Back in 2010 when I was applying for colleges, I was asked by UChicago to write an admissions essay* with this prompt:
"Dog and Cat. Coffee and Tea. Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. Everyone knows there are two types of people in the world. What are they?"
I ended up writing an essay rejecting the prompt – claiming that this binary categorization failed at being interesting and useful in anyway:
But if you ask this question to my peer group, the repeated answer that crops up is engineer/non-engineer paradigm. Perhaps this is driven by cultural reasons (Eastern culture really love their engineers) but more fundamentally people really do think that the world can be split into groups that have high analytical skills and groups that don’t.
Intuitively, I understand the obsession with engineers. Building and creating products (whether real-world or digital) is a form of magic, and as a result society has rewarded those magicians handsomely in the form of cultural approval/money.
What people mean when they say engineer vs. non-engineer can be re-framed in the 21st century as builder vs. non-builder or creator vs. non-creator.
But it never made much sense to me. Even at the young age of 16 writing that college essay, I rejected the premise that the two groups were fundamentally different.
I believe people are inherently creative – they just don’t know how to create. The means of creation aren’t easy and malleable enough yet.
A good way to think about this is to think about time-travel. A great architect/civil engineer today would probably struggle if dropped in the 1500s and tasked to build a home from scratch. The tools have advanced so much that the exercise itself has no resemblance to it’s past.
There would be more good data analysts if people had the patience and skills to clean data.
There would be more good designers if people could get over how intimidating Adobe tools are.
There are more good story-tellers than there are good writers because the medium and tools are difficult. We haven’t really figured out how to turn great verbal communication into great writing. (Maybe not a great example because the limiting factor to writing seems to be intelligence & discipline not grammar & keyboards).
In most creative/building fields, a sizeable portion of the work, maybe even a majority of the work, is just learning the tools. It’s learning the syntax.
The Syntax for data analysis is Excel, R, SQL.
The Syntax for graphic design is Photoshop, Figma, XD.
The Syntax for video editing is Premiere, iMovie.
The Syntax for creating code is VS, Git and AWS.
The limiting factor is the tool. The simpler and easier to use the tool is, the more adoption for the underlying activity. Excel has done more for data analysis than math classes ever could.
(Elon had a great bit on Joe Rogan about the “data rate” being the limiting factor and eventually communicating via brain waves that relate to this concept)
As a relatively tech-literate and analytical person, I was shocked at how much this premise was true in the software industry. The closer we got to artificial intelligence and digital products, I expected these syntax problems to be solved.
But as a person who has attempted and failed to learn to code as well as design software products better multiple times over the last few years, it’s shocking what percent of the learning curve is syntax. It’s even more shocking when most of this syntax in 2022 is now useless. Coding languages and workflows are built for massive organizations that may care what version of Python they use – as an amateur who wants to build simple apps that are mostly glorified spreadsheets – I don’t actually care.
Coders typically have to work across at least six different products (code editor/IDE, hosting the code, connecting APIs, hosting the site, control log data, and get help on stack overflow)
This is one of my core beliefs. Companies that improve or destroy the syntax for creative tools will rule the world. They will also kick-off the golden age of creation, where the limiting factor for creatives will just be initiative and discipline.
I’m a massive believer in company’s where the core goal is expanding the target market for a high-value activity. Instead of building tools for the existing audience to get better at their jobs, they’re moving the goalposts and re-imagining what the actual limiting factors are.
No-code tools like Bubble, Webflow, Zapier & Airtable that make it easier for non-coders to build apps.
Diagram which automates Figma tasks and workflows to help designers focus on just designing.
Even teaching platforms like Lighthall, who are expanding what it means to be a teacher.
And the leading contender in the space and one of my favorite products of all time: Replit.
Replit’s goal is to make the ability to write code as easy as the ability to write**.
It basically does three unique things:
- It’s fully online. You can use it from any computer that can connect to the internet and run a web browser, including a phone or tablet.
- It’ll fully manage your environment for building and running code: you won’t need to mess around with making sure you have the right version of Python or the correct NodeJS libraries.
- You can deploy any code you build to the public in one click: no messing around with servers, or copying code around.
They’re also messing around with cool AI to help explain code better to beginners.
The best thing about Replit is that it works and works well. The next best thing is that it actually does what it’s aiming to do: expand the target market. 50% of Replit’s users are under 18, which is a massive number and speaks to how much the product resonates. It’s also a risky business strategy, young users that stick probably have ridiculously high long-term value for Replit but their current value as hackers/coders is much lower than the enterprise coder.
Replit makes me wish I was 18 again, with nothing but free time and the ability to spin up code without spending 20 hours figuring out why my Windows won’t work because of an OS issue. Or because of a syntax error in Python. Because Syntax is for Suckers.
In a weird way, my obsession with this space has helped me redefine what I’m passionate about. If the answer to that question previously used to be “I like helping coaches and athletes use data to understand their sport better and how to improve”, the newer version of this is
“I like building tools that help people maximize their talent” I think everyone can learn to be an analyst, an athlete, and thanks to companies like Replit, an engineer – the oldest form of magic.
* UChicago are famous for all kinds of weird essay prompts. Check them out here
** Paraphrased from this wonderfully long profile on notboring
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