
June 18, 2019
Gabriel Weinberg: Using Mental Models To Make Better Decisions – The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
Check out The Learning Leader Show Podcast Page
Key Takeaways
- Great leaders share these 3 traits:
- They’re open to growing and learning
- They help everyone around them succeed in their role
- They make sure their team is working on great ideas/projects
- Advice for the workplace:
- When beginning a new project, first answer the following questions:
- What is the objective of the project?
- What is the success criteria?
- What are we trying to solve?
- Create a post-mortem report for every project (ones that fail AND ones that succeed) – ask your team:
- What went well?
- What didn’t go well?
- Given those things, what can we do better next time?
- What went well?
- When beginning a new project, first answer the following questions:
- Be careful about trusting your intuition – very often you have have a few biases you’re not immediately aware of
- Career advice:
- Either go really deep into a single discipline that’s in demand or combine two different disciplines (i.e., become someone who’s really knowledgeable about finance and also really good at public speaking)
- If you have a particular set of skills that the market really desires, you can demand a better salary or more benefits
Intro
- Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) is the CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo, an internet privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your personal information online, without any tradeoffs
- Check out the Podcast Notes from Gabriel’s appearance on The Knowledge Project
Books Mentioned
- Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg & Lauren McCann
- Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
- Gabriel says he was hooked by this book
Commonalities of Excellent Leaders
- Great leaders share these 3 traits:
- They’re open to growing and learning
- They help everyone around them succeed in their role
- They make sure their team is working on great ideas/projects
- Gabriel follows “The North Star” model
- It’s a metaphor for the DuckDuckGo’s mission statement
- Everything you do in your company should be moving you towards your North Star
- It’s a metaphor for the DuckDuckGo’s mission statement
About DuckDuckGo
- Gabriel is the CEO of DuckDuckGo – an internet privacy company that provides traffic blockers, encryption, and private search
- Gabriel started the company in 2008 as private search engine
- Search engines are one of the most personal services on the internet – people frequently type in their financial, medical, and life problems
- Gabriel started the company in 2008 as private search engine
Gabriel’s Book: Super Thinking
- Mental models are concepts used for general decision making
- They’re essentially shortcuts for higher-level thinking
- Mid to higher tier managers need to be good decision makers, so Gabriel created a list of mental models and shared them internally with DuckDuckGo employees
- This list eventually turned into the book
- Gabriel co-wrote the book with his wife
- It took about 2 years of intense writing to get done
- One popular mental model – thinking in first principles
- Break things down to the most basic assumptions and then build up a train of thought from the fundamentals
- Elon Musk is a big proponent of this one
- Break things down to the most basic assumptions and then build up a train of thought from the fundamentals
Advice For the Workplace
- On Projects:
- When working on a project, Gabriel has his team write down/answer:
- What is the objective of the project?
- What is the success criteria?
- What are we trying to solve?
- Everyone should agree with the above before moving forward
- When working on a project, Gabriel has his team write down/answer:
- Instead of making a pro/con list, make a cost/benefit list
- Write down all the costs and benefits for the activity – this allows you to easily see the profit or loss over time
- Create a post-mortem report for every project (ones that fail AND ones that succeed)
- This creates a feedback loop of critical thinking – ask your team:
- What went well?
- What didn’t go well?
- Given those things, what can we do better next time?
- Why is it rare to do a “success autopsy?”
- No one wants extra meetings, especially after things went well – you have to build the autopsy process into the culture
- This creates a feedback loop of critical thinking – ask your team:
The Hiring Process at DuckDuckGo
- Since DuckDuckGo is very distributed and gives its workers lots of autonomy, the company looks for people who are self-starters
- Employees must also:
- Question assumptions
- Communicate well
- Give people the benefit of the doubt
- As an example, some text messages may be interpreted in a negative tone – assume it’s a neutral or positive tone
- Have an experimental mindset and validate direction
- Run experiments if you have a hunch and then analyze your findings
- Build trust
- DuckDuckGo is very transparent and widespread, trust is a must when working remotely
- To test if applicants have these traits, Gabriel gives them a paid project to complete, allowing him to get a feel for how they work and the way they think through problems
- Employees must also:
Can you trust your gut?
- You can’t always trust your gut intuition
- Why? – People have biases that they might not be aware of. This includes:
- The availability bias (you may not remember all the options you have)
- The confirmation bias (If you’ve already made a decision in a certain direction, you’re much more likely to make decisions that push you towards that same direction)
- Why? – People have biases that they might not be aware of. This includes:
- Instead – use your intuition as a hypothesis generator (don’t fully commit to any decision)
- Gabriel calls this “thinking gray” – Delay decisions until they absolutely must be made
- Jeff Bezos thinks of decisions as doors
- Go through the door you think is right, but if it turns out to be wrong – just reverse course, head back, and go through another door
Additional Notes
- Flex your market power muscles
- If you have a particular set of skills that the market really desires, you can demand a better salary or more benefits
- Either go really deep into a single discipline that’s in demand or combine two different disciplines (i.e., become someone who’s really knowledgeable about finance and also really good at public speaking)
- The fastest way to build trust is through vulnerability
- Being vulnerable and honest speeds up the process of building a trusting environment
- To get better at a skill, you need deliberate practice. Here’s how to accelerate your learning:
- Work at the edge of your comfort zone
- Hire a coach who can give you feedback
- Create a board of advisors
- Check your thinking and explain it (by talking or through writing)
- Writing is the best form of thinking critically
- You can easily see if your argument is logical or full of holes
- Find the highest leverage points in life – where the least amount of work is doing the most positive impact