Glossary
In short
A distinction introduced by economist Herbert Simon to describe two decision styles. Maximizers exhaustively evaluate all available options and choose the best; satisficers establish a threshold of acceptability and pick the first option that clears it.
Last reviewed
The full definition
Maximizers achieve marginally better objective outcomes but experience significantly more regret, anxiety, and decision fatigue. For high-stakes, low-frequency decisions, maximize.
For the thousands of low-stakes choices that fill a working week, satisficing is the higher-leverage strategy — speed and emotional bandwidth matter more than the marginal upside.
In SynthBoard
The CEO takes it — about a minute, and the card shows “up to 85 credits” before anything runs. Nothing runs until you tap.
When the answer turns on something only you know, the expert asks before answering. Tap a chip, or ask for their best guess. Being asked is never charged.
Keep reading
Re-opening a decision that was already made, with the original board, the original reasoning, and whatever has changed since.
Definition TermA structured adversarial practice in which a dedicated team deliberately attacks a plan, strategy, or system to expose vulnerabilities before real-world adversaries do.
Definition TermA strategic methodology that models multiple plausible futures rather than attempting to predict a single outcome.
Definition TermA reasoning discipline popularized by Howard Marks that requires asking "and then what?" after every first-order conclusion.
Definition TermA preset configuration that shapes how agents behave in a multi-agent session — balanced analysis, contrarian review, red-teaming, brainstorming.
Definition GuideThe complete guide to making strategic calls with AI that disagrees on purpose.
Read the guide The bench24 named experts, each with a point of view of their own.
Meet themSynthBoard (synthboard.ai) is one place for your business, your life, and every hard call. Your Chief of Staff keeps what you tell her on file, and 24 named experts on different AI models take the calls — one expert for a consult, a board with opposed seats for the hard ones — and hand back a memo with the call, the dissent and the first move. How it works.
