

We have seen this movie before - chegra84
http://chestergrant.posterous.com/we-have-seen-this-movie-before

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faitswulff
The formatting choices were jarring, though I wholeheartedly agree with the
large bolded words in the last paragraph.

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bradpineau
Good stuff. Agree as well.

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whatwhatwhat
>I will pay you $10 for everyday I don't come to the gym and get on that bike
for at least 25 minutes.

Not to nitpick, but I think that "dont" shouldnt be in that sentence? The way
it's worded incentivizes the trainer to make sure I don't show up. Without the
"dont" it sort of encourages me to not show up because it costs an extra $10,
but at the same time the other guy is going to be encouraged to get me to show
up. Or maybe the analogy just doesn't work. I get your point entirely though.

I liked the article.

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JohnnyBrown
You are correct that the trainer is incentivized such that he would prefer I
not show up. But /I/ am incentivized /to/ show up.

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lazyjeff
I think the problem with this argument is that our observations are pre-
selected before see them. This biases our predictions towards spectacular
success/failure stories and exaggerated anecdotes. What would have happened if
you were Facebook and thought, "we know social networking startups end in
failure, and so we should try something else".

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bricestacey
I'm not sure Facebook thought that in 2004. Besides, it's all relative. Some
people reading this will think, "Gym? Bring it on!!" Obviously, a successful
path would somehow diverge from previous failures.

Also, I think the article is more about addiction to HN and not so much
startup advice.

