Oakland Athletics' Assistant General Manager Paul DePodesta: “I was in Las Vegas for a weekend playing blackjack. A person at the table to my right had 17 and said they wanted a hit. The whole table stopped and even the dealer asked if he was sure he wanted a hit. Finally he said he wanted a hit. The dealer deals the card and of course it was a four. What did the dealer say? “Nice hit.” But I'm thinking, you're kidding me. It was a terrible hit. Even though it ended up working out, it wasn't a good decision.”
He doesn't explicitly connect the dots, but in the speech DePodesta talks about "being the house", in that an organization needs to figure out the probabilities that a certain way of doing business will be successful. In the annecdote, he seems to be suggesting that it is in the best interests of the house to not only know the probabilities, but to encourage (or at least not discourage) competitors' view that the way they are doing things is the correct way when in reality the probabilities of success are low.
Management by Baseball has more detailed coverage of the speech, and has promised more in the near future.
