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cjmb | 3 years ago

I highly recommend reading Boyd's transcript of a talk he gave in 1989 instead of the wiki on this stuff: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5497331ae4b0148a6141b...

It will resonate with any builders in the HN audience and give a ton of context behind the thinking here.

> You know, some people like to be regarded as being an analyst. They think that’s a term of endearment. I treat it as a personal insult if somebody calls me an analyst. A personal insult. If you’ve read the last paragraph, I’ve showed there are two things you have to be able to do: analyze and synthesize. Analysis and synthesis. And if you can do that in many different areas, tactics, strategies, goals, unifying theme, you can run businesses, you can do any goddamn thing you want.

I find his discussion of Clausewitz's "friction" and the idea of speed as always being relative to one's adversary incredibly useful, even for my day to day work in Tech.

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taeric|3 years ago

Would be amazing if that talk is available as a recording somewhere. I was several pages in before I looked at how big the transrcipt is. Will have to come back to it. Huge thanks for posting it!

hencq|3 years ago

Some Googling led me to this: https://geekboss.com/blog/boyd-patterns-of-conflict It does have 4 youtube videos that seem to be of a presentation he gave, though I don't think it's the same one as the transcript (apologies, I haven't watched them yet, only briefly skipped through them). They are a bit potato quality, but might still be of use.

cjmb|3 years ago

Of course! It was hugely influential on my thinking/approach to problem solving under uncertainty/adversity.

And yeah the other commenter provided a link but there is no actual recording of this exact transcript -- the ones that I found on YouTube just frankly are not quite as good as this one (which is why this one has been preserved, I assume)

Sometimes the transcriber missed a question or you need to fill in the blank yourself a bit (which I think actually meshes perfectly with the content of the talk!), but it's worth it!