Nicholas Tickle

Engineer. Rational optimism. Science. History. Better to have lived than never to have existed. Posting personal maxims, general thoughts, and mental hooks.

[Naval @naval]

Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t want your children to buy.

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

@bscholl Purposely changing the air pressure within the plane to reduce the stress on the fuselage… which then causes our ears to pop. Is there a happy medium for air pressure in the plane?

[Jason Fried @jasonfried]

The speed at which a product is developed doesn't inherently make the product better or worse. The number of commits doesn't make the product better or worse. The number of people or agents working on it doesn't make it better or worse. The number of hours you’re pouring into it doesn’t make it better or worse. Working on a weekend, or late into the evening, doesn’t make it better or worse. Talking about these things sounds like it’s talking about the product, but it’s not talking about the product.

Those are all development metrics and styles of work. They don't speak to the product itself. They're all back of the house. Important to those making the work, but not inherently important to the people using the work.

Development metrics and style say nothing about fit. They say nothing about quality. They say nothing about clarity. They say nothing about usability. They say nothing about utility. They say nothing about performance. They say nothing about how customers feel when they use your product.

It's like reviewing a restaurant by talking about how many cooks were in the kitchen, how long the shift lasted, how many orders they fired, or how late they stayed cleaning up. None of that tells you about the meal, the product, the customer’s experience.

Mistaking making for the thing you've made is like confusing the kitchen for the meal or the blueprint for the building. They're connected, but they're not the same thing. One of them matters a whole lot more than the other.

[Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl]

For 50 years, no one in aerospace was willing to build a supersonic jet. They were all waiting for regulations to change and didn't want to take risk.

It turns out that building a supersonic jet is *how* you change the regulations.

[Naval @naval]

When software was expensive - thin, horizontal, best-of-breed software stacks extracted rents across every business.

Now that software is cheap - value moves to vertically integrated businesses that deliver opinionated end-to-end experiences.

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

We often think of access to drinking water in our homes as a sign of human progress. But what about the amount of food we stockpile? I only have enough for a day or two! A far cry from the months of reserves people kept hundreds of years ago.

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

Capitalism is a powerful force for good. It benefits everyone, especially those who lean in and help build the future.

But it’s under attack (again). Wealth taxes, price controls, government-run grocery stores, asset seizures. Fear is being used as a political lever and an excuse for control. I’ve seen this play out before, it leads nowhere good.

I lived in Buenos Aires in 2008 when the Argentine government seized $30B in private pensions to ‘protect’ citizens from the financial crisis. Then they froze access to the dollar and nationalized companies. Within a decade, inflation was over 50%. The elites had miraculously moved their money, leaving regular people to take the financial hit.

Politicians are selling collectivism out of the same playbook used by Argentina, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union: promise protection, concentrate power, tighten the fist. And the costs fall on the poorest people in society who are unable to protect themselves.

Capitalism isn't perfect. But it’s far better than every alternative that’s been tried. Millions of people making independent decisions, with the free market rewarding the best ideas, will out-build any central planner.

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

@rauchg I think you need to read your comments on this one and re-assess

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

@AngelaRayner The only way you’re going to get more houses built is through deregulation and re-industrialisation. As someone who’s in construction, I can tell you it’s damn hard to build anything… but deregulation means less government which doesn’t look good for a left leaning party.

[DHH @dhh]

"The decline of Europe is not inevitable, despite how much Americans love to joke that the continent is doomed to be an open-air museum. Sure, it's things may have to get worse before they get better, but believing that 'it's over' is just loser talk." https://t.co/74IfQiIU6N

[Jason Fried @jasonfried]

Every marketing team should do this simple test.

At random, ask 100 of your existing customers to describe your product in their own words. No leading the witness.

Then look at how you describe your product on your site.

Don’t dismiss obvious differences by telling yourself, “They basically mean the same thing we do.”

Really look at the specific words. Really consider exactly what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Compare that directly with the words you’re using, the descriptions you’re presenting, the picture you’re painting.

Then stare at the Grand Canyon.

[Jason Fried @jasonfried]

For all the love of entrepreneurship and founders and all that, remember that nearly every product you love wouldn't exist if everyone was an entrepreneur.

Employees, teams, and groups build things.

If everyone was every person for themselves, we'd have a lot less great stuff, not more.

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Co-sign.

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

@DanielJHannan When are we going to change God Save the King? Half the country dislikes the monarchy… our national anthem is supposed to unify us all… why not Rule Britannia?

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

@benhabib6 Why do we have a Secretary of State for culture, media, and sport?

[Nicholas Tickle @TickleNicholas]

AI loves using dashes for parentheses… I don’t know any humans that do this.

This is a quick way to spot when someone hasn’t bothered to edit their AI generated message.

[Guillermo Rauch @rauchg]

Learn to ship. Shipping is a skill distinct from coding. Shipping is designing, coding, QAing, story-telling, teaching, marketing, selling, pivoting, iterating…

It used to be that coding dominated in importance because of coding ability scarcity. AI will push you to go further.