Similar to Shoe Dog â and different in the way that Nike is different from Trader Joeâs.
Three things I want to take away from this book:
Joe was incredibly structured in how he thought about problems. He wanted to have a retail store where he paid people well which required him to have goods that had a high price per amount of space they took up. He was willing to cycle through lots of weird ideas (including things like gun ammo) as long as they met this criteria.
Discontinuities. Trader Joeâs would specifically target little edges in product categories. As an example, they would become experts in the regulations for say cheese or butter to build limited edition products. In particular they did this on the product side, carefully understanding product categories, and on the regulatory side, carefully reading the fine print to find edges that others didnât have. An example of a discontinuity is being willing to sell coffee in non standard container sizes or for a limited period of time.
The concept of double entry retailing, which is another way of saying that decisions are interconnected. As an example, paying people more reduces shrinkage.
I didnât know whether or not to laugh or cry when he said that Trader Joeâs target customer is overeducated and underpaid.
This book helped me better understand how retail, goods, and media are interconnected. The transition from network tv to cable tv happens at the same time as Trader Joeâs is shifting away from homogenized consumer packaged goods to the more varied assortment we see today. A similar version of this happened with Facebook and the DTC brands of the 2010s.
My guilty pleasure on YouTube right now are videos claiming Ancient Egyptians had access to advanced technology that allowed them to machine vases out of hard stone. Iâm agnostic as to whether or not this is true, but I canât look away! A second thing that makes these videos delightful is that they all pit themselves against mainstream archeology which just cracks me up. Who are these mainstream archeologists? What are they doing to hinder this message? I see the evidence for advanced manufacturing but these mainstream archeologists seem like a mythical species.
Why is Switzerland so rich? This is good, but I think it misses a couple of things. First, Switzerland was spared the physical and human losses of both World Wars. Second, thereâs a cultural element that the post doesnât speak to. Switzerland is both highly individualistic and highly communal, a mix of live-and-let-live and weâre-all-in-this-together that I believe allows it to make more pragmatic decisions, the benefits of which compound over time.
Someone told me this week that in France they say that there are six reasons someone will pay for something: Security, Pride, Novelty, Comfort, Money, Friendliness.
Dead Framework Theory - the idea that LLMs are freezing frameworks like React into the internet. I thought like this at first, but I no longer think that this is true and I actually think LLMs will make it easier to bootstrap new frameworks provided those frameworks have real advantages over what theyâre replacing because LLMs make it so much easier to adopt new tools.
The actual question was much funnier. My 5 year old made a piggy bank at church, causing my 3 year old to ask, âDaddy, do pigs have banks?â As I think about this, it gets even more puzzling, because I'm not sure he's ever been to a bank.↩
Person Do Thing is on Amazon. Youâre here so you know Uri already, but Iâll just say that my family loves this one and that it makes a great gift for the person in your life that loves games.
The universe as an evolving organism. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but I really enjoy this style of conversation about black holes and space and what we know and what we donât. There should be more of this.
"Life is 10 per cent what you make it, and 90 per cent how you take it" âIrving Berlin. Sometimes I think the quotes at the end of The Browser our aimed directly at me. I promise you my kids will grow up with this one memorized.
A little bit of SSP
I was on the Demystifying Cosmetics Podcast talking about what I learned making high performance biomaterials from kelp.
If thatâs not enough, weâre doing a live show of --dangerously-skip-permissions on Friday at 2 pm ET. Come and hang out.
(I have to be the only person putting out a podcast on beauty ingredients and coding with AI the same week)
Best enjoyed this week in a sunny corner of a park
Worth your time
If youâve ever wanted to buy a life sized dinosaur, now is your chance. Someday my son is going to find out I had this opportunity and didnât take it and will never look at me the same way again.
The Quiet Ones by Nikunj Kothari. An ode to the people that do the little things to make a company or a team effective.
I now realize that everything I lorded over other peopleâall the things I gatekept without consciously understanding that this was what I was doingâI didnât need to do that. It really didnât help anything. For some number of people who interacted with me, Iwas the problem. I couldâve been more tolerant or forgiving, I couldâve said âletâs find out together,â I couldâve let other people have the fun once in a while.
Iâve become obsessed with the tops of trees, in particular in the morning or the evening when the sun is hitting them. For some insect or bird or leaf that spot is the center of the world.
Letâs see if I can land the plane on this one. Iâm surprised that there isnât more nostalgic fiction about growing up in evangelical Christian circles. Thereâs satirical stuff like Saved but nothing that Iâm aware of like The Big Sick that both pokes fun at being a child of immigrants while also on some level clearly feeling affection for it. Is this out there and I just donât know about it?
Are we at the point where âyes, andâŚâ is overrated? If not, how long until we get there?
Something I struggled with this week: for someone like you and me, in 2025, what does it mean to live a good life? At 19, it was easier for me to articulate an answer to this question I actually believed than it is now in many ways. If you feel like you have a good answer to this, consider this me humbly requesting that you write it and share it.
Things I learned
Apparently Marie Antoinette never said âLet them eat cakeâ, according to a recent Rest Is History Bonus episode. Iâm a sucker forthings we think that arenât actually so. Also from a RIH bonus episode: apparently the US now requires people to share their social media handles to get a travel visa. What are we doing here people?
China installed more industrial robots last year than the rest of the world combined. This is one of those stats that a 17 year old is going to be citing in an AP History Exam in 2084 about why China won the war for Taiwan.
This weekâs episode is best paired with a hot cup of coffee and Wild Ways by Josh Ritter playing in the background. Last episode was too LLM heavy, for which I apologize. Iâve done my best to group all of that into LLM corner so as not to let it overshadow everything.
Worth your time
Uri says we should not allow 18 year olds to sign long term contracts. So, so many thoughts here.
1. I remember a conversation I had with my best friend when he was a brand new army officer out of college ROTC about all the 18 year old privates he worked with that had 19% car loans.
2. Jonathan Haidt opened my eyes to the way social media companies get teenagers to agree terms of service that they very obviously should not be able to agree to without their parents consent. I cannot believe we allow this!
3. Matt Levineâs Certificate of Dumb Investment continues to seem underrated to me.
PSA: How to fold fitted sheets, via the Browser. I sent this to my wife and she very nicely said to me something to the effect of âisnât this the same way I taught you to do it?â đ¤Ł
âWhen outsiders succeed, itâs usually through reframing problems in âparadigm shiftsâ. They benefit from not being too attached to existing theories.âFrom a thread on outsiders solving problems.
Our parenting hack of the year so far is having cut vegetables ready at the table when our kids get home from school. The percentage of vegetables consumed is up like 10x and compliance to the routine of coming in, washing hands, and sitting down at the table has risen as well. Recommended and thanks to Emily Oster for the suggestion.
Things I learned
German chocolate cake was invented in United States, via the Kroger App. Someone needs to figure out why the Kroger app has so many delightful facts in it. This is someoneâs passion project! I'll buy you a nice bottle of wine if you find this person and introduce them to me.
80% of Swiss are satisfied with their lives. I am not sponsored by the Swiss government, but I am open to it if they are reading.
The Pangolin is the only mammal with scales. Peacock is the name of the males only; the female are peahens. The species is called peafowl. Via The Animal Book.
âShe does that to her family. She does that to her friends. She does that to me,â he lamented. âShe doesnât seem to be capable of creating her own social interactions anymore.â
I worry a lot that the sycophancy of the agents have made me less flexible with people who (of course) are less likely to defer to me. I am not sure how to measure this, but I wish I could.
Sort of a musing, but I think we owe Blake Lemoine and apology.