This will make you a better decision-maker | Annie Duke (author of “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit,” former pro poker player)

Annie Duke is a former professional poker player, a decision-making expert, and a special partner at First Round Capital. She is the author of Thinking in Bets (a national bestseller) and Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. In our conversation, we cover: • What Annie learned from the late Daniel Kahneman • The power of pre-mortems and “kill criteria” • The relationship between money and happiness • The power of “mental time travel” • The nominal group technique for better decision quality • How First Round Capital improved their decision-making process • Many tactical decision-making frameworks — Brought to you by: • Vanta —Automate compliance. Simplify security. • UserTesting —Human understanding. Human experiences. • LinkedIn Ads —Reach professionals and drive results for your business — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-better-decisions-annie-duke — Where to find Annie Duke: • X: https://twitter.com/AnnieDuke • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-duke/ • Website: https://www.annieduke.com/ • Substack: https://www.annieduke.com/substack/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Annie’s background (03:53) Lessons from Daniel Kahneman: humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness (09:15) The importance of unconditional love in parenting (15:15) Mental time travel and “nevertheless” (20:06) The extent of improvement possible in decision-making (24:54) Independent brainstorming for better decisions (35:36) Making sure people feel heard (42:41) The “3Ds” framework to make better decisions (44:49) Decision quality (55:46) Improving decision-making at First Round Capital (01:05:05) Using pre-mortems and kill criteria (01:10:15) Making explicit what’s implicit (01:10:55) The challenges of quitting and knowing when to walk away (01:19:23) Where to find Annie — Referenced: • Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html • Adversarial collaboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration • Does more money correlate with greater happiness?: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/does-more-money-correlate-greater-happiness-Penn-Princeton-research# • Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36857342/ • Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/strategic-decisions-when-can-you-trust-your-gut • Cass Sunstein on X: https://twitter.com/CassSunstein • Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside • A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-framework-for-finding-product-market • First Round Capital: https://firstround.com/ • Brett Berson on X: https://twitter.com/brettberson • Renegade Partners: https://www.renegadepartners.com/ • Renata Quintini on X: https://twitter.com/rquintini • Roseanne Wincek on X: https://twitter.com/imthemusic • Josh Kopelman on X: https://twitter.com/joshk • Bill Trenchard on X: https://twitter.com/btrenchard • Linnea Gandhi on X: https://twitter.com/linneagandhi • Maurice Schweitzer on X: https://twitter.com/me_schweitzer • Problems with premortems: https://sjdm.org/presentations/2021-Poster-Gandhi-Linnea-debiasing-premortem-selfserving~.pdf • Create a Solid Plan on How to Fail Big This Year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2020/02/07/create-a-solid-plan-on-how-to-fail-big-this-year/ • Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away : https://www.amazon.com/Quit-Power-Knowing-When-Walk/dp/0593422996/ • Richard Thaler on X: https://twitter.com/R_Thaler • Stewart Butterfield on X: https://twitter.com/stewart • Glitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game) • How the Founder of Slack & Flickr Turned Colossal Failures into Billion-Dollar Companies: https://medium.com/swlh/how-the-founder-of-slack-flickr-turned-failures-into-million-and-billion-dollar-companies-7bcaf0d35d66 • The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-most-fascinating-profile-youll-ever-read-about-a-guy-and-his-boring-startup/ • The Alliance for Decision Education: https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/ • Make Better Decisions course on Maven: https://maven.com/annie-duke/make-better-decisions — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe