I like product work because – amongst other things –  I like telling stories.

I like making albums of music for the same reason – a song (unless it’s a 10 minute epic, thanks prog rock and Bob Dylan and that one Taylor Swift song) can only take you so far. Not unlike how a 90-minute movie can’t reach the same level of depth or dramatic effect, or challenge you, in the way a 10-episode series can.

There’s something about product hypergrowth that feels like a 3-minute pop song: you find the hit, the home-run that drives a ton of buzz and adoption, and you keep looking for them. That’s differently exciting I guess, but I’m personally not fulfilled without the capacity to tell a larger story.

But I like the slow, sometimes hair-pulling, usually exhilarating work of telling a whole story – a literal story with my most recent album (link in comments!!!), but also a cohesive, holistic user experience with the products I work on.