A surprisingly high % of stupid arguments & fights on Twitter are rooted in a tiny number of fairly obvious fallacies.

Stupid arguments & the fallacies that feed them, a thread:
Fallacy 1/

Just because it’s true that all squares are rectangles, you argued that all rectangles must be squares. (And you did it with so much swagger.)
Example of Fallacy 1

X says: Successful people aren’t afraid of hard work.

Y argues: That’s BS. I work 90 hours a week at Tech Co and am still stuck in this dead-end job.
Fallacy 2/

Just because you found an exception to a general pattern, you argued that the entire pattern is false.
Example of Fallacy 2

X says: Venture capital is useful for startups.

Y argues: Not true. Foo’s startup took VC money and they crashed & burned.

Z piles on: I agree with Y. In fact, Bar’s startup did not take VC money and it’s worth a bajillion.
Fallacy 2′/

Just because you found an exception to a general pattern, you argued that the exception *is* the pattern.
(further examples are left as an exercise for the reader)
Fallacy 3/

Just because you did not agree with one small aspect of what someone said, you argued that it makes sense to ignore everything they said.
Fallacy 4/

Just because you found one thing missing in a list of generally useful things, you argued that the entire list is useless.
Fallacy 5/

Just because a thing worked for you, you argued that everyone should do that thing, all the time.
Fallacy 5′/

Just because a thing worked for Musk / Bezos / Jobs / [insert your idol], you argued that everyone should do that thing, all the time.
Fallacy 6/

Just because a thing worked for you, you argued that no one should do the opposite of that thing, ever, under any circumstance.
Fallacy 6′/

Just because a thing worked for Musk / Bezos / Jobs / [insert your idol], you argued that no one should do the opposite of that thing, ever, under any circumstance.
Fallacy 7/

Just because a good idea wouldn’t work if “everyone did it”, you argued that it is in fact a terrible idea and *no one* should do it.
While this thread won't solve any of the bad faith conversations that unfortunately happen on Twitter, I hope it can help prevent some of the good faith conversations from taking a stupid turn.
Did I miss any other fallacies?

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More from @shreyas

5 Dec
You (at a project status meeting):
Project ABC's status is Yellow
Need [X] more resources to get it back on track.

Your Manager’s Manager (YMM):
We need to zoom out first
I would like to see a doc [or slides] with our strategy, roadmap & resourcing requests for Project ABC.

👇🏾
You:
OK, I have to deal with Acme Inc this week but can get that to you by next Friday

YMM:
Hmm… we really need this sooner.
Can you share by Monday instead?

You: (🤔this must be important for YMM, so I should do what’s being asked)
OK, will do

👇🏾
[On Monday]

You: (📨in email to YMM, cc’ing your manager)

Dear YMM, here’s the document you requested in last week's status meeting. Please let me know your feedback. I am happy to meet and discuss this further so we can proceed with the revised plan for Project ABC.

👇🏾
Read 7 tweets
3 Dec
Most interview frameworks (and most work environments in general) tend to favor the verbally charismatic.

Verbal charisma is IME the #1 reason that otherwise-smart companies hire leaders who end up being quite incompetent on the job (and get fired in 6-18 months).
Since a bunch of folks asked about ways to identify such cases during the interview process, here's a thread with archetypes & concrete ways to detect each one:
Besides this, one skill I've tried to build over the years is to separate the message as much as possible from the messenger.

This helps me evaluate the quality of what is said (most important) independently from how it is said (fairly important) & who says it (least important).
Read 5 tweets
3 Dec
This is well said.

Exceptional product people understand it and use it in their work.
Relevant framework (with examples, including Amazon, Netflix, YouTube)
Read 5 tweets
1 Dec
🗓️Recap of Nov 2020 content

Includes:

-The CEO Test
-Understanding orgs
-Leadership & Tao Te Ching
-3 types of Prod Mgrs
-the product & The Product
-Upside-Downside framework
-Top 10 cognitive biases
-Gorilla Taxes & Startups
-What we need in Prod Mgmt
& much more....

Thread👇🏾
Compromising with conviction by using the CEO Test
Product/ Organize / Self-promote: a framework for understanding companies & orgs, and our role in them
Read 26 tweets
29 Nov
There comes a point in a company’s life when it becomes its own largest customer.

This is the crossover point in the 𝑥-pattern below.

Left side of 𝑥 is largely about Produce work. Right side largely Organize+Self-promote work.

Crossover is inevitable, but defer it if you can
Quick recap:

People do 3 types of work within companies.

Produce:
Creating artifacts to serve the company’s external stakeholders.

Organize:
Creating the necessary structures & processes for Produce work.

Self-promote:
Creating a proxy for their own competence & impact.
Startups are almost 100% about Produce work.

That’s why some people love working at startups.

Very large companies tend to require more Organize + Self-promote work from their PMs than Produce work.

Less than 20% Produce time is common for Group PMs in some large companies.
Read 5 tweets
26 Nov
If you’re a Startup trying to compete with a Megacorp—the 800-pound Gorilla in the space—you need to understand the tax inherent to being a Gorilla

And then you need to make that tax work against the Gorilla—with your product's positioning & features

A thread on Gorilla taxes👇🏾
1/
Collaboration Tax

Getting two or more product groups at a megacorp to collaborate on creating a seamless end user experience is the hardest problem in computer science.

(I am not joking)
Examples of Collaboration Tax:

Calendly exists because the Gmail team & Calendar team haven’t worked together on creating a more seamless experience for that use case.

Loom might succeed because the Gmail, Video, Meet teams at Google are probably too busy with their own goals.
Read 20 tweets

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