Karthick Gopal

This brilliant post by Devon Erickson is worth reading many times that I put it in my blog.

For me to remember an extremely valuable lesson when it comes to innovation and knowledge.

“The key realization here is that knowledge only comes from empirical observation. Everything else is just speculative. The sooner you get into a feedback loop, and the faster you run it, the more iterations you can do in less time.

This means, while others are planning and speculating, you actually learn something. Relevant data is the most precious thing in the universe. And it’s worth blowing up any number of rockets to get it. Because rockets are just stuff. They’re just made of stuff. And you can always get more stuff. You can never get more time.

This is a valuable lesson for our own lives. If there’s something you want to do, something you want to try, some goal you have, it’s easy to dip a toe in the water, test the temperature, and plan. A lot. Planning makes us feel good if we’re afraid. Because it provides us with the illusion of security. Never mind that we don’t know which scenarios are actually going to happen, never mind that we’re planning for the wrong thing, planning makes us feel safe. And if we’re nervous, we can plan forever. But the difference between the expert and the novice isn’t theory or intelligence or plans. It’s relevant domain knowledge. Gathered from empirical observation. So the trick is to get into that feedback loop as soon as possible, and run it as fast as possible. Give yourself the most possible opportunities to learn, per unit time. We only learn while we are moving.