No Regrets? It’s Possible If You Think About Risks, Not Results

10 July 2008   |   by Presh Talwalkar   |   3 Comments »   |  Print This Article Print This Article

Mountain Biker
source: andy_c via flickr

Earlier this week my car was low on gas, and I pulled into the first station I could find. I filled up the tank, thinking prices would be on the rise.

The next day I received an unpleasant surprise. Gas prices dropped about ten cents per gallon. I clearly overpaid by a few dollars. How was I supposed to feel?

Ten years ago I would have been furious. I used to hate when gas prices went down after I filled up, or when an item went on clearance after I bought it. Like most people, I’ve spent many hours complaining and feeling stupid about wasting money. Looking back, I should have lightened up.

Most of us are too critical of our decisions

We think we’re supposed to make the best decision all the time. In fact, most of us do a pretty good job of comparison shopping, talking to friends, and networking to find the best deal. But even then, most of us feel regret when we fail.

Hindsight is too tough on our decisions. We think about the stock we didn’t invest in, the job we didn’t take, or the property that has never lived up to its potential.

We lose sight of the good things we do that avoid mistakes. It’s easy to forget that a seatbelt provides safety if you never get into a collision. It is certainly not a waste to be over protected at a low cost.

So what’s wrong with our conventional thinking?

Our main mistake is judging decisions based on results

In this logic, a bad result means a bad decision, or a good result means a good decision. The very same decision can be seen in two different lights, depending on the outcome. For instance, the winner of a lottery is praised for having made a good decision while the millions of losers are lumped as having made bad decisions.

Such logic is absurd, but it appears in many places. Just the other day I listened to sports writers discussing Tiger Woods. He played the US Open on a bad knee, won the tournament in dramatic style, but then needed season-ending surgery. This was a huge blow, and the sports writers debated whether Tiger made the right choice to play. Most of them ultimately decided it was a good decision because he won.

But what if he had lost–would that have meant the decision to play was bad? Again, this thinking is absurd. It was risky for him to play, regardless of whether he won or lost. The only relevant factor is Tiger Wood’s assessment of risk, and that’s something only he can decide. Understanding that is the key to making better decisions systematically.

We should instead be making decisions based on risk

Risk is the relevant factor. Decisions are about considering likely and unlikely outcomes and making a sensible choice. No matter what decision you make, there will always be times when it looks bad in hindsight.

Take the decision to buy health insurance, for instance. I hear many young people say they don’t insure because they don’t think they’ll need it. It would be a waste for a healthy person to buy it, they think.

This mindset is so common that even comedian Chris Rock expresses it:

They shouldn’t even call it insurance.
They just should call it “in case [of bad things].”

I give a company some money
in case [bad stuff] happens.

Now, if [bad things] don’t happen,
shouldn’t I get my money back?

Besides not making economic sense, such thinking mistakenly focuses on outcomes of health or sickness rather than the uncertainty and risks. The reality is that health is unpredictable, and insurance helps smooth the costs. It’s the risks, not the results, that matter.

Think about it. You should be happy to waste insurance premiums because that would mean you were fortunate to be healthy. It is analogous to wearing a seatbelt and driving the speed limit your whole life and never getting into a car crash.

But I don’t mean to single out health insurance. Thinking about risks rather than results is useful for almost every problem because life involves randomness.

Here are some areas where you should think about risks, not results:

  • buying any kind of insurance (risks: catastrophic loss, foreseeable costs)
  • speeding on the highway (risks: getting a ticket, crashing into another car)
  • investing in a stock (risks: inflation, loss of investment)
  • home-ownership versus renting (risks: flexibility, housing market changes)
  • choosing a job (risks: stability of employment, lifestyle changes)

Judge the risks, make a call, and then let the dice roll as they may.

No regrets.



How to Use Lies for Good, or Why Honesty Isn’t the Best Policy

8 July 2008   |   by Presh Talwalkar   |   No Comments »   |  Print This Article Print This Article

Lie Cake
image source: karindalziel via flickr

Every Tuesday is a Game theory article at Mind Your Decisions

Whoever said “honesty is the best policy” had to be lying. Lies have saved many messengers from being shot, and many couples from explosive arguments about body image (“Honey, do I look fat in this? Tell me the truth…”).

