The World is Mine to Win

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first.

– Sherlock Holmes in A Study In Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Seems almost irrefutable. If you have deep knowledge of your field’s history, it would be silly if you see a new detail from the field and can’t understand it.

If you’ve lived in New York City, you know what a typical 24-hour diner menu looks like.  There are a million items on it: basically anything you can think of.  Whatever you order will be fried and greasy and delicious if you’re not particularly sober.  But nothing is interesting, difficult to make, innovative, or memorable.

Imagine that the chef at this diner makes just an *amazing* fish and chips—ten times better than anyone in the city.  How many people visiting this diner would leave without even knowing about it?

Here’s the tasting menu for Alinea in Chicago, one of the world’s top-ranked restaurants:

Each night they craft a tasting menu that will take you through the entire meal with the best experience they can give you.

We already know that if you try to do everything, you’re not going to do any of it well.  But once you build a product with one really solid feature, you always start adding on.  It’s important to realize that failure at the next feature in your product will not just mean that you waste effort and don’t improve your product.  Failure in adding a new feature means distracting new users from the experiences that are actually great.

Users trying out a new product are not going to make a thorough evaluation of your product.  They will only try to do one thing with your product before they make a call on whether it’s worth the effort.  If 75% of your features are bad, then there’s only a 25% chance that a new user has a good first impression.

From 37signals’s Signal vs. Noise:

Jamie: Human nature is odd. We crave new things, but simultaneously dislike change.
Phil: Not that odd; we like to choose and hate to have things forced on us. We usually embrace the changes that we have chosen for ourselves.

I was reading an article about the theories of “biologism” today, and was struck by something in the author’s criticism. Biologism holds that the mind is an entity that arises wholly from the physical structure of the brain. About one argument from proponents of biologism (not biologists… biologismists?), he writes (Wall Street Journal, Rethinking Thinking by Raymond Tallis):

…[Terrence] Deacon demolishes fashionable computational theories of the brain. Anyone in the future who is tempted to assert that “the mind is the software of the brain” should reflect on Mr. Deacon’s observation that the apparent agency of a computer “is just the displaced agency of some human designer.” The use of simplistic analogies to make the mind look machine-like and machines mind-like and thereby solve the mind-brain problem should never again pass unchallenged.

Setting aside the question of whether the biologicists are right or wrong, I’m curious whether “simplistic” is the right way to assess a theory at all. (In the quote above, the author is using “simplistic” to discredit an analogy, not a theory, but there is an undercurrent of this in his argument against the whole theory.)

Off the top of my head, I’d say the merits of a scientific theory are:

• Is it right? Does it predict events in the real world?
• Is it broadly applicable? Does it describe a large enough set of events to be useful?

In that context, I can see why a “simplistic” theory might seem like a bad one. “Simplistic” means, “too simple to be accurate.” So, the “simplistic” theory doesn’t meet the first criteria.

My problem, then, is with the idea that simplicity is the *reason* that the contested theory is inaccurate. Some of the most powerful theories are incredibly simple. Take Newton’s equations describing motion. F = m * a. Five symbols describe everything from the motion of a rolling ball to a rocket ship blasting off, to a planet circling the sun. Or Darwin’s theory of evolution–countless generations of intricate biological systems can be explained by a simple concept: survival of the fittest.

Simplicity is not only nice to have, but essential to a good theory. The goal of our theories is to describe millions of real and potential instances in a way that a human mind can comprehend and predict. What makes Newton’s laws such good mental tools is that they give us the ability to apply our understanding of a rolling ball to also describe objects in space millions of miles away.

If a theory is wrong, it’s not necessarily because it’s simple. So if you are accused of being “simplistic”, how do you amend your thinking? Do try to make it more complex? Do you heap on addendums and amendments?

Too often, “simplistic” is used not to help find a better explanation, but to contend that no explanation can be found, or at least that *you* can’t find one. Take the same WSJ author’s commendation of Mr. Deacon’s book:

“Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter”… does not deliver on its subtitle, but the author acknowledges the depth and complexity of the problem.

“Acknowledging the depth and complexity” is another way of saying you haven’t figured it out yet. How many times have we heard “it’s complicated” used by a public figure to escape a tough line of questioning from a reporter?

I hear “simplistic” and “complex” used this way with worrying frequency. In everything from presidential debates to business meetings, I’ve seen real attempts at a solution run up against a wall. These words don’t improve the quality of solutions… they stop a line of thought.

In business, teams often have both simplifiers and complicators. Simplifiers try to cut away any inconsequential details or non-essential problems that will prevent progress. Complicators try to add every possible situation and use case into the problem statement, hesitant to take a single step before the plan covers all possible scenarios.

The term “simplistic” carries the implication that simple is bad. That simple rules cannot describe complex systems. That the human mind is incapable of dealing with the overwhelming nature of the world. This is a paralyzing notion.

