Author: alearningaday

Starbucks founder Howard Schultz told a fascinating story about his return to the company in 2008. For a collection of reasons, Starbucks was in disarray and was months away from being insolvent.

During this time, he was introduced to Steve Jobs and he began telling Steve about some of his problems over a call. Steve asked him to come over to Cupertino so they could take a walk and talk it over.

During the walk, Howard laid out all the problems he was facing and what he was planning to do about it. After listening to it all, Steve practically screamed – “You know what you should do? Fire your executive team.”

Howard’s response was along the lines of “C’mon, I can’t do that. Who will do the work?”

To this, Steve shared that he thought they’ll all be gone in the next 6 months anyway.

9 months or so later, there was one person from that team left. When Howard next met Steve, he told him his prediction had come through. And Steve just pointed out that he could have saved himself from time.

This incident reminded me of a powerful note from former Snowflake CEO Kevin Slootman’s book – “Years ago, I used to hesitate and wait situations out, often trying to fix underperforming people or products instead of pulling the plug. Back then I was seen as a much more reasonable and thoughtful leader — but that didn’t mean I was right. As I got more experience, I realized that I was often just wasting everybody’s time. If we knew that something or someone wasn’t working, why wait? As the saying goes, when there is doubt, there is no doubt.”

When there is doubt, there is no doubt.

I was booking a flight on United.com recently. As I saw the options between the various flavors of economy, I was curious what it all meant.

Clicking in to “Fare rules” took me to a page with a massive amount of legalese. It definitely had the answers to the question. But good luck finding it.

I went to Chase Travel for the same flight and clicking on the fare rules took me to this.

It had everything I needed to make my decision, at a glance.

It is a good reminder of the idea that we’re able to design good Ux (user experience) when we make it past the complexity and find the simplicity.

That is the product equivalent of clarity over comprehensiveness.

When we get it right, it is a thing of beauty.

“If you need to take clients golfing or out to dinner, you’re selling something undifferentiated. If someone’s taking you to basketball games, you’re paying too much. Vanguard’s not buying you lunch — but your wealth advisor with courtside seats? She’s charging you onerous fees.”

I saw this in Scott Galloway’s newsletter and chuckled.

It is both funny and true. And a good reminder to ensure we’re in the business of selling and buying things that are differentiated.

Chinese company BYD’s new Super-E platform is expected to add 400 kms/250 miles in 5 minutes (chart source: The Independent).

My thesis has been simple and unchanging over the past five years – outside of remote areas, electric vehicles will become the default in 20 years. Not because they’re the “right thing to do” or because they’re good for the environment. Simply because they’re better technology.

A key attribute of better technology is faster speed of innovation and improvement. And, in every sense, EV tech has been on a tear in the past five years.

This breakthrough from BYD might be one of the bigger ones of the decade – it solves the “range anxiety” problem for longer distance commutes and makes it no different that stopping for gas.

The crazy thing about the innovation here is just how quickly BYD has pulled ahead of Tesla. BYD’s latest innovation means their battery technology is four times better than Tesla’s Model Y – which was many times better than any alternative just three or so years ago.

Tesla’s Model Y has been the best-selling car globally in the past two years. But such results are a lagging indicator. These results show Tesla being completely outplayed.

It’ll be a while before we see the results of this play out – but it is inspiring to see the pace of innovation delivered here.

John Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times had some interesting research to share.

Students aside, adults are also scoring lower in reasoning and problem-solving tests.

The share of adults with “basic” abilities has been rising rapidly across developed nations. As with the previous graph, there’s a notable inflection point around 2012.

Again, we see that inflection point around 2012 followed by a steep rise up in our ability to think/concentrate or learn new things.

I call out 2012 because that was around the time we saw rapid increases in smartphone adoption. As Noah Smith points out – “Everyone worries about the changes to human society and cognition that AI will bring, but social-media-enabled smartphones have already crashed into humanity like a meteor, and we’ve barely begun to adapt or even to reckon with the change.”

