nature or nurture?
the best first principles thinkers I know are ex-McKinsey types or engineers who are such good problem solvers and probabilistic thinkers. principle, hypothesis, analysis. rinse and repeat.
Conversation
Replying to
More natural for some, but need reps and feedback to get excellent (nurture).
Engineering and consulting are two environments with 1) complex and diverse set of problems 2) high/med stakes 3) fast feedback loops.
2
2
The frameworks for thinking that way are not hard to learn.
But, the set of tradeoffs you need to think about are not common in most fields, which is why it's hard to go from learning to application.
2
2
Replying to
I'd be careful with consulting tho
You do get fast feedback on some projects, but on others it can take 2+ years, so even though the reasoning seems right at first, might get invalidated on the field / during implementation.
Engineering more clear cut in most cases.
1
I think you would like commoncog.com/blog/business-. It goes into ways to accelerate the "nurture".
I also like what Yen Liow is doing with case studies methodology in investing youtube.com/watch?v=i36vc8
High hopes that we can have more people internalizing first-principles thinking.
2
2
I love that Yen Liow video! Thank you for linking!