June 2006

(This essay is derived from talks at Usenix 2006 and Railsconf 2006.)

A couple years ago my friend Trevor and I went to look at the Apple garage.

As we stood there, he said that as a kid growing up in Saskatchewan he'd been amazed at the dedication Jobs and Wozniak must have had to work in a garage.

"Those guys must have been freezing!"

That's one of California's hidden advantages: the mild climate means there's lots of marginal space.

In cold places that margin gets trimmed off.

There's a sharper line between outside and inside, and only projects that are officially sanctioned — by organizations, or parents, or wives, or at least by oneself — get proper indoor space.

That raises the activation energy for new ideas.

You can't just tinker.

You have to justify.

Some of Silicon Valley's most famous companies began in garages: Hewlett-Packard in 1938, Apple in 1976, Google in 1998.

In Apple's case the garage story is a bit of an urban legend.

Woz says all they did there was assemble some computers, and that he did all the actual design of the Apple I and Apple II in his apartment or his cube at HP. [1] This was apparently too marginal even for Apple's PR people.

By conventional standards, Jobs and Wozniak were marginal people too.

Obviously they were smart, but they can't have looked good on paper.

They were at the time a pair of college dropouts with about three years of school between them, and hippies to boot.

Their previous business experience consisted of making "blue boxes" to hack into the phone system, a business with the rare distinction of being both illegal and unprofitable.

Looking at the Apple garage, my friend Trevor said that growing up in Saskatchewan he'd marveled at the dedication it took to work there. "Those guys must have been freezing!"

That's one of California's hidden advantages: the mild climate means lots of marginal space. In cold places that margin gets trimmed off — only sanctioned projects get indoor space, which raises the activation energy for new ideas. You can't just tinker; you have to justify.

The Apple garage is a bit of an urban legend — Woz says all they did there was assemble computers, too marginal even for Apple's PR. And Jobs and Wozniak were marginal people too: college dropouts with three years of school between them, hippies, whose previous business was making "blue boxes" to hack the phone system — both illegal and unprofitable.

California's mild climate leaves lots of marginal space where new things can start; Jobs and Wozniak, by conventional standards, were marginal people too.

Outsiders

Now a startup operating out of a garage in Silicon Valley would feel part of an exalted tradition, like the poet in his garret, or the painter who can't afford to heat his studio and thus has to wear a beret indoors.

But in 1976 it didn't seem so cool.

The world hadn't yet realized that starting a computer company was in the same category as being a writer or a painter.

It hadn't been for long.

Only in the preceding couple years had the dramatic fall in the cost of hardware allowed outsiders to compete.

In 1976, everyone looked down on a company operating out of a garage, including the founders.

One of the first things Jobs did when they got some money was to rent office space.

He wanted Apple to seem like a real company.

They already had something few real companies ever have: a fabulously well designed product.

You'd think they'd have had more confidence.

But I've talked to a lot of startup founders, and it's always this way.

They've built something that's going to change the world, and they're worried about some nit like not having proper business cards.

That's the paradox I want to explore: great new things often come from the margins, and yet the people who discover them are looked down on by everyone, including themselves.

It's an old idea that new things come from the margins.

I want to examine its internal structure.

Why do great ideas come from the margins?

What kind of ideas?

And is there anything we can do to encourage the process?

Now a garage startup feels like an exalted tradition, the poet in his garret. But in 1976 it didn't seem cool — only recently had cheap hardware let outsiders compete, and no one had realized starting a computer company was like being a writer or painter.

Everyone looked down on a garage company, including the founders; Jobs rented offices to make Apple seem real. With startup founders it's always this way: they've built something that will change the world, and they worry about not having proper business cards.

That's the paradox I want to explore: great new things often come from the margins, and yet the people who discover them are looked down on by everyone, including themselves.

Why do great ideas come from the margins? What kind of ideas? And can we encourage the process?

A garage startup now feels like an exalted tradition, but in 1976 everyone looked down on it, including the founders. That's the paradox: great new things come from the margins, yet their discoverers are looked down on by everyone, including themselves.

Insiders

One reason so many good ideas come from the margin is simply that there's so much of it.

There have to be more outsiders than insiders, if insider means anything.

If the number of outsiders is huge it will always seem as if a lot of ideas come from them, even if few do per capita.

But I think there's more going on than this.

There are real disadvantages to being an insider, and in some kinds of work they can outweigh the advantages.

Imagine, for example, what would happen if the government decided to commission someone to write an official Great American Novel.

First there'd be a huge ideological squabble over who to choose.

Most of the best writers would be excluded for having offended one side or the other.

Of the remainder, the smart ones would refuse such a job, leaving only a few with the wrong sort of ambition.

The committee would choose one at the height of his career — that is, someone whose best work was behind him — and hand over the project with copious free advice about how the book should show in positive terms the strength and diversity of the American people, etc, etc.

The unfortunate writer would then sit down to work with a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders.

Not wanting to blow such a public commission, he'd play it safe.

This book had better command respect, and the way to ensure that would be to make it a tragedy.

Audiences have to be enticed to laugh, but if you kill people they feel obliged to take you seriously.

As everyone knows, America plus tragedy equals the Civil War, so that's what it would have to be about.

