the science of hitting (and AI stuff)

Every single day (these people don’t take weekends off) something new pops in AI-land. New models. New workflows. New agents and millionaires and billionaires and squillionaires and fake AI influencers…

Be patient. Build what you need to build.

Pay attention to the customers you serve and the problems you solve. We’re here first to solve serious problems thoughtfully. Will our solutions leverage AI? Damn right. But the ones that win long-term will be considered and carefully built.

Ted Williams, baseball player and scientist

Ted Williams was one of the best hitters in baseball. How did he do it? Study and patience.

If Williams waited for a pitch in his sweet spot, he would get a hit 40% of the time. If, however, he was impatient and swung at something on the lower corners he would only get a hit 23–25 percent of the time.

Source: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-perfect-pitch-554fa763be73

There are so many AI “pitches” being thrown and a lot of people and companies are taking swings. Big swings.

It’s important to watch see the pitches and practice swinging at them. There’s a time for the experimental, playful stuff. That’s how we learn what we can and should swing at.

But before taking a big swing, I think we need to understand our sweet spots. What problems do we solve for our customers? What will they value? When we see those pitches, we swing.

Fat pitches

One way to make sure we see the right pitches is to step up to the plate and take them. We’re using 37Signals’ Shape Up methodology to pitch teammates on what we build next.

We’ll swing at some pitches. We’ll watch others pass us. And then we’ll go back to building what we know we need to build.

But every now and then, I’m confident we’ll see a fat pitch — an idea that is perfect for us and our customers — and step in, and swing for the fences.

That’s my bet on how companies like yours and mine win long-term.

To fat pitches and big swings,

Peter

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