army1987 comments on Fermi Estimates - Less Wrong

51 Post author: lukeprog 11 April 2013 05:52PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (104)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: AnnaSalamon 07 April 2013 06:10:21AM 21 points [-]

Fermi's seem essential for business to me. Others agree; they're taught in standard MBA programs. For example:

  • Can our business (or our non-profit) afford to hire an extra person right now? E.g., if they require the same training time before usefulness that others required, will they bring in more revenue in time to make up for the loss of runway?

  • If it turns out that product X is a success, how much money might it make -- is it enough to justify investigating the market?

  • Is it cheaper (given the cost of time) to use disposable dishes or to wash the dishes?

  • Is it better to process payments via paypal or checks, given the fees involved in paypal vs. the delays, hassles, and associated risks of non-payment involved in checks?

And on and on. I use them several times a day for CFAR and they seem essential there.

They're useful also for one's own practical life: commute time vs. rent tradeoffs; visualizing "do I want to have a kid? how would the time and dollar cost actually impact me?", realizing that macademia nuts are actually a cheap food and not an expensive food (once I think "per calorie" and not "per apparent size of the container"), and so on and so on.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 April 2013 10:36:34AM 4 points [-]

realizing that macademia nuts are actually a cheap food and not an expensive food (once I think "per calorie" and not "per apparent size of the container"),

But calories aren't the only thing you care about -- the ability to satiate you also matters. (Seed oil is even cheaper per calorie.)