Topics / Building companies

Attributed viewpoint · Not a direct quote

Good decisions can still face unfavorable outcomes

Tarek Mansour uses poker players as an analogy for accepting variance: a player can believe a hand is good, lose, and still maintain the same approach.

Behind the viewpoint

Translations are for reading; original excerpts remain the evidence.

Kalshi’s Tarek Mansour vs. the Federal Government

Original excerpt

But the key learning with that, what’s interesting is it’s a little bit like poker, the best poker players, they know when they’re playing a good hand and they’re okay with the variance.
Context

No, I think, but people lost confidence. It’s like, we should pivot, and it’s the wrong strategy, wrong strategy, wrong execution, all of that. We’re not doing a good job, basically. It’s on us. And it’s fine. You should hold the founders accountable. They can lose a lot, but they’ll stick to their game. And then they know that over time the variance is gonna come back and with enough plays they’re gonna win over time. And you’ll see with Elon, you’ll see with some of these founders that can take these extreme risks as long as they know their expected outcome and they can intake the variance over time.

Open the episode and seek to 44:21.

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