book / recommends
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein
“The second book that I recommend a lot is Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein.”
Public evidence record
Benjamin Lauzier
Published podcast speaker
- Claims
- 18
- Episodes
- 1
- Shows
- 1
- Named items
- 3
Books, apps, and tools
The evidenced stack.
book / recommends
Misbehaving: The Makings of Behavioral Economics
“I'll give you books in different directions. One is Misbehaving: The Makings of Behavioral Economics. I'm really interested in behavioral economics, I love this intersection between economics and human psychology. It's a great analogy for product, so that's a great introduction to this field. The second book that I recommend a lot is Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein. I've always felt curious about a lot of things, but it's made me feel like I'm decent at many things but I'm good at nothing. I'm very good at nothing. And so, even in my career I see all those pianists who are like machine learning gurus leading conferences on weekends that are contributing to think tanks, I just felt like a generalist. So, if you feel this way, this is a good book to make you feel a little bit better by yourself and your imposter syndrome. At least it did for me. And last one, nothing to do with business, but Immune, by Philipp Dettmer. This is the creator of the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but it's a science channel. If you're even remotely curious about how your body works, how your immune system works, it's an amazing book that's really, really fun to read, super entertaining, and just great biology and fun book, I promise.”
book / recommends
Immune
“I'll give you books in different directions. One is Misbehaving: The Makings of Behavioral Economics. I'm really interested in behavioral economics, I love this intersection between economics and human psychology. It's a great analogy for product, so that's a great introduction to this field. The second book that I recommend a lot is Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein. I've always felt curious about a lot of things, but it's made me feel like I'm decent at many things but I'm good at nothing. I'm very good at nothing. And so, even in my career I see all those pianists who are like machine learning gurus leading conferences on weekends that are contributing to think tanks, I just felt like a generalist. So, if you feel this way, this is a good book to make you feel a little bit better by yourself and your imposter syndrome. At least it did for me. And last one, nothing to do with business, but Immune, by Philipp Dettmer. This is the creator of the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but it's a science channel. If you're even remotely curious about how your body works, how your immune system works, it's an amazing book that's really, really fun to read, super entertaining, and just great biology and fun book, I promise.”
Claim ledger
What Benjamin said.
9 transcript-backed records
01 / belief
I think there's two types of challenges, I guess there's when you're talking about creating a marketplace, and then there's when you're talking about scaling a marketplace.
“I think there's two types of challenges, I guess there's when you're talking about creating a marketplace, and then there's when you're talking about scaling a marketplace.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
02 / belief
I think you want this long tail of buyers and sellers without a handful of big players controlling the market, because this is where you can provide value by doing this job of aggregation.
“I think you want this long tail of buyers and sellers without a handful of big players controlling the market, because this is where you can provide value by doing this job of aggregation.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
03 / belief
If you think about the ETA, when you ask explicitly you're like, "Yeah, sure, I want a newer car," and you slide it to 2020 not realizing that you just lost 10 minutes because now we had a great driver, but they have a Honda Civic from 2018, and it's not the special that you wanted. So, I think people who build marketplaces tend to want to give a lot of control to the users because this is what users want, or this is what comes up oftentimes in user feedback like, "Oh, we have those two distinct group of users.
“If you think about the ETA, when you ask explicitly you're like, "Yeah, sure, I want a newer car," and you slide it to 2020 not realizing that you just lost 10 minutes because now we had a great driver, but they have a Honda Civic from 2018, and it's not the special that you wanted. So, I think people who build marketplaces tend to want to give a lot of control to the users because this is what users want, or this is what comes up oftentimes in user feedback like, "Oh, we have those two distinct group of users.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
04 / belief
Find a way to hack one side, play one player mode is what it's also called sometimes, but try to find a way to tap into existing channels that have one side of your marketplace already latent. And so again, you have countless businesses that if you've been built off of Craigslist, I think Thumbtack was partially one of them, and the idea was like, "Hey, we can find all those great pros on Thumbtack.
“Find a way to hack one side, play one player mode is what it's also called sometimes, but try to find a way to tap into existing channels that have one side of your marketplace already latent. And so again, you have countless businesses that if you've been built off of Craigslist, I think Thumbtack was partially one of them, and the idea was like, "Hey, we can find all those great pros on Thumbtack.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
05 / belief
I'm following my own advice, and I'm one jumpstarting one side of the marketplace, the health advocates were like jumpstarting this side for now, and we're only focusing on what I think is going be the hardest side for us, and it's going to be demand.
“I'm following my own advice, and I'm one jumpstarting one side of the marketplace, the health advocates were like jumpstarting this side for now, and we're only focusing on what I think is going be the hardest side for us, and it's going to be demand.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
06 / belief
I think the French employment model is less conducive to this type of dynamic, because employment is much more rigid.
“I think the French employment model is less conducive to this type of dynamic, because employment is much more rigid.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
07 / belief
I think that's missing the point that we're humans, and I think sometimes we act in ways that are non-deterministic or counterintuitive. But my take is I'm a huge believer in market forces and empowerment, so provide guardrails for what a good experience is in your marketplace, set a clear bar for quality, and provide the right coaching and tools for supply to be successful, and then take a step back and see where the gaps are and invest more in hands-on tactics just to close those gaps more specifically.
“I think that's missing the point that we're humans, and I think sometimes we act in ways that are non-deterministic or counterintuitive. But my take is I'm a huge believer in market forces and empowerment, so provide guardrails for what a good experience is in your marketplace, set a clear bar for quality, and provide the right coaching and tools for supply to be successful, and then take a step back and see where the gaps are and invest more in hands-on tactics just to close those gaps more specifically.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
08 / belief
I think a lot of that has been lost now, but we also had this amazing community of drivers who were fierce advocates for the brand.
“I think a lot of that has been lost now, but we also had this amazing community of drivers who were fierce advocates for the brand.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
09 / belief
You need to be intentional about the quality that you aim to provide, and I think a lot of companies don't have necessarily that intentionality and you have this constant push of supply, "If only we'd lower our bar a little bit, we could get more supply.
“You need to be intentional about the quality that you aim to provide, and I think a lot of companies don't have necessarily that intentionality and you have this constant push of supply, "If only we'd lower our bar a little bit, we could get more supply.”
- Speaker
- Benjamin Lauzier
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast