Hi everyone welcome today, six in the past, I am social and I'm here today with Chris Dixon, a general partner on essex linsey crypto. Stephen be Johnson, who is the author of many books, including we're good ideas? Come from the pbs areas, how we got two now a book on play called wonderland and his latest book is far sighted. which is how we make the decisions that matter the most so welcome. Thank you for having me Did you start this time limit book yeah? This is a book that then a long time in the making which is appropriate for a book about long term decision making. I had a it had a long incubation period was one of the things that occurred to me. That that got me interested in this topic is that there had been a of material written both into the academic studies, but also in terms of kind of popular books, but a disproportionate amount of that was focused,

on people making got decisions or institutional decisions are like thinking very that's a slow process. Blink is like that. It is amazing, the matter processing and and all the hero sticks we have for making short term and sexual decisions, but the day decisions that really matter the most are slow. Decisions are decisions that have a much longer both time span in terms of how I mean spend deliberating them and then also the time span of their consequences and interested in what the they're kind of the sciences, and some of the art and away behind those kinds of decisions. Actually, the book partially starts with the great excerpt in charles darwin diaries, where he's trying to decide whether they get married ed? It's it's a view, beautiful lizards,

It's against getting married I'll I'll, give up the clever conversation with men in clubs that were my favorite of the against marriage, with less money for books, etc, yeah, yeah, writer and editor. He has this listen, and you know I thought looking at it. It's kind of poland and sweden some ways, but that technique of creating pros and cons list busy that was state of the art in eighteen? Thirty, five, in eighteen, thirty, eight and it still kind of state of the art for most people, that's the one tool they have for making a complicated decision, and actually we have a lot more to wilson. We have a lot more insight about how to make these things seems like there's two questions right. There's a descriptive and the normative question kind of like script like how do people make decisions and how are societies or you know, govern since, however, the actor might be and then there's a second question one, should make this got more and more interested in. In the second question right, they can't wait. The tools it. You can really used to do this in your life. Can you get better at yeah and it's a tricky one.

they grappling trying to take very seriously the ledge I'm an objection to a book like this, which is that it and the nature of complex, lightened emissions career decisions. Should I get married decisions. Should I take this job decisions that each one is unique right that that's? What makes hard, as that in their made up of all these multiple variables and competing value systems and such like that, and it turns out really that a lot of the The science of this and the practice of making a deliberate decision is a set of trick to get your mind to see the problem or the crossroads, or what, wanna call it in all its complexity and to not just Do sit down to a series of predictable patterns, are cliches or stern homes, and that's where actually, the advice, I think, is useful. So that's like this scenario planning where, where there's a discipline around, what's he upside is the middle case of frameworks for forcing yourself to gonna mentally,

verse, different future path, yeah exactly well, one of the big themes of the world. then they run. Surrounded and lots of different ways is the importance of storytelling. I live yeah and in these different ways. It scenario- planting is one example, so that's usually used in a kind of business contacts right, so you're like ok, we're time decide. Should we start this launch a new product which generate some scenario, plans for what the more it's gonna do over the next five years. But let's generate multiple want, let's not just predict and if you are the ones who worked at a large oil company in their scenario, planning group and be no first and second that interesting, but it turns out there rail companies like weather, was thirty dollars or a hundred dollars. You know that it is a lot of money sake, and so they had this infrastructure, like thousands of people whose, like the state department or something even if it was fastening the you're about? Unlike what, if there's a war in this area and whale drops, this watch and what do we do and like just the level of rigor, I never imagined it was as complex as you know, as sophisticated as it was. I had some great camera

patients, are the here's, what we're clear, forts his share in the bay area and he's one of the pioneers of scenario, planning and one model that that he about. Is you do three different narratives one where things get better one where things get worse and one where things get weird interesting, I heard I love that because I think that all this kind of it, but have we build their like? It gets better, gets worse kind of snow, planet, our had its useful? It actually won through it and do it and how that story, but the weird one is what school, because annually what would be the really surprising thing an animal Anything in this view look at history where it is often the case about where lived through a right. Now that's agenda, and I think it is a key part of it is that it is the predictions. Don't even have to be right on some level for it to be a useful exercise, because a lot of this is about