When finally completed twelve years later, the book would be a 900-page pastiche of existing popular novels — roughly Gone with the Wind plus Roots.

But its bulk and celebrity would make it a bestseller for a few months, until blown out of the water by a talk-show host's autobiography.

The book would be made into a movie and thereupon forgotten, except by the more waspish sort of reviewers, among whom it would be a byword for bogusness like Milli Vanilli or Battlefield Earth.

Maybe I got a little carried away with this example.

And yet is this not at each point the way such a project would play out?

The government knows better than to get into the novel business, but in other fields where they have a natural monopoly, like nuclear waste dumps, aircraft carriers, and regime change, you'd find plenty of projects isomorphic to this one — and indeed, plenty that were less successful.

This little thought experiment suggests a few of the disadvantages of insider projects: the selection of the wrong kind of people, the excessive scope, the inability to take risks, the need to seem serious, the weight of expectations, the power of vested interests, the undiscerning audience, and perhaps most dangerous, the tendency of such work to become a duty rather than a pleasure.

Partly there's just so much margin. But there's more: real disadvantages to being an insider that, in some work, outweigh the advantages.

Imagine the government commissioned an official Great American Novel. The best writers would be excluded for having offended someone, the smart ones would refuse, and the committee would pick one past his best, with advice about showing the strength and diversity of the American people. Weighed down by expectation, he'd play it safe and make it a tragedy.

Since America plus tragedy equals the Civil War, that's what it would be about. Twelve years later it would be a 900-page pastiche, roughly Gone with the Wind plus Roots — a bestseller for months, then a forgotten movie and a byword for bogusness.

And yet is this not at each point how such a project would play out? The disadvantages of insider projects: the wrong people, excessive scope, the inability to take risks, the need to seem serious, the weight of expectations, vested interests, the undiscerning audience, and most dangerous, the tendency of such work to become a duty rather than a pleasure.

Good ideas come from the margin partly because there's so much of it, but there are also real disadvantages to being an insider — as a thought experiment about a government-commissioned Great American Novel shows.

Tests

A world with outsiders and insiders implies some kind of test for distinguishing between them.

And the trouble with most tests for selecting elites is that there are two ways to pass them: to be good at what they try to measure, and to be good at hacking the test itself.

So the first question to ask about a field is how honest its tests are, because this tells you what it means to be an outsider.

This tells you how much to trust your instincts when you disagree with authorities, whether it's worth going through the usual channels to become one yourself, and perhaps whether you want to work in this field at all.

Tests are least hackable when there are consistent standards for quality, and the people running the test really care about its integrity.

Admissions to PhD programs in the hard sciences are fairly honest, for example.

The professors will get whoever they admit as their own grad students, so they try hard to choose well, and they have a fair amount of data to go on.

Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be much more hackable.

One way to tell whether a field has consistent standards is the overlap between the leading practitioners and the people who teach the subject in universities.

At one end of the scale you have fields like math and physics, where nearly all the teachers are among the best practitioners.

In the middle are medicine, law, history, architecture, and computer science, where many are.

At the bottom are business, literature, and the visual arts, where there's almost no overlap between the teachers and the leading practitioners.

It's this end that gives rise to phrases like "those who can't do, teach."

Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college.

When I was in college the rule seemed to be that you should study whatever you were most interested in.

But in retrospect you're probably better off studying something moderately interesting with someone who's good at it than something very interesting with someone who isn't.

You often hear people say that you shouldn't major in business in college, but this is actually an instance of a more general rule: don't learn things from teachers who are bad at them.

How much you should worry about being an outsider depends on the quality of the insiders.

If you're an amateur mathematician and think you've solved a famous open problem, better go back and check.

When I was in grad school, a friend in the math department had the job of replying to people who sent in proofs of Fermat's last theorem and so on, and it did not seem as if he saw it as a valuable source of tips — more like manning a mental health hotline.

Whereas if the stuff you're writing seems different from what English professors are interested in, that's not necessarily a problem.

Anti-Tests

Where the method of selecting the elite is thoroughly corrupt, most of the good people will be outsiders.

In art, for example, the image of the poor, misunderstood genius is not just one possible image of a great artist: it's the standard image.

I'm not saying it's correct, incidentally, but it is telling how well this image has stuck.

You couldn't make a rap like that stick to math or medicine. [2]

If it's corrupt enough, a test becomes an anti-test, filtering out the people it should select by making them to do things only the wrong people would do. Popularity [blocked] in high school seems to be such a test. There are plenty of similar ones in the grownup world.

For example, rising up through the hierarchy of the average big company demands an attention to politics few thoughtful people could spare. [3] Someone like Bill Gates can grow a company under him, but it's hard to imagine him having the patience to climb the corporate ladder at General Electric — or Microsoft, actually.

It's kind of strange when you think about it, because lord-of-the-flies schools and bureaucratic companies are both the default.

There are probably a lot of people who go from one to the other and never realize the whole world doesn't work this way.

I think that's one reason big companies are so often blindsided by startups.

People at big companies don't realize the extent to which they live in an environment that is one large, ongoing test for the wrong qualities.

If you're an outsider, your best chances for beating insiders are obviously in fields where corrupt tests select a lame elite.

