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This article puts it better than I ever could. I had a similar reaction when I read extremely critical press coverage of some VCs in Europe investing in YPlan,

This article puts it better than I ever could. I had a similar reaction when I read extremely critical press coverage of some VCs in Europe investing in YPlan, which eventually sold for a nominal amount to Time Out London. The synopsis of all the coverage was: "How could they have spent all that money? And how could the investors have been so STUPID?" My friend Fred Destin wrote a great essay on this[1], and I'll do the horrid thing of quoting my own note to him in reply: > It’s analogous to a soccer fan questioning the manager’s decision to put player X on the field instead of Y. The manager sees both players on the training ground for hours every day, knows their mood, talks to them, understands how they respond to different situations, and consults his coaches. Then the matchgoing fan sees 90 minutes of output on Saturday and makes a judgement with <1% of the data a manager has. > Past a certain point in fundraising and traction, it’s impossible to believe that a startup failing is anything more interesting than a combination of poorer-than-expected execution, and bets not paying off. [1] https://medium.com/tech-london/hey-yplan-how-do-you-dare-go-bust-177bc67efdbb https://medium.com/tech-london/hey-yplan-how-do-you-dare-go-...

asdff 6y ago
Scale this up to anything and you will want to be governed by a benevolent dictator. Not even senators themselves read the full bills they vote on, and I don't blame them with it being hundreds of pages of reading that could easily be parted out to aides, but the electorate certainly doesn't have this advantage. Maybe 1% of voters are truly informed.
- adrianN 6y ago
  It's perfectly fine not to be informed (or interested!) in most topics. It only becomes dangerous when you're uninformed but trust your own opinion more than the experts. Popular examples are climate change, or the COVID-19 response.
  - DiffEq 6y ago
    SO we are to be ruled by experts? Show me the model produced by he experts that has been right? Show me the science behind the idea of quarantining the entire population in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. There is science behind quarantining sick people - but not healthy people. Show me the science behind the social distancing - 6 foot rule? I mean really - where IS the science to those things? These experts are self-proclaimed. I am more than willing to listen to a bridge builder tell me why I need to use a certain kind of steel as apposed to another - but many of these experts that we have been listening to lately are anything but experts.
    - afthonos 6y ago
      I’m confused. Are you arguing for being ruled by non-experts? Sounds like you think we already are, what’s the problem? The opposite of “expert” isn’t “uses magical common sense to arrive at the right decision”, it’s “crapshoot”.
      - pdonis 6y ago
        > Are you arguing for being ruled by non-experts? No, he is making the valid point that in many areas that are highly relevant to public policy, there are no experts. Those who call themselves "experts" actually aren't. Nobody has enough understanding of the problem domain to make accurate predictions. In such a case, the only viable solution is for nobody to "rule".
        scruple 6y ago
        "The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists." - Joan Robinson, 1955 She's not wrong. If my adulthood has taught me anything it's that supposed "experts" are oftentimes anything but. And they're certainly not trustworthy just because of their title or credentialing.
        afthonos 6y ago
        Decisions have to be made—including doing nothing. Someone is always "ruling". Diffusing responsibility does not change that fact (though it can have other significant benefits). I'm sympathetic to your POV, by the way, because uncritically listening to experts has literally killed millions of people in the past century. But the key word is "uncritically". Pushback is healthy, discussion is super-healthy; my position, though, is that in any argument, experts should get more weight unless the people arguing back have strong, on-the-ground evidence.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  My IT director doesn't know every facet of what is in our environment, and generally is not up to date as to what changes are happening on the day to day. And he doesn't need to be. The point of high-level workers is so they can focus on high-level priorities. They have staff -- legal aids, system admins, business analysts, whatever -- whose job it is to digest that stuff and put it into simple briefings for leadership to evaluate in the context of other issues. > I don't blame them with it being hundreds of pages of reading that could easily be parted out to aides, but the electorate certainly doesn't have this advantage The electorate isn't expected to have this advantage, and is not expected to read the bills. The whole reason for representative democracy is so that the common voter does not have to parse this stuff -- that's explicitly the point. I find someone who reflects my views and I put them in office, and trust that they'll be able to digest what's happening and vote accordingly. The common man isn't expected to understand tariffs, international banking, military theory, computer engineering, social justice issues, and food scarcity.
  - cvlasdkv 6y ago
    A lot to unpack here. > The common man isn't expected to understand tariffs, international banking, military theory, computer engineering, social justice issues, and food scarcity. What better use is there of the common man's time than understanding societal issues like justice and scarcity? Are you describing how the world is or claiming how it should be? If you do not understand justice, scarcity, etc. how can you claim to elect someone who reflects your views--ignoring that a lot of politics is lesser evil voting? An uneducated populace voting is a worst-case scenario for a representative democracy.
