The smartest person I ever worked for was Barry Appelman at AOL (sorry Steve!). Amongst other things, Barry invented the buddy list. He also once thought of an extremely creative and somewhat controversial product development philosophy. He theorized that the seven deadly sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Vanity) were core motivators of what drives most human behavior and that any successful consumer product needed to appeal to one or more of the deadly sins. At first it seems controversial, but really if you start thinking about successful products all around us, and you ask the question “which deadly sin does this product enable?” you realize there is much truth to this philosophy. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this over the years since that original conversation and have come to the conclusion that not all deadly sins are created equal. In particular, when it comes to creating![]()
