When my wife and I were considering leaving London and moving back to Warsaw, we felt a lot of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, most of our friends were sharing clickbaity headlines of despair. Depending who was sharing it, either the whole country was turning into a totalitarian state or it was in a state of moral apocalypse driven by the EU. On the other hand, when we visited grandparents during the summer at their log cabin, the lazy afternoons on the porch felt very cozy, safe, and relaxed. The only thing that was clear: articles shared on social media were exaggerating on both ends of the political spectrum.

The Netflix special "The Social Dilemma" has tried to popularize what most of the tech industry has been aware of for a decade. We life in a world of social media bubbles. Each of us are subject to massive confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to discounting any facts which are inconsistent with our current beliefs. So we only believe facts which are already consistent with our current beliefs, accumulating unfounded confidence in how right we are. Social media amplifies this dynamic. If our friends keep repeating our own views back to us, we radicalize in our opinions.

This dynamic is similar to that of cults. Once you are on the inside, any information sourced from outside the cult is discounted as unreliable. So despite being able to think for yourself rationally, you end up believing that staying in the cult is the only reasonable choice you have–even as they serve pink Kool-Aid to thousands of naked people in the desert.

So why am I writing about confirmation bias on an innovation blog…of all places? Because it’s the underlying problem behind the most common reason startups fail: building a product that nobody wants. And despite Lean Startup and similar reasonable approaches, 40% of new product failures from startups and corporates have been occurring for this reason since studies the 1970s.

I would even say that the real problem isn’t rational. We need to go deeper to understand why they haven’t reduced the frequency of this problem. The founder is so convinced of their vision, they avoid gathering feedback or they discount any feedback inconsistent with their vision. Even if it comes from prospective customers. Just like believing every headline you read on Facebook.

Bias and false beliefs

The nature of early stage innovation is that small changes in trajectory can have massive implications years into the future. To borrow an aeronautics analogy, this is similar to the proverbial autopilot mechanism on most planes. For most of a long haul flight, a plane is a few degrees off course. But as long as it constantly corrects and readjust for the right destination, it will get there.

If the autopilot didn't correct in the early stages, it could miss the mark by a massive margin. This is why disconfirming evidence is useful (necessary in my opinion) in this context. If the autopilot mechanism doesn't know you are two degrees of course when flying from Europe across the Atlantic, you'll end up in Florida when you expect to land at JFK airport in New York. Let's say the autopilot mechanism breaks and the pilots fall asleep once the plane reaches a cruising altitude. Some of the planes will arrive at JFK regardless. Most won't; early diversions off course (even small ones) will have the largest impact on where the plane "arrives".