My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Harsh Grader Heuristic
The cost of false positives (letting bad things in) is much higher than false negatives (rejecting good things), so be extremely selective
Decision Rule
When in doubt, reject. Only accept obviously good opportunities/people/investments.
How It Works
Asymmetric risk - one bad decision can wipe out gains from multiple good decisions, so optimize for avoiding bad decisions rather than maximizing good ones
Failure Modes
Being too harsh and missing breakthrough opportunities
Applying to situations where false negatives are actually more costly
Using when you need to take more risk to achieve goals
Example Decision
“Rejecting 90 potentially good networking contacts to focus deeply on the 5 obviously excellent ones, because one toxic relationship costs more than missing several good ones.”