Instead of focusing negatively on simplicity, let’s first address what the theory gets right and what it fails to predict. The use of the word “simplistic” should never again go unchallenged.

I can see the evolution of book publishing in the books on my shelves. Clearly at some point in the 1960s the big publishing houses started to ask: how cheaply can we make books before people refuse to buy them? The answer turned out to be one step short of phonebooks. As long as it isnt floppy, consumers still perceive it as a book.

This is the most amusing paragraph from Paul Graham’s 2009 essay on content vs. medium (which do we really pay for?): Post-Medium Publishing.  This is a topic most people are still pretty puzzled by, and Graham has some interesting thoughts.

He looks at the cost of content over time and concludes that the price has always been determined by the medium.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t include much data here, and I can definitely point to counterexamples.  The best selling movies are more than $20 for a DVD, whereas less popular ones are under ten.  New albums from hot artists are $15 while old jazz albums are seven bucks.

Publishers also get us to pay more for better content by offering it only in more expensive formats.  Movie distribution is all about moving from theaters to rentals to DVDs over time as demand for the more expensive formats is exhausted.  A lot more people will pay to see a movie in the theater if it’s better.  Bad movies go straight to DVD.  There’s a similar progression for books from hardcover to paperback.  So, yes, we’re paying based on medium, but the available medium is governed by the quality of the content.

It doesn’t really make sense that consumers are all accidentally valuing the paper instead of the words.  It’s definitely true that consumers are not willing to pay for content online, but I don’t think that’s a change in consumer thinking.  Consumers have always been unwilling to pay for something that they can get for free somewhere else.  What’s changed is that there are way more companies willing to offer content for free or almost free than there have ever been.

Of course, this is because the cost of distribution is almost free.  The best discussion of this that I’ve seen has come from Clay Shirky.  From Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable:

If you want to know why newspapers are in such trouble, the most salient fact is this: Printing presses are terrifically expensive to set up and to run. This bit of economics, normal since Gutenberg, limits competition while creating positive returns to scale for the press owner, a happy pair of economic effects that feed on each other.

As Shirky points out, during a revolution, everything breaks before new things come to replace them.  And the change in economics means that the value of the publishing market is probably just objectively lower than it used to be… it’s just way easier to do.  The value has moved from publishing to internet infrastructure.  And that industry will be much bigger than publishing, because it generates vastly more wealth for everyone.

Haven’t read a Paul Graham essay in a while. I love how his prose is always just clear, to the point, and a little surprising.

If you do everything the way the average startup does it, you should expect average performance. The problem here is, average performance means that you’ll go out of business. The survival rate for startups is way less than fifty percent. So if you’re running a startup, you had better be doing something odd. If not, you’re in trouble.

In this case, he’s talking about using lisp for Viaweb.  Read the rest here.

Observing that the vast universe discovered by science tends to dwarf Biblical tales in which “God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil,” Feynman remarks, “The stage is too big for the drama”—which puts the case about as well, in eight short words, as anyone ever has.

– Timothy Ferris in the foreword to Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track

Below is a fantastic poem about living a life of passion. You have to study this poem a bit to really get it, but once you know what the words are saying they are immensely powerful.

It is told from the point of view of Ulysses, the hero of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey. He has come home from twenty years of travel and glory, and finds himself with a kingship that doesn’t suit his heroic capabilities. “How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use!” He decides to set sail again for new adventures.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks to Lisa VanDamme for introducing me to this poem and teaching me to appreciate it.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Lean Startup movement has led to great strides in the way people think about business innovation. It asks that every new idea be tied to reality as quickly and directly as possible (Eric Ries calls it “validated learning”).  This is smart, but interpreted strictly it can prevent you from making the bold moves that define great companies.

Seth Godin yesterday brought up the story of Netflix to make this point.  You should read it (it’s short), but briefly he contrasts Netflix’s professed love of testing every UI change with their untested choices to: deliver DVDs by mail, create a certain corporate culture, and switch to internet streaming.

This reminds me of that old profound truth that “the opposite of every profound truth is another profound truth.”  To put it in a light that gives more credence to principled thinking, I’d say that every principle must be applied in context.  In the case of “testing”, this means making a judgment call around what you’re going to validate, and what is core to your vision.  What bold statement will make your company different from every other one in the world?

In the case of Netflix, it’s that they can deliver affordable video rentals with maximum convenience by bringing the movies straight to the consumer.  In the case of Facebook, it’s that the world should be a more open place.  Both of these companies had to choose a vision and bring it to the world when initial reactions may have indicated they were wrong.

In the words of Virgil: Fortune favors the bold.

From cdixon.org:

Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will.  People, companies, investors and even countries can’t stop this transformation. The only choice you have is whether you join the side of innovation and progress or you don’t.

This is how I feel about the publishing industry.  Whenever I meet someone working in publishing, my first question is whether they’re excited or frightened by the transformation happening to e-books.  The transition will happen, so are you going to fight it, or will you figure out a way to bring all the things you love about books into the next era of publishing?