Superintelligence CouncilСовет гения · sim.im

Jason Fried · 2026-02-15 · source ↗ · whole document (5)

Building by Intuition

`2:17:28`

— So, one thing that we haven't touched on, which I think is really important- — Yeah. —...we've danced around it a few times, you've mentioned it a few times, is that you are all intuition. — Yeah. — I want to hear your thoughts on intuition, and I want to hear how you refined your intuition. — I mean, intuition for me is just making decisions that you're comfortable with. I mean, and not look... Actually, you do want to look around, you want to pay attention to things, as many things as you can, in a sense. But ultimately, you have to be willing to make a human decision about something, and stick by it and stick behind it. I think these things, these decisions come from somewhere where you can't quite define where they're from. It's not like there's one thing that tips it over. Intuition, to me, is like a collection of a lot of things that you can't quite split apart,

`2:18:13`

that lead you to make a decision. And that's how I'm driven. I go by gut, I go by intuition, whether it's a pricing, or a product decision, or a feature, or a new product, or a name, or whatever it is. We don't test things. We don't do focus groups. We occasionally A/B test for fun, but not because it matters. And that's it. Like, I'm not looking at numbers. I've never seen a spreadsheet that's ever made me do anything. I don't want to make a product decision because a spreadsheet told me to. That's just a thing, and there's a lot of other things that can tell me to do other things. I don't want to value this because it's a spreadsheet with numbers on it. That's just a thing. And so, I'm very careful not to put too much weight into something that

`2:19:01`

purports to be more valuable than some other feeling I have just because it has numbers on it. Now, of course, I don't want to do stupid things. I'm not going to throw 50 million dollars at a Super Bowl ad. Like, I'm not going to do that. So, your intuition has limits, too. But everything we do is based on just kind of what we want to do, what we feel. I want to feel into these decisions and go, "I feel good about this. No matter what happens, let's do it anyway." — Yeah, that's what it is for me. How have you refined it over time? — You just do things. You make decisions. I mean, to me, it's all about time under the curve, in terms of making decisions... Or area under the curve, sorry, I think is the actual correct way to phrase that. So, the more decisions you make, the more time you have, the more intuition you're refining. But you don't actively refine it. You don't practice intuition.

`2:19:49`

You just make decisions. And the more you make, the more you make, the more it sharpens everything up. It takes the edge off, I think, eventually, as you make more and more and more, and you're tumbling these things around, essentially, you end up with a nice, smooth orb, and it feels really good to have that in your hand. And it feels right. And that's kind of where you want to get to. So, you want to have this place where, when you make a decision, you're like, "This feels like the right decision. I'm not afraid of this decision. I'm excited about this decision. It could go wrong, and I'd be okay with that, too. I just know that this is the decision I want to make right now, and I'm lucky to be in this position where I can make it. No one can tell me I can't." That's another part of intuition. Because you can have intuition that keeps hitting a ceiling, and someone else says "No," and then you don't get to use it. So, intuition has to be used, I think, to really be enjoyed.