Uncomfortable ideas
The ideas aren’t uncomfortable, we are.
You don’t have to like the weather to acknowledge that it’s raining.
More alternatives, please
There are two ways for an artisan or professional to see the world:
Scarcity. This is the idea that if there were fewer photographers, more people would hire me to do wedding pictures. That if the bar exam were more selective, it would be easier for my firm to get clients. And if everyone would just stop imagining they could be an author/musician/magician/painter, my life would be a lot better. (And AI should be barred from doing what I do.)
Abundance. This is the more resilient and likely idea that when others show up to participate in your craft, it brings energy, insight and activity to the field.
The truth is that books don’t sell very well in the supermarket, where there are no other books. They do better in the bookstore, right next to all the other books.
Important breakthroughs
When the investment committee is unanimous, it’s unlikely that the idea is a brilliant one.
Significant division and strong opinions (and widespread skepticism) don’t cause great ideas, but they’re often present when they arrive.
Stories and hope
Anecdotes are not data. If you’re looking for data, hearing a story about what happened to a friend that one time shouldn’t crowd out your rational decision making.
But hope is real.
When someone you know is facing a difficult situation, sharing a positive anecdote about that friend who that one time made it through something just like this–that’s helpful. It’s not helpful data, but it’s a useful hook for hope. And hope amplifies our story of possibility and might make it easier for us to get to where we’re going.
On the other hand, sharing the anecdote about that time everything blew up and failed–that’s not hopeful and that’s not helpful.
Better data is better data. But stories can (and should) be used as fuel.
A powerful story
It’s impossible to communicate everything. The map is not the territory, it’s an abstraction, a summary and most of all, a conceptual framework.
When we share an idea, we can work to make sure it’s true, but when we share all the facts, we’re simply boring people. Stories are relevant, creating a narrative and tension and change.
A manipulator doesn’t care if the story is true. They’ve succeeded by taking advantage of our goodwill, our assumption that things asserted to be true usually are. A manipulator brings us a story that creates emotion–and causes action that the recipient ends up regretting. Manipulation isn’t resilient, because sooner or later, we discover that the world doesn’t work the way we were led to believe.
The stories we tell are a choice. Reciting facts lets us off the hook, but telling a true story that causes change is a powerful responsibility.
Best available
Go to the store, look at the five kinds of mustard on offer, and pick the one that’s best for you. This is not controversial.
Go to Amazon and search for wireless headphones. There are more than 400 types to choose from. Compare rankings and ratings and price and choose the ones that are best for you. Amazing, but not shocking.
Now, consider an architect designing an addition for the nearby school. She has specced the windows (there will be 200 of them). Autodesk could have the ability to poll every qualified window manufacturer and have them bid for that work, based on how busy they are, what they have in stock and how eager they are to grow their market share. And the building plans could change in response. Reputable companies and reputable architects could connect over better service, timing or pricing, creating a virtuous cycle.
Applying to college? Why not apply to all of them? Your AI bot takes all of your qualifications, recommendations and preferences and the colleges of the world have their AI optimizers consider all available options and put together the best available class, offering incentives and options to the potential students that are most likely to lead to a successful match.
And a job? What’s the point of applying to just a few when the software is already treating you like a cog in the machine as it reviews resumes? What if every job seeker was seen by every employer? The seeker’s AI agent could rank based on location, employee satisfaction, retention, workplace, pay, etc. And the employers could focus on skills and attitudes instead of false proxies like background.
One more: we know a lot about real estate agent performance. We can see how long their houses have been on the market and how likely they are to sell for above estimate. We can measure buyer and seller satisfaction. So, when it’s time to put a house on the market, why not have every broker make a bid instead of choosing the one who has a lot of signs around town?
More market information is not always a good thing. It can cause gaps, unfair access and dislocations. But more market information has been on an inevitable one-way road for generations, and it’s unlikely to go away.
And we should be prepared for asymmetrical competition–companies will hire MBAs and lawyers to create fine print, subscriptions and loopholes that are to their advantage when their AI agents start bidding on projects or hiring people. It’s rare to see this with a loaf of bread, but really common when we buy a cell phone or loan. Human beings are easy to trick. Hopefully, our AI agent will be at least as smart and careful as the company’s.
The thing about wasted slack is that we don’t notice it until we imagine that there’s a productive way for it to disappear.
Powerlessness
Not a lack of power, but feeling as though we have none. Some people have been indoctrinated to prefer a life with no agency, as it also brings no responsibility. At the other extreme, some folks have decided that they have more power than they actually do.
Video games offer people a chance to experience virtual power–an opportunity to feel a lack of powerlessness. Click the mouse, something happens–power is in your grasp. By giving players agency, the games allow users to feel something they might be avoiding in real life.
Everyone is on a spectrum. No one has absolute power, and no one is powerless. But our expectation and experience of power is always a choice.
Choosing the attitude of powerlessness is self-defeating as well as self-negating. The fact that the attitude can be chosen is in itself a form of power. We can find control over our attitude and our actions, gaining priceless power as we do.
No one can change everything, but everyone can change something. If you choose to live a life with impact, it’s in your control to do so.
Simple and painless productivity
On the factory floor, productivity increases are relentlessly implemented, often without regard for worker satisfaction.
For people working with a laptop, though, they are often seen as optional lifestyle choices instead of ways to significantly boost how much we can get done–and the satisfaction that comes with time we control.
If you work on your own, your productivity choices are up to you. But when you involve others in your project, the default should be to honor the habits of the most productive member of the team.
Here are some proven ways to save hours of wasted time. You’re probably doing many of them, but they’re still treated as options by many. In rough order of importance:
- Don’t invite someone to a meeting if an email or 1:1 conversation will do the job just as well.
- Don’t fly if you can show up virtually and get the job done.
- Instead of asking a group of people when a good time to meet might be, use a doodle.
- Send a calendar invite when you book a time.
- When you get stuck, first ask Claude, then ask a human.
- Show up on time. Leave when the work is done.
- Default to using shared docs (like Google docs) for any collaborative work.
- For repeated tasks, make a checklist. Update it and share it as you go.
- Respect synchronized time. If you can put it in a video instead of saying it live, please do.
We’ve all seen well-meaning people disregard all of these points in a single interaction. Multiply that by the number of people involved and you’re in a time swamp.
Technical debt and AI slop
Technical debt is easy to incur. It’s unnecessary added features, undocumented code, support for outmoded interactions and anything that slows down your ability to update and upgrade your work. Tech debt is the combination of doing what feels right at the time, in a hurry, and then having to maintain it and understand it going forward.
Vibe coding, which is a rising trend, pairs a human programmer with an AI like chatGPT. The AI is doing most of what a human used to do, and generating far more lines of code per hour than a person might. The problem is that often, no one knows exactly how the code works, which means it’s going to be difficult to fix when it breaks or needs an upgrade.
And as AI starts to create data sets (by reviewing, for example, response rates to emails or designs), those data sets are going to be so multi-dimensional that only an AI will be able to make sense of them.
The end result will be as the end result often is–the first one now will later be last. The shortcuts might not be the best way to get to where you’re going.
Get the system architecture right first. Document it, streamline it and test it. Then divide the components into small pieces and let AI finish the work. Fixing a defective brick is far more cost effective than re-architecting an entire building.
Good instincts
Sometimes, in the absence of data or useful experience, we’re left to act on our instincts.
It’s worth noting that other people have instincts as well.
And in a given situation, their instincts might prove to be as right as often as ours.
Just because it’s your instinct doesn’t mean it’s the best instinct.
When in doubt, seek reality and useful experience instead.