Annie Duke
Annie is an author, speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space, as well as Special Partner focused on Decision Science at First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund.
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 a member of the National Board of After-School All-Stars and the Board of Directors of the Franklin Institute and serves on the board of the Renew Democracy Initiative.
Quit
The Power of Knowing When To Walk Away
From the best-selling author of Thinking in Bets comes a toolkit for mastering the skill of quitting to achieve greater success.
“This brilliant and entertaining book documents a major flaw in human actions and decisions: the bias against quitting. I learned a lot from its compelling tales of failures and sound recommendations. You will too.”
—Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner in economics and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
“Quit is the rare book that is both a page-turner and a legitimately important contribution. If you’ve never thought of quitting as a competitive advantage before, prepare to be enlightened.”
—David Epstein, bestselling author of Range
"There aren't many times you will say, "this book changed my life." This is one of them.”
—Seth Godin, bestselling author of The Practice
“Only a poker player could write this classic book on when--and more importantly how--to fold a bad hand in business, investing, relationships and life.”
—Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Stillness Is the Key
“The opposite of a great virtue is also a virtue. And Quit is the perfect dialectical complement to Grit. Weave these two virtues into your character and live a much more fulfilling life.”
—Philip Tetlock, bestselling author of Superforecasting
“Every business school has a course in starting new businesses, but few have a course in shutting them down at the right time. This book fills that gap with brilliant new insights and fantastic stories. Quit what you are doing right now and start reading this book."
—Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize winner in economics and bestselling coauthor of Nudge
"Quitting is not just an art; it's also a science – and there is no one so uniquely suited to teach us both as Annie Duke."
—Brian Christian, coauthor of Algorithms to Live By
Business leaders, with millions of dollars down the drain, struggle to abandon a new app or product that just isn’t working. Governments, caught in a hopeless conflict, believe that the next tactic will finally be the one that wins the war. And in our own lives, we persist in relationships or careers that no longer serve us. Why? According to Annie Duke, in the face of tough decisions, we’re terrible quitters. And that is significantly holding us back.
In Quit, Duke teaches you how to get good at quitting. Drawing on stories from elite athletes like Mount Everest climbers, founders of leading companies like Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, and top entertainers like Dave Chappelle, Duke explains why quitting is integral to success, as well as strategies for determining when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em, that will save you time, energy, and money. You’ll learn:
- How the paradox of quitting influences decision making: If you quit on time, you will feel you quit early
- What forces work against good quitting behavior, such as escalation commitment, desire for certainty, and status quo bias
- How to think in expected value in order to make better decisions, as well as other best practices, such as increasing flexibility in goal-setting, establishing “quitting contracts”, anticipating optionality, and conducting premortems and backcasts
Whether you’re facing a make-or-break business decision or life-altering personal choice, mastering the skill of quitting will help you make the best next move.
How to Decide
Simple Tools for Making Better Choices
Through a blend of compelling exercises and stories, the best-selling author of Thinking in Bets will train you to combat your own biases, address your weaknesses, and help you become a better and more confident decision-maker.
"'The decisions you make are like a portfolio of investments.' I believe that almost everything can be viewed as a portfolio -- whether it's a set of products a single company decides to make, the schools and jobs and skills an individual invests in, and all kinds of life decisions. The question is, how do we make sure that portfolio as a whole advances you toward your goals -- even though any individual decision within it is a win or loss? In this new book, Annie provides exercises for how to decide. All of us -- not just investors -- should be obsessed with making better decisions."
--Marc Andreessen, cofounder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
"This is a vitally important book. Simple, powerful and generous, it should be required reading."
--Seth Godin, author of This is Marketing
“No one could explain the process of high-stakes decision-making better than Annie Duke, or make it as entertaining and insightful as How to Decide. The first decision you should make is to read this book immediately!”
--Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster and author of Winter is Coming
“Many books teach us why we make bad choices. Few help us make better ones. At long last, Annie Duke has tackled that problem. Her handbook for decision-making isn’t just evidence-based and practical—it’s fun too.”
--Adam Grant, bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take
“You can’t learn how to ride a bicycle by reading physics textbooks. You need to get on the bike and practice. And you can’t become a better decisionmaker by reading micro-economics textbooks. You need to practice by working through the real-world exercises in this state-of-the-art book.”
--Philip Tetlock, author of Superforecasting
What do you do when you're faced with a big decision? If you're like most people, you probably make a pro and con list, spend a lot of time obsessing about decisions that didn't work out, get caught in analysis paralysis, endlessly seek other people's opinions to find just that little bit of extra information that might make you sure, and finally go with your gut.
What if there was a better way to make quality decisions so you can think clearly, feel more confident, second-guess yourself less, and ultimately be more decisive and be more productive?
Making good decisions doesn't have to be a series of endless guesswork. Rather, it's a teachable skill that anyone can sharpen. In How to Decide, best-selling author Annie Duke and former professional poker player lays out a series of tools anyone can use to make better decisions. You'll learn:
- To identify and dismantle hidden biases.
- To extract the highest quality feedback from those whose advice you seek.
- To more accurately identify the influence of luck in the outcome of your decisions.
- When to decide fast, when to decide slow, and when to decide in advance.
- To make decisions that more effectively help you to realize your goals and live your values.
Through interactive exercises and engaging thought experiments, this audiobook helps you analyze key decisions you've made in the past and troubleshoot those you're making in the future. Whether you're picking investments, evaluating a job offer, or trying to figure out your romantic life, How to Decide is the key to happier outcomes and fewer regrets.
Thinking in Bets
Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
Publisher's Summary: Wall Street Journal bestseller!
Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result.
"A big favorite among investors these days." –The New York Times
“Outstanding.” –Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal
"A compact guide to probabilistic domains like poker, or venture capital... Recommend for people operating in the real world." –Marc Andreessen
"Brilliant. Buy ten copies and give one to everyone you work with. It's that good." –Seth Godin, author of The Icarus Deception
"Duke’s discussion is full of wisdom and also of fun, warmth, humor and humanity. Her sharp, data-driven analysis comes with a large lesson, which is that losers should be willing to forgive themselves: Sometimes the right play just doesn’t work." –Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge
"An elegant fusion of poker-table street-smarts and cognitive science insights. This book will make you both a shrewder and wiser player in the game of life." –Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting
In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a handing off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted, and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck?
Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there is always information that is hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making?
Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values, and even rewards, the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes.
By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate, and successful in the long run.