recognising the uncertainty that involved in any of these kinds of choices, its creating a mindset, open to unpredictable events so going through now that's where you imagine alternatives, even if they dont actually turn out to be the case that they get you in the states. Or that when you do encounter an unpredictable future, whatever it happens, to be you're you're more prepared for it. You've thought about at least some of those variables, but the other thing I would just save on the storytelling front. That's what one of to praise the work I can together this there's a lot in the book about collective decision slang. What do we do about climate change, or what do we do about the potential threat from super intelligence and ay. I write something that we think about a lot less here too generous and all tat would super long term decision making rights, and one of the points that I tried to make in the book is: while we have this cliche about our society that we live in this short attentions,

and world, and we can't think beyond dollar forty characters and a list of the fact that we are actively making decisions that involve changes to the environment That might not happen for another twenty or thirty years, and we're thinking about what the planet might look like in a hundred years is something that people have not really done before they bill institutions designed to last for longer periods. Are they built pyramids designed to us, but they weren't very good at thinking about you know we're doing these things now. What will be the consequences? Eighty years now from these choices for meda, regardless of what you think about what We're doing enough from climate change now. The very fact that it's in a central political topic is is not with that. That was not the case under yours. It's a sign of progress and to protect against even better example that I think, because the fact that we are having a debate about a problem that is not at all a problem for us now, but the potentially might be a problem and fifty

there is enough. That is a skill that human beings didn't used to have that we have now, when I was talking to this once with Kevin care, out here, another bury person. He here this great point, which is like this, is why science fiction is such an important cognitive tool, because you run these alternate areas of the future and they help us kind of a man Imagine what direction we should be steering and even They are made up story. Don't people actually say that science fiction is the only way to quote predict the future in terms of what you can actually think very common technologies? I feel I've heard a statistic: earth observation to that effect. certainly think that you would, you would find more. It ended up happening in fictional accounts. Then official people making predictions the future outside of it. A fictional context. My buys has always been towards it. Story, for example, like the only way you're ever going to possibly get a lens on how to predict the future is to read a lot of history understand how things work because of such complex systems that you're not going to you know, have empirical.

pulling and everything else turn to analyze yeah. I wonder to what extent are ways of thinking about these things. academic literature, and things like this have been shaped by the kind of the look at me- require everything testable right, you also radically narrow the things that can be tessier re error that things can be tested is of is subset of the things that are interesting and worth exploring in the world, and you get steered towards those things I mean This decision with my wife to move to northern california having lived in brooklyn and in europe for a long time, and you know think about a choice like that there are so many different variables. Are there variables about economics of it there, two kids school, do you, wanna live in a city or do you want to live near nature, and all these different things is incredibly common. All of the second order things you could never predict. What will what? What will the concert serendipitous meeting that changes, your life

if you know your you know particular with children. You know you are changing the overall arc of your kid's life by making a choice like that and that's scary, and but to your point that kind of decision. Well, certainly, I I would say it's one of the most important decisions that I ever really thought about it. Work through with my wife. How would you study that in the lab right yeah regarding like me like, ok, everybody, we ve got ten a view that are going to move. Another issue, that of and there's no less. and that otherwise w I you mentioned the book gum simulations. We have like a investments in this area, but like the idea that computing is powerful enough that you could. You could ask questions like what the new york subways and want to shut down these subways. How does that have what all this you know, consequences that or We change interest. You know, there's always, but always been this interview for the santa fe kind of yet complied larry's. Emily ass, it is, I think, is still kind of this fringe. I would think about I've friends

did machine learning in the eighties and back then it was this kind of rebel fringe group annie, I write a mainstream. May I back then was heuristics based as like. Ok we're gonna win. All these things by you know literally pudding, these rules and teach him computers common sense, and it was a kind of rebel group that said that will never work. You need to use a test. Math is never machine learning fast forward today, like machine learning, may iris none of us right. like simulations today or this kind of fringe groups over time like it just seems like. A far better way to test these really complex think like what, if you could run a simulation it run simulation for moving to california, but you could run a simulation for changing interest rates now or for you gonna bridge that those things you're fairly limited. Today, you could imagine them getting orders of magnitude. More come more sophisticated right there, so many so many things to say that so the first is, it actually gets back to that classic but the David garner road in the imo air. Where were mere world, and I was I dunno on a theme post after

he's one of my dear favorite people. You know I wrote I read that book when I was, I guess, I'm just in grad school was one of the first. It was one of the first. God knows where I was. I knew this is really pessimism. Some of my first book was shaped by that my country's in office at the huge influx of tat, and so so we will. I think that is. That is something that coming fish explains a mere worlds. Eddie is that, does I recall you gonna have the whole world instrument it with via t device things and you have then the mere world is the computer representation of that in the two can interact Emily and yet Basically, you have all that every single object in inlets able a city you know. Is somehow the data on all of its different states, and then They computers is some massive supercomputer, although it was superior in his day now

