think like a freak

Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:

• First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it.
• Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to.
• Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions.
• Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.
• Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day.
• Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.

IDEAS: small, big or

great ideas come in three sizes:

small

big

transformative

dumb ideas are dumb regardless of size.

if your idea is dumb, the smaller the better.

LITTLE BETS

how breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries

author is peter sims

wiseman found that lucky people tend to be open to opportunities or insights that come along spontaneously, whereas unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine, fixated on certain specific outcomes


praising ability alone reduces persistence, while praising effort or the processes a person goes through to learn leads to growth mind set behaviors.


those favoring a growth mind set believe that intelligence and abilities can be grown through effort, and tend to view failures or setbacks as opportunities for growth. they have a desire to constantly challenge and stretch themselves.


affordable loss principle: how much can you afford to lose?
seasoned entrepreneurs will tend to determine in advance what they are willing to lose, rather than calculating expected gains.


illusion of rationality:
ideas or assumptions seem logical in a plan, spreadsheet, power point or memo, yet they haven't been validated on the ground or in the real world


ned barnholdt: a lot of our most successful ideas came from the bottom up, by really understanding user needs

when much is known, procedural planning approaches work.
when much is unknown, they do not.
procedural planning is opposite of improvisation.

who is larry summers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers

highlights:

economic advisor to obama
secretary of treasury under clinton
president of harvard
chief economist at world bank

board director at lending club

stupidity and lack of knowledge

most mistakes occur because of:

stupidity and/or
ignorance

insightful quotes

what you know, they will never know and what they know, you can learn.

for the last time, incentives matter!

origin of the word amok:
lonely men, suffering from loss of love, money and/or face (respect).

sunlight is the best disinfectant

look for the higher payoff strategy

launch fast and iterate

keys to maximizing earnings in the work place:
intelligence,
education,
human capital,
punctuality
and ability to handle criticism

each day management presents dozens of opportunities to do something dumb.
stellar managers simply resist the temptation.

smart people should resist the temptation to be too clever by half
and
should absolutely resist the temptation to make clever investments which they do not understand 100%

don't try to be brilliant.
focus on not being stupid.

i work to put food in the fridge

i need to pay for food, shelter and entertainment.

why can't people be honest about work and money?

....

pretending to add value


http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/11/the-art-of-not-working-at-work/382121/?single_page=true

always pick the choice that scares you a little

http://blog.codinghorror.com/10-years-of-coding-horror/

http://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-achieve-ultimate-blog-success-in-one-easy-step/

the status quo is too easy

questions to ask yourself before accepting job offer

1. is the company growing?

2. is your supervisor competent? nice?

3. are your coworkers competent? nice?

week 9 post mortem

chargers were throttled by dolphins 37-0 in miami

zero points
zero red zone plays

why was the offense so ineffective?
offensive line

defense is also horrible especially on 3rd down and in red zone

3 game losing streak
1-3 last 4 games

3-1
2-2
0-1

patriots look like the best team right now but 8 weeks left in the season

peyton manning continues to struggle in foxborough

patriots defense did a great job neutralizing broncos offense especially on 3rd and 4th down

the game was over in the 2nd quarter

anatomy of a company (aka how to kill a business)

1. do not understand business model

2. lack of mobile strategy

3. operational inefficiency

4. ignore clients

5. ignore employees

job vs. career vs. calling

job = pay the bills

career = increasingly better work 

calling = important part of your life and identity

source: cal newport

billion dollar lessons - book review

above average

first half of book was interesting, slightly repetitive

second half of the book was more prescriptive, less interesting and more repetitive

don't buy it

monday morning qb - october 13 2014

lions defense looks good

giants look terrible

browns look good

steelers offense is struggling

dolphins blew game against packers with poor situational defense with 20 seconds left to play

chargers defense looked shaky against raiders.
raiders could have won their first game

rams were controlling game against 49ers, 14-3, right before halftime but 49ers scored on a deep pass td before halftime. bad defense by the rams, playing man to man in that situation. changed the game. 49ers took control in the 2nd half.

company valuation and future growth

how do you determine the value of a company?

i asked my friend 

he replied: future growth

my response: 

how do you know how much the company will grow in the future?

who can predict the future?

no one that i know

is it a growth industry?

my response: 

how do you know if something is a growth industry?

can you take market share or invent something new to generate growth?

