RORY SUTHERLAND’S 10 RULES OF ALCHEMY

[@joshuaellis7121]

1. (0:09) The Opposite of a Good Idea Can Also Be a Good Idea 2. (0:44) Don't Design for Average 3 (1:32) It Doesn't Pay to Be Logical 4. (2:39) The Nature of Our Attention impacts the Nature of Our Experience 5. (3:37) A Flower is a weed with an Advertising Budget 6. (4:40) The Problem with Logic is it Kills Off Magic 7. (5:56) A Good Guess which Stands Up to Empirical Observation is still Science ... but so is a Lucky Accident 8. (7:13) Test Counter-intuitive Things because No One Else will. 9. (8:22) Solving Problems using only Rationality is like playing Golf with only One Club 10. (9:40) Dare to be Trivial 11. (11:36) If there were already a logical answer, we would have already found it. 12. (13:26) Dare to Look Stupid

[@incomewithlinda]

Thanks Joshua Ellis, you the man !!!

[@bluetech2809]

In other words he said the same thing with almost all of his "points".

[@bossgd100]

Thanks

[@Dronetrekk]

Thanks

[@doctorjallo]

Thank you so so much. You are a legend!!

[@DymaxionDon]

This is an eighteen minute video with more information than most 300-page books on business.

[@adeshinostanleyademola869]

“A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget” - Rory Sutherland

[@ramonvillaster609]

Ever since I discovered Rory Sutherland's videos, I just can't stop watching. Pure Gold.

[@preselkarthik]

You just read my mind 😊

[@KraftyOneAudio]

Absolutely 👍

[@kayserlein]

Yes, indeed!

[@71simonforrester]

Same here, and it doesn't matter what he's talking about!

[@BF-non]

yes he's good

[@kayserlein]

Thank you, this is inspiring! "A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget"❤️😂

[@cliffnorman178]

Wow!!!!

[@PrincipledUncertainty]

Rory is one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

[@privatepublic]

Who are the other 6? I've only started watching Rory's Content. I'd definitely put Andrew Tate somewhere in there. He did create quite a movement in a very short time. "Most dangerously influential" "top g" "most googled man". Insane titles. Definitely a wonder in our times.

[@HongKongMingMong]

Yeah and he is the fat version of Andy Serkis!

[@OghamTheBold]

@@privatepublic "Most googled man" is a tie between Prince Andrew and Sir Jimmy Savile "Most dangerously influential" Sir Tony Blair

[@annieinwonderland]

Can we get him and Dr Peterson in the same room. ( yes I just want to watch the world burn at times)

[@RS11g]

I know he's a large man

[@prettylildayz]

Sutherland is so unrated, he's full of wisdom that should be contemplated by all professionals

[@psychologyscene]

this guy is one of my newfound heroes.

[@davidgiorgione7195]

Rory THANK YOU...I’ve wasted millions of dollars using logic in my marketing messages... it’s 10:30 at night, December 21, I’ve been marketing for 30 years I completely blew it

[@somethingbronzie]

Wow David. May I ask what about logic has worked for you?

[@rccpromotions]

This comment hits hard. Worded like a true learner and achiever.

[@pixelseeker]

Insightful! 3:38 A flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget. 12:19 If a problem is persistent, its fairly likely that its solution is logic proof. (The solvability of quintic equations comes to my mind)

[@huda4275]

"Being like everybody else is a race to the bottom." 😊 I like that...

[@kylebutler1101]

Reminds me of "There's no market advantage to being the second cheapest but there is an advantage to being the most expensive"

[@petetf7490]

Sounds like socialism without capitalism, which is communism 😂

[@roryblake7311]

This is how I could discover the mechanism of evolution and why I could solve aging... Only evolved animals age! Thanks again, other Rory!

[@MonoSubstance]

What a brilliant way of thinking! I love all his videos! Respect!

[@timwright7738]

I'm a very analytical logical personality type, so listening to Rory really tickles my brain.

[@DerSpielfuehrer]

Geht mir auch so #INTP

[@deruyckjan]

Ah the hotel in East Berlin. So many great memories.

