The Chomp #027

Hey Everyone,

Welcome back to The Chomp—your weekly dose of the best content from the internet and beyond, designed to expand your mind and get you thinking. Let’s dive into it.

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Quick Bite

• Never Attribute to Stupidity That Which Is Adequately Explained by Opportunity Cost: “I've found that neither malice nor stupidity is the most common reason when you don't understand why something is in a certain way. Instead, the root cause is probably just that they didn't have time yet.” (4 Min)

  When something doesn't work intuitively or the way we expect it to, it's easy to attribute its shortcoming to laziness or stupidity. It's especially easy to have these thoughts when interacting with software or applications. There have been countless times I've interacted with a website or app and a button or action has been 10X more difficult to use than it should be. My immediate thought is usually why the hell is this designed like this? At that point, it's easy to get frustrated and put the blame on laziness or stupidity.

  In reality, most of the time this isn’t the case. There's a much simpler solution—they just didn't have time yet. And the reason for that has an even easier explanation—something else was more important. This notion led Erik Bernhardsson, the CTO at Better, to come up with the following phrase: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by opportunity cost.

  When you think about it from that perspective it seems quite obvious. However, it's much difficult to apply this mindset in practice. It's natural human psychology to conclude that something wasn't done due to laziness or stupidity. Even more so when the judgment is about someone you don't know. Pinning stupidity on a faceless person or team is too easy to do. Keeping this in mind, you can start to shift your perspective around the process and prioritization that goes into building a product.

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Deeper Dive

• How the Passion Economy Will Disrupt Media, Education, and Countless Other Industries: “By developing new products and services that are cheaper, simpler, and more convenient, workers in the Passion Economy can tap into large segments of consumers who previously could not access or afford, or were over-served, by traditional offerings. In this way, Passion Economy businesses have the potential to disrupt incumbent companies.” (12 min)

  For those not familiar with the term passion economy, investor Li Jin has defined it as follows:

  New digital platforms enable people to earn a livelihood in a way that highlights their individuality. These platforms give providers greater ability to build customer relationships, increased support in growing their businesses, and better tools for differentiating themselves from the competition. In the process, they’re fueling a new model of internet-powered entrepreneurship.

  The passion economy has exploded in recent years and is set to experience tremendous growth in the coming decade. New innovations have made it easier than ever for individuals to earn a living by leveraging their passions and unique skills. A few examples include gamers streaming on Twitch, podcasters, influencers leveraging social media, and writers building subscription newsletters.

  In this excellent essay, Jin breaks down how and why the passion economy is poised to disrupt several industries. She also explains how COVID and our 'new normal' is proving to be an accelerant for this process. Millions of people are either out of work or are looking to diversify their income. This, in turn, leads to a massive increase in the number of people trying to earn income online. People who weren't producers suddenly become producers.

  On the flip side, we're entering an environment where consumers are likely to continue cutting their discretionary budgets. This then creates a hole where products and services they previously consumed existed. These consumers will look for alternatives, and many will find them in the new products and services created in the passion economy.

  This will certainly be an interesting area to watch for the emergence of new trends in the coming months. Do yourself a favor and get acquainted with Li Jin's work now she will be someone to follow in this space.

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Tweet of the Week

NASA @NASA

We have liftoff. History is made as @NASA_Astronauts launch from @NASAKennedy for the first time in nine years on the @SpaceX Crew Dragon:

Song of the Week

Apple Music Link

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Books

Currently Reading

Recently Read

• After committing to going deeper into the work of Rene Girard, I spent some time researching the best place to start. Many of the comments I came across recommended starting with his interviews rather than his original works. Girard is a complex thinker and diving straight into his work can be quite a challenge. This is especially true for those not familiar with his theories. Having already spent a bit of time acquiring a baseline knowledge of his work, I settled on this book as my jumping-off point. This ended up being a great decision. Reading the Bible with Rene Girard is an annotated transcript of conversations Girard had with the author, Steven Berry. These conversations peel back the curtain on both the formation and application of Girard's Theory of Mimetic Desire. I highly recommend this as a starting point for anyone else looking to learn more about Girard. (4/5)

• René Redzepi is one of the world's best chefs as well as one of its most interesting people. His restaurant Noma has been rated #1 in the world four times on the 50 Best Restaurants in the World list. I've long been fascinated with Redzepi and his uncompromising attention to detail. In Hungry, Jeff Gordinier gives us his fascinating account of traveling with Redzepi and getting to know him over the past decade. This one is well worth a read for anyone interested in the food world as well as those more generally interested in understanding the inner workings of someone at the top of their craft. (4/5)

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Parting Thoughts

This Week in History

• On May 28th, 1929, On With the Show became the first movie to be shown in full color. The film debuted at the Winter Garden Theater in NYC and forever changed the way we watch movies. (Source)

 "When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation."

— Alexander Hamilton

If you found something that piqued your interest this week, please help me out in expanding the reach of The Chomp by forwarding it along to a friend or sharing it with others in your network. Until next week.

-Cody