M&Ms: Chauffer's Knowledge

Hard-earned knowledge vs. the regurgitated stuff in the 104th edition.

Hey Team,

I once had people at work get into a shouting match.

Shouting matches in a corporate setting are undignified. And also very uncomfortable for everyone present. Yet they are surprisingly more common in corporate America than you would think. But this situation was worse; it happened in a big meeting, with many bigwigs present, and it was a recipe for disaster—a condition where even the winner could lose.

And after that, I had the unfortunate responsibility of resolving this argument, and many subsequent arguments over this topic, that escalated up to the top far too quickly. But don't feel bad for me; it was my job, and the firm was paying me good money to do that.

On the one side, I had someone with experience who needed to make his case more eloquently. It was clear to me he had done the exact thing he was arguing for.

But he was not convincing others or winning the argument. 

On the other side, I had someone making a wonderful-sounding case—he didn't have experience in the thing he was pitching. But he was a good and very political communicator. And the instigator of this particular argument. He made his case in written docs, slides, and by pulling up articles on how other companies had achieved similar things.

And as David Perell famously said on Twitter:

The world rewards the people who are best at communicating ideas, and not necessarily the people with the best ideas.

And in my experience, I think David is generally correct in his observation.

The well-communicated approach convinced the majority of upper management.

The problem, though, is I had seen that both approaches before first hand. The well-communicated approach was incredibly wasteful and had a big failure rate.

But add to that the fact that I knew the well-communicated proposal was based on Chauffer Knowledge rather than real Knowledge.

What is Chauffer's Knowledge? 

Charlie Munger loves to tell the story of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck who invented quantum theory.

After Max won the Nobel Prize, he went around Germany giving the same standard lecture on the new quantum mechanics. 

Over time, his chauffeur memorized the lecture and said, "Would you mind, Professor Planck, because it's so boring to stay in our routine if I gave the lecture in Munich and you just sat in front wearing my chauffeur's hat?"

Planck said, "Why not?" 

And the chauffeur got up and gave a long lecture on quantum mechanics. Afterward, a physics professor stood up and asked a very difficult question. 

The speaker said,

"Well. I'm surprised that I get such an elementary question in an advanced city like Munich. I'm going to ask my chauffeur to reply."

Max Planck's Chauffer got good at regurgitating what he heard. And he was a smooth talker. But Max Plack had the real knowledge, the hard-earned bang-your-head-against-the-wall stuff. 

The Max Planck story that Charlie Munger loves to tell also gives us a path to dealing with Chauffer's Knowledge; asking tough questions about particular edge cases and scenarios will go a long way.

The arguments that escalated in our organization got resolved by asking tough questions about the Chauffer Approach. And I pushed the experienced person to further strengthened his argument by building a small minimum viable proof-of-concept that proved his proposal would work. It's hard to argue using words against something tangible and real.

But this story highlights lessons that apply to more than just the corporate world. These are lessons I want to remind myself to worry about more frequently.

First, the most experienced people in our world are not necessarily the best communicators. In fact, from my decade-plus career that spanned the management of many other people's careers, it's just as frequently the opposite. And so the first lesson is if you are experienced and have good ideas, you owe it to yourself and the world to become a better communicator.

As David Perell points out, the best communicators frequently win the argument even if they don't have the best idea. And this might explain why so many ideas that dominate our society today may not be the best ideas.

The second lesson that Charlie Munger has tried hard to impart is that we must distinguish between Chauffer's Knowledge and the real hard-earned stuff in the humans we regularly deal with. 

Chauffer's Knowledge might be fine when it's harmless. But it's another thing when real resources are at stake. And too many people regularly take business advice, investment advice, and all manner of important advice from people who have never done the thing.

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Three Tweets: The Debt, The Unemployment, and Thoughts on Society

Sam Altman made a great observation about the debt we have taken on in America.

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And yet it is incredibly hard to make sense of the economy these days.

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Adam shared some thoughts that I think are much needed in today’s society. I recommend the thread.

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Two tweets from me that did well this week.

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Two Memes: C++, Bad Bosses

This is funny because C++ was a big upgrade to the C programming language, it introduced classes.

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You might have to dump the thing that’s stressing you out. Your boss.

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A Small Promo from Me.

Later this month, I will be teaching a 3-week live course with my friend Chris on how to start and succeed with newsletters.

I've taught this course with Chris multiple times, but this is the first time we teach it through the Small Bets community.

Anyone with a membership to Small Bets gets access to our cohort course and can register for it at no extra cost.

I'd love to have you in there if you've ever thought about starting a newsletter.

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As always, thank you for reading.

-Louie

P.S. You can reply to this email; it will get to me, and I will read it even if I can’t always reply in a timely manner.