Buy books you won't read, How products hack your habits, Kobe's expectations

Weekly I/O #96: Antilibrary, Hooked Habit Model, No Expectation is Higher than Mine, Bounds for Work Love, Stripe's Operating Principle

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Hi friends,

This week, I explored the idea of an Antilibrary. I'm always curious about what others are reading. So if you have a book list, please share it with me! Here's my digital bookshelf if you're interested.

Happy learning!

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Input

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

1. An antilibrary is a collection of unread books reminding you how much you still don't know. Instead of being a trophy case for finished books, your bookshelf should be a daily reminder of what you haven't learned.

Book: The Black Swan

Ever feel guilty when piles of unopened books glare at you from the corner of the room? That guilt can be a gift from a different perspective.

The writer Umberto Eco had over 30,000 books in his private library. He said:

It is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb called the collection of unread books an antilibrary. A bookshelf should not be an ego-boosting device to show how many books you have read. Instead, it should be a daily reminder of what you haven't read yet.

If you think about it, already-read books are far less valuable than unread ones if they are equally well-written.

The more you know, the bigger your collection of unread books might become. But don't worry. The aim isn't to finish every book. Instead, it's about keeping unexplored ideas close at hand and reminding you that there are still things you have yet to learn.

2. User habits develop when products consistently guide users through triggers, actions, variable rewards, and investments. This four-step hook model shapes user habits by linking automatic behaviors to internal emotions.

Book: Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

In Nir Eyal's influential book Hooked, he explains how companies create products that help users effortlessly develop habits, such as opening an app without thinking or checking notifications out of boredom.

He introduces a four-step framework to analyze precisely how products subtly transform occasional usage into automatic habits.

The first step is Trigger. Triggers can be external, such as a phone notification directing you to an app, or internal, like feelings of loneliness or boredom prompting the same behavior without any external cues. The product designer aims to quickly transition users from relying on external triggers (alerts) to internal triggers (emotional states) to make the product usage instinctive.