The hottest Decision-making Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Business Topics

Join me for a conversation with Brett Berson, Partner at First Round Capital

Thinking in Bets • 138 implied HN points • 01 Nov 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Learn how a top venture capital firm has changed its investment processes. They focus on being more organized and efficient.
  2. Discover how to make better investment choices using data. A data-driven approach helps in making smarter decisions.
  3. Find out how to improve feedback loops in finance. Creating quicker feedback can help in long-term decision-making.

Downstream Problems

The Breaking Point • 199 implied HN points • 29 Oct 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Focus on solving the root problem, not just the surface issues. Fixing the wrong thing will only lead to more problems.
  2. Quality leads are crucial for a successful sales process. Even a flawed process can succeed if the leads are strong and motivated.
  3. Looking upstream for solutions can help fix multiple problems at once. If you improve one area, other issues may also resolve.

TBM 410: Dancing With Problems

The Beautiful Mess • 912 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Vague problem statements like “make the app easier” don’t help — be specific about what’s broken, why it matters, and what outcomes you want so you can diagnose and measure impact.
  2. Look at problems from multiple levels — user behavior, surrounding context, incentives, and long‑term strategy — and move between those views to test assumptions and find the real crux.
  3. Don’t jump to simple fixes; investigate trade‑offs, who relies on the data, and how changes shift work downstream, and create shared understanding so the team can navigate complexity together.

Pledge Drive

Astral Codex Ten • 18032 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Make a specific, binding pledge to give a fixed percent of your income; that turns vague good intentions into steady, automatic donations and removes the guilt and indecision of one-off appeals.
  2. Money is often the most effective way for most people to change the world, and giving a committed share of your income to highly effective charities can save many lives or have outsized impact compared with small personal sacrifices or online activism.
  3. If you’re unsure, start small with a trial percentage and register the pledge publicly; committing externally helps you stick to your plan and lets you ignore most fundraiser asks.

This Explains A Lot About Society: The Asch Conformity Experiment

The Society of Problem Solvers • 279 implied HN points • 21 Oct 24
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Many people choose to fit in with their group rather than stick to the truth. This happens often in social situations.
  2. Using group problem-solving methods can help avoid this issue. When people don’t see each other's answers, they're more likely to say what they really think.
  3. Working together in trusted teams can help us solve problems better. Just like how single cells evolved to work together, we can improve by collaborating effectively.
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all the way to the bottom

bookbear express • 632 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🏥 Health & Wellness Decision-making
  1. Some people are great at reading and steering other people’s emotions while being less aware of their own feelings; enjoying being right can turn emotional perception into a way of avoiding yourself.
  2. Getting honest with yourself often means deliberately sitting with a problem until clarity emerges — a process of “going all the way to the bottom” that takes time and focused attention.
  3. Avoiding hard truths usually makes things worse later, so it’s better to accept what you really want and be willing to face the consequences so you can choose what’s right for you now.

Exploit vs Explore

Fish Food for Thought • 57 implied HN points • 18 Mar 26
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Keep exploration ongoing and protected alongside exploitation; a persistent minority of work should always sample the unknown as insurance against change.
  2. Design teams and incentives for different modes: optimize exploit teams for stability and throughput, and set up explorer teams for fast learning with permission to fail and a clear path to scale winning bets.
  3. Treat your roadmap as a diversified portfolio, not a fixed plan—accept short-term inefficiency and noisy metrics because exploration buys future resilience, and continuously rebalance resources rather than pretending the tension is solved.

A New Wharton Study on AI Warns of a Growing Problem: Cognitive Surrender

The Algorithmic Bridge • 838 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Decision-making
  1. People often accept AI answers with little scrutiny — roughly 80% follow wrong AI suggestions — yet consulting AI makes them feel more confident even when it’s wrong.
  2. Using AI as a checked tool (offloading) is different from letting it replace your thinking (surrender); surrender means you stop checking answers and can slip into autopilot.
  3. Those who trust AI most or dislike effortful thinking are likelier to surrender, but simply avoiding uncritical use, adding feedback, and treating AI as a tool can preserve your reasoning skills.

You Spent Your Whole Life Getting Good at the Wrong Thing

The Algorithmic Bridge • 1815 implied HN points • 07 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Decision-making
  1. AI is making the 'how' of work much cheaper, so the real bottleneck is deciding what to do and what you actually want to achieve.
  2. Human skills that matter now are different: taste, judgment, initiative, decision‑making, curiosity, and the ability to manage agents — and each is a distinct skill to practice.
  3. Many people will resist because execution feels devalued, so you need to update your self‑image, embrace curiosity, and learn to ask better 'wishes' if you want to get the most from these tools.

