nazayuwe

The power of inflated self-assessment

avallecillac@gmail.com (Alejandro Vallecilla) — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The power of inflated self-assessment

I’ve been thinking lately about a certain behavior of people that tend to be loud and vocal. It started at work, with those colleagues who like to be seen and seem to be truly believers of the idea that having opinions on everything, regardless of their actual knowledge over the topic, is the way to be acknowledged in the form of visual recognition, mere remembrance, priority when new opportunities emerge, salary raises, or promotions.

I find it somehow exhausting when by chance I get to converse with these characters. For starters, they are loud. They use high volume as a wedge to position themselves in the conversation. They try to lead the conversation from the beginning and control the narrative. Not only that, but they constantly laugh at their own silly jokes. You know, they want to be charming and throw you nonsense analogies or odd political references that register as funny in their brains. Sometimes, I find myself mimicking their behavior, which shows how effective and powerful these tactics are and tells little of me, as the writer of this piece, how hypocritical.

After I manage to compose myself and go back to my true self, the next aspect that catches my eye is their lack of depth in the topics they embark on. Oversimplification: the fallacy of the single cause. Masters of casual reductionism. They don’t leave room for other points of view and jump right into their conclusion, making it really unattractive to debate. Well, that’s the thing; I don’t think they like to debate. It would take them out of their position of power and comfortable podium.

I shared this thought with a group of friends last night, and many of them realized they’ve met a lot of people behaving the same. Especially, in their professional life, not just in software engineering as is my experience. So I kept pulling that thread to try to understand whether there’s a psychological study that could explain this behavior, to not merely be prejudiced, and found quite an interesting paper by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”. They ran an experiment with undergraduate students: four studies on humor, logical reasoning, grammar and wason selection tasks. They take a test, then estimate two things: your percentile rank relative to peers, and how many questions you got right.

Let’s go through the conclusions of the experiment and look for the explanations:

Students in the bottom quartile (referred to in the paper as Incompetent Individuals) rated themselves higher than they scored, but not only that, they rated themselves above average in every one of the four studies, thus being unable to recognize they had performed poorly.
Students in the top quartile (referred to in the paper as Highly Competent Individuals) made the opposite error during their self-appraisals. They underestimated their abilities and performance relative to their peers, but they were accurate about their own raw score.

Weeks later, students from the bottom and top quartiles were brought back and given five completed tests written by their peers to grade. The instruction was to say how many questions each of the five test-takers had answered correctly.

The pattern here is that both types of individuals have a bias when self-assessing themselves relative to their peers, but only the highly competent are able to recognize their competence. The psychologist attributes this to a lack of metacognitive skills; the skills required to produce a correct answer are the same skills required to recognize a correct answer.

The behavior shown by the highly competent individuals, Kruger and Dunning call it the burden of expertise. “Just as extremely low performances are likely to be associated with slightly higher perceptions of performance, so too are extremely high performances likely to be associated with slightly lower perceptions of performance.” accounting the underestimation to a regression effect (regression toward the mean), but let’s focus on the psychological side which is what I’m trying to get here, and that’s the false-consensus effect: they found the questions “manageable” and assumed everyone else did too.

For the Study 4, the wason selection tasks, Kruger and Dunning added a procedure that consisted in handing over a training packet (10 minutes) to a randomly selected half of the total participants. The impact of the training packet was significantly positive on the trained bottom-quartile participants (Incompetent Individuals) who graded 9.3 out of 10 compared to the untrained bottom-quartile participants who graded 3.5 out of 10. Their self-assessment accuracy improved. Ten minutes of training was enough to make people better on a test they had already finished. Nothing about the test changed, only the instrument that reads the results.

The underlying topic I’m trying to address in this article is the overconfidence shown by the people who lack the skills to be correct. The behaviors I mentioned above are not applicable to every one with such character. But for the sake of this writing, I’ll keep referring to the bottom-quartile (Incompetent Individuals) as the loud ones, which I think is less controversial than Kruger and Dunning’s denotation.

In a room where engineering discussions are happening, the ones who have spent 5+ years inside a Kubernetes control plane and troubleshooting numerous incidents have no internal brain signal telling them that the upgrade path they can describe from memory is not common knowledge. They have the false-consensus error, and it manifests as modesty rather than as a faulty behavior. They stay quiet in the design meeting because the point seems to be obvious to make, and it is obvious, but it is not for the rest of the room.

Meanwhile, the loud one(s) in that room come from the position with the least information and with real conviction, because a person who cannot see the gap between their answer and a better one will blindly and loudly go down the error path. Volume and certainty are not correlated with competence in this scenario. They are inversely correlated with the ability to detect one’s mistakes.

The authors note that people rarely receive negative feedback about their abilities in ordinary life. That is one reason why the self-appraisal miscalibration goes on after a lifetime of educative events. Telling somebody they are wrong is not the right intervention. Telling them they are experts does not make them experts. Training them is the right intervention and the right path to make them experts.

