Is talk actually cheap, or does it impose a real, often overlooked cost on listeners?

Gustav Söderström · Oct 12, 2022

Talk is cheap, so product teams should do much more of it — structured debate is far cheaper than writing code, so 'code decides arguments' is wrong and code should only be written once you're fairly sure

Writing and shipping code to millions of users and waiting weeks for A/B results is one of the most expensive things you can do, whereas debating with smart people costs almost nothing and can sometimes reason all the way to a conclusion, saving years by not building something

Scope: requires structure and the right people

31:42 20 Product: Spotify's Gustav Söderström on Why Product is 100% Science and 0% Art, Why You Should Look at the Competition and then Do Something Completely Different & Why Talk is Cheap and Product Teams Should Do More of it; Structuring the Best Debate

Harry Stebbings · Dec 7, 2022

Because talk is cheap, product teams should do more of it and debate constantly.

The low cost of talking is an argument for more of it, not less.

49:57 20 Product: Marty Cagan on The Four Questions of Great Product Management, Product Lessons from Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and eBay's Pierre Omidyar & The Difference Between Truly Great Product Teams and the Rest

Harry Stebbings · Aug 14, 2024

Talk is not cheap — it is incredibly expensive

People who say talk is cheap only mean speaking has little consequence for them; they ignore that others must spend time listening, which is not cheap

25:54 Talk is expensive because listening time is a real cost

Kaz Nejatian · Aug 14, 2024 · hedged

Displaying the cost of every meeting risks deterring the meetings that create moments of magic, much as calorie counts on menus deter dishes that would have been worth eating

Continuously surfacing the price of something suppresses consumption even when the experience would have been valuable

26:20 Surfacing meeting cost deters valuable meetings like calorie counts deter good food