There’s certainly much to be said about honesty as a moral principle. I encourage you to be as honest as you’re comfortable with.

The problem is that we don’t live in theory—we need to asses matters practically. And in this light, game theory suggests that lies can be beneficial to all parties. In many cases, a policy of occasionally lying is more effective than a policy of strict honesty.

The reason is that lies can paradoxically make the truth more convincing. I want to discuss three examples of effective lies to illustrate.

Effective Lie #1: “Give me a lower rate or I’m canceling!”

There are some picky customers that seek perfection, the so-called “rate-chasers.” Most of us are content to pay a reasonable price for good service, and that means paying a little extra to avoid the hassle of switching to an imperfect competitor.

Most customers are lying when they claim they’ll cancel. The truth is they want a lower rate, but how can they make it possible?

A customer could list all the reasons a lower rate is beneficial for both sides. The business avoids customer acquisition costs. The customer doesn’t have to change service.

But these truths aren’t enough to convince a business. And so the honest reasons need to be emphasized by the dishonest threat of leaving.

I’ve had several calls where I’ve threatened to cancel and the agent knew it was a hollow threat. Nonetheless, the lie was a good enough threat and I was able to get a good discount.

Effective Lie #2: “I’ll never be with you—ever!”

My friend in college was crushed. Things were going so well with the woman he was courting. They had gone to a few movies and dinners and there were signals on both sides.

But things fell apart when he wanted to make it official. She was stunned at the situation and really not interested in him.

They had “the talk” where she indicated her interest was friendly and not romantic. And she even went further and told him that she’d never be with him—ever. It was this last statement that particularly bothered my friend, as it gave him no hope.

He vented his feelings with me and I was thinking about how to make him feel better. How could I get him out of the rut?

At the time, a two-part idea struck me.

–First, I wanted to show him there was hope. It is inconceivable the woman really would never want to be with him. If they really were a good match, time would work it out.

–Second, I wanted him to make the best response. The lie wasn’t really meant to crush him, but it rather served as a signal that he should stop pursuing her. His best strategy would be to move on and find someone better.

Why was I so sure the woman was lying? I told my friend that she had to be lying because she can’t predict the future. There are thousands of stories and movies about women that change feelings about men. People change over time. She couldn’t possibly predict the person she would be in a few years, so how can she claim to never be interested in him?

And that brings the next question: why did she lie in the first place? The reason is that the lie made the truth more convincing. She had already told my friend she wasn’t interested. But such a statement isn’t strong enough to stop most guys. And that’s where the lie served its purpose.

Besides, what was her alternative? If she told him that she could see them together in the future, then she would be sending too optimistic a message. She needed to lie about the future to ensure my friend stopped going after her in the present.

Here’s my summary of it all: take heart if you’re rejected, but know your best response is usually to move on.

Effective Lie #3: “If you don’t listen to me, I’m calling my lawyer and talking to the press.”

Some people pursue lawsuits and talk to the media. But not most. This is another case where a dishonest threat is used to prop an honest demand.

I’ve heard a lot of people say this to companies. It’s usually after a series of interactions of poor customer service. Most people learn that honesty only gets you so far.

My friend had received a defective phone from a wireless company. He sent it back to them. He got a letter indicating that the phone suffered water damage and it that was not under warranty. This was made up as there was no water damage.

When my friend called and pleaded his case, he was shut down. He didn’t have much leverage because the company was in possession of the phone. None of his honest attempts were working.

And so my friend sneakily figured out how to contact a top ranking executive (as I described in my previous newsletter). He threatened to talk to his lawyer and the press.

He had absolutely no intention of doing so—it would have cost him a lot of money and time. He would rather pay up a few dollars to get a working phone.

But the lie was effective at making the truth get through. The company quickly issued him an apology and compensated him for the hassle.

I don’t know anyone that has pursued legal action, and yet the threat keeps businesses honest.

