On Craftsmanship

2023.08.27

Lindy Expectancy: 18 Weeks

Last week, I was fascinated by a workbench my grandpa had made. It got me thinking about robustness and craftsmanship: I’ve been pondering on what it takes to make something ‘good.’

What’s a craftsman, other than someone who cares enough about what they do to constantly get better at it?

The Impetus: A Workbench

When I was helping my dad clean out my grandfather’s barn last weekend, we noticed a nondescript wooden work bench.

From a component level, it is nothing more than some old pieces of wood screwed together and painted. We don’t know for sure, but my dad and I think it is about 4 decades old. And the thing is still as rock solid as we imagine it was on the day my grandfather built it.

So, understanding the power of the Lindy Effect, we brought the bench into the refinished portion of the barn. We’ll paint it and touch it up, and then I fully expect it to sit there for another 4 decades.

Sentimentality aside, what makes this bench one that’s worth keeping?

Robustness

Some things are built well. Some things are built really well. In his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Taleb describes ‘Robust’ things as those that are resilient, regardless of what happens to them.

Illustration by example:

These bracelets are cool, but they are fragile. If I take them in the water, or if they get snagged on something, they will become weaker, and may even break. I have to be conscious of where & when I wear these.

I’ve had this simple titanium ring for over half a decade now. I wear it everywhere, barring when swimming; that’s not because the ring would be damaged by the water, rather I’m afraid that it might slip off. Even if it did slip off, the ring itself would be fine. It has seen the sun, the snow, intense heat, rain, cold, and wind—I’ve even been in a (minor) fight with it.

Guess what? The ring has some scratches, but it’s otherwise fine. This is the distinction that Taleb uses to determine if something is robust: it’s about what happens to the item or idea, regardless of the event.

The above workbench was impervious to 40 years of temperature fluctuations in an unheated Northern Michigan barn, as well as fluctuations in humidity, all while a 160 pound drill press was sitting on it. Judging by some of the scratches, it’s likely taken a lot of significant dings. When my dad and I moved it, we certainly had a greater chance of being hurt by the workbench falling than the workbench did.

That’s a robust workbench.

Antifragility

Taleb’s distinction doesn’t stop with fragile & robust; rather, he provides a third categorization, antifragility.

This is something that grows under pressure—this is something that takes a stressor and profits from it. Examples in finance abound, with volatility loving options everywhere.

Outside of finance, the example that Taleb gives is the air travel system as a whole: when a single plane crashes, the entire system analyzes why and reduces the probability of future incidents. It improves.

The example which I think is most illuminating, though, is the human craftsman.

A lifetime of work

Building a bench may seem like a simple task, but it’s not. There are layers of complexities and nuances that go into it which myself, not being a physical craftsman, cannot fully comprehend.

Still, I can appreciate the fact that I don’t comprehend it.

I can’t say for certain, but somehow I doubt that this workbench was the first thing my grandfather built. He had lifetimes of engineering experience, and kept building things for as long as he could.

The inverse of not expecting to become great at something overnight is not expecting that someone who is great at something started yesterday.

There’s a story, often attributed to Picasso, but possibly originating from James McNeil Whistler. I’ll give you a paraphrased Picasso versions:

Picasso is sitting in a café, doodling on a napkin. A woman asks him if she can buy it. He says, “Certainly! It will be $20,000.” The woman is appalled and retorts, “$20,000!? It took you 5 minutes to make it!”

Picasso grins slyly, nodding slowly back and forth, eyes wandering down. He reflects on a lifetime of late nights becoming mornings as he obsessively practiced his art. 

He chuckles to himself. “No, madame.” Picasso looks her dead in the eyes now: “It took me 40 years to draw the picture on that napkin.” 

Compounding Micro Adjustments

I’m sure you’ve seen the graph of compounding micro adjustments before… a 1% improvement everyday compounds into a 37x return over the course of a year. Impressive.

The true craftsman has these sort of concentrated improvements not over a year, though: the improvements occur over a lifetime.

While the goal of the craftsman on a daily basis may be to build things that are robust, things that can last, the goal of the craftsman over the longest time scale is to build his or her self.

Each creation released into the world is one iteration. The craftsman shares their work, taking feedback in and making improvements. Sometimes, those improvements are impossibly small and imperceptible. Still, they strengthen the craftsman’s output.

It is a positive feedback loop–the next time truly will be just a little better. And, even if an adjustment is not well received, it’s another data point for another adjustment. Sometimes, even random or accidental adjustments can turn out to yield improvements for the truly aware craftsman (this point deserves an entire post).

The craftsman builds things that are robust. The craftsman herself is antifragile: feedback, even negative, improves their capability.

The Empathetic Craftsman

Empathetic is an interesting word to use here: a matter of opinion, but I think there is a certain empathy a truly amazing craftsman has in regards to how his or her work will interact with the world.

While there’s something to be said for creating and building something for your own use, there’s something greater, I think, something more human, about crafting things for others. This is where that positive feedback loop kicks into high gear.

Yes, a chef who eats his own cooking has taken the first step in the process. But, a chef who watches others eat his own cooking and understands what they liked and didn’t like is taking the next, more important step.

Understanding is an important distinction, here. The most empathetic craftsman can know what someone truly desires or wants without them literally saying it. That’s what good sales is… something that actually solves the pain of another human being, sometimes without that pain ever being explicitly described.

So, what makes a valuable bench? Someone who has spent a lifetime caring about what makes a bench valuable for other people.

What, in your own life, can or should you treat like a craft? What skill makes you a craftsman? How can you be sensitive to others’ needs so that your own abilities can compound?

Right now, I’m watching technical founders at Ultima taking impressive steps to make our production code base more robust. They can do this because they know the kind of reliability that matters to the end user and are perpetually iterating in that direction.

For my own part, I’m trying to treat everything I can as if it were a craft… particularly leading.

Go master your craft. I’ll certainly be working on mine.

Cheers,

Noah