> 2021年10月08日信息消化 ## You’re trying to do too much origin: [You’re trying to do too much](https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/?ck_subscriber_id=739575748) The problem is that this enthusiasm is rarely matched with execution. Attempting several pursuits at once is a recipe for accomplishing none of them. **Progress requires priorities**. We need to tackle projects one at a time—not try to juggle them all at once. #### The Mindset of Open Options I recently read Pete Davis’s excellent book [Dedicated](https://www.amazon.ca/Dedicated-Case-Commitment-Infinite-Browsing-ebook/dp/B08LDYGTR7/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=dedicated+pete&qid=1620765439&sr=8-1). In the book, he argues against the culture of “liquid modernity,” the idea that we always need to keep our options open and avoid committing to causes, communities and projects.  Davis argues that we live in a culture that prizes keeping one’s options open. It’s better to be maximally flexible, the popular reasoning goes, so that we can respond to any opportunity at a moment’s notice. Committing to anything, even for just a few months, locks away other possibilities, and is thus undesirable. Examined closely, the reasoning behind liquid modernity doesn’t hold up. Even if you want a more varied life than the long-haul commitment Davis encourages, you still need to commit to projects for bursts of time to make progress. The person who commits to three-month projects may not achieve mastery. Still, they will get further than the person who merely thinks about doing those projects. ##### Tying Yourself to Reality While broad cultural forces may be partly to blame for our indecision, I suspect the problem my overly-enthusiastic students face is more mundane. **It’s more fun to think about being good at something than to actually do the work to get good. Thus we daydream, rather than take action.**  Daydreaming isn’t always bad. Sometimes thinking about something is better than actually doing it. This is particularly true when embarking on a new effort would break an existing commitment—a person who merely fantasizes about an affair is probably better off than one who cheats on their spouse. The person who sticks to their career, college or business throughout their difficulties will often get further than those who wilt at the first frustration. The problem is that daydreaming alone doesn’t lead anywhere. None of the projects we imagine but never work on are ever realized. This can deflate even our daydreaming, **as part of us knows, deep down, we’re never really going to do it.** The solution is to pick a project and see it through. Tie yourself to making a reality manifest, not simply thinking about it. The solution is to pick a project and see it through. Tie yourself to making a reality manifest, not simply thinking about it. ##### Give Ideas Time to Incubate The notion that a commitment to focused action leads to longer and better thinking may seem paradoxical. But I’ve found it to be the case in my own efforts. Committing to fewer pursuits tends to make those you do stick to better thought out in the end. ##### Variety in Focus, Possibilities in Constraints Those who focus the most often end up with a great variety of accomplishments. Actually realizing the possibilities inherent in your life is only possible by subjecting yourself to hard constraints. Above all, recognize when trying to do too much generally results in nothing being done at all. ## The End of Software, Again origin: [The End of Software, Again](https://every.to/napkin-math/the-end-of-software-again) > 2000~2010: Salseforce | licensed/on-prem → subscription/cloud > > 2010~: Horizonal SaaS (multi-market) → vertical SaaS ( industry-specific) When Salesforce was birthed in 1999, almost all software meant for business was delivered “on-prem.” Meaning that when a business bought software, the next step was a sweaty engineer would show up from Seattle, sit in their server room for 2 weeks, and promptly send a $2 million dollar service bill. This sucked. But this was software. **Salesforce pioneered something new — the cloud.** Instead of an engineer eating at Ruth Chris’s on the customer’s dime, the software could just be delivered via an internet browser. Way, way better. To further differentiate itself, Salesforce allowed (or forced) customers to purchase software on a subscription versus the license typically required by their CRM competitors. By doing it on a subscription versus perpetual license it made their price significantly less. Salesforce argued that a radically different product delivery method, coupled with a novel monetization structure, signified that software was over. But this is….obviously wrong because they are literally selling software. What they actually meant was the previous software *paradigm* was over. And in that regard, they were right. There are 1000x more software companies now than there were in 2000 (and the size of those businesses are way larger