Blog - Assert Digital Ventures

The Third Magic: AI

January 6, 2023January 6, 2023
by Andy

I like this definition of science from this Noah Smith article: in essence, the ability to come up with a generalizable & simple prediction model. For example, to calculate where an artillery shell will fall, we go back to Newton’s laws of physics and its consistently predictable. However, for messier things than the natural world like human language, there aren’t simple models and thus people argue that AI is the only way: take masses of data to form unintelligble models.

A big knock on AI is that because it doesn’t really let you understand the things you’re predicting, it’s unscientific. And in a formal sense, I think this is true. But instead of spending our effort on a neverending (and probably fruitless) quest to make AI fully interpretable, I think we should recognize that science is only one possible tool for predicting and controlling the world. Compared to science, black-box prediction has both strengths and weaknesses.
https://open.substack.com/pub/noahpinion/p/the-third-magic?r=q167&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

The challenge, as this article points out, is what are the implications if we can’t understand the models? How good are our predictions really? Or, more importantly, how can we know those predictions are off? ChatGPT is a good example of this as it sound authoritative (and often is) but its not easy to know if its accurate.

Education

Working on tech skills as a PM

October 27, 2022October 27, 2022
by Andy

One question I’m often asked by PMs (or aspiring PMs) is how they can go deeper into the tech/engineering side if they don’t have that background. I generally don’t encourage PMs to take an “8 week coding” class to do that as it only teaches you basic engineering skills (e.g. how to write a for loop) you’re unlikely to use.

What’s most important is understanding how systems are designed (architecture) and how to talk to engineers about whether their designs support your product objectives. Unfortunately, there’s no book on this but I recently talked to the founder of a company called Skiplevel who targets this exact need.

She was an engineer at a large tech firm who often was tasked with upskilling non-tech PMs on tech and decided to spin it out into a company (what a great way to find a niche segment/problem and experiment before committing). It might be of interest for some of you and she’s offering a discount if you’re interested:

Is Skiplevel right for me?
Use discount code: ABNYU100 for $100 off (expires 11/30/22)

_{NOTE: this is not an ad and I’m not compensated in any way for this. Just a recommendation I thought interesting.}

Cryptocurrency

Crypto is easier to trace than fiat

October 18, 2022October 18, 2022
by Andy

Crypto is easier to trace by law enforcement than fiat according to a former deputy FBI director. This shouldn’t be surprising as it has to be converted to fiat at some point plus all the hacks that have taken place. Yet another shortcoming of crypto and why it’ll ultimately just be rendered to a dark corner of cyber.

Behavioral economics

Use of behavioral economics to nudge on the Power…

July 19, 2022July 19, 2022
by Andy

Interesting study at the NIH on the 9 elements of longevity found in 5 communities around the world and how they were applied to pilot American cities to prompt behavior change.

What began as a National Geographic expedition, lead by Dan Buettner, to uncover the secrets of longevity, evolved into the discovery of the 5 places around the world where people consistently live over 100 years old, dubbed the Blue Zones. Dan and his team of demographers, scientist and anthropologists were able to distill the evidence-based common denominators of these Blue Zones into 9 commonalities that they call the Power 9. They have since taken these principles into communities across the United States working with policy makers, local businesses, schools and individuals to shape the environments of the Blue Zones Project Communities. What has been found is that putting the responsibility of curating a healthy environment on an individual does not work, but through policy and environmental changes the Blue Zones Project Communities have been able to increase life expectancy, reduce obesity and make the healthy choice the easy choice for millions of Americans.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125071/

Cryptocurrency

Is crypto the new Amway?

June 22, 2022June 22, 2022
by Andy

I’ve been critical of crypto for many years and, in particular, derivatives like NFTs. My evaluation was always simple through a product lens: what value does it create for what segment / what problem does it solve? Interestingly, when I’ve posed this to crypto advocates, I never get a clear answer (as a side note, I believe the blockchain tech belying crypto has interesting use-cases like chain-of-control for produce so this is mostly focused on crypto/NFTs). In addition, when knowing that the vast majority of crypto is held by a tiny minority of people, you start getting more nefarious thoughts about what is really going on.

This post by Lars Doucet on Noahpinion has some interesting points including the comparison between crypto and Amway.

Amway and crypto on the surface might not immediately seem similar. Amway was (allegedly) a convoluted system where you bought a bunch of products from them that you then sold to family and friends and eventually other customers, and then you recruited those same people to become part of your distribution network, forming your “downline.” Then you would (allegedly) encourage them to recruit more people of their own, forming their own downlines, which would nest inside of yours. From their perspective, you and everyone in the recruitment chain above you would form their “upline.”
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/is-web3-culture-similar-to-amway

My dollars (euros, etc) are already digital. I rarely transact with them physically. Do the transaction facilitation middle-men and clearing agents extract too high a fee? Perhaps, but I know its been coming down dramatically with newfound digital competition (and some regulation particularly in Europe). Plus, those fees fund the many layers of private and public monitoring and regulation which is fundamental to a high functioning financial system that crypto cannot replace (at least under current proposals).

