When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance or caution how it will instantly change the world. Go into the details of this first instantiation of it and assume it will never change, it’s done, here we go.
When a new technology comes out, describe the scam that the founders are running. Highlight how it will cost us all our jobs, create untold new problems and definitely not work.
In a one hour span, I read two pieces about Apple’s new device in the first category, and a very long piece about cultured meat in the second.
Neither is correct. None were particularly difficult to write (or to get the TLDR from).
Nuance isn’t easy, but nuance is almost always correct.
If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to set up a little machine shop to make your own pens. That’s pretty obvious.
Should the smoothie shop make its own almond milk?
It’s pretty clear that Starbucks should have a team of architects, lawyers and graphic artists on staff, but does it pay for them to make their own cups?
Ford makes engines but they don’t make tires.
The theory of the firm was first written about by Ronald Coase nearly a hundred years ago, and the questions persist.
Consider:
Is there a reliable way for you to purchase the inputs as a commodity, where you have more power than the suppliers do?
Does buying a commodity input free you up to focus on something your customers value instead?
In the case of Ford, there are plenty of companies that are in the tire-making business, and the amount of customer-facing innovation in that industry is low. Since Ford can shop around for tires each year, and since customers don’t care very much, it makes little sense for Ford to make tires.
On the other hand, Apple discovered that there were very few companies that were competing for their chip business, and customers did indeed care about whether or not a laptop would be faster, cooler and cheaper. Rather than allowing a chip company to dominate their future, they set up their own.
If you’re a soloist, you only have a dozen hours a day (tops) to work on your project. How many of those hours are spent replicating something you could buy, the way Ford buys tires?
Systemic and existential problems dance their way through three circles:
If it’s not solvable, we’ll pretend it’s not a problem.
If the cultural cost of solving the problem is too high, we’ll pretend there’s no solution.
People don’t spend a lot of time planning for death because there’s no solution to it and the social costs of bringing it up are scary. It’s easier to not talk about it.
On the other hand, while it took a few generations, we figured out how to create cultural norms around things like smoking in public.
Systemic problems require systemic solutions, and those solutions hinge on culture.
The Brookings Institution did a fascinating survey series over the last five years.
I have two takeways from this:
The first is that focused and persistent propaganda is able to shift public opinion about institutions they don’t have direct interaction with.
The more important one is this: Many companies, particularly tech ones, are deliberately trading trust for short-term profits.
Amazon and many other companies went from investing heavily in being reliable, trustworthy and fair to taking persistent steps to trade these valuable assets for quarterly results. It’s worth being clear about this–they did this intentionally. They decided that the confidence consumers had placed in them wasn’t worth as much as the shortcuts they could take to increase profits instead.
While the survey focuses on widely known, large institutions, the same could be said for the local pizzeria.
Once you burn some trust, it’s almost impossible to earn it back. It took Harvard 400 years to become Harvard, Google about twenty to earn its position. This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for–to become the one that earns the benefit of the doubt.
Being the low-trust option is hardly a spot worth fighting for.
Unevenly distributed, they’re the sort of thing we miss only when they’re gone. Invisible things are easy to ignore.
I was stunned to see a sign in Connecticut that listed the names of dozens of highway workers who had been killed in accidents while doing their jobs. Too often, we celebrate the rabble rousers or innovators, without acknowledging our investments and efforts to keep things working.
But everything we’ve built has been built on top of our community commitments to infrastructure.
I’m lucky to have access to things like:
GPS in countless devices
A team that fixed the pothole on my street
A worldwide coordinated effort to patch the ozone layer
A state park that coordinated the work to open yesterday for nordic skate skiing
Clean water that comes out of the tap
Civic systems where I’m not required to pay a bribe
Federal packaging laws that dramatically increase food safety and purity
Coordinated responses to worldwide pandemics
Air travel around the world that is consistently safer and more reliable than the car
Electricity that arrives when needed, at a surprisingly low cost
Ambulances that show up when needed
Stop lights and traffic systems that are reasonably efficient
The internet backbone that brought this post to you
The weather report
The apparently magical way that waste disappears without spreading disease
My ability to ask a librarian for help or to find just about any book
Few people worldwide have as much access to these resources, and one of the unsung stories of the last century has been the spread of civil systems to more and more people.
