clearly “optimizing for the median” is a terrible decision-making process
Clearly, but that’s also not what I suggested, either prescriptively or descriptively. “An important axis of evaluation” is not the same thing as “the optimization target”.
My point is simple. You said that evaluating based on the median outcome is a “completely useless exercise”. And I am saying: no, it’s not only not useless, but in fact it’s more useful than evaluating based on the mean/expectation (and much more useful than evaluating only based on the mean/expectation), if you are the individual agent who is considering whether to do a thing.
(Optimizing for the mean is, of course, an even more terrible decision-making process. You presumably know this very well, on account of your familiarity with the FTX fiasco.)
EDIT: A rate limit on my comments?? What the hell is this?! (And it’s not listed on the moderation log page, either!)
I will definitely want to judge this option on the basis of the median valuation of a YC startup, not the mean or the maximum or anything of that sort.
This sure sounds to me like you said you would use it at the very least as the primary evaluation metric. I think my reading here is reasonable, but fine if you meant something else. I agree the median seems very reasonable as one thing to think about among other things.
EDIT: A rate limit on my comments?? What the hell is this?! (And it’s not listed on the moderation log page, either!)
Yep, we have downvote-based rate-limits. I think they are reasonable, though not perfect (and my guess is in this case not ideal, and also I expect your comments to get upvoted more and then for the rate limit to disappear).
I would like them to be listed on the moderation log page, but haven’t gotten around to it. You would be welcome to make a PR for that, or anyone else is, and we will probably also get around to it at some point.
Clearly, but that’s also not what I suggested, either prescriptively or descriptively. “An important axis of evaluation” is not the same thing as “the optimization target”.
My point is simple. You said that evaluating based on the median outcome is a “completely useless exercise”. And I am saying: no, it’s not only not useless, but in fact it’s more useful than evaluating based on the mean/expectation (and much more useful than evaluating only based on the mean/expectation), if you are the individual agent who is considering whether to do a thing.
(Optimizing for the mean is, of course, an even more terrible decision-making process. You presumably know this very well, on account of your familiarity with the FTX fiasco.)
EDIT: A rate limit on my comments?? What the hell is this?! (And it’s not listed on the moderation log page, either!)
This sure sounds to me like you said you would use it at the very least as the primary evaluation metric. I think my reading here is reasonable, but fine if you meant something else. I agree the median seems very reasonable as one thing to think about among other things.
Yep, we have downvote-based rate-limits. I think they are reasonable, though not perfect (and my guess is in this case not ideal, and also I expect your comments to get upvoted more and then for the rate limit to disappear).
I would like them to be listed on the moderation log page, but haven’t gotten around to it. You would be welcome to make a PR for that, or anyone else is, and we will probably also get around to it at some point.