Philosophies — Jack Elliott

Hi, I’m Jack!

I’m a Denver native and University of Southern California graduate with experience in multiple entrepreneurial and product owner roles. My degree is in Computational Neuroscience with minors in Entrepreneurship and Product Design. I am passionate about the human mind, what motivates us, and why we make certain choices. Game-changing impact and fundamental improvement of users’ lives motivate me, which has primarily drawn me to the healthcare industry. I am a naturally contrarian thinker and enjoy solving big, multi-disciplinary problems.

Outside of work, I enjoy the psychology, the outdoors, and making music. Feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out my general résumé or my personal perspectives. On this site, you can also take a deeper dive into my work experience and fun projects.

My work philosophy

🔭 Impact is my North Star

The purpose of work is positive impact on the world. Impact is driving humanity forward, and ideas generally excite me in proportion to their potential positive impact. The ultimate impact is creating something from nothing, sharing big positive gains at scale. Change is not automatic—we have to create it. In the state of nature, everything trends to chaos. See: TACO

🧠 I am a natural non-comformist

When approaching any problem, look at the big picture and question everything. The most impactful ideas are innovative, and the most innovative ideas aren’t being executed at scale by anyone else. When imagine the future and think backwards, we won’t get there by repeating existing processes.

🪟 I am transparent

I value your time too much to waste it, even if that requires being direct. Transparency is the simplest approach. I say what I mean upfront and strive to avoid saying anything else. The recipe to win is directly creating genuine value for your user. Anything less is a local maxima. See: Business Communication Memo

🗿 I am an optimistic cynic

We are no greater than our biology, and that’s OK, as evolution often has things figured out better than we ever will! People are not perfect but are generally good. Incentives are a superpower, and we can achieve optimal outcomes by aligning both our short-term and long-term incentives. Humans are evolutionarily wired to make self-interested short-term decisions, but altruism is the ultimate expression of humanity once our needs are met. Be sure to don your oxygen mask before assisting others.

🌱 I have a strong growth mindset

The best way to create progress is to constantly push the limits of one’s own comfort zone. Humility is the root of creativity—when approaching a new problem, the first step is to drop everything and learn, for the wise man knows that he knows nothing. You have to understand the rules before you can purposefully break them. If everything feels easy and 100% in control, you’re going too slow. Really hard things are the only things truly worth trying, and you can always try again. I LOVE feedback—please reach out and let me know what you think of this page!

🚀 I believe deeply in myself and ability to create value

I believe in an internal locus of control, as I would go insane with any other approach. I can do anything, but life is too short to learn to do everything. No problem is too difficult, but many are poorly defined. Any real problem has an actionable solution. Power laws and compounding are deeply rooted in nature, so there’s no reason to settle for anything less than an asymmetric upside. While we all know VERY few things, all things can be learned or tried.

Some of my favorite questions:

How can we harness evolutionarily-rooted cognitive biases to improve human behavior?
How can we un-break incentives in the healthcare system to improve, simplify, and lower the cost of patient care?
How can we make the market for talent more efficient?
How can we solve water shortages in the Colorado River Basin?
How can we ensure that the ever-blurring line between our brains and computers happens purposefully ethically, resulting in the optimal outcome? What is the optimal outcome? What does the ideal brain-computer interface look like? What could we extrapolate from a perfect brain map?
What is the best way to learn?
How can we generally improve signal to noise ratio in the data that drives our everyday decisions?
How can we better understand traumatic brain injury (TBI/concussion) and neurodegenerative diseases?

Product thoughts

Other thoughts

Human computer interaction is more important than automating everything

Can’t violate thermo for energy

The market for talent is inefficient

Rights cannot be positive, only negative

Computers are compliments to humans, not substitutes —> opportunity in interface

Beef is good for planet

Weather/surfing/avy cool bc see things where previously could not

Cognitive biases

Science and state of nature

Go thru belasco class notes