Being Overconfident, Getting Stupider, and Banning NFTs

Monthly Wrap from July

Another month, another host of great articles, listens, books and other finds from Product Thinking and around the internet. Here’s what you may have missed.

Product Thinking

How to Be Wrong and Overconfident

This is one of one my favorite articles I’ve written in a while.

“While many of us have probably been humbled plenty in our professional lives, we can still take certain steps to bolster our overconfidence and ensure that no matter how wrong we are, we can still be more wrong and even more confident about it.”

Camping Trips and Creating Products

We do a lot of camping each summer, so probably no surprise that my thoughts turn to it each it year. And find parallels between camping and building products.

“Camping trips are each a learning experience. So are each time we create a new feature or new product. We add to the tools we have in our packs and the experience we can draw on for using those tools in the field.”

Build by Tony Fadell: Book Review

This is now one of my new favorite books about building products.

“I can’t write about all the advice in the new book Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. But I highly recommend it to anyone interested in building products. No matter where you are in your career, just starting out or CEO, there is something for you.”

Other Articles

The Video Game Industry Was Hot on NFTs. Then Came Hacks and a Market Meltdown

Gaming platforms are taking stances against NFTs generally. There are strong opinions on both sides. Steam and Minecraft have both come out against NFTs on their platforms.

NFTs are polarizing. 

NFTs entered the cultural mainstream in 2021 as a novel method of determining ownership of digital property using blockchain technology. As cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether skyrocketed to all-time highs, newly minted crypto millionaires began speculating on NFT digital art…

The question gaming companies are trying to work out is how to best use the tech. First there's a soft integration, where players can own digital goods, like costumes or weapons, as NFTs instead of leasing them from merchants like Epic Games, as is currently the case. Then there's the play-to-earn, or P2E, model, where blockchain assets that have value outside of the game, such as cryptocurrencies, are earned via gameplay.

Cyberattacks have nearly doubled since last year, report says

Anecdotally, I keep getting text messages from our “CEO” asking if I have a minute for an “urgent item” and to text him back. Not sure what the scam is (or if it is, in fact, our CEO who is really in need of something urgently and not hitting me up on Slack since I’ve never responded), but attacks are on the rise.

A recent analysis by fraud-buster and cybersecurity company Seon found that cyberattacks have nearly doubled since last year. Given that the number of people using the internet worldwide is creeping upward quite slowly by comparison, that means the odds that you’ll be affected are increasing rapidly. It’s time to double-check your security settings.

The Standards Innovation Paradox

This was a great article on the pros and cons of standards, with email, messaging, podcasts, etc.

Technical standards are awesome. Standards help teams save time and money by giving them a common language for how their products can interact with other products, eliminating the need to build each component within a market or re-define how systems communicate with each other.

Despite the benefit of standards-based products being able to reach an audience faster, the tradeoff is that a lower barrier to entry means more products get created in a category, causing market fragmentation and ultimately, a slow pace of innovation.

Netflix loses almost a million subscribers

This headline has dominated the news for a bit. Netflix has been making some interesting decisions as it has faced this new reality, including tightening account usage (no more password sharing) and allowing advertising. From a business and product perspective, these are the types of things that rapid growth always hide, but eventually everyone has to deal with, whether early or later.

After enjoying a long reign as the king of streaming, Netflix faces a tough fight to keep its crown.

It lost almost a million subscribers between April and July as more people decided to quit the service.

Good Podcasts

Solving Problems and Developing Apps - A Conversation with Dan Hafner

In this episode of Product by Design, I spoke with Dan Hafner, a mobile app creator and entrepreneur who helps other businesses and entrepreneurs create apps and solve problems. We talked about focusing on meaningful problems, thinking through the user experience, no-code solutions, and who benefits from creating a mobile app. Join us for a great product management conversation.

Is Social Media Making Our Society Stupid?

Yes. Social media pushes us toward performative media rather than actual connection. And has probably been worse for society than beneficial. And this was a really good listen.

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of ethical leadership NYU's Stern School of Business and author of a number of books, including The Coddling of the American Mind. His recent story in The Atlantic, "Why The Past 10 Years Of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid," sparked a debate about whether social media was bad for society, and how we know for sure.

Epsilon Theory on Tape: Hollow Men, Hollow Markets, Hollow World

This feels like a theme of podcasts I’m listening to. Our leaders are stealing from our future, creating the tools that are hurting us (social media), and then watching the world burn from their mansions or towers. It is infuriating, and we shouldn’t continue to allow it.

Over the past 25 years, our leaders have intentionally constructed an Apocalypse Now world of proclamation and fiat, where our wealth has grown much faster than our economy.

The bill is due for their hubris, and inflation is here to collect it.

Books

Migraine: Inside a World of Invisible Pain

I thoroughly enjoy Maria Konnikova’s work. The Biggest Bluff is one of my favorites still, and worth a read if you haven’t checked it out.

As a migraine sufferer since childhood, I really enjoyed this brief history of migraine and where the current research is. I think the stigma is still there. Fortunately, I’ve found treatment that is a godsend for me, but know exactly what it’s like to suffer for days without it.

Migraine, a disease that is still little understood, yet debilitating to its sufferers. Konnikova takes a clear-eyed look at migraine’s history, diving into current theories and more recent approaches - and offers a deeply personal account of what it’s like to experience migraine, usually with little warning and always to a level that is devastating to a degree. 

The Magic Christian

Man, this was a fun little read. Sometimes I feel like billionaires today are doing the same thing, just not as blatantly. Why not, when money can get you out of “keep you clear” anyway.

Determined to “make it hot for people,” Grand spends his billions staging a series of hilarious, sometimes bewildering stunts, lampooning along the way the American holy cows of money, status, power, beauty, media, and stardom. Concocting deliciously perverse mayhem, he throws a million one-hundred-dollar bills into an enormous vat of steaming offal, proving just what people will do for money, and he promotes a new silky shampoo that turns hair to wire and a deodorant that becomes a time-released stench-bomb.

Interesting Finds

Barney Wilen French Ballads

So I ordered a different record, and inside it was this one. I didn’t realize it until I had it on my record player and it clearly wasn’t the record I was expecting. But we let it play and enjoyed some “synthesis of Jazz and French chanson.” It’s nice to find some unexpected music, to break out of the algorithms, and get exposed to something that you never would otherwise listen to. So check it out.