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Amazon built a competitive advantage around forcing clear thinking through mandatory memo writing — six-page documents that executives had to read silently before discussing. Now that AI can generate those memos instantly, people skip the thinking step entirely, and the author argues this is eroding decision quality and trust across the company.
- Amazon's writing ritual (30-minute silent reading sessions, red-pen feedback) forced rigorous thinking before wasting colleagues' time; AI-generated documents bypass this filter, leading to half-baked decisions that compound over time.
- Performance reviews have devolved into managers copy-pasting AI summaries of AI summaries, turning what used to drive career growth conversations into "a conversation between two prompts" with humans as intermediaries.
- The author proposes a practical rule: use AI freely for reversible "two-way door" decisions (status updates, code reviews, routine tasks), but require humans to write and read for irreversible "one-way door" decisions (strategy, hiring, major architecture changes).
Too much context buries what matters; too little forces follow-up questions. The trick is matching your detail level to what your manager actually needs to decide and act.
- Remind your manager where you left off and be explicit about what you need from them—don't make them guess whether this is an FYI or a request for approval.
- Cut details that don't serve your main point (like exact dates when relative time matters), but add more context when decisions are irreversible, expensive, or customer-facing.
- Lead with your recommendation and reasoning, then put supporting details below so your manager can read as much or as little as needed.
Joel Peterson’s one-hour Stanford lecture breaks down practical negotiation tactics and decision-making frameworks you can apply immediately. It covers how to prepare, frame discussions, and secure better outcomes—far more insight than typical years of experience.
- Anchoring high (justifiably) can meaningfully shift outcomes—one example turned a $100K deal into $120K via a 20% premium anchor.
- Every concession should be traded for something in return, not given as goodwill (e.g., discount for upfront payment traded for a longer contract term).
- Strategic silence can break negotiation deadlocks more effectively than continued talking.
- Knowing your BATNA before negotiating prevents you from accepting a worse deal than your actual alternatives allow.
This explains how to use a “premortem” prompt with AI—telling it your plan already failed six months later—to force it to list failure scenarios and warning signs. It then ranks the most likely and dangerous failures, reveals hidden assumptions, and suggests plan adjustments.
- Asking AI "is this plan solid?" produces biased cheerleading because it's trained to be affirming, not critical
- The fix is a "premortem" prompt: telling the AI the plan already failed six months from now and asking it to explain why, which surfaces failure scenarios and early warning signs
- Kahneman considers premortems his top decision-making tool, and companies like Google, Goldman Sachs, and P&G use them before major launches
- A follow-up synthesis step has the AI rank the most likely failures, name the biggest hidden assumption, and rewrite the plan to close those gaps