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

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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...

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.