Basics 311 min
3. Mental models: simplify complex systems
Use a small set of mental models to reason about trade-offs and avoid overfitting.
What you'll learn
- How to compress complexity into a few levers
- When a model is useful vs. misleading
- How to sanity-check assumptions
Key insights
A good model is not 'true'; it's useful. Keep it simple, test it against reality, and update when it breaks.