Shoptalk
David Peterson

Over the weekend, while hiding out from the London heat, I paged through The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery, by Adam Gopnik.

It’s a good read, but I’d actually recommend this old New Yorker article by Gopnik, which clearly serves as inspiration for the book. In it, he tells stories of magicians honing their craft. The part that jumped out at me, though, was all about what Gopnik calls “shoptalk.” As Gopnik writes:

“Magicians have the most rapturous and absorbed shoptalk of any artists I know. This is…because much of the pleasure of being a magician is membership in a subculture, where methods and myths can be appreciated only by initiates.”

Gopnik goes on to write about how the “real work” of magic is not just knowing the methods — anybody can read those in a book — but perfecting “the whole of the handling and timing and theatrics of the effect.” “Just as chefs know that recipes are of little value in themselves,” Gopnik writes, “magicians know that learning the method is only the beginning of doing the trick.”

I love this passage. As I’ve written in the past, I’m more a fan of logistics than strategy, and “shoptalk” is exactly that. It’s the way that practitioners, who well on their way to mastery, speak to one another.

I share all of this because I think we need more shoptalk in the world of startups.

The old Internet used to have a lot of shoptalk. That was one of my favorite parts about it. You’d stumble upon a forum for enthusiasts of one kind or another — birding, menswear, long distance running, crochet — and could observe experts discuss and debate the most minute details of their craft.

There are still some subreddits flying the flag of 90s/00s-era forum culture, but I fear that version of the Internet is dying off. Fast forward to today, and if you’re a founder looking for advice, you’ll find it in droves. Twitter threads, podcasts, YouTube videos, TikToks. But it’s not shoptalk. It’s all too performative and self-aware. Each Twitter thread ends with a Substack sign up link. Every podcast feels more like a late night talk show, with guests coming on to share pre-written, well-rehearsed anecdotes, than a private conversation.

That’s a shame. Because shoptalk is, in my view, critical to startup success. When I think back to many of the seemingly intractable problems we faced at Airtable, the unlocks weren’t because we made big, strategic shifts. (We knew the method, Gopnik might say). They were due to small, tactical changes we made based on conversations with other founders or growth practitioners. (We just needed to tweak our handling and timing).

So here’s my advice to founders everywhere. Get offline. Go find a founder (or anybody in a role similar to yours) who is going through something similar to you. And talk to them about it. Dive into the minute details of the craft. As Picasso might say, talk turpentine. Because that’s where the magic happens.

David

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