Just like the right of all your very good of you by the way today argues it's just streams of information, break your words, opinions, licked life streams, had a lighter and now he's got you things about in the context of streams is like browsers, twitter, like dr reformation that we constantly live in. So you basically have you know it's offer this looking at all that information and and then the idea would be that it would develop enough of a kind of intelligence and you could say: okay, given the path You ve seen over the last ten years with all these different data points. If we close that bridge or if we switch this one neighbourhood over to commercial development, what would it look like press fast forward in

It was a kind of sim city simulation but based on actual data, that's coming from the real city, and it was just it's just one of those ideas I think, there's a whole generation. You've got to read ender's game and the whole thing where he actually is playing a simulation. Then you realize in the end I mean the book's been out for years, I'm a boiler spoiler, but that it's actually the real war that he's fighting in the final simulation. So the other thing about simulations is a big theme of the book. It's one of those kind of way. Switchable connects to storytelling as well, because I think the personal version of this for the should I marry this person or should I move to California? This is actually what novels to write and that we don't have the luxury of simulating an alternate version of our lives, because we can't do that yet, and we probably won't be able to that particular kind of emotional complexity of choosing to marry someone or something like that. But we do- spend in an automatic time, reading fictional narratives of other people's lives and the idea is that part of the

Almost like evolutionary role of narrative is to run these parallel. Simulations of other powers lie a right and an by having that practice of seeing played out this way with this person like this, but lip this moved this other personalized and The novels ability to take you into this psychological mirage of what's going on a person's minor grape If you will do that, you are reading history, as you said, it is a part of that, but it's in fact, the first draft this book was had just like of dicky s amount, middle march in it an airline a lot about airline everyone's right, I've brought in the first draft did, I think, by editor was like this is great. But, like I don't know, this will be made thing how we spend some time either? daydreaming about future events or reading fiction, we speak or watching fiction and on tv. We spend so much time immersed in things that are not by definition, not true. They have. happened or they haven't, happened yet, and I think that

can we do. That is because there is an incredible adaptive value in running those simulations, and I had ended that then it prepares us for our country. The words were building kind of the emotional like logic, space or something and expanding. I always think that could like. I was this feeling when I read a good book, it's as if someone that it makes the worldview larger right and then another way of saying a kind of expands. The do you know that the possible, like trees, of possibility at rise, I commend the sample space. The world is bigger rivalry, history and you just feel like it's big anywhere. You read a novel and you feel like the emotional world is bigger, right and sort of more possibilities and that and she's using is almost like an evolutionary yeah need to do that. At to sort of adapt to be more of it. Most who is facilitated theirs. It there's a great essay by tubi and cosmetics I believe names are pronounced about the kind of evolutionary function of storytelling and they they have. One of the things that I talk about is

The precisely this point that we spend an inordinate amount of time. Thinking about things at all, true now it seemed to be actually a waste of time, but in fact there is a whole range of different ways which things are not true, there is, though she said it was true, but it's not true or lead. This might happen, and thus might be true, but it's not true now or in oh. I wish this were true and in our brain is incredibly good at bouncing back and forth between all those gonna, hypotheticals and half truths. and I don't mean this in a kind of fake news kind of way like this- is actually a really good skill. The ability to conjure up things that have not happened yet. But that might is One of these are human beings do better than if they had the hurts. Let me allows our future right and also to do it in a like aristotle, said to point a tragedy: was it you good experience? It was an emotional distance, their rights even go. That's another value narrative right as you can go, and you can experience in like look at the logic without so you

you can go on and think about tragedy and how to deal with it without actually being overwhelmed by the emotion of the right and savior involve, but not so involved that you can turn a parcel and understand it, and that's a great point and any other thing. I last point on simulations. We were take not how it's hard to stimulate these types of decisions and lab, but the one place We actually have seen a lot of good research into how to successfully make complex deliberative decisions is another kind of simulation which is mock trials and your jury decisions rack, and that gets you into group decisions which, of course, is a really important thing, particularly in the and in in the business world. It's like one of the key. I guess components both to the group composition and also to the process to determine the attempt to get the right answer so the biggest one, which is something that's true of innovation as well. Not just decision making is, you know diversity, it's the classic slogan of like diversity, trumps ability which is

