1. Should You Drink the
Kool-Aid?
Venkatesh Rao
With contributions from:
• Greg Rader
• Kevin Simler
• Jane Huang
• BAR Group
11.27.2012 | USC Annenberg Innovation Lab
2. If the odds of making it as a [rockstar | movie star |
entrepreneur | best-selling author | President] are so
completely awful, why do people still try?
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3. the usual answer: PASSION AND TRUE BELIEF
the common motif is KOOL-AID
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4. …very hard to study…
“Death wish” …
PASSION
+
TRUE BELIEF
IRONY
“Acting Dead” – Bruce Sterling
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5. Speculative
Simulation Fiction
game theory models anecdata, gossip, TV shows,
agent based models movies, cartoons, narrative
long-term historical sims theories, personality theories We’ll mostly be
what-ifs histories, biographies, hyann
media stories, blog posts,
Numbers Thick Description Stories
Science
Duckworth Grit scale interviews, longitudinal studies a la Vaillant
institutional talent flow patterns embedded reporting
macroeconomic studies fund-raising war stories
Kauffman type research incubator lore
correlations, distributions hacks, metis of startuppery
Conservative
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7. initial attempt to map model to startups…circa 2009
VCs
Founders
Option
Lottery
Players
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8. long story short, 4 years later, this became…
“Entrepreneurs are the New Labor”
…to polarized reactions
• “You nailed it!”
• “That has not been my experience”
• “This whole thing is stupid, you can’t
analyze this way”
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9. not insiders vs. outsiders
not investors vs. founders
not winners vs. losers
only difference: different cognitive processes
viewed different types of argument as valid
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10. The Clue at Quantico
“We use Myers-Briggs/Keirsey here in
the Marine Corps…most of us are SJ
types… Guardian/Protector… very
passionate, very emotional…”
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11. If an important decision is to be made [the Persians] discuss the
question when they are drunk, and the following day the master
of the house. . . submits their decision for reconsideration when
they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is
abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are
sober is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.
– Herodotus
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12. Narrative Approach
Character vs. Situation vs. Plot
http://tempobook.com
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13. Probabilities don’t change when drunk….
What’s the point of this
I should be thankful for
so-called life? I might
my good, secure job,
as well die. I AM
others have it even
QUITTING
worse. This startup idea
TOMORROW AND
is not worth the risk.
DOING A STARTUP.
But subjective utilities do…
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14. So what happens when* you fail?
* rounded up from if
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17. Alan: Wait a minute, that’s your big secret? Alcohol?
Charlie: Shhh. Don’t tell anybody.
Alan: But isn’t that just a temporary solution.
Charlie: It’s only temporary if you stop drinking.
Alan: I like it.
Something Salted and Twisted [3.10] - Two and a Half Men
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtituB9WRQU
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18. If an important decision is to be made [the Persians] discuss the
question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of
the house. . . submits their decision for reconsideration when
they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is
abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are
sober is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.
– Herodotus
what happens if you never sober up?
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19. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on
the unreasonable man.
– Shaw
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21. “Learn to fetishize the pain of learning something new”
-- Andrea Kuszewski
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22. more than a death-wish though…
What’s the point of this
so-called life? I might as
well die. I AM
QUITTING
TOMORROW AND
DOING A STARTUP.
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23. Grit*
unwavering P urpose
an UNFALSIFIABLE mission that cannot be invalidated
by any amount of A/B testing or “customer
development” or reframed away with “pivots”
*Google “Duckworth grit scale…” for a more empiricist take…
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24. Mattie Ross: Who's the best Marshal?
Sheriff: Hmm, I'd have to think on that….
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25. “Bill Waters is the best
tracker. He's part Comanche;
it is a pure joy to watch him
cut for sign.”
This is the hacker-entrepreneur, see THE
TURPENTINE EFFECT
/
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26. “…The meanest is
Rooster Cogburn; a
pitiless man, double
tough. Fear don't enter
into his thinking….”
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27. “…I'd have to say the fairest is
L.T. Quinn; he always brings
in his prisoners alive. Now, he
might let one slip by every
now and then, but...”
This is the PRAGMATIC actor who sees no problem with
ACQUI-HIRING and other REASONABLE ADAPTATION
models
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28. Mattie Ross: Where would I find this Rooster?
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29. to achieve unreasonable things, find someone
with a death-wish and leash them to a Purpose
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30. BUT…
What happens when DOZENS of Matti Rosses
need HUNDREDS of Rooster Cogburns?
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31. can true grit be scaled?
