The Iron Law of Human Behavior: Selfishness, Laziness and Incentives

I think in my almost 50 trips around the sun, I think I’ve learned something about society, about people and about business. I started my career in marketing and the key to good marketing  is consumer insight. One of the lessons I learned is that you should always assume the customer is lazy, distracted and not a little bit stupid. I don’t think customers are actually stupid but it forces you to simplify and package whatever it is you are selling better. It removes as much friction to the customer understanding and seeing the value. Or that is the theory.

The key to thriving and getting through life successfully is also understanding people around you. Your family, your friends, your business associates, your neighbors and everyone you run into. And how to get along with them. 

My mental model is that everyone is in their own world, dealing with their own problems. The excellent Twitter account @Evilsaint said: “Humans are selfish because life is hard. If you’ve never been the selfish type, it’s because life has never been hard.” There is something to this. 

I’m a believer in that you give more than you get and I also believe the karma/universe gives back if you do well for others. It is an old Silicon Valley ethos which I will follow to the end.

But at base level, it’s just better to assume that people are always looking out for themselves because that is just how we humans are wired. We humans are also wired to conserve energy which basically drives people to be lazy and not think too much on anything. Thinking burns a surprisingly large amount of calories. 

This is where incentives come in. In all my business and not a few personal dealings, I always   try to understand “What’s In it for them”. And if we do want to do anything it has to be win-win and have clear incentives for them, and for me to make it work. I’ve stated many times about being long term greedy. This is true. 

But this is also a form of laziness, in a good way I would say. I don’t want to waste time on short term things these days. So always try to understand incentives and how to make them work for both sides. You have to make sure your interests are aligned. Otherwise you are wasting your time and energy, something people don’t have much of these days. If you do this, you can increase the odds of success for any relationship, alliance or cooperation.