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G. Retriever's avatar

It reminds me of an exchange from Mad Men between Peggy and Don.

"Peggy Olson: Sex sells.

Don Draper: Says who?

Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. They take all this monkey crap and just stick it in a briefcase completely unaware that their success depends on something more than their shoeshine.

YOU are the product. You - FEELING something.

That's what sells. Not them. Not sex.

They can't do what we do, and they hate us for it."

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Rachel Maron's avatar

This piece nails the dilemma of abundant execution: when everyone can produce, only a few will matter. But what he calls 'taste,' I call trustworthy coherence. This isn’t just about aesthetics or strategic restraint. It's about meaning, consequence, and accountability.

Platforms now churn out infinite “vibes.” What’s scarce? Not code. Not content. Credibility. Alignment. Narrative integrity.

Taste without trust is branding. Trust with structured coherence? That is power.

Miyazaki’s restraint wasn’t just artistic. It was moral. Muji’s minimalism wasn’t style. It was operationalized epistemology. We are no longer crafting products. We are shaping systems of belief.

In a world where every answer is cheap, the real work, the dangerous, sacred work, is asking questions that matter. Then, having the discipline to build slowly, visibly, and trustworthily until something true remains.

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Prashanth Kale's avatar

Brilliant, epic of an essay. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I had written something tangential to this topic: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/anaerobic-budgets-psychedelic-expectations-prashanth-kale-pg2tc/? :

Being Human is an Artisanal Premium in Industrialized Marketing

If you grant yourself a glimpse into the Marketing soul, you will see how precious & scarce Attention and Memory are. You innately know that “Standing Out” for that attention and memory, you need outstanding marketing. Branding (which is trust and authentic distinction) has never been this important. Creativity, fresh thinking, and authenticity make that happen. These give access to a place beyond one’s cognitive defenses, media blindness, and non-rational mind, to manufacture perceptions. There is ample evidence that marketing is most effective when it is distinctive, novel, and has some longevity.

In these times, when "Marketing is constipated, Creativity is the laxative!" There is this beautiful thought in the book The Most Human Human: that in the face of technology becoming ever better at imitating us, we should resist imitating the machines and work to raise our game to become more human! Probably, being human human is the trick to break free from the simulacra.

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Colin Brown's avatar

Great piece! Lego lost its way when it optimised for novelty and lost the coherence of the "system".

It found its way back to relevance (trust and profitability) when it started operating within that coherent system. It needed those constraints to thrive.

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Sangeet Paul Choudary's avatar

Good example, Colin!

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aRyaN Thandri's avatar

Interesting! I came across another counterpoint to scaling at any cost and what scaling could also mean as an alternative:

https://hbr.org/2024/11/its-time-to-reimagine-scale

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Sarah's avatar

Thank you for writing this. It’s been in the back of my mind, this rush to execute half baked ideas now that the tools let you. You’ve nailed it here, again!

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Philip Teale's avatar

Excellent use of case studies. We can learn a lot from the Japanese in the age of abundant noise.

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Technical Brother's avatar

Hii Sangeet, I tried to order but it shows unavailable in your country on Amazon India.

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Sangeet Paul Choudary's avatar

the URL points to the US store, can you manually change it to amazon india or go to amazon india and search for it? It should show up

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Technical Brother's avatar

It shows up but says, this title is currently not available for purchase.

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