My buddy frequently hits me for high-quality free advice. For god knows what reason, I actually try to give him quality answers. He's never satisfied.
Anyways, a few days ago he messages me and says:
"""
Harry Potter
Rubik’s cube
Playstation
Lipitor
Mario kart
Coca Cola
Why were All of these products successful
How did they connect with their customers
What did they do different
"""
At first I gave a simple response, quoting the opening line of a book which he invoked in an argument about how and why China isn't a threat to the USA: Zero to One by Peter Thiel. The fact that Peter is extremely vocal about the need to be concerned about China seems to have been lost on him. Anyways, I answered…
"""
At their unique moment, they met the market and acted as was needed.
As you know “Every moment in business happens exactly once.”
"""
He wasn't satisfied and accused me of using ChatGPT for my answers.
So…, I told him
"""
But if you want my opinion…
Mario Kart — or more broadly Nintendo, which I would argue had greater commercial success provided an arcade experience in the home. The graphics were low resolution and thus more appealing to the faculties of perception than reality proper. The Nintendo video game formula was low resolution graphics which made perception easier. And therefore drew the attention of youths. To sustain attention they would use subtle perceptual tricks, (see the Pokemon soundtrack, specifically wildPokemon battle, gym leader battle and elite four final battle tracks) to induce the false sense that it should be easy to hit a dopamine spike, and then it got harder and harder and more and more frustrating, to play. The dissonance is purportedly relieved at the end of the game. Except that the game process is addictive. For another illustration, it might be better to look at Activision/ Blizzard entertainment. The answers are to be found in off the books expertise in psychology.
Harry Potter — The year was 1996. It was a moment where the adversity of diversity theme was the low-hanging fruit of moral parables and virtues. Rowling wrote the book in a coffee shop and gave the manuscript everything she had; merging the fantastical (and in many ways elitist) aesthetic of British prep/boarding schools who teach (metaphorical) magic, with morally instructive tales about friendship, inclusion, and the like. Incidentally, the books did arguably fill a largely unaddressed need for moral instruction in Western schools which arose out of largely Republican policy-makers' hubris in accelerated the timetables for STEM development. As parents grew concerned about the looming devastation automation would inflict upon their children’s future job-prospects. So… you're asking why was Harry Potter successful? One answer could be that "like… people wanted the story she wrote and she successfully wrote the story. She channeled the zeitgeist."
Rubik's cube — Rubik’s cube, fidget spinner, and similar products transmute the need to fidget into fun by leveraging the simplicity, elegance, and grace of a non-technological toy small enough to take with you. What these products "do" is to provide a task sufficiently simple to allow the human Will to experience a sense of control and engagement — typical signs that what you're doing is fulfilling, productive, and worthwhile — as they procrastinate or listen to someone else. These products exploit the "design" of human consciousness, leveraging the overlap between the use of one's motor skills and the direction of his/her attention. The initial act, of using a fidget spinner, or solving a Rubik's cube, for the first time requires one's full attention. Once a person learns how to "use" it, it becomes second nature and allows one to direct some parts of their attention elsewhere. This is probably what produces the sense of engagement and fun. The reason these devices are so elegant, however, is because they engage the mind's circuitry/chemistry; releasing pleasant sensations that accompany the act of using these toys, ultimately forming an association (albeit a fleeting one) between engaging in the activity and neurochemical stimulation. Interestingly, the this last phenomenon appears in other domains as well:
• The act of cigarette (addiction to tobacco aside) provides a similar relief from boredom or the purposelessness of existence.
• The act of navigating around your smartphone can provide the illusion of a pending delivery of a sense of purpose as one enjoys the toxically pleasant distraction from existence's purposelessness which would otherwise be palpable. If you've ever gotten like really high and then tried to flirt with girls on tinder you know what i'm talking about.
PlayStation — PlayStation was successful for the same reason as Mario kart. Arcade in the home. Playstation wasn't experienced as acutely as a “phenomenon” as was Nintendo, but it did have the backing and funding of Sony.
Coca Cola — Coca Cola initially put cocaine into its soda. Sodas were optimized chemical formulas consumable by humans, engineered for repeat consumption through the exploitation of what was not at the time understood as physiological neurochemistry. At the time you wouldn’t even measure it empirically. You’d just take note that they were selling like hot cakes. Sugar, carbonation, cooling it with ice, delivered satisfaction to an appetite the consumer didn’t even know they needed. Perhaps, the original inspiration was to provide an alternative addiction to tobacco, which perhaps some doctors suspected was addictive.
Whether it’s the ease of access to deliver value to the consumer.
Or a vast supply of expertise and capital to deliver value to the consumer,
The moment has exploitable realities which, the unassuming market will buy into, as Peter Thiel said in the first line of Zero to One.
Why are you asking? What’s it for? Like what’s the bigger context here?
"""
I never got an answer.
And because I never got an answer I decided to snarkily add some additional advice…
One thing I will tell you is that the most annoying attribute of rationalists and systematizers
is they love to think — wrongly — that
thoughts occur without a context,
tasks without a goal,
and recognizable objects without a background.
The umbrella term “tech” means “the intersection of systematizers, technology, and market opportunities.”
You work in tech.
Therefore, you’re likely a systematizer.
And furthermore, you may very well be vulnerable to this belief.
Life doesn’t work that way.
Nothing that is, is as it appears.
Nothing that was can be understood without understanding its history.
Some things that always are, reveal themselves from the details.
"""
All of which got me thinking. Maybe, I should actually do some of the work here.
As a smart person, i really hate doing that. Like a lot. Like I almost would rather die.
Excuses abounded:
• "Why should my friend, or even the public, have access to my free advice? Thoughts are things."
• "While I'm not wealthy per se, I do enjoy, advocate, perpetuate, glorify and refuse to apologize for the protections, privileges, and perks of a system that preserves existing wealth through techno-feudalism and shareholder capitalism in a winner-take-all pareto distribution. What good would any of my research do me in my quest to bring something to market and make my own millions? Isn't this just a waste of time?"
But perhaps, the most importat objection i had, and it's the most common one I run into:
• "This is gonna take forever to do. Like 12 weeks. Minimum. There's like six different businesses/products on that list and it takes like two weeks to research each one."
After about two hours of inner temper tantrums, I said "fuck it" and decided to launch my series: Berg's Series On Successful Businesses (aka "Successful Business Series #000.")
I hate saying what I'm gonna do before I do it, but from sheer laziness alone, I can tell you that this will probably be a series of book reports on various businesses which History deemed extremely successful at one time or another. Such an endeavour would seem trite were it not for a REALLY important reality which, fortunately for me, has been noted by History's most famous old person:
"What risks being lost in an age dominated by the image? The quality goes by many names—erudition, learnedness, serious and independent thinking. … The contemporary world is in the midst of a transformation in human consciousness so pervasive as to be nearly invisible. … New technologies mediate our experience of the world and our acquisition of information. Reading a complex book carefully has become a counter-cultural act." - Henry Kissinger, Leadership (2022).
This is precisely what I aim to do. So… fuck everyone. I'm gonna go read, and write, and blog. And you all can ignore me at your own cost.
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