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Cedric Chin Profile picture
@ejames_c
Jul 14, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
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Latest Commonplace piece is about the difference between exec development and training individual contributors.

commoncog.com/blog/exec-deve…
This is one of those essays where I'm not 100% sure of the conclusions — I'll have to put it to practice before I can say for certain.

But there *does* seem to be a tension between 'handholding' ICs, and 'throwing execs into the deep end', and it seems productive to investigate.
One thing that I'm actively chewing over: perhaps 'throwing people into the deep end' is simply a pedagogical thing, but for high potential hires.
Oh, before I forget: hat tip to @NeckarValue for writing the best deep dive on Barry Diller I've read.

Part one is here: neckar.substack.com/p/barry-diller…
Part two, members only, is here: neckar.substack.com/p/barry-diller…
The screenshot that matters in that second piece is this one:

(And this isn't even 10% of the content that @NeckarValue dug up on Diller. Seriously, subscribe to him. His work is that good).

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More from @ejames_c

Cedric Chin Profile picture
Aug 20, 2025
I want to call out an example of some remarkable thinking that I've had the privilege of observing up close.

About 2 years ago, @vaughn_tan started a project to come up with better thinking around 'uncertainty'. This MIGHT be important to business! MIGHT! But I was unconvinced.
Vaughn had noticed that our collective ability to deal with uncertainty was compromised by bad language. Because we do not have good language for uncertainty, we are forced to borrow words and concepts from risk management.

But this is bad: risk is VERY diff from uncertainty!
I was in good company in my scepticism, though. Vaughn's friend, the notable VC Jerry Neumann, told him that he was sceptical Vaughn's project would be very useful.

Neumann argued that it wasn't important to know what types of uncertainty exist — merely how to use it. Image
Read 14 tweets
Cedric Chin Profile picture
Aug 3, 2025
I once had an intern do an internship with me because she wanted to see how I approached 'startup things'. At the end of the summer, she was surprised that I didn't have a set of hypotheses to test.

"Doesn't this go against the data-driven approach you talked about?" she asked.
I didn't have the language for it then, but I think I do now.

When an initiative / product / project is too new, there is too much uncertainty to form useful hypotheses.

Instead, what you want to do is to just "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks."
This sounds woefully inefficient, but it's not, not really. A slightly more palatable frame for this is "take action to generate information."

But what kind of information?

Actually I was looking for answers to the following four questions:
Read 15 tweets
Cedric Chin Profile picture
Jul 29, 2025
A gentle reminder that if you want to speed up expertise intuition, you will do a lot better if you have an actual mental model of what expert intuition *is*.

The most useful model is the one below:

It gives you more handles on how to improve. Image
The name of the model is the 'recognition primed decision making' model, or RPD.

The basic idea is simple: when an expert looks at a situation, they generate four things automatically:

1. Cues
2. Expectancies
3. Possible goals
4. An action script.

You can target each.
For instance, if you're a software engineer and you want to get better from the tacit knowledge of the senior programmers around you, ask:

- What cues did you notice?
- What were your expectancies?
- What was your action script?

Details: commoncog.com/tacit-expertis…
Read 8 tweets
Cedric Chin Profile picture
Jul 13, 2025
Here’s what I wish someone had told me before I ran a JTBD interview process for the first time.

Let’s back up: you’ve probably heard of the Jobs to be Done Framework.

Typically: “customers buy for a ‘JTBD’.”

But the framework excels at learning HOW your customers buy.
This is a HUGE win.

If you can find out how, exactly, your customers buy you:

- You can design your product for that journey.
- You can meet your customers where they are.
- You know what progress they’re trying to make!

Alas: the way to get there is tricky.
I think most folks don’t realise the JTBD framework comes with its own interview process. (I certainly didn’t!)

But a) it’s really powerful.

b) the bad news is that it takes a lot of skill to execute.

(You’d think they would advertise that disclaimer, but, alas).
Read 11 tweets
Cedric Chin Profile picture
Jul 5, 2025
A gentle reminder that we've already had one 'general purpose technology that increased productivity across the board' — the PC.

And in that revolution, higher productivity/speed DIDN'T result in company wins.
It's a common narrative: "use new technology X and you will win / don't get left behind." Was widespread during that era.

The NYT was plastered with ads selling Wordperfect / Lotus 123 (and later Word and Excel) courses. From @stevesi's memoirs: Image
Also: I remember doing the research for the Commoncog case on Microsoft Office. We went back to the NYT issue when Office 95 was launched.

I'm not kidding about the newspaper being PLASTERED with 'learn Excel/Word' ads. Those course creators were making bank!
Read 10 tweets
Cedric Chin Profile picture
May 4, 2025
I’m starting to believe that @justinskycak has … reading comprehension issues.

It’s a little funny to read a critique of your articles and then realise that the critique seems to be criticising something else?
justinmath.com/critique-of-pa…

The argument I make is:

1. DP is a sleight of hand research paradigm, and only claims to be the best way to get to expertise in fields with a good history of pedagogical development. (See: The Cambridge Handbook, where they point out that pop stars and jazz musicians become world class but not through DP)

2. Most of us are not in such domains.

3. Therefore we cannot use DP, and tacit knowledge elicitation methods are more appropriate.

The counter argument @justinskycak needs to make is simple: math is a domain with a long history of pedagogical development, therefore DP dominates.
Now let’s look at his critique of my critique of deliberate practice: justinmath.com/critique-of-pa…

Justin says that “talent is overrated” is not part of the DP argument.

I’m not sure what he’s read from Ericsson that makes him think that.

Hambrick et al document the MANY instances where Ericsson makes the claim “DP is the gold standard and therefore anyone can use DP to get good, practice dominates talent.”

Ericsson spends the entire introduction of Peak arguing this. When Ericsson passed, David Epstein wrote a beautiful eulogy but referenced his being a lifelong proponent of the ‘talent is overrated’ camp, which frustrated him and other expertise researchers to no end.

davidepstein.com/father-of-the-…

Now you may say that DP has nothing to say on talent, but then you have to grapple with the man making the argument in DECADES of publications — both academic and popular! If the man who INVENTED the theory sees the theory as a WAY TO ADVANCE his views on talent, then … I don’t know, maybe one should take the man at his word?

“Oh, but his views have NOTHING to do with the actual theory of DP” My man, if you’re talking to anyone who has ACTUALLY read DP work, you need to address this, because they’re going to stumble into it. Like, I don’t know, in the INTRODUCTION CHAPTER OF THE POPSCI BOOK ON DP.

Anyway, strike two for reading comprehension problems. But it gets worse …
Read 13 tweets

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