Cedric Chin
@ejames_c
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Publishes https://t.co/jDXGXZVHqH. Tweets about books & the art of business, from the perspective of an operator. https://t.co/8gO6sUlhUM
Singapore & Saigon
Joined March 2008
1/ I recently finished digging into a body of work around extracted tacit mental models of business expertise, and it is wild. It turns out that business experts all share a common mental model of business, and you can do all sorts of interesting things if you have that model.
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And if you are an investor, check out the Calibration Case Method:. Thanks for reading!.
commoncog.com
Commoncog uses a unique case approach to business education. What it is, how it works, and why it’s superior to the traditional case method.
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Write posts that select for the worldview in question. Like this one 😉. If you’re an operator, check out the syllabus:.
commoncog.com
A recommended path to consume Commoncog’s continued exploration of business expertise — from soup to nuts.
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In terms of demographics: the bulk of the membership are — execs, founders, investors (of all stripes). Basically: business nerds!. And so the marketing approach that works is to figure out where folks of this worldview hang out, and then market to them … or —.
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What is that worldview?. - Business is the greatest game ever invented.- With endless new configurations that work.- But you want to spend your time reading things that are tested, or are proven to work. - With intellectual rigour.
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Sometimes we get well-meaning individuals telling us to “go viral on HN” or “try and advertise with more founders.”. But this betrays a lack of understanding about marketing. Commoncog resonates with a particular worldview, so it makes sense to zero in on that worldview.
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And “Most business content these days is VC-pilled. Difficult to find alternative viewpoints.”. “I read a few of your essays and immediately knew you’d read Buffett and Munger.”. And: “Most places don’t have content for between Series B and IPO.”.
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We ran a JTBD interview loop about a year ago for Commoncog. One of the things that came up repeatedly was: “I like how you’re so counter to the typical startup vibe.”. Other quotes:. “I came to Commoncog once I realised the startup playbook didn’t work for me.”.
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I’m not here to black-call one vs the other. The startup ‘lottery game’ has produced incredible outcomes for society (though at some point in a company’s life the players will switch to becoming business builders). This is actually a … demand case study. 😅.
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If you attend the average founder meetup, the odds are pretty good that you’re going to meet folks who are playing a lottery game, not a business building game. The two approaches use very similar language (‘markets’, ‘demand’, ‘revenue’) but are fundamentally different.
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@johnloeber The heart of my friend’s critique is too politically incorrect to post on Twitter. But an unrelated friend sent me this: Which is more acceptable critique for a Western frame.
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This thread has done what I intended it to: message from Chinese friend tells me this is a deeply unserious book, at least from the Chinese side of things. Enjoyable read, though. Will be skipping it.
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I would love to read someone who can, and who does the act of translation well. I hope that is Wang. Though, if it is not, I will still be looking.
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It is easy to be a China watcher in China when China’s actions fit into the neoliberal economic worldview that you inhabit. It becomes considerably harder when their actions run counter to that. The frame test for me is: can you justify those actions? And can you support them?.
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I noticed that when it became hard to justify China’s actions in the peak of 2022, a great many sea turtles fled the country. One of them was Wang, who decamped to Yale to write his book. And I remember thinking that this was interesting.
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Deeply suspicious that all the current PR are by Westerners fully inhabiting Western frames. Feels like the book might be maximally yellow (pun somewhat intended)
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Before reading Dan Wang’s new book, I want a good critique from a Chinese person living in China. And preferably not someone who ran away after the troubles started in 2022.
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I let it die recently because I wasn’t super interested in reading HN anymore. (In a way, this app, built originally in my final year of uni had weaned me off the site). Looks like I should probably fix this?.
github.com
Sad to see the site no longer works. It has been my default go-to-place to consume HN for years. Anyway, kudo to the author. A great project that has succeeded the test of time.
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Woah, I really should check my github notifs more often. Turns out there are actually humans (aside from myself) who have used my Hacker News mirror for years.
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I’ve written a longer explanation for why this explanation seems to work (on my dad, and a few friends!). With the main caveat that it’s still wrong, even if it is useful. Full essay below:.
commoncog.com
How to resist thinking of large language models as friends. Or sentient things. Or intelligences you have to treat like God.
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Karpathy’s original tweet is available here (read the full thread, scrolling upwards):.
@marshal_martian Clearly there's too many locations. The data labelers hand-write SOME of these curated lists, identifying (by example and statistics) the kind of correct answer. When asked that kind of question about something else & new, the LLM matches the form of the answer but pulls out and.
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