if you take groups of high iq individuals who are all from the same say, academic background or economic background and have them make a complicated group decision and then you take a group of actually lower, I q people, but who come from diverse fields, professions, fields, expertise or economic fields, whatever cultural background? that group will out perform? The allegedly smarter group? Is that because the more diverse group will traverse- More future paths of the tree of the pasta of possibilities of the assumption was always the diverse group of group just brings more perspectives to the table right, so they have different. you know it's a complicated matter very weighty earlier framework. Is that like good bad near, like they'll, just simply bring up and and explore, more possibilities because of their more diverse experience, and there is no doubt that as part of right, when you do what makes of complex decision complexes, that it has multiple

variable moderating uncommon. Different scales are different and you know that you're going over things more, neither ones, then he also turns out that just the presence of difference in group makes the kind of initial kind of insiders more open to new ideas. If, if you haven't kind of an insider group, genius group and you bring in folks who bring some kind differences. Even if they don't say anything the insider group gets or a kind of they write all yo. Katy they challenge there assumptions internally more so their exercises you- do to bring out the the kind of hidden knowledge that the diverse group has like they took the technical term, for it is hidden profiles, and so, when you put a bunch of people together and they're trying to solve a problem, the decision, there's a body of kind of share knowledge at the group, as this is the pool of thing everybody knows about this decision is obvious for the group to be effective, you gotta get the hidden,

pieces of information that only one member knows, but that add to the puzzle right and for some reason, cyclops. When you put groups together, they tend to just talk about the shared stuff, like there's a human net, that you no kind of desire to kind of like what we all agree on this, and so some of the exercises is impact since the people talk about are trying to expose that hit information, and one of them is to just assign people roles. As you are the expert on As you are the expert on this you're, the expert in this and just arbitrarily say: okay, my job is to go and be the expert on this and therefore are more likely surface hidden knowledge yeah. It diversifies the actual information that shared, not just like the profile question about this, because I thought I found it fascinating that you can essentially define expertise as a way go against this problem of seeking common ground But then later you talk about the difference between the classic phase of foxes and hedgehogs up and how it actually it's not hedgehogs at our deep.

Experts in a single being that perform while in those scenarios but foxes that are more diverse and their expertise. So I couldn't reconcile those two pieces of information. The it's a great question too, so just to clarify it to come comes out. This famous study that philip tut locked, at forecasting, yeah, yeah and expert political judgment, and he he did one of the most amazing kind of long term studies of people making predictions among things and it turned out, can famously that all the experts are like worse than a dart throwing champ at predicting the future in a more famous you got valorous you're at having it, but he did find that subset of people who were pretty It advert significantly better than average at predicting kind of long term events, which of course, is incredibly important for making decisions. Because you're thinking about what's going to happen, you can't make the choice. We don't have a forecast of some kind and what he found with those people he described them in the classic fox vs hedgehog, which is

you never headshot nos one. Big thing has one big ideology: one big explanation of the world, a fox as many little things and as a kind of monolithic thinker, but has lots of tat kind of distributing knowledge. and so the reason why that I think is in sync with but we're time, but before it is in that situation, your document individuals it's it's a fox than a hedgehog and what the? What the fox does is simulated, diverse group, he or she has a lot of different eclectic interests and so many side his or her like people in there. That's one of the reasons why I know a lot of the people who really are able to have these big breakthrough ideas have one of their defining characteristics is that they have a lot of hobbies. That is how true I used to give the tours at xerox, park for other visitors and actually one of the big talking points wisely. I, like his big marketing mucks coming through, was held. There be a material

I am it, and he'd and he'd be an world's expert in expert and raising go raising. Maybe someone else's. father of information theory for computers and he's like a world class surfer they all had one specifically music whenever there is a fine connection actually to em wonderland. My last book, which is all about the importance of play. Driving innovation and, and so much of karpov you weren't is. Is people had planned as opposed to a mere classic person ass, unlike the things that this might be, will do no, yet again is where the rest of the world between ten years later. I really matter into the way I was thinking about. It is theirs so many things in life, especially the workplace, are governed over eu. Basically, ever want to your horizon right air, like an ethically because business people bombs by phoenician right if you were above accompanies the ruling by quarter by year is aware the places in the world where you actually people ass, smart people have a ten year plus arise nine and it's like polly academia and then My motto, would be sort of technical people on weekends, right, nice and began to write like this is