BTW, this video terrifies me:

Product Management

“Product Waste”

May 25, 2022May 25, 2022
by Andy

Good article from Rich Mironov on “product waste” where he compares why building the wrong thing is more expensive and a better place to put attention to versus, say, “engineering waste” (e.g. inefficiency in the build process). I like his comparison to old line, 20th century management thinking that digital product development is like a production line: build what the go-to-market team identifies as quickly and cheaply as possible. We all know that doesn’t work here.

Culture

The rise and fall of rationality in language

January 28, 2022January 28, 2022
by Andy

Fascinating academic paper on the change in use of language over the past ~170 years. The short (if you don’t want to read) is that starting in the 1980s and accelerating in 2007, our use of rational language with facts notably declined and the use of emotional language increased. Not surprising. I can’t wait for the partisans to jump on this expressing their fact-avoid opinions:

After the year 1850, the use of sentiment-laden words in Google Books declined systematically, while the use of words associated with fact-based argumentation rose steadily. This pattern reversed in the 1980s, and this change accelerated around 2007, when across languages, the frequency of fact-related words dropped while emotion-laden language surged, a trend paralleled by a shift from collectivistic to individualistic language.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/51/e2107848118

Blockchain

Be wary of the web3 shamen

January 25, 2022January 25, 2022
by Andy

This is the best article yet to have an objective view of why web3 (including cryptocurrencies, NFTs and blockchain) are just more of the same centralized control. Its mostly people trying to unlock value from the big “web2” platforms and make their own. Don’t be fooled by the hype as its the wild west filled with snake oil salespeople:

I have only dipped my toe in the waters of web3. Looking at it through the lens of these small projects, though, I can easily see why so many people find the web3 ecosystem so neat. I don’t think it’s on a trajectory to deliver us from centralized platforms, I don’t think it will fundamentally change our relationship to technology, and I think the privacy story is already below par for the internet (which is a pretty low bar!), but I also understand why nerds like me are excited to build for it. It is, at the very least, something new on the nerd level – and that creates a space for creativity/exploration that is somewhat reminiscent of early internet days. Ironically, part of that creativity probably springs from the constraints that make web3 so clunky. I’m hopeful that the creativity and exploration we’re seeing will have positive outcomes, but I’m not sure if it’s enough to prevent all the same dynamics of the internet from unfolding again.
https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Psychology

How conspiracy theories bypass people’s rationality

November 10, 2021November 10, 2021
by Andy

Important concepts here related to developing products:

Why, when interviewing, you cannot ask people what they want
Why people often make what seem like irrational product decisions
How value proposition can influence decision making by focusing on their needs

Part of the answer lies in a quality that psychologists refer to as fluency. Information that is interesting and attention-grabbing is easier to mentally process than information that is boring (such as realistic yet not particularly exciting information revealing that, on most days, politicians simply work on new legislation in their offices). Greater ease of processing, or fluency, has been found to promote truth judgments. This fluency heuristic likely exists because, in daily life, information that ‘feels right’ in this way is often true (eg, birds fly; fish swim). But the side-effect is that, when false information is easy to process, people more readily infer that the information is correct.
https://psyche.co/ideas/how-conspiracy-theories-bypass-peoples-rationality

Behavioral economics

LED warning lamp changes color as rooms get noisier

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021
by Andy

Behavioral economics in practice. Every school should have one of these.

It can get tiresome, continually having to tell groups of children – or even adults – to be quiet. That’s where a new sound-sensitive lamp comes in, as it does the job for you by changing color in response to rising noise levels.
https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/led-lamp-changes-color-noise/

https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/led-lamp-changes-color-noise/

Entrepreneurship

Effectuation: Entrepreneurship with a sense of purpose

August 12, 2021August 12, 2021
by Andy

I’ve been reading more about Effectuation lately in context of entrepreneurship and product development. I like its simple philosophy and framework. Aligns a lot with what we teach at NYU Stern.

