How TikTok solved the chicken and egg problem, What makes a place feel "just right", Making product as a form of love

Weekly I/O #101: Build TikTok like New Country, The Quality Cannot be Named, Product as Love for Human Species, 4X in Games, Munger on Opportunity Cost

If you're new to Weekly I/O, I share five things I've learned each week to help you and me better understand the world and live more fulfilling lives.

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Hi friends,

I enjoyed this recent interview where Patrick Collison interviewed Jony Ive this week, which made me reread Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way of Building and Steve Jobs's Make Something Wonderful.

I wrote down some learning from these books this week that I haven't written before. Both books are filled with so much care and love for craft.

One quote I didn't include in inputs but might as well put here from Christopher Alexander: When you are faced with a choice between two paths, choose the one that feels more humane.

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Input

Here's a list of what I learned this week.

1. Building an influencer community is like founding a new country. Early TikTok attracted creators the way nations draw migrants with economic policies: First, it rewards a few users to demonstrate upward mobility and rapid successes, then spreads opportunities to grow a broad middle class.

Video: Musical ly's Alex Zhu on Igniting Viral Growth and Building a User Community 2016

How can an early social media platform solve the classic marketplace chicken-and-egg problem? Viewers want great content, but new creators need proof their effort will pay off, especially when considering a move to an unknown app.

Early TikTok viewed building an influencer community as building a new country and economy from the ground up. You want to grow the population by attracting people to migrate to your country.

Established platforms like Instagram and YouTube are like Europe, where social hierarchies are entrenched. The average citizen of Europe has almost zero opportunity to move upward in the social class. On the other hand, TikTok positioned itself like America, a new land promising opportunity and upward mobility.

Their strategy is a planned economy with a two-phase plan.

Phase one: Centralize fame.

In this new land, you must build a centralized economy in the early days.

The algorithm funneled traffic to a small percentage of people in your land. You ensure they successfully build an audience and wealth, making them role models for the country. You effectively create the American dream. For example, overnight successes like Baby Ariel served as living ads.

People in Europe (Instagram and YouTube) will start to realize that this "normal" person went to America (TikTok) and became super rich. Maybe I can do the same? Fear of missing out will lead to many people migrating to your country.

Phase two: Decentralize reach.

Having an American dream is good, but people will wake up eventually. Therefore, you have to decentralize the economy once the supply of hopeful newcomers grows.

Ranking rules shifted toward short-term engagement signals and random exploratory boosts. This let many clips land on the For You feed, giving most users a hit of validation. A middle class of semi-popular accounts kept uploading, which kept viewers scrolling and data flowing back into better recommendations.

Using this lens to examine the initial algorithm for all the new social media platforms is interesting. Do you think Threads use the same strategy?

2. There is a core quality that serves as the fundamental indicator of life and spirit in a person, town, building, or nature. This quality is objective and precise, differentiate the good from the bad, but cannot be named.

Book: The Timeless Way of Building

Have you ever walked into a place and instantly felt it was "alive" or "just right" without knowing why? You recognize a profound yet subtle difference between things that genuinely feel whole and vibrant and those that don't.

Christopher Alexander firmly believes there's an objective difference between good buildings and bad, good towns and bad. But why are people taught that there is no single, solid basis for the difference between good and bad buildings?

It happens because the single central quality which makes the difference cannot be named.

Imagine an English country garden where a peach tree grows flat against a sunlit wall. The warm bricks heat the peaches, creating a delicate harmony between the tree, grass, and wall. Each element fits together naturally, effortlessly, and precisely. This exact yet fluid balance is what characterizes the elusive quality Alexander discusses, which he calls the "quality without a name."

This quality is the most essential characteristic present in anything. It is never the same between different things because it always adapts itself according to the specific place where it emerges.

In one location it is calm, in another stormy. In one individual it is orderly, in another casual. In one home it is bright, in another shadowy.

This quality can't be described by a single word because words tend to overshoot its exact meaning. Alexander tries to pin it down with words like "alive," "whole," "comfortable," "free," "exact," "egoless," and "eternal," but each one falls short.

"Alive" is too metaphorical; "whole" feels too enclosed; "comfortable" is easily misused; "free" risks artificiality; "exact" lacks fluidity; "egoless" implies self-denial; "eternal" feels too grand.

Yet, despite language's limitations, this unnamed quality remains undeniably real and profoundly important. It represents authenticity, unity, and harmony in systems. It guides us toward structures and environments that naturally sustain themselves and support vibrant life. Ultimately, recognizing and nurturing this quality, even though we can't name it, is central to creating spaces and lives that are truly meaningful.

You can find Taoist ideas in Christopher Alexander's philosophy of architecture, like the Tao (the way) in Tao Te Ching:

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name".

This also connects to the language problems we have touched on in Wittgenstein and Language, Language Games and Wittgenstein's "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

3. Building wonderful products with great care and love is a way of expressing our deep appreciation to the rest of our human species.

Book: Make Something Wonderful