A monologue on why we get the look of success wrong. The speaker argues that actual business wins come from unconventional approaches, not the polished aesthetics we assume signal competence.
There's an aesthetic in the world that exists, which is that, I don't know, like business people dress in suit and tie. They are speaking much more sophisticated than I do, usually without an accent. I have a full head of hair. They talk about metrics. They are in front of PowerPoint presentations. They usually have a stick and show dramatically at the pie chart that is behind them. How much is that aesthetic overlap with outperformance? Our stories about what optimal looks like are just so incorrect. Optimism always sounds dumb, or at least naive. Pessimism sounds extremely sophisticated. Metrics-driven sounds extremely sophisticated. Talking about fun sounds like naive. Almost all the alpha in the world is now in the exactly the things that are unobvious but true. And the things that people dismiss as naive. The most successful business person on planet Earth is Elon, and he conforms to no idea of what the most sophisticated business person ought to be like in any which way you can imagine. I think we live in a world where The counterfactuals are winning because aesthetics are just leading us astray.