An inability to think deeply about problems impacts our ability to work, to make better financial decisions, and to elect leaders who will solve the most important problems.

That’s especially hard to do when the competitor is a catchy 30 second video on TikTok.

Needless to say, this isn’t a good thing.

But the first step to solving a problem is to recognize that it exists.

Money that is saved and then invested compounds over time.

It follows then that we must save and invest consistently.

On the flip side, money invested in an experience also has a long-term impact. When you take an unforgettable trip with people you love, the memories from that experience stay with you and get sweeter over time.

So, money well spent gives out memory dividends over time too.

One isn’t necessarily a better choice than the other. But I think it is fair to say that ignoring either isn’t optimal strategy.

Like most things in life, it is on us to find the right balance between both at every stage in our life.

“I think people get old when they stop thinking about the future. If
you want to find someoneʼs true age, listen to them. If they talk about
the past and they talk about all the things that happened that they
did, theyʼve gotten old. If they think about their dreams, their
aspirations, what theyʼre still looking forward to – theyʼre young.ˮ | Peter Attia, Outlive

Beautifully put. It resonated.

When Howard Schultz first raised $1.6M for Il Giornale (which would eventually become Starbucks), he pitched 242 investors. 217 said no – a 90% rejection rate.

Good perspective for the next time we feel discouraged about things not going our way.

Aswath shared a post a couple weeks ago that I’ve thought about a few times since.

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There’s a pressure to have goals and wants. We make it a point to ask kids and adults what their goals are. What do you want to be when you grow up?! Where do you see yourself in 5 years?! 

I suppose there are benefits of having a future vision, but goals also take up lifetime and mind space, and make you defer contentment and just be-ing. 

I know of at least a handful of people who wanted to be managers, advisors, or startup founders. They like the idea of it – the title or the perception of being a leader. But they end up disliking the job. I know people, myself included, who want to have a good community and circle of friends, but hate the process of meeting new people. Most people want to look fit, but dislike the routine of exercise and diet. 

For all your current and future aspirations, ask yourself if you’d actually enjoy the day-to-day and whole lifestyle aspect of attaining it and living it once you get it. If not, free up your mind for stuff that does meet the bar or just being at peace. 

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There were two ideas in the post that have stayed with me.

The first about picking goals where we see ourselves enjoying the process. I chuckled at the examples – I’ve either seen them first hand or lived them

The other theme is one about intentional trade-offs. Some goals/objectives are worth the trade-offs. In other cases, trading the goals off gives us peace of mind.

Either way, choose intentionally.

Charles Duhigg wrapped up his book Supercommunicators with an excerpt about the Grant study. 

The Grant study is a famous 85+ year longitudinal study that started in 1938. It tracked a group of adults, then their spouses and kids for over 70 years. The story of the study is in itself fascinating – it was first funded by a businessman trying to figure out what characteristics he should be looking for while hiring storekeepers. After funding the study with $7 million over 20 years, he pulled off funding because he didn’t believe he was getting his money’s worth.

Then, in 1970, a group of psychiatrics pulled out the study results and journals and found an immense wealth of research about participants over time. So they began secured funding and began doing follow ups.

The most fascinating stories were those of people who were expected to succeed before the break. However, many of these turned out to be depressed human beings who were sad and lonely. And vice versa.

When the researchers eventually analyzed seven decades of data, they found some correlations.

Having loving parents made it easier to find happiness.

Possessing genes related to physical hardness and longevity was helpful, as was exercise and eating well.

Access to good education early in life as well as a lifelong commitment to learning also provided a leg up.

But one thing mattered more than anything else in terms of clearly predicting if a person was happy in their life – the quality of their relationships.

The people who were most satisfied in the relationships at age 50 were the healthiest and happiest at age 80. One researcher put it bluntly – “The most defining factor for happiness and satisfaction of life is love, not romantic love, but the love and connection with our friends, family, coworkers and their community.”

In sum, love and connectedness was causal to success and happiness.