Slack 创始人：打造人们喜爱的产品的心理模型，特邀 Stewart Butterfield

这些例子太棒了。

Those are amazing examples.

我非常欣赏你们推出的那个勿扰功能。

I very much appreciate that do not disturb feature when you guys launched that.

我还记得那个功能上线时的情景。

I still remember that coming out.

相信很多人都对此心怀感激。

I'm sure a lot of people are very thankful for that.

是的。

Yep.

我还听说你经常主张一个对很多人来说反直觉的观点，那就是关于摩擦力的。

Something else I heard that you often espouse, which is counterintuitive to a lot of people, is is about friction.

产品体验中的摩擦力。

Friction in the product experience.

实际上，摩擦力往往是一件好事。

That friction is actually often a good thing.

很多时候，如果运用得当，它其实是一个功能，而非缺陷。

They actually it's a feature, not a bug a lot of times if you use it well.

谈谈你在这方面的经验吧。

Talk about your your experience there.

对。

Yeah.

嗯，确实如此。

Well and so yes.

关于摩擦力还有另一个问题，它变成了一种信条或假设，认为你应该总是试图消除摩擦力。

And there's also another issue around friction, which is it it became like a mantra or just like a kind of an assumption that you should always be trying to remove friction.

在某些情况下，这是对的。

And in in some cases, that's true.

你知道，我们会在Slack上讨论这个。

You know, we would talk about it in Slack.

比如，它很难推销。

Like, it was was hard to market.

如果从未使用过，很难解释它到底是什么。

Was hard to explain what it was if you had never used it before.

你可以说它是企业用的通讯应用，或者随便什么。

You could say a messaging app for businesses or or whatever.

但要知道，Slack做户外广告的关键劣势在于——相比啤酒或汽车广告牌，没人需要解释为什么想要一辆车或一杯啤酒。

But, you know, like, a critical disadvantage to Slack doing out of home advertising, putting up a billboard versus beer or cars is no one needs to be explained why they would want a car or a beer.

但每个人都得被解释为什么他们需要Slack。

But everyone would have to be explained why they why they want slack.

所以这里的问题在于理解成本，这种情况会大量出现。

And so the problem there is is comprehension, and this will come up an enormous amount.

现在假设你想买旧金山泰勒·斯威夫特演唱会的门票，你上Ticketmaster网站时——想想这两种情况的理解成本：这个场景下你的理解是完美的，这转化为你意图的明确性，同时你意图的强度也达到了峰值。

So now imagine you wanna get tickets to the Taylor Swift concert in San Francisco, and you go to the Ticketmaster website, if you think about both your your comprehension, it's perfect in this case, and that translates into the specificity of your intent, and the degree of your intent is also kind of maxed out.

所以，我真的超级想买到这些票。

So, like, I really wanna get these tickets.

我完全清楚它们是什么。

I know exactly what they are.

它们是泰勒·斯威夫特在这个场馆这个日期的演唱会门票。

They're Taylor Swift tickets for this date at this venue.

所以在这种情况下，Ticketmaster网站卡不卡其实无所谓。

And so in that scenario, it doesn't really matter if Ticketmaster's website is slow.

支付页面出不出错也真的没关系。

It doesn't really matter if the payments page errors out.

就是，你会坚持到底直到成功买到票的。

Like, you're gonna persist and and get through it.

显然，它们确实能更好地减少摩擦，但从某种意义上说，这样做并没有太大的价值。

So obviously, they're better to reduce friction, but in some sense, it doesn't there's not a huge amount of of value in doing that.

对于大多数产品创作者来说，只有少数几种情况对你也确实适用，比如用户注册、身份验证、电商的结账流程等。

For most creators of of products, there are a handful of cases where that really is true for you as well, and they they include things like user registration, authentication, checkout flows for ecommerce.

比如，如果有Apple Pay或Shop Pay之类的支付方式，我购买的可能性会大大增加。

Like, I'm I am significantly more likely to buy something if there's Apple Pay or Shop Pay or something like that.

如果我必须手动逐个输入地址的所有字段，而不是使用地址选择器，我完成购买的可能性会大大降低。

I'm significantly less likely to carry through the purchase of something if the I have to manually enter all of the fields of my address one at a time rather than having one of those address pickers.

这很疯狂，但问题是我的购买意愿并不总是100%。

It's it's crazy, but like the issue is my intent isn't always a 100%.

对吧？

Right?

而且我的购买意愿的具体程度也不总是100%。

And the specificity of my intent isn't always a 100%.

所以如果你的产品是直接面向消费者的T恤，并且通过Instagram广告获取客户，他们都知道T恤是什么。

So if your thing is direct to consumer t shirts and you acquire customers through Instagram ads, all of them know what t shirts are.

就像，这看起来是件不错的T恤。

It's like, this looks like a good t shirt to me.

但我很少会有100%的购买意愿。

But I'm rarely, like, a 100% intent.

我可能有非常具体的购买意愿，但我的意愿大概只有70%。

I might have, like, you know, very specific intent, but my intent's, like, 70%.

所以如果你设置的摩擦程度超过了这个阈值，我就不会去做了。

So if you're the the amount of friction is above that, I just I'm not gonna do it.

但现在没问题了。

But now okay.

人们访问slack.com。

People coming to slack.com.

他们有个朋友几个月前提过Slack，还滔滔不绝地讲了一通，后来他们看到新闻文章，又看到别人的推文，最后看到了广告。

They had some friend had mentioned Slack and kind of talked their ear off at some point months ago, and then they saw a news article, and then they saw someone's tweet, and then they saw an ad.

我不清楚他们访问的是什么网站。

I don't know about the site they're visiting.

最终他们决定说：好吧。

And they finally said, okay.

我要去这个网站看看。

I'm gonna go to this website.

所以他们的意图处于最低临界值。

So their intent is, like, at the absolute minimum threshold.

就像在最后那个事件发生前，他们还在阈值之下，现在则超过了。

Like, it's just it was before that last event happened, they were below, and now they're above.

但他们只是刚好超过意图的具体性。

But they're just above the specificity of their intent.

就像'我需要为这个场馆的这个日期买泰勒·斯威夫特演唱会门票'这种需求也很低，因为这是工作相关的事。

Like, I need to get Taylor Swift concerts for this date of this venue, is also very low because they're like, it's a work thing.

我不确定是电子表格还是日历，或者具体是什么？

I'm not sure it's a spreadsheet or like a calendar or do look exactly what it is?

所以他们进入时，你知道，刚好超过这些关键阈值0.1%。

So they were coming in at, you know, point 1% over these these critical thresholds.

挑战是什么？

What was the challenge?

不是摩擦问题。

It wasn't friction.

对吧？

Right?

因为这不像他们有个明确目标，知道自己在追求什么，并努力达成那个目标。

Because it's not like they were aiming for something and they knew what they were aiming for and they were just trying to get themselves to that point.

我们需要关注的是从两个层面建立理解。

What we had to worry about was creating comprehension in in two senses.

这是什么？我接下来该做什么？

What is this thing, and what am I supposed to do next?

这种理解的建立，一方面是解释内容，另一方面是UI设计、屏幕布局、页面结构等视觉层次和可操作元素的提示，以及下一步该做什么的引导等等。

And that creation of comprehension in the in the sense of explaining stuff, that creation of comprehension in the sense of the design of the of the UI, of the screen, of the page, or whatever, and the the visual hierarchy and the affordances that are there and the and the indication of things to interact with and and which thing should be the next thing to do and all of that stuff.

这变得极其关键，但我觉得真正意识到这点的人少之又少。

That becomes really critical, and I think very, very few people recognize that.

他们总想着：我要让访问网页的人尽快到达注册表单。

They're like, I want to get people who come to my web page to the sign up form as quickly as possible.

但如果用户不知道注册的是什么，不知道后续会发生什么——会不会收到垃圾邮件？下一步会不会要付费？——他们就会直接退出。

But if they don't know what they're signing up for and they don't know what it's gonna do after, is it gonna spam them, they don't know if am I gonna have to pay on the next step or or what, then they're just gonna back out.

这就像一场持久战，因为'消除摩擦'的思维定式已经根深蒂固。

And this was like a a lifelong battle because the remove friction kind of orientation is so deep in people.

重申一次，在用户确实有明确意图并清楚自己要做什么的情况下，这种思维确实有效。

Again, it really makes a difference in in those cases where people do have an intent and they do know what they're trying to do.

