Hello my friends,

I know inboxes get hectic midweek but I hope you had time to dive into Cognitive Biases 101.

Many of you dropped me a note saying you enjoyed the format so I’ll continue to build on it in the coming weeks.

If you missed it, or you’re a new subscriber (welcome!) you can find it here.

This excerpt from Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success resonated.

Conventionally, asking questions is seen as vulnerability, weakness.

Yet, to solve difficult problems you have to simplify to first principles; like peeling an onion, one question at a time:

“Why do consumers behave in this way?”

“What does the consumer put up with that they shouldn’t have to?”

“What do we need to do to remove friction for the consumer?”

More on this in the Simon Sinek video below, aptly titled: “The Truth About Being the Stupidest in the Room.” ↓

Let's get into it.

— Andy

Product

• As the billionaire space race heats up, SpinLaunch is aiming to significantly reduce the cost of launching things into orbit. Their solution is so wild I had to double check it was legitimate.

• Despite best intentions, today only 9% of consumer plastic is recycled after use. Algramo is tackling the problem by keeping plastic in the economy but out of the environment.

• Lockdowns and travel restrictions have taken their toll on brand’s consumer centricity. Anheuser Busch is refocusing and reinventing its approach to innovation by putting the consumer first.

People

• Amazon started with a bookstore and became one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world. This collection of every shareholder letter Bezos has written is an almanac of opportunity, disappointment and exponential growth.

• The great resignation, reevaluation, or whatever you want to call it continues to intensify. Even in China, known for its work ethic, workers are rebelling against long hours and low pay by practicing “Tang Ping”.

• “The average professional had 5.6 one-on-one meetings per week […] More than 42% of one-on-ones are rescheduled every week and 29.6% are canceled.” 1:1 meetings are eating your workweek.

Methods

• Following on from the excerpt in the introduction; by asking questions you run the risk of being “the stupidest in the room”. As Simon Sinek explains, actually, you are the bravest.

• Building a “career moat” is one of the most effective ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to build one.

• Reminder: don’t just listen to your consumer. Observe them as users ↓

  

Out of Office

I spend close to zero time watching TV news.

It has become increasingly difficult to parse fact from fiction, neutrality from bias.

And unless there’s a major catastrophe, international news is rarely reported.

Journalist Barry Malone is trying to change that with his Proximities Substack.

“Outlets with a pretense of being global would rather spend all day talking about a controversial tweet than about an explosion in Mogadishu. Our social feeds are dominated by rancor rather than reporting. Controversy drowns out facts. "Content" drowns out insight. The rich drown out the poor. And the West drowns out everywhere else.”

Read More Here

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