Interesting piece, and written in a compelling way.
However, some things don't fit the narrative. Gladwell mentions the various waves of immigration (Irish, Jewish, Italian) and suggests that crime is a way to get up the ladder.
But weren't the African-Americans there long before these groups? Shouldn't they have been the first to do this journey?
He mentions Merton's 6 ways and suggests crime is innovation. But how innovative is it really, crime? Is forming and running a cartel not something that has occurred quite often in the minds of people who compete? Is bootlegging innovative? To my mind, it's not innovative. It's just taking more risk than the average person takes.
I've got a startup with an almost ready product, a team that has started businesses before, and is bootstrapped with our own money. I'd love to give a presentation, but I'm based in Europe. Does YC do Europe? (I'm more than happy to fly. Question is whether you care where a firm is based.)
IMO that kind of term is anti-competitive and should not be legal. Uber markets itself as a free market alternative to the old cab monopolies, so why are they doing things like this?
Everyone who is typing on a keyboard is using a mode. For instance, my "mode" is the HN comment box. Now of course that's clear to me because I can see the text appearing in the correct place.
As for the airplane example, isn't it quite natural to expect the pilots to have gone through extensive training? I understand consumer websites need to be intuitive, but highly specialized things can't really be intuitive.
One big problem with complex things like a cockpit is that the guys who build it are specialists in a different field from the guys who use it. So how are they going to know if the thing is intuitive? I would imagine a pilot mostly touches the same few commands each day, leaving most modes out of use most of the time. By contrast, the developer needs to build the whole thing.
However, some things don't fit the narrative. Gladwell mentions the various waves of immigration (Irish, Jewish, Italian) and suggests that crime is a way to get up the ladder.
But weren't the African-Americans there long before these groups? Shouldn't they have been the first to do this journey?
He mentions Merton's 6 ways and suggests crime is innovation. But how innovative is it really, crime? Is forming and running a cartel not something that has occurred quite often in the minds of people who compete? Is bootlegging innovative? To my mind, it's not innovative. It's just taking more risk than the average person takes.