💡 Week 9 - First Principle Thinking
Quote
Reason from first principles rather than analogy - Elon Musk
💯 Framework // Concept // Mental Model
How First Principle Thinking Can Help You Build Better Products
Introduction
To build great products, product managers need to think about the problems they are trying to solve in a deep and meaningful way. One tool that can be used to achieve this is first-principle thinking.
Keep reading to learn more about first-principle thinking and how it can be used to build better products!
What Is First Principle Thinking?
Everything can be divided into categories and sub-categories and the smallest subcategory is the first principle. Humans tend to reason by analogy it is better to reason by the first principles of thinking. This is physics way of thinking of the world and reason up from there
when we encounter difficult problems our tendency is to rely on assumptions we have relied on before because it’s quick and easy to do so but this leads to unimaginative linear solutions.
First principle thinking is a problem-solving method that involves identifying the underlying causes of a problem. Once the root causes have been identified, they can be addressed more effectively and efficiently. This approach can be used to solve both simple and complex problems. First principle thinking is sometimes also referred to as the principle of parsimony or Occam's razor. The term "first principle" comes from philosophy and means that something is self-evident and cannot be derived from anything else. In other words, it is an idea that is true by definition. First-principle thinking can be applied to any problem, but it is particularly well suited for solving complex problems. This is because complex problems often have many different causes, and it can be difficult to identify all of them.
Here is what Elon has to say about first-principle thinking
The benefit of "first principles" thinking? It allows you to innovate in clear leaps, rather than building small improvements onto something that already exists. Musk gives an example of the first automobile. While everyone else was trying to improve horse-drawn carriages, someone looked at the fundamentals of transportation and the combustion engine in order to create a car.
Naturally, Musk does give one warning about using first principles for innovating however, "it takes a lot more mental energy."
Reason from first principles rather than analogy, The only way we conduct our life’s is to reason by analogy rather than a reason by first principles. We do things because this is like something we have done before or it’s like what other people are doing. Think by analogy will get you slight iterations on a theme and it’s easy mentally to think by analogy rather than first principles. In first principles, you boil it down to the fundamental truths and see what you are sure is true and then reason up from there.
The example between thinking through analogy Vs first principles
Thinking from Analogy:
Battery packs are very expensive as they have traditionally been
Thinking from First Principles:
Why can’t we have an affordable battery pack?
What are batteries made of?
What materials does a battery pack have?
What is the function of each of these materials?
Why are they placed in the way they are placed?
What material combination can make it cheaper?
3 steps of First principle thinking
Product development is one area where first-principle thinking can be extremely helpful. By breaking down a product into its most basic parts, you can more easily identify ways to improve it. First-principle thinking can also help you to identify unmet customer needs and create products that fill those needs.
3 steps of First principle thinking
Curiosity
Empathy
Serenity
Curiosity
Asking questions and digging further can help you get to the root cause of a problem. The best tool to get to the root cause is the “5 whys” method. The “5 whys” method is an iterative approach to uncovering the root of a problem. It encourages you to dig deeper into surface-level problems in order to figure out the underlying issue. It’s pretty straight forward you ask “why questions” till you get to the top cause of the problem.
Some questions you might ask...
Why do I believe this to be true?
How do I know this is true?
How can I support this belief?
What alternative viewpoints might exist?
Example:
Why was the website down?
Why did the CPU Spike?
Why was there an infinite loop?
Why is that done in the code base?
Why no unit tests?
Root Cause: lack of training
Empathy
As product-minded individuals, the best skill to learn is empathy. This allows for a deep understanding of the problem people are faced with. How often have you been able to understand someone else’s problem rationally, but not why they feel the way they do about it? striving to unpack the different types of empathy needed to approach different empathetic situations makes this task less daunting.
Serenity
Accept the things that cannot be changed. When Doordash entered the market of food delivery There were competitors like Uber who had access to huge capital yet Doordash was able to get 50% market share in the food delivery business.
Doordash had the serenity to accept what they cannot change. Doordash did not go after the big metros where Uber already had a stronghold instead they went to the suburbs where their competitors were not there, won in that market, took the profits from the suburbs, and then moved to the metros.
If think from first principles with curiosity, Empathy, and serenity you will come out of the standard script and break boundaries to learn more about the customer and fight the right battles.
Check out Garry Tan’s video for more detailed insights
Benefits of First Principle Thinking
There are many benefits of using first-principle thinking in product management. Some of these benefits include:
It helps you understand a problem better
It allows you to identify potential solutions
It helps you make better decisions
It helps you avoid common pitfalls
Conclusion
In conclusion, first-principle thinking can help you build better products by challenging your assumptions and forcing you to think about the problems you're trying to solve in a new way.
It allows you to innovate in clear leaps, rather than building small improvements onto something that already exists.
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This is great, and another example was the 1987 America's Cup challenger from San Francisco. An actual rocket scientist (Alberto Calderon) looked at the keel of a boat and realized it was one foil that had two functions...so instead of doing that, he designed a boat that had two foils, and each one tackled just one function. Mind you it was completely undrivable in the real world, but another version of principle thinking!