Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by 0xdeadbeefbabe 1038 days ago
Yes, it's a neat concept. Have you ever met someone who has unerringly bad judgment? Maybe it's useful to know a few and ask them for advice.
4 comments

Oh hey, this is me, when it comes to products. I am almost certainly of the "harbinger of failure" group where if I like your product, it's going to be a disaster. https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/certain-customers-sp...

Not only did I buy a Zune, I was an early enthusiastic customer of their streaming subscription service and thought that it would topple the iTunes sales model. We all know how well that went.

Except Zune wasn't a bad product. I liked it. It had a radio and was easy to develop apps for.
Doomed to failure. How come none of Microsoft's bad products ever die? RIP Windows Phone.
Same here. "Split brain," logical, analytical person. We aren't even a rounding error in market numbers. If I like it it is probably the superior product providing the most value...rarely ever matters.
Also: subscription streaming did topple the iTunes sales model. It just wasn't Microsoft that made it work in the marketplace.
While funny, I think that misses the point.

I see the value here being: when you can’t understand the causal relationships for success, use the causal relationships for failure that you can understand and then avoid specific failure modes.

“Friend gives generally bad advice” is not that kind of a clear causal relationship.

I’ve often thought in life that I’ve learned most of what I know by seeing examples of what not to do. If for no other reason than that there are many more people running around without a clue than truly wise individuals making well-reasoned decisions. At least that’s how it’s seemed IME; I’m sure in reality people are just doing the best they could and making decisions in the moment, but they often seem to be thinking in the extremely short term (and then sometimes, still wrong even for that).
Find your Eddie Mush. Never bet the same way :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ulWjFfLsL0