A combination of aging systems, decreased commitment to community spending and the disruptions we’re causing to the climate mean that it’s possible we’ll end up with holes in this infrastructure that we might not be able to easily fix.
The next time you see an infrastructure worker, give them a hug.
In North America, tipping is an unfair system built into the status quo by law. Restaurants aren’t allowed to easily spread tips around, and as a result, they tend to to exacerbate many of the inequities in our culture at the same time that they make it hard to count on a fair wage in one of the largest industries in the world.
That said, one reason for the stickiness of tipping is that the act of doing it offers benefits to the customers.
The first is ritual. It’s what we grew up doing, and leaving it out feels awkward.
The second is control. The person leaving a tip is given a vivid reminder of their power as a customer. “To insure prompt service” might not be the origin of the term, but it can feel that way. It gives the customer a sense of control.
Another is status. At fancy restaurants in New York, experiments with eliminating tipping have had little success, and one reason is that regular customers enjoyed the way it allowed them to subtly (not that subtly) demonstrate their status to their guests.
A recent one is the labeling and sorting of the internet. Restaurants and resorts that include gratuities in their fees get hammered in search, because they seem more expensive than they are.
Part of the persistence of cultural norms comes from our desire for there to be a norm. When two people split a check, it’s not unusual for them to compare how much they’re leaving in a tip. Why? After all, people don’t walk across a restaurant to ask a stranger to be sure they’re in sync. But giving the ‘right’ amount, or perhaps just a bit over or just bit under is part of our desire to establish our place in a hierarchy.
How to cut this knot? If tipping is a service (for customers or staff) how to make it more than an afterthought?
If the goal is to keep tipping, then we have the chance to create the conditions where the tipper feels really good about the practice. Simple cues, an easy way to find oneself in the hierarchy, a way to know you’re tipping the ‘right amount.’ Or perhaps the sort of signaling that we see in nightclubs when someone orders a really expensive bottle for the table–how do we give customers the chance to put a show about their tipping in a way that benefits the customer as well as the server?
On the other hand, if the goal is to eliminate tipping, different stategies can be put to work.
Imagine a resort that prides itself on service. Instead of asking for a tip the last day, a note might say, “Thanks for joining us, and supporting our mission in creating a magical place to work and visit. We’ve already charged your card, which includes a hospitality fee. If anyone on the property contributed to the quality of your stay, please let us know and we’ll make sure to celebrate their work.”
Service is at the heart of our economy now. Perhaps it’s worth rethinking how we recognize it and pay for it.
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around it.
The second group cares about stability. They have limited bandwidth, and they’re not particularly interested in reconsidering everything, all the time.
The third group doesn’t care that much.
And the fourth group is harmed by the policy, either directly or indirectly.
Change happens slowly because the first three groups have power, inertia and communications on their side.
Change happens when the fourth group can create the conditions for the third group to care, and then these two groups move the urgency up the agenda.
Sooner or later, we benefit from being well-published.
Publishing has nothing to do with printing. It’s the act of taking risks to bring a new idea to people who want to embrace it.
It’s the head of the lab who works behind the scenes to be sure the talented scientist gets a gig at the right conference. Her talk propels the work forward.
It’s Bill Graham ‘publishing’ the Grateful Dead on stage at the Fillmore.
It’s Jean Feiwel orchestrating the bookstore success of Harry Potter…
Being well-published doesn’t guarantee that an idea or an individual will succeed. Instead, it creates the conditions to maximize the chances that the work will spread. It often involves:
Generous enthusiasm: In the moments when the marketplace hasn’t yet embraced the work, the publisher is a vital bridge between now and later.
Extraordinary logistics: It’s the tech crew that has read the rider, the operations team that makes sure the printing is done right and the strategic insight to prioritize the parts that matter.
Insightful provocation: The publisher knows the territory, and can encourage and amplify work that’s in sync with what the market will respond to.
A focus on distribution: If the work isn’t in the right place at the right time, it has no chance to thrive.
Resilience and investment: Few ideas work the first time they’re exposed to the audience. Resilience is the willingness and ability to try again, and investment represents the resources to do it well.
Just because something succeeds doesn’t mean it’s well-published, but well-published work has a better chance to succeed.
The people behind a well-published work rarely get the credit they deserve. It’s difficult and requires persistence and care.
Watching is different than doing. Trying to do both at the same time is a challenge.
February 11, 2024
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