Review: Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts by Annie Duke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have finished reading this book more than a couple of weeks ago and although i liked it, it was a kind of disappointment.

Most probably that perception came from a very high expectations that i had when i started reading the book, due to a couple of podcast that i have heard with Annie that made me eager to read the book.

More than a couple of good insights related on:
- (i) how to think in probabilities (bets), instead of the deterministic way we usually do,
- (ii) how one should be able to distinguish the process of decision making (the thing we can improve based on a thorough analysis of our process and also by observing others) and the outcomes, as the latter can be a result of luck and a bad/biased/plain wrong decision making process (Nick the Greek example),
- (iii) how to overcome group biases and create a sound a diverse group to allow you to grow on your decision making process (this one, the one i liked it the most).

The poker analogies, in my opinion, were sometimes forced and with little insight and background, they were used from a 10.000 feet perspective and kind of a moto to introduce a subject, no real and concrete examples of decisions and strategies applied in the actual competitions that Annie was a key figure and connect them to the insights she was able to develop (positive or negative ones).

Most probably this high level perspective was a conscious choice of the writer in order to broaden the potential readers "audience", but kind of left me a "not so sweet" taste in my mouth after reading the book.

All in all, I still fo recommend its reading, specially for readers that would like to have a high level introduction to probabilities and behavior economics, kind of a trailer to future readings.





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