Related reading

The Ultimatum Game and the Hollywood Strike—how threats and punishment relate

How to Rob a Store and Get Away with It—Bizop News on threats in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

The Grammer Dilemma— pratiksrandomwalk on improving British public schools and how the threat of private schools changes incentives

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10 Things about the Working World I Wish I Knew in College

3 July 2008   |   by Presh Talwalkar   |   14 Comments »   |  Print This Article Print This Article

Office Space
source: J.T.Py0cursor via flickr

Let’s face it—each new stage in life brings dramatic changes that are difficult to anticipate. No matter how smart you can be in college, you will still get surprised by the working world.

I faced these surprises myself. I thought the working world would be hard since it lacked the freedom I had at Stanford. I was wrong. During my first job, I had much more free time than during college in part because I didn’t have to study on weekends.

I encountered many other surprises along the way. In the spirit of guiding others, here are the top 10 things I learned while working:

1. You have money now–people will listen to you

I learned this lesson early. While still in college, my friends and I had trekked up to San Francisco to look for apartments. We scheduled to meet an agent to show us a few appealing listings. But when we arrived, there was no agent. She flaked on us.

We dug up the contact number and soon the agent was casually apologizing, saying she got caught up in something. It was then my friend suspected the excuse was fishy. And then it hit him: we had sent our inquiry from a college “.edu” email account. This agent likely thought we were poor graduate students and not worth her time.

My friend said we were disappointed because we were serious renters. And then he mentioned our combined income (for three consultants).

She quickly freed up and gave us first-class treatment.

2. Problem is, now that you have money, you’re expected to spend it

Apartments can get expensive for reasons other than rent. Basic furniture can set you back thousands, and then there’s the matter of decorating. Most of us got by in college with a few simple posters and second-hand furniture. But now that you’re working, you’re expected to live a better lifestyle.

You’ll see people buy into this notion and spend unnecessarily. My friend admitted that he threw away all of his college posters. When I asked him why, he said “I’ve got money now and I’m supposed to use it.” Oh and use it he did. He bought framed artwork costing $100 per piece.

Oh, and there are other subtle ways you’ll be expected to spend more, on things like clothes, gifts, or anything where fashion matters.

This is one area where it pays to be eccentric, or so I felt. I had minimalist furnishings, avoided fashion, and bought as many furnishings second hand as I could. One of the best deals I had was going to an estate sale where my roommates and I got a third of our kitchen cookware for $20. Garage sales and moving sales were also useful.

Of course, if you do choose a frugal lifestyle, be aware many people will keep applying the pressure to spend more. That’s what surprised me the most. Why would anyone care how I decorate my room? But people do.

3. You’re on a team–you don’t need to compete for grades

In college, course success was usually measured by beating the curve. Professors often forced a distribution of grades, meaning even very high marks could be a B grade if everyone happened to do better.

This is why the working world can be liberating. Work projects were like being on a great team in a school project, with even fewer slackers. People helped you in times of need, and often projects were split across different offices.

It reminded me about my seventh grade science class. He was an amazing teacher, and one time asked us what companies value the most. This had nothing to do with science, but he was willing to spend time telling us this. We spent a whole class discussing ideas, proposing things like initiative and intelligence. Just before the bell rang he told us the answer was “team work.” None of us believed him then, but looking back, I would say he is 100 percent correct.

4. You need to earn trust, perhaps by doing some mindless tasks

During my first project, I was manually entering data into a spreadsheet. Part of me was curious why my company wanted a college graduate to do this. The other part of me was happy I was getting paid like a consultant for doing the work of a temp.

I eventually got frustrated and asked my mentor why I was doing such menial work. I reminded him I had a brain. He laughed it off and gave a telling answer. I was doing this easy work to gain trust.

“You see, Presh, we’re dealing with some big clients. The company knows you are smart, but they don’t know how well you do work. We are not going to give you important work right off the bat and risk the company reputation. You have to prove you can do simple things well before you get a chance to do the complicated stuff.”

This is an obvious idea but it never struck me coming from a college background. I didn’t need to earn Professors’ trust to teach a class or do research. I just told them my grade from real analysis or game theory. That was proof enough.

But when money is on the line, it is work experience, not intelligence and potential that matter. Try to keep the introductory tasks in perspective.

5. Hours in the office may be worse than hours in the library

This is a personal observation, but I had a tougher time working 10 hours than spending 10 hours in the library. Some of my friends also agree they worked longer in school than they could on the job. We wondered if it was because our sleep requirement increased as we got older.

