Author: admin

The Stormtrooper Problem

Intelligence agencies face a unique set of problems that require creative, un-googleable solutions to one-off problems.
You’d naturally think they would value and seek out diversity in order to solve those problems. And you’d be wrong. Increasingly it’s harder and harder to get a security clearance.
Do you have a lot of debt? That might make you susceptible to blackmail. Divorced? You might be an emotional wreck, which could mean you’ll make emotional decisions and not rational ones. Do something as a youth that you don’t want anyone to know? That makes it harder to trust you. Gay but haven’t told anyone? Blackmail risk. Independently wealthy? That means you don’t need our paycheck, which means you might be harder to work with. Do you have a nuanced opinion of politics? What about Edward Snowden? Yikes. The list goes on.
As the process gets harder and harder (trying to reduce risk), there is less and less diversity in the door. The people that make it through the door are Stormtroopers.
And if you’re one of the lucky Stormtrooopers to make it in, you’re given a checklist career development path. If you want a promotion, you know the exact experience and training you need to receive one. It’s simple. It doesn’t require much thought on your part.
The combination of these two things means that employees increasingly look at—and attempt to solve—problems the same way. The workforce is less effective than it used to be. This means you have to hire more people to do the same thing or outsource more work to people that hire misfits. This is the Stormtrooper problem.

Source: The Stormtrooper Problem: Why Thought Diversity Makes Us Better

The question is not, do you dare to be great? The question is, do you dare to be different? To diverge from the pack is required if you’re going to be a superior in anything. Number two, do you dare to be wrong? Number three, do you dare to look wrong? Because even things which are going to be right in the long run, maybe look wrong in the short run. So, you have to be willing to live with all those three things, different, wrong, and looking wrong, in order to be able to take the risk required and engage in the idiosyncratic behavior required for success.
I think one of the most important things to have kids who function well around money is for them to have a feeling of finiteness. And this goes back really to “Economic Reality,” the memo. They should understand that money is finite. No matter how much money you have, you can get in trouble if you spend too much of it. And since it’s finite, you shouldn’t waste it. You should make good decisions.

Source: Luck, Risk and Avoiding Losers: Oaktree Capital Co-founder Howard Marks [The Knowledge Project Ep. #53]

I started Wharton 55 years ago last month. And the first thing I remember learning there is that you can’t tell the quality of a decision from the outcome. And that pervades my thinking. And I think it’s very important. And then I played backgammon with my good friend Bruce Newburg, out in Los Angeles, and you need some crazy number to win, and you get it. That doesn’t mean you’re a good player. It means you were lucky.
I think I’ve been the luckiest person on the planet. And I think it was to that that people were responding. But I get into arguments with people and a lot of people say, “Oh—!” Well, what started the article is, I read a piece that quoted some Silicon Valley guy who says, “Success is never accidental. You make your own luck.” And I don’t agree. I think luck is a real thing and it’s important and it’s inherently unfair, but that’s life.
For most investors, loss is the bad outcome they’re concerned with. But, the truth is, if it’s the probability of bad outcomes, there are really at least two risks that we should think about. One is the probability of loss and the other is the probability of gains that you miss out on.

Source: Luck, Risk and Avoiding Losers: Oaktree Capital Co-founder Howard Marks [The Knowledge Project Ep. #53]

The math, and Meituan’s potential, can be dizzying. China’s urban areas have 2,426 people per square kilometer (6,283 per square mile), almost eight times the comparable U.S. population density. While the U.S. has 10 cities with 1 million or more people, China has 156. Deliveries in China cost about $1, compared with $5 in the U.S., iResearch says. Meituan retained about 63 percent of the country’s meal delivery market at the end of 2018, according to Bernstein Research, even as Alibaba spent billions over the previous several years to capture most of the rest.

The growing conflict and its costs have delayed some of Wang’s other initiatives. He put on hold an expansion into ride-hailing after setting up money-losing experiments in two cities. He says he’s now focused on getting each delivery person to drop off 40 percent more orders. Wang estimates Alibaba, based on its balance sheet, can afford to spend at its current level for about 12 more months, but he expects to last years.

Source: Meituan and Alibaba Have Reshaped Food Delivery in China

Wang had learned from his mistakes. He expanded quickly, to hundreds of cities in 2011, but spent less recklessly than his competitors did. While two leading, homegrown group-discount sites flamed out and Groupon shut down its China business, Wang focused on food and dining to develop steady repeat customers. “They thought the business was group buying,” he says of competitors. “We thought the business was e-commerce for services.” By 2013, with rivals continuing to fade away, he shifted from volume discoun

Source: Meituan and Alibaba Have Reshaped Food Delivery in China

JOSH ELMAN WANTS to fall in love. He wants to make this investment. But the startup founder sitting across from him—bland and too confident for his own good—is making it difficult. The founder is not so much playing hard to get as clueless.

Source: What Really Happens in a Greylock VC Pitch Meeting? | WIRED

If you want people to pay attention to you someday, you have to eventually write so good that people will recommend it to their friends — in fact, so good that they want to be the first one to recommend it to their friends for the implied good taste.

No growth hack or brilliant content promotion idea can save you long term if you don’t have a sufficiently good writing.

So if you’re trying to grow your traction around a mediocre writing, fix it now. Don’t try to avoid the problem by writing lazy listicles or looking for aggressive tactics. And if you’re just starting out, take the time to write stories your audience loves, no matter how long it takes.

Source: How we got 11.3 million pageviews without the growth hacking bullshit

WHAT CAN EMPLOYERS DO AS AN ALTERNATIVE?

Instead of calling employees out the things they do incorrectly, bring awareness to positive results. When someone has a good outcome, call attention to it. Drawing attention to excellence will increase the likelihood of further success and better your team.

Publicly highlight the good instead of privately chastising for the bad. For instance, if someone botches a report, though you may want to stop to call attention to the incorrect way, highlighting a correct example can have a more significant impact.

Make sure that the praise that you give is always specific. When you notice something awesome, say exactly why it’s awesome. Tell your employee exactly what caught your eye instead of delivering blanket praise. Say how the action made you feel and why.

When someone asks for feedback after making mistakes, it may be tempting to start listing out the things that they are doing wrong to help them improve. Instead, ask them what things they feel that they feel they are currently doing well. Focusing on the positive primes the brain with oxytocin that makes the brain more open to finding new solutions. Following this, ask how they have solved problems in the past, which should be easier for them to arrive at following the boost of oxytocin you primed them with. Asking these questions can lead them to deduce what actions they should take to better their performance in the future.

Source: Here’s How Feedback Is Actually Hurting Your Team

I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
-Abe Lincoln

To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish… Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural… The kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power, the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure… Let us use that power. Let us all unite.
— Charlie Chaplin