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I just got back from Peoria, AZ, where I gave a speech about risk from the perspective of a former professional gambler. The takeaways are:

  • Evaluate risks logically, considering the payoff and probability
  • Make risk taking a habit
  • Hard decisions don’t matter very much
  • Judge yourself

Enjoy, and let me know if you’d like to hire me to speak at your sweet event:

Tynan’s Speech: Not Taking Risks is Risky from Tynan on Vimeo.


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There are 20 Comments.

Jan 26th, 2010 @ 4:39 pm

Great job, man! I didn’t plan to watch it all in one sitting, but it kept me hooked.

Keep being awesome!


elai
Jan 26th, 2010 @ 7:37 pm

One thing about taking risks or putting an effort in that has bit me in the ass a few times, just because something is statistically a given, doesn’t mean you can’t take it seriously. If you don’t your odds of success will go way way down. Just because skydiving is statistically safe, it doesn’t mean you can skimp on your safety double-checking.


elai
Jan 26th, 2010 @ 7:45 pm

I really liked the speech too, It would be really good in a podcast format.

Jan 27th, 2010 @ 2:50 am

Just want to say, I this is possibly the best post i have read so far on Tynan.net and I think I have read them all, or close to it.


Mike
Jan 27th, 2010 @ 8:23 am

This is really incredible Tynan. Inspiring and well delivered, especially for the audience. My only worries are that you turned a room of ~400 people into professional school-bus-driving-gamblers. Hahah.

Really though, very well done.

Jan 27th, 2010 @ 11:42 am

That was like Tynan: The Movie! You talked about pick-up, and the bus, and Life Nomadic, and of course, being a professional gambler. I loved your speech!


Carl Z
Jan 27th, 2010 @ 4:07 pm

Well executed. I could tell you put some careful thought/execution into it.

Jan 27th, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

Great job Ty. You’re a natural investment professional. You’ve described in your speech the fundamentals of modern portfolio theory, which is based on the presumption that people choose portfolios of investments but face a tradeoff between return and risk (uncertainty in returns). There are lots of portfolio choices in the world; there are dumb risks to take (low return and high risk portfolios), and there are safe risks to take which yield very low returns (e.g. risk free treasury bills). But the BEST thing to do is to take SMART risks, i.e. pick the portfolio with the highest return per unit of risk (aka sharpe ratio), and this is precisely the bliss point that makes one best off.

Anyway… I should invite you to Stanford to give a talk sometime.


Tynan
Jan 27th, 2010 @ 7:50 pm

@Charlie Thanks… always good to hear from people who actually know what they’re doing that I’m on the right track :). Speaking at Stanford some time would be awesome.


TJ Nelson
Jan 27th, 2010 @ 11:57 pm

Just curious, what audience were you speaking to?


Matthew
Jan 29th, 2010 @ 1:43 am

Wow, you were in Peoria, AZ? Wish you had announced it here, definitely would have driven to come see you.

Jan 29th, 2010 @ 1:49 pm

As a poker player who plays for Real Money online, all of this is spot-on advice (EV+ decisions, the coinflip exercise, etc)

Hope to see you speak more, you lead a truly remarkable life sir!

Jan 30th, 2010 @ 8:20 am

Awesome talk man! Really enjoyed it.

Jan 31st, 2010 @ 1:46 am

Loved this video… loved the idea of asking 4 questions for each risk.

Feb 1st, 2010 @ 5:56 pm

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/31/san-franciscos-secre.html
i thought you might like this map of some sf places.
you should also try to meet starchild, visit city lights bookstore,and have lunch with my brother.
alison at the libertarian party of indiana is looking for a speaker – she doesn’t know yet that you are the speaker she should get. thanks for sample chapters of your books.


Tommy
Feb 2nd, 2010 @ 8:50 pm

I reluctantly watched this, thinking I already knew a lot about risk and thinking logically. However, this was AMAZING!!! Really helped me see some stuff I didn’t see before. Your points about making a habit out of risks, always doing the scarier option, and how hard decisions aren’t really hard really struck a cord.


TheReelDeal
Feb 11th, 2010 @ 5:05 pm

Fantastic speech. I would love to hear your insights and how you prepared for giving it.

btw, I’ve realize that we are very much alike, yet, very different people. We just use and believe the same process’. Incidentally, I have always strongly taught that our GUT is always always right. That feeling is your internal compass telling you where to go, which few listen to and act on.

Feb 12th, 2010 @ 1:23 pm

Great post man. It’s similar to ‘job security’ being a contradiction, and the most secure thing you can do is to become an entrepreneur.


Nat
Mar 16th, 2010 @ 12:14 pm

Hey, Tynan. I enjoyed the video. I am curious about something: have you read “blink” by Malcolm Gladwell? It’s a book primarily about instinct, subconscious thought and snap decisions (hence the title). I mention it because of how vehemently you decry the gut in your video.

Gladwell’s point, as I take it, is not to contradict this (he looks at things fairly by examining specific cases of the gut being wrong, as well as being right), and he posits a proper understanding of how one’s mind works to understand what decisions are best left to intuition, and what decisions are too complex or out of one’s experience, and need to have logic applied to them.

Because your speech focuses on the latter type of decision, I don’t think Gladwell contradicts you. Anyway: it is a book well worth reading, as are his other books (“Outliers” is the other particularly interesting one of the collection).


TomTom
Jul 17th, 2010 @ 8:43 pm

did you always use martingale or did you use something like the d’alembert progression

martingales kind of intense

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