I don’t think that’s the case. I think there is a simpler answer: office work can be more stressful. Work projects have so many moving parts and client deadlines. People can literally be waiting on the piece you are completing.

This is much different than studying in a library where all that mattered was an individual choice. I always had a choice to abandon studying and leave. It was that feeling of freedom that relaxed me and helped me study longer.

6. People will actually review your work

In high school, my history teacher made us write a 15 page paper. She emphasized that it had to be 15 pages. Even if we were as terse as Hemingway, we had to write 15 pages. If we didn’t, she would fail us. No questions or appeals.

I heard about someone that had trouble with this requirement. The night before the paper was due, he only had 14 pages. He didn’t have time to research any more, and he had used all the filler material he could think up.

While he turned in 14 pages of paper, he amazing did not fail due to trickery. He estimated the teacher would be too busy reading papers to do more than skim and check the final page number for a “15.”

So he made sure his last page was 15 by skipping a page number during the pagination (I think there was no page 8). The teacher never noticed, and he got a B grade.

I share this story reluctantly because I don’t encourage this behavior. Cheaters should be failed and he got lucky to avoid punishment.

The point is how the teacher made a big deal about page count but then didn’t actually follow through on reviewing it.

In the business world, if things really count, people check your work and formatting. And you don’t want to deceive them, since you are all on the same team.

If something doesn’t look right, you won’t be failed. You’ll simply be asked to fix it.

7. Office location can make a big difference

Looking back, I went to college with only superficial information. I had toured the outside of the campus. But there are some big things I skipped. I didn’t check out dorms. I never stepped inside a classroom or library. And I didn’t even meet any students. Looking back, I can’t realize I made a decision that affected years of my life without actually seeing how that life might be like.

I was about to make the same mistake when interviewing for jobs. For some companies, I indicated several office preferences to broaden my search. For one particular company, I ended up interviewing at two of their locations.

I wondered why I had to actually go to two offices for the same company. Wasn’t the job more or less the same?

Looking back, I can’t believe that’s what I thought. Of course offices matter. The projects can be different. The people are different. The nearby eateries are different.

Before committing to a job, find out some basics. See where your desk might be and get a sample of the life you’ll be living.

8. Coffee shops and happy hours may be as important as meeting rooms

College is almost always social, even in a library. It’s not so much in an office.

People act differently inside their office than they do outside the building. Perhaps it’s because they are worried about political correctness.

I don’t drink coffee or tea as a habit, but I made a point to join peers when making trips to coffee stores. I didn’t buy anything; I just gave them company. I learned a lot of personal things during that time, and it was a nice exercise break as well.

Happy hour also contains a different social element. It is a good time to talk to the people who are too busy when in their office. What other time can you talk to a partner about his first job of being a cab driver 30 years ago?

Remember that work is not just about product. It’s also about being around people you like and building a network of people you know personally.

9. A good project can be as useful as a college class

I thought learning would stop after I left college, and I was glad to see this doesn’t have to be the case.

Now business learning is not the same as academic learning. I can’t say that I would be able to answer questions about all the intricacies of what I learned.

The advantage is that business learning is by nature designed to be directly applicable. If a project calls for exchange rate projections, you won’t necessarily learn all the intricacies of exchange rate parity. But you will learn how traders price exchange rates, which is more practical.

An example: after my first project I visited my friends from school and they asked me what I learned. I told them about how power gets delivered to their house and how the government analyzes competitive concerns with energy mergers and acquisitions.

Now my electrical engineering friend asked me a bunch of questions I couldn’t answer, but he was nevertheless impressed with what I’d learned while “on the job.”

10. It’s still the small things that count

You knew this during college and probably even earlier in your life. It’s not the grades you get, or the activities you do, but it’s the small things that count.

Even though you’ll be making a decent salary, living in a well-furnished apartment, working on a team, and learning a lot, enjoying your job isn’t necessarily about these big things.

It’s about the small joys. For me, that meant playing Nerf basketball during an afternoon break, or preparing a nice meal in the break room, or relaxing with friends and family after a long night.

The fact is that the real joys in life will more or less be the same in the working world. That is something you can be ready for.