[@barriehemming1189]

this is pure wisdom, thank you Rory.

[@onemorechris]

i’m going to try and fit in ‘four fifths of bugger all’ into a meeting this week

[@iamamodel7]

In Australia we say "the square root of fuck-all".

[@oscardog6719]

Another Aussie here. Four fifths of five eighths of f..k all. Heard in the UK in the ‘70s. 😃

[@ForburyLion]

Successful businessman, Lord Sugar once said "I've never had an original idea in my life", similarly on Dragons Den, two businessmen came in with a totally unoriginal delivery business but because they could prove it was profitable the achieved the investment they sought to expand. These two examples have stuck with me, I guess what I'm getting at is you can have a successful business without an original idea if you can find a gap in the market.

[@peter9910]

Fantastic! Love the way Rory thinks!

[@villeporttila5161]

The Notorious B.I.G of advertising. Rule number uno...

[@paulbo9033]

"a flower is a weed with a marketing budget". Lols! That's good.

[@alimfuzzy]

When I was looking for our new house. I wasnt looking at existing train lines. I was looking at where planned rail lines were going to build. I found one in farm land right where a tiny overlooked shopping centre was. Now i live next door to an extremely modern and fast train and one of the most popular shopping centres in the area (car park lines are out on the road at xmas time). Houses doubled the first month the train line opened. Bonus is they aren't building houses any more and developers are continually trying to buy my land to put up apartments.

[@JonathanFrost]

Suggestions that resonate with the ideas of Edward de Bono - Brilliant, thanks.

[@mikecowie8788]

Rory should run the UK. We’d be a whole lot better off!

[@petetf7490]

Food for thought and most definitely alchemy, which is the relationship between the mind and the matter..

[@stepheninscoe1707]

Really looking forward to reading the new book

[@DopravniPoradce]

Those ideas are great. I've inadvertently or unknowingly acted this way and it worked.

[@CountAxel]

Wow I hope all the 85 year old Artistic Directors of America’s regional Theaters are listening to this.

[@gregoryburne5251]

He could hold my attention for ever. Oh, and he could sell me anything.

[@plebjames]

13. People, by definition, don't know what is going to surprise, delight and inspire them - therefore surveys can be of limited use

[@pssolutede]

Science is how you *test* your ideas. There is no restriction on how you come up with them. There anything goes. Like having the proverbial apple drop on your head. Or forgetting to wash a petri dish. It really is how you proceed with your idea afterwards that distinguishes science: impartial and rigorous attempts at falsification, peer review, publication, open debate.

[@longshotkdb]

Apparently only people who actually do science understand this. It's pretty frustrating huh.

[@ТестТестович-г2о]

Hotel tv showing The Big Lebowski on continues loop is gold! If I would ever run a hotel, I would replicate that )

[@isaacvalem]

Brilliant and funny... as usual! "10 rules of Alchemy", las one: don't restrict yourself to 10 😂😂

[@nicolemurphy2629]

‘Rational people are all over the sodding place’....!! 😂😂😂😂😂👍

[@charityhouze647]

I'm in love with this

[@CubanRAT]

Thank you for this Rory. Brilliant!

[@professor-wright]

I...Love...This...Guy!

[@theartisticactuary]

The great example of designing a product for the average consumer is the car. Room in the back for 2.5 kids.

[@ragnapraxis4657]

The problem is that the root of all questions raised by him.. or by people like him. Is against the well being of the people. Its all designed to fool and take more and more from the consumer whos already enslaved by corporations

[@DangerNoodle-yw8yt]

10:25 Rory is over reaching a bit here. The Butterfly effect is out dated chaos theory, not complexity. In complexity theory, a system has to be in a highly unstable state for a small action to have a massive effect. Most of the time the impact from a small action is absorbed because complex systems gradually move towards stable states. Advertising is an edgy activity so naturally operates in highly unstable circumstances. But organisations aren't inherently unstable unless they're being poorly managed. In his discussion with the Spectator on why Britain is poor, he also talks about the importance of context. That principle applies in this case also.