But there's a catch: if the tests are corrupt, your victory won't be recognized, at least in your lifetime.

You may feel you don't need that, but history suggests it's dangerous to work in fields with corrupt tests.

You may beat the insiders, and yet not do as good work, on an absolute scale, as you would in a field that was more honest.

Standards in art, for example, were almost as corrupt in the first half of the eighteenth century as they are today.

This was the era of those fluffy idealized portraits of countesses with their lapdogs. Chardin [blocked] decided to skip all that and paint ordinary things as he saw them.

He's now considered the best of that period — and yet not the equal of Leonardo or Bellini or Memling, who all had the additional encouragement of honest standards.

It can be worth participating in a corrupt contest, however, if it's followed by another that isn't corrupt.

For example, it would be worth competing with a company that can spend more than you on marketing, as long as you can survive to the next round, when customers compare your actual products.

Similarly, you shouldn't be discouraged by the comparatively corrupt test of college admissions, because it's followed immediately by less hackable tests. [4]

Outsiders and insiders imply a test, and there are two ways to pass: be good at what it measures, or be good at hacking it. So the first question about a field is how honest its tests are — that tells you how much to trust your instincts against authorities.

Tests are least hackable where standards are consistent and the people running them care; PhD admissions in the hard sciences are fairly honest, undergraduate admissions much more hackable. One gauge is the overlap between leading practitioners and teachers: at one end, math and physics, where nearly all teachers are among the best; at the bottom, business, literature, and the visual arts — the end behind "those who can't do, teach."

How much to worry depends on the insiders' quality. An amateur who thinks he's solved a famous problem should check, but writing that differs from what English professors like isn't necessarily a problem.

Where selection of the elite is thoroughly corrupt, most good people are outsiders. In art the poor, misunderstood genius isn't one possible image of a great artist — it's the standard image. You couldn't make that rap stick to math or medicine.

If corrupt enough, a test becomes an anti-test, filtering out the people it should select. Popularity [blocked] in high school is one; so is rising up a big company, which demands an attention to politics few thoughtful people could spare. Bill Gates could grow a company under him but never climb the ladder at GE.

Lord-of-the-flies schools and bureaucratic companies are both the default, and many never realize the whole world doesn't work this way. That's why big companies are blindsided by startups.

Your best chances are where corrupt tests select a lame elite — but the catch is that your victory won't be recognized in your lifetime, and you may not do as good work, absolutely, as in an honest field.

Standards in art were almost as corrupt in the early eighteenth century as today. Chardin [blocked] skipped the idealized countesses to paint ordinary things; he's now the best of the period, yet not the equal of Leonardo or Bellini, who had honest standards.

A corrupt contest can be worth it if followed by an honest one — compete against a company that outspends you on marketing if you survive to where customers compare products. Likewise college admissions: less hackable tests follow at once.

Every elite implies a test, and tests can be hacked. How honest a field's tests are tells you what being an outsider means; where the test is corrupt enough to become an anti-test, the good people are outsiders — but a corrupt field is dangerous to work in.

Risk

Even in a field with honest tests, there are still advantages to being an outsider.

The most obvious is that outsiders have nothing to lose.

They can do risky things, and if they fail, so what?

Few will even notice.

The eminent, on the other hand, are weighed down by their eminence.

Eminence is like a suit: it impresses the wrong people, and it constrains the wearer.

Outsiders should realize the advantage they have here.

Being able to take risks is hugely valuable.

Everyone values safety too much, both the obscure and the eminent.

No one wants to look like a fool.

But it's very useful to be able to.

If most of your ideas aren't stupid, you're probably being too conservative.

You're not bracketing the problem.

Lord Acton said we should judge talent at its best and character at its worst. For example, if you write one great book and ten bad ones, you still count as a great writer — or at least, a better writer than someone who wrote eleven that were merely good.

Whereas if you're a quiet, law-abiding citizen most of the time but occasionally cut someone up and bury them in your backyard, you're a bad guy.

Almost everyone makes the mistake of treating ideas as if they were indications of character rather than talent — as if having a stupid idea made you stupid.

There's a huge weight of tradition advising us to play it safe.

"Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent," says the Old Testament (Proverbs 17:28).

Well, that may be fine advice for a bunch of goatherds in Bronze Age Palestine.

There conservatism would be the order of the day.

But times have changed.

It might still be reasonable to stick with the Old Testament in political questions, but materially the world now has a lot more state.

Tradition is less of a guide, not just because things change faster, but because the space of possibilities is so large.

The more complicated the world gets, the more valuable it is to be willing to look like a fool.

Even in honest fields, outsiders have nothing to lose. They can do risky things, and if they fail, few will even notice.

The eminent are weighed down by their eminence. Eminence is like a suit: it impresses the wrong people, and it constrains the wearer. No one wants to look like a fool, but it's very useful to be able to: if most of your ideas aren't stupid, you're being too conservative — you're not bracketing the problem.

Judge talent at its best and character at its worst, said Lord Acton: write one great book and ten bad ones and you're still a great writer. Yet almost everyone treats ideas as indications of character rather than talent — as if a stupid idea made you stupid. Tradition advises us to play it safe: "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent," says the Old Testament.