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Scientists Use Game Theory to Determine the Importance of Individual Genes

1 July 2008   |   by Presh Talwalkar   |   2 Comments »   |  Print This Article Print This Article

Lego DNA

Source: mknowles via flickr

How can game theory possibly used in genetics?

That’s what I thought when reading about new genetics research. I can’t say I have a grasp on the biology, but after some investigation, I now have a sense of how game theory comes in.

I’ll summarize the news and then consider the role of game theory.

News: scientists show single-gene studies miss the picture

Be weary of headlines that claim scientists have discovered things like the “gene for obesity” or the “gene for intelligence.” These approaches may not be capturing the full picture because of interaction.

The standard research method, reported by Patrick Barry of Science News, is engineering organisms by “knocking out” a single gene and studying the change. The logic is as follows: if a trait does not develop after a single-gene knockout, one could conclude the gene plays a role in the trait.

While single-gene studies are important, there are two obvious limitations to them. First, many traits are the expression of multiple genes. Single-gene knockouts will miss the role of each individual gene. Second, genes could play redundant roles as a type of biological security. Single-gene knockouts will entirely miss the role of the redundant genes because others compensate during the experiment.

New research quantifies how big of a problem this is. Scientists from Israel and Germany have shown that single-gene studies miss at least 33 percent of the genes important for yeast growth. What’s the proposed answer? It is using multiple-gene knockouts to get a better sense of the interaction.

The problem then becomes one of too much information: if multiple genes are important, and some are possibly redundant, how can you quantify the importance of any particular gene?

And this is where game theory comes in. The answer is to reformulate the question in terms of a game. Think about each gene as a “player” and each result as an “outcome.” In this language, the question becomes determining the importance of a particular player to a cooperative outcome. Solutions to this question have been around since 1950.

I am not sure how the geneticists approached the issue, but I do have an idea of the process. I want to show how one can determine power of players using a classic game theory problem that has two redundant workers.

The Glove Game

Imagine there are three workers in a factory. Suppose two workers can only make left-hand gloves while a third can only make right-hand gloves.

Consumers only care about pairs of gloves, so let’s say the owner only cares about producing pairs of gloves–one left-hand and one-right hand together. That is, unpaired gloves serve no purpose. Under these assumptions, how important is each player to the final product?

Intuition indicates that the right-hand glove maker is very important. If that worker calls in sick, or is on strike, then it’s impossible to create the product.

Furthermore, the two workers making the left-hand gloves are individually less important because they perform redundant tasks. If one of them were sick, or on strike, the other might cover.

Nonetheless, the two left-hand glove makers are definitely important as a group. If both called in sick, or both protested, it would be impossible to create the product.

How should the owner fairly assess the value of each worker? How should the workers be paid relative to each other?

The owner needs a tool to compute each worker’s contribution to the whole. Game theory offers several methods, and one common method is the Shapley value. This is the idea that was later applied to create the Shapley-Shubik power index, which I discussed last week with voting power.

The Shapley value is very similar to the Shapley-Shubik power index, but I’ll recap the idea for completeness.

The Shapley Value

  • Informally speaking, the Shapley value for a player is the marginal contribution to a group, when considering all possible orders the group would form.

For the glove game, the Shapley value has the following interpretation. Assume that production takes place sequentially, one player at a time, and in a random order. The Shapley value is the probability a player completes the glove pair, when considering all possible orders of production.

Solution: The Glove Game

Let’s call the players 1L, 2L, 3R for the workers that can make gloves left, left and right.

How important is each player to creating a product?

There are 6 possible production line orders:

1L 2L 3R
1L 3R 2L
2L 1L 3R
2L 3R 1L
3R 1L 2L
3R 2L 1L

The first player that completes the glove is marked in bolded. For instance, in the first sequence, players 1 and 2 both make left-hand gloves, so it is the third player that completes the product and is so marked in bold.

Note that player 3, the one making the right glove, completes the product in 4 of the 6 cases. This means player 3 has a Shapley value of 2/3.

The players making the left glove are less important as each completes the product in one sequence apiece. This means each of them has a Shapley value of 1/6.

The economic interpretation is that players 1 and 2 contribute 1/6 to the product while player 3 contributes 2/3.

