Nassim Taleb's Top 10 Life Tips 1
Great interview with my favorite author Nassim Taleb at The Times.
I will write my own review of his theories at some point and how they apply to startups, but until then he gives these 10 tips in the above interview that I think spell them out pretty well.
Taleb’s top life tips
1. Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
2. Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
3. It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.
5. Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.
6. Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.
7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).
8. Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.
9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.
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Vote No to the screw your local Taqueria Proposition 3
I try to leave politics out of this blog, but I feel really upset about the Proposition 98/99 vote coming up here in California on June 3rd. Any non California residents feel free to ignore this unless you want to learn more about the screwy politics of this state. The Rastas may have invented the term Politrixians, but California politics seem to have perfected it.
Proposition 98 and 99 are 2 referendums to change the California Constitution to supposedly disallow Eminent Domain. The first one Proposition 98 is called EMINENT DOMAIN. LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY. and the second one Proposition 99 is called EMINENT DOMAIN. LIMITS ON GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION OF OWNER-OCCUPIED RESIDENCE. So on the outset they sound very similar.
Before we even get to the differences between them…
What is Eminent Domain?
Eminent Domain is basically when the government takes private property for public use. The US Constitutions guarantees that this can only be for public use and can only be done for just compensation. Basically if they take your property they must pay fair market price for it.
Unfortunately in the past century governments have radically expanded what public use means. This is where the trickiness comes in. Local governments have come to believe taking your house and selling it to a mall developer is a public good as it could increase the tax base.
Kelo v City of New London
This whole thing was thrown into the public view a couple of years back when the US Supreme Court basically said this was valid in the court case Kelo vs New London. Where a the New London city council took away 15 homes from their private owners to give to a private developer. Not strangely there was a huge uproar about this and lots of states started passing laws to limit this kind of thing.
Eminent Domain Abuse in California
Drew Carey has made a great videos about a specific case in California, that provide a great introduction to why and how this is done in this state and good alternatives to it:
Also see this one National City: Eminent Domain Gone Wild and this article about How the New York Times forced 55 business out using Eminent Domain to build their new office.
What you can see here is that most of the victims of this are small businesses. Exactly the kind of small businesses that we like here in San Francisco. The local Taqueria, the neighborhood bar, the Filipino grocery shop and hey maybe even your local neighborhood web startup.
The Battling Propositions
All of us voters in California have hopefully been sent the official voters information guide. Which I think is a great. I have read the whole thing and you should to. If you don’t have a lot of time just read the actual texts of them which while filled with legalese is less painful than reading the patronizing rhetoric in the arguments and rebuttals.
Note, when reading it the purpose and intent is kind of like the sales pitch. The actual amendment to the constitution (coders think diff) is the text in italic. Both of these make changes to Sec. 19 of the constitution. The rest are basically implementation rules.
Proposition 98
This was the original proposition. It provides very good and very strong defense against eminent domain abuse. No one has argued that it doesn’t. I will get to the main argument against it afterwards.
The main key clause in Proposition 98 is simply and strongly:
Private property may not be taken or damaged for private use.
The rest of it is basically definitions of what “Taken”, “Private Use” and “Public Use” means. Private Use and Public Use pretty much follow regular common sense definitions of this. The definition of “Taken” is where the controversy us.
Private property includes all private property and not just owner occupied homes. It includes small businesses, farms, apartment buildings and of course owner occupied homes. Through the virtue of their landlords being protected even renters are protected.
Taken==Rent Control?
The people who wrote Proposition 98 added this:
(1) “Taken’’ includes transferring the ownership, occupancy, or use of property from a private owner to a public agency or to any person or entity other than a public agency, or limiting the price a private owner may charge another person to purchase, occupy or use his or her real property.
Reread the part in bold if you didn’t notice it. This basically eliminates rent control.
Now I am personally against rent control personally and in my libertarian mind rent control is in the similar to transferring ownership. While I retain ownership, the government limits my cashflow from it and also artificially lowers the potential sales price as earnings are lower. However most people aren’t libertarians like me and would justifiably see this as a hidden trojan horse to get rid of rent control.
As a libertarian while I’m against rent control, I do think the way it was hidden in the proposition was wrong.