Fine advice for goatherds in Bronze Age Palestine. But tradition is less of a guide now, not just because things change faster, but because the space of possibilities is so large. The more complicated the world gets, the more valuable it is to be willing to look like a fool.

Even in honest fields, outsiders have nothing to lose, so they can take risks the eminent can't. Almost everyone treats ideas as indications of character rather than talent — but the more complicated the world gets, the more valuable it is to be willing to look like a fool.

Delegation

And yet the more successful people become, the more heat they get if they screw up — or even seem to screw up.

In this respect, as in many others, the eminent are prisoners of their own success.

So the best way to understand the advantages of being an outsider may be to look at the disadvantages of being an insider.

If you ask eminent people what's wrong with their lives, the first thing they'll complain about is the lack of time.

A friend of mine at Google is fairly high up in the company and went to work for them long before they went public.

In other words, he's now rich enough not to have to work.

I asked him if he could still endure the annoyances of having a job, now that he didn't have to.

And he said that there weren't really any annoyances, except — and he got a wistful look when he said this — that he got so much email.

The eminent feel like everyone wants to take a bite out of them.

The problem is so widespread that people pretending to be eminent do it by pretending to be overstretched.

The lives of the eminent become scheduled, and that's not good for thinking.

One of the great advantages of being an outsider is long, uninterrupted blocks of time.

That's what I remember about grad school: apparently endless supplies of time, which I spent worrying about, but not writing, my dissertation.

Obscurity is like health food — unpleasant, perhaps, but good for you.

Whereas fame tends to be like the alcohol produced by fermentation.

When it reaches a certain concentration, it kills off the yeast that produced it.

The eminent generally respond to the shortage of time by turning into managers.

They don't have time to work.

They're surrounded by junior people they're supposed to help or supervise.

The obvious solution is to have the junior people do the work.

Some good stuff happens this way, but there are problems it doesn't work so well for: the kind where it helps to have everything in one head.

For example, it recently emerged that the famous glass artist Dale Chihuly hasn't actually blown glass for 27 years.

He has assistants do the work for him.

But one of the most valuable sources of ideas in the visual arts is the resistance of the medium.

That's why oil paintings look so different from watercolors.

In principle you could make any mark in any medium; in practice the medium steers you.

And if you're no longer doing the work yourself, you stop learning from this.

So if you want to beat those eminent enough to delegate, one way to do it is to take advantage of direct contact with the medium.

In the arts it's obvious how: blow your own glass, edit your own films, stage your own plays.

And in the process pay close attention to accidents and to new ideas you have on the fly.

This technique can be generalized to any sort of work: if you're an outsider, don't be ruled by plans.

Planning is often just a weakness forced on those who delegate.

Is there a general rule for finding problems best solved in one head?

Well, you can manufacture them by taking any project usually done by multiple people and trying to do it all yourself.

Wozniak's work was a classic example: he did everything himself, hardware and software, and the result was miraculous.

He claims not one bug was ever found in the Apple II, in either hardware or software.

Another way to find good problems to solve in one head is to focus on the grooves in the chocolate bar — the places where tasks are divided when they're split between several people.

If you want to beat delegation, focus on a vertical slice: for example, be both writer and editor, or both design buildings and construct them.

One especially good groove to span is the one between tools and things made with them.

For example, programming languages and applications are usually written by different people, and this is responsible for a lot of the worst flaws in programming languages [blocked].

I think every language should be designed simultaneously with a large application written in it, the way C was with Unix.

Techniques for competing with delegation translate well into business, because delegation is endemic there.

Instead of avoiding it as a drawback of senility, many companies embrace it as a sign of maturity.

In big companies software is often designed, implemented, and sold by three separate types of people.

In startups one person may have to do all three.

And though this feels stressful, it's one reason startups win.

The needs of customers and the means of satisfying them are all in one head.

The more successful people become, the more heat they get if they screw up. The eminent are prisoners of their own success, so to see the outsider's advantages, look at the insider's disadvantages.

Ask the eminent what's wrong with their lives and the first complaint is time. A friend high up at Google, rich enough not to work, told me there weren't really any annoyances, except — wistfully — that he got so much email.

The eminent feel like everyone wants a bite out of them, and their scheduled lives aren't good for thinking. One great advantage of being an outsider is long, uninterrupted blocks of time. Obscurity is like health food — unpleasant but good for you; fame is like the alcohol from fermentation, which at a certain concentration kills the yeast that produced it.

Short of time, the eminent turn into managers and have junior people do the work — fine, except for problems where it helps to have everything in one head. The famous glass artist Dale Chihuly hasn't blown glass for 27 years; his assistants do it. But a valuable source of ideas is the resistance of the medium — that's why oil paintings differ from watercolors. The medium steers you, and if you're no longer doing the work, you stop learning from it.

So keep direct contact with the medium: blow your own glass, edit your own films, and attend to accidents and ideas you have on the fly. Generalized: don't be ruled by plans, often just a weakness forced on those who delegate.