It is more than its more than a coincidence that so many of these have wasn't I can jobs and was a whole bunch of the internet, early internet and all these other things started off as he's like homebrew clubs and weekend clubs, and things like that right because it's simply time around, right of any. It relates to your book, but like so much of what we ve done, what we do in the business world and just the whole kind of system right is structured around a relatively short time right now, I think regret in terms of what we do in our job at one of our big advantages. Right is the fact that we are able to take a longer term perspective, where capital I'm from and all the other kinds of things, and that just lets you do invest in a whole bunch of things that you just other people just simply can't because they're under a different set of incentives. Well, that's I mean one of the one of the great things that I got out of actually deciding to move to California, is spending a bunch of time with the folks at the long now foundation, when you're really trying to encourage not it's not ten years, it's ten or whatever the ten thousand year clock, basically to be as long as until last as long as the future of civilization is

old guy. I tell some people about that, like that's incredibly idiotic waste of time, if you want to feel like nobody's pressing problems, but so many of the time we have now come from not having taken that kind of time right and in fact, what one of you, the written a book. I think about the goat, If we are now capable of thinking on longer timescales, for thinking about kind, changed on a one hundred year scale for thinking about superintelligence on a fifty or one hundred year, scale like what's the what's the longest decision that one could contemplate and actually I'm Janna rose. Who, who he's arise when the inner room for ass long ass. He here be talking about this in it, he said, were working on this on this project. With on this group called mehdi, which is a group debating whether to and what they should if they decide to send as a targeted message to planets that are likely to support

life. Now we ve identified the plans that are, and it's it's it's similar to super intelligence in the ets surprisingly controversial project in their a bunch of people, including the late stephen hawking, who think terrible idea- and if you read the through by your parliament yeah, it's the worst idea, exactly yeah three body problem. I'm sure a lot of your listeners I have read as its essential provokes and by definition they are going to be more advanced than we are, which is a whole complicated reason why that is, but they will be an every in, in course, of human history every counter between a more advanced civilization, analysts events. It isn't that what is it that way rooted in the drake equation and the end of the dark forest analogy lawyer. The dark forces right is therefore the best strategy as it is today, he's, not only ass, it were evacuated, but you know you don't have to meddle in asean too. There was a firm is paradoxical:

I found your at exactly. It brings all these constancy other. Well, I just about it it's just just because of the speed of light and the distance you have to travel to these planets. This is a decision that, by definition, can't have a consequence, for at least you know thousand two, fifty thousand years, depending on the planet you're targeting maybe a hundred thousand years ago. The idea, humans are water every, like our. I think we're going to decide to communicate with these aliens everyone's other planet and we'll get the results back. In a hundred healthy eating? The back there were capable of thinking about is very real I find something kind of indulged self and nights up and not about, but something that I think is very confusing about making decisions in this framework is that you know we can predict. ten thousand years ahead. But nor can we predict immediate and third order effects of things we build today. So Michael, it is. I mean this sounds like a terrible question. Given the book is about making better decisions, but why bother a good decision. Why don't we just sort of let it work itself out in a series of complex

there's a lot of africa's thursday? You can't do that. You can't really didn't you can't predict the future. I mean we dont know how things are gonna play are about the clutches. Can you him? Can you get better out of it? that was Yang. That I think that's why things are important about locks work, which is that that first book was about people being comically bad at it, but he did come bout, this zone and said some people actually have a strategy that works and seems to be better than just fucking a coin or or you know just picking it up, and so I think that the you know it's not that there is definitely not a crystal ball for this amendment. an applied strategy that works in all situations, but I do think you can kind of nudge it and because decisions are that is kind of the definition of wisdom. Is you make? right choice made leyden right. So I have a question to be tackled: with the fox and the hedgehogs? One of the things you mentioned your book is the role of extreme person versus mainstream and at that they'd be real, interesting cause. We think a lot like where ideas come from on the fringes will all come revolves instead,

but the high line and in new york rate that I'd now iconic park? There was an old abandoned an airline one another the west ready when having one urban parks created and the time for centuries and fur. Twenty years was an abandoned rail line and eyesore a public nuisance and so on, and so one one thing that the book argues is there's a stage in decision making in the early stage which one should consciously and us to get to do, which is to diversify your options. Right and folks have looked at. Why the keeper years of a failed decision. Is it was a whether or not decision there was just one alternative like should we do this or not in accompany in accompany, but I think it applies to a lot of things when you just have one option on the table. Those decisions are more likely to end up in a in a kind of failure of one form or another. So part of the strategies is. That said, you should, when you're at that early stage and get you know, let's do this versus this versus this multiplier.

