Working at a startup made me realize how little we can actually “reason through” things to get to a point where all team members agree. Often there’s too little time to test all assumptions, if it’s even doable at all. Part of the role of the CEO is to “cut” these discussions when it’s evident that spending more time on it is worse than proceeding despite uncertainty.
If we had “the facts”, we might find it easier to agree. But in an uncertain environment, many decisions come down to the intuition (hopefully based on reliable experience—such as founding a similar previous startup)
To me it seems that there are parallels here. In discussions I can always push back on the intuitions of others, but where no reliable facts exist, I have little chance at getting far. Which is not always bad, since if we couldn’t function well under uncertainty, we would likely be a lot less successful as a species.
Working at a startup made me realize how little we can actually “reason through” things to get to a point where all team members agree. Often there’s too little time to test all assumptions, if it’s even doable at all. Part of the role of the CEO is to “cut” these discussions when it’s evident that spending more time on it is worse than proceeding despite uncertainty. If we had “the facts”, we might find it easier to agree. But in an uncertain environment, many decisions come down to the intuition (hopefully based on reliable experience—such as founding a similar previous startup)
To me it seems that there are parallels here. In discussions I can always push back on the intuitions of others, but where no reliable facts exist, I have little chance at getting far. Which is not always bad, since if we couldn’t function well under uncertainty, we would likely be a lot less successful as a species.