Originally posted as a Twitter thread on January 08, 2019

“Silicon Valley Does X” — what does it mean? It *DOES NOT* (or should not) mean “same thing HQ’d in high cost of living SF.” It means a true first principles approach to re-inventing a stagnant industry, process, and way of thinking.

The philosophical burden of proof is often described as “he/she who brings the claim supplies the proof” (or this, by Carl Sagan: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”) This is *very* relevant for “Silicon Valley Does X.”

There is often little evidence for *current* positions (outside of precedent) and consequently “Silicon Valley Does X” is pilloried for bothering to re-examine and re-think orthodoxy.

Any industry trusting random humans to make uniformly optimal decisions with little or no feedback loop — now THAT is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence! So industries like real estate, medicine, investing, lending, etc

Real estate: “this agent knows the best stager and it will make your house sell for more” …proof?

Medicine: “don’t screen for X, too many false positives” (best way to solve that is to…collect more data! look at longitudinal changes!)

Education: “you can’t learn from a computer screen / credentials are everything”…really?

“Silicon Valley Does X” is about challenging assumptions, and often exposing that those assumptions are themselves not evidence based. And guess what? Sometimes the orthodoxy is right…

…but we should be grateful that there are entrepreneurs willing to risk failure and challenge it.