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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      There is something like a project-zeitgeist fit (PZF) similar to product-market fit. You would not pull a frat-party prank at a funeral. You would not launch a moon mission in the middle of a big war. You would not probably not release a “Facebook is great!” hagiography now....

      4 replies 8 retweets 54 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      PZF I think has 2 key variables: scale and ‘grain’ A project can be too big or too small for its zeitgeist and have a with-the-grain mood or an against-the-grain mood. Projects succeed if they are the right size and with the grain.

      3 replies 1 retweet 10 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      ‘Size’ is a range of social scales from individual to collective where coordinated effort is needed. Right now you can’t launch anything so big it needs bipartisan support in Congress. Businesses often have a lower size limit for projects to deploy staffing/capital at scale

      1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      Grain is subtle, and is defined as a bipolar pair of sentiments along with an intensity. For example some zeitgeist conditions will accept either utopian or dystopian ideas but not moderate pragmatism. Some will take joy-to-sadness but satire-to-camp will struggle.

      1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      But if you factor in time to take a project from inception to launch, and time it takes for winds to change direction, you get an interesting conclusion: you should almost never start a project that “feels right” in scale/grain because it will like;y be “wrong” by the launch date

      2 replies 2 retweets 17 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      It’s like stocks: buy low/sell high is hard because “low” coincides with a “sell” mood and “high” with a “buy” mood. Current times seem to call for Big, Serious actions, but those able to act that way actually started preparing years ago when the mood was small-and-fun

      1 reply 2 retweets 11 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      So for your larger effort (2+ years) where you want to aim for PZF in say 2020, you want to aim for the scale/grain that will be in demand then, not what’s in demand now. Court the zeitgeist during its anticipated rebound from whatever extremities it is in now.

      1 reply 3 retweets 14 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      Alt theory is you cannot time the zeitgeist. Just do your thing over a long period, like 20y, and simply wait for your moment to find you. Most people don’t have, and can’t engineer, the freedom to pursue this sort of long game. But you should try to cultivate 1 such activity.

      3 replies 7 retweets 24 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      Long-term projects that don’t meet conditions for agile iteration (zeitgeist has to remain continuously interested enough in your project to provide feedback through the long, crappy beta) need this sort of thinking. The opposite of agile is not waterfall, but internal momentum

      3 replies 1 retweet 12 likes
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    10. Varun Adibhatla‏ @vr00n 14 Apr 2018
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      Replying to @vgr

      Big public works projects tend to be this way. Watch Ep 8 of Ric Burns NYC : discusses the deliverance of WTC. Also this pol sci text identifies "policy windows" that can be black swan news events or sudden political will that gets legislation through. https://www.amazon.com/Alternatives-Policies-Epilogue-Classics-Political/dp/020500086X …

      2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Apr 2018
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      Replying to @vr00n

      You are a cornucopia of obscure references 🙂

      9:22 PM - 14 Apr 2018
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      • Varun Adibhatla Patrick Atwater
      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Varun Adibhatla‏ @vr00n 14 Apr 2018
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          Thats what the zeitgeist demands of me, I feel ;)

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Patrick Atwater‏ @patwater 14 Apr 2018
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          Replying to @vr00n @vgr

          @vr00n there’s a new trump documentary on Netflix detailing his real estate career

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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