Plicity

When we focus excessively on scaling, on profit margins, on hiring, we miss the point of founding—and life, really. Which is to find meaning in our daily tasks.

Obsessive people who are in love with the problem they are solving can make up for a litany of management sins. (Perhaps that is also the lesson of Apple and Ive.)

What is really interesting is considering the second-order effects of the ability to create software 10 times faster than just a few years ago.

Here's the counterintuitive truth: users tend to embrace features they discover on their own.

When Airtable forced a "New Automation" pop-up, adoption crawled to 9%. When repositioned as a subtle "+" menu for natural discovery, adoption jumped to 41%.

Why? Self-discovered features trigger dopamine releases that create ownership. I experienced this wh... See more

Machine-learning educator Parul Pandey showed the new update of 2.5 Pro an image of a concept for a children’s game and asked it to code up a version. One pass later, she had a working demo.

“Craft is fractal. It begins as a flat, broad idea—a rough sketch, raw and unformed. But as you dive deeper, you sculpt and fine-tune, peeling back layers to reveal hidden worlds in the crevices. A piece starts ‘ugly,’ then transforms through selective beautification.” —Dev Valladares on the fractal

Playdate excels within constraints. Its one-bit screen and tiny processor mean it can’t run graphics-heavy games, but that limitation encourages developers to think about what they can build. The tiny black-and-white screen. The bright yellow color. The ‘season’ of games. The crank. The crank! Playdate proves that craft isn’t about doing more: It’s... See more

But also, social media has gone from connecting friends to stealing people’s time. Between all the ads, it’s hard to know what’s actually a good productin online shopping.

We need to use these new tools in a truly creative way. And that’s why the really powerful inputs will continue to be human – empathy, observation, humour and cultural understanding. These are things that help us break through the creative ceiling.