The Ostrich Effect: How Optimism Bias Contributes to Project Failure

Picture an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, convinced that if it can’t see the danger, the danger isn’t real. Now picture a founder doing the exact same thing with a project that isn’t going to plan. That’s the idea at the center of this episode of Brains Byte Back, where Dr. Atif Ansar breaks down why smart, capable people avoid the bad news they most need to hear.

Early in his career, Dr. Atif set out to prove that big dams were a smart bet for developing countries, fully expecting the numbers to back him up, and instead the data told him the opposite. Budgets doubled, timelines stretched out for years, and by his own admission he almost didn’t want to see it.

“If I had not approached it with the kind of emotional neutrality that, as an academic, you are almost drilled to approach it, I...

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