A working bullshit detector — drawing on Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit and Nassim Taleb's skin-in-the-game — with concrete heuristics for spotting it in pitches, forecasts, and internal arguments, plus why the absence of a detector is an expensive blind spot.
Effective strategy hinges on three key elements, emphasizing the importance of focused energy on impactful actions. In contrast, bad strategy emerges from a reluctance to make choices and an overreliance on templates, leading to ineffective outcomes. Mastering the art of strategy requires critical thinking and the ability to maintain a clear perspective.
Bikeshedding — Parkinson's Law of Triviality — is when a group spends disproportionate time on trivial decisions because everyone can participate. Notes on why the failure mode is structural (not about people), how to recognize it in code review, PRDs, and strategy meetings, and concrete mitigations that actually work.
The investment memo transforms gut feelings into structured decision-making, articulating clear rationales for investment choices. It combines concepts, templates, and playbooks to enhance team alignment and efficiency, ensuring decisions are grounded in data rather than emotion.
This article examines the integration of neural and symbolic decision-making approaches in AI, highlighting key challenges with LLMs and proposing innovative solutions to enhance reasoning and planning capabilities.
I'm Tian Pan, an engineer-founder focused on agentic engineering — building autonomous AI systems and scaling engineering teams. I write practical guides on system design, technical leadership, and shipping with AI agents. Previously an early engineer at Uber, Brex, and IoTeX.