当真正的挑战在于理解时，这是一种糟糕的处理方式。

It is a a poor approach when the challenge is really comprehension.

我认为关键在于，产品设计中70%、80%或任何比例的核心都落在理解这一步，因为人们即便打开了偏好设置选项卡查看所有选项，也很少能真正明白。

And I think the secret is most 70%, 80%, or whatever of a product design is in that comprehension step because, like, people, if they do ever open the preferences tab and look at all the options, rarely have an idea.

如果你无法教会他们，或者说让他们发现这些功能的存在，那么他们就不会利用这些功能，也无法从中获得最大收益。

And if you can't teach them, you know, or or make it possible for them to discover what the capabilities are, then they're not gonna take advantage of them, and they're not gonna get as much out of it.

我认为诀窍在于，对于任何应用程序的独特部分，你的应用、产品或软件所特有的功能，其挑战往往在于理解和消除使用障碍。

And I think that the trick is for most of the unique parts of any application, most of, like, the specific things that your app, your product, your software does are areas where the challenge is gonna be comprehension and set of friction.

这真的可以是任何东西。

It it really could be anything.

比如Shopify，该服务对终端用户的目的通常是明确易懂的。

Like, Shopify, the purpose of the of the service for its end users is generally gonna be kind and clear.

但大多数首次开店的人并不知道他们可以获取报告。

But most people most first time store openers don't know that they can get reports.

或者即使知道能获取报告，也不清楚具体有哪些类型。

Or if they know that they can get reports, they don't know what kinds of reports.

如果他们知道能获取哪些类型的报告，却不明白如何调整参数、设置合适的时间周期、确定哪些数据更需要突出显示——这类问题我可以一直列举下去。

And if they know what kinds of reports they can get, they don't know how they can tweak them and how they can you know, what the timing should be and which things that that are more important to display, and I could go on and on and on and on.

而人们根本没有意识到这一点。

And people just don't recognize that.

所以我想验证这个现象是否依然存在。

So like the I wanna see if it's still true.

我现在就打开iPhone的时钟应用，他们给闹钟功能写的描述简直荒谬至极。

I'm just gonna open my iPhone and the Clock app, and they had the most the craziest description for alarms.

好的。

Okay.

还是有点不一样。

It's still it's a little bit different.

人们

People

可以查看他们的

can look at their

自己的手机。

own phone.

所以我看到上面写着闹钟，然后是睡眠和一条竖线写着起床，显示没有闹钟，还有一个写着更改的按钮。

So I have it says alarms, and then it says sleep and a vertical bar wake up and says no alarm and a button that says change.

如果你点击它，就会显示睡眠已关闭。

And then if you hit it, it says sleep is off.

要自动开启睡眠功能并编辑你的时间表，你需要先开启睡眠模式。

In order to automatically turn on sleep features and edit your schedule, you need to turn sleep on.

显然，如果已经有办法让人们理解这个功能，'睡眠'是个不错的命名。

So obviously, like sleep was a good name for this thing if you already had a way of getting people to understand it.

如果没有，这个命名就不合语法且难以理解，为什么要这样做呢？

If you don't, it's like ungrammatical and incomprehensible, and why would you ever do it?

我只能猜了。

And I gotta guess.

这种情况已经持续好几年了。

It's it's been like this for years.

90%甚至可能98%的人都会像我这样做：你只需要设置闹钟，然后设定时间。

90 plus percent and and maybe 98% of people just do what I do, which is that you just create like, I want the alarm on, and I'm gonna set the time for it.

我不知道开启睡眠模式有什么用，但就像缺乏理解会阻碍人们获取价值一样，我确信开启睡眠模式背后有很多价值，不管那具体意味着什么。

And I don't know what turning sleep on does, but it's just like the the lack of comprehension prevents people from getting the value, and I'm sure that there's a bunch of value behind turning sleep on, whatever that means.

人们在这些功能上花费大量时间，它还与手表上的生物识别技术集成，谁知道呢。

And people spend a lot of time on those features, and it integrates with biometrics in your watch or who knows.

我再说一次，我还是不明白，因为开启睡眠模式就像...我不知道这有什么用，会让我付出什么代价，又会产生什么影响？

I I again, I still don't know because turning sleep on is like, I don't what does that do, and what is it gonna cost me, and what impact is it gonna have?

这些例子在我看来都很混乱，我不使用大多数软件（在真正有选择的情况下）的原因，或者不使用大多数功能（当我有选择权时）的原因，就是因为我不明白它们会做什么，而且我根本不在乎。

Those examples are just to me all over the place, and the the reason I don't use most software where there was an actual choice point or the reason I don't use most features where there was a choice point for me is because I didn't understand what they were gonna do, and I don't give a shit.

如果要用一个信条来替代这些，那就是：别让我思考。

And if there is one mantra that I would use to replace that, it's don't make me think.

我不知道你还记不记得那本书。

I don't know if you remember that that book.

当然记得。

Absolutely.

是的。

Yeah.

说实话，我读那本书已经是十多年前的事了，所以不知道你是否还记得书里的所有例子。

And honestly, it's been many more than ten years since I read it, so I don't know if you remember all the examples in the book.

但作为一个信条，它就像效用曲线一样重要，原因有二。

But as a mantra, that was like up there with utility curves because for two reasons.

一是做决策本身就很耗费精力。

One is it's just like it it it's expensive to make a decision.

比如，你实际上是在消耗葡萄糖。

Like, you literally burn glucose.

就像，存在一种代谢活动。

Like, there's a metabolic action.

在你的神经元线粒体中会产生ATP之类的物质，一系列反应正在发生，人们确实会感到决策疲劳，所有这些都会带来认知上的消耗。

There's, like, ATP created in the mitochondria in your neurons and, like, a bunch of stuff is happening, and people do get decision fatigue and there is like, you know, cognitive cost of all these things.

但还有情感层面的问题，如果你的软件突然打断我，要求我做决定而我又不太理解，这会让我觉得自己很蠢。

But also there's an emotional aspect, which is if you if your software kinda stops me a second and asks me to make a decision and I don't really understand it, you make me feel stupid.

对吧？

Right?

我就觉得，我不明白这个。

I'm like, I don't understand this.

有些人可能觉得...你知道，或许他们的适应能力还行。

I some people are are you know, maybe their orientation is okay.

是软件太蠢了。

The the software is stupid.

但我觉得大多数人会想，哦，是我太笨了。

But I think most people are like, oh, I'm dumb.

如果你和那些不太懂技术的人交谈，比如典型的例子就是50岁的人教父母使用某个软件时，父母几乎总是觉得自己很笨。

And if you ever talk to people who aren't especially technologically savvy, you know, if like the canonical example is, like, people who are 50 talking to their parents about using some piece of software and what they're supposed to do, the parents almost always feel stupid.

他们才是那个搞不清楚状况的人。

They're the ones that are that are wrong.

所以如果你让人们思考，在最好的情况下，这也只是对他们生物资源的不必要消耗。

And so if you're causing people to think in the the best case, it's like unnecessary use of their, you know, biological resources.

最糟糕的情况是，你现在让他们感觉糟糕，情绪低落，而且他们会永远把这种感受和产品联系在一起。

And then the worst case, you've like now made them feel bad, like emotionally bad, and they're gonna associate that with a product forever.

我是说，这些事情都是相互关联、相互影响的。

And I mean, these are things that are just kind of rolling one into the other.

所以我还要继续讲最后一点，因为它们其实是相关联的——除了减少摩擦之外，还要减少用户完成某个操作所需的点击或轻触次数，但这几乎总是适得其反的做法。

So I'm gonna keep going with one last thing because they just kind of come together, which is along with reduced friction, it's like reduce the number of clicks or taps it takes for someone to accomplish something, which is almost always exactly the wrong thing.

比如，你可以通过把所有功能都堆在一个能滚动成千上万页的屏幕上，让应用里的任何操作都只需一次点击或轻触——这确实是最简单的方法。

Like, it's the easiest way like, you could make any action in your app a single click or tap by just exposing every single possibility on one screen that scrolls for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of pages.

对吧？

Right?

显然，这种做法糟透了。

And obviously, that's terrible.

那为什么人们会觉得稍微这样做是可以的呢？

So why do people think that a little bit of that is good?

这里有个例子。

And, you know, here's an example.

比如你打开一个菜单，里面有14项用户可能想做的操作。

Like, you open a menu, there's 14 things that people might wanna do.

好的。

Okay.

