📚 Beatles Principle, Next Great Distribution Shift, Three Type of Specialist, Unhappy Meals

‘Safe for Kids’ Chat, Square Theory, Creative Neighbourhood in Mumbai & much more…

Hello, this is post #216.

One of my biggest pain points while driving in Bangalore is the congestion caused by mid-block U-turns on most major roads. Each one adds 5+ minutes to my journey, every single time.

A quick search pulled up enough academic research showing the many drawbacks of this design. You will relate to these instantly -

1. Vehicles slowing down to take the U-turn, others accelerating out of it, and through traffic trying to maintain speed — all of this creates dangerous weaving sections.

2. There’s often sudden braking before the U-turn and fast acceleration after. This leads to more rear-end crashes.

3. Vehicles rejoining traffic after a U-turn create fresh bottlenecks and delays further down the road.

4. U-turns collapse under pressure. Queues back up quickly, often spilling onto the main carriageway and blocking through lanes.

There is so much evidence available around the limitations of this design, still we have them everywhere. In fact, more roads seem to be getting fresh ones. What am I missing? If you’ve any reference, do point me to it.

But, you didn’t come here to hear me rant about Bangalore traffic. You’re here for something exciting and insightful; and I’ve got plenty of that in today’s post. Here’s a quick glimpse:

We’ve a lot to cover today, let’s get started.

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💡 Beatles Principle, Design Tenet and lots of Design Wisdom with Bob Baxley

Bob Baxley has over 35 years of experience designing products at Apple, Pinterest, Yahoo, and ThoughtSpot. His conversation with Lenny is my podcast pick for the week.

It’s packed with counterintuitive takes like:

1. Design should report to engineering, not product

2. The best products come from teams of 4 to 6, not 40 to 60 (what he calls the “Beatles principle”)

3. Design principles, in most cases, aren’t actually useful

4. Delay drawing or prototyping as long as possible

Each of these is ready to spark debate — and that’s the point. Design has always been about a strong, opinionated point of view.

What makes Baxley’s take worth listening to is how each idea comes with a story, a pattern, or a lived example.

Especially the bit on design principles — and why his idea of “design tenets” works better. That story alone makes this episode worth the listen.

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🤖 The Next Great Distribution Shift with Brian Belfour

The last couple of years building consumer products have taught me a few important lessons. Here are two that stand out:

1. Care about what your user cares about — and what they’re willing to pay for. Everything else needs heavy storytelling, education, or brand-building just to make a dent.

2. Distribution is everything. This is where most good products lose the game.

Growing a fledgling game was a real challenge. Most distribution channels were crowded and expensive. Reaching the right users cost a bomb. And with how quickly tech and ecosystems change, I’ve seen channels lose their edge in a matter of months. What worked last quarter stops working this one.

I’ve also come to believe this: Whenever a major new platform emerges, it unlocks new product ideas — and gives them a shot at real reach, impact, and business.

Brian Belfour’s The Next Great Distribution Shift frames this really well. A couple of standout ideas from the piece:

What defines a true platform shift?

What separates a major platform shift from a minor one isn't the technology itself. It's whether that shift enables both new ways of building things AND new ways of reaching people.

How platform shifts always play out:

Every major new platform follows the same playbook: They start open and generous, practically begging developers to build on their platform. They need you to help solidify their moat. But once that moat has escape velocity? The walls go up. The taxes increase. The rules change. What was once free becomes paid. What was once permitted becomes forbidden.

Some platforms are surgical about it—Google took years to tighten its grip. Others are brutal—Facebook famously left "a trail of dead apps and battered businesses" when it shut down viral channels overnight. But they all follow the pattern.

ChatGPT could be the next big shift. It’ll be interesting to see how these patterns play out — and more importantly, which companies manage to stay relevant even after the platform becomes closed.

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💬 The Untold History of Designing ‘Safe for Kids’ Chat

Last year, we wanted to boost player interaction in our game. Multiplayer mobile games get a lot more fun when real human interaction brings in some banter and a sense of connection.

We looked at our options. Voice chat was the obvious one — but we quickly ruled it out. Creating a safe, welcoming environment for all players felt too challenging with voice.

We landed on emoji and stickers — expressive, but within a controlled range. They felt safer, easier to moderate, and less prone to abuse. We also had to consider the risk of collusion — players teaming up unfairly — and that shaped a lot of our thinking.

Did it work? Well, it definitely drove engagement. But what we didn’t expect were the new usage patterns that emerged.

1. Players started bombarding others with emoji and stickers — not to connect, but to distract them during their turn.

2. Some even began using a specific emoji as a signal — a kind of unofficial code for “let’s play it friendly.” We couldn’t find hard evidence of collusion, but the pattern was clearly there. It started to feel like the in-game version of “ASL” in old chat rooms.

Reading The Untold History of Toontown’s SpeedChat took me right back to those days.

Disney’s team was trying to build a chat system for kids — one that was safe, limited, and trustworthy. And it wasn’t easy. Their design challenges, player behavior patterns, and trade-offs were all eerily familiar.

It’s a fun and insightful read. And a good reminder: Human behavior will find a way. Better to anticipate it — or design with those patterns in mind — than be caught off guard every time.

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3️⃣ Three Type of Specialist

According to Kurt Vonnegut, three types of specialists are needed for the success of any revolution.

