such as these.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#68

Post by collyw » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

alansammarone wrote: post #19

baddox wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The failure is the failure to generate novelty or adequately explore alternatives. Perhaps you value novelty more than the average person. What might not be "adequate" for you might very well be adequate for a huge portion of people. Throughout this comment you mention several potential goals of content producers (being memorable, advancing the art, changing someone's life, etc.), but you make no argument for why t…

It's seems clear that any content that advances the art is better than a content doesn't advance the art. I guess that what he meant is that global maxima is better than local maxima (which is clearly true), and data-driven vision is a hill climbing strategy, thus locking you into a local maxima.

How do you advance art?

I am not very educated in the field of art. I always find orders of magnitude more beauty in nature than in art.

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#69

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

cwyers wrote: post #36

baddox wrote: post #7

> Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s critical. But sometimes it fails, or results in unintended consequences that we may not notice for years. > Data-driven journalism gave us Buzzfeed > Data-driven music gave us X-Factor and Pop Idol > Data-driven movies gave us 25 Hollywood sequels planned for this year > Data-driven education gave us Key Performance Indicators and Teaching to the test These first three examples ar…

I struggle to call Buzzfeed "data-driven journalism." It's certainly SEO-driven, but I don't think I would call it journalism, first off.

Yeah, not journalism. But I'd call it "data-driven media".

Re: The joyless world of data-driven startups

#70

Post by koberstein » Wed, Mar 11, 2015, 6:48 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #67

api wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failure is the failure to generate novelty or adequately explore alternatives. Enough people might reliable go see 25 sequels, but none of those films will be memorable. None will advance the art of film-making. None will change anyone's life or mentality or affect the culture in any meaningful way. Being data driven means chasing the biggest, loudest signal in your data set. It means pandering to that signal, be…

> ...25 sequels, but none of those films will be memorable. * Back to the Future 2 * Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom * Army of Darkness * Goldeneye * Evil Dead 2 * Terminator 2 * Ghostbusters 2 * Captain America: Winter Soldier * Batman: The Dark Knight Yeah, none of those sequels are memorable. We should stop making sequels and only make original films so we don't waste money on travesties such as these.

Those were not sequels planned for this year.