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#37 Annie Duke: Getting Better by Being Wrong

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#37 Annie Duke: Getting Better by Being Wrong

The Knowledge Project

2018/07/25
The Knowledge Project

The Knowledge Project

2018/07/25
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

I have wanted to do this interview for a long time. On this episode, I am thrilled to have Annie Duke, former professional poker player and author of the new book, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. Annie has a ...

Highlights

In this wide-ranging, deeply insightful conversation, Annie Duke—former world-class poker player, cognitive scientist, and author of Thinking in Bets—unpacks how we really make decisions when outcomes are uncertain, feedback is misleading, and emotions run high.
09:18
Learning in real-world poker is not as simple as the view presented in Psych 1 textbooks, which emphasize feedback closely tied to decisions and actions for learning to occur.
21:23
Eric Seidel said there's nothing to learn from bad-beat stories—only strategy discussions drive improvement
29:26
Eric Seidel told the speaker that the goal should be accuracy, not just affirming priors, and would hold her accountable
32:03
Forming a group agreement provides immediate gratification for admitting mistakes and avoiding bad-beat stories
55:10
Being under scrutiny leads to decisions based on avoiding criticism rather than decision quality, which is an innovation killer
1:00:42
Resulting stifles innovation and harms long-term competitiveness
1:05:46
Leaders should memorialize the decision tree and assign probabilities to different scenarios, despite the fear of not being perfectly accurate
1:11:28
A premortem changes the concept of being a team-player by imagining goal failure to anticipate problems and adjust probabilities
1:13:47
Memorializing decisions and probabilities focuses on the decision-making process
1:22:01
Generic questions yield useless advice; specificity enables actionable insight
1:29:48
Knowing the outcome distorts analysis of the decision-making process because real decisions involve hidden information and luck
1:37:35
Saying 'I'm not sure' helps separate confidence from certainty
1:40:12
Expressing uncertainty makes one a more believable communicator
1:45:38
Embrace uncertainty to be a better decision-maker and more open-minded

Chapters

How a linguistics PhD detoured into the high-stakes world of poker
00:00
Why losing a hand teaches nothing—unless you stop telling yourself stories
12:22
What happens when your friends care more about truth than agreement
24:04
How a shared promise to be wrong together changes everything
32:03
What if your beliefs were percentages—not pronouncements?
43:40
Why the Seahawks’ Super Bowl call wasn’t stupid—and why we think it was
58:11
What happens when organizations stop rewarding luck and start rewarding smart risk
1:03:20
How arguing for the other side sharpens your judgment
1:08:43
Why your team’s real decision journal isn’t on paper—it’s in the room
1:13:47
What details actually matter when reviewing a decision—and which ones don’t
1:19:14
How knowing the result ruins your ability to learn anything useful
1:27:11
What if your team had a swear jar for 'I know for sure'?
1:32:36
Why sounding confident often makes you less believable
1:40:12
How talking to your future self helps you choose better today
1:45:38

Transcript

Shane Parrish: So I wanted to ask you about what your take on the morality of gambling is. Annie Duke: Oh, I wasn't expecting that question. Shane Parrish: Hello and welcome. I'm Shane Parrish and this is another episode of The Knowledge Project. This sh...