In the case of the high line for twenty years. The debate about the high line was basically should retired down or not really even agree, that we should dare damages who's, gonna pay for it and was like it's a real on it, somebody using industrial rail is not coming back to downtown manhattan. Whatever answer was just stopped, in this kind of whether or not form, and then this interesting bunch of folks who, to your kind of point about extreme positions who were not part of the official. Does making process, what to do that was city programme is a debate between the main line at any analysis. But then you you know and artists, and a photographer and a writer who kind of gotten attached to this idea. Maybe you could do something with the space and it was this kind of marginal set of folks who or not

part of the official conversation about what to do with this, who added a second option or if you know said, listen what what it will be kept it and turned it into a part that would be amazing, because half tax or so contentious and polarized. this kind of default. You know anti extremism. Now we want to get out in it. We get rid of this extremists, but it in a society, there is a certain level of extremism. That's really important times, ideas that are important and the need to have. Then come into the mainstream from the margins, so it trying to get what it calls the optimal extremism like. Are you and it's a tricky when I have actually a clear recipe for this? But it's, I think, when you making a decision. Are you? You know are you bringing in those fringe voices to at least have a seat at the table it one day relating to them the internet. Like one thing, I think it's a contention railroad internet, as you have all of these

communities. You know separate ads and crowd funding which we know. We are Susan, in That's none of the documents will never gotten initially funded. Had it not been for the crowd funding. Edmund has obviously been a bad things. Noon as well, but for the most part, I believe, has allowed some of these kinds of or interesting and potentially positive fringe groups to get together Whether that will continue? You know, as the internet has become more and more centralized is a topic that we've both yeah have talked about before, you wrote a really interesting article, four, the new york times last year about about, in the eyes of a lot of time that kind of adaptation of your work actually happen. that's one way or another version of failure. So this with issues. Any measure, the central asian internet, and how do we mean? sure that the intern- stays interesting and diverse, and having good for

small businesses and creators and all sorts of other people. Rights. and it is an issue that I think a bunch of people are talking about right. I mean you see. It is disgusting. When people talk about these issues like demonization d platforming, uneasy people talk about it in terms of regulation should should these platforms be more regulated? Are we headed to an internet? That's that's a similar tv We have like four channels of controller rethinking of facebook, amazon, etc, and then they wrote about theirs. in a fringe movement that is trying to kind of through technology prince bulls and innovations create alternatives infrastructure. Yet there is a direct connection actually between farsighted this book and and that that peace for the times magazine the thing that began in always Walter isaacson rota,

and I think in the atlantic saying the internet is broken. You know we need to fix it. It has these problems and you kind of listed a bunch of problems which I thought were reasonable, and so I I sent them a note, and I said you know I liked what you wrote. How would we go about fixing it like? What would be the incision making body that would decide. These are the fixes and we're going to apply them and he wrote back me said you're right. It would be impossible in this polarized age. We can't do it and I thought that's incredibly threats, I'm gonna get andrew. If we're just stuck with the infrastructure we have. of then really. That's. That's really depressing right So I slowly gonna doug the writing about it and anne, but you know about half way through it. I began to think that some of the blockchain models and some of the token economy softly Then you ve written about as a way of creating sustainable business models for open protocol space.

Which is what we really need. I think, when the reasons that peace work is that there are in pieces written about the blockchain. But I didn't actually set out to write a piece about blockchain to write a piece about how would we fix this problem? and I got organically lead towards the blockchain meanwhile, as that was happening, all crazy- I see. Oh scams were happening like it was like the best and the worst of like culture is exploding all around, and I think that means the world to get rid of the same thing. Walter as the energy articulates very well, the the the negatives that I think deposits services. I would argue two things. One is just a nature like that they architecture spits politically the internet protocol gap being very, presently designed as a dumb layer in a good way right so that you can reinvent the internet is reinvented. If the new But then the internet appear themselves right, death and so I think of internet architecture the intersection of incentives and

ecology design racing, you have to create better kind of software that runs in those nodes, and then you have to provide the right incentives right and one of the fascinating about the bitcoin whitepaper is it's essentially, you know eight pages of incentives, and if you do the incentives right, the internet is able to sort of heal itself or upgrade itself. I should say or change itself and then the question people looking out is. Can you take those that interesting incentives, design Can you apply for things that are more use? Well, then, simply solving cryptographic puzzles like bitcoin right here and end and incentivize new behaviour so that that's getting out think about us, is so many the models we use in and are a harbor based including what I know. I've read your books and lighted the hit the people, talk about random, just by definition, are building usually physical, things right, because that's what they were doing priya twenty years ago right and you think about like you know, once you build like the combustible engine, you basically built it- I mean you can improve it. he built a car, you basically build it worse Software is fundamentally different. This is a mark. Injuries and points operates. A world like he's always argue, just thinks he will fundamentally miss

