Improving predictive skill requires breaking problems down and shortening feedback loops
Ted Wang · 20VC: A Framework For Approaching Risk and How It Affects Portfolio Construction | Lessons and Advice From Working with Dropbox's Drew Houston | Why Being A Learning Animal Is The Most Important Factor For Success with Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy Ventures · Dec 17, 2018 · at 23:45
Ted Wang, Partner at Cowboy Ventures, references insights from the book Superforecasting while explaining how VCs can accelerate their learning curve despite long feedback loops.
0:00 / 0:21exact quote · 21.4s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“What that book says is if you want to, the first answer is yes, some people are better at predicting the future, and the people who are tend to take these complex problems and break them down into subparts, and then the best way to improve your ability to predict things is to try to have a shortened learning loop. So in other words, If you're waiting five years, you know, from a decision to the feedback point, it's just very hard to learn.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ted Wang
Lean startup methodology fails when trying to compete against Amazon
“There's no lean startup methodology that's going to get you into competing with something like Amazon”
Founders bear total accountability for failure, even if following investor advice
“You know, ultimately for founders, if you do exactly what you're told to do by your investors and the company fails, you're a failure. If you don't do what they say and it's successful, you're a success. So ultimately the decision is in the hands of the founde…”
Government can be a force for good despite Silicon Valley libertarianism
“I believe the government can work for us. Being here in Silicon Valley, there's a very strong libertarian ideology, and there's a very strong notion that, oh, government's just this terrible thing, and it can never work, and it's always screwed up, and I worke…”
Startup risk cannot be mitigated or eliminated, only chosen
“So I think the biggest miscalculation people make about risk is that they think that there are ways to mitigate certain risks when actually it's just a matter of which risk you're going to choose to take.”
First-time founders cannot execute Jet.com's hyper-capital-intensive playbook
“I don't think that, you know, a first time founder is going to be able to pull something like that off”
Wang admits he was "dead wrong" thinking VC ownership targets were stupid
“When I was a lawyer watching other venture capitalists amass their portfolios, I really didn't understand, you know, why they were so focused on percentage ownership. And I sort of thought it was, it sounded pretty stupid to me, to be honest with you. And now …”