zen stories
9 Short Zen Stories About Letting Go (and What They Teach)
Direct advice about letting go bounces right off. A story slips past the guard and stays. Here are nine of the best — on control, grudges, outcomes, and certainty.
Spencer Shulem
anchoring
Anchoring: The First Number Always Wins
A real estate agent shows you an $800,000 house you don't love. The next one is $650,000, and suddenly it's a steal. You're not judging the house. You're judging the first number that entered your head.
words
The Cracked Pot: A Story About the Flaws You Carry
Some of the things you carry are cracked. An old Indian folk tale about the leak you keep apologizing for — and the flowers growing on the trail behind you.
Product Theory
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Why Your Users Stay (and Why That Should Scare You)
Past investment shouldn't influence future decisions, but it always does. How the sunk cost fallacy retains your users — and why the retention it buys you might be a prison, not a product.
Product Theory
Product Theory: The Complete Table of Contents
Every chapter in Product Theory — the mental models behind how users price, choose, stay, and churn. Read the free essays or get the book.
words
3 Stories to Read When Everything Goes Wrong
Three old stories for the days the floor drops out from under you — and why the smartest response to disaster might be four small words.
survivorship-bias
Survivorship Bias: Why the Best Startup Advice Comes From the Dead
The military wanted to armor the bullet holes. A statistician told them to armor everywhere else. The same mistake is quietly wrecking your product decisions.
pricing psychology
Pricing Psychology: 7 Rules That Actually Change What People Buy
Price isn't a number. It's a story people tell themselves about what something is worth. Here are seven rules — anchoring, decoys, charm pricing, mental accounting — that quietly decide what people buy.
Product Theory
The Utility Paradox: Why We Scrutinize Tools and Splurge on Treats
The more useful something is, the harder we scrutinize its price. Why we under-invest in essentials, over-invest in indulgences, and how great products flip the switch.
goodharts-law
Goodhart's Law: Why the Metric You Target Stops Working
Set a target, and your team will hit it — often without touching the thing you actually care about. Goodhart's Law explains why every metric you optimize eventually lies to you.
Product Theory
Metric Theater: When Your Dashboard Lies to Everyone at Once
DAU up. Churn down. Everyone nods. Meanwhile a user is quietly switching to a competitor. That gap has a name — Metric Theater — and it's killing your product.