Introducing Probable Wisdom
Exploring a probability-based mindset for building products, ventures and your career.
When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable - René Descartes
If you work as an entrepreneur or innovator—or someone creating or responding to something new in the world—then you face a fundamental truth.
Uncertainty abounds.
It took me 20+ years working on new ventures to internalize this truth. Also to learn that when creating something new, much of what determines success is outside of our control. Almost nothing is certain, the outcomes we seek are—at best—just probable.
Our job is to make them more probable.
I am starting this newsletter to write about experiences and lessons with building products and ventures, from my career as a product builder and business leader, as an entrepreneur and corporate innovator, both in and out of the tech world. Some lessons I have already learned, but many I’m still learning.
The central theme is exploring examples and methodologies for taking an idea or goal that isn’t real yet, with a near 0 chance of being true, and transforming it to probable.
Turns out that when nothing is certain, probable is your best friend.
My journey started as a software engineer at Apple and Rockwell, developing new technology and translating AI research into real-world applications. After getting an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise, I went on to lead SC Johnson, Duport, Ascension Health and other companies in launching new ventures in Kenya, India, Ghana, Brazil and the U.S. Then it was working on several startups (including my own) and breaking ground on new technology products at Facebook and Automattic.
Throughout, I was frequently drawn to the early stages of products and ventures, and found myself facing a recurring series of questions.
Is the problem I want to solve real? How can I build the skills I need, and will I be able to attract the resources and people I need to succeed?
Is this opportunity right for me? How can I make this worthwhile even if it fails?
Can we win enough time to build an effective solution? Will people value what we develop? Enough to earn what it costs to make and to grow?
Will our strengths and advantages materialize, or will competition or competing priorities derail us before we can even prove ourselves?
Will we time the market right, or will someone else reap the benefits of what we proved?
Will we actually create the change we seek in the world?
At the heart of all those questions is uncertainty, and over time—after many mistakes—I learned the importance of a probability-based mindset to tackle that uncertainty head on. Yes, effort, experimentation and ingenuity are important, but so is working to “stack the deck” with structure that maximizes your probability of success.
By “structure”, I mean systems that support you with outcomes like:
Picking the right problems for you to work on
Learning what you need to know quickly and effectively
Getting setup to take “shots on goal” and enabling you to endure long enough to take as many as you need
Positioning you and your efforts to best attract resources and customers
Determining whether your desired outcomes are becoming more [or less] probable
Ensuring your work is worthwhile, even if you fail
To use an analogy, if your venture is an aircraft, then structure is like a carrier that enables it to reach new places, with a hangar that allows you to equip your aircraft for new journeys.
With Probable Wisdom I’ll be publishing articles about what I’ve learned to adopt a probability-based mindset, as well as lessons from more than two decades as an entrepreneur and innovator. Most of all, I’ll be using this newsletter as my own “carrier” on a personal learning journey to make “probable” a best friend to build something new.
Please join me on this journey.