> Just the law of large numbers says that eventually you reach all of the people who are likely to be your customers and you stop growing (see Netflix).
That has nothing to do with the law of large numbers. That's just discrete and strictly monotonic growth hitting any upper bound eventually.
To be fair, I've heard the term mis used like this numerous times on business news tv (CNBC for example). So it's possible in that context they've appropriated the term for a new meaning (basically they're talking about a logistic curve).
What I cited is just the mathematical reason why Netflix (or any company, really) cannot grow strictly monotonic in perpetuity. In reality, this is the reason why Netflix's curve will NOT be strictly monotonic, as you rightly pointed out.
Come on, thats a fallacy right there. One of the classic ones right? Instead of countering the argument by the opponent, you just pick one little part that you can nit-pick some element of and attack that instead.
Suuurrreee... the law of large numbers isn't a thing. So what?
> What a bullshitter.
Hm.
Call it whatever you want, secundum quid, inductive fallacy, faulting forecasting... who cares.
There's a point being made here and it's got nothing to do with the specifics of what the
curve is called.
It was bad, incorrect and incompetent forecasting to speculate that sudden sharp trends will continue as the 'new normal'. That's what people did, and it's blown up in their faces.
The point being made by this article is not that a bunch of people screwed up, it is:
> Your job isn't to assume things will always continue just as great as they are now. Your job is to be realistic about the future and position your company for whatever comes next.
Doesn't seem that unreasonable.
Seems like the sort of thing a whole lot of people in senior roles could have done a better job at.
Seems like advice that people right now should be paying attention to.
The point made by the article is valid. It is also entirely trivial, but indeed, who cares? Certainly not the CEOs or companies who ignored this point this time. I doubt that the CEO of Google is not smart enough to take this trivial point into account when contemplating his actions, so he must have ignored it for reasons other than ignorance.
That has nothing to do with the law of large numbers. That's just discrete and strictly monotonic growth hitting any upper bound eventually.
What a bullshitter.