📚 Embedded media company, Wisdom of crowds, Data as an added sense, Success & unhealthy behaviour, Recently returned books
📚 Embedded media company, Wisdom of crowds, Data as an added sense, Success & unhealthy behaviour, Recently returned books
Matt Levine’s formula, French perfumer, No-nonsense safety video & more
Hello, this is post #180.
I visited the Festival of Handmade organized by ahundredhands last weekend. It’s a flea market-style event focused on Indian art forms and artists. In just a few hours, I experienced so much. The artists were eager to share their stories, demonstrating their craft, and there was some commerce too. Watching them work and hearing their passion was truly inspirational. There was an energy of possibility, ambition, and joy in the journey. That’s the kind of vibe you want around you!
The food, music, laughter—everything made for the perfect Sunday afternoon.
With upcoming trips to Mumbai, Pune, and home, I’m excited for more stories in the weeks ahead. What are you looking forward to?
Here is what we’ll cover today:
There is a small change in the mix, and I’m super happy about it. Hope you will like these. Let’s get started.
🛂 Embedded Media Company
I’ve spent my career in consumer products, so I’m not too familiar with the B2B space. Recently, I’ve started reading more to build a basic understanding. Jeryd Hermann’s “How Athyna grows” was a great read for that. Even if you’re not interested in Athyna or the field, the lessons are universal.
Storytelling, building an audience, and offering immediate value are smart investments in any industry. But it's not easy. The constant focus on ROI can make you question this effort. You need a passionate creator and a strong advocate to make it work—nothing less will do.
There are also interesting ideas like "creator-squad growth" and the "sidecar product trick" that could spark new explorations in your own domain.
📢 Wisdom of Crowds
Jason Cohen explores both the genius of “Wisdom of crowds” and when to ignore it?
Do you know the very famous Jellybean experiment?
No?
No worries. You might remember the “Audience poll” lifeline in the popular TV show - “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” (or “Kaun Banega Crorepati” in India). It’s a great example of the wisdom of crowds. It holds in empirical observations you can build after watching many episodes where this lifeline was used. Jason has a simple mathematical model to explain it as well.
But does it always work? Doesn’t it sometimes fall into decision-by-committee or just the law of averages? That’s exactly Jason’s point. This method works in some cases but can fail badly in others. Here’s a quick snippet that explains his view:
This distinction might seem intuitive, but it’s often overlooked. Keep it in mind when working on your next assignment and feel tempted to rely on 'voting' to aid decision-making.
📊 Data as an Added Sense
Cedric Chin uses a metaphor of human senses to offer a fresh way of thinking about the role of data in business decisions. He points out that most business operators rely on two primary senses to guide their decisions.
While these are crucial for building a successful business, data doesn’t typically enter the picture—whether data-driven or data-informed.
He proposes that data is just an added sense enhancing what the other senses already provide. It offers unique advantages, such as detecting things we might miss and aiding in process improvement. However, on its own, data isn’t as powerful as it seems. The metaphor of sense works well here, as this is what happens for our core senses like sight, hearing, or touch as well.
Cedric’s writing offers insightful reflections on the basics of product building and decision-making. It’s definitely worth a read!
🍻 Success & Unhealthy Behaviour
I recently started reading Manu Joseph’s blog. His perspective is often thought-provoking and sometimes counterintuitive. It's a refreshing addition to my reading list, offering a balance to mainstream ideas and encouraging deeper thinking.
This short essay - “Success requires unhealthy behaviour” is one such case. Here’s the gist of his argument:
Even in the arts, and other solitary professions, the origin of success is in people who like you and for that reason do not find you very threatening. No matter what your calling is, to find success, you have to be part of a tribe. For that, you have to meet them often, and for that, you have to go out and eat sugar and deep-fried food and drink ethanol in its various forms, and eat more late in the night, and sleep late, and wake up late.
This thought has crossed my mind many times. While I haven’t pursued it myself, I’ve seen it promoted as a great way to ‘grow,’ and I’m tempted to believe it works. However, it’s not the only way. This snippet helped me clarify my thinking:
There was a time, at least in the West, when people met useful people while walking through the woods. Every time I read science history, I wait for that part where this young scientist says something to a Nobel laureate, who is impressed, and invites the young scientist for a walk through the woods. If that was still the world, a very different sort of people would have risen to the peaks of their professions.
Surrounding yourself with the right people is crucial. Those moments of sharing and observing lead to learning that wouldn’t happen otherwise. How you create those moments is up to you. Choose your path!
📰 Matt Levine’s Formula
A confession before this next piece. I have not read Matt Levine’s work (except just one story - “The only crypto story you need”). I just subscribed to his newsletter alert after reading this piece.
I picked this piece because Tyler Cowen had recommended it. I loved what I read. And now, I’m recommending this one to you. You don’t need to know Matt Levine to enjoy this one; you may like it better, if you are familiar with his work.
And now to the story - Why so few Matt Levines?
And the answer is summarized as…
My pessimistic conclusion is that Matt Levines are not made, they are born, and that the Matt Levine formula is largely irreproducible: there are few industries where it makes sense, and there are few people suited for this job, and that is the simple answer why there are not many Levines.
The post goes on to decode the formula…
The Matt Levine formula is weighty matters, leavened by humor, with basic explanations of complicated financial matters. As Levine has been doing this online for so long (~13 years), relatively speaking, he can often refer to his previous coverage and comment on how things turned out.
His field of work offers him some benefits. He has chosen it carefully and exploiting it very well…
cases with known outcomes/answers: to develop expertise in a subject, the subject ideally provides many problems, with known answers, of high accuracy. Most subjects do not. But Levine’s subject (finance & law) does.