The Shapley values can be used as the ratios to distribute profits. If the glove produces $600 of profit, then the fair division would be $600 x 1/6 = $100 to players 1 and 2 and $600 x 2/3 = $400 to player 3.

My guess of how single-gene knockouts would miss the picture

Imagine instead of workers and gloves, the game were about genes and traits. Think about each player as a “gene” and the glove as the expression of a “trait.”

The glove (”trait”) would still be created even if either of the players 1 or 2 (”redundant genes”) were experimentally knocked out. Nonetheless, it is clear the glove depends on at least one of the redundancies to work. This is something a single-gene study would miss.

Now, I caution taking this analogy too literally because I lack the expertise to verify precisely what the biology researchers are doing (please share in the comments if you do).

Furthermore, I would guess gene interaction and trait expression are more complicated production processes, and they might even depend on exogenous factors. Nevertheless, this application of computational game theory appears to be a significant improvement over the single-gene knockout method. I look forward to more work in this area.

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What is the Best Time to Go to Work?

30 June 2008   |   by Presh Talwalkar   |   6 Comments »   |  Print This Article Print This Article

Sleep Office
source: Rich Moffitt via flickr

Bob Slydell: You see, what we’re actually trying to do here is, we’re trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work… so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

Bob Slydell: Great.

Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can’t see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.

From Office Space

Many people have to get to work at a precise time, like bank tellers. But if you’re among the few that gets to decide, like programmers or consultants, what time is best?

People approach the problem from a variety of angles. Many people tell me they like to arrive and leave work early. Others would rather sleep in and enjoy a night life.

Good cases can be made for each side. But rather than get into a personality argument, let’s try to dig deeper and work out the analysis.

Run the numbers

Let’s consider someone who works 10 hours, who takes a 30 minute lunch break, and has complete freedom over start time.

The person is essentially choosing among the following schedules:

5 am – 3:30 pm
6 am – 4:30 pm
7 am – 5:30 pm
8 am – 6:30 pm
9 am – 7:30 pm
10 am – 8:30 pm
11 am – 9:30 pm

When I look at those times, I don’t see a clear winner. One either has to start early or stay late.

But not all blocks are created equally. Some have more risks than others, as I learned from my own experience.

Think about risk

The routine you pick might cause unnecessary stress on you. Here are some issues I’ve encountered:

–arriving when most people do means facing rush hour traffic

–an unnaturally early start might cause tiredness and decreased productivity

–a late starting time might be threatened by a string of morning meetings

I started, like most people, arriving during normal business hours. I soon felt the annoyance of rush hour traffic. I was commuting on a bus so I could read, but it was not as relaxing as reading in my bed. Plus, I was not happy spending an extra 30 minutes commuting in rush hour because time is too valuable when you calculate it out.

So I tried something else. I tried arriving at 6 am because I was tempted by leaving at 4:30 pm. The problem was that I was tired the whole time and missed my peak productivity, which comes later in the day. That meant I had to work extra hours. Plus, I had to sleep around 9:30 pm to get enough rest, and that was too early for me.

My most common solution was getting in a little bit later, like around 10 am. This worked until I had to make some 7 am morning meetings, so chosen to coordinate with other time zones. But the benefit was I could get enough rest and squeeze in a morning workout.

Think strategically

So if no single strategy works, what do I suggest? Game theory suggests you use a mixed strategy, which means using some randomization among the choices.

My ultimate answer was:

–rotate the schedule and work on surprise

I mixed between coming early, on time, and later in the day. The best part of this rotating schedule was I could make sure I got to the office when I felt productive. Some days I naturally woke up early. Other days I needed to rest more. Such a routine is flexible enough to accommodate early and late meetings.

There’s another benefit: when people don’t expect you to arrive at a given time, you avoid interruption from coworkers. They’re more likely to contact you through emails rather than phone calls.

And for most people commuting is a poor use of time, meaning it would make sense to avoid rush hour traffic. I weighted my arrival towards very early or very late times. If you walk or bike you work, you don’t have to worry about this of course.

You might also develop a preference for certain types of schedules over time. When things got busiest, I rotated between going into the office at 6 am and 10 am.

Impression: mix between all schedules, but weight towards very early and very late arrivals

What works for you? Fill in the points I overlooked in the comments.