my response: 

two different things

gaining market share is hard

inventing something people will use or buy is hard

the industry drives the innovation to a degree
does the industry have innovation to offer?
can the innovation make a material difference or just a minor contribution?
my response:
i don't know if industry drives innovation
people innovate, not industry
this is an assumption people will disagree about

in most cases industry have some innovation to offer, most of it minor

iPhones do not grow on trees

neither does innovative thinking

future valuation is based on a lot of optimistic assumptions

technology = scale
future growth depends on technology? sounds reasonable to me

schumpeter, the look of a leader

typical ceo is

at least 6 feet tall

deep voice

good posture

touch of grey hair (not bald)

fit for his age

negatives:

overweight

uptalk

power poses

amy cuddy ted talk

executive presence

sylvia anne hewlett

lower register of your voice

eliminate uptalk

eye contact during presentation

work out regularly

oscar wilde: only shallow people who do not judge by appearances

schumpeter: decluttering the company

for a person or a company

a manager's job is to facilitate 

yet most managers do the exact opposite 

decluttering the company 

relentless fight against bureaucracy

bulging inbox

endless meetings

long list of objectives

forms of clutter: 

1. organizational complexity

2. meetings

3. emails

clutter hurts morale and productivity

most valuable company resource = time of employees

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21610237-businesses-must-fight-relentless-battle-against-bureaucracy-decluttering-company

billion dollar lessons (kindle)

currently reading billion dollar lessons

story about failed mergers and acquisitions

so far, the book is disappointing
topic is interesting but the writing is dry and repetitive

sounds like 2 management consultants writing a book

interesting case studies:
kodak ignores digital cameras from 1981 until it died

how many people are using your product?

https://medium.com/@joshelman/the-only-metric-that-matters-ab24a585b5ea

the big picture

if you focus on too many details, you lose sight of the bigger picture

ignore mobile

treat tablet like desktop

idiot proof business

you should only buy a business any idiot can run because one day an idiot will be running (vs ruining) it

advertising (fight club)

advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

technical debt

https://medium.com/@joaomilho/festina-lente-e29070811b84

lending club and baseball betting

avoid A's

avoid renters

avoid debt to income ratio over 25 percent

check baseball odds after midnight or morning

get users manually

Our advice at Y Combinator is always to make a really good product and go out and get users manually. The two work hand-in-hand: you need to talk individually to early adopters to make a really good product.  So focusing on the narrow and deep end of the sales/marketing continuum is not just the most effective way to get users. Your startup will die if you don’t.

http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2014/06/03/jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-focus-on-sales-not-marketing/

you need to have something people want

 "What many people are missing is that you need to have something people want," says Noah Kagan, formerly a product manager at Facebook

http://online.wsj.com/articles/growth-hacking-helps-startups-boost-their-users-1401320789?tesla=y&mod=djemSB_h&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303633604579589872338854520.html?mod=djemSB_h

i picked the wrong career... now what (the fuck do i do)?

almost 40, stuck in a job i hate

i picked the wrong career

stupid career choice

after 9 years as a data analyst, i finally realize it's a dead end job, a dead end career.

now what?

study hacks

http://calnewport.com/blog/

detectify

https://detectify.com/

http://lifehacker.com/10-of-the-most-important-life-lessons-i-learned-from-my-1547298543

http://lifehacker.com/10-of-the-most-important-life-lessons-i-learned-from-my-1547298543 

https://www.snappycheckout.com/

https://www.snappycheckout.com/

what not to do...

what not to do:

1. ignore fixing bugs on site
2. ignore mobile: iphone and ipad

goethe

be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid

whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it

scorecasting notes

ignore data and diverse views at your peril.

seeking controversial or opposite opinions and challenging convention improve your decision-making.

lending club tips

http://www.lendingmemo.com/lending-club-strategy/

betting tips

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-maloney/dont-be-a-square-10-tips_b_753173.html


http://www.wagerminds.com/blog/nfl-handicapping/how-often-do-nfl-underdogs-win-outright-a-historical-analysis-by-spread-ranges-2496/


http://www.philsteele.com/blogs/2012/Aug12/DBAug1.html


west coast teams dominate night games

http://www.slate.com/authors.phil_birnbaum.html


http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/my-insights-from-sloan-sports-analytics-conference/

lessons from colts comeback

if you have a 28 points lead in the 2nd half:

1. run the ball
2. prevent defense to prevent big play

chiefs fucked this up