He has a ‘first principle approach’ to explaining, which makes the audience more wide…
Levine patiently gives from first-principles (supply-and-demand, market efficiency & adverse selection, people following incentives, public choice theory) explanations of why some thing about markets or contracts is the way it is, how it operated (or failed to operate) in a particular case, and what (and why) the various counterfactual future outcomes are. These repeated explanations—however simplified and abstracted—gradually build up genuine knowledge which can transfer to the real world beyond some crammed supply-and-demand schematics in a long-forgotten economics class.
And then there is spaced repetition that helps make his message (and teaching) more permanent…
spaced repetition enabled by fast turnover: a newsletter is inherently spaced in time, and by returning to themes repeatedly, with various twists or instantiations, the reader learns due to the spacing effect.
Lavine’s approach combined with his industry is the magic formula here. Not all categories offer such cases/scenarios to teach and not all experts have the patience to keep repeating their lessons and not get fatigued.
The last part about ‘experts’ is a fairly good explanation about why all experts don’t become great teachers. In reverse, it may give you some hints towards becoming a better teacher in your area.
📚 Recently Returned Books
Elisa Gabbert explores a rarely noticed part of the library: the “Recently returned books” section. It’s not an official section, and you’re not expected to browse it. Yet, Elisa’s reflections made me rethink my own library visits and what I’ve missed by not checking it out. A quick glance at these books could reveal so much about fellow readers and their interests.
The books on the recently returned shelf, though, haven’t been recommended by anyone at all. They simply limit my choices by presenting a near-random cross section of all circulating parts of the library: art books and manga and knitting manuals next to self-help and philosophy and thrillers, the very popular mixed up with the very obscure. Looking at them is the readerly equivalent of gazing into the fridge, hungry but not sure what you’re hungry for.
The “recently returned” shelf is perhaps the subtlest, most indirect way of advising readers, nudging them toward what others in the community are reading — an index of local interests, a record of your neighbors’ whims.
I loved this short piece not only for her keen observations but also for her writing style, which painted a vivid picture with every sentence.
When I pick the books up, a part of me expects them to be warm, like a just-vacated seat. They often still contain the life detritus of the last person to open them: makeshift bookmarks, boarding passes or receipts; oil stains or flecks of melted chocolate or even blood; an eyelash.
I’m glad I picked this one!
(via Austin Kleon)
🇫🇷 The French Perfumer
In #178, we had taken a deep dive to the world of Pour-over coffee. Now, we go to the world of luxury perfumes. The New Yorker story about “The French perfumer behind the internet’s favorite fragrance, Baccarat Rouge 540” is as much the story of the maestro - Francis Kurkdjian, as it is a great overview of the industry.
Kurkdjian’s story takes you all the way back to Grasse and how this industry came to life…
The French perfume business dates back to the Renaissance, when Grasse was France’s leading producer of fine leather goods. The town’s tanneries were notoriously foul-smelling, so leather-makers, to avoid offending the noses of aristocratic customers, began to infuse their wares with floral essences.
He describes his obsession with his craft and what it produces. The narrative takes you through the key events, people, brand & marque products that have defined this industry.
And needless to say, you will hear a lot about the fragrances. I may not know anything about these, but I was transported to their world. I could not ‘smell’ them but could felt the vibe.
Kurkdjian has focussed his more experimental efforts on Dior’s Privée collection, which was launched, in 2004, as the house’s answer to the niche boom. At the end of the meeting, he pulled out a vial of a Privée scent he’d been working on, dipped a mouillette, and handed it to me. It smelled of honey and bonfire, cut through with a bright note of snap-pea green.
“There’s something dirty at the beginning, and quite sexy, like cold tobacco,” Legrand said, sniffing from her own mouillette. “It’s like you’re picking up someone else’s leather jacket.”
Savor this piece with your favourite cup of coffee!
And if you like this one, you may want to check “Magical world of perfumes” from #151 and “The art & craft of perfumery” from #33.
(via The Profile with Polina)
✨ Everything else
How I designed a Dieter Rams inspired iPhone dock. Design love, attention to detail, tinkering to solve your problems - all in one place. (via YC Newsletter)
Why do we say “like,” like, all the time? Jonquilyn Hill’s short piece in defense of the supremely useful and unfairly maligned word. I have faced the same challenge, now I have a better explanation for it! (via Vox Culture)
In the last flight, I saw its Safety Video titled Safety Mudras and liked it. And then just a few minutes back I saw this No-Nonsense Safety Video from Emirates. The world is clearly divided on using creativity for this task.
⏰ In case you missed last week’s post, you can find it here.
That's all for this week, folks!
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
If you liked this post, please hit the ❤️ below, leave a comment or share with someone who will find it useful too. It’s highly encouraging.
On data as added sense - makes sense although I would approach it exactly from the other direction. I believe there is a bunch of companies that rely too heavily on data as if its the be all / end all of information. Rather, it would make sense to treat it as another sense and also use intuitive and qualitative decision making along with it.
On the wisdom of crowds: it works best when lots of participants know lots of different things about the subject to be estimated. When statistician Francis Dalton performed the original experiment in 1907 -- guess the weight of an ox -- he had a six pence cover charge for anyone making a guess. By this he excluded the riff-raffs and included only those with some idea (butchers and farmers, etc.).
The second thing is that estimation is fundamentally different from creation. Something exists in reality and we have to make a guess (by converging different views of reality) is different from nothing exists and you have to create.
Finally, in decisions by committee, the incentives are different. It is actually to converge and move forward. But put together a diverse team and set incentives for contrarian views that when they work will reward the idea-giver, then I have reason to be optimistic about the exercise.