Expert entrepreneurs believe that the future is shaped by people. They believe that if they can make the future happen, they don’t need to worry about predicting the future, determining perfect timing to start, or finding the optimal opportunity. Sarasvathy calls this “effectual logic” which sits opposed to “causal logic” taught to managers in more certain (or predictable) circumstances.
Effectuation vs. Causation
Aspiring entrepreneurs in MBA classrooms have long been taught the principles and tools of causal reasoning—the exact inverse of the effectual reasoning that drives entrepreneurial success. Using causal reasoning, one begins with a specific goal and a given set of means for reaching it. Using effectual reasoning, one starts with only a set of means; in the process of deploying them, goals gradually emerge.
The Principles
Bird in Hand Principle – Start with your means. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity. Start taking action, based on what you have readily available: who you are, what you know, and who you know.
Affordable Loss Principle – Set affordable loss Evaluate opportunities based on whether the downside is acceptable, rather than on the attractiveness of the predicted upside.
Lemonade Principle – Leverage contingencies Embrace surprises that arise from uncertain situations, remaining flexible rather than tethered to existing goals.
Crazy-Quilt Principle – Form partnerships Form partnerships with people and organizations willing to make a real commitment to jointly creating the future—product, firm, market—with you. Don’t worry so much about competitive analysesand strategic planning.
Pilot in the Plane Principle. Control the controllable. The four specific principles above represent different ways entrepreneurs interact with the environment to shape the environment. Of course not everything can be shaped or controlled, but effectuation encourages you, as the pilot of your venture, to focus on those aspects of the environment which are, at least to a certain degree, within your control.
What is the effectual cycle?
Effectuation isn’t a static, one-time exercise. It is a logic and process that can be used as the firm develops in the “0-60mph” (early startup) phase of growth. Expert entrepreneurs follow the process to gain early customers and committed partners who then create new means and new goals as resources and viewpoints are added to the mix. Thus, instead of having a stated goal and finding means to reach it, expert entrepreneurs use the new means and new goals to drive the creation of the venture in ways they hadn’t expected, leveraging surprises as they present themselves. Effectuators use the process to lower the risk of the venture (by getting customers and income early, setting affordable loss, and spreading risk to others) and finding truly new and useful market opportunities by leveraging constraints and new information.
https://www.effectuation.org/?page_id=207

[Read more about Effectuation…]

Health

The most vaccine-hesitant group of all? PhDs

August 12, 2021August 12, 2021
by Andy

A new study found that the most educated are the least likely to get jabbed

The percentage of each education group that is somewhat vaccine hesitant. Source: Carnegie Mellon University
There has been much debate over how to get the unvaccinated to get their jabs — shame them, bribe them persuade them, or treat them as victims of mis- and disinformation campaigns — but who, exactly, are these people?
Most of the coverage would have you believe that the surge in cases is primarily down to less educated, ‘brainwashed’ Trump supporters who don’t want to take the vaccine. This may be partially true: the areas in which the delta variant is surging coincide with the sections of red America in which vaccination rates are lowest.
But according to a new paper by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, this does not paint the full picture. The researchers analysed more than 5 million survey responses by a range of different demographic details, and classed those people who would “probably” or “definitely” not choose to get vaccinated as “vaccine hesitant.”

Hmmmm.

[Read more…]

Uncategorized

Will society collapse on the 21st century? A 1972…

July 15, 2021July 15, 2021
by Andy

Interesting (and short) meta-analysis on this 1972 MIT paper modeling major societal shifts and their implications.

Data

Why 3rd party research should not be a primary…

June 13, 2021June 13, 2021
by Andy

One mistake I find product managers often make is overuse or over weighting of third party research findings. While 3rd party research has its utility, it a) rarely asks the specific questions about what people need and b) looks backwards when you’re trying to find proxies for the future. Let’s look at an example.

https://flowingdata.com/2021/06/08/seeing-how-much-we-ate-over-the-years

This recent infographic shows changes in food consumption behavior since 1970. There are several interesting insights including how chicken is now the most dominant protein (was beef) and leaf lettuce was non-existent as a concept in 1970. Diving deeper into the vegetable chart, one can see several other interesting changes. If you were a food products company (anywhere in the value chain) thinking about new products or even where capex spend might be applied, this chart might be a tempting input (let’s assume we trust the data source and veracity of the research).

However, while trend lines can be drawn (esp with the underlying data), this chart does not begin to answer “why” these changes have occurred. We could sit around a table and speculate about them: leaf lettuce was not transportable to market in 1970; recent health trends have people eating more salad; potatoes, while still popular, have historically been consumed in fried fashion which is not part of a modern, health conscious diet…and many more. Some of these might be spot on, some wild guesses. However, until we talk to customers about their eating trends (esp those who are older and have a longer history), we cannot accurately create the narrative this data shows, let alone create testable hypotheses as to how predictive these trends our for our new food product.

Data can point to problems or opportunities, qualitative research is how we start the search for solutions (predicting the future) through iterative experimentation.