第一层级是把它们按类别分组，并在组间加上垂直...抱歉，是水平分隔线。

Level one is group them into like items and put a vertical sorry, horizontal divider between them.

这样至少用户能大致分块浏览，看清有哪些选项。

So at least people can kinda chunk and and see what there is.

第二步是展示两到三个最常见的事项，或者五个最常见的事项，然后设置某种形式的‘其他’选项，接着进入包含更多条目的子菜单。

Step two is present the two or three most common things or the five most common things wherever and then have some form of other and you, you know, then you go to a sub menu that has more items.

而如何调整这个设置的决定变得极其重要。

And you the decision of, like, how to tune that becomes incredibly important.

我又要拿谷歌开涮了，因为我觉得自己像唐纳德·特朗普，但我又要用个故事打断自己。

I'm gonna pick on Google again just because it is I feel like I'm Donald Trump here, but I'm gonna interrupt myself again with a story.

是的。

It's Yeah.

确实如此。

That's true.

对吧？

Right?

某个会议或活动，我不记得具体是什么了，大概八年前，我们在活动结束后的酒吧里。

Some some conference or event, I don't remember what it was, and this is probably eight years ago, and it's we're in the bar after the sessions ended of this thing.

Stripe的约翰·克里森在场，谷歌CEO桑达尔也在。

And John Collison from Stripe is there, and Sundar, CEO of Google, is there.

约翰，抱歉。

And John sorry.

帕特里克上前和桑达尔搭话，他们可以聊任何话题。

Patrick goes up to to Sundar, and they could talk about anything.

对吧？

Right?

要知道，Stripe当时还不是巨头。

Like, you know, Stripe wasn't at the behemoth.

那时虽然还没到那个阶段，但它仍然是一家举足轻重、运转良好的公司。

It was now at at that point, but it's still, like, a, you know, a significant company was up and humming.

帕特里克想和桑达尔谈些什么？

And what does Patrick wanna talk to Sundar about?

这是在Gmail应用里关于联系人拖拽功能的问题。

It's in the Gmail app, the dragging of people.

比如当你回复全部邮件时，经常需要把收件人从主送移到抄送，或者把某人从抄送移到主送之类的操作。

Like, you when you reply all to a message, you often wanna change the the to recipient to the c c and move someone from c c to two or something like that.

而在Gmail应用里完成这个操作所需的肢体灵活度要求实在太高了。

And just how physically, like, the the degree of dexterity that's required to do that inside of the Gmail app is very high.

这个问题至今仍未修复。

It still hasn't been fixed.

但让我震惊的是，帕特里克本可以提出任何要求的。

But it really struck me that, like, know, Patrick could have asked for anything.

本可以是任何话题的。

It could have been any topic.

本可以是谈合作事宜的。

Could have been a partnership.

但这个问题让他如此恼火，以至于他始终无法释怀。

It was like it was so irritating to him that it worked like this and couldn't couldn't quite get over it.

言归正传，继续吐槽谷歌——虽然他们在很多方面做得非常出色，创造了许多了不起的东西等等等等。

So anyway, back to bashing on on Google who in many respects do an incredible job and there's all kinds of amazing stuff they do and blah blah blah.

但Gmail中对单封邮件的操作被拆分成了两个冗长且不同的菜单项，而且其中一项在两个菜单里都找不到。

But the the Gmail actions on an individual email are broken into two very long menu items that are different, and one of them doesn't exist on either menu.

有一个未标记的图标是唯一的方法，那就是将已读内容标记为未读。

There is an unlabeled icon is the only way to do it, and that's to to mark something as unread once it's read.

我不明白为什么有些操作在一个菜单里，而另一些在另一个菜单里。

I have no idea why some of the actions are in one menu and some of the actions are in another menu.

我想是因为有些操作与单封邮件相关，有些则与整个邮件线程相关，但这似乎不太一致。

I think it's because some of them have to do with an individual email, some of them have to do with the whole thread, but it doesn't seem very consistent.

所有可能的功能都集中列在一个地方。

Every possible thing is listed there in one place.

因此使用起来极其困难，因为有时你不得不点开两个菜单，读完所有选项后说：好吧。

And so it becomes incredibly difficult to use because sometimes you have to tap in both tapping both menus, read all of the options and say, okay.

我用排除法确认过，不在这里，所以肯定在那边。

That I've used the process of elimination, and it's not here, so it must be it must be there.

优步现在不是这样了，但当我最初在Slack里向同事提出时，优步应用打开时只有'你想去哪里'和'其他'选项。

Uber doesn't work like this anymore, but when I first brought this up to people inside of Slack, there was a moment when the Uber app, when you opened it, was just where would you like to go and other.

而'其他'里包含所有功能，比如修改支付方式、设置定位等所有优步能做的事。

And other was everything, Like, change your payment method, set your location if you'd be any anything you could do in Uber.

这样设计很完美，因为绝大多数时候人们只是想选择目的地。

And that was perfect because almost all the time, people just wanted to choose where they wanted to go.

偶尔你可能需要修改上车地点，因为你还没到那儿之类的。

Sometimes you wanted to change where your pickup was because you weren't there yet or or whatever.

这简直不能更简单了：我要么告诉你去哪儿，要么做点别的什么。

And that was just like, what could be simpler than I'm gonna tell you where I wanna go or I'm gonna achieve something else?

我极力推动团队思考：用户在这里最可能想做的一两件事是什么？顶多三件？然后把其他所有功能都放在'其他'里。

I really tried to push people to what is the thing that people or what is the two things or what is maybe three things that people could wanna do here, and then put everything behind other.

如果用户需要点击或轻触八次才能完成某件事，但每次操作都极其简单，那就很棒。

And then if it takes them eight clicks or taps to do something, but every single one is trivially easy, that's great.

但如果你将其简化为两次点击或轻触，却每个步骤都充满压力，我不得不打开所有菜单，试图弄清楚哪个选项才是正确的。

If it you know, you reduce that to two clicks or taps, but every part of it is this fraught decision where I'm opening all of the menus and trying to figure out, like, which thing is the right thing.

而且，比较三个选项之间的差异本身就够困难了。

And and, like, the more comparing three things to each other is this difficult.

四个选项时，要比较15种不同选择之间的优劣，看看哪个才是你想要的，这种比较成本几乎是几何级增长的。

Four things, it's kind of like geometrically more expensive to compare 15 different options all to the other to see if this is the one that you might want.

你知道，这最终会变得根本无法承受。

That, you know, just becomes impossibly expensive.

所以在我看来，这些问题都是相互关联的。

So to me, those are all really connected.

如果我们能超越将减少摩擦视为目标数量或减少操作步骤的想法，转而专注于如何让事情变得简单？

And if we if people could get over the idea of reducing friction as a number of goal or reducing the number of Plexer taps to do something and instead focus on how can I make this simple?

我该如何避免用户在使用我的软件时需要思考？

How how do I prevent people from having to think in order to use my software?

我怎样才能让这件事变得极其简单？

How can I make this trivial easy?

最后一个例子，因为这对我的影响真的很大。

One one last example, because this this was really influential for me.

当时我们正在Slack里讨论这些，我频繁往返于...

So I was going back and forth in Vancouver and San Francisco at the time when we were talking about all this inside of Slack, and I was behind a teenager in line to board the plane.

就像，你知道的，我们正在登机通道上。

And it was like, you know, we're on the jetway.

这花了很长时间。

It took a long time.

我看着她在用Snapchat，简直疯狂。

And I was watching her use Snapchat, and it was insane.

她每秒钟至少点击四次，有时甚至六七次。

Like, she was tapping at least four times a second, sometimes like six or seven times a second.

就像在快速浏览故事和操作，但整个过程行云流水，因为每个动作都像是条件反射。

It was like dismissing stories and doing stuff, but there was a fluidity to it because everything was like a dead draw to see this again.

我是要看这个人的下个故事，还是切换到另一个人的？

Do I wanna see the next story from this person to a different person?

不，她突然收到了一条通知。

Do I like instead she she a notification came up.

她回复了某人的消息。

She answered someone's thing.

她给自己拍了张自拍。

She took a selfie of herself.

所有动作一气呵成。

And everything was just like.

整整六分钟，她保持着每秒四次的点击频率。

So she was, you know, tapping four times a second for six minutes.

当然中间可能有些停顿。

I mean, probably there were some some breaks in there.

这就是2016年左右，一个15岁女孩最高效使用Snapchat的方式。

And that was, like, the highest and best use of Snapchat for a 15 year old girl in 2016 or whenever that was.