1. Someone capable of having original ideas; the kind that aren’t already in circulation. An authentic genius.

2. A highly intelligent, well-respected citizen who understands and endorses those ideas; and can vouch that the genius isn’t crazy.

3. A communicator; someone who can explain even the most complex ideas in a way that makes sense to almost anyone, no matter how resistant or uninformed.

Vonnegut’s key insight: none of these people can make a real dent on their own. But put them together — and they can create movements that shift the world.

It’s a short piece, but it packs a punch.

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🍔 Unhappy Meals with Michael Pollan

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That’s how Michael Pollan sums up his advice on what humans should eat to stay healthy. These are the opening lines of his 2007 classic, Unhappy Meals (Archived version here).

Since then, we’ve seen countless health food trends rise and fall — faster than the release cycle of new AI models.

That’s exactly what makes this essay stand out. It goes back to basics.

And Pollan doesn’t hold back. Sample this:

“If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food — and food is what you want to eat.”

Or this:

“Humans deciding what to eat without expert help — something they’ve done with notable success since coming down out of the trees — is seriously unprofitable if you’re a food company, distinctly risky if you’re a nutritionist, and just plain boring if you’re a journalist. (Or, for that matter, an eater. Who wants to hear, yet again, ‘Eat more fruits and vegetables’?)”

He goes on to unpack the confusion around nutrition science and the idea of nutritionism — and that’s where the piece gets dense. But also where it gets interesting. Because at the heart of it, Pollan is saying: we really don’t know what’s going on. And that’s worth paying attention to.

I’m no expert, but his perspective is worth knowing.

And if you’re looking for a little more than “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” — he offers 8–9 solid tips based on everything he’s uncovered.

Just don’t expect anything trendy. That’s the point.

And since we’re on the topic of food trends — here’s another piece I found both informative and relevant. Karthik S dives into vegetarian substitutes for non-veg food. This is an area I had only a surface-level understanding of. Glad to now be a little more aware.

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⏹️ Square Theory

In #212, we had covered Unparalleled misalignments. Examples like:

Deer country // Stagnation

Mailman // Reply Guy

Frequent Flyer // Daily Mail

These are pairs of phrases where each word in one is a synonym of each word in the other — but the phrases themselves mean wildly different things. Instant click for anyone who enjoys language oddities.

If that was your kind of nerdy, here’s a follow-up that goes even deeper. Adam Aaronson calls it the Square Theory. It’s sort of like the same idea, but with more layers and more chaos.

I’m sharing just a screenshot from his post for a glimpse. It only gets more insane from there. Click at your own risk.

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📝 Inky Memo & Quotes about Writing

And to lighten the mood — and maybe bring a little inspiration back — here’s a collection of 51 Famous Quotes About Notebooks, Journaling and Writing, curated by one of my favorite newsletters for stationery lovers: Inky Memo.

A couple of my favourite ones:

“On many of the jobs I’ve held, even if someone did not know my name or position, I was commonly referred to as “that guy with the notebook”. I was constantly taking notes. It is also a nice “prop” if you want to appear “busy”. A thoughtful look, a slight chin rub, and a few notes. Working hard.” ― Michael A. LaPlante (Writer)

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” — Flannery O’Connor (Novelist)

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✨ Everything else

1. For those excited about how art & creative expression helps us create stronger bonds with our roots, here’s a story from Mumbai. Check this out to know how new creative neighbourhoods in Mumbai are preserving cultural heritage, while trying to avoid gentrification.

2. Ruthie’s Table 4 is a fascinating podcast. Ruthie Rogers, co-founder and chef at The River Cafe in London, talks food and life with people who’ve spent a lifetime chasing creative pursuits. The episode with Jony Ive stood out for me. Thoughtful, personal, and full of quiet insight. Here’s a story that Jony shared about his Dad that stayed with me.

   Well, he trained as a silversmith and a cabinet maker and then became a teacher and a professor. His specialism was art and design. And my Christmas present would be he would say, we will go into the workshops during during Christmas, which I'm sure was illegal, and we would go in for one day and he said, you know, we will make together whatever whatever you want with the one condition that you design it, and to me, he didn't actually say designed, what would have been I think I started doing that when I was probably about seven or eight, so very But what was curious. He didn't say design it, He said think about it and explain it to me, probably with a drawing. And what a wonderful definition of. Design explained by a drawing.

3. Aled Thompson illustrates birds and other animals in a style that’s geometric, almost vector-like — and yet full of beauty and detail. His Instagram feed is a treat.

That's all for this week, folks!

ICYMI…

Last week, we dived into the business behind the IPL, the art of spotting talent, and the stories shaping India’s creative food scene—all in one packed edition! From Michael Ovitz’s secrets on building lasting legacies to a marathon podcast on how IPL became a global powerhouse, this post is full of sharp insights, fun trivia, and fresh recommendations.

📚 Turning Potential into Prominence, Business of IPL, Hunger Inc, Accountability Sink

I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.

If this piece sparked something for you, I’d love to hear what stood out—leave a comment and let’s keep the conversation alive. And if you know someone who’s always asking "why?" or "how come?", pass this along to them. The world gets more interesting every time a curious mind shares what they’ve found.

Pritesh