Collison: Sociological Mindsets Impede Big Bets More Than Downside Costs
Patrick Collison · #32 Patrick Collison: Earning Your Stripes · May 2, 2018 · at 40:30
Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, discusses why mature companies struggle to place large speculative bets even when the actual downside risk is manageable.
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“It feels to me that actually the reasons that organizations don't take, don't tend to make more of these or make more good ones is It's more kind of sociological, more institutional, and less that it's fundamentally too costly, because in most cases, the downside cost is not that large. And either in terms of like just direct financial costs or in terms of the sort of the broader damage to the organization, whatever form that might take, it's much more the mindset of improving that which already exists is just quite different to the mindset of Screw the old system. Let's do something that's fundamentally new from scratch.”
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