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First Principles Problems, Secondhand Solutions

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If you spend a lot of time in tech, you’ll inevitably hear people extolling the virtues of being a First Principles Thinker – that is, someone who analyzes situations in terms of foundational axioms and then uses their impeccable reasoning to determine a bold and original course of action. But if you’ve spent significant time operating a business, it’s obvious that the solutions to your problems are rarely unique. In business the optimal move is often just to reason by analogy quickly and decisively. So I’m going to propose a somewhat different way to break down the debate on whether reasoning from first principles or reasoning by analogy is better. In most situations that I’ve seen, you’ll get better results if you: Reason from first principles to establish what your problems actually are. Reason from analogy to figure out what solutions you should actually deploy. Let’s take a conceptually simple problem – why is retention low? This seemingly straightforward problem could have many p

First Principles Problems, Secondhand Solutions Stay SaaSy Apr 03, 2025 17 1 Share If you spend a lot of time in tech, you’ll inevitably hear people extolling the virtues of being a First Principles Thinker – that is, someone who analyzes situations in terms of foundational axioms and then uses their impeccable reasoning to determine a bold and original course of action. But if you’ve spent significant time operating a business, it’s obvious that the solutions to your problems are rarely unique. In business the optimal move is often just to reason by analogy quickly and decisively. So I’m goin

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