Anti Prop 98 campaigners have scared lots of older people into speaking out against it because of the rent control provision. If you read the campaign you might be fooled into thinking that thousands of senior citizens will be forced to move onto the streets if it gets passed:
“If Prop 98 were to pass, it would amount to economic eviction for most seniors that can’t exist without rent stabilization. Everyday we see attacks from wealthy landlords to maximize their profits off the backs of those who can least afford to defend themselves. My wife and I are concerned about our survival if Prop 98 passes. If seniors and low-income families lose our rent control and other protections that safeguard our homes, we’ll be left with nothing.” – No on Prop 98 campaign web site
This is frankly a lie they have been fed. Section 6. of Proposition 98 specifically deals with this. No one who is currently under rent control will loose rent control if they stay in their current apartment.
If you think rent control is a good idea or even if you just want the issue to be dealt with in a more transparent manner, by all means vote against Proposition 98. Just remember it isn’t just “Big Business” who are landlords. This also affects lots of “normal people” who might rent out an apartment as they can’t afford to sell it in the current market.
Who is behind Proposition 98?
Proposition 98 is paid for by big landlords if you read the spam I’m receiving daily. This is definitely partly true, but only partly so. The main sponsors are property rights groups and groups fighting excessive taxation. However small businesses who have probably been more affected than anyone else in California by Eminent Domain Abuse and their associations are also heavy supporters.
We should also remember that just because some one is “Big Business” it doesn’t mean their interests necessarily goes against ours.
Proposition 99
This was hastily brought on the ballot by a coalition of California politicians and real estate developers. Basically the very same people who perform and benefit from Eminent Domain Abuse. It was written and worded in particularly to make sure that Proposition 98 wasn’t passed and to make it harder to pass real eminent domain reform in the future.
The basic rule is that it protects only home owners:
The State and local governments are prohibited from acquiring by eminent domain an owner occupied residence for the purpose of conveying it to a private person.
This sounds great and all, however there are 2 huge buts.
No protection for renters, small businesses or farmers
Yes, you heard it right. Your neighborhood taqueria as well as your apartment building is still fair game for developers. None of the people in Drew Carey’s two videos above would be eligible for any kind of protection.
I find it extremely hypocritical that the same people who talk about how much they love San Francisco’s small shops and restaurants are willing to remove the most basic constitutional protection these same shops have in favor of developers bringing in big box stores and restaurants as part of their developments.
No real protection for home owners either…
The thing that surprises most people about Proposition 99 is that it in a hidden way actually specifically amends the constitution to allow politicians selling blocks of private property away to developers.
Section 1.c of 99 says:
Amend the California Constitution to respond specifically to the facts and the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London, in which the Court held that it was permissible for a city to use eminent domain to take the home of a Connecticut woman for the purpose of economic development.
Most people would think that this means to disallow it. However it is pure politicians double speak. It just says that the constitution should address the issue. This it does as well in section 19© and (d) of the amended text of the constitution.
(d) Subdivision (b) of this section does not apply when State or local government exercises the power of eminent domain for the purpose of acquiring private property for a public work or improvement.
No one is arguing with public work. Improvement though is the what we programmers would call the wild card. Their definition lists a bunch of specific cases and then leaves it open a the very end with this bit in the amendment – 19 (e) 5 :
and private uses incidental to, or necessary for, the public work or improvement.
It basically will still allow them to use “economic development” as an excuse.
The real danger of 99
You might say, well it does provide some protection lets just vote it in. It’s a fair point but I truly believe that if it gets voted in a real amendment with real protection for everyone will be very difficult to get votes in the future. It provides a false sense of security and would lull large amounts of people into thinking it’s someone else’s problem.
The amendment will also make it extremely difficult for people to defend themselves in court in the future.
The hidden knockout clause
Another slightly sneaky part of Proposition 99 is section 9 which eliminates 98 even if both are passed:
SECTION 9. In the event that this measure appears on the same statewide election ballot as another initiative measure or measures that seek to affect the rights of property owners by directly or indirectly amending Section 19, Article I of the California Constitution, the provisions of the other measure or measures shall be deemed to be in conflict with this measure. In the event that this measure receives a greater number of affirmative votes, the provisions of this measure shall prevail in their entirety, and each and every provision of the other measure or measures shall be null and void.
So if both Proposition 98 and 99 win, 98 is to be ignored. Classic politicians move.
Who is behind Proposition 99?
It’s supporters include both politicians of both Democrat and Republican flavors as well as most other lobbyist groups out there. More importantly it has the support of large real estate developers, who depend on Eminent Domain to build their projects without having to pay market price. Their is apparently even some investigation to see if tax payers moneys have been illegally spent on the campaign.
