This will make you a better decision-maker | Annie Duke (author of “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit,” former pro poker player)
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-selfser
