curious to be peid

My learnings from CRED curious' episode ft. Kunal Shah and Carl Pei.

It's nothing (pun intended).

CRED curious is a video series wherein Kunal Shah (founder, CRED) has conversations with intellectuals on various refined subjects that people usually listen to. Kunal Shah is known for his unconventional thinking and his diverse knowledge on subjects that make us think deeper like human psychology and behaviour, finance, building and scaling products and businesses in general.

In their latest episode ft. Carl Pei, the founder of Nothing, I started believing in the power of passion. A passion that drove someone crazy to fight the conventional norms and is disrupt a well established industry with big players like Apple and Samsung.

Let's dive right into some insights I jotted from the episode.

Utilitarian Value, Not Just Aesthetics

During their discussion on the Nothing Phone 1, Kunal asked Carl on his opinion on aesthetics and how must one go about them. Carl replied that anything done for aesthetics must also carry utilitarian value in it, if not, it wouldn't turn out to be good. Stating the example of Nothing Phone 1 itself, he said that the Glyph Interface being an aesthetic has utilitarian value as it shows the level of charge, acts as a flash for the cameras and others. On the other hand, having something done just for the aesthetics would not result to be valuable and value creation is of primary importance.

Similarly, I noticed that Apple follows the same strategy. With the launch of their iPhone 14 Pro models, they announced Dynamic Island, which enhanced usability and at the same time helped in acting as an aesthetic element by removing the long due notch. This experience is what has contributed to building greatness and hence utilitarian values are important. So, for any of us trying to build something for aesthetics, let's try to imbibe utility in the same.

The Right People

People and Hiring were discussed in the conversation wherein they spoke about the common traits of mediocre talent. Their insights were as follows:

Unaware of details - Mediocre talent is generally bad at knowing details. As we've heard, "Devil's in the details", that clearly doesn't seem to resonate with mediocre talent.
Ability to not bring people together - When in a senior position, it becomes important to collaborate and bring people together, which lacks when someone is mediocre in their work, irrespective of their positions.
No Ownership - Mediocre talent is known to not take ownership of the tasks they are assigned. One must feel that they are a part of the larger picture and not doing so means one separates themselves from the company, rather than associating.
Lack of curiosity - Inquisitiveness is very important for one to learn and experiment constantly which makes them improve. That's clearly absent in mediocre talent.
Terrible at taking help - Live life on cheat mode. That is how Kunal Shah thinks would ease the process as you will be able to get work done through someone else's experiences. Taking help, is an extension to collaboration, wherein one needs to have the knack of learning through others. Mediocre talent is not capable of doing so.
Are easily offended - Not to mention, mediocre talent is believed to take things personally and are offended by comments made in a professional environment. Clear understanding of personal and professional differences need to be understood for the same.
Not taking Feedback properly - Mediocre talent is not believed to take feedback properly, causing them to stagnate their personal growths. Continuation of this over a time results in no productivity and people who give feedback, hold themselves up due to no reciprocation (in terms of energy, communication and work).

Largely, these things if worked upon would make someone way better than mediocre talent. Efficient and amazing talent has great abilities of ownership, gut and judgement. That solely comes with them believing in the future, as they are the ones building it.

Culture in a Company

The strongest competitive advantage for a company over the long term is their culture. Culture is the environment in a company, it's the way people interact and co-work in a company, hence it is driven by values.

To me, any successful company is driven by values that are long term, sustainable and the ones that thread people together; these make the foundations of a company. Nothing (referred to the company) on the same lines has established its values that makes them stand apart in the industry, at a time wherein they are fighting the conventional norms of the tech world, even Apple. Their values are namely; Be the change, Pride in Product, Diversity and Survive.

There were various insights on a company's standpoint, Nike and it's strong belief, building substance and a lot more, for which, I recommend you to checkout the video yourself, it is insightful, if you're inquisitive.

fin.