
June 26, 2021
Everyone’s Job is World Building | Alex Danco on Infinite Loops with Jim O’Shaughnessy
Check out Infinite Loops Episode Page and Show Notes
Key Takeaways
- The biggest difference between the physical and digital world is the reorientation of value from production scarcity to demand/attention scarcity
- ‘world building’ – you can’t speak to every customer all of the time but you can create an environment for the community to be connected and explore new challenges
- “The ability to create new challenges on the internet is unlimited” – Alex Danco
- Middle management are the building blocks for world creating – the intermediary by constructing a reality that does not literally produce anything, maintaining the meaning to work
- The Office is a great example of the comprehensive cynical theory of management and world-building to create a sustainable and meaningful workplace
- Michael, Dwight, and Andy are in charge of ‘world building’ and perpetuating meaning to themselves and Dunder Mifflin
- Status is relative to the nature of the ‘world’ you reside in
- Rich is not always interesting or unique, value and cultural relevancy is detached from reality but exclusively attached to your world
Intro
- Alex Danco (@Alex_Danco) works on the Shopify money team specializing in systems and crypto
- Check out Alex’s website and weekly newsletter
- Host – Jim O’Shaughnessy (@jposhaughnessy)
- Alex Danco and Jim O’shaghnessy discuss scarcity vs abundance in physical and digital worlds, ‘world building’, and management as it relates to The Office
- Books Mentioned:
- The Organization Man – William Whyte
- The Gervais Principle – Venkatesh Rao
- The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class – Thesis by Alex Danco
Digital vs Physical World
- The skills in the digital world are much different than the physical world
- thoughts and actions are not linear in the digital world
- Physical capital can be defined as clear inputs and outputs using natural resources, factory capacity, production, etc.
- Reorientation of value from production scarcity to demand/attention scarcity
- The relationship with the consumer is more valuable than the product
Early Internet & World Building
- What are you selling in a world of abundance?
- Everyone’s job is in sales if you know what you’re selling
- Sales in scarcity vs sales in abundance
- ‘world building’ – you can’t speak to every customer all of the time but you can create an environment for the community to be connected and explore new challenges, consistently finding meaning
- “The ability to create new challenges on the internet is unlimited” – Alex Danco
- Eternal September – early internet trends were based around the collegiate schedule starting in September when a ton of new members would join different forums and servers
- The existing members often got frustrated with the flood of “noobs”, there was often a large learning curve to understanding the cultural norms of the service
- Twitter is a great modern day example, hostile to new users but a great platform once established
- Conditions for why the digital world initially succeeded:
- The internet was fairly difficult to access
- There was an abundance of challenges to immediately participate in and explore
- The intelligence barrier was high enough for a select group to get a head start on internet cultural fluency
- Ebay and Beanie Babies created the transition online, the first opportunity for normal folks to incorporate a commercial online platform into their interest
- Interest and intent, first step to organic value growth from within a unique ‘world’
World Management
- Middle management‘s main role is to be creative in the ‘world building’ process
- Hard to define necessity on the balance sheet, but necessary to maintain the ‘worlds’
- This refers to maintaining the self-perpetuating meaning for the internal and external worlds
- The modern term is “Product Manager”
- The Organization Man – William Whyte
- All organizations that survive are built on three layers:
- Bottom Layer – the majority of workers are doing ‘literal’ things, producing
- Executive Layer – ‘literal’ roles and responsibilities with real stakes involved
- Middle Management Layer – intermediate by constructing a reality that does not literally produce anything, maintaining the meaning to work, product, or service
- All organizations that survive are built on three layers:
World Management in The Office
- The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class – Thesis by Alex Danco derived from the show, The Office
- “The higher you ascend the ladder of the Educated Gentry class, the more you become Michael Scott” – Alex Danco
- The Gervais Principle – Venkatesh Rao
- Goes through The Office as a comprehensive cynical theory of management:
- The losers: Stanley, Pam, Daryll
- The sociopath: David Wallace, Jan, Ryan, Jim
- The clueless: Michael, Dwight, Andy
- Coded language:
- Posture talk: spoken by the clueless to anyone, including to themselves to ground their own reality
- Baby talk: everyone who talks to the clueless, make sure they don’t go off the rails
- Internal talk: the self-supporting language amongst the losers to get through the day
- Power talk: language amongst sociopaths about information gathering or retroactive deniability
- Straight talk: language with no code, senior management to front-line workers
- Goes through The Office as a comprehensive cynical theory of management:
- Michael, Dwight, and Andy are in charge of ‘world building’ and perpetuating meaning to themselves and Dunder Mifflin
Defining World Status
- Difference between world-relative high status and societal high status
- cultural or ‘worldly’ relevance
- Is a Subaru higher status than a Cadillac? Depends on the world you live in.
- Rich is not always interesting or unique, value and cultural relevancy is detached from reality but exclusively attached to your world
- “People beg for the acknowledgment of the meaning they’ve created” – Alex Danco