The whole industry of professional politics depend on Eminent Domain as these are the kinds of large visible projects that they can use to show what a great job they are doing and of course for raising campaign contributions from developers.
I do think its sad that all kinds of “liberal” lobbyists like the League of Women Voters and various environmental groups are so vocally for 99. I can accept that they might be against 98 for the rent control issue, but supporting 99 is just so flatly immoral that it really does make me feel sick to the stomach. You can only imagine the political deals that are being made in the back ground for them to accept it. I grew up in and around politics and know only too well how this works, however much it still revolts me.
One spam I received from one such group who shall remain nameless said:
YES ON PROP. 99 – Real and Powerful Eminent Domain Reform with NO HIDDEN AGENDAS.
Prop. 99 would prohibit government from taking our homes to transfer to a private developer.
Prop. 99 protects homeowners from eminent domain, with no hidden provisions.
How can you seriously try to fool your supporters in such a way. It is filled with hidden agendas and provisions.
What should you vote?
You should always make up your own mind about who to vote for and not listen to me or some professional lobbyist group. Read the propositions your self. I’m assuming you like most people don’t think it’s ok to take private property to give to private developers, so I’m not even going to argue that.
If you are interested in learning more why not check out BallotPedia’s page comparing 98 and 99, they have pretty good coverage of the pros and cons and all the juicy controversy around them. This opinion piece from Victorville Daily Press also explains the facts very well.
I would urge you to vote against 99 if your analysis is like mine. I think it’s a dangerous example of the politicians playing us like fools. But then again I maybe wrong and I’d be interested to hear your analysis in the comments.
Whether to vote for Proposition 98 is simple Vote YES if you agree with the hidden rent control clause and NO if you don’t. If you Vote NO for both lets all try to support a proposition in the future that protects everyone and this time doesn’t contain any hidden clauses.
Personally I’ll be voting yes for 98 and no for 99.
You are the one who will change the world, not the next president 1
It’s easy to get swept into the excitement of the electoral process no matter where you live in the world. In the past couple of months I’ve found myself swept into the excitement for a candidate for the coming US presidential election, who I in reality have very few things to agree with and probably wouldn’t ever vote for anyway. This because he has a certain charisma and a message that says “Lets change this crap!!!”.
However anytime I get deeper into following that process something happens to immediately yank me back to reality and realize that it doesn’t really matter anyway who sits in the White House or who is busy inserting their pork barrel into bills in Congress.
What is important is that we the entrepreneurs, coders and inventors who are actually changing the world keep doing our jobs.
Sometimes it seems unimportant and frivolous for us to be obsessive about the latest standards, rails plugins or variation of a social video startup. However this is how every single great change to the world has happened over the last couple of hundred years.
Let me repeat that:
Every important world change has been made by people like YOU!!!
Also if you don’t think you should have illusions of grandeur remember:
Every large and well known change depends on thousands of other small improvements also made by people like YOU!!!
Note. I say YOU as the people who read this blog tend to be entrepreneurial and/or geek type of people. If you happen to be a politician or bureaucrat I’m sorry, I’m not talking to you.
The obsessive nerd thinking over some small technical detail to move us as a planet ahead or a big mouth entrepreneur who refused to give up and ends up bringing down the last generation of entrepreneurs who had grown fat and complacent.
Why are we well off
Those of us in the west are well off and lead comfortable lives not due to some 19th century president, king or prime minister. We grew to where we are because of nerds like James Watt, innovative bankers like Nathan Rothchild and single minded entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie.
Why is the world changing for the better
You are part of the current generation who is bringing this amazing economical and social development to the rest of the world.
The web, mobile phones, YouTube and email are amongst the thousands of new technologies that are breaking age old barriers that kept people poor. People who before were ignored and poor are now all of a sudden taking their voice, demanding change, taking charge and pushing their own economies forward.
This isn’t just happening in the developing world. In the US politician’s are now in a new uncertain world, where people don’t necessarily just accept what’s going on.
More and more people are also finding that the barriers to entry to independence for themselves if getting to a lower and lower level letting more and more people make step off the corporate ladder and start businesses for them selves, thus creating a positive feedback loop for change.
Some of the people occasionally blamed for this development were William Shockley the inventor of the Transistor, Gordon Moore cofounder of Intel, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
However every one of these famous names built upon the work of thousands of other amazingly smart innovative geeks and entrepreneurs who might not have received the fame, but were equally responsible in bringing about a huge change to this world.
