Random Walk Newsletter, Issue 21 ~ Monkey First#
News & Insights#
How to Live a Miserable Life
It's been two weeks since we last met. I no longer require myself to write an article every week. Working from home every day has actually made it difficult for me to come up with writing ideas. So, I'll just go with the flow.
Nowadays, I get most of my information from consuming content, such as listening to audiobooks and reading books. Recently, I came across a book with a very unique title, "How to Live a Miserable Life." The method is quite simple, summed up in one sentence: compare yourself to others. On the contrary, if you don't want to live a miserable life, then stop comparing yourself to others. It's better to focus on comparing yourself to your past self. For example, if today you learned 10 more words and read an article, that's great.
About Thinking Methods
Many people have probably heard Henry Ford's famous quote: "If I had to ask customers what they want, they will tell me: a faster horse." The idea of a "faster horse" is the result of thinking by analogy because customers know that a "faster horse" would allow them to reach their destination faster. By thinking in this way, it is highly unlikely to come up with the solution of a "car."
Sometimes, you need to break out of a framework in order to create something truly different. Of course, this is not an easy task. But if the current solution has reached its limit and there is no room for improvement, it means that another technology may not be far away.
Audiobooks & Books#
The Shepherd's Philosophy
This book presents an interesting viewpoint: "If I predict that the stock market will rise by 100 points tomorrow, then based on this prediction, I will definitely buy today. However, the act of 'buying today' itself will change tomorrow's market. It will no longer be the market I predicted."
This shows that your actions have already influenced the outcome, and you predicted the result before taking action. It's a bit complicated, but it has given me inspiration. However, I still can't put it into words to describe this specific inspiration.
The book also mentions another viewpoint that I have recently experienced. It says, "People's opinions about this matter have already been reflected in the price, causing price fluctuations. However, when this matter actually happens, the market may not react anymore." If the reality doesn't meet expectations, such as the application scope of a technological achievement not being as large as speculated, it may trigger a reverse price adjustment. For example, after the technology is implemented, the industry sector's market may decline, and so on.
Friends who follow cryptocurrency should have heard of ETH 2.0. Due to this event, ETH rose from around $1000 to $2000 in less than two weeks, but now it has dropped back to around $1500. The upgrade happened just 15 days ago. So, the price change happened about a month in advance, and as the event approached, the price started to decline. This aligns with what was mentioned earlier, that the matter being followed has already been reflected in the price.
Question and Answer
Google has a department called "Moonshot Factory," which is not actually researching moon landings. There is a principle in this department called the "Monkey First" principle. The book gives an example: Suppose your team receives a task to make a monkey sit on top of a pole and recite Shakespeare's works. What would you do?
Most teams would start by breaking down the problem and gradually making progress from the simplest tasks. For example, how to design a pole that can make the monkey sit steadily.
However, the people in this team would directly challenge this approach. They would say that it is self-deception because everyone knows that the real difficulty lies in making the monkey recite the works. If this cannot be achieved, no matter how well-designed the pole is, the task cannot be completed.
By asking the most difficult question, they change their problem-solving framework. Instead of starting with simple tasks, they start with the critical bottleneck. This often leads to breakthrough progress.
However, let me share my perspective. I understand this principle, but I wouldn't approach it this way because starting with the most difficult question may cause the entire task to stagnate or even lead to a loss of confidence (not everyone can solve the monkey problem). I lean more towards another viewpoint I read before, which is to set higher goals and gradually work towards them. This way, even if you only achieve 80% in the end, it may still be better than what you originally expected.
That's all for this issue of the Newsletter. If you have any questions, feel free to email me. Thank you for reading.