Welcome to a new week of The Rain.
As promised, here is a new format of my newsletter, aiming to add more value to every new edition.
🔗 This week’s links
Effective negotiation is about beating your fallbacks.
Key insights to understand 👇Why splitting the total in two is a fundamentally flawed strategy.
Why relying on ratios doesn’t guarantee optimal outcomes in leveraged negotiations.
In praise of memorization. On the benefits and importance of memorizing things.
I never fully appreciated the engineering marvels that surround me in the form of everyday objects until I came across this gem - SCAN OF THE MONTH
📚 What am I reading?
I am reading How to build a car by Adrian Newey.
Newey is arguably the greatest designer in the modern era of Formula 1 - the pinnacle of motorsports. He wrote this book after spending 35+ years building one of the most sophisticated machines on the planet - an F1 car. Newey is the CTO of the Redbull Racing F1 team.
One of the common mistakes engineers (myself included) are guilty of making often is focusing more on the technology than your user. It was interesting to learn Adrian Newey - was no exception to this. He describes climbing inside the cockpit of one of the cars he designed for the first time.
And so here I was, sitting in the car at the Paul Ricard circuit in the South of France, absoarbing from a drivers angle all the things I’d paid so little attention to as an engineer: the procedure for the ignition sequence; the whine and howl of the engine - a feeling of being cocooned but alone in the cocopit, as though the sheer volume and bone-shaking drama of it is physically holding you in place. Nerves suddenly giving a feeling of intense claustrophobia…
And here is another part I really loved - the importance of simplicity when designing sophisticated systems.
The shift itself was a flappy paddle, still a relatively new feature that had not yet spread on to road cars. Lights on the dash - green, green, amber - indicated the build-up of revs.
At 13,500rpm, the green light goes on. You get ready.
The second green blinks on at 13,700rpm. Almost there.
Amber at 13,900rpm.
Change.
That little sequence takes about half a second.
I thought how intuitive the driving controls are.
Throttle, Green. Green. Amber. Change.
Brake, turn the wheel, point it at a corner, accelerate.
Simple. It’s like an arcade game.
The challenge is doing it faster than everybody else without losing control. That is an entirely different level.
🖼️ Images of the week
💡 What I learned this week
Two different (and entirely opposite) strategies to fight bad ideas, especially when you are dealing with a group and you have enough leverage.
Fabian Strategy: Imagine you want to fight a regressive idea that is taking root in your community and you want to do something to change it. The first step is to become an integral part of the community. Consider volunteering for difficult roles. Use your leverage to help the community achieve shared goals. When an issue related to the idea that you want to fight comes up, escalate it. Make sure to pick only those issues that are easy to demonstrate how absurd the idea you are fighting is. This strategy requires using your leverage with patience and restraint.
Ex:- You own a local restaurant. When animal rights activists come by and ask you to stop serving dishes with meat/dairy - decline politely. But when they start protesting at your front door and stop diners from coming in, escalate it.Berserker Strategy: Pick fights. Literally, pick the fights - study up on policy, get to know the people who make policies they’re forced to follow and which ones they’ll cave on immediately, learn the relevant laws, lawyer up, be 99% sure you can win any fight you pick - but then pick fights.
Offer a 10% discount for a bone-in tomahawk ribeye and hand a poster of the offer on the glass wall for everyone to see, knowing that there will be protests. Then make sure there are lots of cameras around as activists scream their throats out dictating what food you can serve at your own restaurant. Keep this issue in front of everyone’s eyeballs. Make sure that everyone sees you successfully standing up to the mob, having your guests served their orders, and continuing to be successful and happy. If the activists try to shut you down, sue them and win, in a way that will make more protests like these shutting down businesses elsewhere.
❤️ What am I excited about?
“It is light out and away we go” - New Formula1 season 🏎️
I am so excited for the new formula1 season, especially after one of the most action-packed, controversial, and thrilling seasons in the history of the sport.
Writing again ✍🏻
I am excited to write regularly. Hope y'all will stick around
With love.
Tony