[@Moneyinthetill]

I think you’re massively overthinking this. There is plenty of data, for example, that changing the colour of the buy button on websites increases conversion rates by a non trivial factor. What is the cost of changing the colour? Basically nothing. And what is the monetary gain? Potentially massive relative to the size of the business. It’s as simple as that.

[@DangerNoodle-yw8yt]

@@Moneyinthetill Not over thinking, you and I just have different interests.

[@pillai93]

Only Rory can make such a rational argument against rationality.

[@Paragon_1111]

I live in Fulham, and took that personally

[@levidetakudzwa5411]

I like this guy's mentality

[@rmschindler144]

thank you, sir, these are wonderful :)

[@nickvoutsas5144]

Absolutely brilliant

[@joeydweck4656]

Insane! 13. In business, what everyone knows is not worth knowing and what everyone does is not worth doing!

[@TheLeadpepper]

Thank fk, some-one who finally makes common, what should be common sense. Awesome stuff, well needed..

[@rutgerdenijs9286]

This guy is my spirit animal 🦄🪽🤍

[@somethingbronzie]

Love this!

[@Aeonized]

This guy reminds me a lot of Boris Johnson, not that they are alike but they both have the gift of speech and banter. Similar to Christopher Hitchens, although he was a bit more hotblooded and intellectual.

[@stephenobelisomeday]

This is the Boris of advertising

[@swapnil0402]

I am fan of Rory and agree to all his points. He basically speaking what Taleb is saying in Fooled by randomness. Humans underappreciated the ra domness factor and try to solve everything by logic because even if they fail they do t look stupid.

[@kensurrency2564]

fear of humiliation seems to be a relatively common modern problem. i don’t know why this is. in the past, it was fear of persecution or even death, and yet some people took massive risks nevertheless. i know we all need our support groups but geez. few want to take risks even when as rory says it is obvious that the solution is not logical. that’s exactly WHEN you have to go off the beaten path. maybe our culture conditions us to conform first and then think later.

[@mrcyan8686]

thank you!

[@dominikgruen]

This man is brilliant. Make him the president of the world!!

[@millennialbuddhism2619]

this is fantastic advice, but im still laughing about having to be in a hotel room where only the big lebowski plays on the tv over and over again lolol

[@johnrainford996]

Excellent!!!

[@Linusrox123]

I love ALL of his talks. Rory is the Andrew Yang of advertising. Or maybe Yang is the Sutherland of this election.

[@jankevinbautista]

GOLD.

[@hsot351]

This could've been a top 5. Love the energy though.

[@whatcarisit6665]

Curious what your advice would be for LaCroix Sparkling Water

[@moumous87]

you should edit the video and add the 10 points written on screen

[@reprogrammingmind]

you should write the points in your comment.

[@sarcasmo57]

Makes sense.

[@mayadunn719]

Hey....why is the color combination of his outfit so pleasant...? I bet he used some sortof system to choose it!

[@kichelmoon6365]

For real. It should not work but works so well.

[@denis888red]

It's called having an innate sense of style, good taste and an eye for 'what works'.

[@jachymriha1278]

classic rory, promisses to stop at 10 and then continues to 12

[@cecillekinnear4585]

I do not like standing on trains because im short and most adults are taller. Imagine standing there amid the sea of armpits above my head. Also the train sways and im not very steady on my feets. My preferance is a window seat when i could ignore the crush of humanity and look out of the window.

[@PurePeaceandRelaxation]

Agree. I had to stand on a half hour journey recently but the train was packed and I almost passed out. I was saved by two kind passengers who gave me a seat and some water. Now I take the bus because I'm guaranteed a seat, even if the journey is longer.

[@VinceLammas]

My favourite line here was "There is no shortage of rational people, they are all over the sodding place".

[@BF-non]

amazing

[@danielthorn33]

But when everyone is emotional. Let us not forget logic can also win.

[@nicolemurphy2629]

Emotion can be powerful

[@RabidIrishGuy88]

His dishwasher anecdote (11th rule of 10) suggests to me that he reads Nicholas Nasim Taleb's books, or else the vice-versa, or they've conversed extensively. Anyone know of their levels of interaction with each other?

[@radzid]

yea, Nasim inspired the last book and they know each other.

