In a biotech context, where actual revenue may be a decade away, and where even experimental data is expensive to collect (atoms, not bits!) pretty much *all* the credibility of my project resides in the plan. Capable people, too; but recruiting them reduces to the same problem.
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In fact, the people I *have* recruited and fundraised from so far, who are excellent, were sold on the basis of the plan: why it makes sense & seems likely that we'll discover anti-aging drugs through large phenotypic invertebrate drug screens.
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So, of course, one possibility is that I'm wrong when someone's plan doesn't make sense to me.
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I've definitely made mistakes of the form "that's not possible, the technology isn't good enough/cheap enough" based on outdated information, and it turns out things have rapidly progressed since I last checked on the field.
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But simple logic stuff like "a plan that depends on A, B, *and* C going right is riskier than a plan that depends on A, B, *or* C going right" or "experimental evidence is more credible than correlational evidence, ceterus paribus, in ascertaining whether an intervention works"
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that kind of reasoning seems valid to me. Long chains of reasoning about an uncertain future are questionable, indeed -- that's why too much a priori reasoning is unwise -- but the logic I'm talking about is precisely *about* cutting down on model risk!
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I think *careful* and *humble* logical arguments *are* valid ways to assess the prospects of an early-stage project. Ultimately, of course, data talks, bullshit walks. But before the final data is in...
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The other possibility, of course, is that smart people join or fund early-stage startups with bad plans because they don't think the stated plan is actually a firm commitment. "If the plan is bad we can just change it later."
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This might make sense in a world with rapid & cheap market feedback, like consumer software. It seems *nuts* in biotech, where you're investing a lot in expensive physical equipment for something that won't pay you for ten years!
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True, if your plan is bad today, you can change it. But that means plan #2, or #3, or whatever, is going to have to actually get you from here to the big goal when nobody else yet has. And so, isn't the quality of plan #1 an indicator of how good the people are at planning?
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Do you think @elonmusk doesn't have a plan to get to Mars? Like, not a marketing pitch, a plan that is his careful best assessment of the critical path from here to there?
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