Perspective

The task is...not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.

-Erwin Schrödinger

Years back, a TechCrunch reporter told me “your job as a VC is to get reporters to write stories about your portfolio companies”. That’s not what a typical VC does. But I see how it makes a ton of sense in their mind. The only times this reporter interacted with VCs was when a VC wanted them to write a story about one of their portfolio companies. VCs don’t talk to reporters about much else. So it makes sense to think this from a reporter’s perspective.

When Joe Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders for president, I wrote it off as Joe Rogan not understanding economics. A friend in the media business recently corrected me. He said Joe Rogan endorsing Sanders got him more viewers on the left than lost him viewers on the right. Perhaps Rogan knew what he was doing and is smarter than people think. It could be viewed as a brilliant, strategic move to gain a broader audience. 

How we observe worlds is different depending on our perspective. 

Being conscious of our biases from where we stand and how we act has massive consequences. This is why I prefer to say “my bias” instead of “I think” or stating my opinion as a fact. At the end of the day, it’s my bias. It’s from my perspective, which may be a flawed perspective.

When running product, you need to put yourself in the perspective of a user. What does the user want to see? What does the user expect to see? What does the user want to accomplish? How do they typically accomplish this task? What would be a more optimal way of accomplishing a given task?

When developing product, there’s a balance between customer needs and first principles. It’s important to understand their needs. However, a customer may tell you they’d never use feature x, but when you launch, they may end up using feature x all the time. People may not admit preferences, or may not even be conscious of all their actions. We’re constantly fooling ourselves.

You’re reading this right now. It should be upside down, but your brain is flipping it right side up for you. Your perspective is being changed without you realizing it. You probably knew this fact, but now, you’re thinking about it. You can try all you want, but without turning upside down, you can’t see upside down. Even though the raw inputs to your brain are upside down, you can’t undo it. Try. Really try. Look at the text. 

Think about what that means.

There are things in our minds that we see and know are false, but we can’t change them. Even if we know something is not true, our brain will continue tricking us to play out a narrative. If our brain manipulates what we see, imagine how it manipulates our other senses, feelings, and emotions without our conscious consent. You could fight against it, and it still wouldn’t matter. 

My bias is to be skeptical of the power of our minds. I’m skeptical when something evokes extreme emotion or cements a narrative. Acknowledging who we are and our own biases is the path to knowing ourselves. Things aren’t always as they seem.