[@hennyvanderpluijm6132]

Google Nudgestock

[@makegoodcoffee]

@@hennyvanderpluijm6132thanks!

[@RikzB]

Can anyone explain me how to use the last point he stated in video?

[@tewfik8616]

I'll try and hopefully I am not wrong. Say, you design the choices to your customers in a way that in any given situation and for any choice they decide to pick there is a tangible upside to which they can can hold on to. In the other hand, the downside need to be balanced too in a way that when a customer pick any particular option the downside should not be too bad to cause resentment.

[@jambononi]

If you have two people but only one sandwich, offer lunch to one person and weight loss to the other. The lack of options looks bad until you flip the lack of a sandwich into an opportunity.

[@internautapopo2766]

If you want to lose weight you need to eat healthy. The "healthy" food generally has a "bad" taste. If you transform the healthy food with cooking skills to taste good you can eat healthy food without feeling bad. The power is in your "hands"

[@jamescrowley2733]

Rail example at number 3 wasn't the best I am afraid. In Boston the real estate prices already reflect the proximity to any kind of public transport, all the way to regional rail lines and airports. Worse, projects decades in the planning and execution costing billions are *also* baked into the prices. Crappy homes near future train stations? They're millions, though the train stations are decades away. Foreign owners, they rent out the crappy houses to students waiting for that sweet sweet development

[@NCINC-wx5jc]

Just as well he wasn’t talking about Boston hey….

[@jamescrowley2733]

@@NCINC-wx5jc Point taken. Recently visited Naples, where a four stop subway is still unfinished after decades of work. Not sure real estate prices were affected much.

[@NCINC-wx5jc]

@@jamescrowley2733 US railway is closer to Lego set than train network compared to the UK haha pretty incredible really

[@jamescrowley2733]

@@NCINC-wx5jc Amen to that. Boston is a bit better than most, but corruption is killing the system. Too many pensions, not enough money.

[@twistedbydsign99]

big leboswki on loop? damn they did their research

[@willardr100]

Will you be my friend, Rory? My round. Thanks! (that was my stupid question....)

[@lkaneshiki]

how do you judge an idea if it's not logical or rational?

[@weaponsofinfluence1822]

ask "does it work?"

[@tp7412]

@@weaponsofinfluence1822 👍, after it’s been tried

[@denis888red]

Think laterally and imaginatively. Most people can't, won't or don't.

[@humanperson8418]

5. (3:37) A Baby is a bum with an Advertising Budget.

[@calvincrane]

Like many I am stuck on 5 a little...flowers vs weeds

[@minxythemerciless]

Current large language models like chatGPT are not explainable in detail - even by those who develop and operate them. They are the result of people trying to make old neural networks bigger and bigger, on a whim mostly, and they suddenly started spouting stuff that mostly makes sense. Nothing scientific about the process at all.

[@3ddesigns752]

The model is not just abstract levels of matrices (although purely mathematically it kind of is) But its about the weights on multiple abstractions (I believe it kinda resembles the vector we know) each vector holds some sort of meaning thought , think of it as a certain smell, something that is , without any doubt have been impossible to capture before. This reason is why its truly amazing whats happening now, computers now kinda know what a ball really is, (that thingy that people throw around for fun) which is not a pure statistical model/feature

[@MatthewCyUK]

I wonder what Rory's view on the Ryanairification of British Airways (owing to previous former-Vuelling CEO).... the perception is flying BA should be great, great service and quality.... but it's very expensive shite not too dissimilar to Jet2 and other appropriately pitched budget airlines. They fucked an institution.

[@shaunvirsingh8719]

What is the name of the german guy he mentions?

[@martinlynx45]

Paul Feyerabend. Austrian, btw.

[@StevenSchoolAlchemy]

Greetings

[@johnwilsonwsws]

He uses “rational” as a pejorative without ever defining it. This is a polemic, not an argument. His misrepresentation of science and advocacy of pragmatism shows the outlook of modern business. If a premise is wrong then no amount of logic will correct it. Notice how he could start every suggestion by saying “In a rational society we would be trying to give people what improves their lives … “ What he is fundamentally missing is that capitalism is production for profit, not for human need.