Manufacture problems best solved in one head by doing all yourself what's usually split among several — Wozniak did everything, hardware and software, and claims not one bug was ever found in the Apple II. Or span the grooves in the chocolate bar, where tasks get divided: be writer and editor, or design buildings and build them. One good groove is between tools and what's made with them — languages and applications are written by different people, causing the worst flaws in programming languages [blocked].

In big companies software is designed, built, and sold by three types of people; in a startup one person may do all three. Stressful, but one reason startups win.

The eminent are prisoners of their success: short of time, they turn into managers and delegate the work, losing direct contact with the medium. Outsiders can beat them by doing everything in one head — spanning the grooves where tasks are usually divided.

Focus

The very skill of insiders can be a weakness.

Once someone is good at something, they tend to spend all their time doing that.

This kind of focus is very valuable, actually.

Much of the skill of experts is the ability to ignore false trails.

But focus has drawbacks: you don't learn from other fields, and when a new approach arrives, you may be the last to notice.

For outsiders this translates into two ways to win.

One is to work on a variety of things.

Since you can't derive as much benefit (yet) from a narrow focus, you may as well cast a wider net and derive what benefit you can from similarities between fields.

Just as you can compete with delegation by working on larger vertical slices, you can compete with specialization by working on larger horizontal slices — by both writing and illustrating your book, for example.

The second way to compete with focus is to see what focus overlooks.

In particular, new things.

So if you're not good at anything yet, consider working on something so new that no one else is either.

It won't have any prestige yet, if no one is good at it, but you'll have it all to yourself.

The potential of a new medium is usually underestimated, precisely because no one has yet explored its possibilities.

Before Durer [blocked] tried making engravings, no one took them very seriously.

Engraving was for making little devotional images — basically fifteenth century baseball cards of saints.

Trying to make masterpieces in this medium must have seemed to Durer's contemporaries the way that, say, making masterpieces in comics might seem to the average person today.

In the computer world we get not new mediums but new platforms: the minicomputer, the microprocessor, the web-based application.

At first they're always dismissed as being unsuitable for real work.

And yet someone always decides to try anyway, and it turns out you can do more than anyone expected.

So in the future when you hear people say of a new platform: yeah, it's popular and cheap, but not ready yet for real work, jump on it.

As well as being more comfortable working on established lines, insiders generally have a vested interest in perpetuating them.

The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not likely to be the one to discover its replacement.

This is particularly true with companies, who have not only skill and pride anchoring them to the status quo, but money as well.

The Achilles heel of successful companies is their inability to cannibalize themselves.

Many innovations consist of replacing something with a cheaper alternative, and companies just don't want to see a path whose immediate effect is to cut an existing source of revenue.

So if you're an outsider you should actively seek out contrarian projects.

Instead of working on things the eminent have made prestigious, work on things that could steal that prestige.

The really juicy new approaches are not the ones insiders reject as impossible, but those they ignore as undignified.

For example, after Wozniak designed the Apple II he offered it first to his employer, HP.

They passed.

One of the reasons was that, to save money, he'd designed the Apple II to use a TV as a monitor, and HP felt they couldn't produce anything so declasse.

The very skill of insiders can be a weakness. Focus is valuable — much of expertise is ignoring false trails — but you don't learn from other fields, and when a new approach arrives you may be the last to notice.

So outsiders have two ways to win. One is to work on a variety of things, exploiting similarities between fields. Just as you beat delegation with larger vertical slices, you beat specialization with larger horizontal slices — by both writing and illustrating your book.

The second is to see what focus overlooks: new things. If you're not good at anything yet, work on something so new no one else is either. It won't have prestige, but you'll have it all to yourself.

A new medium is underestimated because no one has explored it. Before Durer [blocked], engravings were for devotional images, fifteenth-century baseball cards of saints; masterpieces in that medium seemed as absurd then as masterpieces in comics might today.

In computing we get new platforms: minicomputer, microprocessor, web app. Each is dismissed as unsuitable for real work, yet someone tries and does more than expected. So when you hear a platform is popular and cheap but not ready for real work, jump on it.

Insiders also have a vested interest in established lines. The professor who made his name on an idea won't discover its replacement, and the Achilles heel of successful companies is their inability to cannibalize themselves, since many innovations cut existing revenue.

So seek contrarian projects that could steal the prestige of what the eminent made prestigious. The juiciest approaches aren't the ones insiders reject as impossible, but those they ignore as undignified. HP passed on the Apple II partly because Wozniak had designed it to use a TV as a monitor — too declasse.

Insiders' very skill is a weakness — focus blinds them to new fields and new approaches. Outsiders can win by working broadly, by exploring new mediums no one is good at yet, and by seeking the contrarian projects insiders ignore as undignified.

Less

Wozniak used a TV as a monitor for the simple reason that he couldn't afford a monitor.

Outsiders are not merely free but compelled to make things that are cheap and lightweight.

And both are good bets for growth: cheap things spread faster, and lightweight things evolve faster.

The eminent, on the other hand, are almost forced to work on a large scale.

Instead of garden sheds they must design huge art museums. One reason they work on big things is that they can: like our hypothetical novelist, they're flattered by such opportunities.

They also know that big projects will by their sheer bulk impress the audience.

A garden shed, however lovely, would be easy to ignore; a few might even snicker at it.

You can't snicker at a giant museum, no matter how much you dislike it.