Psychology’s Greatest Hits (Part 3/3)

Living Fossils • 20 implied HN points • 11 Mar 26
🔬 Science Decision-making
  1. The most reliable psychology comes from explicit, quantitative, testable models—like laws of learning and signal detection—that make precise predictions and connect to other sciences.
  2. Thinking about how minds evolved and work in real environments explains many supposed “biases” and shows family and kinship profoundly shape behavior. Simple heuristics are often fast, frugal, and adaptive rather than errors.
  3. Psychology needs clear, specific, and measurable claims that fit with other disciplines; vague or unfalsifiable ideas lead to error, so healthy skepticism and rigor matter.

Context and Cacti

Vanguard Anthology • 119 implied HN points • 20 Oct 24
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Cactusing happens when you stick to a decision even when the situation changes. It's like wanting nachos for a late-night snack then forgetting that you need a quick meal the next day.
  2. People often hold onto past achievements or contexts that no longer apply. For example, judging NASA based on its past greatness rather than its current status can lead to outdated evaluations.
  3. Recognizing when to change your decisions can open doors to new opportunities. Adapting to new situations can provide an advantage over those who don't adjust their thinking.

Why You Should Focus On Making Your Decisions Right

Remarkable People • 639 implied HN points • 04 Sep 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Striving for a perfect decision can hold you back. It's better to focus on making your decision work instead of aiming for perfection.
  2. Committing to your decision is key. Once you make a choice, throw yourself into it and make the best of the situation.
  3. Be open to change and learn from each decision. Adapting and understanding what works can help you improve next time.

How to feel bad and be wrong

Experimental History • 40381 implied HN points • 21 Jan 25
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Our brains often take shortcuts when facing tough questions, making it easier to answer simple ones instead. This can lead us to overlook important issues in our lives.
  2. Many people measure their worth and productivity based on how hard they feel they are working, instead of setting clear goals. This can cause unnecessary stress and feelings of inadequacy.
  3. When assessing things like the state of the economy or the quality of a school, we tend to rely on popular opinion rather than personal experience. This leads to judgments that may not reflect reality.

Is Recommendation Culture Making Us Act Nutso?

Total Rec • 8148 implied HN points • 06 Apr 24
🎭️ Culture Decision-making
  1. Recommendation culture can lead to overkill, making every purchase feel like it needs to be perfect, which can cause unnecessary stress.
  2. Identifying strongly with brands and over-identifying with our purchases may simplify our self-concept based on what we buy, potentially clouding our personal values.
  3. Seeking validation through recommended experiences or products can create a false sense of community, leading to performative living and potentially isolating us further.

Methods and Outcomes

The Breaking Point • 159 implied HN points • 08 Oct 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. When making decisions, it's important to separate methods from outcomes. If you mix them up, it can lead to confusion and endless debates.
  2. You can plan in two ways: starting with methods to estimate outcomes or starting with outcomes to figure out the methods needed. Both ways can work depending on the situation.
  3. To empower your team, give them clear outcomes and let them choose their own methods. This way, they feel involved and motivated to succeed.

Variously Effective Altruism

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2016 implied HN points • 10 Nov 25
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. When giving money to charities, it's important to consider how your donations might be used. Your funds could end up supporting causes you don't believe in, so think carefully about where your money goes.
  2. Giving to help others can sometimes make you seem unkind if you focus only on the impact rather than on people's feelings. It's good to be aware of how your approach to helping is perceived by others.
  3. When looking for donations, some big projects need a lot of money, even if it seems like too much at first. If you have a solid plan, it might be better to ask for a bigger amount because wealthy donors often want to invest significantly in exciting ideas.

TBM 399: 10 Prioritization Traps

The Beautiful Mess • 766 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Protect focus by carving out fixed capacity for prevention and high-impact work so urgent, low-value tasks don’t always dominate.
  2. Favor fast learning and minimal shipable experiments: define the smallest thing to test in weeks, pre-authorize follow-ups, and use forcing constraints to avoid over-polishing or paralysis.
  3. Make priorities real from the top: allow teams to drop lower work, measure hidden drag as cost-of-delay, maintain a visible pull queue of small, valuable tasks, and fund low-cost experiments for longer bets.

What should I do? What would you do?

Disaffected Newsletter • 1039 implied HN points • 04 Jun 24
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. It's common for people to look to experts for answers to their problems, but often there isn't a clear right answer. Many issues are complicated and need thoughtful discussion rather than a simple solution.
  2. Conversations can help people clarify their thoughts and feelings about difficult situations. Talking through problems can lead to better decisions that fit their unique lives.
  3. While some coaches or consultants may not have formal training, they can still provide valuable support. They can help clients understand their problems better and explore possible outcomes.

