seths.blog / Page 3

Where do con men come from? There are three conditions that need to be met: First, there needs to be rising societal pressure to get ahead, cut the line and find a win. Second, there needs to be pe ...

But connection is where the value lies. Connected, resilient communities create possibility and forward motion. Division is satisfying in the short run, and it might even draw a crowd. But the only ...

Really? Which self? The self you were when you were two years old, almost out of diapers? The self you were when you were screaming with the fans at the big game? The self you were after a long nig ...

We might not seek it out often enough in our work. It's a musical term, but we can use it too. The light touch. A way to make a sound without making a commotion. Delicate and graceful. Showin ...

"Obvious" closes the door to inquiry. "Perhaps" opens it.

Busy people in important organizations waste a lot of time naming things. It could be that once a name is good enough, you're done. That's certainly true for the logo. Nike is hard to p ...

"Nobody wants this" is unlikely. "Somebody will like this" is almost certainly true. "Everyone needs this" is a trap. The work begins with finding the right some ...

Since the days of Atari and Apple, the culture of Silicon Valley has been based on the idea of programmers and early employees owning equity in the startups they took a chance on. The media is alwa ...

One way to understand creative work is to think about the time and effort required to do something the first time versus doing it again. A novel might take five years to write. Retyping it takes a ...

A picky customer is oppositional. Whatever you offer, they want something (slightly) different. A particular customer is easy to delight. They tell you what they want, and that's what they wa ...