[davidsergey]

It's not really faith, it an educated guess: CEO (or Director of Department) - Makes an educated guess, that if they can release Product A in next 18 months, they will earn $1,000,000. That means that they need to know that A: 1) Product A will be released in next 12-14 months. 2) They will spend less than $700,000. Otherwise they might be better off buying bonds or something.

It's effectively a job of an exec / director to make bets. Hopefully they are educated guesses, but there are times when somebody just have to flip a coin too.

[bluGill]

There is a lot of education in those guesses. We know what previous sales are, we know what industry sales are. We know population growth rates. We know many other things. Everything we know puts bounds on what we can sell.

[mistrial9]

> make bets

this is literally why a significant portion of high-end intellectuals refuse to participate in this charade, and instead build quality technology in the open. Open source technology, built largely without artificial deadlines and fake drama, define the execution environment that this exchange is taking place upon (in many cases).

The old industrial plant planning algebra in 1950s textbooks, say something like "if we make widget N in six months with a team of 6 and $100,000 budget, we have a 30% chance of breaking even in two years, but if we make widget P in 12 months with a team of 4 and $20,000, we have a 60% chance of breaking even in 24 months" etc.. this is slightly useful in certain environments, but anyone here is going to argue that the "future" in 12 or 24 months is stable, technically?

The capacity of certain mental models to "Reductio ad Absurdum" is amazing to me, in an age of moving literally one billion+ conversations at once across wires and through space.

[davidsergey]

In finance, it's called risk appetite. Different people and different entities have a different appetite for risk, and they will act accordingly. There is nothing intrinsically wrong guesswork if parties understand the context, and don't lie to themselves.

>12 or 24 months is stable, technically? Hm. Faster iterations are better, usually, again if we understand the context, but I see a lot of companies that are too quick to go into full panic mode. An example would be recession – If you plan to invest for the next 60 month, and a recession hits you on month 20, the right choice would be to ignore the inputs, and keep investing. Those who pull their assets when prices are low usually lose.

Quick or long iterations are not be all solutions, once always have to keep the context in mind and use first principles to understand what is that we are doing, and trying to achieve.