Best Idea Wins | Hacker News Reader

Best Idea Wins

awealthofcommonsense.com

40 pointsjoeyespo14 comments

I'm sorry to have to rain on OP's parade, but this is wishful thinking.

First and foremost because "best" is highly subjective and will not be interpreted the same way depending on whom discuss the idea. In practice, "the idea of the guy that has decision power" wins. Or, in a more democratic setup, "the idea that makes consensus" wins.

As an example, take the Seinfeld joke described in the article. It is assumed that the joke was included because it was inherently good and everyone agreed to use it. But if you listen to the podcast carefully, it was actually included because Larry David found it funny and vetted it. Had he not liked it, it would not have made the score.

Same goes in technology. "Best idea" from a technological or scientific standpoint rarely wins. Many factor ranging from financial to political weigh in the final decision and what gets implemented is often subpar when looked through the technologist lenses.

and never would have been introduced had Brian Cranston not liked it.

Cranston didn't suggest anything major that would require a budget discussion or a technical change about the scene. The recipe was the same, he just spiced up the meal. On the second part, the author continues with Youtube in the same way, spicing up the Internet to get people more entertained.

It is the culture that allows people to "spice up" an idea what makes the difference. Such small changes can bring high value with very little effort, which is referred as "mastering the best that others have figured out". "Best idea" here is not something that would require political maneuver or more resource.

Ray Dalio runs his entire business based on best idea wins. He even has custom software to facilitate it.

That's not to say that everyone runs the company. Tay runs the company but he is armed with the best his team has to offer.

People here are reacting to the headline. The point doesn't seem to be that the best idea does win, but that the best idea should win. It's about listening to other people's ideas.

>As Charlie Munger once said, “I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.”

It really is a discipline to hear and prioritize other people's ideas. Our egos are big and we have our own ideas going. Putting ourselves aside when we hear a better idea is hard. Fostering environments where that happens is even harder.

To state the obvious, you can't listen to every idea. At least not all the time. That would be very uneffective.

It's better to build some stereotypes which you revisit from time to time, and build your network of people who you trust from a pool of people that passed this stereotypes "filter".

Of course a good idea can come from everywhere, but I don't think Cranston went to routinely ask the lightworkers, cleaning personnel, or secretaries for good comedy ideas, after that. He was still more likely to get good input from the people who specialize in comedy.

When a lighting guy gives you a comedy idea, many people would tell him to keep to lighting and leave the comedy to the comedians. Cranston's point is that by not using a stereotype filter to ignore the lighting guy he ended up with a better scene.

He doesn't have to seek out advice from the lighting guy, he just has to be in a culture where the lighting guy feels comfortable sharing if he happens to have a good idea.

However, more generally, if everybody wants to share ideas with you all the time, you have to apply a filter. It's just that in this particular situation, there was no need, and no polite way, to apply a filter.

That in the end he ended up with a good idea is just nice.

There was an extremely easy polite way to apply the filter. Just don't use the idea because it came from a lighting guy.

That's not "applying a filter", though. The time listening is already spent. (But yeah, if it isn't immediately clear that it's a good idea, I'm sure there is less incentive for a comedian to invest the time to try and understand it).

It's not the best idea, it's the last "good" idea used.

For example, Google may not be the last search engine, nor may it be the best search engine, but for the average person in the US, it's the last "good" search engine they have used.

Read the article. It's not, despite the title, claiming that the best idea wins as a generalisation about what products/companies succeed.

The article is about the importance of creating a culture where the best ideas are adopted, regardless of who/where they came from.

Folks are (rightly) focusing on the descriptor "best." Best needs a specified metric, or it's meaningless. This always annoys me in internet discussions/arguments about "the best X" where nobody specifies a criterion for "best."

The best tool to drive in a nail is a hammer. The best tool to drive in a screw is a screwdriver. Neither one is generically "best" without context.

I think not the best idea but best executed idea wins.

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