    - michaelcampbell 6y ago
      > > The common man isn't expected to understand tariffs, international banking, military theory, computer engineering, social justice issues, and food scarcity. > What better use is there of the common man's time than understanding societal issues like justice and scarcity? Both of those can be true.
      - 6y ago
- Paperweight 6y ago
  Political theory: The study of how to maximize the knowledge of decision-makers while minimizing their conflict of interest.
- morsch 6y ago
  I get the opposite message: You're saying (and I agree) that even a small group of people chosen to be dedicated to making informed decisions is not able to keep up with the demands it puts on them, specifically they need to make decisions based on very partial information. How is a benevolent dictator supposed to do better? That doesn't make sense. At least in theory the wisdom of crowds can do better. In practice, it's often hard to argue.
PakG1 6y ago
Regarding sports. Unfortunately, let's not discount the politics and human nature involved in fielding a team. Some players get to play because of their salary, some players get to play because of their relationship with the coach, some players get to play because they're trade bait, some coaches really are wrong, etc. https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/maple-leafs-coach-randy-carlyle-accepts-joffrey-lupul-155538837.html https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/maple-leafs... Coaches are human too. They are just as fallible as the rest of us. They may work with better information than the fan, but this doesn't mean that they should never be questioned. And good coaches allow themselves to change opinions if criticism makes sense. For business... for every Netflix, there's a WeWork that everyone can see is insane and they're not wrong.
- znpy 6y ago
  Regarding sports, most people fail to understand that most professional sport association (like football "clubs") are actually entertainment companies. The sport is just the bait for the spectators. A coach might choose a certain player over another just because the people acclaim him/her. Also, don't forget that scandals about rigged games are quite regular nowadays.
  - asdff 6y ago
    The american model is certainly entertainment focused, but the european football model at least has youth leagues and a lot more local outreach than a given american pro team in their host city.
    - LanceH 6y ago
      But they still make decisions on who to play (partially) based on who puts butts in seats.
- derefr 6y ago
  > some players get to play because they’re trade bait I mean, insofar as we’re measuring teams by winning games, rather than measuring teams by how profitable they are, we’re probably not measuring their inclusive fitness. Winning doesn’t help you if nobody pays attention; and, vice versa, making money helps you (in the long term) even if you don’t win.
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I disagree with the soccer fan analogy. Often in soccer the team manager publicly reveals key perspectives and strategies that always guide their decisions. They also reveal patterns of player selection that link to their perspectives and strategies, often over many years across multiple teams. If Jose Mourinho comes to coach your team, you know right away the player recruitment and selection will be rooted in a very calculated defensive approach, conservative possession-oriented play style. He has done this at several clubs where it was universally understood to be a bad strategic idea given the talents of the specific players he would be inheriting, even from his first day on the job. Even casual fans could see that, despite the coach spending hours and hours observing player training, talking to players and studying game film, he was biased to impose his preferred strategy onto the team no matter what, even if all the evidence said it was unjustified. Considering the Premier League further, this effect just gets worse the less skilled the manager is. Many mid or bottom table teams have blunderously bad managers that combine both being low skilled with being hyper committed to a fixed strategy regardless of the characteristics of their players. Once they have dug their heels in on the strategy, they can’t go back on it or appear to buckle under fan pressure, or else they seem like a pushover / non-expert with no special knowledge worth millions of dollars, and it becomes entirely political (making the strategic weakness even more apparent). I would say it’s a case where “the wisdom of crowds” really is wisdom and the consensus criticisms about player selection are usually very valid and well-supported and the connection to the coach’s strategic weaknesses is obvious.
- darkerside 6y ago
  I'd say both of those things are frequently true, and it's hard to know which is right when. "Fans" in aggregate also have the benefit of hindsight and confirmation bias. For every smart fan who was right, there were many who were wrong but don't keep bringing it up years later. Coaches OTOH have to live with the decisions made in the moment, right or wrong.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > If Jose Mourinho comes to coach your team, you know right away 1. You're about to spend a whole heaping wad of cash on overpriced players that other people are trying to offload. 2. He'll be gone in under 3 seasons with a hefty golden parachute. 3. The toxic after-effects will contaminate your club for years. Signed, a very bitter United fan.

