Aug 18, 2020Liked by Francisco Souza Homem de Mello
Perhaps you haven’t heard of my Gearbox Principle... Kidding aside, the older you get the more you see these cult truthyisms. From fortune cookies to I’m OK - You’re OK, Seven habits of whatever, Art of the Deal, 4 hour work week... Every generation has their Drucker.
A sucker is born every minute, and people are always looking for shortcuts wrapped with inspirational stories that are largely survivorship bias. A book that actually might help more tech startups succeed would be “Manipulating People for those with High Functioning Autism”. Followed by “Socializing Organizations to Sociopathy” and that all-time classic “Making a better world through monopoly”.
This isn’t kidding. This is how the world works and if people want to be the next big thing you don’t get there following someone else. Once you’re at the top, you can write the history.
I agree, I don't think exponential growth stands up to scrutiny. At it's simplest each new product adds x customers and each new product adds y demand to the platform. Early on that will drive rapid growth but it suffers diminishing returns both in absolute and relative terms. Cost reduction is probably real - but, again, diminishing returns. I can't reconcile how those add up, but it doesn't seem to inform the exponential growth he uses (at least in the long term)
Stop Calling Everything a Flywheel
Perhaps you haven’t heard of my Gearbox Principle... Kidding aside, the older you get the more you see these cult truthyisms. From fortune cookies to I’m OK - You’re OK, Seven habits of whatever, Art of the Deal, 4 hour work week... Every generation has their Drucker.
A sucker is born every minute, and people are always looking for shortcuts wrapped with inspirational stories that are largely survivorship bias. A book that actually might help more tech startups succeed would be “Manipulating People for those with High Functioning Autism”. Followed by “Socializing Organizations to Sociopathy” and that all-time classic “Making a better world through monopoly”.
This isn’t kidding. This is how the world works and if people want to be the next big thing you don’t get there following someone else. Once you’re at the top, you can write the history.
I agree, I don't think exponential growth stands up to scrutiny. At it's simplest each new product adds x customers and each new product adds y demand to the platform. Early on that will drive rapid growth but it suffers diminishing returns both in absolute and relative terms. Cost reduction is probably real - but, again, diminishing returns. I can't reconcile how those add up, but it doesn't seem to inform the exponential growth he uses (at least in the long term)