in software and keep applying these old fear go correct models of how innovative carlotta prayers and like all these yet which a great frameworks but they're all based on on how hardware cycles, where I guess the one thing that I would come to bring out to them that I didn't get to in that crypto piece in the times was the importance of ignorance structures inside of these crypto particles and platforms and there's always been some level of governance involving software in the sense that you had a corporation if you add a standards body that was, you know deciding what the actual software package should be or what features should be included, but now really for the first time the governance is actually built into the code, if you think about decision making that isn't. Since what you know you have governments like we have, we have embedded in them,

code a set of rules governing like what we collectively organ of the side for the future of this platform, and that the fact that that's now being built into the software. The idiot writers at the point of his movement right is, and is decentralized, to take the power away from an individual and therefore you have to think about. Well, then, how do you, how do these systems they themselves and govern themselves and who gets decide who gets a voice and all these questions right there, in the pattern. Your model, you just said, okay, that the ceo right now it's like. Well, there's no see us at he figure it out for masses of people to decide yeah and coordinated activity at unprecedented scale does right, we ve been talking about decision making and how it plays out. You know and crypto in crete, to innovation and also then even in personal, lively, darwin or even lot novels and literature, like middle march, but what are some concrete? Take a ways or advice, not just for how to think about

decision making and being far sighted, but for what both people and companies, big or small, could do so. For instance, when war, my favorite color except in the book, is the thing that I'm gonna Klein came up with, which is it a technique also to deal with the dangers of group? Think and making a reality, the work decision when you ve got your team and you decided, we really are going to launch a product of this product and we're all really excited about it and to he created this kind technique which it goes a pre mortem, and I love that it's a postmortem. Obviously the patient is dead, you're, trying to figure out what caused the patient's death a pre mortem is. This idea is going to die a spectacularly horrible death in the future. Tell the story of how that death happened right in five years. This will turn out to have been a bad decision. Tell us, Why and that exercise eve again. It's like snow blowing, it's a kind of negative

are even if it ends up not being true the exercise of forces, your brain has come under the same worrying right as opposed to just saying: hey guys, any any. You see any flaws with this plan do you guys do that when you talk through deal know so that I think a good investor discipline is to do something similar than we know where you kind of and the fact that entrepreneur like? I think that one of the myths around entrepreneurship is that there that there I mean the risk takers. I that said entre do take risks, but good entrepreneurs are very good at doing pre morton's ordering the rain and systematically trying to mitigate right. Maybe Not now? That's not to say that the nordic big risks, but you certainly do taken take service right. So I think what you gonna do is doing, is constantly thinking about all the different scenarios, Don't go wrong, you know, rank ordering them taking a bunch of but saying anna begging us my key risk- and this is you know what was sort like this type businesses

can it be about financing risk in this will all be about tower, and this will be all about. You gotta go wrong and you ve seen enough of it and of course it a very rough, an imperfect science, but right, but you can bet they feel that giving it seems like you better, over tat, you regional patent. The google filed for the self driving car projects included in it is this thing they called the bad events table. Basically, it's like at any moment the car as cars driving its creating this bad events table and about events are range from I'm going to you know, depth of, and you know right side mirror by accident. You know just scraping against this car to I'm going to collide with these two pedestrians and we're you know, they're going to die and there's like fifteen bad events that can potentially having happened given the circumstance on the road and not only do they kind of list about events.

Then the software is, I calculate both likelihood of the event happening and then and then the magnet the magnitude of the of the risk right. So two pedestrians die very high magnitude, but if it's very low probability, you kind of measure it and I think of that, as in a sense, the car is doing that at the speed of instinct, but in a way that kind of thing Well, that would be really nice to put next to a pros and cons to get out what are all the terrible things that could happen. Yeah, let's rank them with probability and and with magnitude, and just to see it. I think about this all the time actually in terms of how people make present conflicts and how they're so flat, variable wise and if you've gone through any statistical training the first thing you learn in any linear model is how to weight your algorithm, and you wait the variables- and I always think about that like well. I'm going to give this like a move to California, ten x weight and my moved back from new york or you'll give something else to x, and you you multiply

all those probabilities and those weight and come up with your decision. I think that's a very good way of thinking about it. You know frozen constables date back to this newsletter that Ben franklin writes to Joseph priestley, who, coincidentally, was the hero of my book, the invention of air, but he's like explaining this technique? He has, which is basically a pros and cons lists, and he calls it moral algebra what what gets lost in the conventional way that people do pros and cons list is franklin had a kind of waiting mechanism where he basically said: ok create your list, the pros and cons, and then, if you fight ones that are comparable, can a magnitude on one side and the other cross them out. We would differently now as a way of assessing these two things are kind of minor, and I got one once I one or the other some accounts data that free, I think some of those exercising the really important I think cold Building a wide range of interests and influences is a really important to do both in terms of innovation and creativity, but also in terms of decision making at, and I think, it's very important.

