The Art of Scaling Taste

If you’re disappointed by the mundane nature of this process, so was I. When I arrived at the office, I was half-expecting a bunch of artsy weirdos bedazzled with tattoos and attitude. Instead, I met a group of plainly dressed nice folks, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who worked hard at their craft but tried to keep the real world in sight. When I a... See more

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

There are few companies that have successfully scaled taste better than MSCHF (pronounced “mischief”). Well, not exactly a company, as they explained to me when I visited their Brooklyn-based workshop set across the street from a skate park, but an “artist’s collective that happened to raise venture capital.” Or, according to their self-selected Li... See more

The day I compromise what I write to satisfy the whims of some corporate overlord is the day that I quit writing for a career.

In the last five years they have released more than 100 products.

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

Taste is the bone-deep feeling that you’ve made something good. It is a sense, inexplicable and ephemeral.

“Everyone bifurcates the world into content and distribution,” Whaley told me. He has brown hair, is of average height, and was wearing a nondescript gray t-shirt and jeans when we talked. “From the beginning, we viewed those as the same thing. Each object gets better with more participation, and so does MSCHF. Scale is not the goal. Scale is a too... See more

“Everyone bifurcates the world into content and distribution,” Whaley told me. He has brown hair, is of average height, and was wearing a nondescript gray t-shirt and jeans when we talked. “From the beginning, we viewed those as the same thing. Each object gets better with more participation, and so does MSCHF. Scale is not the goal. Scale is a too... See more