As humans we do a lot of dangerous things—some for fun (like climbing or cave-diving!) and some routinely as part of modern life (drive, fly, factories, medicine) etc. Many more mature industries and sports have extensive experience in iterative, long-term learning in safety.
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There is obviously a lot of smart and creative people in tech, but they suffer from an Achilles Heel trio of weaknesses: self-perceived idealism as excuse, overconfidence in their capabilities outside their own areas of expertise, and lack of attentiveness to details and harms.
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In contrast, people like those top cave-divers who found & rescued the boys (their technical achievement & bravery is one for the ages) come from an opposite culture that is no less innovative but very very different. It's also quite modest so that hides the amazing nature of it.
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Stanton and Volanthen—who first made it to the boys and shot the remarkable video of them huddling in jerseys—brushed off media while first entering the cave, refusing to give interviews and just said “we’ve got a job to do.” Volanthen went back to work day after rescue.
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So Musk's sub was impractical, and would never work. Ok. What's the harm & why is Vern Unsworth so irritated? Well, he's the one who organized everything, got Thai authorities to let cave-divers take over. One Thai Seal had perished and more would, along with boys. Listen up now.
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Do have any idea what it must have been for some random guy to convince the Thai gov't to let a bunch of cave-divers run the whole thing? There were so few of them who could do this that the whole thing halted while they slept. That's why rescuers hate PR stunts AND VIP visits.
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Some billionaire-struck gov't official might say, hey, let's try. It distracts. It's ok to develop a back-up plan, and given odds of a rescue, why not? What's not okay is to broadcast it, to bug the rescue team directly (find consultants!), and for media to give it such coverage.
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Now moving beyond the cave rescue. As I write, Silicon Valley innovation has advantages.. for a young industry. No more. Software is eating the world, and it's time for the other approach also—iterative learning, domain expertise, safety culture, do no harm as a principle, etc.
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But the idea that being smart in one domain qualifies one to just dabble in another is dangerous. For example, for long, many SV companies refused to understand they're in people business and tried to handle it as a side issue that they can handle because they are smart. NOPE.
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Replying to @zeynep
I appreciate the thread, but I would push back on this point. In my experience, almost all innovation comes from someone smart in one field dabbling in another. Not when publicity endangers lives, and SV can learn from others too, but cross-pollination is the key to innovation
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Dabbling has many forms. Cross-pollination can be great, indeed.
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Replying to @zeynep
My take is that being smart in one domain does qualify you to dabble in another, but not in a limited way. Smart people in traditional fields have things to teach people in tech and vice versa.
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