đ #248 Training the Idea Muscle, Learning What Matters, Crossing Different Universes, Exit Interview
Software is Culture, Facts about Mexico, 21 Lessons, Spurious Correlations, Say Goodbye & more
Hello,
Welcome to Stay Curious #248.
I finally watched Dhurandhar on Netflix. There is already a lot written about the film, so I will skip adding another take to that pile. What I do want to talk about is the background score.
After a long time, I watched a Bollywood movie where the background score truly lifts the storytelling. The music does not just echo the emotion of a scene. It sharpens it. The choice of sounds, the timing, the pauses, and the moments when it quietly returns are all done with an artistâs magic. Hats off Shashwat Sachdev. Youâve killed it!
I could honestly rewatch the movie just for this. Simply brilliant work.
That is what is top of mind right now. And with that, here is a quick look at what I have for you today.
Lot of goodness awaits you ahead. Letâs get startedâŚ
đ Training the Idea Muscle
If you spend as much time online as I do, you have probably stumbled upon a wild idea called LooksMapping: Ranking restaurants based on how attractive their customers are.
That is one of the many things Riley Walz has built. On the surface, these feel like pranks. Outlandish. Slightly unhinged. But look closer and you will see a pattern. Each idea starts with an observation, a human behavior quirk or a strange incentive. These are curiosity itches. Instead of just noticing them, Riley builds something. A tiny tool, a personal piece of software of sorts.
That is what makes his story interesting. It is not about going viral. It is about training the idea muscle. Seeing something odd, acting on it and shipping a response. In that sense, the pranks are not the point. The joy of doing it is.
Read: Training the Idea Muscle
Here is a snippet that captures how he thinks.
If you want to understand how to get better at generating ideas, this is a great example to study. And yes, along the way, you might also learn a thing or two about creating viral internet ideas.
[via Readwise]
đŞ Tacit Knowledge as âMagic Ingredientâ
Some organizations have a strange quality. Things work beautifully. Then one or two people change, and it is suddenly not the same. The quality bar drops. The culture feels different. Everyone says nothing has changed, yet the behavior tells a different story.
I recently found a useful way to explain this. The idea of a âmagic ingredient.â
There was something invisible that the organization cared about. Something people added, consciously or not, to every piece of work. That is what made the output feel distinct. That is what made it feel like us.
Over time, this ingredient gets lost. Not because anyone chooses to drop it. It fades slowly. A new hire. A new priority. A tactical shift that feels sensible in the moment. The work continues, but the magic disappears.
Vaughn Tanâs piece offers a strong frame for this. He points to tacit knowledge as the real magic ingredient, especially on quality and taste matters.
Tacit knowledge is hard to document, hard to transfer and easy to erode.
His exploration touches many of the challenges above and offers an intuitive path forward. If you care about culture, craft, and maintaining a high bar, this piece is worth your time.
Read: Learning what matters
One snippet that captures the essence well:
Some organisations successfully teach tacit knowledge quickly and reliably. They donât do it through better documentation or more extensive training, but by embedding teaching and learning opportunities into the structure of everyday work itself. I wrote about these organisations and methods in part 5 of my book, the Uncertainty Mindset but Iâll go over the main ideas quickly below.
Organisations that are doing it right make every piece of work do triple duty: the work gets done (outcome 1), serves as a test of the employeeâs understanding of some piece of tacit knowledge (outcome 2), and provides learning material and opportunity for others on the same team (outcome 3).
This happens through three mechanisms working together.
âď¸ Crossing Different Universes with Berty Ashley
Iâm still awestruck by how good To Your Heartâs Content is. This podcast has been on top of my playlist for the last two weeks, and Iâm almost through the first season.
The two hour conversation with Berty Ashley is my next pick from the series. For those of you who donât know (like I did), hereâs a quick introduction from the video notes:
Heâs a quizmaster, musician, scientist, author, music artist manager - professionally. Heâs also a vinyl record collector, coffee taster and (as he puts it) local jokester and punmaker. His diverse interests crosses over in everything he does - from giving audiences scientific epiphanies while conducting really fun quizzes, to hiding Pink Floyd references in academic papers!
And given his range of interests, the episode goes on to cover a wide array of themes & stories.
We speak to Berty about the innate curiosity that drives everything he does, how being interested in various things gives him random connections, how he built a quiz event blending science, history, music and humour (and made it work!), the âperformanceâ of being a quizmaster, his philosophy of storytelling and much more.
Along the way we cover esoteric terrain such as his disdain for zebras, building jugaad microscopes, how highly sheltered girls were able to identify a BTS GIF while their principal couldnât, how X Files impacted STEM enrolments, and more.
Listen (or Watch): Crossing Different Universes with Berty Ashley
This is pure joy. I cannot do justice by pulling out snippets or lessons. You have to listen or watch it to feel the magic. Worth every second.