And finally, there are all those people the eminent have working for them; they have to choose projects that can keep them all busy.

Outsiders are free of all this.

They can work on small things, and there's something very pleasing about small things.

Small things can be perfect; big ones always have something wrong with them.

But there's a magic [blocked] in small things that goes beyond such rational explanations.

All kids know it.

Small things have more personality.

Plus making them is more fun.

You can do what you want; you don't have to satisfy committees.

And perhaps most important, small things can be done fast. The prospect of seeing the finished project hangs in the air like the smell of dinner cooking.

If you work fast, maybe you could have it done tonight.

Working on small things is also a good way to learn.

The most important kinds of learning happen one project at a time. ("Next time, I won't...") The faster you cycle through projects, the faster you'll evolve.

Plain materials have a charm like small scale.

And in addition there's the challenge of making do with less.

Every designer's ears perk up at the mention of that game, because it's a game you can't lose.

Like the JV playing the varsity, if you even tie, you win.

So paradoxically there are cases where fewer resources yield better results, because the designers' pleasure at their own ingenuity more than compensates. [5]

So if you're an outsider, take advantage of your ability to make small and inexpensive things.

Cultivate the pleasure and simplicity of that kind of work; one day you'll miss it.

Wozniak used a TV because he couldn't afford a monitor. Outsiders are not merely free but compelled to make things cheap and lightweight — both good bets for growth, since cheap things spread faster and lightweight things evolve faster.

The eminent are almost forced to work large. Instead of garden sheds they design huge museums — because they can, because bulk impresses (you can't snicker at a giant museum), and because they have employees to keep busy.

Outsiders are free of all this. Small things can be perfect, where big ones always have something wrong. But there's a magic [blocked] in small things beyond rational explanation. All kids know it. Small things have more personality.

Plus making them is more fun — no committees to satisfy — and small things can be done fast: the finished project hangs in the air like the smell of dinner cooking. They're also a good way to learn, one project at a time; the faster you cycle through them, the faster you evolve.

And making do with less is a game you can't lose: like the JV playing the varsity, if you even tie, you win. So fewer resources sometimes yield better results, because the designer's pleasure at their own ingenuity more than compensates. Cultivate that work; one day you'll miss it.

Outsiders are compelled to make things cheap and lightweight, which spread and evolve faster; the eminent are forced to work on a large scale. Small things can be perfect, are more fun, can be done fast, and making do with less is a game you can't lose.

Responsibility

When you're old and eminent, what will you miss about being young and obscure?

What people seem to miss most is the lack of responsibilities.

Responsibility is an occupational disease of eminence.

In principle you could avoid it, just as in principle you could avoid getting fat as you get old, but few do.

I sometimes suspect that responsibility is a trap and that the most virtuous route would be to shirk it, but regardless it's certainly constraining.

When you're an outsider you're constrained too, of course.

You're short of money, for example.

But that constrains you in different ways.

How does responsibility constrain you?

The worst thing is that it allows you not to focus on real work.

Just as the most dangerous forms of procrastination [blocked] are those that seem like work, the danger of responsibilities is not just that they can consume a whole day, but that they can do it without setting off the kind of alarms you'd set off if you spent a whole day sitting on a park bench.

A lot of the pain of being an outsider is being aware of one's own procrastination.

But this is actually a good thing.

You're at least close enough to work that the smell of it makes you hungry.

As an outsider, you're just one step away from getting things done.

A huge step, admittedly, and one that most people never seem to make, but only one step.

If you can summon up the energy to get started, you can work on projects with an intensity (in both senses) that few insiders can match.

For insiders work turns into a duty, laden with responsibilities and expectations.

It's never so pure as it was when they were young.

Work like a dog being taken for a walk, instead of an ox being yoked to the plow.

That's what they miss.

What will the old and eminent miss about being young and obscure? Mostly the lack of responsibilities. Responsibility is an occupational disease of eminence — avoidable in principle, like getting fat, but few do.

The worst thing about responsibility is that it lets you avoid real work. Just as the most dangerous procrastination [blocked] seems like work, responsibilities can consume a whole day without setting off the alarms you'd trip sitting on a park bench.

A lot of the pain of being an outsider is awareness of one's own procrastination — but that keeps you close enough to work that the smell of it makes you hungry. You're one step from getting things done; summon the energy to start and you can work with an intensity few insiders can match, for whom work has become a duty, never so pure as when they were young.

Work like a dog being taken for a walk, instead of an ox being yoked to the plow. That's what they miss.

Responsibility is an occupational disease of eminence. Its danger is that it lets you avoid real work without setting off alarms; the outsider's awareness of his own procrastination keeps him close to the work, one step away from getting things done.

Audience

A lot of outsiders make the mistake of doing the opposite; they admire the eminent so much that they copy even their flaws.

Copying is a good way to learn, but copy the right things.

When I was in college I imitated the pompous diction of famous professors.

But this wasn't what made them eminent — it was more a flaw their eminence had allowed them to sink into.

Imitating it was like pretending to have gout in order to seem rich.

Half the distinguishing qualities of the eminent are actually disadvantages.

Imitating these is not only a waste of time, but will make you seem a fool to your models, who are often well aware of it.