想象一下，如果目标是试图降低她的上限，你知道的，这会对她和Snapchat想要创造的体验造成多大的阻碍。

And imagine if the goal was to try to make her cap less, you know, like, how much of an impediment it would have been to the experience that both her and Snapchat wanted to create.

听这个真有趣，你举的例子让我们深刻理解了你思维运作的方式——总是对其他产品如何与你的产品协同工作感到不满。

It's so fun to listen to this and the examples you gave of it gives us a lot of insight into the way your mind works of just constantly unsatisfied with the way other products work with your product.

我认为这是核心，就像帕特里克之于Stripe就是个很好的例子。

And I think that's core, like Patrick is a good example of Stripe.

我感觉这是非常成功的产品领导者反复出现的主题——总是对事物运作方式感到不满和不开心。

I feel like that's a recurring theme with very successful product leaders is just constantly unsatisfied and unhappy with how things work.

是啊。

Yeah.

我甚至喜欢你总结的方式，就像一次很好的重构——与其执着于减少摩擦和步骤，不如思考如何减少用户需要做的思考量？

I love just even the way you summarize this, just like a really good reframing of instead of obsessing with reducing friction and reducing steps, instead think how do I how do I reduce the amount of thinking the user has to do?

我从未听说过这种说法，比如你必须考虑ATP和葡萄糖的消耗来进行思考，而你的目标是减少这种消耗，而不是简单地减少摩擦和点击操作。

I I've never heard of it described as like you have to think about the ATP and glucose being used to actually think, and your goal is to reduce that versus let's just reduce friction, reduce clicks.

是啊。

Yeah.

在我更愤世嫉俗的例子中，我会对人们说，先停下你手头的事。

I I think in my more cynical examples, I would I would say to people like, stop you're doing for a second.

闭上眼睛。

Close your eyes.

做几次深呼吸，然后假装自己是个真正的人类，再次睁开眼睛，看看这个东西，试着理解它应该做什么或表达什么，或者你应该采取什么行动，以及采取该行动会带来什么影响。

Take a couple of deep breaths, and then pretend that you're an actual human being and open their eyes again and then look at this thing and see, can you figure out what it's supposed to do or say or what your what action you're in supposed to take or what the impact will be if you take that action.

这完全是另一个相关的循环。

There's a whole another related cycle.

但在我深入之前，因为我知道自己话多，我想先总结一下你之前提到的关于人们不满意的例子。

But before I get into it, because I know that I'm verbose, I wanna wrap up your your last example of people being unsatisfied.

这就是我试图找到的那句话。

So here's the quote that I was trying to find.

这是2014年。

This is 2,014.

所以，那一年Slack实际上是在二月份正式推出的，而现在已经是接近年底了。

So, like, that that was the year that Slack actually launched officially in February, and this is now, like, near the end of the year.

我接受了《麻省理工科技评论》的采访，被问及我们是否在努力改进Slack。

I was interviewed by MIT Technology Review and asked if we were working to improve Slack.

我说，天哪。

I said, oh god.

是的。

Yeah.

我试图将这种想法灌输给团队其他人，但我确实觉得我们现在拥有的只是一堆垃圾。

I try to instill this into the rest of the team, but certainly I feel like what we have right now is just a giant piece of shit.

它简直糟透了，我们应该为向公众提供这样的产品感到羞愧。

Like, it's just terrible, and we should be humiliated that we offer this to the public.

不过，并不是每个人都能从中获得动力。

Not everyone finds that motivation, although.

所以第二天我来到办公室，发现有人把这句话打印在40张8.5x11英寸的纸上，然后贴在了墙上。

So I came into the office the next day, and people had printed out on, like, 40 pieces of eight and a half by 11 paper that quote and, like, and pasted it up on the wall.

但对我来说，那感觉就像是，你应该为此感到难堪。

But to me, that was like, you should be embarrassed by it.

这应该是一种持续改进的永恒渴望。

Like, it should be a perpetual desire to improve.

你大概会想，哦，这太棒了。

You should probably be like, oh, this is great.

我是说，你可以为某些具体的工作成果感到骄傲。

I mean, you could be proud of individual pieces of work.

但总体而言，如果你看不到几乎无限的改进空间，那你就不该设计这个产品，或者不该掌管这家公司，或者你甚至不该...你知道，几乎没有什么...再说一次，你可以把它缩小到某个微小功能，但离完美还差得远。

But in the aggregate, if you can't see almost limitless opportunities to improve, then you shouldn't be designing the product or you shouldn't be in charge of the company or you shouldn't you know, almost nothing you know, again, you could reduce it down to a tiny feature is anywhere close to to perfect.

而且如果，第一，组织内部能自由承认这点；第二，人们把持续改进当作目标来思考。

And if, a, that's acknowledged freely inside the organization, and b, people think about, like, continually improving as the goal.

这可以是类似六西格玛、丰田改善那样的副作用，也可能是那个我现在记不起名字的故事。

And that could be, like, six sigma Toyota kaizen, like, that kind of side effect, or it could be that story that I can't remember his name right now.

桥水基金的创始人在他的书中提到了迈克尔·雷·达里奥，讲述了迈克尔·乔丹学习滑雪的故事。

The guy who started Bridgewater tells about Michael Ray Ray Dalio in his book talks about Michael Jordan learning to ski.

每次他搞砸了，都希望滑雪教练明确指出他的错误所在。

Every time he messed up, he wanted the ski instructor to tell him exactly what he was doing wrong.

因为对他来说，每一个错误都像可以收集的宝石，通过这些他才能真正成为优秀的滑雪者——而这正是他的目标。

Because to him, every one of those was like a gem that he could collect and and he could, you know, actually become a good skier, and what he wanted to do was become a good skier.

这需要组织内部建立高度的信任。

That requires a lot of trust inside the organization.

但如果你能达到这样的境界：嘿，

But if you can get to the point where, like, hey.

我们正在寻求改进，保持批判态度，因为我们想让这件事做到尽善尽美。

We are trying to find improvements, trying to be critical because you're trying to make this as great as it can possibly be.

并非总是如此，也并非对每个人都适用，但在大多数情况下，对大多数人来说，你可以让他们达到那种状态，即那种非常直接的批评实际上具有激励作用。

Not always, not with every person, but most of the time with most people, you can get them to the point where that, like, really direct criticism is actually motivational.

就像，你知道的，人们会感激得到反馈，无论是来自公司内部的同事还是产品的终端用户，因为你会意识到，哦，是的。

It is like, you know, people are, grateful to have, like, the feedback, whether that's coming from their peers inside the company or from end users of the product because you realize, oh, yeah.

那确实很糟糕，我们应该解决它。

That is that is bad, and we should fix it.

本节目由Lovable赞助播出。

This episode is brought to you by Lovable.

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Not only are they the fastest growing company in history, I use it regularly, and I could not recommend it more highly.

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Lovable lets you build working apps and websites by simply chatting with AI.

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Then you can customize it, add automations, and deploy it to a live domain.

它非常适合需要快速搭建工具的市场人员、需要原型化新想法的产品经理，以及准备推出新业务的创始人。

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与无代码工具不同，Lovable不仅仅是关于静态页面。

Unlike no code tools, Lovable isn't about static pages.

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It builds full apps with real functionality, and it's fast.

过去需要数周、数月甚至数年才能完成的事情，现在一个周末就能搞定。

What used to take weeks, months, or years, you can now do over a weekend.

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So if you've been sitting on an idea, now is the time to bring it to life.

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就是lovable.dev这个网站。

That's lovable.dev.

这让我想起，我们姑且称之为你的一番牢骚——关于让任何东西正常运转都需要付出大量努力，而默认状态往往就是无法运作。

This makes me think about, our let's call it a rant that you have about how it takes a lot of work to make anything work at all that just the default state is not working.

你就直接分享你当时分享的内容吧。

You just share share what you share there.

是啊。

Yeah.

我是说，这与很多因素有关，可能比其他问题更近期的现象。

I mean, so this is a lot to do with and maybe this is more recent than others.

在政治领域我经常看到这种情况。

Shows up in politics a lot for me.

顺便说一句，如果听众中有人能帮我找到2016到2020年间某条推特风暴的话。

But by the way, if any of your anyone listening to this can help me find this tweet storm from somewhere between 2016 and 2020.

