scottdwitt.bsky.social
Serial Cofounder, CXO, adviser, IC.
Helping startups to succeed by doing what most don't.
"Start with the customer, and work back"
#SoCalVenturePipeline
(same '@' on X)
54 posts
14 followers
18 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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The question for the Product Mgrs (and hopefully some Engineering Mgrs):
"What were the unique competitive advantages we'll enjoy from each of these 'features' ?"
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"In the new age of AI, we must now consider a new concept that I call 'Build vs Buy?'
Perhaps we don't need to reinvent every single wheel,
even though we know we could do it better."
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Between Mars and the G-Dome, and gutting IRS,
the ROI on EM's political contributions is pretty impressive!
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My neighbor's mom managed some rental properties in the later part of her life.
When she had gotten a bit dotty, she retired to an assisted living facility (in London) and she perceived the other residents as her tenants and the staff as *her* staff.
Apparently she was a nice landlady
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7) The more important the situation is, the more probable you had forgotten an essential thing that you remembered a moment ago.
--Professor Osmo Antero Wiio (Finland)
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5) In mass communication, the important thing is not how things are, but how they seem to be.
6) The importance of a news item is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
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4) The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds.
a. The more we communicate, the faster misunderstandings propagate.
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2) If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage.
3) There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message.
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1) Communication usually fails, except by accident.
a. If comm' can fail, it will.
b. If comm' cannot fail, it still most usually fails.
c. If comm' seems to succeed in the intended way, there's a misunderstanding.
d. If you are content with your message, communication certainly fails.
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Sounds like a job for Wiio's Laws
TLDR "Communication usually fails, except by accident".
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Designers of physical things seem to have a similar experience:
making a physical instance of your design teaches you things you'd never learn from a virtual model
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'Knowing the data' is key
You gain insights from manually handling the data yourself.
I've experienced similar pattern working with financial models in spreadsheets: manually re-entering numbers into a new document helps to build a more nuanced mental model.
One would expect AIs to struggle w/ that
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And how *different* are they from other players?
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His eclectic Mindscape podcast is also worth a listen:
www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/
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Why does private health insurance exist?
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Hopefully it's the first few frames of the process of a giant plant being attacked and then fighting back
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in this case, it's an entire industry
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This was a classic Elon pattern at early Tesla:
he kept announcing new stuff/visions to raise money to fix/finish the last announcement
check out:
Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla
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That's really the key: psychology
It's easier and more fun to connect new features with traffic/vanity-metrics/new-customers than with bugs/product-debt with lost revenues/customers.
Few businesses honestly want to know why someone leaves.
Few customers take the time/effort to say why.
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( I'm currently observing a 'meeting of ontologies' project in the smart building space and marveling at the amount of duplication and complexity that exists. The fun part is we're building a way to bridge these semantic silos and eliminate some of the obstacles to making more buildings smarter.)
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the Opportunity is to add something new and useful: true innovation.
the Danger is you simply reinvent the wheel and add costs to the org and its customers, without adding any new value. "Distinctions without a Difference"
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This is an excellent example of the power of newcomers (Beginner's Mind?) to see bugs and opportunities that are hiding in plain sight, and invisible to the old timers.
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PdM role is a destination, so we could also explore
Why they're considering this role (I was promoted into PdM from Engr Mgmt with a gun to my head)
and What skills and characteristics one needs to be successful in it.
Also discuss why one should avoid a pivot into Product Management!
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so true:
when you're trying to do great things, avoid anyone with a "just tell me what to do" mindset
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I was hoping the promo trips ended with Captain Quirk.
Perhaps it's a sign of desperation due to lack-of-demand?
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You also need folks who are willing to become empowered. This is not the default in all humans.
I had a team mate who sincerely believed any attempt at empowerment was really a trap to make them look bad and gain the upper hand. It was likely a multi-generational belief you weren't going to change
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One man?
I think tens of millions of voters can also share in this accomplishment!
And somehow, we should include the other party in this, b/c they repeatedly failed to offer a better option to these voters.
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A little reminder of the full-on comedy you're missing on that other failing social media platform!
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The 'massive reptile' is amazing,
right up until the asteroid hits!
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The need for predictably consistent earnings (driven by investors/analysts) is part of the Stability Machine at the core of large successful orgs.
This machine has been optimized to do the Successful Thing, at scale. Everything in it reflect this:
People
Culture
Systems/Processes
Assumptions/Biases
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I was going to ask about repair costs!
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MAGA Editions on their way?
with DT laser etched on the stainless...
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Let's start by replacing Efficiency with Effectiveness.
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"We don't hope. We plan."
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Lots of parallels between the early history of Tesla, Musk's dubious "antics", and the cottage industries of folks making money off 'the movement', and the current political situation.
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Charity Majors wrote a great piece about the reinvention & rebranding of Leadership/Management as #FounderMode. (similar pattern in Growth, LeanStartup)
bit.ly/4fmjKaL
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By all means, folks also should work with the patterns they see (occasionally discovering new ones).
But this common SV practice often leads to reinventing-the-wheel with half-assed versions of classic concepts and missing/ignoring all of the valuable work that's associated with that classic concept