Keith Rabois

I remember interviewing once with a job for Tim Cook. And I walked in and he's like, why are you interested? And I said, well, you know, I own every SKU of every product you've ever produced, except I don't have every color of each iPod. And he was like blown away. And but now like my photos app is completely unusable. So I totally understand, you know, the frustration.

I remember interviewing once with a job for Tim Cook. And I walked in and he's like, why are you interested? And I said, well, you know, I own every SKU of every product you've ever produced, except I don't have every color of each iPod. And he was like blown away. And but now like my photos app is completely unusable. So I totally understand, you know, the frustration.

And they are showing like the decay function, you know, culturally and otherwise, that eventually somebody will figure out an angle to rip them out.

And they are showing like the decay function, you know, culturally and otherwise, that eventually somebody will figure out an angle to rip them out.

Yeah. Let me pause, double click on that for a second. So I think taste is great if you have it, but there's only so many people on the planet that are going to have cutting edge taste and be right. If you don't have taste, what most tech companies do is they use data.

Yeah. Let me pause, double click on that for a second. So I think taste is great if you have it, but there's only so many people on the planet that are going to have cutting edge taste and be right. If you don't have taste, what most tech companies do is they use data.

data is something that's approachable and leverageable because Apple has like the antibodies to using data to measure success with the user experience to measure whatever success. If you subtract taste even by a bit, you don't have the scaffolding that every other company would use. And so you see the worst of both worlds.

data is something that's approachable and leverageable because Apple has like the antibodies to using data to measure success with the user experience to measure whatever success. If you subtract taste even by a bit, you don't have the scaffolding that every other company would use. And so you see the worst of both worlds.

The scaffolding you had at Facebook Meta, obviously, or that Google uses, would catch some of the stuff, without a doubt, no doubt about it. You'd know that users are less thrilled, and they'd use things less, and you'd fix it. And maybe even you take that to an extreme, you never develop taste. I could argue that about Google or Meta. They don't really have taste.

The scaffolding you had at Facebook Meta, obviously, or that Google uses, would catch some of the stuff, without a doubt, no doubt about it. You'd know that users are less thrilled, and they'd use things less, and you'd fix it. And maybe even you take that to an extreme, you never develop taste. I could argue that about Google or Meta. They don't really have taste.

But you could argue the paradigms. But fundamentally, if you don't have that backstop, if the taste subtracts even 10%, not all the way down, you're just not going to catch this stuff. And I think there's only... How many people in the world really have cutting edge technology user experience taste? I don't know too many. I would fund them right away.

But you could argue the paradigms. But fundamentally, if you don't have that backstop, if the taste subtracts even 10%, not all the way down, you're just not going to catch this stuff. And I think there's only... How many people in the world really have cutting edge technology user experience taste? I don't know too many. I would fund them right away.

It's an incredible... Brian Chesky might have it.

It's an incredible... Brian Chesky might have it.

It's more predictable scale. It's certainly more scalable, right? Like you take Steve out, you don't need a dictator, but you do need a taste and taste is artistic. The same thing with venture, like, you know, like scaling venture funds is really, really challenging because early stage investing is more like taste than data driven. And later stage, you can use data and scale it and scaffolding.

It's more predictable scale. It's certainly more scalable, right? Like you take Steve out, you don't need a dictator, but you do need a taste and taste is artistic. The same thing with venture, like, you know, like scaling venture funds is really, really challenging because early stage investing is more like taste than data driven. And later stage, you can use data and scale it and scaffolding.

So I think there's just fields. It's a little bit also, you see like these sports teams, like this happened at Stanford when Jim Harbaugh left and, It took years for the decay function for the next coaching regime to show they were completely incompetent. The next year, they were pretty good. The next year, they lost one more game than they should have.

So I think there's just fields. It's a little bit also, you see like these sports teams, like this happened at Stanford when Jim Harbaugh left and, It took years for the decay function for the next coaching regime to show they were completely incompetent. The next year, they were pretty good. The next year, they lost one more game than they should have.

The next year, they lost two more games than they should have, blah, blah, blah. And then eventually, they became horrible. And there's a decay function with an organization when you take out the person who is the original thinker or the leader or the dictator or whatever. And so I think some of this is showing up now.

The next year, they lost two more games than they should have, blah, blah, blah. And then eventually, they became horrible. And there's a decay function with an organization when you take out the person who is the original thinker or the leader or the dictator or whatever. And so I think some of this is showing up now.