具体细节我记不清了，那是某人发的关于设立一个停车标志有多困难的推文串。

I don't have a precise idea, and it was this guy's thread about how hard it was to get a stop sign set up.

我记得那应该是对有人声称比特币将取代美元的回应。

And I think I believe it was in response to someone claiming that Bitcoin is gonna replace US dollars.

大概和加密货币有关的一些事情。

There's something something about crypto.

他的观点大致是，当我们试图在我居住的社区街道上安装一个停车标志时，发生了一系列事情。

And his point was like, here's what happened when we tried to get a stop sign put up on a residential street in my neighborhood.

这实际上花费了数年时间，涉及多个机构，比如工程部门、交通规划师、业主协会，我不记得所有相关组织了，因为如果记得的话，我就能更好地搜索并再次找到这个案例，因为它确实完美展示了在大多数地方安装一个停车标志有多么困难。

And the literal years it took and the number of agencies that were involved, like the engineering department, traffic planners, the HOA, and the I don't remember all of the organizations because if I did, then I could search better and find this again because it was truly a masterpiece of how difficult it is to get a stop sign put up in in most places.

我从大多数政客那里听到的信息，不幸的是这种说法非常有效，就是：事情本应是好的，但它们不好是因为有人在作恶，阻碍了美好事物的实现。

The message that I hear from most politicians, and unfortunately, works really well, is, you know, things should be good, but they're not because someone is doing something bad, which is preventing the goodness.

所以亿万富翁们让物价高不可攀，或是移民抢走了你们的工作，又或是懒散的寄生虫在吸政府的奶头，导致我们所有人都得交更多税之类的。

So billionaires are making things unaffordable or immigrants are taking your jobs or lazy freeloaders are sucking off a government tea and causing us all have to pay more taxes or something like that.

现实情况是，几乎什么都行不通。

The reality is, like, almost nothing works.

实际上，打电话吧。

It's actually, call.

在这种情况下，约翰对此进行了很好的封装。

Said in this case, John has a great encapsulation of this.

我确信你已经很熟悉了，就像那样。

I'm I'm sure you've you're familiar with it, like that.

最终世界成为了激情项目的博物馆，因为要让任何事情得以实现，不仅需要资源和努力，你知道，还需要在现实世界中实现那件事所需的所有政治手段、社会学和说服工作。

It ends with the world is a museum of passion projects because for anything to get done at all requires, like, not just the resources and and effort, you know, required to instantiate that thing in the in the real world, but all of the politicking and the sociology and the convincing.

最近有本书叫《为什么什么都不管用》，虽然我不想冒犯作者——如果他们在听的话——但这本书的文笔确实不算出色。

And there's a book called Why Nothing Works recently, which is like it's not an I'm sorry to the author if they they're out there listening, but just not like an amazingly written book.

我觉得它有点重复，但内容确实令人难以置信。

I found it, like, a little bit repetitive, but the the content was really incredible.

书中解释了为什么事情如此困难，以及任何行动方案面临的否决权数量如何逐步增加，以及这有多困难。

Just explaining why it's so hard and how there's this progressive increase in the number of of vetoes that are available for any kind of course of action and how difficult it is.

这种现象体现在，比如新建筑的审批这类事务中，在组织内部也同样明显存在。

And this shows up in, like, you know, in permitting for new construction and stuff like that, but also shows up obviously inside of organizations.

而挑战在于人们，我认为这是进化生物学层面的问题。

And the challenge is that people, a, I think this is evolutionary biological.

我们很难不以拟人化的方式来理解这个世界。

It's hard for us to understand the world except by anthropomorphizing it.

所以就像，如果今年没下雨，那是因为神明发怒了，很可能是因为我们去年没献祭够山羊之类的。

And so it like, if it didn't rain this year, it's because a god is mad and probably because we didn't sacrifice enough goats or something last last year.

我们频道的人很难理解这点，哇哦。

It's hard for people on our channel just that, wow.

天气是极其复杂且混沌的，生态系统和气候学等等都是如此。

Weather is incredibly complex and chaotic and ecosystems and climatology and blah blah.

整个世界也是同样道理。

Same thing with the world.

就像，如果我正艰难地支付所有账单，勉强负担一点奢侈——比如度假或给孩子买个礼物之类，那肯定得怪到某人头上。

Like, if if I am struggling to, you know, pay all of my bills and be able to afford, like, a little bit of luxury in the sense of, like, a vacation or a present for my kids or whatever, it's gotta be somebody's fault.

就好像，一定是某个地方有人做了某个决定导致的。

Like, there has to be a decision that's made somewhere.

而现实是一切都如此复杂。

And the reality is everything is so complicated.

所有事物都是多变量交织的。

Everything is so multivariate.

这种认知让人很不满足。

It's not satisfying.

这是个糟糕的政治讯息。

It's a terrible political message.

这样说会容易得多：哦，我们理解为何事情会如你所担忧的那样糟糕，结果发现这是某人的决定造成的。

It's much easier to say that there is like, oh, we understand why things are bad in the way that you're concerned about, and it turns out that it's someone's decision.

正因为他们，事情才变得糟糕。

And because of them, it's bad.

所以如果我们摆脱他们，或者我们能推翻他们的决定，实施我们自己的方案，那么对你来说情况就会好转。

And so if we got rid of them or you know, we're able to overcome their decision, overturn it, and institute our own thing, then things would be good for you.

在我看来，这种情况在组织内部也同样存在。

And this really to me shows up inside of organizations as well.

我先说到这里。

I'll pause there.

我知道顺着这个思路，你非常推崇所谓的帕金森定律。

I know kind of along those lines, you're a big believer in something called Parkinson's law.

是的。

Yeah.

最初的版本我想是在1956年。

So that the original of that is I think it's 1956.

这是帕金森在《经济学人》上发表的一篇文章。

It's an article in The Economist by Parkinson.

其核心观点是：工作会膨胀到填满所有可用的完成时间。

And the maxim is work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

这种现象的表现方式有点微妙。

And the way that shows up, this is a little bit subtle.

所以，我发现自从没有工作后，时间压力小了很多，这意味着如果你想完成某件事，就该交给忙碌的人去做。

So, like, one of the things I found since I don't have a job is there's much less time pressure, and and that meant something like, if you want something done, give it to a busy person.

反之亦然，如果你不那么忙，哇，基本的事情反而会花很长时间。

The inverse is also true that, like, if you're not that busy, wow, basic things take a really long time.

帕金森一开始举的例子就是写信和寄信。

And so Parkinson actually starts off with his example of, like, you know, writing and posting a letter.

我不记得他第一个例子用的是谁，但那个人非常忙碌，有无数事情要处理。

And I don't remember who he used with the first example, but someone who's, like, know, incredibly busy and has all these things they have to respond to.

另一个例子是退休女性，她有全世界的时间，却要花很长时间写信，装信封，然后去邮局寄信。

And then another case, like retired woman who has all the time in the world, and it takes her a long time to write the letter, it takes her a long time to put it in the envelope, and then go to the post office and post it.

但对我来说真正的精华在于他后来谈到的组织规模问题。

But the real meat of it is for me later when he talks about the size of the organization.

他用了很多例子。

He uses a bunch of examples.

这还是上世纪五十年代的事，而且他是英国人。

This is again nineteen fifties, so and he's British.

所以他研究了皇家海军，具体看了一张图表，显示海军主力舰数量、水兵人数和行政人员数量的关系。

So he's looking at the the Royal Navy, and specifically, he's looking at a chart that shows the relationship between the number of capital ships in the navy, the number of sailors, and the number of administrators.

对研究政府部门的人来说这图表很熟悉——比如大学里行政人员数量与学生和教学教职工数量的关系。

And very familiar graph for for people looking at, like, any part of government, any part, like, relationship between the number of administrators at a university and the number of students and faculty, the teaching faculty, where it's like, okay.

舰船数量是这样，水兵数量随之变化，而行政人员数量却是这样增长的。

The number of ships goes like this and the number of sailors is looking right along with it and the number of administrators goes like this.

这与'工作会膨胀到填满所有可用时间'相关的原因是：人们会招聘和培训。

And the reason this this ties into the work expands to fill the time available for its completion is people hire and they train.

这就是经营公司时的一个悲哀现实：总有例外存在。

And here's the kind of sad truth for anyone running a company is there are exceptions.

确实有某些类型的工程师能接受这点，但绝大多数你雇佣的人都想招更多下属。

There's, like, certain types of engineers that are accepting this, but the overwhelming majority of people you hire want to hire more people who report to them.

