A
- A Cascade of Homunculi
- A Computer Chess Marathon
- A Deterministic Toy: Conway’s Game Of Life
- A Thing about Redheads
- A Truly Nefarious Neurosurgeon
- AARRR
- Activation Energy
- Ad Hominem
- Adaptation
- Agnosticism
- Algebraic Equivalence
- Algorithms
- Allow time for rest and renovation.
- Alloying
- An Older Brother Living in Cleveland
- Anchoring
- Anecdotal
- Appeal to Emotion
- Applications of Colonel Blotto
- Appreciate the art of thoughtful disagreement.
- Arbitrage
- Arguing from First Principles
- Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
- Atomic Theory
- Auctions
- Authority-Misinfluence Tendency
- Autocatalysis
- Automating the Elevator
- Availability Bias
- Availability Heuristic
- Availability-Misweighing Tendency
B
- Backup Systems/Redundancy
- Bandwagon
- Barriers to Entry
- Basic Growth Model
- Bayesian Updating
- Bayes’ Theorem
- Be a hyperrealist.
- Be cautious about trusting AI without having deep understanding.
- Be crystal clear on what the deal is.
- Be loyal to the common mission and not to anyone who is not operating consistently with it.
- Be open-minded and assertive at the same time.
- Be radically open-minded and radically transparent.
- Be radically transparent.
- Be very specific about problems; don’t start with generalizations.
- Behavioral Models-Model
- Believability weight your decision making.
- Bell Curve/Normal Distribution
- Beware of the Prime Mammal
- Bias from Incentives
- Binary Search
- Black box
- Black or White
- Black Swan
- Blotto and Competition
- Blotto_ No Best Strategy
- Blotto_ Troop Advantages
- Boiling Frog Symbol
- Botnet
- Bottlenecks
- Break Points
- Bribery
- Build the organization around goals rather than tasks.
- Build the organization around goals rather than tasks.
- Build your machine.
- Build your machine.
- Bullseye Framework
- Business Case
- Butterfly Effect
C
- Capital Allocation Options
- Cargo cult
- Catalysts
- Categorical Models
- Chain Reaction
- Chaos Dynamics (Sensitivity to Initial Conditions or Butterfly Effect)
- Chilling Effect
- Churn
- Cialdini’s Six Principles of Influence
- Circle of Competence
- Circle of Competence
- Clarke’s Third Law
- Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
- Classifying Tipping Points
- Clearly assign responsibilities.
- Coda
- Collective Action and Common Pool Resource Problems
- Colonel Blotto Game
- Commandos vs Infantry vs Police
- Commitment & Consistency Bias
- Commitment and Consistency Bias
- Common Knowledge
- Communicate the plan clearly and have clear metrics conveying whether you are progressing according to it.
- Comparative Advantage
- Competence without Comprehension
- Complex Adaptive Systems
- Compounding
- Confidence determines Speed vs. Quality
- Confidence Interval
- Conjoined Triangles of Success
- Consequence vs Conviction
- Consequentialism
- Conspicuous Consumption
- Contagion Models 1 Diffusion
- Contagion Models 2 SIS Model
- Content Farm
- Contrast-Misreaction Tendency
- Convert your principles into algorithms and have the computer make decisions alongside you.
- Cooperation (Including Symbiosis)
- Coordination and Consistency
- Coordination and Culture
- Core Competency
- Cost-benefit Analysis
- Cranes and Skyhooks, Lifting in Design Space
- Create an environment in which everyone has the right to understand what makes sense and no one has the right to hold a critical opinion without speaking up.
- Create an organizational chart to look like a pyramid, with straight lines down that don’t cross.
- Create an organizational chart to look like a pyramid, with straight lines down that don’t cross.
- Create guardrails when needed—and remember it’s better not to guardrail at all.
- Create guardrails when needed—and remember it’s better not to guardrail at all.
- Creative Destruction
- Critical Mass
- Criticality
- Crowdsourcing
- Culture of Lifelong Learning
- Curiosity Instinct
- Curiosity Tendency
- Cycles
D
- Deadweight Loss
- Decision Trees
- Default Status
- Deliberate Practice
- Denial
- Deprival-Superreaction Tendency
- Design a plan.
