Why You Should Think Like A Physicist
Searching For Deep Truths
“Science is more than a body of knowledge, it is a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.” Carl Sagan
This way of skeptically interrogating the universe, or in a more common use case for the non physicist — skeptically interrogating the world around us. An ability to always question the culture, products and brands that are coming into existence. I don’t say this from some cynical anarchist “fuck the corporation” point of view. Rather, I say this from a brand point of view.
A point of view of someone who is interested in building brands and the enduring value of already existing brands.
Currently, it seems that many brands that are already in existence or popping up are resonating by analogy as oppose to ‘first principles’ as Elon Musk would say.
This means that many brands are looking at what is resonating with other brands and doing a slight iteration on a theme. For example, Airbnb is a great brand, thinking by analogy would be to say “lets be the airbnb of x”.
Thinking in first principles would be asking better questions, ones that would resolve deep fundamental truths and then building up from there. Using the airbnb example again, solving for first principles would look more like “why is airbnb resonating?” “What are the fundamental truths of why Airbnb works as a business”.
When thinking about new brands and extending the lines of existing brands “First principles” thinking is rooted in asking better questions. Asking questions that allow you to reason down to the core problems to solve for. Causation as oppose to correlation.
Breaking It Down
Breaking down different facets of a brand to see why it works is much like breaking down a piece of hardware.
When you look at all the pieces on their own it becomes much easier to re organize parts of a brand to come up with novel solutions to big problems.
Medium is a great example. I believe that this platform works because Ev Williams reasoned from the ground up (first principles).
For Medium, first principles thinking falls into three categories.
- Internal Culture
- Asking the questions of why are we doing this? Why does this exist? and in the case of medium the notion of “Sharing ideas large and small”
2. Popular (external) Culture
- Asking the proper questions in this bucket clearly lead to the realization that people are “coming for the tool and staying for the network”.
3. Technology
- Now, by asking the proper questions and realizing the fundamental truths of why your brand exists, and connecting it to what seems to be a unfulfilled yearning for in the greater culture. You can build, adapt, or eliminate the appropriate features and benefits.
Connecting The Dots
Novel solutions come from connecting the dots of fundamental principles of seemingly disparate domains. Thats why Medium is more than a publishing tool, Airbnb Engineering is more than an online apartment rental service, and Evernote is more than a note taking app.