这不是因为他们邪恶，也不是因为他们愚蠢。

And it's not because they're evil, it's not because they're stupid.

事实上他们很聪明，因为众所周知，下属数量与你的职业轨迹、薪资水平、组织内权威等等都直接相关。

In fact, they're smart because everyone knows that the number of people report to you correlates with, like, your career trajectory, your the the amount of money that you're paid, the amount of authority you have inside the organization, and on and on and on.

比如我们在Slack雇佣27岁的产品经理后，他们立刻就想招下属。

So like we would hire 27 year old product managers in Slack who immediately wanna hire someone.

这简直莫名其妙。

It's like, what the hell?

那个人能做什么？

What would that person do?

他们会这样解释：'那个人负责产品管理，而我负责战略'。

And like, they articulate it this way, but essentially it's like, well, that person would do the product management and then I would do strategy.

经典套路。

Classic.

我认为最关键是明白：这不是因为人们邪恶或愚蠢。

It's it's really I think the essential thing to understand about this is it's not because people are evil, and it's not because they're stupid.

对我来说，这与'万物皆复杂'的理念密切相关。

And it's, to me, very related to the everything is complex.

也许这就是我的巴特菲尔德式谎言。

And if you maybe this is my Butterfield's lie.

我之前从没想过这个，但我很久很久以前发过这条推文。

I haven't thought about this before, but I I tweeted this a very, very long time ago.

比如说，如果你对自己谈论的内容一无所知，那么一切看起来都很简单。

Like, if you everything is simple if you have no idea what you're talking about.

所以反过来说，如果某件事看起来很简单，很可能你并没有真正理解。

So the the other side of that is like, if something seems simple, probably you don't understand.

当然，这个规律也有明显的例外情况。

And, you know, there's obvious exceptions to that.

但对于任何涉及大型组织或众多人类参与的事务，如果问题看起来很简单，那说明你根本没搞懂。

But for anything that involves a large organization or a lot of human beings, if the problem seems simple, you don't get it.

因此每个预算流程中，没有哪个工程主管、销售主管、CFO或法务总监会回来说：'其实我觉得明年我们可以少招点人，或者保持现有规模，或者通过自然减员来缩减，因为我们不需要更多人就能完成工作。'

So every budget process, no head of engineering, head of sales, no CFO, no GC is ever gonna come back and say like, oh, I actually think like next year we can just hire fewer people or we're gonna keep it flat or we're gonna like shrink through attrition because we don't need any more people to do what we're doing.

不是因为他们邪恶，也不是因为他们愚蠢。

Not because they're evil, not because they're stupid.

而是因为这是组织内部几乎无法抗拒的本能冲动，往往会导致灾难性后果。

But it's an almost overpowering impulse inside the organization that often leads to disastrous results.

我举个Slack发展史上的例子。

And so there's a I'll give one example from Slack's history.

我过去曾试图模糊处理这个例子以免让人难堪，但遗憾的是具体细节对这个例子至关重要，所以无法掩饰。

And I, you know, I have tried in the past to disguise this example so that no one feels bad about it, but I fortunately, the specifics are so important to the example that it's not disguised.

我要再次强调，相关当事人既不愚蠢也不邪恶。

And so I'll just reiterate that the people involved aren't stupid or or evil.

还有一个来自外部的例子。

And one example that's that's from the outside.

Slack中的例子是我们引入了线程功能，即可以在频道内回复消息的能力。

So the example inside of Slack was we introduced threads, which was the ability to reply to a message inside of a channel.

假设你，Lenny，发布了一条消息。

And let's say you, Lenny, post a message.

我，Stuart，回复了这条消息。

I, Stuart, reply to it.

你会自动收到通知。

You will automatically get a notification.

之后Sarah也回复了同一条消息。

And now Sarah later on replies to the same message.

作为在该线程中发过言的你我，都会收到有新活动的通知等等。

Both you and I, as people who have posted in that thread, will receive a notification that there's been more activity and so on.

所以，每次有人回复时都会这样。

So, like, you know, every single time anyone replies to it.

当这个功能最初发布时，或者说在发布前的最终产品评审阶段，输入框会预填充线程中你之前提到的人。

So when the feature first was released or, like, when we did the final product review before it was released, the input box was prepopulated with at the person before you in the thread.

我在使用这个功能时，会把光标放在那里，全选删除，然后开始写我的消息。

And I, you know, I was using the feature and I would, like, put the insertion point there, select all, delete, and then start writing my message.

即使我想特别@某个人，我也几乎从不希望以@开头写句子，因为这会让引用他们之前说的话变得困难。

And it's even if I wanted to at sub one specifically, I almost never wanted to start my sentence with at because it just made it hard to, you know, reference what they were saying before.

所以我建议去掉这个功能，因为第一，我认为大多数人不会用它；第二，即使他们想@某人，也不会想在句首这么做。

So I said, get rid of this because a, I think most people won't use it or if they if they did wanna add someone, they're not gonna wanna do it at the beginning of the sentence.

顺便说，你这是在教他们使用产品提示，因为重要的是每个人都明白，除非手动关闭，否则这个线程里所有之前发过言的人都会自动收到通知。

And by the way, you're teaching them to use the product prompt because it's important that everyone understand that every previous poster in this thread will automatically receive a notification unless they've it.

好吧。

So okay.

我们发布了它。

We release it.

六个月过去了，突然那个'at'问题又出现了。

Six months goes by, and suddenly the at thing comes back.

于是我给团队里的一个人发消息说，嘿。

And so I messaged someone on the team and I said, hey.

出现了退行现象。

There's been a regression.

这太奇怪了。

This is super weird.

我不知道发生了什么，但是，那个'at'问题又出现了。

I don't know what happened, but, like, the the at thing came back.

然后他们说，哦，不。

And they said, oh, no.

这是故意的。

This is on purpose.

我们做了大量研究。

We did a bunch of research.

我当时就，什么？

And so I was like, what?

我仔细看了下，如果没记错的话，这个分析甚至没有达到95%的确定性，但结论大概是：当我们这样做时，线程平均有2.17条消息，而不这样做时是2.14条。

And I went through this, and it was if I recall correctly, it wasn't even, like, p 95 certainty on this analysis, but it was something like when we do this, threads are 2.17 messages long versus 2.14 messages long on average for when we don't do it.

首先，为什么更长的线程更好？

And so first of all, why is a longer thread better?

比如，也许更短的线程会更好。

Like, maybe a maybe a shorter thread is better.

这样人们需要来回处理的消息就更少了。

Like, it'd be fewer messages that people have to go back and forth.

而且，这点差异微乎其微。

Also, that's such a tiny difference.

另外，我不记得具体的统计分析，所以不会断言它不正确。

Also, again, I don't remember the actual statistical analysis, so I'm not gonna claim that it was incorrect.

但我理解这超出了他们能确定的范畴。

But I appreciate this was outside the the bounds of of certainty that they can have.

但真正的问题是，天啊。

But the real thing was, oh my god.

所以你们在产品里加入了标记。

So you guys put flags into the product.

你们进行了AB测试。

You AB tested it.

你们完成了数据埋点。

You did the instrumentation.

你们在数据库里创建了表格，或者无论用什么来记录这些数据。

You created tables in the in the database or whatever we're using to record all of that.

你们还编写了查询来提取数据。

You wrote queries to pull that.

你根据那些数据创建了图表。

You created charts based on that data.

你们开会讨论了这件事。

You had meetings to discuss it.

就像是把要让这个功能回归所需的所有条件都拆解出来。

And just like kind of unpacking all of the things that would have had to happen for this to come back.

这至少需要数千人时的工作量，因为在那种规模的组织中，任何功能变更都会涉及十几号人——工程师、测试团队、分析团队、产品经理、用户研究等等。

And it's like, you know, thousands of person hours kind of at a minimum because any feature change at at that scale of organization is involving, like, a dozen people, engineering, QA, analytics teams, product managers, user research, and stuff like that.

问题在于，所以我认为这是个糟糕的主意。

The problem with that so I think it was a bad idea.

对吧？

Right?

但问题在于，有这个功能和没这个功能之间可能产生的差异，就这么点儿大，随便你用什么单位衡量。

But the problem with that was the difference that you could possibly achieve between having this feature and not having this feature is, like, this much, whatever units you want.

而做这项分析的成本却有这么多。

The cost of doing the analysis was this much.

所以这注定是笔亏本买卖。

So it's guaranteed to be a loser.

