Sachin and Adam
00:12:40 · Adam
[00:12:40] S1: lot about how he cultivates his taste. Like even things like every time he goes to New York, he goes to the Mona and he like, what? The Monarch or the Met, one of those galleries and he show shows how much taste we have. But he but he goes into there and he like really, really like examines the art. And I think it's almost like a way of being in the world where you notice things, like you notice distinct architectural patterns or you notice even like the interior of a store, even what someone's wearing. And I think something that I'm focusing on these the next six months is like, how do I really improve my taste? So everything I consume, I'm trying to make sure it's almost like it... It's had that mark of approval that's still relevant in 10... Like after ten years. So I'm trying to read older books than I used to. I'm trying to like even listen to like different music. Like I was listening to a playlist yesterday that was curated by Elton John, and it was really interesting, like all this stuff that I would never listen to, but you could tell that he has taste. And I think there's this balance in between mimicking the taste of others and almost like accepting the societal standards of taste, which I don't really agree with. And there's a lot of that that happens in the art world where it's almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. If one taste maker says this is good and then everyone like goes on, it's like even the same thing with like fashion brands like Hermès and stuff like that. But I also think there's something to learn from people with a lot of taste, and I'm trying to identify the people in my life with a lot of taste and really trying to see how they how they examine the world. And what I've realized, it's almost like more of a slow way of being in the world. It's more of a way of like noticing these things, you know, around us. It's not about optimizing every moment going really fast. I think a lot of taste is developed quite slowly, and it's also developed quite intuitively. And I think, like, a lot of
00:14:18 · Sachin
[00:14:18] S0: the females in my life have far better taste than the males. I don't know why that is. The people that have taste as well, they never get captive by audience. Like, they very much march to the beat of their own drums when it term... When it comes to putting out things. And I think Rick Rubin says this the best. He talks about with content that's, like, really true to you, don't worry about, like, pleasing anyone else. Like, literally make it for yourself and no one else. And I think that's what the best art is about ultimately as well. It is this manifestation of self expression at, like, your almost highest level of being. And you feel this deep alignment to what you've created, and you put it into the world and some people resonate with it. And I think that's like... That's why art is, like, very polarizing as well because a lot of art will not resonate with, like, anyone because it really matters to that person, but it might all matter to others. Yeah. And I think that's something that, like, we need to think about for the long term as well. Like, you need to listen to users and people that listen to your content and actually... You wanna make sure you're pleasing them. At the same time, I I think you wanna make sure that you're not just catering to them as well.
00:15:23 · Adam
[00:15:23] S1: Yeah. I think a framework I think a lot about right now is like the barbell framework. And I think the barbell framework here is that I think a lot of your content should actually be, like, highly vigorously tested with an analytics engine, but then there's this place in the middle where I don't think you should play. And then the place you should also play in is like have a view of the world, have like this intuition or this taste, and almost don't listen to anyone in that part. Right? And so if there's new kind of product lines we want to try out that we actually really deeply think could resonate, like we've talked a lot about like New Yorker styles for tech... New Yorker style pieces for tech profiles, and we have a lot of the data and also like, you know, the networks produced and the episodes that we're already recording. And I think that's something that we have a certain intuition about, which maybe the data will will show opposite or like, or like the user testing will show opposite. I also think that like a lot of the early user testing for great startups, they were solving a problem, but maybe they were... But but they were also category creating. Like I think, you know, Airbnb and Uber, they solve problems. Like I'm not saying that you should never listen to your customers and not solve problems, but there is also this thesis that you have in the world where you almost need to be stubborn enough to to kind of create it into existence.
00:16:35 · Sachin
[00:16:35] S0: Yeah. Yeah. I I have two points. I think that on the taste part, it sort of depends about like what is the job to be done. I think there's certain pieces of media that when they're more highly niche, they actually are about fulfilling the certain, like, educational need to the audience. So maybe you think about, like, invest like the best, which has a lot of taste and brilliance. But at the same time, it's sort of thinking about what is that like job to be done and, like, what are people trying to learn about? But then potentially the content and, like, maybe the literature that stays around for decades or whatnot. I don't know if it thinks about, like, a job to be done. It's just created to be great. Mhmm. And then that leads to... It can fulfill people in many different ways. And then to your point before about, like, testing, Cal Newport on that podcast with Tim Ferriss, he says that there's, like, there's two ways to get... To release things into the world. One of them is testing, and the second is with taste. So if you don't have taste, his recommendation... This is really interesting. It's like release things a lot and test things because you get this super quick feedback mechanism. And so you might not know what good looks like, but then other people will. Well, it's not that they'll just know, but they will show you by, like, if they're listening, if they're liking your things. Or he said, if you do have taste, you can actually be a lot more stringent with, like, not releasing anything for a long time because you know what good looks like. And you wait and you produce what good what good is and then release it to the world. So then I think there's a
00:17:58 · Adam, Sachin
[00:17:58] S1: lot of people that will think they have taste, release something into the world and nothing happens. Yeah. It it makes me [00:18:04] S0: think of like just writers, especially writers of like the sixties and seventies. Our friend Jack was talking to us about this because he's in Greece, that a lot of writers used to go to, like, Greek islands, like, really, really remote ones. And they would spend, like, whole seasons there, like, writing and, you know, not releasing anything anything to the world often for years and then coming out with something. Cause they had taste, they knew what it could look like, and they'll create these very, very [00:18:31] S1: just extremely high quality pieces of work. Yeah. I think it's something that's gonna be an ever growing challenge, and I think we're probably people that naturally don't have that much taste. Yeah. Doesn't come that naturally to us. And I think it's like something you can work on, but also something that's kind of innate. Yeah. So I think like that's why I think that barbell approach will probably be good for us. Like, some things have like a a perspective, have a hypothesis and other things, know, go more data driven. And when you said about like people that don't have taste and go more data driven, I thought of Alex Hormozi, like all the power to him, but he releases so much content. And I
00:18:31 · Adam, Sachin
[00:18:31] S1: just extremely high quality pieces of work. Yeah. I think it's something that's gonna be an ever growing challenge, and I think we're probably people that naturally don't have that much taste. Yeah. Doesn't come that naturally to us. And I think it's like something you can work on, but also something that's kind of innate. Yeah. So I think like that's why I think that barbell approach will probably be good for us. Like, some things have like a a perspective, have a hypothesis and other things, know, go more data driven. And when you said about like people that don't have taste and go more data driven, I thought of Alex Hormozi, like all the power to him, but he releases so much content. And I [00:19:04] S0: think that's someone who clearly is being very audience led on what works and what doesn't. Yeah. I think about our own journey with this, it's funny because, like, I don't think we've ever been, like, people of taste, but, like, we've always been very utility driven with content. Like like, we're obsessed with podcasts and learning and just having as much knowledge as possible. A lot of [00:19:25] S1: tech stuff doesn't have much taste at all.