Two rules for skin in the game:
- Never get on a plane if the pilot is not on board
- Make sure there is also a copilot
Another rule: “Never ask anyone for their opinion, forecast, or recommendation. Just ask them what they have, or don’t have, in their portfolio.”
Watch what people do, not what they say. Many researchers on happiness are earning more than $70,000 a year despite their own research saying it won’t make them any happier.
Only large corporations can afford to sell you things that kill you. Small ones go bust too easily, so there is a risk from taking advice and products that could not survive on small scales.
Something being marketed is necessarily inferior, otherwise it would not need to be aggressively marketed. Marketing beyond conveying information is insecurity.
The pursuit of meaning within Big Data has brought about many more spurious and random relationships than meaningful understanding. The false relationships will grow much faster than the real one, simply because chance allows so many more of them to be found.