It's better to start with a bottom-up mess that you can then rank than to have only clean, top-down constructed use cases.

· Bits and Bobs 2/24/25
  • It's better to start with a bottom-up mess[xo] that you can then rank than to have only clean, top-down constructed use cases.
    • A big box of random legos.
      • Overwhelming, but in an inspiring way.
    • If there's not enough stuff, then you're out of luck if your use case doesn't work.
    • If you have a big bag of random legos to rummage through, there's a solution in there somewhere if you look hard enough.
    • You can create a ranking function to suggest the best legos from the bag, and get the best of both worlds.
    • Ranking on top of an open ended ecosystem is a strategically great position.
      • You get both ubiquity (on top of a broad ecosystem) and differentiated quality (your proprietary ranking on top).
    • As the creator of the ranker, the quality of the ranking gets better faster than your employees can improve it themselves.
      • The investment of your employees adds linear returns, giving you a linearly increasing edge over other ranking functions.
      • If your ranking gets better in proportion to the scale of activity in the ecosystem, as the ecosystem gets better, your effective ranking quality improves at a compounding rate.

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