Mike's notes.
Names make thoughts legible. Here are a few recent paradoxes to consider. The Abiline Paradox. Don’t rock the boat (YouTube). Or, when one person goes along with another because they think that I think that they think I want to go along. More from Rory Sutherland. The Fire Paradox. The more successful humans are suppressing … Continue reading The Abilene, Fire, and Simpson’s Paradox
One non-intuitive concept, at least in scale, is the network. Like average numbers, it takes some work to construct the correct conclusions. Graph, chart, and count the way that people interact, decide, and connect and there will be patterns. It’s network effects which fuel companies like Instagram and create the increasing returns economy. Networks, as Nicholas … Continue reading The Vaccine Friendship Paradox
Like Gambling with Covid19, betting markets can demonstrate probabilistic thinking. In that post we considered an idea from Matt (+EV) about Tom Brady’s potential passing yards. In April Brady’s over-under yardage was 4,256, nicely inline with previous years of 4057, 4355, 4577, and 3554. However, Matt noted, there’s a lot more room under 4,256 than … Continue reading Gambling with Votes
Is it more likely for an infected football player to transmit a disease to their teammates or their competition? Adi Wyner: "I would expect intrateam transmission by far. Not only huddle time, but the time on the bench, in the locker room, and while they travel. It’s a small chance of any given pairing but … Continue reading Large N Small p
This idea is related to Tyler Cowen’s idea of ‘meta-rationality’ which you read about in this pay-what-you want pdf. Perhaps there’s no better time to see, sort, and participate in over reactions than week one of the NFL. Though I only watch a full game or two a year, there are a lot of lessons … Continue reading An easy way to change your mind.
Wharton Moneyball Super Bowl Show. “I was blessed to know Bill (Belichick) back in college. We worked together for seventeen years. Bill can make complicated game plans but his general principles aren’t very difficult. He had three rules: be on time, pay attention, and work hard. Those seem like simple things but when you’re deaing … Continue reading The Right Proxies
Well before he won The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, Richard Thaler wrote The Loser’s Curse. Along with co-author Cade Massey (well before he hosted the Wharton Moneyball podcast), they found that NFL teams tend to trade too many assets to choose higher in the draft. With the idea … Continue reading Thaler, Massey, and Losers
Bias warning, My wife and I can work from home, my kids kinda like homeschool (but really miss their friends) and I wiped down the groceries in the garage. It’s always helpful to ask, has someone faced my situation before? The answer is often yes. Rory Sutherland thrives at this. On recent podcasts from Deep Dive (#249) … Continue reading Gambling with CoVid19
It looks like Daryl Morey is thinking like Howard Marks. But, he probably always has. On the Wharton Moneyball podcast, Eric Bradlow talked through why the Houston Rockets might think playing “five guys a large number of minutes that are all six-seven to six-four” to end the season and into the playoffs was a good … Continue reading Morey thinking like Marks
On the Wharton Moneyball podcast the trio of Eric, Adi, and Cade talked about betting lines for the upcoming weekend in sports and they brought up a good point: Liebig’s Barrel. The idea is that a barrel can only hold as much water as the shortest slat. In the context of Wharton Moneyball the trio … Continue reading Always Fix Your Weaknesses
The Waiter's Pad 