1. We like to believe things work for a reason.
2. That success comes from careful thinking and logic.
3. That if we understand something, we can repeat it.
4. But much of the real world doesn’t follow that script.
5. It works through what Nassim Taleb calls ‘stochastic tinkering'.
6. Small experiments shaped by chance and adjusted over time.
7. Not a master plan, but constant trial, error and feedback.
8. The Wright brothers flew by testing, not trusting theory.
9. The steam engine worked before thermodynamics existed.
10. Aspirin relieved pain long before its chemistry was understood.
11. Rory Sutherland observes this is how markets actually function.
12. Not through perfect reasoning, but through messy discovery.
13. Because businesses have to act, even when they don’t understand.
14. So they try things, make small bets and keep what seems to work.
15. While theory usually arrives later to explain why it worked at all.
16. Taleb even describes this phenomenon as 'teaching birds to fly.’
17. Which is why markets discover what works before academics do.
18. Sutherland notes that advertising is really bad at explaining itself.
19. And yet it still produces results that are hard to predict or repeat.
20. Because what works is found through trial and error, not reasoning.
21. Bad ideas quietly disappear while good ones spread through repetition.
22. Even things that make little or no sense can outperform the ones that do.
23. Which is why odd prices or ridiculously fancy names sell more in restaurants.
24. Or how Red Bull, an objectively disgusting drink, created an entire category.
25. Startups call this approach 'fail fast', accepting small losses for few big wins.
26. Venture capital works the same way; most bets fail, a few make everything back.
27. Trial and error is the actual basis of human innovation, not objective plans.
28. Meaning, breakthroughs often come from aiming at one thing and finding another.
29. In fact, there are far more good ideas we can post-rationalise than pre-rationalise.
30. Progress isn’t about knowing what works; it’s about tinkering and knowing what does.