A Learning a Day

“A military genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.” | Napoleon Bonaparte

Applies just as well to many parts of life.

Simple is hard.

Professor Daniel Kahneman, author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” was one of the greatest economists to have lived. He escaped the holocaust in France and lived an extraordinary life in the United States.

He had many achievements (The Nobel Prize included) and made tremendous contributions to our understanding of human behavior. In my view, the biggest of which was likely debunking the idea that humans are rational. He did this by running many a clever experiment that demonstrated our many biases. In that sense, he was the true father of behavioral economics.

Prof Kahneman passed away last year.

Over the past weeks, it was revealed that he chose to end his life via assisted suicide in Switzerland. It was fascinating to read the excerpts of his last email to his close friends.

“I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief. Most people hate changing their minds,” he said, “but I like to change my mind. It means I’ve learned something…”

“I am not embarrassed by my choice, but I am also not interested in making it a public statement. The family will avoid details about the cause of death to the extent possible, because no one wants it to be the focus of the obits. Please avoid talking about it for a few days.”

“I discovered after making the decision that I am not afraid of not existing, and that I think of death as going to sleep and not waking up. The last period has truly not been hard, except for witnessing the pain I caused others. So if you were inclined to be sorry for me, don’t be,” the report said.

“Thank you for helping make my life a good one.”

I also loved this quote from Prof Philip Tetlock – “Right to the end, he was a lot smarter than most of us. But I am no mind reader. My best guess is he felt he was falling apart, cognitively and physically. And he really wanted to enjoy life and expected life to become decreasingly enjoyable. I suspect he worked out a hedonic calculus of when the burdens of life would begin to outweigh the benefits—and he probably foresaw a very steep decline in his early 90s.. I have never seen a better-planned death than the one Danny designed.”

It was fascinating to read this and pay homage to a person whose work has shaped so many of our lives. He walked through untrodden paths – from the beginning of his life to the end.

RIP Prof Kahneman.

Southwest Airlines recently moved away from an iconic feature – free checked bags. This is expected to generate $800 million in earnings this year and their shares rose ~10%.

Activist investor Elliott Management had disclosed a $2B stake and understandably pushed the airline to find ways to grow profits. Cue: the company’s first ever layoff and then the removal of free checked bags.

For a company that trademarked the phrase “Bags Fly Free” and repeatedly said it stood out from competitors because of this feature, this is a massive move. The big question, of course, is its long-term impact.

I’m not here to speculate – I don’t know enough about the industry or Southwest’s financials to claim I have the answer. Instead, this is a beautiful case study in decision making and trade-offs.

On the face of it, $800 million in earnings every year might seem like a big win. But that ignores the long-term cost of the move – which both exist and are likely substantial.

There’s no free lunch.

Often, the most effective retort is the one where we manage to simply bite our lips and let it go.

The same trade-offs will be good for someone, feel wrong for others, be extremely gratifying for some others, and deeply annoying for a few.

That’s worth remembering whenever we evaluate trade-offs. There’s rarely right or wrong for most decisions. There is what makes sense for you at this time in this context.

The only right or wrong is if the decision is made thoughtfully and intentionally with consideration of the second order consequences.

One of the most fascinating truths about life is that our perception of an event is, more often than not, less about the event and more about the lens with which we choose to view it.

Most things are simply what we make of them.

“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.” | Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

It’s been many years since I’ve read the Alchemist. It felt magical then as it had this quality that just made you believe in possibility.

And this quote reminded me of that magic.

There’s a lovely bit of advice that Chilli Heeler, Bluey’s mom, shares in an episode of the show. She gives her daughter, Bingo, a checklist to cope with setbacks.

Of course, it becomes that combination of adorable and memorable when Bingo repeats that checklist later when faced with a setback. She goes –

“Have a cry…
Pick myself up…
Dust myself off…
And keep going. The show must go on!”

The show must go on indeed.

A checklist for the ages.

“This is the essence of the transaction between storyteller and audience. The “true” story is not the one that exists in my mind; it is certainly not the written words on the bound paper that you hold in your hands. The story in my mind is nothing but a hope; the text of the story is the tool I created in order to try to make that hope a reality. The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.

The story of Ender’s Game is not this book though it has that title emblazoned on it. The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you. remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.” | Orson Scott Card

This was beautifully written and is a beautiful way of thinking about storytelling.

It resonated.

Whenever you attempt to build something good, there’s that pivotal moment when you’re just about to ship that’s equal parts humbling and nerve wracking.

It is the moment when you hand over what you’ve built to your users for their judgment and just say – “Here, we made this. We hope you find it useful.”

It almost doesn’t matter how much user validation you’ve done prior. You just find yourself wondering if the trade-offs you made for this first version were the right ones. You hope the good outweighs the issues (for there always are issues).

How it pans out matters in the short-run. It decides the fate of teams and even whole companies, adds or removes career significant momentum, and so on.

In the long run however, it matters most that we just keep at it and keep improving our process.

Keep shipping, and keep getting better at how we ship.

In time, we’ll develop the taste and ability to make better things.