Sachin and Adam
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.
00:19:25 · Adam, Sachin
[00:19:25] S1: tech stuff doesn't have much taste at all. [00:19:26] S0: Right? Yeah. Exactly. And so we've consumed all that. But then we also got to a point where it's like, we started consuming too much content or we're like like, we're just learning too much. And it sort of becomes overwhelming, and you reach this point where it's like, what's all this for? Like, I'm listening to all these podcasts. Like, I feel like I've learned all this stuff. Like, you get to a point where it's like, what is it for? And then I think when you overextend yourself into that zone, then you start to question. It's like, okay, now I just care about, like, what's the one thing I can read this week? What's the one thing I can listen to this week that really speaks to me on a deeper level that will actually change me? So I feel like we've been on a bit of a journey with that. And now the things that resonate are not like just utility driven pieces of content. They're often like very more tasteful videos, more soulful things, things that are just different. Yeah. It reminds me a lot of people that are kind of in