What are the genuine advantages of being an insider?

The greatest is an audience.

It often seems to outsiders that the great advantage of insiders is money — that they have the resources to do what they want.

But so do people who inherit money, and that doesn't seem to help, not as much as an audience.

It's good for morale to know people want to see what you're making; it draws work out of you.

If I'm right that the defining advantage of insiders is an audience, then we live in exciting times, because just in the last ten years the Internet has made audiences a lot more liquid.

Outsiders don't have to content themselves anymore with a proxy audience of a few smart friends.

Now, thanks to the Internet, they can start to grow themselves actual audiences.

This is great news for the marginal, who retain the advantages of outsiders while increasingly being able to siphon off what had till recently been the prerogative of the elite.

Though the Web has been around for more than ten years, I think we're just beginning to see its democratizing effects.

Outsiders are still learning how to steal audiences.

But more importantly, audiences are still learning how to be stolen — they're still just beginning to realize how much deeper bloggers can dig than journalists, how much more interesting a democratic news site can be than a front page controlled by editors, and how much funnier a bunch of kids with webcams can be than mass-produced sitcoms.

The big media companies shouldn't worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube.

They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead.

Many outsiders copy even the flaws of the eminent. In college I imitated the pompous diction of famous professors — but that wasn't what made them eminent; imitating it was like pretending to have gout to seem rich. Half the distinguishing qualities of the eminent are actually disadvantages.

The genuine advantage of being an insider isn't money — people who inherit money don't get as much benefit — it's an audience. It's good for morale to know people want to see what you're making; it draws work out of you.

If so, we live in exciting times, because the Internet has made audiences a lot more liquid. Outsiders no longer settle for a proxy audience of a few smart friends; they grow real ones. Great news for the marginal, who keep the outsider's advantages while siphoning off what was recently the elite's prerogative.

Outsiders are still learning to steal audiences, and audiences to be stolen — realizing how much deeper bloggers dig than journalists, how much more interesting a democratic news site can be, how much funnier kids with webcams can be than sitcoms.

Big media shouldn't worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. They should worry that people will post their own stuff, and audiences will watch that instead.

The genuine advantage of insiders isn't money but an audience — and that's the one thing the Internet has made liquid. The marginal keep the advantages of outsiders while siphoning off audiences that were recently the prerogative of the elite.

Hacking

If I had to condense the power of the marginal into one sentence it would be: just try hacking something together.

That phrase draws in most threads I've mentioned here.

Hacking something together means deciding what to do as you're doing it, not a subordinate executing the vision of his boss.

It implies the result won't be pretty, because it will be made quickly out of inadequate materials.

It may work, but it won't be the sort of thing the eminent would want to put their name on.

Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, or maybe doesn't solve the problem at all, but another you discovered en route.

But that's ok, because the main value of that initial version is not the thing itself, but what it leads to.

Insiders who daren't walk through the mud in their nice clothes will never make it to the solid ground on the other side.

The word "try" is an especially valuable component.

I disagree here with Yoda, who said there is no try.

There is try.

It implies there's no punishment if you fail.

You're driven by curiosity instead of duty.

That means the wind of procrastination will be in your favor: instead of avoiding this work, this will be what you do as a way of avoiding other work.

And when you do it, you'll be in a better mood.

The more the work depends on imagination, the more that matters, because most people have more ideas when they're happy.

If I could go back and redo my twenties, that would be one thing I'd do more of: just try hacking things together.

Like many people that age, I spent a lot of time worrying about what I should do.

I also spent some time trying to build stuff.

I should have spent less time worrying and more time building.

If you're not sure what to do, make something.

Raymond Chandler's advice to thriller writers was "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." He followed that advice.

Judging from his books, he was often in doubt.

But though the result is occasionally cheesy, it's never boring.

In life, as in books, action is underrated.

Fortunately the number of things you can just hack together keeps increasing.

People fifty years ago would be astonished that one could just hack together a movie, for example.

Now you can even hack together distribution.

Just make stuff and put it online.

Condensed into one sentence: just try hacking something together. It means deciding what to do as you do it, not executing a boss's vision. It won't be pretty, and may solve another problem you found en route — but the value of that first version is what it leads to. Insiders who daren't walk through the mud in their nice clothes never reach the solid ground beyond.

The word "try" is especially valuable. I disagree with Yoda: there is try. It implies no punishment for failure; you're driven by curiosity instead of duty. Procrastination even works in your favor — this becomes what you do to avoid other work — and you'll be in a better mood, which matters most when the work depends on imagination.

If I could redo my twenties, I'd worry less and build more. If you're not sure what to do, make something.

Raymond Chandler's advice to thriller writers was "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand"; in life, as in books, action is underrated. The number of things you can just hack together keeps growing — fifty years ago you couldn't hack together a movie, and now you can even hack together distribution. Just make stuff and put it online.

If the power of the marginal condensed to one sentence, it's: just try hacking something together. Deciding what to do as you do it, with no punishment for failure, puts curiosity and even procrastination on your side.

Inappropriate

If you really want to score big, the place to focus is the margin of the margin: the territories only recently captured from the insiders.

That's where you'll find the juiciest projects still undone, either because they seemed too risky, or simply because there were too few insiders to explore everything.

