book

Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life

By Rory Sutherland

1 recommend/use · 1 sourced episode

Every sourced reference

Short attributed excerpts only. Timestamps are approximate.

“author of the book Alchemy the Dark Art and curious science of creating magic in Brands business and life”

Speaker: Lenny Rachitsky▶ Watch at ~0:30approx.

“the audio book's probably the best thing to buy because I actually read it myself”

Speaker: Rory Sutherland▶ Watch at ~1:23:30approx.

The three-word brand brief for founders — and why fame is the nonlinear one nobody names.

Small teams plus human briefs beat large teams plus metrics — reciprocity does not scale.

Protect the odd, inconsistent details of your product — idiosyncrasies count double.

Ship the most novelty a market will swallow — one notch past familiar, never past comprehensible.

Debate every big decision twice — once rationally, once psychologically — and only act if both agree.

Solve all three constraints at once — running them in series is how great products die.

One product, one job. Added functionality can subtract value by destroying clarity of purpose.

Adoption stalls on who owns the product, not what it does — audit your user imagery before you scale.

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