How Not to Be Stupid — Adam Robinson
Adam shares his secrets on how not to be stupid. This might be the most insightful conversation we've had.
It’s hard to describe Adam because he’s brilliant. Among other things, he is an:
Advisor to multi-billion dollar hedge funds
Founder of the Princeton Review
US Chess master who trained with Bobby Fisher (!)
Adam shares his secrets on how not to be stupid. This might be the most insightful conversation we've had — don't risk missing it.
We talk about:
What is stupidity?
What drives stupidity — and why are we all at risk?
What skills can help us avoid stupidity?
Avoiding stupidity might be better than being smart. Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway famously said that:
“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”
Listen to the podcast
What we loved
What is intelligence?
While Adam didn’t define intelligence, he gave us a hint:
Being logical isn’t thinking. Anyone can be logical, anyone can apply reasoning to known facts — it's another thing to step outside of the domain and redefine terms.
This pairs well with 2 quotes he brought up:
Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do — Jean Piaget
You're not thinking, you're just being logical —Niels Bohr on what isn’t intelligence
You’re blind to your stupidity
If someone is blind they will know they're blind. The difference is that when you're in the stupid zone, you won't be aware of it — and you're literally blind to things.
If a plane doesn't fly fast enough, it stalls — and if it stalls, you crash. The stall alarm is “STALL!, STALL!”. It means “you're gonna die, you're gonna die”. It's designed so it's impossible to miss.
Three pilots were in the cockpit in the Air France Flight 447 — and not one of them mentioned the stall alarm for 54 seconds.
If you and I were in a pub and a fire alarm went off, one of us would go “Hey, what's what's up? What's that alarm?” We wouldn't ignore it.
Three professional pilots — not one of them mentioned the stall alarm and the plane crashed. People have no idea when they're in a stupid zone — they have no idea how blind they are. And that's mission critical. If you're flying a plane, you better hear the stall alarm.
This is so important because we’re all unaware of when we’re stupid. Recognising that is one of the first steps to working to be less stupid.
Adam went to such depth that it’s hard to summarise it here — it’s best to listen to him directly.
Dive deeper
How can you build you superpower? Adam had a wonderful take in our previous episode (Apple Podcasts, Spotify).
Should you trust your gut? Dr. Julie Gurner gave her take on intuition from another angle (Apple Podcasts, Spotify).
Adam recommended the book Wishcraft (Amazon).