http://www.creativeclass.com/creative_class/2009/05/23/hello-quitters/ The source on how we live, work and play Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:55:17 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 http://www.creativeclass.com/creative_class/2009/05/23/hello-quitters/comment-page-1/#comment-12671 NIkolai Kondratieff Mon, 25 May 2009 11:54:50 +0000 http://www.creativeclass.com/creative_class/?p=11401#comment-12671 This type of mentality is the very same misplaced belief--that you can reduce human behavior down to a formula--that has gotten us into the greatest financial and economic mess in history. It's the same reason there are more financial engineers than scientific engineers, as noted in the TNR article on Roubini. It's patently absurd to think that behavior (risk taking, job changing, profit seeking, etc, etc) can be summed up in a nice and neat inherently logical mathematical formula. It's the reason our financial system has imploded--the dominance of the quant approach to option strategies, trading platforms, fx, equities, derivitives, etc, is a foolish pursuit of trying to eliminate the unknowns from the equation to produce predictable results. Black Scholes was just the beginning in the 1970s but it changed everything and set the financial industry on a quest for the holy grail of ever increasing returns, consistency and predictability. It's a fools errand and this Google HR algorithm is more of the same. Well, maybe when we achieve "the singularity" it will be useful to keep the drones in line. This type of mentality is the very same misplaced belief–that you can reduce human behavior down to a formula–that has gotten us into the greatest financial and economic mess in history. It’s the same reason there are more financial engineers than scientific engineers, as noted in the TNR article on Roubini. It’s patently absurd to think that behavior (risk taking, job changing, profit seeking, etc, etc) can be summed up in a nice and neat inherently logical mathematical formula. It’s the reason our financial system has imploded–the dominance of the quant approach to option strategies, trading platforms, fx, equities, derivitives, etc, is a foolish pursuit of trying to eliminate the unknowns from the equation to produce predictable results. Black Scholes was just the beginning in the 1970s but it changed everything and set the financial industry on a quest for the holy grail of ever increasing returns, consistency and predictability. It’s a fools errand and this Google HR algorithm is more of the same. Well, maybe when we achieve “the singularity” it will be useful to keep the drones in line.

]]> http://www.creativeclass.com/creative_class/2009/05/23/hello-quitters/comment-page-1/#comment-12639 Mike L. Sat, 23 May 2009 22:37:40 +0000 http://www.creativeclass.com/creative_class/?p=11401#comment-12639 Google's formula sounds like a mathematical implementation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Google don't need to reveal "The Colonel's Secret Formula", but it would be great if they could indicate the extent to which their formula confirms and/or challenges Maslow. Google’s formula sounds like a mathematical implementation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Google don’t need to reveal “The Colonel’s Secret Formula”, but it would be great if they could indicate the extent to which their formula confirms and/or challenges Maslow.

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