This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (author of “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit”, former pro poker player)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Fostering Inclusive Decision-Making
This chapter explores creating an inclusive meeting culture that prioritizes curiosity and diverse perspectives over coercion. It emphasizes the importance of independent idea generation followed by collaborative discussions to enhance decision-making quality in teams. Additionally, the discussion highlights the significance of effective feedback loops in investment processes and the common psychological challenges in evaluating decision quality.
Annie Duke is a former professional poker player, a decision-making expert, and a special partner at First Round Capital. She is the author of Thinking in Bets (a national bestseller) and Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. In our conversation, we cover:
• What Annie learned from the late Daniel Kahneman
• The power of pre-mortems and “kill criteria”
• The relationship between money and happiness
• The power of “mental time travel”
• The nominal group technique for better decision quality
• How First Round Capital improved their decision-making process
• Many tactical decision-making frameworks
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-better-decisions-annie-duke
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Where to find Annie Duke:
• X: https://twitter.com/AnnieDuke
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-duke/
• Website: https://www.annieduke.com/
• Substack: https://www.annieduke.com/substack/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Annie’s background
(03:53) Lessons from Daniel Kahneman: humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness
(09:15) The importance of unconditional love in parenting
(15:15) Mental time travel and “nevertheless”
(20:06) The extent of improvement possible in decision-making
(24:54) Independent brainstorming for better decisions
(35:36) Making sure people feel heard
(42:41) The “3Ds” framework to make better decisions
(44:49) Decision quality
(55:46) Improving decision-making at First Round Capital
(01:05:05) Using pre-mortems and kill criteria
(01:10:15) Making explicit what’s implicit
(01:10:55) The challenges of quitting and knowing when to walk away
(01:19:23) Where to find Annie
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Referenced:
• Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html
• Adversarial collaboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration
• Does more money correlate with greater happiness?: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/does-more-money-correlate-greater-happiness-Penn-Princeton-research#
• Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36857342/
• Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/strategic-decisions-when-can-you-trust-your-gut
• Cass Sunstein on X: https://twitter.com/CassSunstein
• Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside
• A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-framework-for-finding-product-market
• First Round Capital: https://firstround.com/
• Brett Berson on X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
• Renegade Partners: https://www.renegadepartners.com/
• Renata Quintini on X: https://twitter.com/rquintini
• Roseanne Wincek on X: https://twitter.com/imthemusic
• Josh Kopelman on X: https://twitter.com/joshk
• Bill Trenchard on X: https://twitter.com/btrenchard
• Linnea Gandhi on X: https://twitter.com/linneagandhi
• Maurice Schweitzer on X: https://twitter.com/me_schweitzer
• Problems with premortems: https://sjdm.org/presentations/2021-Poster-Gandhi-Linnea-debiasing-premortem-selfserving~.pdf
• Create a Solid Plan on How to Fail Big This Year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2020/02/07/create-a-solid-plan-on-how-to-fail-big-this-year/
• Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away: https://www.amazon.com/Quit-Power-Knowing-When-Walk/dp/0593422996/
• Richard Thaler on X: https://twitter.com/R_Thaler
• Stewart Butterfield on X: https://twitter.com/stewart
• Glitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game)
• How the Founder of Slack & Flickr Turned Colossal Failures into Billion-Dollar Companies: https://medium.com/swlh/how-the-founder-of-slack-flickr-turned-failures-into-million-and-billion-dollar-companies-7bcaf0d35d66
• The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-most-fascinating-profile-youll-ever-read-about-a-guy-and-his-boring-startup/
• The Alliance for Decision Education: https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/
• Make Better Decisions course on Maven: https://maven.com/annie-duke/make-better-decisions
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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