I find it entertaining and to a certain extent cool when someone like Dave Winer devotes so much of his time right now to the Obama campaign, when he has probably done way more to change the world for good than any presidential candidate ever will by inventing the blog and RSS .
Loosers are also world changers
You are also responsible even if your particular startup or technology didn’t take off, as competition with you is what brought the winners ahead. I worked at Alta Vista early on, Google beat them into a pulp but they and others helped build the foundation that Google succeeded on.
What’s the point Pelle
So what exactly is my point on this rant. It’s alright to get all heated up about political campaign, just remember that your real job is improving the world. 6 billion people are depending on it. Keep doing what you do best one line of code at a time, one new blog post at a time and one new idea at a time.
Even if you haven’t got a ground breaking business idea, submitting a patch to a rails plugin that will make it easier for someone who does could be a more important step towards changing the world than who you vote for in November.
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Think like Luke, Frodo and Neo
I just heard a fun inspirational pod cast interview with Elliot McGucken, which is somewhat yet distantly related to my last entry The real world is a projection of your own fears.
I was initially put off by the subject, which in iTunes was shown as “Artistic Entrepreneurship”. But it had nothing todo with selling sculptures of your dog on ebay.
His idea is that entrepreneurs are similar in many ways to artists and their startups are their artwork.
Basically he believes to be really successful you have to have this drive that you only get from serious inspiration that your way is the right way and then go on your heroic journey.
Heroic Journey, you might ask? What is he on? Seriously it makes sense after listening through it. He says that almost all great entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson and Steve Jobs have followed this epic heroes journey that has more in common with Ullyses, Neo and Frodo than Harvard Business School.
I kind of agree with his ideas if not necessarily out of logic, but maybe more that it feels good thinking of your self as a hero.
Whether you agree with him or not is of course all up to you, but its definitely an entertaining hours worth of interview. You can also read more about Elliott at his site Artstic Entrepreneurship
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The real world is a projection of your own fears 1
David has a great little sarcastic post Who wants to live in the Real World?, which made me laugh.
David who is the ultimate “it’s my way or the highway” kind of guy has no doubt like me heard countless times about this mythical real world and that he should join it.
For us people who tend to do things a bit different (like emigrate, startup on our own, use new fangled technology etc.) this is something that can be extremely annoying, as what people really do when they talk about the real world is that you are wrong, but they can’t quite explain why.
I have always had a problem with authority (just ask my long suffering school teachers and principals over time). In particular just being told to accept something without an explanation is frustrating. However over the years to allow myself to actually function in the “real world” I have developed a coping strategy, which is based on what I think is a pretty accurate analysis of the people who use such terms. I find once I understand the motivations of people I can pretty much cope as opposed to being angry, regardless if I agree with them or not.
One of the keys to understanding this was realizing that we all do this to some extent. Basically when you start talking about the “real world” you are really projecting your own fears and insecurities about yourself onto the person you are arguing against.
For example some one arguing that in the real world you have to develop all production web applications in J2EE and deploy them onto multiple Windows servers running Websphere. Is pretty much insecure and fearful about his position in the industry, company and job market.
On the other hand someone arguing that you are stupid and not living in the real world if you aren’t doing all your web applications work in Ruby on Rails and deploying them on Linux servers, is pretty much also insecure and fearful about his position in the industry, blogosphere and job market.
I wont even get into talking about politics, where there are thousands of different real worlds, pretty much for the same reason as above.
The key to this is that we are all living in our own real world. Our own real world is filled not with objective facts, but our own subjective feelings about us, the world and our place in it.
A visionary is someone who projects your own vision and dreams for the future onto the world and others, however there is a thin line between doing that and projecting your fears onto others.
However if you realise that is how things work, it is pretty easy to take a deep breath and think to yourself, he’s just projecting his fears. In this case if you aren’t in agreement with his fears it is your job to project your visions and hope back.
However please don’t try and fight fear with fear, that is pointless for everyone. This is how endless flame wars, platform wars (Amiga rules!!!), corporate politics and other stupidity starts. These kinds of infinite loop style arguments only make all parties even more ingrained in their beliefs (read more fearful).
Thus if someone else’s fears awake your own fears and make you feel angry it’s probably better to shut up, if you can’t project your before mentioned visions and hopes back.
Oh, man I’ve gone all hippie and spirit like. Peace, love and Macintosh. But seriously if you disagree with me you just aren’t living in the real world!!!