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32. • Ancestor of Matti Ross
• Founder of cult of assassins
• Originator of fedayeen*
"They call him Shaykh-al-Hashishim.** He is
their Elder, and upon his command all of the
men of the mountain come out or go in...
they are believers of the word of their elder
and everyone everywhere fears them, because
they even kill kings."
Hassan-i Sabbah
(1050 – 1124)
- Benjamin of Tudela
*from Wikipedia: “someone who redeems himself by risking or sacrificing his life”
** etymology/story of assassin == hashashin == hashish possibly apocryphal, but military-
political-guerrilla tactics are not
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33. Kool-Aid Characterized
Cognitive capture by a nascent organization
at the edge of existing institutions defined by
us-versus-them discourses based on
boundaries created out of trial-by-fire
bonding experiences
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34. The passion is sacred
patterns of argumentation that threaten it are
systematically delegitimized
this is both a strength and a weakness
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35. Code RED: extra-judicial killings
We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of
a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither
the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps
under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the
manner in which I provide it.
-- Col. Jessup
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36. In the 1960s and 1970s, classic social psychological studies were conducted that
provided evidence that even normal, decent people can engage in acts of extreme
cruelty when instructed to do so by others. However, in an essay published November
20 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, Professors Alex Haslam and Stephen
Reicher revisit these studies' conclusions and explain how awful acts involve not just
obedience, but enthusiasm too—challenging the long-held belief that human beings
are 'programmed' for conformity.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-human-obedience-myth-
conformity.html#jCp
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37. Sociopath moral code Kool-Aid law
(no institutions) (emerging institutions)
The meanest is Rooster
Cogburn; a pitiless man,
double tough. Fear don't enter
into his thinking….
Rule of law
(established institutions)
…I'd have to say the fairest is
L.T. Quinn; he always brings
in his prisoners alive. Now,
he might let one slip by every
now and then, but...
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38. “If you’re not actually doing a startup,
you don’t get to talk…or at least, I don’t
have to listen to you.”
often “big company people”
“building”
“passion”
We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the
backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a
punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a
man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I
provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it.
“wealth/jobs”
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43. WARNING: neither prescriptive nor descriptive
Jung/Myers-Briggs measures preferences
You don’t always get what you want….
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44. Belief Types
OUTSIDERS OLD INSTITUTION STEWARDS OUTSIDERS
Non-Drinkers Champagne Kool-Aid Home-brewers
VANGUARD TRUE BELIEVERS VANGUARD
Happy hour Koolaidaholics Party drinkers
OUTSIDE OLD INSTITUTION STEWARDS OUTSIDERS
Non-Drinkers Social drinkers Non-Drinkers
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45. Tragedy Farce
(early part of an economic age) (late part…)
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46. Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to…
Col. Jessep: *You want answers?*
Kaffee: *I want the truth!*
Col. Jessep: *You can't handle the
truth!*
….
Either way, I don't give a damn
what you think you are entitled to.
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47. “In the work and its profits the Nation was an
essential partner and equally entitled with the
individual to share in the dividends.”
-- Andrew Carnegie, Gospel of Wealth II (1906)
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48. Which side is right?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple,
and wrong. – H. L. Mencken
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49. For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple,
and wrong. – H. L. Mencken
In the spirit of phillosophical bipartisanship, it would be pleasant to
conclude that each of these traditions of political economy
[Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian] has made its own valuable contribution
to the success of the American economy… but that would not be true.
What is good about the American economy is largely the result of the
Hamiltonian developmental tradition, and what is bad about it is
largely the result of the Jeffersonian producerist school
-- Michael Lind, Land of Opportunity
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50. H
NASA Big Military, Big Corps,
National Parks Big Banks
Rockefeller
FDR J. P. Morgan
Big Welfare State Carnegie
Eisenhower
Hoover
Teddy Roosevelt GI Bill
Morrill OSRD-DARPA
NSF, NIH
#Occupy
L R
Startup Scene Reagan
Manifest Destiny
Hippie
Homestead Act
Movement
Thomas Jefferson
Transition/Permaculture Tea Party
Locavorism Andrew Jackson
J
Startups are weird because they start out Jeffersonian
but nurse deep Hamiltonian ambitions
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51. Planned
2014
http://gameofpickaxes.com/
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52. Tentative Conclusions
• Kool-Aid is how you scale true grit
• It works through cognitive capture
• Takes unironic passion, not all can do it
• It drives institutional creative destruction
• Transient phase moral hazard
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![If the odds of making it as a [rockstar | movie star |
entrepreneur | best-selling author | President] are so
completely awful, why do people still try?
12/6/2012 Venkatesh G. Rao 2](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)