The Heretic is a free dispatch delivering insights into what it takes to lead into & in the unknown. For
entrepreneurs, corporate irritants and change makers. Raw, unfiltered and opinionated.
On a sunny, cloudless day in the summer of 2012, I found myself sitting in one of the classically uncomfortable seats at Denver International Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to depart. At 6 feet 4 inches (or 1.96 meters), I am, by most measures, tall. I am also fairly skinny – back in 2012, while training for a series of ultramarathon races, my body fat was down to around 5%, and I weighed around 165 lbs / 75 kilograms. This means that when I encounter people who are as tall as I am, they tend to be heavier – think basketball players, rather than super tall, skinny runners.
As I was trying to make myself comfortable in my seat, I spotted a well-dressed gentleman sitting opposite me. Like me, he was skinny and tall. When the gate agent called our flight, we both leaped out of our seats – happy to get moving and out of our hard, pokey chairs. My fellow traveler, dressed meticulously in a tailored suit, bent down and grabbed his suitcase – which was the exact moment I realized that he was a full head taller than I.
I must have looked at him in utter disbelief – see, when I encounter people who are noticeably taller than me, they tend to be broad-shouldered giants, not skinny stick figures like myself. Upon seeing my facial expression (eyes widened, mouth slightly open – a mixture of awe and shock), he looked down at me and said, with a perfect deadpan pitch in his voice:
“There is always someone taller than you.”
And with that, he turned around, walked off, and boarded the flight.
For a split second, the earth stood still for me, the (nonexistent) clouds parted, and a divine message manifested itself: for pretty much anyone, everywhere, there is always someone taller, smarter, faster, better than you…
Stay humble. Stay hungry.
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There once was a startup. The founders, plagued by a problem they encountered in their own lives, went out into the world to seek a solution. They spoke to countless others who shared their plight, listening intently to their woes and wishes.
With determination in their hearts and fire in their eyes, they returned to their humble garage and began to craft a magical device. Day and night they toiled, fueled by the stories of those they’d met. Their creation grew more wondrous with each passing moon, for it was born from the very essence of the people’s needs.
Dee Hock, the founder of VISA (the world’s largest credit card payment system), was one of the eminent thinkers in management and organizational theory. As a lifelong student of Hock, his work and insights, I came across the following — which I thought about summarizing in my own words but realized that it’s too good to be butchered by me.
On Leadership:
“I used to have sessions with my employees once a week. Anyone could come, and we’d talk about anything on their minds. They always wanted to talk about management. ‘How do you do it?’ ‘What’s the best way?’...
There is a fantastic story told by bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger:
I’ll always remember the first time someone asked me questions in the gym. It was about their legs. They said they couldn’t grow, and they wanted to know which exercises to add to their routine to hit the thighs. First, I said, “Let’s see your squat.” And they said, “My squats are fantastic. I can squat 405.” They got the weight on their back and lowered it approximately 2 inches, and came back up. That’s when I learned that people have a habit of looking for the next...
First things first—it has been a while. As you have undoubtedly realized, my Heretic posting schedule has slowed to a crawl. Which doesn’t mean I don’t post—I just happen to post (twice a week) on the radical Briefing. Check it out; you might like it! With this out of the way, let’s talk about GyShiDo.
GyShiDo?
Yes, GyShiDo. The Art of Getting Your Shit Done. 😁
More than a decade ago, Daniel Epstein, Will Butler, and I created—somewhat as a practical joke, but also dead serious—the GyShiDo Manifesto, after realizing that our individual superpowers were simply that we...
Are you optimizing your systems? Keeping a tight ship and making sure the trains run on time? Have your OKRs and KPIs been closely tracked?
You might want to rethink this…
Reed Hastings, the uber-successful founder of Netflix (and disruptor of the status quo in the entertainment industry—a true heretic), once remarked:
Most companies overoptimize for efficiency… The nonintuitive thing is that it is better to be managing chaotically if it’s productive and fertile. Think of the standard model as clear, efficient, sanitary, sterile. Our model is messy, chaotic, and fertile. In the long term, fertile will beat sterile.
Ah, the glamorous life of an entrepreneur. Private jets, lavish parties, changing the world in a hoodie. It’s the stuff dreams are made of, right?
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s a load of crap. The real entrepreneurial journey is less “champaign wishes and caviar dreams” and more “lukewarm coffee and cold sweats at 3am.” It’s a gritty, messy, nightmare-fueled rollercoaster. And you know what? That’s precisely how it should be.
The Myth of Overnight Success
We love a good overnight success story. Some wunderkind drops out of college, writes a...
John Lilly, my former boss and then-CEO of Mozilla, once offered a piece of advice so obvious it seems absurd: build products that don’t suck. This was back when Firefox was running circles around Internet Explorer, delivering a vastly superior web browsing experience. Simple, right?
Apparently not. In the relentless pursuit of profits, countless companies have forgotten this fundamental rule. They cut corners, skimp on quality, and prioritize short-term gains over long-term customer satisfaction. It’s a recipe for disaster.
The Slippery Slope of Suckiness
Once you start compromising on product quality, you’re on a downward trajectory that’s hard to recover...
In a world saturated with information and distractions, the ability to communicate a clear, compelling narrative is a superpower. As an entrepreneur or business leader, crafting the right story can make all the difference in winning over customers, investors, and the public.
This insight was pithily expressed by political consultant Arthur Schmidt in his advice to General Electric in the early 20th century: “Campaigns are won not by the candidate or company with the best character or product, but by the one with the simplest and most clearly told story.” Or as his colleague Comstock summarized it decades later: “Pick...
The beloved brainstorm. The darling child of corporate innovation. The magic bullet that will solve all our creative woes.
Or so we’ve been told.
Brainstorms are a colossal waste of time.
They’re the equivalent of trying to catch fish by throwing a bunch of hooks into the water and hoping something bites. It’s inefficient, ineffective, and frankly, a bit delusional.
So why do brainstorms fail so miserably? Let’s break it down:
Production Blocking: The Waiting Game
In most brainstorms, only one person can speak at a time. While others wait their turn, their ideas evaporate faster than a puddle in...