- Design and oversee a machine to perceive whether things are good enough or not good enough, or do it yourself.
- Design Pattern
- Diagnose Problems to Get at Their Root Causes 12.1 To diagnose well, ask the following questions: 1. Is the outcome good or bad? 2. Who is responsible for the outcome? 3. If the outcome is bad, is the Responsible Party incapable and/or is the design bad?
- Diagnose problems to get at their root causes.
- Diminishing Returns
- Directly Responsible Individual
- Disagreeing must be done efficiently.
- Disliking/Hating Tendency
- Disney Creativity Technique
- Disruptive Innovation
- Distributive Justice vs Procedural Justice
- Divergent Thinking vs Convergent Thinking
- Diversification
- Diversity Prediction Theorem
- Divide and Conquer
- Do Locusts Understand Prime Numbers?
- Don’t be afraid to fix the difficult things.
- Don’t hide your observations about people.
- Don’t hire people just to fit the first job they will do; hire people you want to share your life with.
- Don’t leave important conflicts unresolved.
- Don’t lower the bar. TO BUILD AND EVOLVE YOUR MACHINE.
- Don’t treat everyone the same—treat them appropriately.
- Don’t worry about looking good—worry about achieving your goals.
- Double-Entry Bookkeeping
- Doubt/Avoidance Tendency
- Dunbar´s Number
- Dunbar’s Number
- Dunning-Kruger Effect
- Duverger’s Law
E
- Economies of Scale
- Ecosystems
- Effective Altruism
- Efficient-Market Hypothesis
- Eisenhower Matrix (Eisenhower Box)
- Emergence
- Emergence of Culture
- Entropy (The Second Law of Thermodynamics)
- Envy/Jealousy Tendency
- Equilibrium (Homeostasis)
- Escalate when you can’t adequately handle your responsibilities and make sure that the people who work for you are proactive about doing the same.
- Evaluate accurately, not kindly.
- Evolution / Making Mistakes
- Evolution by Natural Selection
- Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward.
- Exaptation
- Exapting the Markov Model
- Excessive Self-Regard Tendency
- Exchange Economies and Externalities
- Expected Value
- Experiment, Feature, Platform
- Exponential Growth
- Externalities
- Extinction
F
- Failure to Account for Base Rates
- Failure to See False Conjunctions
- False Cause
- False Positives and False Negatives
- Falsification / Confirmation Bias
- Fat-Tailed Processes (Extremistan)
- Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
- Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
- Feedback Loops
- Feedback Loops (and Homeostasis)
- Filling a Vacuum
- Filter Bubble
- Find out what you and others are like.
- Find the most believable people possible who disagree with you and try to understand their reasoning.
- FInite Memory Random Walks
- First-Conclusion Bias
- First-mover advantage vs First-mover disadvantage
- Fisher’s Theorem
- Fitting Lines to Data
- Flywheel (recursive feedback loop)
- Focus on High-leverage Activities
- Folk Psychology
- Forcing Function
- Fragility – Robustness – Antifragility
- Framing
- Free-Floating Rationales
- Freemium
- Freeroll
- From Linear to Nonlinear
G
- Game Theory
- Gate’s Law
- Generalist vs Specialist
- Genes as Words or as Subroutines
- Getting the right people in the right roles in support of your goal is the key to succeeding at whatever you choose to accomplish.
- Godwin’s Law
- Great collaboration feels like playing jazz.
- Great people are hard to find so make sure you think about how to keep them.
- Gresham’s Law
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
H
- Hail Mary Pass
- Half-life
- Hanlon’s Razor
- Hanlon’s Razor
- Have clear goals.
- Have good controls so that you are not exposed to the dishonesty of others.
- Have good controls so that you are not exposed to the dishonesty of others.
- Have integrity and demand it from others.
- Have the clearest possible reporting lines and delineations of responsibilities.
- Have the clearest possible reporting lines and delineations of responsibilities.
- Having systemized principles embedded in tools is especially valuable for an idea meritocracy.
- Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
- Herb, Alice, and Hal, the Baby
- Heredity
- Heterophenomenology
- Heuristics-Model Thinking
- Heuristics-Model Thinking
- Hidden Action and Hidden Information
- Hierarchical and Other Organizing Instincts
- High-context vs Low-context Culture
- Hindsight Bias
- Hold yourself and your people accountable and appreciate them for holding you accountable.
- How to Explain Stotting
- Humanness Principle
- Hyperbolic Discounting
I
- Identify and don’t tolerate problems.
- If it is your meeting to run, manage the conversation.
- If you find you can’t reconcile major differences—especially in values—consider whether the relationship is worth preserving.
- If you’re not worried, you need to worry—and if you’re worried, you don’t need to worry.
- Illusion of Control
- Imposter Syndrome
- Incentives
- Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency
- Inert Historical Facts
- Inertia
- Inflation
- Inflection Point
- Influence of Authority
- Influence of Stress (Including Breaking Points)
- Influence Yourself
- Influence-From-Mere-Association Tendency
- Information Asymmetry
- Insider Trading
- Introduction To Growth
- Introduction to Linear Models
- Introversion vs Extraversion
- Intuition
- Inversion
- Investing vs Speculation
- IQ vs EQ
- Irreducibility
K
- Kantian Fairness Tendency
- Keep in mind that diagnoses should produce outcomes.
- Keep your strategic vision the same while making appropriate tactical changes as circumstances dictate.
- Keep your strategic vision the same while making appropriate tactical changes as circumstances dictate.
- Key Failure Indicator (KFI)
- KISS Principle
- Know how to get in sync and disagree well.
- Know that great leadership is generally not what it’s made out to be.
- Know that the ultimate Responsible Party will be the person who bears the consequences of what is done.
- Know what types of mistakes are acceptable and what types are unacceptable, and don’t allow the people who work for you to make the unacceptable ones.
- Know what your people are like and what makes them tick, because your people are your most important resource.
- Knowing how people operate and being able to judge whether that way of operating will lead to good results is more important than knowing what they did.
L
- Language Instinct
- Lateral Thinking
- Law of Large Numbers
- Laws of Thermodynamics
- Leaping through Space in the Library of Babel
- Leverage
- Likely
- Liking/Loving Tendency
- Linear Models
- Linear Models
- Local vs Global Optimum
- Logic, reason, and common sense are your best tools for synthesizing reality and understanding what to do about it.
- Lollapalooza Tendency
- Look at the machine from the higher level.
- Look down on your machine and yourself within it from the higher level.
- Look to nature to learn how reality works.
- Loss Aversion
- Loyalists vs Mercenaries
- Luck Surface Area
- Lyapunov Fun and Deep
- Lyapunov Functions
- Lyapunov or Markov
M
- Maintain an emerging synthesis by diagnosing continuously.
- Major vs Minor Chords
- Major vs Minor Factors
- Make sure people don’t confuse the right to complain, give advice, and openly debate with the right to make decisions.
- Make the process of learning what someone is like open, evolutionary, and iterative.
- Makers vs Manager’s Schedule
- Making Mistakes
- Manifest Image and Scientific Image
- Margin of Safety
- Margin of Safety
- Market Power
- Markov Convergence Theorem
- Markov Model of Democratization
- Markov Models
- Mary the Color Scientist: A Boom Crutch Unveiled
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Match the person to the design.
- Mathematics on Urn Models
- Meaningful relationships and meaningful work are mutually reinforcing, especially when supported by radical truth and radical transparency.
- Meaningful work and meaningful relationships aren’t just nice things we chose for ourselves—they are genetically programmed into us.
- Measuring Tips
- Mechanism Design
- Memes
- Mere Exposure Effect
- Metcalfe’s Law
- Micropayment
- Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
- moAppeasement
- moAsymmetric Warfare
- moAttrition warfare
- moBeachhead
- moBoots on the Ground
- moContainment
- moCounterinsurgency
- moEmpty Fort Strategy
- moExit Strategy
- moFighting the Last War
- moFlypaper Theory
- moGuerilla warfare
- moMutually Assured Destruction
- moRumsfeld’s Rule
- moSeeing the Front
- Most value is created after version one
- moTrojan Horse
- moTwo-Front War
- moWinning a Battle but Losing the War
- moWinning Hearts and Minds
- Mr. Market
- Multi Criterion Decision Making
- Multiplying by Zero
- Murder in Trafalgar Square
- Murphy’s Law
N
- Narrative Fallacy
- Narrative Instinct
- Nature vs Nurture
- Navigate levels effectively.
