Comments on: Going with your gut versus going with the numbers

By: Farhan Lalji

Farhan Lalji — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:03:18 +0000

Thinking some more about this post, I’m down with the black swan theory that you don’t know what you don’t know, and that numbers can be really misleading, especially around past performance, but you have to have some data behind a decision, even if the data doesn’t look good and you want to go that way anyway, you need to know what you’re up against. Guts are good, they’re just not good enough to be stand alone.

By: Farhan Lalji

Farhan Lalji — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:16:49 +0000

Depends on your definition of “right”, if you’re not doing what’s profitable you might lose sleep over that board meeting in the morning. Especially if you have employees and a university’s technology that you’re working on commercializing – as in the example – do you bet everyone’s futures on your gut? Or do you go with what is a big market and a clear and obvious need?

By: Karim Kanji

Karim Kanji — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:07:21 +0000

My thought is that going with guts/heart is very important. Once you do what is right – and not necessarily what is profitable – you’ll always sleep well at night. Just a thought.