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> To validate your hypotheses as quickly as possible with as little money as possible and the try and create experiments with asymmetrical risk. > Because the
by OliverGilan 6y ago
> To validate your hypotheses as quickly as possible with as little money as possible and the try and create experiments with asymmetrical risk.
> Because the world is so complex, you’ll often have an answer faster by just building some prototype of the hypothesis you want to test.
> If it catches on, you can always scale later.
I think one of the coolest real-world examples of this in practice is how Facebook runs thousands of mini-experiments with different users. Facebook is known for having one of the best data science departments in the world and when they want to change or add a feature of the website they do it for a small subset of users and see what the response is like. If the users seem to like it they can repeat the experiment with a larger subset of users. If the users don't like the change there's no big risk because only a few users were exposed.
Contrast this to how Snapchat completely changed their UI for nearly every user all at once and got a ton of negative feedback for it. That was a complete UI overhaul which is different than FB and their hundreds of mini-changes but the idea is similar.
- FeeJai 6y ago> That was a complete UI overhaul which is different than FB and their hundreds of mini-changes but the idea is similar. The problem with facebook's approach is that you can get stuck in local optima and it might be hard to break out. That is why Facebook has done some big changes in the past as well, not just incremental improvements
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rjyoungling 6y agoYeah, I think that's a fair point. It's probably a good idea to introduce a little chaos into the order, and try things that don't make sense. Difficult to do though in huge companies. Which is why most disruptive innovation ends up being acquired by those companies rather than created by them. On way to address that issue seems to be to allow a separate arm to essentially act as a startup, preferably far away from the main company.
- Geee 6y agoIf their approach worked, Facebook would actually be good.
- sokoloff 6y agoGood for whom is the question. I suspect they’re quite good for what they’re seeking.
- xwolfi 6y agoI mean, they can probably give you a toothpaste advertisement the day before you run out, in this regard it's good for its official purpose. You may think it should better the world by challenging obtuse viewpoints and spreading truth but that s asking a lot for a marketing platform. You wouldnt ask that of JCDecaux panels on your bus stop, right?
- rjyoungling 6y agoAuthor here. Love that! Thanks for sharing that example.
- mint2 6y agoMicro optimizations are a good way to find and stay in a shifting local optima of just the KPIs you track and get trapped there while missing the big picture.