Stop and say: ok, what would the alternate scenarios be? What what what if it gets better what if it gets worse, what ever gets weird and the other thing about it of diversity point I think that's gonna become increasingly important. The diversities acts You gonna be also machine intelligence to write an increasingly part of that intellectual, cognitive, diverse He is going to involve machine, intelligent snow. And so it's gonna be here not just We have a physicist anna poet and are you know in your kind of a party that tells me you made its decision, but we're going to see more and more people making decisions. For instance, there's a lot of interesting research into in a legal world bail decisions that normally judge will make a decision look at this person's, we let out on bail for this amount or not let on bail, wherein there's there's some evidence the machine learning can actually make those decisions more effectively. It's not that we want to hand over the process to the machines

early? But the idea that you would be assisted in making a choice like that, I think, is gonna, be something will see more and more of any anywhere anything hybrids of that play out, like with hedge funds, quite strategy that said but you're saying something even more you're saying it's like a partner and decision making yeah it's a collapse. Model my friend can Goldberg is at berkeley and robotics programme very talks about inclusive intel, it the idea that it is not just about it, just human intelligence, verses, artificial intelligence, but actually these this kind of dialogue that you can have with with machine. You might say I think I should releases person on you- know a very low fail and the machine comes back. while looking all comparable case studies. I think he actually, you know shouldn't be ali should all pray that point you like. Ok, that's interesting, I'm on a question, options here and think about what I missed and you dont. You might not change your mind but having that extra voice in the long run will probably better for us now feel they crowded

audience on a whole range of different scale. There were there any qualities of people that you ve seen. One of the things that you put in the book was that one of the key factors is: openness to experience as a real, great predictor of very good decision making prediction etc, and that I was bad because I thought of immigrants if I could define quality of immigration and what brings people two different places. It's. What you know is one of the big five personality trades open its experience, it's another for it for genetic react in Gaza, and I love the word curiosity. But openness to expire Is it slightly dive way of thinking about it that you are walking through life? Looking for you know this, I'm open to this thing that I've stumbled across, and I want to learn more and pet locks predictors and the super forecasters that we've talked about. They were they they had that personality trait in spades in general, so it's it's a wonderful thing and related, I think to another quality, which is empathy

which is also under way one of the very things that fiction help so exactly exactly says one when you get into the world of kind of personal decision making novels in a sense train the kind of empathy systems in the brain. Because you're sitting there like projecting mirror online, into the mind of another listening to their inner monologue, they're kind of consciousness in a way that almost no other Art form can do as well as a novel can answer that. exercise of just what would that other person think what, with their response, be in so many decisions we have to make. You have to run those same patients in your head right as your decisions have consequences to other people's lives and if you are unable to make those projections you're going to be missing some of the key variables. and then finally, would you make of all those folks at have like these lists of tips and advice late when they think about like Jeff pieces? Does it and you must know that ain't you my amendments in your book, about how I'm just me,

this belief that you should get to seventy percent certainty. I actually I like that technique, which is to say, don't wait for a hundred cent, certainly has a lot of the challenge. With these complex decisions. Is they just you can not by definition fully certain amount. So the question is: where do you stop the deliberation process So you don't just free that by men and by measuring you're, certainly was over time. I'm taking a step out of the process say like okay, how certain one? I really about this. I think that's a really good exercise, so I think those little I you know I definitely included them. I tried it with this book to try and hit the sweet spot of, like these are kind of interesting tools that have been useful on that have some science behind them, but also then to just look at that kind of broad history and some of the science about the way that people make decisions and somewhere habit kind of a mix of those two things I think a great and especially because we as homo sapiens, are very unique and being able to actually have the luxury of doing. This will think used even for joint ace, excellency podcast. He is he.

the new book just out far sighted, how we make the decisions that matter the most. Thank you. Thank you very much is great art museum. I love it. Thank you,