Annie Duke: Decision-Making Tactics, Embracing Uncertainty, & Cognitive Bias in Startups

In this #DreamitLive best-selling author and former professional poker player Annie Duke (@AnnieDuke) explains how mental models, decision-making tactics, and behavioral science can help founders make better decisions as they build and scale their companies. Particularly during these challenging times, founders and startup employees face uncertainty every day. And the best founders, like the best poker players, have a process for embracing uncertainty in decision-making, learning from successes and mistakes, and recognizing (and removing) inherent biases. With her background in high-stakes poker coupled with her research and writing on psychology, economics, game theory, and neuroscience, Annie and Steve will discuss tactical ideas for founders to improve their decision-making skills. 

In this episode with Annie Duke, we cover: 

• How to identify cognitive biases that hurt decision-making
• The difference between confirmatory and exploratory thought
• How to embrace uncertainty 
• The importance of building a diverse set of advisors 
• How to distinguish between signal and noise when assessing outcomes

 About Annie Duke: Annie is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. In 2018 Annie’s first book for general audiences, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, quickly became a national bestseller. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than $4 million in tournament poker. During her career, Annie won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. She retired from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Annie is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. She is also a member of the National Board of After-School All-Stars and the Board of Directors of the Franklin Institute. In 2020, Annie joined the board of the Renew Democracy Initiative.