It gets harder and harder for me to explain, in plain words, why the fresh produce business is so complex. The book I wrote is a proper doorstopper. It’s conceptually dense, and it forces the reader through their own process of discovery.
And ever since I wrote the book, my own way of reasoning has become more and more anchored in those specific concepts, but to talk to someone who hasn’t internalised them, you have to set them aside. So, for the podcast, I keep racking my brain over how to get “my truths” across in plainer, friendlier language.
And that’s how I came back to the poker-and-chess analogy applied to the world of business. Both games have been used endlessly to draw parallels with strategy and with business or financial decision-making.
A while ago I relistened to an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show where he interviewed the former poker player Annie Duke that I thought I could be useful. And after re-listening to that Tim Ferriss episode, I got a pretty good sense of this former professional poker player’s book.
In 2018 she published the bestseller Thinking in Bets, about her life as a professional player and how to apply its lessons to decisions in life generally… and in business too.
I also remembered a book by the hugely famous world chess champion Garry Kasparov on what chess can teach us about business strategy. As a teenager I went through a phase of youthful fascination with chess, and it seems my mind still chooses to pay attention to the subject.
I have to admit I haven’t actually read either book. But the topic came to my attention after I read a post on twitter, and I thought: hi, what a great analogy!
Maybe this way I can talk about determinism, stochastic processes, Bayesian statistics or emergent processes in complex systems without boring you to death.
And although – as I said, and as you can check for yourselves with a quick internet search – this analogy has been used a great deal, I’m going to try to adapt it to our business.
So let’s see how it turns out…
Welcome to a new episode of Freshconomics Podcast.
Enjoy this episode on your favourite platform
📙 And get your copy of the book Freshconomics here: Paperback, Ebook