This is why I spend most of my time writing essays [blocked] lately.

The writing of essays used to be limited to those who could get them published.

In principle you could have written them and just shown them to your friends; in practice that didn't work. [6] An essayist needs the resistance of an audience, just as an engraver needs the resistance of the plate.

Up till a few years ago, writing essays was the ultimate insider's game.

Domain experts were allowed to publish essays about their field, but the pool allowed to write on general topics was about eight people who went to the right parties in New York.

Now the reconquista has overrun this territory, and, not surprisingly, found it sparsely cultivated.

There are so many essays yet unwritten.

They tend to be the naughtier ones; the insiders have pretty much exhausted the motherhood and apple pie topics.

This leads to my final suggestion: a technique for determining when you're on the right track.

You're on the right track when people complain that you're unqualified, or that you've done something inappropriate.

If people are complaining, that means you're doing something rather than sitting around, which is the first step.

And if they're driven to such empty forms of complaint, that means you've probably done something good.

If you make something and people complain that it doesn't work, that's a problem.

But if the worst thing they can hit you with is your own status as an outsider, that implies that in every other respect you've succeeded.

Pointing out that someone is unqualified is as desperate as resorting to racial slurs.

It's just a legitimate sounding way of saying: we don't like your type around here.

But the best thing of all is when people call what you're doing inappropriate.

I've been hearing this word all my life and I only recently realized that it is, in fact, the sound of the homing beacon.

"Inappropriate" is the null criticism.

It's merely the adjective form of "I don't like it."

So that, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal.

Be inappropriate.

When you hear people saying that, you're golden.

And they, incidentally, are busted.

To score big, focus on the margin of the margin: territories recently captured from the insiders. That's where the juiciest projects are still undone — too risky, or too few insiders to explore everything.

This is why I spend most of my time writing essays [blocked]. Essay-writing used to be limited to those who could get published, because an essayist needs the resistance of an audience, just as an engraver needs the resistance of the plate.

Until recently essays were the ultimate insider's game — the pool allowed to write on general topics was about eight people who went to the right parties in New York. Now the reconquista has overrun this sparsely cultivated territory. There are so many essays yet unwritten, and they tend to be the naughtier ones.

A way to tell you're on the right track: people complain you're unqualified or that you've done something inappropriate. If they're complaining, you're doing something; and if driven to such empty complaints, you've probably done something good.

If people complain your thing doesn't work, that's a problem. But if the worst they can hit you with is your status as an outsider, you've succeeded in every other respect.

But the best of all is when people call what you're doing inappropriate — the sound of the homing beacon. "Inappropriate" is the null criticism, merely the adjective form of "I don't like it." So be inappropriate. When you hear it, you're golden — and they, incidentally, are busted.

The juiciest projects are at the margin of the margin — like writing essays, a recently reconquered territory. You're on the right track when people complain you're unqualified or that what you're doing is inappropriate; "inappropriate" is the sound of the homing beacon.

Notes

[1] The facts about Apple's early history are from an interview with Steve Wozniak in Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work.

[2] As usual the popular image is several decades behind reality. Now the misunderstood artist is not a chain-smoking drunk who pours his soul into big, messy canvases that philistines see and say "that's not art" because it isn't a picture of anything. The philistines have now been trained that anything hung on a wall is art. Now the misunderstood artist is a coffee-drinking vegan cartoonist whose work they see and say "that's not art" because it looks like stuff they've seen in the Sunday paper.

[3] In fact this would do fairly well as a definition of politics: what determines rank in the absence of objective tests.

[4] In high school you're led to believe your whole future depends on where you go to college, but it turns out only to buy you a couple years. By your mid-twenties the people worth impressing already judge you more by what you've done than where you went to school.

[5] Managers are presumably wondering, how can I make this miracle happen? How can I make the people working for me do more with less? Unfortunately the constraint probably has to be self-imposed. If you're expected to do more with less, then you're being starved, not eating virtuously.

[6] Without the prospect of publication, the closest most people come to writing essays is to write in a journal. I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I do in proper essays. As the name implies, you don't go back and rewrite journal entries over and over for two weeks.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Paul Buchheit, Sarah Harlin, Jessica Livingston, Jackie McDonough, Robert Morris, Olin Shivers, and Chris Small for reading drafts of this, and to Chris Small and Chad Fowler for inviting me to speak.

The Apple facts come from an interview with Steve Wozniak in Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work.

The popular image lags reality by decades. The misunderstood artist is no longer a chain-smoking drunk pouring his soul into messy abstract canvases; now it's a vegan cartoonist whose work philistines dismiss because it looks like the Sunday paper.

In high school you're told your whole future depends on where you go to college, but it only buys a couple years. By your mid-twenties people judge you more by what you've done than where you went.

The do-more-with-less miracle needs a self-imposed constraint. If you're expected to do more with less, you're being starved, not eating virtuously.

Without the prospect of publication, the closest most people get to essays is a journal — but I never get as deeply into subjects there, since you don't rewrite journal entries over and over for two weeks.

Source notes and asides: where the Apple facts come from, how the misunderstood-artist image has updated, and why a corner cut by choice beats one imposed.