asdff 6y ago

Scale this up to anything and you will want to be governed by a benevolent dictator. Not even senators themselves read the full bills they vote on, and I don't blame them with it being hundreds of pages of reading that could easily be parted out to aides, but the electorate certainly doesn't have this advantage. Maybe 1% of voters are truly informed.

adrianN 6y ago
It's perfectly fine not to be informed (or interested!) in most topics. It only becomes dangerous when you're uninformed but trust your own opinion more than the experts. Popular examples are climate change, or the COVID-19 response.
- DiffEq 6y ago
  SO we are to be ruled by experts? Show me the model produced by he experts that has been right? Show me the science behind the idea of quarantining the entire population in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. There is science behind quarantining sick people - but not healthy people. Show me the science behind the social distancing - 6 foot rule? I mean really - where IS the science to those things? These experts are self-proclaimed. I am more than willing to listen to a bridge builder tell me why I need to use a certain kind of steel as apposed to another - but many of these experts that we have been listening to lately are anything but experts.
  - afthonos 6y ago
    I’m confused. Are you arguing for being ruled by non-experts? Sounds like you think we already are, what’s the problem? The opposite of “expert” isn’t “uses magical common sense to arrive at the right decision”, it’s “crapshoot”.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      > Are you arguing for being ruled by non-experts? No, he is making the valid point that in many areas that are highly relevant to public policy, there are no experts. Those who call themselves "experts" actually aren't. Nobody has enough understanding of the problem domain to make accurate predictions. In such a case, the only viable solution is for nobody to "rule".
      - scruple 6y ago
        "The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists." - Joan Robinson, 1955 She's not wrong. If my adulthood has taught me anything it's that supposed "experts" are oftentimes anything but. And they're certainly not trustworthy just because of their title or credentialing.
      - afthonos 6y ago
        Decisions have to be made—including doing nothing. Someone is always "ruling". Diffusing responsibility does not change that fact (though it can have other significant benefits). I'm sympathetic to your POV, by the way, because uncritically listening to experts has literally killed millions of people in the past century. But the key word is "uncritically". Pushback is healthy, discussion is super-healthy; my position, though, is that in any argument, experts should get more weight unless the people arguing back have strong, on-the-ground evidence.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
My IT director doesn't know every facet of what is in our environment, and generally is not up to date as to what changes are happening on the day to day. And he doesn't need to be. The point of high-level workers is so they can focus on high-level priorities. They have staff -- legal aids, system admins, business analysts, whatever -- whose job it is to digest that stuff and put it into simple briefings for leadership to evaluate in the context of other issues. > I don't blame them with it being hundreds of pages of reading that could easily be parted out to aides, but the electorate certainly doesn't have this advantage The electorate isn't expected to have this advantage, and is not expected to read the bills. The whole reason for representative democracy is so that the common voter does not have to parse this stuff -- that's explicitly the point. I find someone who reflects my views and I put them in office, and trust that they'll be able to digest what's happening and vote accordingly. The common man isn't expected to understand tariffs, international banking, military theory, computer engineering, social justice issues, and food scarcity.
- cvlasdkv 6y ago
  A lot to unpack here. > The common man isn't expected to understand tariffs, international banking, military theory, computer engineering, social justice issues, and food scarcity. What better use is there of the common man's time than understanding societal issues like justice and scarcity? Are you describing how the world is or claiming how it should be? If you do not understand justice, scarcity, etc. how can you claim to elect someone who reflects your views--ignoring that a lot of politics is lesser evil voting? An uneducated populace voting is a worst-case scenario for a representative democracy.
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    > > The common man isn't expected to understand tariffs, international banking, military theory, computer engineering, social justice issues, and food scarcity. > What better use is there of the common man's time than understanding societal issues like justice and scarcity? Both of those can be true.
    - 6y ago
Paperweight 6y ago
Political theory: The study of how to maximize the knowledge of decision-makers while minimizing their conflict of interest.
morsch 6y ago
I get the opposite message: You're saying (and I agree) that even a small group of people chosen to be dedicated to making informed decisions is not able to keep up with the demands it puts on them, specifically they need to make decisions based on very partial information. How is a benevolent dictator supposed to do better? That doesn't make sense. At least in theory the wisdom of crowds can do better. In practice, it's often hard to argue.

