Bias for learning - Letter from Hector
Hector
This evening, we’ve been rolling around Amboselli national park in the Cruiser. Six of us squeezed together, bumping through the bush in pursuit of herds of giraffes. It’s an outrageously beautiful place. As we watched the sun set alongside Mt. Kilimanjaro, we reflected on the importance of learning in, and beyond, our late twenties.
In startup circles people often talk about having a bias for action. I like the idea of having a bias for learning, too. That is: To take advantage of all opportunities to grow intellectually. This is a bias that can be trained (mine is flabby), and is useful in and outside of work.
I thought graduating from university marked the end of my education. Now, as a founder, I’ve realised that I know very little about business, and under the lens of therapy I’ve shone a light on my inadequacies elsewhere. I have a lot to learn. Self-education, which I suppose is a proxy for a growth mind-set, is something I’ve been thinking more about. And I’m not alone, there is a generational shift toward continued learning.
There are a couple of examples of these learning groups. The first is On Deck, which has just raised a $20million round to grow the future education. It’s already a global machine, with 20+ ‘fellowships’ (cohort based courses).
A smaller, but no less stimulating establishment, is the 277 Institute. At the start of this year, during the On Deck writing course, I met a cofounder of the Institute. The Institute’s mission is to enable group learning about overlooked topics. In the founders’ words:
Our goal is to create a culture of continual learning by bringing together diverse groups of thoughtful individuals and supporting peer learning through reading, discussion and synthesis.
Soon after the end of On Deck, I joined 277. A couple of weeks ago we completed a course that was originally taught by Peter Thiel, called “Stagnation or Progress”. Thiel taught the course at Stanford last year, and we read and discussed its reading list (sadly Thiel didn’t make it to a meeting… I guess he’s busy). By way of an example, this is the intro to the syllabus:
Vibrant cultures draw on the dynamism of innovation and creativity, but they decline through stagnation, forms of which we have been facing in recent years: deceleration of technological innovation, prospects of slowed economic growth, and a generalized cultural malaise or decadence. This seminar examines this problem and asks about antidotes, whether as progress, renaissance or disruption.
Six years after graduating, I have gone full circle on the education flywheel. This time, it’s not costing £9,000 a year, and I’m not getting as drunk. Book-learning happens on evening and weekends, and we meet once a fortnight. The power of honing a bias for learning today is that it’s basically free (it’s just books and time).
Recently, when out walking, I let slip to my new friends that I was reading the biography of Koch Industries. Silence followed. Worse, (in the silence) I confessed my admiration for Charles Koch, their infamous CEO. From my friends’ reaction, you’d have thought I’d confessed murder. Can there be anyone as terrible as the Koch’s? They deny climate change at our expense. They release ammonia into our *shared* atmosphere for fun. And they make a lot of money.
The Koch’s are wrong on many things, but they are right on some: Their organization has a bias for learning. One of the reasons they’ve been so successful is each of their divisions is seen as a data ingestion point. The shared (combined) value of the knowledge is far greater than the sum of parts. As an example, Koch’s gas divisions can monitor gas use in the pipelines; Koch’s trading arm can have first mover advantage in the gas markets.
In 1984 Orwell describes Doublethink as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” The danger we face today is, often, we only are exposed to one belief (thanks, in large part, to the Mainstream Media and social network group-think echo chambers). Too often, our mind is made up for us. Training our bias for learning means we expose ourselves to new ideas, and it means we become better at data ingestion (like a Koch division, but in a good way).
Outside of education, at work the same bias for learning valuable. A month ago a friend explained that there is a better way of finding answers to problems from mentors and advisors. He said, be open about your problems, and turn up with an agenda. Up until this advice, I would always (covertly) be on selling mode: It’s going great, I would say, let’s just give it time. Since, I’ve been arriving at meetings to learn, not to sell. The result is like striking gold—there is so much valuable advice out there, it just needs to be asked for.
I am now preparing to for a new course on personal investing organized by the 277 Institute. If you’re interested in this, let me know. A friend of mine is, by chance, also running the On Deck Investing Fellowship (it’s not in competition with the former). It promises to be excellent, too, so say hi if you want more information.
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