too) but going from licensed/on-prem to subscription/cloud was a significant shift, rapidly changing the power structure of numerous markets. I believe we are now at a moment of equal import — software is undergoing a quiet revolution that will dramatically alter the power, profits, and market share of incumbents. This is the biggest, most important trend in B2B software since the cloud in 2000. There have been elements of this idea scattered everywhere, but I have yet to find anyone who has, to my satisfaction, actually thought through all the implications. Simply put: Just as the internet and web browser unlocked the previous shift, the new ease of embedding payments, lending, and other financial products will allow industry-specific software platforms (Vertical SaaS) to destroy multi-market/horizontal solutions like Salesforce. Ever smaller niches will be able to sustain venture-scale software companies because of the addition of financial products. Over time, these niche players will eat their way upmarket capturing SMB then Mid-Cap until the Salesforce’s of today only serve legacy behemoths. ##### We reside in the ASS machine I think of enterprise software in two general periods: **BS** and **ASS** (Before Salesforce and After Salesforce’s Success). During the **BS** period, software was installed on-prem by professional services teams and was sold via license. Since 2000, we have been in the **ASS** period. Regardless, during the **ASS** period we have learned a ton! Lots of big, public companies have established various operating heuristics that we know to be true in B2B software. A few quick examples: - You can build a bottom’s up horizontal platform with individual contributor buy-in ([Twilio](https://every.to/napkin-math/twilio-s-second-act)). - [Product-Led Growth](https://every.to/napkin-math/product-led-growth-s-failure) can allow you to build large, horizontal platforms (Slack) but unless you intelligently add strong sales and marketing capabilities at the right time, you’ll lose ([SurveyMonkey](https://every.to/napkin-math/product-led-growth-s-failure)) - Companies, both large and small, are comfortable with usage-based pricing [Snowflake](https://every.to/napkin-math/snowflake-the-righteous-blood-sucker) When this law is paired with the need for software companies to pursue large markets, there are very, very few vertical SaaS companies to reach public market size ([Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/) and [Procore](https://www.procore.com/) are the two best semi-recent examples). To get there they typically had to focus on a market so massive, so fragmented, and so underserved that the horizontal platforms couldn’t truly fit their needs. The necessities of subscription pricing made it incredibly difficult to achieve the delicate balance between profit/growth. **When the history of software is overlaid with disruption theory it becomes a lot more clear on why fintech is so important.** ### Misc - HN | [What to learn](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28904021) - > Another case - I used to manage a C++ developer. If you gave him a tight spec, he'd implement it perfectly. But the world we lived in required him to go talk to people to figure out what the real needs are, and he was bad at that. So his code always solved the wrong problem unless someone was helping him with this stuff. - [The best communicators rule the world.](https://twitter.com/dbustac/status/1443347105917988864) - Write with a specific, one-person audience in mind. It's counterintuitive - but if you try to write for everyone, you'll end up writing for anyone. - Every story should have these 3 components: adventure, adversity & triumph. - HN | [Bitcoin is a Ponzi](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28781586) - This whole confusion stems from a rather vague understanding of what the subjective theory of value means: **Goods and services provided by humans have no intrinsic value but become precious simply there being demand by other humans.** Gold can become worthless if nobody wants or needs it anymore. A stupid trading card may cost thousands of dollars costing pennies to make but is sought after by enough collectors. Edit: Yes, Bitcoins are just numbers stored in a computer memory around the world but so is software. And software ain’t cheap. While Bitcoin‘s value might be grossly overestimated due to rampant speculation but even then, these speculators are no victims in an investment fraud but they truly believe that Bitcoin will become much more useful *in the future*. They may be wrong but, currently, nobody knows. Only the future will show. - The properties of it being difficult/impossible to confiscate and its **privacy** make it valuable in oppressive regimes. A refugee could store their wealth in Bitcoin, leave their country, settle somewhere else, and access their Bitcoin without the risk of it being confiscated during the journey, because they can simply memorise the seed phrase (24 words).