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Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

> Tell stories that paint the picture you want your customers to have about your product.

There’s one interpretation of the idea of business as not selling products but stories. Apple knows this and clearly exhibits it with every product demo. It’s all a story. One that I enjoy.

But low priced groceries also sell a story, about how a beleaguered mother can save a few dollars here in order to avoid bouncing a check or to buy herself one nice thing. Or a kid who wants something sweet and already blew their allowance on video games. A pattern they will repeat again every few months since it worked before.

Chang is definitely selling two stories and it sounds like they are a bit discordant when taken together.

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> Apple knows this and clearly exhibits it with every product demo. It’s all a story. One that I enjoy.

That is true, but I've often seen that misconstrued (not by you in your comment) as somehow saying "Oh, Apple's success is just marketing! I can get feature XYZ for much lower elsewhere!"

Except that while Apple has generally great marketing, they also have generally great products. There is a ton of hard engineering and design work that goes into making a product that is easy to market in the first place. In fact, what the "it's just marketing" crowd tends to miss is that products are not just a collection of features, but are used to tell stories (or listen to stories) in users' own lives. They want to envision how a product will enrich their experiences, and Apple understands that's what they're selling.

In fact, if anything, I think the flop of the Vision Pro (may be quite premature to call it a flop, but I'll put my money on it being a flop) is directly due to the fact that Apple can't tell a story about it. By all accounts it has amazing, cutting edge technology. Except Apple can't tell a good story about what you're actually supposed to do with the thing that people believe and buy in to.

I also dabble in woodworking. There are some very fancy woodworking tools out there. They do the job better than their cheaper counterparts, but at the end of the day 3/4 of them are still largely a lifestyle thing, fueled by low tolerance mechanical engineering, industrial design, and recycling old designs that existed before quantity trumped quality. Much of that is physics, but some is story, and the word spreading part of the job of selling is all story.

If you've ever used a good chisel without a mallet you know the difference between good and cheap. But the margin for some other tools is less pronounced. I was going to use files as an example but there are some pretty crazy rasps out there today that can hog almost as well as a power tool.

> Except that while Apple has generally great marketing, they also have generally great products.

I disagree, and presumably so do the people you're referring to. Apple products are nothing special. They are competently made, but so are lots of brands which charge you a lot less. It really is all about marketing with Apple.

I think it's really the integration between hardware and software, nearly all of which is under Apple's control. Most companies don't do vertical integration anymore, and it shows. It's harder to produce a polished product when the hardware parts come from a bunch of different manufacturers, and you have to fight to get your software to work on it.

> Except Apple can't tell a good story about what you're actually supposed to do with the [Vision Pro] that people believe and buy in to.

The funny thing is that Apple is usually good at waiting to build and sell a product until customers are ready for it and want it (even if they don't realize they are ready and want it).

Vision Pro is a still just a cool tech demo. A very cool and very impressive tech demo, but still a tech demo. I don't mean that to say that it can't be a useful product, but Apple built it without a real market for it.

Maybe that's ok: maybe they need to build and sell the tech demo now in order to refine the tech so they can get to the actual product, with the real story, that they'll sell 5 or 10 or whatever years from now. Or maybe... yeah, maybe it's just a flop.

They also finish the product to a degree that more pedestrian companies feel is grandstanding and thus dismiss it. Instead of learning about UX sensitivity and the paradox of choice, they write it off as a fluke. A forty+ year fluke at this point.

What people “want” and what they will enjoy are rarely the same. Giving them fifty models of laptop is what focus groups think will make customers happy but it just fractures your attention to detail. It only makes a few customers happy. Probably less people than Apple’s market share.

My ex used to practically scream at her laptop until I bought her a MacBook. Most expensive present I ever gave but the best investment in peace and quiet.

Michelin stars seem to have the dynamics of a loss leader. Particularly as it's become known that many of the restaurants are badly unprofitable—and moreso if you think the chefs should earn something commensurate to their presumable talent or passion (you don't have to think this). It seems to be more the case that every award or signal of quality is capable of (and actually being used) this way.

Some people, like Chang, may know it and treat it transactionally as such. $X for a star, which leads to Y amount of exposure. Others, may know it or not, but treat it like a goal in life either way. It's very possible of course that many of the former start as the latter people until they later [realize/sell out/give up].

I guess it makes sense. The world is more competitive. Information is freely available. You need to find some other moat. With information and access to everything, a moat that might have been quality or talent, is more easily captured by buying the signal (which to be clear can include buying and maintaining the quality). Then once you have the signal, well, it's up to you whether you still need or want the quality. When push comes to shove, it's probably the case that the signal is worth more than the quality.

I don't believe you. If a restaurant is unprofitable, it would be closed. Nobody in their right mind would choose to continue losing money.

> Nobody in their right mind would choose to continue losing money.

In isolation, sure, but losing money in one area to make money (or some other form of currency such as fame) in another sounds a lot more reasonable. That's what a loss leader is.

Exactly! Every restauranteur knows the steak draws the attention but you pay your bills with baked potatoes and creamed spinach. There are only a handful of restaurant that are able to operate on that level, but the food loses money so you can make money on the cook books or merch or other opportunities (or even other restaurants. I promise you craftwich and craft have very different operation budgets/profitability).

When Michelin stars get involved it becomes really intrinsic(not monetary) vs extrinsic values. At certain levels of passion just achieving and keeping a star has value in itself. This then often comes with monetary cost.

Many of the chefs pushing for Michelin stars likely are not in their right mind.

we already know that many top restaurants are toxic work environments with rampant drug abuse and scandals.

Forbes interviewed a bunch of chefs about what they think of The Bear.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinwolfe/2024/07/31/real-ta...

Seems to be considered fairly biographical.

You don't think there are rich backers out there willing to eat money on a restaurant in order to achieve status amongst their peers?

If this were true, nobody would ever try to build a career as an artist.

Hi there! Please google “el buli profitable”. “The exception that proves the rule” or proof that some restaurants aren’t about making money through food sales alone.

Also, I spent a decade working in restaurants, I never met a single back of house employee that was in their right mind (myself included). It’s an entirely different breed from the HN set.

I can’t figure out where ambition and rationality diverge.

They do not break even on food alone. All their profits come from alcohol sales.

Money laundering? Drinks? Both?

A lot of people buy a business so that they can say they are a business owner instead of a inheritor.

To the point someone else made about one part of the business propping up another, I wonder how many hotel restaurants are profitable?

Never watched kitchen nightmares?

What would the more pedestrian equivalent be for Michelin stars? If you want to treat your middle class family to celebrate your daughter getting a full ride scholarship, whose ratings would you go with?

Maybe we need to just opt out and make our own yardstick.

If you trust the Michelin system and live in a city big enough to support it, Bib Gourmand is a good choice. Otherwise something like Google Maps combined with research related to what you want (something family casual, more upscale, etc.)

Depending on where you live, there is likely at least one publication that reviews restaurants.

Word of mouth is probably best, followed by online reviews, if that doesn't work.

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