Today’s Uncertainty Wednesday continues our exploration into p-values and why they are problematic. Last Wednesday we saw that if you have incentives to reject a null hypothesis, it takes less work than you would initially think to find data that gets you there. I ended that post suggesting that the problem is even bigger than that. How so? We now live in the age of “big data” – researchers in many fields have access to massive data sets. This lends itself to an approach that has become known...

Today’s Uncertainty Wednesday continues our exploration into p-values and why they are problematic. Last Wednesday we saw that if you have incentives to reject a null hypothesis, it takes less work than you would initially think to find data that gets you there. I ended that post suggesting that the problem is even bigger than that. How so? We now live in the age of “big data” – researchers in many fields have access to massive data sets. This lends itself to an approach that has become known...

NOTE: I am continuing to publish revised sections from my book World After Capital. Today’s section contains a central idea of the book, which is that the existence of knowledge provides an objective basis for humanism and establishes critical inquiry as its central value. Humanism What then are the values that I am basing all of this on? Where do those come from? In his book Sapiens, historian Yuval Harari claims that all value systems are simply narratives that are equally valid. He specifi...

NOTE: I am continuing to publish revised sections from my book World After Capital. Today’s section contains a central idea of the book, which is that the existence of knowledge provides an objective basis for humanism and establishes critical inquiry as its central value. Humanism What then are the values that I am basing all of this on? Where do those come from? In his book Sapiens, historian Yuval Harari claims that all value systems are simply narratives that are equally valid. He specifi...

Earlier this week Rebecca posted the latest evolution of the USV thesis. It includes the words “trusted brands” which led some people to ask how an early stage company could already be that. I provided the answer in a tweet in which I wrote that “trusted brands” — have incentives that are aligned with your customers/endusers so you can build trust over the longtermI want to explain that further today and put it in the larger context of Internet business models. During the Dotcom Bubble, there...

Earlier this week Rebecca posted the latest evolution of the USV thesis. It includes the words “trusted brands” which led some people to ask how an early stage company could already be that. I provided the answer in a tweet in which I wrote that “trusted brands” — have incentives that are aligned with your customers/endusers so you can build trust over the longtermI want to explain that further today and put it in the larger context of Internet business models. During the Dotcom Bubble, there...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced the concept of p-values. We looked at the example of a null hypothesis (explanation) that a coin is fair, observing heads (H) or tails (T) six times in a row and rejecting that the coin is fair because the probability of that happening with a fair coin is only 0.03125 which is less than 0.05 (a commonly used cutoff). I ended the post by asking readers to consider the following scenario:You are a researcher who gets paid only if you reject the explanati...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday, I introduced the concept of p-values. We looked at the example of a null hypothesis (explanation) that a coin is fair, observing heads (H) or tails (T) six times in a row and rejecting that the coin is fair because the probability of that happening with a fair coin is only 0.03125 which is less than 0.05 (a commonly used cutoff). I ended the post by asking readers to consider the following scenario:You are a researcher who gets paid only if you reject the explanati...

NOTE: I am continuing to publish revised sections from my book World After Capital here. These sections on Regulation and Self-Regulation follow the one on Optimism to make clear my belief that technology will not automatically makes things better but that we have to work at that.RegulationThere are many people who work in technology and investing who are optimists and believe in progress. Among those there is a subset, myself included, who also believe in the need for regulation. There is an...

NOTE: I am continuing to publish revised sections from my book World After Capital here. These sections on Regulation and Self-Regulation follow the one on Optimism to make clear my belief that technology will not automatically makes things better but that we have to work at that.RegulationThere are many people who work in technology and investing who are optimists and believe in progress. Among those there is a subset, myself included, who also believe in the need for regulation. There is an...

When #DeleteUber was a trending hashtag it was relatively easy for people to take action in those cities where Lyft, MyTaxi or some other service was available. Even if you didn’t delete the Uber app outright, you could move it a screen back or so and default to another provider. Such is the power of competition. The brief #DeleteFacebook run was a different story. There is no obvious other place to go (and please don’t say WhatsApp, as that’s Facebook also). The network effect in social is m...

When #DeleteUber was a trending hashtag it was relatively easy for people to take action in those cities where Lyft, MyTaxi or some other service was available. Even if you didn’t delete the Uber app outright, you could move it a screen back or so and default to another provider. Such is the power of competition. The brief #DeleteFacebook run was a different story. There is no obvious other place to go (and please don’t say WhatsApp, as that’s Facebook also). The network effect in social is m...

As promised for some time, today in Uncertainty Wednesday, I will talk about p-values and what makes them so problematic. We will once again look at a super simple example by going back to considering a coin flip. As before we will consider the highest uncertainty explanation which is that the mechanism producing the coin flip produces heads (H) and tails (T) each with probability 0.5 and that each flip is independent. Now the idea behind p-values is to attempt an argument of reductio ad absu...

As promised for some time, today in Uncertainty Wednesday, I will talk about p-values and what makes them so problematic. We will once again look at a super simple example by going back to considering a coin flip. As before we will consider the highest uncertainty explanation which is that the mechanism producing the coin flip produces heads (H) and tails (T) each with probability 0.5 and that each flip is independent. Now the idea behind p-values is to attempt an argument of reductio ad absu...

NOTE: The following section is the beginning of Part One of my book World After Capital. I have been posting revisions here most Mondays. Part One: Laying a Foundation In an earlier version of this book I attempted to skip any philosophical exposition and jump right into the impact of digital technology. While that may make for more gripping reading, it resulted in the verbal equivalent of building a skyscraper without a foundation: rapid initial progress followed by total collapse. With digi...

NOTE: The following section is the beginning of Part One of my book World After Capital. I have been posting revisions here most Mondays. Part One: Laying a Foundation In an earlier version of this book I attempted to skip any philosophical exposition and jump right into the impact of digital technology. While that may make for more gripping reading, it resulted in the verbal equivalent of building a skyscraper without a foundation: rapid initial progress followed by total collapse. With digi...

The United States Senate passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). The putative intention for the bill, fighting sex trafficking is a good intention. I completely agree that sex trafficking is a horrible crime and we should fight it vigorously. Where the agreement ends though is how to best do that: there is a high likelihood that FOSTA will make matters worse, not better, and in the process will cause significant harm to the Internet ecosystem and to ma...

The United States Senate passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). The putative intention for the bill, fighting sex trafficking is a good intention. I completely agree that sex trafficking is a horrible crime and we should fight it vigorously. Where the agreement ends though is how to best do that: there is a high likelihood that FOSTA will make matters worse, not better, and in the process will cause significant harm to the Internet ecosystem and to ma...

Before covering p-values and why they are so problematic, I thought it would be a good idea to provide a bit of a recap of Uncertainty Wednesday. I have been writing this series for almost two years now, beginning summer of 2016. Uncertainty is everywhere in the world and yet we are generally poorly equipped to reason about it. That happens to be true even for people, like myself, who have studied some probability and statistics. My approach in Uncertainty Wednesday has been to consider that ...

Before covering p-values and why they are so problematic, I thought it would be a good idea to provide a bit of a recap of Uncertainty Wednesday. I have been writing this series for almost two years now, beginning summer of 2016. Uncertainty is everywhere in the world and yet we are generally poorly equipped to reason about it. That happens to be true even for people, like myself, who have studied some probability and statistics. My approach in Uncertainty Wednesday has been to consider that ...