- Network Effects
- Network Function
- Networks
- Niches
- No governance system of principles, rules, and checks and balances can substitute for a great partnership.
- No Panacea
- Noise in the Virtual Hotel
- Normal Distribution
- Nuclear option
O
- Observe the patterns of mistakes to see if they are products of weaknesses.
- Observer Effect
- Occam’s Broom
- Once a decision is made, everyone should get behind it even though individuals may still disagree.
- Open Platform vs Closed Platform
- Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
- Opportunity Costs
- Order of Magnitude
- Organizational Debt
- Over-Optimism Tendency
- Own your outcomes.
P
- Pain + Reflection = Progress.
- Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial
- Paradigm shift
- Paradox of Choice
- Pareto Efficiency
- Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
- Parkinson’s Law
- Path Dependence
- Path Dependence
- Path Dependence and Chaos
- Path Dependence and Increasing Returns
- Path Dependent or Tipping Point
- Pavlovian Mere Association
- Pay attention to people’s track records.
- Pay more attention to whether the decision-making system is fair than whether you get your way.
- Peak Oil
- Peer Effects
- Percolation Models
- Permutations and Combinations
- Perspectives and Innovation
- Perspectives and Innovation
- Peter Principle
- Plausible
- Plus One Minus Two Rule
- Poison Pill
- Power Laws
- Practice radical open-mindedness.
- Precautionary Principle
- Prediction
- Preferential Attachment (Cumulative Advantage)
- Preferred Stock vs Common Stock
- Preserving Optionality
- Price Elasticity
- Prioritize by weighing the value of additional information against the cost of not deciding.
- Prisoner’s Dilemma
- Probabilistic Thinking (See also: Numeracy/Bayesian Updating)
- Probability The Basics
- Probe deep and hard to learn what you can expect from your machine.
- Problem Solving and Innovation
- Problem Solving and Innovation
- Product Market Fit
- Product/Market Fit
- Protect Yourself From Bad Advice.
- Provide constant feedback.
- Proxy
- Public Projects
- Purchasing Power Parity
- Pure Coordination Game
- Push through to completion.
- Pygmalion Effect (Rosenthal Effect)
R
- Radical Translation and a Quinian Crossword Puzzle
- Random Walks
- Random Walks and Wall Street
- Randomness
- Randomness and Random Walk Models
- Rapoport’s Rules
- Rational Actor Models
- Reading Regression Output
- Realize that you have nothing to fear from knowing the truth.
- Reason-Respecting Tendency
- Reciprocation Tendency
- Reciprocity
- Recognize and deal with key-man risk.
- Recognize that 1) the biggest threat to good decision making is harmful emotions, and 2) decision making is a two-step process (first learning and then deciding).
- Recognize that conflicts are essential for great relationships because they are how people determine whether their principles are aligned and resolve their differences.
- Recognize that design is an iterative process. Between a bad “now” and a good “then” is a “working through it” period.
- Recognize that design is an iterative process. Between a bad “now” and a good “then” is a “working through it” period.
- Recognize that everyone has the right and responsibility to try to make sense of important things.
- Recognize that everyone has too much to do.
- Recognize that having an effective idea meritocracy requires that you understand the merit of each person’s ideas.
- Recognize that if the people who have the power don’t want to operate by principles, the principled way of operating will fail.
- Recognize that mistakes are a natural part of the evolutionary process.
- Recognize that the most important decision for you to make is who you choose as your Responsible Parties.
- Recognize that the size of the organization can pose a threat to meaningful relationships.
- Recognize that tough love is both the hardest and the most important type of love to give (because it is so rarely welcomed).
