Cedric Chin: What Operators can Teach Investors, the Study of Expertise, Knowledge Shields, and More (Podcast #10)

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May 12, 2022

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Cedric Chin

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INSIGHT

Investment Returns Depend On Org Design

Large investment firms succeed largely through superior organizational design and people management.
Returns depend on recruiting, structuring incentives, and scaling decision-making talent, not just individual stock calls.

ANECDOTE

Sales Pitch Changed After Talking To Restaurants

Cedric recounts learning to sell POS to different customer types and discovering restaurants value upsells that raise average order size.
He shifted messaging to focus on increasing sales via automated ordering rather than cash-tap concerns.

INSIGHT

Experts Rely On Case Fragments, Not Only Principles

Cognitive Flexibility Theory applies to business and investing because domains are ill-structured and concepts instantiate variably.
Experts reason by matching fragments from many prior cases, not by pure first-principles deduction.

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This is an interesting one that goes in many directions! (starting with the Earth sandwich.. 🌏 🥪)

Cedric (💚 🥃 🇸🇬) is an operator who specializes — obsesses? — in learning how to extract knowledge from experts and businesspeople, the people in the trenches actually doing stuff.

In this conversation, we discuss how traditional Chinese businessmen without formal education structure deals, cognitive flexibility theory (it sounds fancy, but it’s quite practical), cognitive transformation theory, and why some people can reach mastery in their fields while others cannot (I really like the “knowledge shield” concept🛡 🤯).

There’s a discussion on keeping an open mind on crypto (are we just too old?), how to re-encode old lessons after you got up in skill level so that you can let go of the things that you originally learned that were wrong, what is a “business biologist” (treating businesses as animals, trying to understand how the environments in which they have evolved have shaped them and why they are adapted to their ecological niches…), etc.

We even talk about Morris Chang’s journey at Texas Instruments and TSMC! (make sure to check out the excellent episode of the Acquired Podcast on TSMC and Chang)

Bonus special segment at the end about the very special science-fiction of author Iain M. Banks.

For a lot more from Cedric, check out the excellent Commonplace (aka Commongcog blog! He discusses the dual branding challenge in the pod…):

* Commonplace - The Commoncog Blog

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Full Transcript

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* Transcript: Podcast #10 with Cedric Chin

More Liberty Podcasts

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