#85: Disrupt the incumbents, your bias and logical fallacies, Elon Musk, and the story behind the selfie
What? It's Friday!?
Calm yourself -- I'm going away this weekend to celebrate a very important American rite of passage: the Marthas Vineyard bachelorette party.
PSA:
Earlier this week, in the midst of a project, I was seeking a less-dramatic way of saying "death by silo" in business (when groups don't collaborate / share info).
My earnest Googling (modern day brainstorming) revealed that you can literally die in a grain silo.
It's called "grain entrapment" and 26 people died from it in 2010.
This concludes an important PSA. You're welcome.
In this safety-first edition #85 of The World's Best Newsletter:
1. Time to Disrupt Incumbents
2. Erm... your bias and logical fallacies are showing
3. Story behind the selfie
4. The new midlife crisis
5. What if a female CEO acted like Elon Musk?
6. Cash me ousside
7. Quote of the week: wildly outdated
Let's do this.
1. Time to Disrupt the Incumbents
VC Tomasz Tunguz makes a great point:
We have reached a point in SaaS where a small fraction of an incumbent is a billion-dollar company. If you start a business tomorrow that is able to cleave 1% of revenue from Salesforce, you will have built a billion-dollar business....
For every one of the 23 software companies listed in the chart above who are worth more than $5B, there is an unhappy customer segment. A customer segment that perhaps was initially well served by the company. A customer segment whose needs have changed. A customer segment that can be identified, targeted, and better served. A customer segment that can create a billion-dollar company.
Anyone got a great idea? :) Call me.
Wait, don't. Email me. Thanks.
2. Erm... your bias and logical fallacies are showing
Thank you Chris Penn for sharing these two amazing resources:
My favorite cognitive bias: just-world hypothesis
Your preference for justice makes you presume it exists.
A world in which people don't always get what they deserve, hard work doesn't always pay off, and injustice happens is an uncomfortable one that threatens our preferred narrative. However, it is also the reality. This bias is often manifest in ideas such as 'what goes around comes around' or an expectation of 'karmic balance', and can also lead to blaming victims of crime and circumstance.
A more just world requires understanding rather than blame. Remember that everyone has their own life story, we’re all fallible, and bad things happen to good people.
3. Story behind the selfie
Every few months this video makes the rounds on social media. It depicts a group of young women from Arizona State at a Diamondbacks baseball game taking selfies, while the announcers mock them mercilessly for doing so. Those who share it agree w/ their criticisms, posting something along the lines of "look at these foolish girls" or "we take too many selfies" etc.
BUT, there's more to the story -- the ballpark had encouraged fans in that moment to take selfies as part of a contest, a promotion these grown men were aware of when they chose to mock these girls on live TV.
The Diamondbacks recognized their error, offering the girls free tickets in apology - but here's the best park. Rather than take the tickets, these girls asked that the tickets be donated to families at A New Leaf, a non-profit that supports victims of domestic violence.
Grown men shaming girls, who turn it around to support victims of grown men abusing women.
I LOVE THAT.
4. The new midlife crisis
Is... extreme athleticism.
"People in middle age are flocking in record numbers to intense workouts and challenging races. What are they chasing? Extreme fitness is less about being young again and more about building yourself up for the years ahead. In other words, getting better at getting older."
H/T Kristin Farwell for posting this originally.
5. What if a female CEO acted like Elon Musk?
Elon Musk recently choked up multiple times in an interview, alternating between laughter and tears.
This important article in The Atlantic asks: What if a female CEO acted that way?
Self-reflection, vulnerability, acknowledgment of the effects of work on one’s well-being—these are admirable qualities in a leader of any company. And it is important, in a culture that too often rewards work at the expense of well-being, to discuss openly the often unsustainable results of that culture. But as I watched the responses to Musk’s tell-all roll in, I tried to imagine what would happen if a female CEO of a major company gave a similar interview. How would she be perceived?
If a female CEO of a major tech company had teared up to reporters, would she have been seen as “vulnerable,” as the Times put it, or weak?
6. Cash me ousside
Actually, catch me Wednesday night next week -- we're live streaming the "Content By the Numbers" event I'm throwing with Boston Content and INBOUND. It kicks off at 6pm ET on Wednesday, 9/5. I'm speaking alongside the illustrious Daniel Waas (LogMeIn) and inimitable Elle Woulfe (Pathfactory).
This thing sold out in 24 hours, so this livestream was in response to popular demand. Good thing LogMeIn is such a great partner of ours ;) Register here.
7. Quote of the week: Ariana Huffington
"Working 120-hour weeks doesn't leverage your unique qualities, it wastes them. You’re demonstrating a wildly outdated, anti-scientific and horribly inefficient way of using human energy."
Ariana Huffington's open letter to Elon Musk
Have a great Labor Day weekend,
Katie
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