Iâm almost done with this podcast, and there is no season 2 (yet). What should I jump to from here?
đ§âđ¨ Exit Interview with Michael Bierut
Another gem of a listen, this time from 99% Invisible.
Roman Mars does an exit interview with legendary designer Michael Bierut, who recently announced his retirement as a partner at the design firm Pentagram.
Bierut has a long list of achievements. But one early invitation he designed in his career stands out for me. It is a beautiful example of what thoughtful design can do. Small idea. Big impact.
The conversation itself feels like listening to two masters at work. Bierut talking design. Roman bringing his deep curiosity and calm pacing. It flows effortlessly.
Listen: Exit Interview with Michael Bierut
I loved this episode for its energy and the steady stream of stories. Pure craft, and experience.
Here is one snippet that really stayed with me:
ROMAN MARS: I know that embarrassment. You come across a new factâa new thingâand just like, âWhy in the world did I express some opinion about this 15 years ago when I had no idea?â
MICHAEL BIERUT: But you had to. You had to. It was your job to express that opinion. And you worked with what you had. I mean, thatâs the one thing about getting older; if you respect the opportunities that curiosity affords you as you age, you get smarter and smarter and âwiser and wiser,â say. And they canât take that away from you. You know, your chops in terms of doing the craft may start to recede a little bit. But you sort of have this reservoir of experiences that if you donât get too enamored with tales from the good old days and bore people with those, but if youâre actively kind of curious, thereâs no telling what kind of stuff you can discover.
Great conversation all along!
đ˛đ˝ 54 Observations about Mexico
Kvetch / Oz shares observations from his time in Mexico, both as a tourist and as someone who slowly built a deeper relationship with the country and its people.
His reflections cut across people, society, art, culture, food, and business. Some are simple observations. Others feel more like commentary. Those are the parts I enjoy the most. They make you pause and absorb.
I have never been to Mexico, and I know very little about its culture. That is what made this piece feel fresh and novel to me.
Read: 54 Observations about Mexico
I used to really love Mexicoâs high chaos / high agency mix. You can basically do whatever you want. This trip more than ever Iâve just noticed the general dysfunction. Itâs always been there, but itâs less âthird world chicâ and more âjust sucksâ to me now. This probably maps to my own life arc from young single man (risk-seeking) to early-middle age dad (more risk averse). The ability of a state to maintain public goods and social order is surprisingly hard and probably path dependent on a bunch of things. Probably broad-based state capacity is a foundational thing, hard to retrofit onto broken incentives. Once a society normalises private provision of order, itâs incredibly hard to claw back. You need a broadly vested elite, upfront. Which is extremely difficult (impossible?) in an ethno-classist state like Mexico (and South Africa).
In a way, the post is not really about Mexico. It could just as easily be about India. Many of the observations feel deeply familiar and mirror what I see around me every day.
[via Marginal REVOLUTION]
âď¸ Software is Culture
Figmaâs blog consistently delivers engaging storytelling around design. A recent post looks back at the most influential interactions of the last twenty years. It shows how small design choices can grow to define an era, and how the products we build now will shape what comes next.
Experience: Software Is Culture
These interactions are often tiny gestures. They feel so natural that we barely notice them anymore. Think about how often you try to tap your laptop screen. Hearing the stories behind these choices, and seeing how deeply they have influenced our world, is so much fun.
[via Sidebar.io]
đ§ 21 Lessons from 14 Years at Google
Addy Osmani shares 21 lessons from his 14 years at Google. An engineer talking about life lessons was not on my wishlist either. At least not consciously. But as I read through the list, it clicked almost instantly. It felt familiar, and very much worth the time.
Hereâs why:
These lessons are what I wish Iâd known earlier. Some would have saved me months of frustration. Others took years to fully understand. None of them are about specific technologies - those change too fast to matter. Theyâre about the patterns that keep showing up, project after project, team after team.
Read: 21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google
The observations are simple, yet powerful. Call them lessons, or just quiet observations picked up along the way. Worth a note, nonetheless.
[via Sidebar.io]
⨠Little Moments of Joy
Also known as âEverything elseâŚâ. The small things that brought warmth, sparked joy, and made me appreciate life a little more.
When China builds, it builds at a grand scale. Almost god scale, if you may. If you want to feel that sense of awe, check out these photos by Weimin Chu that capture the breathtaking scale of Chinaâs Wind and Solar Buildout. Drone photography adds a perspective that is hard to grasp from the ground!
Spurious Correlations. They told us many times: correlation is not causation. Hereâre a lot examples to prove it. For instance, the number of Walmart stores worldwide correlates very strongly with the current distance between the Earth & Saturn. [via Kottke]
Say Goodbye. [via Garima]
ICYMI, here is the link to last weekâs post:
Thatâs all for this week, folks!
I hope Iâve earned the privilege of your time.
See you next Monday.