Scaling is a magic
We do know now that power is a game of centuries and millenniums. Anything that appears to break the natural laws is magic. Any magic needs to be done fast. Magic is performed by creating an illusion by targeting people’s imaginary brains through the quickness of hands.
The modern form of Magic was “invented” by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the son of a clockmaker from France. He also apprenticed with his father, who was known to be the last clockmaker who made old-fashioned hand-crafted clocks. Houdin while purchasing a Clickmaking Treatise book mistakenly got a pair of science mystery books. Instead of returning them, he got engrossed with the books. He then paid 10 francs to a local amusement artist to learn the basic magic tricks. He started practicing magic, as well as started performing in upper-class social parties. Till his time, magic was only shown by amateurs in the local fairs and trades for the amusement of the crowd. Houdin took the magic to the next level by taking it to the theatres and making the art of magic a favorite entertainment of the wealthy.
Houdini performed some of the most extraordinary escape arts that made him a worldwide celebrity.
The amusement of the crowd can be entertainment of the wealthy by using grand scenes with money, science, and hand craftsmanship
Houdin not only conducted shows in Paris but also went to America to perform. All the French greats ended up in America in some way or the other!
Fascinatingly, making a handcrafted watch was like magic. So many small parts are to be joined precisely to form a machine and the machine then needs to work in certain ways for it to become useful. Now people get so used to this craftsmanship that it doesn’t excite them anymore, and it doesn’t entice their imagination. Now imagine an Eifel tower size of the watch being built in the same way. Same part, but bigger. Building such a clock would require similar hand craftsmanship but on the stage, the parts would be bigger. Wouldn’t that be a great spectacle than looking at your boring hand watch?
If a Grocery shop is serving 1000 customers a month, even that requires an immense business skill. Such a small grocery shop requires customer management, inventory management, financial management, prediction and analytics, customer behavior analytics, value based competitive edge, customer retention, credit management, vendor management. So many pieces of a grocery machine are to be put in together through the fine craftsmanship of business for a Grocery shop to keep serving customer profitably. Isn’t it?
Now look at this grocery shop as the watch that Houdini made. Fine business craftsmanship, fine parts put together skillfully, and the skills are repeated every day. How about making this watch look like a watch as big as an Eifel Tower? Wouldn’t that draw people’s imagination? Houdini created these grand shows where he would be chained and dropped into the Ocean from where he would escape unhurt. This was an illusion. But if he showed vanishing a rubber ball on the stage, from beneath a handkerchief, some people will clap. But if he could replace the rubber ball with a human, and himself, and instead of keeping the rubber ball human in a glass, in the ocean, and the handkerchief was replaced by the chains, wouldn’t people be amazed by that seen?
Houdini converted amusement and claps to the amazement and adrenaline-based entertainment. That is exactly the principle of the whole notion of scaling. Present a big grand illusion to people, and this will amaze the wealthy, and draw admiration from the crowd.
Now imagine a small 10 sqFeet grocery shop delivering Groceries to one million customers every day, instead of its capacity of a thousand. Imagine a Hen flying cross country to Siberia. Imagine a young child prodigy solving Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, imagine a Roman emperor driving a Ford car, wouldn’t a view of such an imagination amaze you? wouldn’t experiencing such imagination excite you? Would you not admire that hen, that Roman empire(or Ford company to teleport a car back in the history to a Roman emperor). Wouldn’t you want to know more about that medicine which made thee hen fly cross country to Siberia? If you had money, wouldn’t you want to have the teleport machine to go to the past? Wouldn’t you want to invest in the kid who is solving Heisenberg’s equation at an age when Einstein barely could speak? If you had money and the opportunity, wouldn’t you actually want to become the first Roman empire to drive a Ford car? Why Ford car, wouldn’t you want to be the first Roman emperor to drive a Space X rocket?
One of the weakest and weirdiest Human psychology around money is that it statrts making people think that if one has enough money, enough imaginations can be brought into reality, and enough impossibilities can be made possible!
When the rich are amused and the crowd is amazed, they are already under an illusion; take that inclusion from local magic shows to the grand Opera of Paris, and then from the Grand Opera to the Pacific Ocean, from the handful few Clappers to international reporters and media, and you hypnotize the entire world with that scaled illusion in Houdini style
Would you not want to own a Chicken that gave golden eggs every day? Of course, there are magics, how else can the rich be so rich? Of course, there are people who know things that you don’t know and that is why they have become so rich even though you worked harder. And all these are the beliefs you would start developing the moment you see so many others like you believing in the same principles.
Just as the Rockefeller family, and VCs like them who carries family wealth, and a history of power look for people with ancestry their ancestor trusted, the way Masayoshi Son looks for those who can sell the technology in an innovative way in a new distribution channel, the same way new Venture Capitalists are Houdini followers who create the grand illusion of scaling so that the rich can be amused to spend money into the shows, and the poor can be made clowns in the show. The way the Siberian hen would make the rich amused, the same way a superhuman called founder who can increase his customer by a factor of 10 every month would amuse the rich and amaze the crowd.
People want to be part of the amazement, and people want to spend for amusement. The magic of money lies to combine them with the fine craftsmanship of Houdini money.