- Recognize that when you are really in sync with someone about their weaknesses, the weaknesses are probably true.
- Recognize the signs of closed-mindedness and open-mindedness that you should watch out for.
- Recognize your two barriers.
- Recombination
- Recombination
- Reductio ad Absurdum
- Regression to the Mean
- Regret Minimization Framework
- Regulatory Capture
- Relative Satisfaction/Misery Tendencies
- Relativity
- Remember that a good plan should resemble a movie script.
- Remember that a good plan should resemble a movie script.
- Remember that almost everything will take more time and cost more money than you expect.
- Remember that almost everything will take more time and cost more money than you expect.
- Remember that for every case you deal with, your approach should have two purposes: 1) to move you closer to your goal, and 2) to train and test your machine (i.e., your people and your design).
- Remember that if the idea meritocracy comes into conflict with the well-being of the organization, it will inevitably suffer.
- Remember that in an idea meritocracy a single CEO is not as good as a great group of leaders.
- Remember that in great partnerships, consideration and generosity are more important than money.
- Remember that most people will pretend to operate in your interest while operating in their own.
- Remember that people are built very differently and that different ways of seeing and thinking make people suitable for different jobs.
- Remember that the goal of a transfer is the best, highest use of the person in a way that benefits the community as a whole.
- Remember that weaknesses don’t matter if you find solutions.
- Remember the force behind the thing.
- Remember to reflect when you experience pain.
- Remember: Principles can’t be ignored by mutual agreement.
- Renormalization Group
- Replication
- Replicator Dynamics
- Representativeness Heuristic
- Response Bias
- Return On Investment
- Reversible and Irreversible Decisions (One-Way or Two-Way-Doors Decisions)
- Reversible vs Irreversible Decisions
- Reward & Punishment Superresponse Tendency
- Rhetorical Questions
- Ring the bell.
- Rock, Paper, and Scissors
- Rule Based Models
S
- Scale
- Scarcity
- Scenario Analysis
- Schelling’s Segregation Model
- Schlep Blindness
- Scientific Method
- Second-Order Thinking
- Secrets
- Seizing the Middle
- Selection Bias
- Self-Preservation Instincts
- Semantic Engines and Syntactic Engines
- Sensitivity Analysis
- Sensitivity to Fairness
- Seven Ways To Cooperation
- Short-termism
- Signalling
- Simple Markov Model
- Simple Physiological Reward-Seeking
- Simplify!
- Simpson’s Paradox
- Simulation
- Skill and Luck
- Slippery Slope
- Slippery Slope Argumentation
- SMART Formula
- Social Proof (Safety in Numbers)
- Social vs Market Norms
- Social-Proof Tendency
- Solow Growth Model
- Solve the Whole Customer Experience
- Sources of Randomness
- Spacing Effect
- Spamming
- Spatial Choice Models-Model Thinking
- Specialization (Pin Factory)
- Sphere of Influence
- Sphexishness
- Spring-loading
- Status Quo Bias
- Stochastic Processes (Poisson, Markov, Random Walk)
- Strategic Acquisition vs Financial Acquisition vs Aquihire
- Strategy vs Tactics
- Straw Man
- Stress-Influence Tendency
- Sturgeon’s Law
- Sunk Cost
- Supply and Demand
- Surfing or “Riding the Wave”
- Survivorship Bias
- Sustainability
- Sustainable Competitive Advantage
- Swampman Meets a Cow-Shark
- Switching Costs
- Synthesize the situation at hand.
- Synthesize the situation through time.
- Systemize your principles and how they will be implemented.
- Systemize your principles and how they will be implemented.
- Systems Thinking
T
- Teams and Problem Solving
- Teams and Problem Solving
- Technical Debt
- Technology Adoption Lifecycle
- Tendency to Distort Due to Liking/Loving or Disliking/Hating
- Tendency to Feel Envy & Jealousy
- Tendency to Minimize Energy Output (Mental & Physical)
- Tendency to Overestimate Consistency of Behavior (Fundamental Attribution Error)
- Tendency to Overgeneralize from Small Samples
- Tendency to Stereotype
- Tendency to Want to Do Something (Fight/Flight, Intervention, Demonstration of Value, etc.)
