Podcast
Seven Deadly Stupidities
Hosted by GD Pillari · EN
How to Learn from the Failures of Others. 80% of success is avoiding the Stupidities.
See the Seven Deadly Stupidities below.
Going for the Moonshot
Despite claims made by sponsors and participants, many moonshots are not moonshots at all, but are incremental improvements on existing technologies. Also, Moonshots are not called “Freeshots,” and the potential financial, reputational, and other collateral damage from a failed moonshot should be considered.
Surrendering to FOMO
It is well documented that humans are more likely to respond to fears and threats than the rewards of pleasure. Avoid situations where there is a rush to “get in” and little fear of failure. For this, you need to trigger not a reaction of exuberance, but that primitive reaction of fear and threat. Think “Why is there all this pressure to rush into this?” instead of “I better hurry to get in before I miss it.” Use the fear-threat emotion to develop and refine your FOMO radar.
Relying on Family and Friends
Most advice from family and friends is unresearched and biased. I went to that college and things were great. Where is the analysis of majors, graduation rates, alumni success, etc.? More often than not, there is none of it. So, it’s usually an older (and therefor presumed wiser) family member or friend not giving thoughtful, up-to-date, and researched advice, but rather providing an opinion. Not a good basis for a Tectonic Decision.
Getting Blinded by the Upside
Sometimes the risks of a decision are not visible or obvious. We may be in a familiar situation and overestimate our abilities and mentally minimize the risks since we have done something many times without a problem. Other times, it may be a new situation and we run into the problem of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” Be focused on, but not blinded by the upside of your decision but be sure you can identify and live with the downside.
Using Quick and Dirty Thinking
A quick solution appeals to our sense of immediate gratification. But, with few exceptions, quick and dirty thinking creates a false sense of truth and can be outright dangerous, especially when a Tectonic Decision is at hand.
Trusting the Media
Historian Daniel Boorstin had a killer concept in his book The Image: We have evolved from a society that admired people for their accomplishments (eg, explorers and scientists) to one that admires people simply because they are well-known (eg, a celebrity). He coined the term “well-knownness.” For the most part, celebrities are known for their well-knownness, not for achievements or contributions to society.
Neglecting to Measure Twice
Why are so many smart people not smart enough to realize what they don’t know? Probably because they want to be admired as the “smartest” or the “fastest” to make a ...
4episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Always Measure Twice: JP Morgan Burned by 31-year old. Part 2, Lessons Learned.
Jan 30, 202400:19:44Tap to summarizeBy most measures, JP Morgan is the largest financial institution in the world. It has more than 250,000 employees and does business in almost every country on the planet. JPM acquired a small company called Frank Financial that was owned and operated by 31-year old Charlie Javice. For JPM, the rationale for the acquisition of Frank was that it provided JPM greater reach into the population of college-bound young adults that used Frank for help with financial aid. By acquiring this client base, JPM would have the opportunity to penetrate this Generation Z population and have them start using JPM’s credit cards, bank accounts, stock-trading functions, auto loans, home mortgages, and more. Seemed to make a lot of sense at the strategic level for JPM.In the case of Frank, JPM thought it was acquiring a profitable business with 4.2 million new accounts as targets for the menu of JPM services. These accounts were listed in a database and included name, address, and other personal information on each account. After the acquisition closed and $175 million changed hands, JPM discovered a disturbing fact about those 4.2 million accounts: more than 90% of them were fabricated. Oops.
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Was Thomas Edison a Moonshot Inventor?
Jan 24, 202400:08:09Tap to summarizeA great businessman, yes. A great inventor, maybe.Until his death in 1931, Edison and his researchers were credited with more than 1,000 patents.However, his most important invention was one that couldn’t be patented: the process of modern invention itself. By applying the principles of mass production to the 19th-century model of the solitary inventor, Edison created a process in which skilled scientists, machinists, designers, and others collaborated at a single facility to research, develop, and manufacture new technologies. From the Menlo Park MuseumThere were more than 20 other inventors who created incandescent light bulbs before Edison. But Edison and his army at the Menlo Park lab kept experimenting with different materials for filaments, since the burn time, or the time light was created, was always too short. The Edison team tested thousands of materials to improve on existing light-bulb technology before settling on a type of carbon that would burn for 14 hours. Later improvements by Edison and his team included using bamboo instead of carbon, which burned for more than a thousand hours. One of the world’s most important inventions was not a moonshot after all but a series of incremental improvements of an existing technology.
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Blinded by the Upside: How Alabama Won the 2018 NCAA Championship
Jan 24, 202400:11:25Tap to summarizeIt was halftime of the 2018 NCAA Football Championship and Alabama was trailing Georgia by a score of 13-0. As the second half started, the Alabama quarterback, Jalen Hurts, was on the bench. Going into the game, Hurts was 26-2 over the previous two seasons, with one of the losses being in the previous year’s championship game. The new quarterback to start the second half for Alabama was unknown freshman Tua Tagovailo.So, what was Coach Saban thinking? Let’s learn a little about Saban and Alabama football and you will realize the logic used by Saban to take such a risk to go for the upside despite the obvious downside.Saban understood the downside of “going for it.” If Alabama lost, Saban would never be forgiven for pulling Hurts. Forget about the wins and national championship trophies in the Alabama athletic center. He would have been run out of town and into a witness-protection program.
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Always Measure Twice: JP Morgan Burned by 31-year-old
Jan 15, 202400:09:54Tap to summarizeBy most measures, JP Morgan is the largest financial institution in the world. It has more than 250,000 employees and does business in almost every country on the planet. JPM acquired a small company called Frank Financial that was owned and operated by 31-year old Charlie Javice. For JPM, the rationale for the acquisition of Frank was that it provided JPM greater reach into the population of college-bound young adults that used Frank for help with financial aid. By acquiring this client base, JPM would have the opportunity to penetrate this Generation Z population and have them start using JPM’s credit cards, bank accounts, stock-trading functions, auto loans, home mortgages, and more. Seemed to make a lot of sense at the strategic level for JPM.In the case of Frank, JPM thought it was acquiring a profitable business with 4.2 million new accounts as targets for the menu of JPM services. These accounts were listed in a database and included name, address, and other personal information on each account. After the acquisition closed and $175 million changed hands, JPM discovered a disturbing fact about those 4.2 million accounts: more than 90% of them were fabricated. Oops.RSSVERIFY
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