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Few People Understand The Di�erence
Between Risk And Genuine Uncertainty
Tim Kastelle, Innovation For Growth
Mar 27, 2013, 7:38 AM
What are the odds that your new idea will succeed? If it
does, what will the return to you be?
One of the problems that we have in business (and life!) is
that we often can’t know the answer to questions like this
in advance. And this drives us nuts. Consequently, a lot of
people invest a great deal of e�ort into reducing
uncertainty. There are two problems with this approach.
The �rst is that we often don’t understand uncertainty
very well, and the second is that pro�tably opportunities
only exist where outcomes are genuinely uncertain.
Frank Knight wrote about this in 1921 in a great book
called Risk, Uncertainty and Pro�t (which you can
read here). He distinguished between two types of
uncertainty. The �rst type is when we know the potential
outcomes in advance, and we may even know the odds of
these outcomes in advance. Knight calls this type of
uncertainty risk.
An example of risk is rolling a pair of dice. Before we roll,
we know in advance what the odds are for each possible
outcome (provided that the dice are fair). Knowing these
odds forms the basis for all of the games of chance that we
can play. Dice are relatively simple, cards a bit more
complicated, but we can know all of the odds with them in
advance.
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Genuine uncertainty is di�erent. This occurs when we
don’t even know the possible outcomes in advance, let
alone their probabilities. Genuine uncertainty occurs in
complex systems, where lots of actors interact over time –
the economy, for example.
The important point that Knight makes is this: real
opportunities for pro�t only exist in the face of
genuine uncertainty. Which means that if we want to
innovate successfully, we not only have to deal with
uncertainty, we must seek it out.
The Problems of Uncertainty
We’re not the most rational decision-makers in the �rst
place, and confusing uncertainty with risk makes things
worse. Here’s how:
We act like everything is just a risk. Here is how Knight
puts it:
Business decisions, for example, deal with situations which
are far too unique, generally speaking, for any sort of
statistical tabulation to have any value for guidance. The
conception of an objectively measurable probability or
chance is simply inapplicable. The confusion arises from
the fact that we do estimate the value or validity or
dependability of our opinions and estimates, and such an
estimate has the same form as a probability judgment; it is
a ratio, expressed by a proper fraction. But in fact it appears
to be meaningless and fatally misleading to speak of the
probability, in an objective sense, that a judgment is
correct.
When we act like everything is a risk, we greatly increase
the chance of failure. However, the opposite can also be a
problem:
We act like everything is unknowable. Uncertainty
often gets blamed for inaction. Barry Ritholtz takes aim at
the problems with this:
It �nally dawned on me what the uncertainty trope is all
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The highest-paying job titles at
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about. It took a conversation with a nervous chief executive
to reveal it, but I teased out the answer.
Most of the time, people exist in a happy little bubble of
self-created delusion. We engage in selective perception,
seeing only the things that agree with us. Our selective
retention retains the good stu� and disregards most of the
rest. In our minds, we are all younger, better-looking,
slimmer, with more hair than the camera reveals.
In short, we construct a reality that bears only passing
resemblance to the objective universe.
During those brief instances when the facade fades, the
curtain gets pulled back and the ugly reality becomes clear.
We get a glimmer of understanding about our own lack of
understanding. That’s when the grim reality of the human
condition is revealed — and it terri�es us.
The next time you hear someone mention uncertainty, ask
yourself this: How much less do they actually know about
the future today vs. what they knew last week or year? How
much less do they think they know?
We can’t use not knowing as an excuse to not act – because
we never know.
It seems like we either suppress uncertainty, and act
overcon�dently, or we overemphasize uncertainty, and
don’t act at all. Both are bad outcomes.
How to Respond to Genuine Uncertainty
Managing risk is pretty straightforward. You match up
your investment to the odds of it paying o�. Managing
uncertainty is trickier.
Fortunately, there are a few things that we can do. It’s
important to cope with uncertainty e�ectively, because
doing so allows us to go where the opportunities are. Here
are some strategies:
1. Aggregate. When I get in my car to drive to work
tomorrow, it’s impossible to know if I’ll have an accident or
now. And yet I have car insurance. How can this be?
Insurance works because when you add up enough
individual cases of uncertainty, you might end up with
probabilities.When we’re talking innovation, this means
that Linus Pauling was exactly correct when he said that
the best way to have a great idea is to have a lot of ideas.
Volume can reduce uncertainty. This is what venture
capital �rms do too when they make a wide range and high
number of investments.
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2. Seek out uncertainty to increase the chance of
hitting it big. If you enter the lottery, the odds of winning
are higher than the payout – it’s a sucker bet. Innovation is
the opposite – the odds of winning are lower than the
payout – it’s a positive feedback loop. Taking advantage of
this is a smart play. This is the process of looking for
positive outliers.
Understand that when we face uncertainty, some
ideas will fail. But this is what drives progress. William
Janeway has an interesting take on this in his book Doing
Capitalism in the Innovation Economy:
Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction can only
proceed by trial and error. We see that which is created
through the lens of survivors’ bias and ignore the “hopeful
monsters” that economic evolution has spawned and left
behind in metaphorical emulation of Darwin’s process of
natural selection. No doubt every one of them was
launched on the basis of an exercise in forecasting future
revenues, costs and an expected value to be compared with
a rough estimate of the cost of capital. As Schumpeter well
knew, the wastage is the measure of the inescapable
uncertainty that attends the practice of doing capitalism:
We need only visualize the situation of a man who would …
consider the possibility of setting up a new plant for the
production of cheap airplanes which would pay only if all
people who drove motorcars could be induced to �y. The
major elements in such an undertaking simply cannot be
known … Neither error nor risk expresses adequately what
we mean.
Waste measures uncertainty!
It’s important to understand the distinction between risk
and uncertainty. The two situations require di�erent
responses – and if we confuse the two, we won’t use the
right approach.
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International Editions:
And that really increases the risks we face!
Now Read: Trying To Be Certain About Everything Kills
Great Ideas
Read the original article on Innovation For Growth.
Copyright 2013.
MORE FROM INNOVATION FOR GROWTH:
The Power of Purposeful Innovation
Taking a Long Term View During Turbulent Times
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