The Self-Own of Doubt

Investing 101 • 64 implied HN points • 14 Feb 26
🏥 Health & Wellness Decision-making
  1. Doubt, if you let it grow, will paralyze you and become a self-own that stops you from trying or moving forward.
  2. There’s a useful difference between analysis and paralyzing doubt: analysis requires momentum and doing things to gather data, while doubt keeps you stuck and fuels imposter syndrome.
  3. You can control your internal doubts by choosing not to be mean to yourself; accept that others will doubt you but that their doubt is their task, and practice 'doubt your doubts' so you act instead of freeze.

Il faut des discussions difficiles

L'Atelier Galita • 59 implied HN points • 06 Oct 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Having tough conversations is important for personal success. The more difficult discussions you engage in, the more you can grow.
  2. Making good career decisions often comes with challenges. It's not always an easy path, but it can lead to greater autonomy.
  3. Growth and success are tied to your willingness to face uncomfortable topics. Embracing these conversations can lead you to better opportunities.

Fight or flight or...uh oh?

The Leap • 559 implied HN points • 30 Jun 24
🏥 Health & Wellness Decision-making
  1. Decision-making can be influenced by the presence of physical threats. When we feel threatened, our choices may narrow down to basic options like fighting or fleeing.
  2. The environment can greatly impact our mental state and decision-making abilities. A calm and beautiful setting may help us feel more relaxed and clear-headed.
  3. Hiking and spending time in nature can serve as an effective way to recover from stress and chaos in everyday life. It's a refreshing break that can help clear our minds.

TBM 395: Words! Damned Words!

The Beautiful Mess • 476 implied HN points • 14 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Decision-making
  1. Terms like “initiative” naturally mean different things to different people and at different zoom levels, so don’t force one single definition; use a thin base meaning and allow different shapes or scales with clear rules and interfaces.
  2. Abstract labels become harmful when they harden into rigid governance or accounting rules, so anchor decisions on concrete events (milestones, releases) or intentionally work around or rewire those constraints to protect learning and impact.
  3. Use practical lenses — interaction, constraint, governance, and relational — and tactics like event storming, naming exceptions, fractal artifacts, and designing for many frames to see how things actually behave and keep the system resilient.

The Impact of Founder Personalities on Company Success

The VC Corner • 779 implied HN points • 25 May 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Founders' personalities really affect how they make decisions. For example, some might be more open to new ideas, helping them find creative solutions, while others may prefer detailed plans to avoid mistakes.
  2. Different types of founders work best together. Having a mix of personalities, like a 'Hipster, Hacker, and Hustler' trio, can boost a startup's chances of success.
  3. A diverse founding team is important. Each member brings unique strengths, which can help the company adapt and grow in challenging situations.

Andrew Roberts: Trump’s Churchillian Choice at Fordow

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2531 implied HN points • 16 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Decision-making
  1. Dictators often make real threats, so it's important to take them seriously. History shows that when people ignore these threats, it can lead to severe consequences.
  2. Winston Churchill faced a tough decision during World War II about the French fleet. He chose to sink it to prevent it from being used by the enemy, showing that sometimes tough choices are necessary for safety.
  3. Leadership can require hard and ruthless choices during critical moments. These actions can redirect the course of events to ensure a safer future.

How To Determine If You Have The Product-Market Fit - From a16z & Sequoia Capital. | VC Jobs

Venture Curator • 419 implied HN points • 28 Jun 24
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Product-Market Fit is crucial for startups; it means customers are buying and using the product enthusiastically.
  2. Metrics are key to determine Product-Market Fit; track factors like customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and retention rates.
  3. If you haven't achieved Product-Market Fit, focus on customer feedback, keep your team lean, and avoid ineffective shortcuts.

Killing A Bad Strategy Before It Kills you

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 4413 implied HN points • 09 Feb 25
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Grand strategy helps you achieve big goals with limited resources. Since everyone faces resource limits, using what you have smartly can lead to unexpected successes.
  2. Foxes tend to predict better than hedgehogs because they use many ideas and adapt. Foxes keep an open mind, while hedgehogs stick to one big idea, even if it's wrong.
  3. Planning is important, but sticking too rigidly to a plan can be a mistake. It's better to remain flexible and adjust to new opportunities as they arise.

Second Breakfast: Hegseth’s Second Strike

ChinaTalk • 296 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Decision-making
  1. The Target Engagement Authority (TEA) is important for military strikes, and this role must follow strict rules to avoid unnecessary harm. When the Secretary of Defense acts as the TEA, it can complicate oversight and accountability.
  2. Military ethics are crucial, especially in warfare. Soldiers are trained not to harm wounded or surrendering enemies, making it essential to maintain moral standards even in gray areas of conflict.
  3. Congress is stepping in to oversee military actions more closely after controversial strikes. This scrutiny can lead to significant changes in military strategy and accountability for leaders involved.

