It isn’t a question of whether we’ll take our blessings for granted.
We will.
It is just a question of whether we’ve gotten enough reminders built into our daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly routines to take stock of all that we take for granted… and recommit to making them count.
London began fining high-emitting vehicles roaming their city streets in April 2019 to reduce pollution.
A study looking at experimental data of the kinds of transport kids took to school showed a fascinating side-effect – kids in ULE (ultra low emission) zones were twice as likely to walk to school instead of getting dropped off.
And as you can imagine, there’s a whole host of health benefits from children walking to school.
Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the behavior.
There have been a collection of headlines about nuclear energy powered data centers of late – involving major technology companies (Google, Oracle, Microsoft). On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense – a nuclear plant provides a steady flow of energy and datacenters need a constant supply of power.
Nuclear energy has a tendency to inspire extreme reactions. However, given its obvious promise/potential, the lack of forward momentum on nuclear has always intrigued me.
Until I came upon a simple and logical explanation involving learning curves.
All new technology that is deployed en-masse gets the benefits of learning curves. As we deploy it, its costs get cheaper. And, as it becomes more abundant, we also learn how to use it better – increasing its benefits.
Today’s Artificial Intelligence/AI wave is a great example. It is expensive to deploy large language models right now. However, the cost of doing so has come down over ten-fold in the past two years. This will continue happening over the coming years – thanks to learning curves.
However, as Matt Ridley explains in “How Innovation Works”, nuclear energy hasn’t had the benefit of learning curves because of the cost of experimentation.
The cost of error in any nuclear reactor is high. As a result, nuclear is highly regulated. This results in a “waterfall” model of deployment vs. a more learning-filled agile model. For example, this means that teams on the ground are prevented from making any changes from the original spec that was approved by regulators – even if it makes little sense to continue as per plan. The costs of such rigidity add up quickly.
One area of experimentation with nuclear energy of late has been to go “modular.” This means smaller nuclear reactors that can be deployed in various places. This modularity might succeed in reducing the cost of error. That, in turn, might enable nuclear energy production to finally experience learning curves that other energy sources have benefited from.
Either way, the cost of not learning will continue to inhibit the growth of nuclear energy – at a time when solar and wind continue to grow exponentially driven by falling costs from their own learning curves.
This offers an important life lesson too. Learning compounds. While we often focus on the upside, the cost of not learning has a compounding negative effect that can have a debilitating effect over time.
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
This is especially true under stress – in sports, at work, and in our life.
Observation: The quality of our workout today is directly proportional to the quality of our sleep last night.
Making peace with what is gives us a higher chance of shaping what could be.
I sometimes joke that one way to look good as a product manager in any tough conversation – with cross-functional partners and/or other teams – is to say – “let’s take a step back and align on the problem statement.”
It is a joke because you definitely don’t want to overuse it.
But it is amazing how often the act of aligning on the problem untangles the messiest of knots.
I’ve been making slow progress through Poor Charlie’s Almanack – a compilation of Charlie Munger’s wisdom.
I was struck by a few of the notes in a page today with some Q&A.
“What should a young person look for in a career?”
“I have three basic rules. Meeting all three is nearly impossible, but you should try anyway:
“What overall life advice do you have for young people?”
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step-by-step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day-by-day, and at the end of the day – if you live long enough – like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.
Life and its various passages can be hard, brutally hard. The three things I have found helpful in coping with its challenges are:
I love the simple three-point answers to both questions. They’re pithy, thoughtful, and pack a punch.
That ability to keep it simple while being insightful is a mark of wisdom.
Manchester United Football Club are having another shambolic start to a new season. After hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the summer (following hundreds of millions in the last few), the team still looks disoriented and disorganized.
Or at least that’s what the scoreline and the summary of the text commentary said.
I don’t think I’d have watched even if I had the option.
The manager, Erik Ten Hag, has shown himself to be proficient at making excuses for over 15 months now. When the club’s operations were taken over by new owners, they expressed their doubts about ETH. Somehow, against all odds, they overcame their doubts, believed his side of the story, and retained him.
It reminds me of Frank Slootman’s fantastic quote “when there’s a doubt, there’s no doubt.”
The entire excerpt from his book “Amp It Up” was insightful – “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.”
“Back then I was seen as a much more reasonable and thoughtful leader – but that didn’t mean I was right.”
I’ve thought about those words a lot since I read his book 2 years ago. I think of it when I see Erik Ten Hag and Manchester United. I think of it every time I see organizational dysfunction caused by senior leaders.
When there’s a doubt, there’s no doubt.
Om Malik – one of tech’s “OG” journalist voices – shared a beautiful post on his blog today. He reflected on a brutal review he shared about an app called “Path” that, in his words, was critical, harsh, and unkind.
He shared – “I don’t have regrets because I failed to do my job or wasn’t honest. I have regrets because I forgot that the English language allows us to make points with elegance and eloquence. How could I, as a practitioner of the bard’s language, forget its original tenet? I regret using the words I did because they minimized the efforts of individuals who dreamed up something new.
I look back and often think perhaps I should have approached my work with empathy, carefully chosen words and a measured tone. While our culture often encourages harsh takedowns, we should consider the impact of our words.“
He reflected on this as he commented on the brouhaha surrounding Marques Brownlee’s new app. Marques Brownlee – a.k.a. MKBHD – is one of the most influential tech review YouTubers on the planet. His reviews have had the ability to destroy new products and companies. Marques shipped a product of his own recently – likely in a move to leverage his brand and diversify revenue streams.
However, the product – a wallpaper app that charged $50 per year – released to harsh criticism about both the product and its pricing. It just didn’t work.
Om shared – “However, the fracas around Panels should serve as a learning opportunity, not only for Brownlee but also for those who review products and offer opinions. It reminds us that creating something new requires effort, courage and dedication.
Putting oneself out there inevitably invites criticism and feedback. This situation serves as a reminder for both creators and critics to approach their work thoughtfully, balancing honesty with kindness and keeping the audience’s needs at the forefront.“
It is a powerful reflection and one that resonated a lot.
Here’s why – I’ve been building technology products as a Product Manager for a few years now. Before I started working in product management, I spent a lot of time reviewing products and simulating prioritization decisions. It was my way of learning what I hoped would be my craft.
But the more time I spent attempting to build products, the more I came to appreciate the nuance and challenges involved. Things that felt like obvious fixes to a user turned out to involve challenging technical and organizational trade-offs. There were frustrating user experiences that seemed trivial to fix from the outside. But, having spent time with the constraints, I knew just how challenging this was.
This is not an excuse for the mistakes I’ve made and continue to make as I build products. It is recognition of a simple truth – building good things is hard. Tearing down them and criticizing them with smart comments and wit is easy.
I don’t expect every user to understand this. I’ve been on the receiving end of many harshly worded complaints and frustrations. I get it – job seeker is a painful experience. It is annoying and the user believes we should be doing better. And we have a lot of space to do better – without question.
However, thanks to this experience, I have built more empathy for anyone attempting to build something. I am learning that I need to do my best to summon that empathy and choose my words more carefully.
Especially when I don’t know or understand what constraints they’re working with.
A Learning a Day 