根本不可能有人会认为，在消息开头加上线程中前一位回复者的名字，能给Slack的质量或用户体验带来多大改变。

Like, there's just there's no world in which anyone could imagine putting the at previous respondent in the thread at the beginning of the message could possibly make that much of a difference to the quality of Slack and the how how much utility it provides for people and and all that.

但你知道，要添加功能开关、发布新版本、埋点、记录所有用户行为的API调用、做数据分析、创建看板、把截图粘贴到Google幻灯片、发会议邀请、因为有人缺席而改期、让所有人坐下来看这些东西...

But you know that to to, like, put the feature flags in, to ship new versions of the product, to put the instrumentation in, to have it all the API calls to record every action that people take, to to do all the analytics, to create the dashboard, to put that you know, paste a screenshot of that into a Google Slides presentation, to send the invitations to the meeting, to reschedule the meeting because someone couldn't make it, to have everyone sit down and look at the thing.

这绝对是稳赔不赚的生意。

Like, you know, guaranteed loser.

我知道是法里德让你来问我这件事的。

And I know that you that Fareed told you to ask me about this.

高度现实的工作类活动。

Hyper realistic work like activities.

所以这就是我的宏大理论。

And so here's my my my grand theory.

高度现实的工作类活动与另一个概念'已知有价值的工作'密切相关。

Hyper realistic work like activities is goes along with this other concept called known valuable work to do.

当我说'已知'时，指的是你既知道它是什么，也知道它是有价值的。

And when I say known, I mean both you know what it is and you know that it's valuable.

几乎所有组织面临的问题是，在最初阶段，你有大量既知道怎么做又明确其价值的工作。

And the problem with almost every organization, at the very beginning, you have an enormous amount of work that you know what to do and you know that it's gonna be valuable.

就像创业时开银行账户——开账户这件事几乎能产生无限价值。

So, like, starting a business, open a bank account because, like, there's almost infinite generative value of opening a bank account.

这件事你必须做。

You you have to do it.

而且操作非常简单。

You it's very simple to do.

任何初创企业在初期都会说'我要创建用户表'、'我要给密码加盐'——这些绝对必要且所有人都明确知道该怎么做的事。

And so at at the very beginning of of any startup, they're like, oh, I'm like creating a users table and I'm like doing salting passwords and like you're doing all the things that are kind of absolutely necessary and everyone knows exactly what they are.

所以大家早上工作时都会干劲十足。

And so that's like everyone's going to work in the morning, they're like, right on.

看，我有10件事要做，每件都是我知道怎么做且绝对有价值的事。

And look, I have 10 things to do, and every single one of them is like something I know how to do, and it's like definitely gonna be valuable.

时间推移，待完成工作的供给与工作需求之间的关系开始发生变化。

Time goes on, and the relationship between the supply of work to do and the demand for doing work just starts to change.

越来越多的人被雇佣。

More and more people got hired.

每个产品经理都想招一个初级产品经理。

Every product manager wants to hire a junior product manager.

你认识的每个新人，风险合规团队招的第一个人都会感叹：天哪。

Every new person you know, the first person you bring on on the risk and compliance team is like, oh my god.

我们有太多风险事项和合规要求需要处理。

We have there's so many risks and things we have to be compliant with.

我们最好招更多人来做风险合规工作——某种程度上这没错，但这类人会越来越多，他们还会互相召开会议。

We better hire more people on my team to do more risk and compliance work, which probably, you know, to some degree is right, but we're gonna have more and more of those people and they're gonna call meetings with each other.

突然间你发现所有人都有活干，简单明显的工作都做完了，现在的问题变成了：老天。

And now suddenly you have all these people with work to do and you've done all the easy obvious stuff, and now your questions are like, god.

我们是否该做FedRAMP高级认证并开发GovSlack版本？这要求我们为运行软件的硬件建立完全独立的物理基础设施，还要组建纯由美国公民组成的运维团队。

Should we do FedRAMP high and make a GovSlack version, which is gonna require us to have a wholly separate physical infrastructure for the hardware that runs the the software and also a whole different operations team, has only US citizens on it.

这么做可能带来多少收益？当我们想更新软件时又会增加多少复杂度？

What is the possible number of of dollars that we could make from doing this and how much complexity is gonna be when we wanna do updates to the software?

因为我们得维护两套完全独立的系统。

Because we got being two totally separate independent systems and.

局面就这样失控了。

It just gets out of whack.

最终结果就是：如果你雇了17个产品营销，就会产生17个产品营销的工作需求。

And so people end up like, if you hire 17 product marketers, you're gonna have 17 product marketers worth of demand for work to do.

如果你们没有足够的市场营销工作可做，他们就会去做其他事情。

And if you don't have sufficient supply of product marketing work to do, they're just gonna do other stuff.

再次强调，这非常重要——不是因为他们愚蠢，不是因为他们邪恶，而是因为作为产品营销人员，他们渴望自己的工作得到认可。

Again, very important, not because they're stupid, not because they're evil, but because they're like, I'm a product marketer and I wanna like be recognized for my work.

我的配偶甚至因此批评我，认为我早该在上个晋升周期获得提拔，现在必须拿出些实际成果来证明自己。

And my spouse is like has criticized me because they think like I should have already got promoted in the last cycle and I really gotta demonstrate some wins here and whatever it is.

于是人们会召集同事开会，预演他们准备在重要会议上展示的PPT，就某些幻灯片是否需要修改征求意见。

And so people are like calling meetings with their colleagues to preview the deck that they're gonna show in the big meeting to get feedback on whether they should like improve some of the slides.

这种高度仿真的工作活动，表面上看与真实工作毫无二致。

And that hyper realistic work like activity is superficially identical to work.

就像我们坐在会议室里，投影仪上播放着内容，所有人都在讨论它。

Like, we are sitting in a conference room, and you are there's something being projected up there, and we're all talking about it.

这正是工作的常态。

And that's exactly what work is.

当然，希望不是贵公司所有人的工作都这样——但这就是我们日常的工作状态。然而这其实是虚假的工作，其伪装如此精妙，连我自己都会深陷其中。

You know, hopefully not all of work in for everyone inside of your company, but you know, that's exactly what we do when we're working, but this is actually a fake bit of work and it's so subtle that I'll do it.

明白吗？

You know?

董事会成员会这么做。

Our board members will do it.

每个高管都会这么做。

Every exec will do it.

越是远离核心人脉、一手信息和决策权的人，越容易陷入这种状态。人们会投入大量时间进行高度仿真的工作活动，却浑然不觉自己在做什么。

And the further you are from, like, having all of the contacts and all of the information and the decision making authority and stuff like that, the easier it is to get trapped in that stuff, and people will just perform enormous amounts of hyper realistic work like activities and have no idea that that's what they're doing.

因此，我想结果是，如果你是一位领导者、经理、总监、高管，或是CEO，你的责任就是确保有足够明确的、有价值的事情可做。

And, you know, the result of that, I guess, is that if you are a leader, if you're a manager, director, an executive, if you're the CEO, it's on you to ensure that there is sufficient supply of known valuable to do.

但几乎总是有的，关键是要围绕这些事项创造清晰度，达成一致，确保每个人都明白这是他们应该做的，然后当然就是付诸行动。

And but there almost always is, but, you know, it's creating the clarity around that, creating the alignment, making sure everyone understands it, whether that's what they're supposed to be doing, and and then obviously doing it.

太棒了。

Amazing.

我可以听斯图尔特·兰德讲一整天。

I could listen to Stuart Rand's all day.

超现实的工作类活动。

Hyper realistic work like activities.

我们需要认领这个。

We need to claim this.

而遗憾的是，它

And the Unfortunately, it

并不能组成一个好的缩写词。

doesn't make a good acronym.

这相当糟糕。

It's pretty ugly.

好的。

Okay.

我们会给它一个...为了闭环这个问题，解决方案在于领导者意识到这种情况正在发生并制止它，告诉人们为什么我们要把时间花在这件不会带来任何进展的事情上。

We'll give it a And just to close the loop on that, the the solution is the leader recognizing this is happening and stopping it, telling people why are we spending time on this thing that is not gonna get us anywhere.

是的。

Yeah.

