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Keith Rabois: Throw Away Your Pros and Cons List. Reid Hoffman Taught Me Something Better.

By Keith Rabois · Leadership · 1 min read

Pros and cons create a false equivalence. Your brain tricks you into treating every item as equal.

Key Points

Reid Hoffman was adamant that pros/cons lists are the worst way to make decisions.
Rank your priorities strictly, then decide based on the top priority alone.
Only go to priority #2 if priority #1 produces a tie.
Pros/cons create visual false equivalence that tricks your brain.

When you create pros and cons, you're creating a false equivalence. There's a power law. Maybe the first one's really important. The second one's not. But your brain treats them as equal.

The Framework That Changed Everything

In 2002, Reid Hoffman taught Keith Rabois something that rewired his brain. Rabois has used it every single day since. For personal decisions. Professional ones. Everything.

Hoffman was blunt. Pros and cons lists are the worst way to make decisions. Stop using them.

Reid's framework: what decision would you make if capital or money or time were free? If the answer is clear, do it.

The Problem With Pros and Cons

You've done it. Everyone has. Two columns. Pros on one side. Cons on the other. Three items here. Two items there. Your brain looks at the layout and starts comparing.

Here's the trap. Your brain treats every line item as equally important. But they're not. There's a power law. The first item might matter ten times more than the second. The visual layout hides that.

A pros/cons list makes a trivial concern look as important as a critical one.

The Hoffman Method

The replacement is simple. Rank your priorities. Not the options. The priorities. What matters most in your life? In your company? Put them in strict order.

Then make your decision based on the first priority alone. If it's a tie, go to priority number two. Only then. Most decisions get resolved at priority one.

Decide on priority #1 alone. Only go deeper if it's a perfect tie.

Every Day Since 2002

Rabois uses this for everything. Should we raise money or not? Which partner to work with? Where should his kid go to college? Same framework. Every time.

Twenty-plus years of daily use. That's not a productivity hack. That's an operating system for your brain.

This isn't a trick for startup decisions. It's a decision-making operating system.