David Epstein

Just did it.

And this time asked a number of authors that I admire for input.

And that was probably a mistake because there was no agreement whatsoever.

Everyone had some different take.

And that put me in the space of now ignoring, you know, nine out of the ten people's input, basically.

But I was on this email list of authors, mostly who were not like me, but mostly business authors.

And I would feel like an alien when they would talk about their process where it was like – have you ever heard that thing about – so the contrast with Google and Apple is like Google will A-B test 40 shades of blue and Apple will be like, this is our vibe.

This is what we're doing.

And both of those obviously work for them.

But I was much more the Apple style where these writers were much more the Google style where they would have a Google doc.

with kind of a focus group in real time reading it and saying, you know, this is what I want.

And maybe I should be doing that.

But A, I don't want to because a lot of the process is for me and what I'm learning and the craftsmanship of it that I enjoy.

But also, to be honest, I felt like it...

of homogenized their writing when you're going for that sort of consensus in that group and so maybe it decreased the risk you know maybe it kind of raised the floor of their writing but but i think it uh lowered the ceiling for sure because it's sort of less unique people wouldn't take as many swings the swings that could have been really interesting maybe they were misses who knows but some of the things that really make something stand out and be interesting probably got stripped away

You have to risk missing.

I mean, this is like, you know, all this research that shows that innovators are, like the successful ones have more successes, but they have more failures than their peers do also.

Yeah, that's a phrase from a Danish professor at Oxford named Bent Flubjerg.

Yeah, I know.

I know.