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The Knowledge Project · 2 min instead of 1 h 5 m · Sep 15, 2026
Intuition matters most when the best path has no feedback
Tobi Lütke
Founder & CEO, Shopify
Shane ParrishHost · Founder, Farnam Street
Former intelligence agency employee; wrote the bestseller Clear Thinking.
About this segment
Tobi pushes back on Kahneman's rapid-feedback rule. He says the best long-term choices usually have no feedback loop, while short-term paths with a daily ticker tempt companies into short-termism.
From “Tobi Lütke: The Skills AI Makes More Valuable”, Sep 15, 2026. Watch the full episode
“Intuition is actually the most valuable when there isn't direct feedback because very many of the most important choices that we had to make”
Takeaways
- Intuition is most valuable where no feedback mechanism exists
- Paths with rapid feedback attract everyone, which breeds short-termism
- The right long-term path often has no feedback loop attached
In this episode
Full episode36:35Intuition matters most when the best path has no feedback1:44
- 40:39The hard part is choosing among many good options1:55Up next
- 14:02Machines can't take responsibility, so use an AI council2:03
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 36:37
Because for intuition, you need a lot of reps, same environment, and rapid feedback. That's what Kahneman sort of argues are the three criteria for intuition. But those don't exist. Why do you need a rapid feedback? So that you can course correct. That was his hypothesis. But that's not, you don't need that for intuition. You need that to get to success, yes, ideally. But sometimes that's not available.
- 37:03
Intuition is actually the most valuable when there isn't direct feedback because very many of the most important choices that we had to make when intuition ended up having to play a role is when we knew there wasn't going to be any feedback mechanism. Like if there's many choices, like there's like five things that look like good paths to go forward. And any of them has rapid feedback. Everyone goes to that.
- 37:28
That is what we call short-termism, right? This is like, how should we develop this company into the future? Well, there's multiple ways to do. Many of them involve long-term investment, refactoring, potentially going into a new market, potentially saying no to going into obviously new markets and actually doubling down and going deeper on our current market. Or we could do what increases the stock value.
- 37:52
By the way, this one has a daily ticker and like rapid feedback. So it's usually the absence. Like I find a very high correlation between the right path and the ones that don't have feedback loops attached. Wait, double click on that for a second. In a way, the criticism that a lot of people direct at companies is that companies are short-term focused, right? But why are they short-term focused? It's not because of it.
- 38:15
Like I don't think the executives tend to be short-term focused,