20VC: Annie Duke on Reversible vs Irreversible Decisions, How To Evaluate Risk, The Theory of Sunk Cost in Venture & How to Optimise Both the Discussion and Quality of Investment Decisions
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Annie Duke is a former professional poker player and the author of National Bestseller, "Thinking in Bets" & "How To Decide". During her poker playing days, Annie was a World Series of Poker bracelet winner, the winner of the 2004 Tournament of Champions and the only woman to win the NBC National Poker Heads Up Championship. Today, Annie is also the founder of How I Decide, a non-profit that creates curricula and tools to improve decision making and critical thinking skills for under-served middle schoolers.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Annie made her way from professional poker player to National Bestselling author and coach to the world's leading investors?
2.) How does Annie evaluate the nature of risk? What is good risk vs bad risk? How does Annie think through reversible vs irreversible decisions? What is her framework? Why does Annie believe most irreversible decisions are actually reversible? How does it change your thinking?
3.) How does effective solo-decision-making differ from effective group decision-making? What decision-making biases does Annie often see venture being guilty of making? What 3 things can one do to improve the decision-making of the collective group?
4.) How does Annie think about sunk cost? How does one know when enough is enough and you have to walk away? How does this tie into Annie's thinking on portfolio theory? How does Annie think about pre-mortems? How should they be structured? What is included?
5.) How does Annie define critical thinking? What tips would Annie give to someone in really advancing their level of critical thinking? What behaviours can one implement to seek to protect critical thinking? How does this differ in team environments?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Annie’s Favourite Book: The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another week on 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and to the show today, and I was so excited to do this show. |
| 0:05.1 | This guest is likely one of my favourite authors over the last few years. Her book, Thinking in Bess, |
| 0:10.0 | really impacted so much about how I think about decision making, and so I'm thrilled to welcome |
| 0:14.3 | Annie Dute to the show today. Now, for those that don't know, Annie is a former professional poker player and the author of National Best Seller, Thinking in Betts, and How to Decide. During her poker playing days, Annie was a World Series |
| 0:26.0 | of Poker Bracelet Winner, the winner of the 2004 Tournament of Champions, and the only |
| 0:30.7 | woman to win the NBC National Poker Heads Up Championship. Today, Annie is also the founder |
| 0:35.8 | of How I Decide, a non-profit that creates |
| 0:38.2 | curricula and tools to improve decision-making and critical thinking for underserved middle schoolers. |
| 0:43.6 | But before we dive into the show today, I have to say, I just love using Angel List's fund |
| 0:47.4 | admin platform to manage my investments with 20 VC. The team and the platform with Angel List |
| 0:52.1 | takes care of all my back office needs so that I can |
| 0:54.5 | focus on working with great founders. Leading fund managers have made over 10,000 investments into |
| 0:59.6 | 6,000 startups via AngelList, all online and all in one place. And with the recently announced |
| 1:05.0 | rolling funds, you can easily find and invest in these top fund managers on angellist.com |
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| 1:26.9 | companies of all sizes to pay |
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| 1:33.2 | lives and works. |
| 1:34.3 | Remote's global employment solutions keep your team, your finances and your IP secure. |
... |
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