Summary

To life a successful life one needs to develop, test, and systemize a timeless and universal set of principles. Your values drive your goals which drive your designs which drive your tasks. Seek out the smartest people who disagree with you and constantly learn. Failing is good – be an imperfect-ionist. Power is knowing how people are wired. The most effective way to operate a company is by an idea meritocracy: put ideas out with radical truth and transparency, thoughtfully disagree, weigh options based on their source, abide by agreed upon rules to decide, and carry through as a whole.

“Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives to pursue even better ones”

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm”
- Winston Churchill

Key Takeaways

• Develop, test, and systemize timeless and universal principles
• Values → goals → designs → tasks
• Seek out the smartest people who disagree with you
• Power is knowing how people are wired (personalities)
• Idea meritocracy: put ideas out, thoughtful disagreement, abide by agreed upon rules
• Hiring: values > abilities > skills

Notes

Part 1

• Key to life: strive for a lot and fail well
• Principles:
  • Seek out the smartest people who disagree with own views to see their reasoning
  • Know when not to have an opinion
  • Develop, test, and systemize timeless and universal principles
• Balance risks to keep big upside while reducing downside
• Beta: market, alpha: bets against others
• “Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives to pursue even better ones”
• Three phases of life: dependent on others and we learn, others dependent on you and we work, free to savor life not tied down
• Know people’s personalities to handle properly, match skills with job requirements
• Shapers: independent, assertive, strong mental maps, high and low level details, passionate, adapt, low concern for others / abrasive when in the way of goals

Part 2

1: Embrace reality and deal with it

• Be a hyperrealist, face reality (truth)
• Be radically transparent, vulnerable
• Man’s greatest feat: understanding nature
• Assume you’re wrong and nature is right
• Evolution drives everything (whole > indiv.)

2: Get what you want out of life

• Pain + reflection = progress (don’t avoid)
• Growth mentality, long view
• Accept your weaknesses, turn → strengths
• Values → goals → designs → tasks

3: Be radically open-minded

• Barriers to good decisions: ego, blind spots
• Blind spot: mistaking our own perspective for the ground truth
• Beg for honest feedback
• Differentiate b/w arguing, understanding

4: People are wired differently

• Linear (literal) v lateral (conceptual) people
• Power = knowing how people are wired
• Altruism vs individualism is genetic
• Emotional → motor → habit → neocortex
• Work-related personality tests:
  • MBTI (+ Big Five)
  • WPI: workplace personality inventory
    • Shapers
  • Team dimensions profile
  • Stratified systems theory
• Intuiting (forest) ↔︎ sensing (trees, details)
• Establish habits as a way for neocortex to override primitive mind

5: Learn how to make decisions effectively

• Biggest threat: emotional override
• Decisions: 1) learning, 2) deciding
• Learning: 1) synthesis, 2) navigate levels
• Synthesis: 1) current, 2) historical, 3) levels
• Properly weigh others’ views (opinions)
• New is overvalued relative to great
• Be an imperfection-ist: 80/20 rule
• Stay at the right level of detail / abstraction
• Think in bets: quantitative, evidence-based
• Apply own set of principles / frameworks
• Systemize decision process to algorithms

3: Work Principles

• Legitimacy: loud, predictable, and fair
• Happiness: more relationships than money
• Idea meritocracy: put ideas out, thoughtful disagreement, abide by agreed upon rules

1: Radical truth and transparency

• Radical transparency, disagreement
• Be radically honest to build trust
• Force issues to surface, not behind backs
• Apply to entire company culture

2: Meaningful work and relationships

• Treat like family
• Org size of 50-150

3: Okay to make mistakes

• Mistakes are gems to learn from
• Open criticism is most valuable asset

4: Stay in sync

• Conflicts resolve differences
• Tool to move dispute → decision making
• Group think, solo think
• Fast talking: slipping by ideas with speed

5: Weight your decision making

• Believability weighting: based on capability
• ↑ track record, can explain rationale
• Find the most believable people who disagree with you and learn from them
• Opinion: data + reasoning (systems)
• Systems / reasoning > final opinion

6: How to get beyond disagreements

• Separate yourself from your opinions
• Big picture: don’t argue over small things
• Resolve and don’t let fester
• Values of system > groups, individual

7: Who > what

• Instill complete responsibility in delegates
• Remember the people behind the product

8: Hire right

• Values > abilities > skills
• Character, common sense, creativity
• School = memory + processing speed
• Great questions > great answers

9: Train, test, evaluate, and sort people

• Provide constant feedback
• Don’t let employees’ self deception, proliferate, a lie, point out weaknesses
• Drop people if they stay in same position for too long (Algorithms to Live By)

10: Manage like operating a machine

• Work = setting goals + building machines
• Be open minded and assertive at same time
• Escalate: tell manager you can’t meet obligations transparently (not failure)

11: Perceive, don’t tolerate problems

• Encourage problem, surfacing
• “We” vs specific person responsibility

12: Find root causes of problems

• Proximate vs root cause
• Find system-level breakdown

13: Design improvements

• Clarity, responsibility

14: Do what you set out to do

• “Success consists of going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm” - Winston Churchill

16: Don’t overlook governance

• Checks and balances
• Key man risk