PakG1 6y ago

Regarding sports. Unfortunately, let's not discount the politics and human nature involved in fielding a team. Some players get to play because of their salary, some players get to play because of their relationship with the coach, some players get to play because they're trade bait, some coaches really are wrong, etc. https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/maple-leafs-coach-randy-carlyle-accepts-joffrey-lupul-155538837.html https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/maple-leafs... Coaches are human too. They are just as fallible as the rest of us. They may work with better information than the fan, but this doesn't mean that they should never be questioned. And good coaches allow themselves to change opinions if criticism makes sense. For business... for every Netflix, there's a WeWork that everyone can see is insane and they're not wrong.

znpy 6y ago
Regarding sports, most people fail to understand that most professional sport association (like football "clubs") are actually entertainment companies. The sport is just the bait for the spectators. A coach might choose a certain player over another just because the people acclaim him/her. Also, don't forget that scandals about rigged games are quite regular nowadays.
- asdff 6y ago
  The american model is certainly entertainment focused, but the european football model at least has youth leagues and a lot more local outreach than a given american pro team in their host city.
  - LanceH 6y ago
    But they still make decisions on who to play (partially) based on who puts butts in seats.
derefr 6y ago
> some players get to play because they’re trade bait I mean, insofar as we’re measuring teams by winning games, rather than measuring teams by how profitable they are, we’re probably not measuring their inclusive fitness. Winning doesn’t help you if nobody pays attention; and, vice versa, making money helps you (in the long term) even if you don’t win.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago

I disagree with the soccer fan analogy. Often in soccer the team manager publicly reveals key perspectives and strategies that always guide their decisions. They also reveal patterns of player selection that link to their perspectives and strategies, often over many years across multiple teams. If Jose Mourinho comes to coach your team, you know right away the player recruitment and selection will be rooted in a very calculated defensive approach, conservative possession-oriented play style. He has done this at several clubs where it was universally understood to be a bad strategic idea given the talents of the specific players he would be inheriting, even from his first day on the job. Even casual fans could see that, despite the coach spending hours and hours observing player training, talking to players and studying game film, he was biased to impose his preferred strategy onto the team no matter what, even if all the evidence said it was unjustified. Considering the Premier League further, this effect just gets worse the less skilled the manager is. Many mid or bottom table teams have blunderously bad managers that combine both being low skilled with being hyper committed to a fixed strategy regardless of the characteristics of their players. Once they have dug their heels in on the strategy, they can’t go back on it or appear to buckle under fan pressure, or else they seem like a pushover / non-expert with no special knowledge worth millions of dollars, and it becomes entirely political (making the strategic weakness even more apparent). I would say it’s a case where “the wisdom of crowds” really is wisdom and the consensus criticisms about player selection are usually very valid and well-supported and the connection to the coach’s strategic weaknesses is obvious.

darkerside 6y ago
I'd say both of those things are frequently true, and it's hard to know which is right when. "Fans" in aggregate also have the benefit of hindsight and confirmation bias. For every smart fan who was right, there were many who were wrong but don't keep bringing it up years later. Coaches OTOH have to live with the decisions made in the moment, right or wrong.
zimpenfish 6y ago
> If Jose Mourinho comes to coach your team, you know right away 1. You're about to spend a whole heaping wad of cash on overpriced players that other people are trying to offload. 2. He'll be gone in under 3 seasons with a hefty golden parachute. 3. The toxic after-effects will contaminate your club for years. Signed, a very bitter United fan.