Vast majority of businesses are extraordinarily inefficient. This is my favorite pass time to identify these inefficiencies. For example, majority of restaurants can eliminate customers waiting on waiters by simple app like toast. There is never any need for greeter who you must wait on to seat at table. You should be able to pay and leave using app like toast. There should be a jar of water at table so customers don’t have to call waiter to get water. The list goes on. But these businesses have no intention to provide meticulously best possible experience and they are not striving hard to improve. Their motto is people will pay them simply because they are there (same as classic Seinfeld line that people will see crappy shows because that’s what’s on TV). The story extends to virtually all businesses I come across day to day from coffee shops to Grocery store to pharmacies to gas stations to car dealers to car manufacturers to theme parks.

I used to wonder why these businesses don’t want to improve. I feel everything comes down to CEO. I imagines many of these CEOs are private jet ferrying creatures who probably never goes through the pain of their customers or don’t have keen eye for improvement. They stay busy in their happy bean counting and other MBA activities. There is no bottom up drive for feedback to these suits. Once the top leader is rich dude, priority of their life becomes different.

The relentless drive to examine, reflect and improve is something of a new phenomenon that likely only started with silicon and Silicon Valley. These cultures are as new as humans popping up among other mammals. This culture is picking up for sure but it will take few generations.