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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:

\u2022 What Annie learned from the late Daniel Kahneman

\u2022 The power of pre-mortems and \u201ckill criteria\u201d

\u2022 The relationship between money and happiness

\u2022 The power of \u201cmental time travel\u201d

\u2022 The nominal group technique for better decision quality

\u2022 How First Round Capital improved their decision-making process

\u2022 Many tactical decision-making frameworks

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-better-decisions-annie-duke

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Where to find Annie Duke:

\u2022 X: https://twitter.com/AnnieDuke

\u2022 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-duke/

\u2022 Website: https://www.annieduke.com/

\u2022 Substack: https://www.annieduke.com/substack/

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Where to find Lenny:

\u2022 Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

\u2022 X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

\u2022 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Annie\u2019s 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 \u201cnevertheless\u201d

(20:06) The extent of improvement possible in decision-making\xa0

(24:54) Independent brainstorming for better decisions

(35:36) Making sure people feel heard

(42:41) The \u201c3Ds\u201d 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\u2019s implicit

(01:10:55) The challenges of quitting and knowing when to walk away

(01:19:23) Where to find Annie

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Referenced:

\u2022 Daniel Kahneman, Who Plumbed the Psychology of Economics, Dies at 90: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/business/daniel-kahneman-dead.html

\u2022 Adversarial collaboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_collaboration

\u2022 Does more money correlate with greater happiness?: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/does-more-money-correlate-greater-happiness-Penn-Princeton-research#

\u2022 Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36857342/

\u2022 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

\u2022 Cass Sunstein on X: https://twitter.com/CassSunstein

\u2022 Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside

\u2022 A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-framework-for-finding-product-market

\u2022 First Round Capital: https://firstround.com/

\u2022 Brett Berson on X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

\u2022 Renegade Partners: https://www.renegadepartners.com/

\u2022 Renata Quintini on X: https://twitter.com/rquintini

\u2022 Roseanne Wincek on X: https://twitter.com/imthemusic

\u2022 Josh Kopelman on X: https://twitter.com/joshk

\u2022 Bill Trenchard on X: https://twitter.com/btrenchard

\u2022 Linnea Gandhi on X: https://twitter.com/linneagandhi

\u2022 Maurice Schweitzer on X: https://twitter.com/me_schweitzer

\u2022 Problems with premortems: https://sjdm.org/presentations/2021-Poster-Gandhi-Linnea-debiasing-premortem-selfserving~.pdf

\u2022 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/

\u2022 Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away: https://www.amazon.com/Quit-Power-Knowing-When-Walk/dp/0593422996/

\u2022 Richard Thaler on X: https://twitter.com/R_Thaler

\u2022 Stewart Butterfield on X: https://twitter.com/stewart

\u2022 Glitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game)

\u2022 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

\u2022 The Most Fascinating Profile You\u2019ll 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/

\u2022 The Alliance for Decision Education: https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/

\u2022 Make Better Decisions course on Maven: https://maven.com/annie-duke/make-better-decisions

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.