Fragile vs. Antifragile Systems, Brands & Products
Those that love chaos and randomness
“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Ring! Ring! The front door bell rings and you feel a pleasurable spike in excitement as you realize the package that you have ordered has just arrived.
As you open the door and receive the package, you see marked in red bold type “fragile”. Taking into account this warning you proceed with utmost caution, but on the floor there is a puddle of water that is not visible to you, even though you are moving cautiously through your environment, you slip an drop the package, it breaks. It was fragile. It was susceptible to unknown chaos and randomness. It did not like stressors.
To become an anti fragile brand, that is, a brand that loves chaos, dis order and randomness you must do the following.
Pick the right domain, stay small and decentralized, move fast with quality, understand what will not change, and create relevant redundancies. Here’s what that means.
Life & Business Is Like a Box of Chocolates
You never know what you’re going to get.
The opposite of the package mentioned above would be that it would of improved when dropped, the contents would not have broken, they would have gotten stronger, better.
I am fascinated by this idea of Anti-fragility,Fragility and their equilibrium — robustness.
In the above chart from his book Antifragile, Nassim Taleb gives some examples of things that are fragile, resilient, and antifragile.
In this essay, I am concerned mainly with business and brand, so the above juxtaposition of the NY Banking system & A Silicon Valley “Fail Fast & Break things” mentality brings some clarity. While this is helpful, it would be best to go deeper.
Principles of The Fragile, Antifragile & Robust
Things (and businesses) that are fragile tend to have dis — similar perspectives on similar attributes.
The Attributes
Extremistan or Mediscstotan domain?
Extremistan
Is a domain that dominated by rare events and has more upside than downside from luck. In these types of fields or structures the loses are usually small and knowable, where as the upside is infinite and unknown.
Medioscrastan
Is a domain that is doomed by rare events and has more downside than upside from (bad)luck. In these types of fields or structures the profits are usually small and visible, and the losses extremely large.
(De)Centralization
Architectural (de)centralization — how many physical computers (or components) is a system made up of? How many of those computers can it tolerate breaking down at any single time?
Political (de)centralization — how many individuals or organizations ultimately control the computers that the system is made up of?
Logical (de)centralization — does the interface and data structures that the system presents and maintains look more like a single monolithic object, or an amorphous swarm? One simple heuristic is: if you cut the system in half, including both providers and users, will both halves continue to fully operate as independent units? — Vitalik Buterin, Creator, Ethereum
Speed
Speed is critical in becoming anti fragile. If you are large and centralized, a greater rate of speed just increases your downside. But, if you are small and decentralized, a greater rate of speed increases your upside.
Practically, brands that understand the different facets of decentralization can also move quickly, opening them up to the potentially serendipitous upside of trial and error. In his insightful essay The Physics of Startups: Using Slingshots to Defy Gravity Pete Flint articulates the need for speed beautifully, and speaks about how slingshot speed can lead to the ‘target zone’ of business which is fast decisions that lead to high quality outcomes.
Redundancy
You have two lungs but you only need one, you have two eyes but you only need one. Cleary, nature understands the need for redundancy. Although, in business we don’t always get this point. We tend to optimize for efficiency, but efficiency is inherently fragile.
Lindy & Understanding The Job, Changing Things That Don’t Change
The Lindy Effect is simply the notion that the longer something has been around, the longer it is likely to keep being around, albeit perhaps in a different form. It is a central concept to anti-fragility, as those things that have been resilient to the shocks of time and nature will tend exhibit properties of resilience.
Within the context of brand and business, Lindy is akin to The Job To Be Done. The reason that I believe this to be true is because there are no new jobs, they simply adapt over time. Kodak helped us share memories, now instagram does. The landline telephone helped us communicate quickly, now Facebook messenger does. Thus, it is critical to think about the real job to be done of your product or business in order to become anti-fragile.
Amazon: The Antifragile Brand & Business
We have covered a lot, a lot of which has been theoretical. But, there is a brand/business that is truly anti-fragile, and adheres to the principles. Amazon. Below I will pose each principle as a question and show how Amazon expertly answers each question.
AMZN & The Anti-fragile Brand Framework.
Are you in a extremistan or mediocristan domain? Does the domain of your business like shocks, stresses and unpredictability or not?
On the surface Amazon may seem like a simple easy to use interface for buying stuff and at first books. But, Amazon loves shocks, stressors, and disruption because they enable it. They provide the modular components for new entrants on the supply side whilst also making it easier for customers on the demand side.
How much (De)Centralization is designed in to your business & brand? political? architectural and logical? That is to say products & stores, organizational structure, and business infrastructure.
A simple way that I like to the think about this in the context of business & brand is touch decentralization, decision decentralization, and market decentralization.
With Amazon, they are quite decentralized in terms of their ‘touch’ with many product touch points (echo) and continuing to increase their physical footprint with store with the whole foods purchase. In terms of market decentralization, Amazon is in a whole lot of different markets.
How fast can decisions be made that create high quality outcomes? How much can you tinker and create experiments?
Amazon is known for the amount of fast paced decision it makes, with a simple 6 page proposal process that allows for team members to test their assumptions. This is how they got the terrible Amazon fire phone, but its also how they got the amazing Echo. Convexity at work.
What is the real problem you are solving? and how can you solve it multiple times? What is the job to be done that does not change in your business?
This is what everyone should start with, and it is what Amazon started with. Jeff Bezos explicitly says that Amazons mission is to become earths most customer centric company, he then asks what does he know will not change in the next 10 years? The coupling of these two questions creates redundancy in areas that are static in terms of their demand, and a conviction for the future that allows for an appetite for risk and and to try novel experiments that may or may not pay off.
