Rationality & Startups - The Workshop

Alexandros

I have been given the opportunity to prepare a workshop for the General Assembly team in London. General Assembly is geared towards education of entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs and have been very successful in New York, now expanding to London. The workshops are 90 minutes long, and usually gather anywhere from 15 to 35 people who have paid to attend.

While I considered doing something on concrete coding skills, I think by far the superior alternative (for myself and the audience) is to do a crash course on cognitive bias as it relates to startups, maybe throw in some other topics on rationality in a similar context. I am fairly confident that startups are an excellent testing ground for extreme rationality as they require exceptionally quick assimilation of new skills and knowledge, as well as demand rapid decisions with incomplete information.

So, as part of the brainstorming for this, here are my questions for you:

1.Do you think educating startup founders on cognitive bias/rationality will help them improve their outcomes?

2.Which biases would especially affect startups? Which of these can be mitigated (either by knowing about them or by utilising explicit strategies)?

3.What is a good way to use 90 minutes to get this information across?

4.What prior material exists to introduce rationality in a fast-paced manner? What prior material exists that relates startups to rationality?

5.Other relevant thoughts welcome

Should I go ahead with this, I will of course make the deck available for any others who may want to do similar presentations elsewhere.

So, as part of the brainstorming for this, here are my questions for you:

1.Do you think educating startup founders on cognitive bias/rationality will help them improve their outcomes?

2.Which biases would especially affect startups? Which of these can be mitigated (either by knowing about them or by utilising explicit strategies)?

3.What is a good way to use 90 minutes to get this information across?

4.What prior material exists to introduce rationality in a fast-paced manner? What prior material exists that relates startups to rationality?

5.Other relevant thoughts welcome

Should I go ahead with this, I will of course make the deck available for any others who may want to do similar presentations elsewhere.

Success of the startup depends a lot on the industry it is in:

http://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Entrepreneurship-Costly-Entrepreneurs-Investors/dp/0300113315

That book is actually pretty optimistic for Silicon Valley type stuff if you read it.

Startups that get venture capital tend to have high expected values:

http://80000hours.org/blog/12-salary-or-startup-how-do-gooders-can-gain-more-from-risky-careers

To be frank, I think most entrepreneurs are naïve and incompetent (this is from hanging out in online entrepreneurship communities and going to events for entrepreneurs). As an entrepreneurial type, most entrepreneurial types annoy me. (The stereotypical example would be a college entrepreneurship club that doesn't result in the creation of any new companies. Also, try any nonprogrammer that wants to start a web company, or anyone who complains about being rejected from Y Combinator – being rejected isn't a sure sign of failure, but complaining probably is – the appropriate response is surely either stoicism or defiance :D) I'm sure that a driven less wrong user has a significantly better chance of succeeding than the median entrepreneur.