Fractional Chief Analytics Officer, Data Scientist, Writer, Contrarian, former baseball bettor, hedge fund guy (2008), government scientist (2016)
Chicago, USA
Joined February 2011
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I wrote a parody of Poe's "The Raven" titled "The Boardroom."
In corporate settings, certain buzzwords are repeated almost as often as "Nevermore." Enjoy!
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Once upon a morning dreary, sipping coffee, stressed and bleary,
As discussion filled the boardroom of a miserable Q4,
So here’s the very model of a modern hypothetical:
One half believes a premise that the other finds heretical.
To judge an outcome is to presume to know the objective of the decision-maker.
Perhaps someone is optimizing for something different than you’d suspect or prefer.
contracts signed by Kirk Cousins:
2012: standard 4-yr rookie deal
2016: $19.9M fully guaranteed
2017: $23.9M fully guaranteed
2018: $84.0M fully guaranteed
2020: $66.0M fully guaranteed
2022: $35.0M fully guaranteed
2024: $150M ($100M fully guaranteed)
career: $411M thru 2027...
...of which $329M was fully guaranteed
(and 1 playoff win in 12 years)
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Be wary of any argument made by someone unwilling to bleed. The goal should never be to settle arguments, but rather, to partake in arguments if and only if both parties have skin in the game.
evancoopersmith.com/posts/Ip…
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I am continually amazed at how easily I can avoid feeling the internal anguish when presented with someone else’s irrationality if I can simultaneously recognize that they would be unwilling to put their money where their mouth is.
The landscape of adult life is littered with hall-monitors. They are the risk-averse naysayers willing to cast doubt on an idea that runs afoul of existing orthodoxy, but not to put their own skin in the game to demonstrate that they believe their own rhetoric.
(More to come)
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Who wants to live in a world where the same giant companies win the labor of the best and brightest, the best and brightest all attend the same few schools, and the same teams win championships every season?
Be Original, I Beg You
evancoopersmith.com/posts/Ip…
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Elite NCAA football programs can offer up to 25 scholarships annually. For basketball, that figure is 3 or 4. In turn, the best HS football players flock to ~10 elite programs (who win the CFP every year).
Talent concentration kills innovation in sports and tech. (more to come)
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In a world of numerous, small firms, the path to growth is paved with new products and improved customer experiences. In a world of concentrated dominance, the path to growth is the erection of barriers to entry and squeezing every last drop from users. (Stay tuned for more)
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Explanations are not valid simply because they are satisfying. No one truly wishes to grapple with the reality of a random world. But Einstein was wrong, if there is a deity, that deity is no stranger to dice.
Read more here:
evancoopersmith.com/posts/rP…
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From a personal reflection I'll post soon:
"I loathe the idea of a truly, profoundly, fundamentally inexplicable world. I am kept awake by the control I cannot exert, by the predictions that must be made in order to live one’s life, and the harsh reality of a random universe."
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If a critic asks for the consideration of an additional feature, ask if they will accept your conclusion if that adjustment is made.
There is always an additional feature by which to normalize.
This is often the difference between good-faith critique and bad-faith opposition.
Actually, I think there's a lot of value in simplicity and not adjusting the data in every which way.
Republicans have the same death rates as Democrats until the introduction of vaccines, then they start dying at much higher rates. That's a *very* useful first approximation.
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Failure is hardly the worst outcome. Limping along in perpetuity when a better alternative exists is worse. Of course, recognizing when a more promising opportunity exists often requires information we lack.
evancoopersmith.com/posts/3a…
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Every edge ultimately erodes. The wisest, most innovative, most disruptive idea will itself be replaced. This is only distressing if we believe our best is already behind us.
evancoopersmith.com/posts/Cs…
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Perverse incentives persist when per-unit pricing is unavailable to the seller.
NFL RBs need to have another zoom meeting and figure out a way to make sure what has happened to Saquon Barkely and Nick Chubb doesn’t happen again. Under-paying top level running backs because they have a higher injury chance and then overusing them is BONKERS.
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Evan Coopersmith retweeted
NFL RBs need to have another zoom meeting and figure out a way to make sure what has happened to Saquon Barkely and Nick Chubb doesn’t happen again. Under-paying top level running backs because they have a higher injury chance and then overusing them is BONKERS.
When the costs of gaming a system are lower than the costs of failing to navigate it, bad behavior is inevitable.
In this case, one might question the relationship between elite credentials and social mobility rather than how those credentials are pursued.
In India when I was growing up kids would routinely take a year off purely to study for IIT entrance exams, in the hopes of getting through, paying through the nose for coaching.
With a sufficiently low admission rate there's always gonna be gaming of the system.
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Overreactions occur when we fail. How often do we notice when we (or those around us) succeed? Do we appreciate the frequency of opportunities to fail and thus, how often they come and go without incident?
evancoopersmith.com/posts/Wo…
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The most difficult situations are often not those in which the decision itself is difficult, but rather, the situations where the proper decision is clear, but taking the action is difficult.
evancoopersmith.com/posts/UA…