你刚才说的可能不是最佳方式，因为那听起来像在责备他们，显得他们很蠢，而实际上你的责任是确保优先事项足够明确，要事先明确拒绝某些事情，而不是事后抱怨说‘嘿’这样的话。

And and and that what you just said probably isn't the best way because that sounds like they're you know, you're chiding them and they're dumb when it's actually your responsibility to make sure that there's, you know, sufficient clarity around what the priorities are and, you know, explicitly say no to things upfront and stuff like that rather than merging and say, like, hey.

你们这群笨蛋，把时间浪费在这种无关紧要的事情上。

You guys are much idiots wasting your time on this thing that doesn't matter.

这是谁的错？

Whose fault is it?

你知道吗？

You know?

这是经理的错。

It's it's the manager's fault.

这是某某副总裁的错。

It's the VP of whatever's fault.

这是CXO之类的错。

It's the CX whatever.

归根结底，这是组织领导者的责任，要确保团队有足够明确且有价值的工作可做。

It's the c ultimately, it's like it's the the leader of the organization that has the responsibility to make sure that there is sufficient, known valuable work to do.

实际上这比看起来要困难得多。

And this that's actually harder than it might appear.

好的。

Okay.

在时间结束前，我想再谈两个话题。

Before we run out of time, I wanna touch on two other topics.

一个是当人们想到斯图尔特·巴特菲尔德时，很多人会想到他那篇传奇的Medium文章《我们这里不卖马鞍》，那篇文章简直...我不知道该怎么形容。

One is when people think of Stuart Butterfield, I think a lot of people think of we don't sell saddles here, your legendary medium post that is just I don't know.

它已成为产品构建和初创企业史上具有历史意义的文献。

It's become a historic piece of literature in the in the annals of product building and and startups.

我最近没怎么听人问起这个，所以让我来问几个问题。

I haven't heard people ask you much about this recently, so let me just ask a couple questions.

第一个问题是，你发布那个的初衷是什么？

One is just what was the was the reason you put that out?

为什么要写那份备忘录？背后有什么故事？

Why what what was the backstory on writing that memo?

为什么有必要这样做？

Why was it necessary?

嗯，那其实是一份内部备忘录，而且有点跑题了。

Well, it really was an internal memo, and there's a bit of a digression.

Slack的一个糟糕之处在于，如果所有企业通讯都通过邮件进行（具体取决于系统配置），你离职时很可能带走在X公司的全部通信记录。

One of the the crappy things about Slack is if all your corporate communication is on email, depending on exactly how it works and what system you use, you probably walk away with an archive of everything you said at company x.

但如果是Slack，一旦账号停用，你就会失去所有历史记录。

If it's Slack, once you're turned off, you're like you lose access to all that history.

所以就像...唉，真是的。

And so it's kinda like, oh, man.

要是我离职前导出所有消息记录就好了，就能保留这些资料。

If I had only exported all of my messages before I left, I would have all this stuff.

但那完全是逐字记录。

But that was it was absolutely verbatim.

我没有改动任何在职时的发言内容。

I did not change a word of what I said inside the company.

嗯，我想我们当时大概还是八个人吧。

Well, I think we were still eight people, maybe.

你知道，最多10个人，但我我觉得是八个人。

You know, at most 10, but I I think it was eight people.

那甚至是在Slack推出之前。

It was before Slack launched even.

是啊。

Yeah.

那是在Slack推出之前。

It was before Slack launched.

那时候我们还在做内测，关键是要尽早灌输这些理念，在那个小团队内部真正达成一致，这样随着我们发展和扩大，它才能持续运作下去。

It was, like, when we were doing private beta, and the point of it was to, like, to start to instill those ideas as early as possible and really create this alignment inside of that small team so that it could process to survive as we grew and and scaled.

对，那就是那个想法。

And, yeah, that that was the that was the idea.

简而言之，为那些不太熟悉但会看到链接的人说明一下，仅仅打造一个伟大的产品是不够的。

And the gist, just for people that aren't super familiar with it but will link to it, is just it's not enough just to build a great product.

你同样需要努力去传达这个产品能为他们做什么，解决什么问题，能带来什么成果。

You just as much have to put effort into communicating what this does for them, the problem this is solving for them, the outcome this is gonna achieve for them.

这样理解对吗？

Is that a a good way to think about it?

对。

Yeah.

而且，你知道，把它比作啤酒或汽车的话，啤酒可以追溯到前文明时代。

And, you know, comparing it to beer or cars, beer is goes back to precivilization.

汽车显然曾被视为疯狂之物，但在某个时刻，你必须说服人们为何选择汽车而非马匹。

Cars were obviously mad, didn't but, at some point, you had to convince people why they would win a car instead of a horse.

对于你基于AI的新招聘工具或日历应用等产品，你需要给出理由说明人们为何应选用你的产品而非现有方案——这可能意味着完全替代现有工具，更多时候则是工作方式的变革，并由此拓展至相关领域。

For your new AI based recruiting tool or your calendar app or whatever, for some reason why people you think that people should use yours instead of the thing that they're using now, which might be like a wholesale one for one replacement or more often is like a change in the way that you're working that has a bunch of other adjacencies and you wanna expand into these other categories.

你不仅要负责创造产品，某种程度上还需培育市场——比如这本堪称经典的《定位》书所阐述的。

Well, you're not just responsible for creating the product, but also to a certain degree creating the market and and creating you know, there's this book positioning, which is an absolute classic.

它非常简短。

It's very short.

我推荐每个人都读一读。

I would recommend everyone read it.

在我看来其核心观点是：在人们脑海中凭空创造全新概念几乎不可能。

Where the the point of it is, from my perspective, it's almost impossible to create a net new idea in someone's head.

更可行的做法是将几个现有概念进行组合。

It's much easier to take a couple of existing ideas and and put them together.

所以与其创造全新概念，不如说'这是《大白鲨》遇上《星球大战》'或'宠物界的优步'——但你必须这样做，因为...

So it's much easier to say it's like Jaws meets Star Wars or it's Uber for pets or something like that than to come up with, like, an actual new idea, but you you have to do that because you look.

如果你的产品与竞品存在显著差异，你不仅在创造产品，更是在开辟市场。

If your thing is different in any significant way from the alternatives, you're not just creating the product, you're creating the market.

这两者本质上是同一件事。

They're really kind of one in the same.

我提及此事是因为，人们至今仍忽视这条建议，持续过度投入于增加功能、扩充产品线等。

The reason I wanted to touch on it is I think still people continue to not listen to this advice and continue continue to overinvest in more features, more more products, things like that.

具体案例就是'我们这里不卖马鞍'——用这个说法能快速传达理念，如有遗漏请指正——重点在于不是简单地说'嘿...'

Just the the specific example of we don't sell saddles here just to quickly communicate this to folks and correct me if I'm missing anything is just instead of, hey.

看看我们买的这个超棒的马鞍，它想在这里和我们交流。

Look at this amazing saddle we bought, which wanna communicate us here.

去骑马吧。

Go horseback riding.

看看你能拥有的这段不可思议的经历，然后他们突然决定，哦，糟糕。

Look at this incredible experience you can have, and and then they decide, oh, shit.

我得去买个马鞍才能那么做。

I need to go buy a saddle to do that.

是啊。

Yeah.

而且百分之百，这方面并不新颖，因为我认为这是营销人员长期以来的做法，尤其是在营销传播和广告领域。

And and a 100%, that aspect of it is is not original because I think that's something that marketers have done for a long time, surely in the in Marcom and and advertising.

比如，如果你想卖哈雷戴维森，有些人会痴迷于发动机之类的东西，还有皮革质量之类的细节。

Like, if you wanna sell Harley Davidson's, there are people who are gonna geek out on the engines and stuff like that and, like, the quality of the leather and stuff like that.

但你卖的并不是摩托车本身。

But what you're selling is not the motorcycle.

你卖的是开阔的道路、自由的感觉和风吹过发梢的体验。

You're selling, like, the open road and freedom and the wind in your hair.

如果你是Lululemon，你显然在卖瑜伽裤，但你也在推销健康、人生追求、成为最好的自己，以及一大堆其他东西。

And if you're Lululemon, you are obviously selling yoga pants, but you're also selling, like, health and aspiration and being the best version of yourself and, you know, a bunch of other stuff.

所以卖那种‘天啊’的感觉。

So selling that oh my god.

我忘了它的经典版本是什么了。

I forgot the classic version of it.

你知道吗？

You know?

比如，

Like,

有那个

there's the

船。

ship.

卖这些而不是螺丝刀。

Selling this those instead of The screwdriver.

哦。

Oh.

哦，对。

Oh, yeah.

钉子。

The nail.