[@kurikeshgeorge]

👍🏾

[@DM-ic9zw]

So what if there hasn't been a solution bc people haven't exposed the problem to logic in the first place? Should we choose logic first, then apply an irrational solution?

[@jambononi]

Yes, presumably always go for the simplest route first. It goes hand in hand with looking stupid. Ask really dumb questions and you might make them realise the obvious answer.

[@OghamTheBold]

You could follow a Taxi driver home offer to sleep in their car as the world's best car alarm for a free trip in to the city to harvest the pigeons you had planted the previous day

[@dbsk06]

Looooove it

[@landerceuppens]

Is there any truth to his point about buying a house in London?

[@shonunezekiel]

Definitely! It is almost guaranteed that if you buy a place near a tube station it is more expensive than near a train station... though it is also likely to be closer to central London. Eg I moved from a place in London near a tube station (10 years ago) where 4 bedroom houses cost £650,000 upwards, to a place in London near a train station where they cost £300,000 upwards... equivalently-proportioned houses in Fulham were probably £3M upwards.

[@landerceuppens]

@@shonunezekiel So is the price difference solely because of the closeness of a train station, or also because of the closeness to central London?

[@shonunezekiel]

​@@landerceuppens it is both... So the reason that being near a tube/undeground station pushes up the house prices is because the higher paying jobs in London tend to be in central London - the most obvious (but not only) way to get to central London is via the tube/underground network BUT if you also are closer to central London then that commute is also going to be shorter... there are many other interesting factors influencing local price differences, including: 1 - when more affluent people move to an area, they have more disposable income and time, which they are more likely to invest in the local area so the shops/pubs/cafes/schools and other amenities tend to be better - making the area more attractive to people with disposable income, and pushing up prices further... conversely there are other areas where the opposite can be true. 2 - London, like many metropolises, is made up of many villages and towns which have merged over time - some of these towns retain local charm and in themselves are attractive places to live, especially if they have kept their green spaces and/or are near the river, often these are further out than the tube/underground network, and instead served by overground trains - but these can still rival more central areas for price. In summary yes, it is both, but it is a complex system... and that is before going in to the effect of covid and remote working, which has reduced price pressure on some areas in London, but increased it in some picturesque rural areas outside London, particularly those which allow occasional access to central London (for the occasional shareholder meeting etc).

[@ExecutiveZombie]

🙌🏽⚡️🥂

[@user-target4AGI]

Genocide is Genocide

[@coolhandluke3059]

I'm thrilled about the book, but a part of me just wants Rory to SHUTUP.... he's spilling all the secrets

[@nickgennady]

coolhandluke Most people won’t look for public knowledge and go with status quote. Look at the internet. Most people use it for social media, not for knowledge

[@subodhghimire9677]

@@nickgennady well said

[@theeskimo4740]

Fucking brilliant

[@malikmustapha1599]

The British Robert California.

[@RADD93]

Interesting thing about dishwashers as I'm sure Rory would agree is that they are more expensive and time consuming it doing the job that we could do using less time and less resources, but it easier just to leave it to a machine, it takes more water it takes more electricity and you have to buy an expensive bag of dishwasher tablets in order to wash everything and every so often you may want to put one of those dishwasher cleaning solutions in if it becomes clogged or smells funny

[@DH-zp7bc]

The human waggle dance is the best one to avoid.

[@xxavierjenkins1731]

It's more than 10 my dude. Gotta change the title.

[@Mindsi]

Gonna reverse engineer stuff🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@progtom7585]

Rory should be in charge of Brexit. Legend.

[@daved9302]

Father of Bilbo

[@zacmacnish]

First rule of alchemy: GOLD. Turn lead into gold. Got Lead? MAKE GOLD SUCKAAAA

[@jamwri671]

What if everybody watches this video

[@user-target4AGI]

... Aren't it Humiliating to find efficient and profitable causes in order to prove the Terror and Crime of an ACT ?

[@michaelwest6238]

Squirrels are rats with good PR 😅😅

[@derholzhacker4780]

THEWZ = the British word for THOSE.