La nube en español coloquial

avallecillac@gmail.com (Alejandro Vallecilla) — Mon, 18 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

En esta aventura, quiero empezar por explicar qué es La Nube en palabras del mundo real.

Estamos a punto de empezar a leer un montón de nuevas palabras que pueden ser muy técnicas, por eso, vamos a usar una metáfora para amenizar un poco la lectura.

La metáfora de la nevera

Centro de Datos = Nevera (Así es, la nevera de nuestra casa).

Computadores/Servidores = Compartimentos de la nevera.

Aplicaciones = Alimentos almacenados en los compartimentos.

La nevera mantiene la temperatura ideal para preservar los alimentos. Centro de datos es una bodega llena de computadores muy potentes y otro tipo de equipos. De igual manera que tu computador personal, estos super computadores se calientan y eventualmente podrían dañarse, por eso, requieren de una temperatura del ambiente adecuada para mantenerse estables y funcionales.
Los compartimentos vienen en diferentes tamaños y algunos incluso con tapa para mayor conservación de alimentos. Computadores/Servidores tiene distintos diseños, especificaciones técnicas y sistemas operativos para hospedar diferentes tipos de aplicaciones.
Los alimentos son almacenados y organizados dependiendo de su tipo: frutas, vegetales, carnes, lácteos, etc. Aplicaciones son programas instalados en computadores. Y estos son con los que interactuamos cada día de nuestras vidas desde celulares inteligentes y computadores en casa u oficinas. Lo creas o no, aplicaciones como WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram y Google están todas instaladas en super computadores y centros de datos descritos anteriormente.

Espero que estés siguiendo el hilo de la metáfora. Ahora, llevemos estos conceptos a la práctica y miremos cómo se van a convertir en la famosa Nube y cómo nos afecta en nuestro día día.

Caso de éxito de una Heladería

Supongamos que acabas de montar una heladería en tu casa. Has comprado una nevera pequeña para almacenar las frutas, leche, otros ingredientes, y claro, helado. Para conectar con la metáfora, ahora tienes un pequeño centro de datos, unos cuantos computadores/servidores y algunas aplicaciones instaladas en ellos.

Luego de cuatro meses, tu negocio ha empezado a florecer y la pequeña nevera no es lo suficientemente grande para almacenar la gran cantidad de ingredientes que has comprado para suplir tu creciente demanda. Luego de hacer cuentas, decides comprar dos neveras industriales para no preocuparte por almacenamiento por un buen tiempo. Las neveras industriales conservarán los ingredientes por mayor tiempo y permitirán el almacenamiento de nuevos ingredientes para los nuevos sabores de helado que agregaste a tu menú.

Felicitaciones!!! tu negocio es todo un éxito y la demanda está por los cielos. Has abierto cuatro locales adicionales y, por supuesto, has comprado más neveras. Sin embargo, ahora los costos operacionales son más altos, el mantenimiento de las neveras es un nuevo dolor de cabeza ya que son parte fundamental de la operación del negocio. El transporte de los ingredientes a todos locales es ineficiente, toma mucho tiempo y planeación logística. Incluso, has contratado personal para todos los nuevos departamentos de tu empresa.

En este punto, ya empiezas a padecer los mismos problemas como muchas empresas, donde la tecnología es fundamental para el negocio, padecen. Estas empresas requieren muchos computadores ubicados en cuartos con condiciones específicas (pequeños centros de datos) en cada uno de sus locales o sedes.

Resulta que tu marca de helados se ha posicionado en el mercado como una de las favoritas por la gente y se ha expandido a nivel nacional. Decides franquiciar el negocio para poder crecer más rápido y delegar la administración. A esta áltura, tienes múltiples sedes por todo el país con cientos de refrigeradores, mucho más modernos y potentes a los que adquiriste inicialmente, donde puedes almacenar cantidades gigantescas de materia prima para ser despachados eficientemente a cada unas de las franquicias.

Como puedes darte cuenta, tu modelo de negocio ha cambiado drásticamente. Ya no es simplemente una heladería, se ha convertido en un proveedor de servicios de refrigeración a larga escala y cualquier otra empresa que requiera este tipo de servicio es ahora un cliente potencial: grandes carnicerías, otras heladerías, supermercados, cadenas de restaurantes, compañías de procesamiento y producción de alimentos, laboratorios farmacéuticos, etc.

Volvamos a nuestra metáfora

Actualmente, eres propietario de miles de Centros de datos ubicados en inmensas bodegas distribuidos por todo el país. Lo que significa que posees miles o millones de computadores/servidores y aplicaciones instaladas. Estas aplicaciones ya no son solamente las que necesitas para operar tu heladería, también las de todos los clientes que ahora te pagan para que tu las hospedes y así ellos no tienen que construir toda la infraestructura que tu has construido a lo largo del tiempo. Esta robusta, compleja y gigantesca infraestructura es lo que se conoce como La Nube. De alguna manera, ahora eres un Proveedor de la Nube.

