Trevor McKendrick - Product reviewers are too mean

Buenos dias!

Here’s to another great week…

Trevor

Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon (book)

This was fantastic.

I don’t think the title really sells it… it felt less like a financial overview of the solar industry, and more like a review of the entire industry.

I had no idea the solar industry had come so far. For example, during the day, solar provides >60% of all of California’s electricity.

See also: the last 25 of 32 days 100% of California’s electricity demand has been via renewables for at least a few hours during the day. That’s incredible.

MKBHD reviews the Humane AI pin (youtube)

I watched a few reviews of the pin. It’s clear the product is not good enough.

But these reviews are painful to watch. It’s not just that they’re saying that the product is bad. They have to lean in and say it’s embarrasingly bad. Almost like the company that made it deserves shame for even trying.

What the reviewers don’t mention (and don’t know) are the million impossible tradeoffs that the company had to make to bring this product to market. I can imagine things like:

• Do we wait for this final feature before ordering inventory?
• The AI isn’t as good as we need it to be: do we rebuild our own or continue trying to improve what we have?
• The camera isn’t good enough but the bill of materials is already too much
• How long can we wait to decide any of these things?

There are no – I repeat no, none – correct answers.

Making new things is just so damn hard. I get that the reviewers have to be honest in that the pin (it appears) is not a good product.

But you don’t have to be mean about it.

This all reminds me of what Steve Jobs said in an email with a Valleywag reporter who was criticizing Steve’s decision to not support Flash:

“By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others’ work and belittle their motivations?”

And yet… there is another side. The side of the responsibility of Humane.

Which is… yes the tradeoffs are hard, and yes making new things is difficult… but ultimately none of those things matter and you have to deliver an awesome product.

The customer does not know nor do they care even a little about how hard it is for creators.

You have to work with both worlds, the internal & the external: yes, this is hard. But yes, we have to make something great anyway.

So two things can be true: Humane did not deliver. And the reviewers don’t have to be so rude & arrogant.

Obituary for a quiet life (article)

This was the most beautiful things I’ve read in at least a month. It’s well written and quick to read.

I hope you enjoy it too.

Agency quote (tweet)

“The first step towards being ‘high agency’ is always the same. You cannot take effective action towards bending the world to your desire until you know, in detail, what it is that you desire.”

”If Scott Alexander Told me to Jump Off a Bridge” (article)

Richard Hanania why he tried a new/experimental tooth decay solution:

“Yesterday, I let some genetically engineered bacteria colonize my mouth, which I give maybe a 50% chance of protecting me from tooth decay for the rest of my life… Lumina does not have FDA approval, the endorsement of major scientific organizations, or any of the other trappings that sound medicine is supposed to have.

“So why did I do this? You might expect me to say that being the independent-minded free thinker that I am, I read the underlying science and came to the conclusion that this was a good idea. But that’s not what happened…

“The real reason I brushed my teeth with Lumina was Scott Alexander told me”

I didn’t buy the product myself, but I was moved by the article: rational people can, in fact, be powerful. And we can make society more rational.

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