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Comment by akliwejrliawj3 | Hacker News Reader

So ... "inertia". This book attempts to re-invent the word "inertia".

I'm allergic to business books, but I think a flywheel is a better metaphor by a mile. A flywheel is a tangible object that everyone has interacted with at some point. They're fun and satisfying to spin up to high speed. They are associated with engines and electricity. In contrast, inertia is an abstract concept. It's popularly associated with dead weight. It makes you think of heavy rocks and ships that are too large to maneuver quickly. It's not at all fun.

Flywheels are only high speed when they are not doing any work.

As soon as they start doing work, they slow down.

Flywheels are different from positive feedback loops, which is what people usually mean when they talk about flywheels.

A flywheel is just a rotational store of energy. It's not. Usefully different from lifting a heavy weight via a pulley, and then releasing it a bit when you need to use it lift something else. It performs the same function as a chargeable electric battery.

I agree. There is an additional quality here as well: Inertia doesn't care whether there is one big push or many little pushes. With the flywheel analogy, it's clear that it's not just one big push. That's what they are trying to convey in the business context. There is no one moment of transformation.

Inertia is not a concept, it's a name for the reason cars have seat belts, for why your blood goes into your fingers when you spin around with your arms outstretched. We don't really know what/why it is, but there's nothing abstract about it and it's not conceptual. Flywheels are inertia.

"Turn the Ship Around!" is another good book I hear (but did not read): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16158601-turn-the-ship-a...

I'm sure there are intelligent business books, as there are intelligent people in business, but most of the books I see are awful.

See my earlier comment on my feelings on Mr. Collins' general approach, but I do think "flywheel" is a better analog than "inertia".

Aside from being more relatable to more people, it also implies some agency in its design.

Two flywheels can have the same inertia, but have very different performance characteristics and be either an excellent or poor fit depending on the application.

a.k.a Compound Effect, Tipping Point, Kaizen, Aggregation of Marginal Gains, Virtuous Cycle, Positive Feedback Loop, Self-Reinforcing System, Cumulative Advantage, Network Effect, Snowball Effect, Momentum/Traction.

Flywheels in engineering terms are short-term stores of energy to smooth out power delivery. It's not all that off the mark when used in the business sense unless it is presented by gurus as a free energy system and a symbol of envious easygoing.

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