tumbledry

Dark Coffee and Taste

Made in USA, by Paul Graham. His point: we make things fast, other countries make things well. These two positions both have advantages, depending entirely upon the industry.

Cars aren’t the worst thing we make in America. Where the just-do-it model fails most dramatically is in our cities— or rather, exurbs. If real estate developers operated on a large enough scale, if they built whole towns, market forces would compel them to build towns that didn’t suck. But they only build a couple office buildings or suburban streets at a time, and the result is so depressing that the inhabitants consider it a great treat to fly to Europe and spend a couple weeks living what is, for people there, just everyday life.

Graham’s really interesting point from his essay: taste is NOT subjective. Americans generally do not have much taste, valuing price over quality the vast majority of the time, unless they are valuing superficial appearance over quality:

I think most Japanese executives would be horrified at the idea of making a bad car. Whereas American executives, in their hearts, still believe the most important thing about a car is the image it projects. Make a good car? What’s “good?” It’s so subjective. If you want to know how to design a car, ask a focus group.

Instead of relying on their own internal design compass (like Henry Ford did), American car companies try to make what marketing people think consumers want. But it isn’t working. American cars continue to lose market share. And the reason is that the customer doesn’t want what he thinks he wants.

Successful products show the customer what they want because customers don’t know what they want. This idea is echoed by by Malcolm Gladwell in his TED talk:

If I asked all of you, for example, in this room, what you want in a coffee, you know what you’d say? Every one of you would say “I want a dark, rich, hearty roast.” It’s what people always say when you ask them what they want in a coffee. What do you like? Dark, rich, hearty roast! What percentage of you actually like a dark, rich, hearty roast? According to Howard, somewhere between 25 and 27 percent of you. Most of you like milky, weak coffee. But you will never, ever say to someone who asks you what you want — that “I want a milky, weak coffee.”

Oh, and we build ugly houses here in America. Paul Graham:

In America you can have either a flimsy box banged together out of two by fours and drywall, or a McMansion— a flimsy box banged together out of two by fours and drywall, but larger, more dramatic-looking, and full of expensive fittings. Rich people don’t get better design or craftsmanship; they just get a larger, more conspicuous version of the standard house.

I’ve had Graham’s Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age on my reading list for years, but I never connected his online essays to that book (never put the names together). After seeing his insights. I’m quite interested in reading that book.

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