A mailing list about the hardest kind of product problem: when smart people do seemingly stupid things. We look at how to see and improve those situations.
The big idea: You cannot change how other people respond to the situation. But you can change the structure of situation they are responding to. When you adapt the right pieces, a better response will follow suit.
- I send a short note every Monday, building on prior weeks' thinking
- See the Perfect Response from June 2026 as a starting point
- Past updates are in the Playing the Background index
- (Before early '26, the list was named "Loops and Cycles," after this article)