TBM 397: The Initiative Shape Activity (And a Favor to Ask)

The Beautiful Mess • 264 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. Run a short facilitated activity that maps the "shape" of an initiative by answering focused questions to surface assumptions about scope, timing, value, and risk.
  2. Have each person answer independently, then compare results, discuss surprises, and decide what needs clarification or further discovery before moving forward.
  3. Use the questionnaire dimensions — team involvement, duration, value cadence, uncertainty, de‑risking, constraints, timing sensitivity, approach, research style, decision authority, and alignment — to choose the right execution and prioritization strategy.

VC's Framework for Evaluating an AI Startup's Tech Stack. | VC Jobs

Venture Curator • 419 implied HN points • 06 Jun 24
đź•ą Technology Decision-making
  1. The value proposition of AI companies now lies not just within models but predominantly in underpinning datasets, emphasizing the importance of data quality.
  2. When evaluating AI startups, VCs use frameworks to assess data quality, considering relevance, accuracy, coverage, and bias in the datasets used to train the AI models.
  3. To avoid investing in ineffectual AI startups, VCs focus on evaluating the processes behind data generation by asking questions about data automation, storage, access, processing, governance, and management.

[2025–2026] Week 20: The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler

Behavioral Value Investor • 14 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
đź’° Finance Decision-making
  1. Forecasting is hard but unavoidable; to earn excess returns you must make a forecast that disagrees with the expectations already priced into a stock.
  2. Your mental game matters — strive to operate in your A‑game rather than your C‑game, learn how to detect when you’ve slipped, identify the causes, and develop routines to correct course.
  3. Deliberate practice and community feedback help you improve: use case studies, complete assignments, share your answers, and engage with others to sharpen your investing skills.

How Do You Balance Responsibilities To Yourself/Your Kin & Your Wider Community?

Culture Study • 3834 implied HN points • 15 Nov 24
🎭️ Culture Decision-making
  1. It's important to figure out how to balance your own needs with the needs of your family and community. This can include deciding between things like private and public schools for your kids.
  2. People face tricky choices when it comes to their careers, like choosing a job that pays well versus one that helps the world. Each choice comes with its own set of feelings and challenges.
  3. Many folks want to hear about how others manage these tough decisions and what emotions come up. Sharing experiences can help everyone understand and support each other better.

Psyched Out

The Leap • 299 implied HN points • 11 Jun 24
🎾 Sports Decision-making
  1. The gambler's fallacy is a common mistake. People often think that after a losing streak, they're 'due' for a win, which isn't how probabilities work.
  2. Rumination can hurt your game. If you keep thinking about past bad hands, you're wasting mental energy that could be used to make better decisions now.
  3. Anchoring is when you focus too much on past chip counts. It's important to play based on your current stack, not how much you had before.

The Politicization of Intelligence

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 1118 implied HN points • 02 Jun 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Decision-making
  1. Intelligence can be influenced by politics, which means the information gathered isn't always objective. This can lead to bad decisions based on flawed data.
  2. It's important for decision-makers to be open to different views and facts, even if they don't fit their hopes. Ignoring contrary evidence can lead to problems, like the difficulties faced in Iraq.
  3. Leaders in politics and intelligence need to focus on reality and not let political agendas shape the truth. Good outcomes come from honest assessments, not just from trying to win political arguments.

I Was Mistaken When I Said That Giving Unsolicited Advice Is a Mistake

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 2026 implied HN points • 26 Jan 25
đź“– Philosophy Decision-making
  1. People usually don't like being told what to do. It can create tension, especially when the advice comes from someone they see as equal or below them.
  2. When giving advice, it's important to consider the other person's feelings and autonomy. Balancing love and respect for their independence is key.
  3. Giving unsolicited advice can sometimes be well-intentioned but misunderstood. It's good to be careful when sharing thoughts on someone else's choices.

on self-trust

Mind Mine • 1493 implied HN points • 12 Apr 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Decision-making
  1. Self-trust helps you understand yourself better through a cyclical relationship of knowing and trusting.
  2. Outsourcing decisions can lead to resentment and a loss of self-confidence in decision-making.
  3. Make decisions based on your own inner knowing and trust, as only you truly understand yourself.

The first principle behind "first principles"

Building the Builders • 11 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Decision-making
  1. First-principles thinking means digging down to the most fundamental truths of a problem and reasoning up from there. This uncovers causal forces and opportunities that surface-level assumptions miss.
  2. Ask basic, high-leverage questions about core needs or essential components instead of accepting proxies or industry norms. Those questions steer you toward different and often better solutions.
  3. Thinking from first principles is hard and risky and requires building your own observations and trusting your judgment. But it’s the path to original breakthroughs rather than just incremental tweaks.