- The 2-List System
- The Big Coefficient vs The New Reality
- The Boys from Brazil: Another Boom Crutch
- The Chinese Room
- The Curse of the Cauliflower
- The Idea Maze
- The Identification Problem – The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart
- The Intentional Stance
- The Library of Mendel: Vast and Vanishing
- The Lindy Effect
- The Logic of Network Formation
- The Many Model Thinker
- The Map Is Not the Territory
- The Organization of Cities
- The Personal/Sub-personal Distinction
- The Peter Principle
- The Principle of Parsimony
- The Principle of Parsimony (Occam’s Razor)
- The Prisoners’ Dilemma and Collective Action
- The Problem Hypothesis
- The Red Queen Effect (Co-evolutionary Arms Race)
- The Replicator Equation
- The Sad Case of Mr. Clapgras
- The Self as the Center of Narrative Gravity
- The Seven Secrets of Computer Power Revealed
- The Sorta Operator
- The Standing Ovation Model
- The Structure of Networks
- The Teleclone Fall from Mars to Earth
- The Tree of Life
- The Tuned Deck
- The Wandering Two-Bitser, Twin Earth, and the Giant Robot
- The Zombic Hunch
- The “Surely” Operator: A Mental Block
- Think about whether you are playing the role of a teacher, a student, or a peer and whether you should be teaching, asking questions, or debating.
- Think like an owner, and expect the people you work with to do the same.
- Think of your teams the way that sports managers do: No one person possesses everything required to produce success, yet everyone must excel.
- Thinking Electrons Modeling People
- Thinking-Feeling-Thinking Loop
- Third Rail
- Thought Experiments
- Three Species of Goulding: Rathering, Piling On, and the Gould Two-Step
- Time Horizon
- Time to Convergence and Optimality
- Time Value Of Shipping
- Tipping Points
- To be successful, all organizations must have checks and balances.
- Trademarks, Patents, and Copyrights
- Tragedy of the Commons
- Train, guardrail, or remove people; don’t rehabilitate them.
- Trapped in the Robot Control Room
- Treasure honorable people who are capable and will treat you well even when you’re not looking.
- Triangulate your view with believable people who are willing to disagree.
- Tribalism
- Trust
- Truth—or, more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality—is the essential foundation for any good outcome.
- Twaddle Tendency
- Two Black Boxes
- Two Counter-images
- Two Lotteries
- Two-sided Market
U
- Ultimate Responsibility
- Understand how people came by their opinions.
- Understand how you can become radically open-minded.
- Understand nature’s practical lessons.
- Understand that diagnosis is foundational to both progress and quality relationships.
- Understand that you and the people you manage will go through a process of personal evolution.
- Understand the differences between managing, micromanaging, and not managing.
- Understand the great brain battles and how to control them to get what “you” want.
- Understand the power that comes from knowing how you and others are wired.
- Understand your own and others’ mental maps and humility.
- Unforced Error
- Unintended Consequences
- Universal Acid
- Unknown Unknowns
- Urn Models
- Use checklists.
- Use principles.
- Use the following “drill-down” technique to gain an 80/20 understanding of a department or sub-department that is having problems.
- Using Lay Audiences as Decoys
- Utilitarianism
- Utility (Marginal, Diminishing, Increasing)
V
W
- Weekly 1–1s
- Weigh second- and third-order consequences.
- What Does the Frog’s Eye Tell the Frog’s Brain?
- What Is a Deepity?
- What Is Culture And Why Do We Care
- When considering compensation, provide both stability and opportunity.
- When Does Behavior Matter
- When Does Speciation Occur?
- When you have alignment, cherish it.
- Who Is the Author of Spamlet?
- Why Do Some Countries Not Grow
- Widowmakers, Mitochondrial Eve, and Retrospective Coronations
- WIll China Continue to Grow
- Win-Win Game
- Winner Take All Market
- Wonder Questions
- Wonder Tissue
- Work for goals that you and your organization are excited about and think about how your tasks connect to those goals.
- Working Backward
- Working Backwards