Audio Of The Week: Andy and Flyover

Here’s a podcast my partner Andy did with Flyover Labs recently:

#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. Dave Kruse

    Thanks Fred. I’ve read your blog pretty much everyday for the past few years. Fun to see this on here. Dave (Flyover Labs)

    1. Dave Kruse

      Andy is such a great guy to interview.

  2. Twain Twain

    I’m leaving tech sector on March 11 (anniversary of my Dad’s passing) and going for a random walk.

    1. Richard

      with a drift

    2. Donna Brewington White

      I haven’t watched the video but I think I just found a very interesting blog post by you. 😉

      1. Twain Twain

        Is it the Forbes one?* https://www.forbes.com/site…Or ‘X meets Y: the game changing male-female tech duos of past & present’?* https://www.startupgrind.co…A random walk is needed.Yesterday, in Google’s offices in SF, a 20-something male engineer said that it doesn’t matter we assume people think probabilistically because “as long as we have enough data, we have the context of their behavior.”Okay …Meanwhile, a 30-something male senior engineer wrote a total hype piece on AI on LinkedIn with this: “For example, if you see a flower that looks like a rose and you say, “Yep that is a rose,” what you are really saying is, “Yep, based on my previous knowledge (data) on what I believe a rose to look like and what I’ve been told a rose looks like, I am 97 percent sure that this is a rose.”Making decisions based on probability is what our brains do best. If we can model a computer program in the same conceptual way, then the implications for AI is potentially unlimited!”This is the type of SCIENTIFICALLY UNSOUND NONSENSE & complicity in using bad mental frameworks by male engineers that I have to correct every day — not just from 60-something Professors of AI but from 20-somethings who just accept (wholesale) what their 60-something male predecessors believe WITHOUT HAVING THE CURIOSITY OR GUMPTION TO INTELLECTUALLY QUESTION WHETHER these are “facts”, “truths”, “fiction”, “opinion”, “anecdotes” etc. and thus perpetuate bad practices.So those Silicon Valley engineers are in no position to talk about Trump’s truthfulness when they’re spouting unscientific information such as “making decisions based on probability is what we do best.”Check out how the assumptions that we’re probabilistic and our language is about % is working for Alphabet-Google:https://uploads.disquscdn.c…It’s the fact that 20-somethings and 30-somethings engineers in Silicon Valley DO NOT EVEN KNOW PROBABILITY WAS INVENTED TO MODEL DICE and not the human mind, that is really disturbing.This is even before we get to how they are programming bias (racism, sexism, ageism etc) into the systems; biases that don’t represent or serve global society.Yeah, I need to take a random walk and eat some ice-cream :*).

        1. Donna Brewington White

          No but these are interesting too. The one I saw was the post on Ben Horowitz’s talk on Startup Grind.Hey, when you say a walk — do you mean like an afternoon stroll or sabbatical?

          1. Twain Twain

            Ben Horowitz’s talk was fantastic.9 times of 10, investors take to the stage to say how wonderful their firms are or put up a lot of graphs and tables about some hockey stick.The investors who are deeper thinkers stand out. They often have a curiosity about the history of technology and they share knowledge about socio-cultural events that the audience may not be aware of — to make the audience wake up and go educate themselves about this new information and learn from it.I was really happy to learn about Toussaint L’Ouverture. His story speaks to how intelligence is independent of race, education level and economic background. Toussaint was a slave yet he knew the texts of Julius Caesar better than the educated Generals of the French, British and Spanish armies.

        2. Donna Brewington White

          BTW, not to gloss over the other posts — actually very thought-provoking. I understand your frustration, although not as much as I would if I lived and breathed this field as you do.People don’t generally know what they don’t know, nor their own hypocrisy. Time is a great teacher — as is product rejected because it doesn’t reflect the needs of the user.

    3. cavepainting

      Good for you! Do you know what are you going to do next?

    4. jason wright

      never to return?

  3. Semil Shah

    This is great. I am not sure I’ve heard “Inside the USV Investment Decision Process” before. Very helpful.

  4. Mike Cautillo

    I agree with Andy…..things are interesting when the serendipitous fat tail is lurking;)