Epistemic humility

Most people are way too certain about things. About their beliefs. Their knowledge. Their understanding of how things work.

Had an interesting moment last week during a technical meeting. Senior engineer was absolutely certain about how a particular system worked. Had been working with it for years. Turned out to be completely wrong.

The fascinating part wasn't the mistake. It was how being certain prevented him from even considering other possibilities.

Epistemic humility is simple: Understanding that most of what you know might be wrong. Or incomplete. Or only true in specific contexts.

Some practical examples:

1. In programming, you write a function to validate email addresses. Seems simple:

   • Check for @ symbol

   • Check for domain Done, right?

   
   

   Then you learn about:

   • Multiple @ symbols

   • Unicode characters in domains

   • IP addresses as domains

   • Quoted strings

   • Comments in email addresses

   • Different TLD lengths

   
   

   What you thought was a 5-line regex becomes a complex validation problem that even RFC standards debate about.

   
   

   That's epistemic humility in programming. The moment you are sure of your initial approach, you're probably missing a dozen edge cases.

   
   

2. In marketing, running Facebook ads seems simple. Set budget, choose audience, upload creative. But real epistemic humility hits when you:

   
   

   Think you're targeting 25-35 year old males in Bangalore, but didn't realize:

   
   

   • Facebook includes people "interested" in Bangalore

   • Age is self-reported

   • Your ideal customer might be logged into their spouse's account

   • Work locations differ from home locations

   
   

   Or you're certain about your ad performance because CTR is high. Then you learn:

   
   

   • Accidental clicks from fat fingers

   • Bots inflating numbers

   • People clicking but bouncing instantly

   • Competitor clicks draining budget

   
   

   What looks like straightforward metrics often hides layers of uncertainty. That's why the best marketers test everything, even things they're "sure" about.

   
   

3. In business decisions, you launch a premium product at a high price point, completely certain about your target audience - "urban professionals with high disposable income."

   
   

   Seems obvious. Then reality hits:

   • Your biggest buyers are actually small business owners

   • They're not using it the way you intended

   • They care about features you thought were minor

   • Your actual customer has different problems than your imagined customer

   
   

   Or pricing decisions: You're sure $100/month is perfect because:

   • Competitors charge similar amounts

   • Your cost structure works

   • Market research says customers will pay

   
   

   Then you discover:

   • Competitors have hidden revenue streams

   • Customers compare you to cheaper alternatives you didn't consider

   • Your actual usage patterns break your cost assumptions

   • The decision maker isn't who you thought it was

   
   

   The most expensive certainty in business is being so sure of something that you stop questioning your assumptions.

The interesting part is how this changes decision-making. When you're not certain, you:

• Test more

• Ask better questions

• Listen differently

• Build in redundancy plans

• Plan for being wrong

One of our startups almost failed because I was "certain" about my customer's behaviour. When we launched our academy, it was launched with just one program, Intro to Programmatic Advertising. That made us immediate profits and picked up traction relatively quickly. I quickly made the assumption that:

1. People love our training

2. People love getting trained on digital advertising concepts

3. They love getting trained by people who are currently working in companies

None of the above assumptions were wrong, but my decision based on this was:

Lets set up bite sized, low cost training programs over the weekends, 4 on Sat and 4 on Sun, Rs. 450 each and let people register and join whichever ones they wanted to.

• The low cost angle failed - People thought of it as being too cheap.

• The multiple sessions every weekend failed - Choice Paralysis (read "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz's)

But here's the real paradox: You need to act decisively while holding uncertainty. Make clear decisions while accepting you might be wrong.

The most capable people I know share this trait: They operate with strong views, but weakly held. Ready to change their mind when evidence suggests otherwise.

In the end, it's not about knowing less. It's about being more honest about what you know.