Hoy en día, hay muchos proveedores de la nube alrededor del mundo. Sin embargo, como en toda industría, hay ciertos nombres que de seguro has escuchado: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba Cloud, Salesforce, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud y la lista continua.

Estos proveedores de la nube, tienen instalaciones en cada continente ubicadas estratégicamente en países que les permiten ofrecer servicios de calidad a sus cliente en todo el mundo.

De ahora en adelante, cada vez que tengas tu teléfono inteligente en tu mano, que estés trabajando en tu computador personal, cuando subas tus fotos o documentos a Google Drive, iCloud o Dropbox, recuerda que todo la información están siendo almacenada en algún computador de uno de estos centros de datos ubicados en algún lugar del mundo, y que gracias al Internet, acceder a estos lugares remotos es solo cuestión de milisegundos.

The Cloud, in human words

avallecillac@gmail.com (Alejandro Vallecilla) — Sat, 16 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

For this journey, I wanted to start by explaining what The Cloud is in real-world words.

We are about to start reading a lot of new words that might sound too technical, so let´s use a metaphor to smooth things up.

The Fridge metaphor

DataCenter = Fridge (Yes, the fridge from your house).

Computers/Servers = Compartments of the fridge.

Applications = Food stored in the compartments.

The fridge keeps the ideal temperature to preserve the food inside. Datacenter is a large facility full of racks with powerful computers and many other devices. Just like your laptop, these super computers can heat up and eventually break, so proper refrigeration is required to keep them stable.
Compartments have different sizes and some even have a lid for long preservation. Computers/Servers have different design, specifications and operating systems to host different types of applications.
Food is organized in the compartments based on their type: Fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, etc. Applications are programs installed in computers. And these are the ones you interact with every day of your life from your smartphones and computers. Believe it or not, these applications such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Google are all installed in the super computers and Datacenters described above.

I hope you are still with me. Now, lets put these concepts in practice and see how they will become “The Cloud” and how it impacts us.

The ice cream shop business success case

Let’s say you just started a small home made ice cream shop. You bought a small fridge to store fruits, milk, rest of ingredients and, of course, ice cream. To follow up our metaphor, you now have a mini Datacenter, with a couple of computers and some applications installed on them.

After four months, your business starts thriving and the small fridge is not large enough to store the ramp-up of ingredients. After some calculations, you decide to buy two industrial fridges so you don’t have to worry about storage for a while. Industrial fridges will prolong ingredients conservation and store a wider sort of new ingredients for the additional flavors you offer now.

Congratulations, your business is very popular and demand is growing steadily. You open a couple of new shops and thereby more fridges. Costs are now higher, fridges’ maintenance has become a thing to be dealt with as they are an essential asset to run the business. Transport of ingredients across all shops is overwhelming and very inefficient. You have hired new staff specialized in the novel areas your company has.

At this point, you start to suffer the same problems as many companies which their business are supported by technology. They start having a lot of servers located in rooms with specific conditions -mini datacenters- across all locations.

Your ice cream brand has positioned in the market as one of the favorite by people and has gone national and you decided to franchised the business so you can scale faster and delegate management. By now, you have several facilities across the country full of fridges -and many other types of devices- that store huge amounts of ingredients to be delivered to all shops. The fridges you have now are way too far ahead, specs wise, from the firsts you bought.

You may noticed that your business model has changed dramatically. You are no longer only an ice cream shop, you’ve become a fridge provider at large scale and any other business that require this type of service is a potential customer, such as: butcher shops, ice cream brands, supermarkets, restaurant chains, food processing/manufacturing companies, pharmaceutical laboratories, etc.

Let’s go back to our metaphor.

You are now the owner of thousands of Datacenters located in large warehouses distributed across the country. Which means that you have thousands/millions of computers/servers and even more applications installed, these applications are not only the ones to run your ice cream business, but also applications from other customers that pay you to host them so they don’t have to build all the infrastructure you have built over the time. This robust infrastructure is what we call a Cloud. In some manner, you are a Cloud provider.

Nowadays, there are many cloud providers around the world. However, there are some big players in this industry that you might have heard of: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba Cloud, Salesforce, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud and the list continues.

These cloud providers, have facilities in every continent, located strategically in countries to be able to provide quality services to their customers world wide.

From now on, every time you interact with your favorite application in your smartphone or you upload a file to Google Drive or iCloud, remember that the information they store and all the cool features you enjoy live in one computer on a datacenter located somewhere in the world, and thanks to Internet, reaching that remote place is just a matter of milliseconds.