This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, 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: https://vanta.com/lenny • UserTesting—Human understanding. Human experiences: https://www.usertesting.com/lenny • LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business:   / podlenny   Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ma... Where to find Annie Duke: • X:   / annieduke   • LinkedIn:   / annie-duke   • Website: https://www.annieduke.com/ • Substack: https://www.annieduke.com/substack/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X:   / lennysan   • LinkedIn:   / 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/bu... • Adversarial collaboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversa... • Does more money correlate with greater happiness?: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/does... • Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36857... • Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities... • Cass Sunstein on X:   / casssunstein   • Dr. Becky on Instagram:   / drbeckyatgoodinside   • A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-... • First Round Capital: https://firstround.com/ • Brett Berson on X:   / brettberson   • Renegade Partners: https://www.renegadepartners.com/ • Renata Quintini on X:   / rquintini   • Roseanne Wincek on X:   / imthemusic   • Josh Kopelman on X:   / joshk   • Bill Trenchard on X:   / btrenchard   • Linnea Gandhi on X:   / linneagandhi   • Maurice Schweitzer on X:   / me_schweitzer   • Create a Solid Plan on How to Fail Big This Year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfi... • Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away: https://www.amazon.com/Quit-Power-Kno... • Richard Thaler on X:   / r_thaler   • Stewart Butterfield on X:   / stewart   • Glitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_...) • How the Founder of Slack & Flickr Turned Colossal Failures into Billion-Dollar Companies:   / how-the-founder-of-slack-flickr-turned-fai...   • The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-mos... • The Alliance for Decision Education: https://alliancefordecisioneducation.... • Make Better Decisions course on Maven: https://maven.com/annie-duke/make-bet... 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.