I stumbled on Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer as a freshman in college, and loved the idea of an auto-optimizing business.
Back then I had questions about exactly how such a system could be implemented, the algorithm was very hand wavey, but I assumed surely they must’ve figured it out before writing a book about it.
As an adult with 20 years extra experience, I’m fairly confident that, no, aside from the high level concept, they had no idea how to build such a system. That coup was probably the best possible outcome for Beer - it gave credibility to his ideas without actually testing them.
I have personally not listened to it but there's a recent podcast that covers this story and I've heard it's really good, it's called "The Santiago Boys" it's referenced in the article.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 18.7 ms ] threadA real shame.
Back then I had questions about exactly how such a system could be implemented, the algorithm was very hand wavey, but I assumed surely they must’ve figured it out before writing a book about it.
As an adult with 20 years extra experience, I’m fairly confident that, no, aside from the high level concept, they had no idea how to build such a system. That coup was probably the best possible outcome for Beer - it gave credibility to his ideas without actually testing them.
https://www.youtube.com/live/UI8u4BLGJA0?si=JssmdJFR6uW55t1P...