The Value of Mystery in Business and Design

As the saying goes, only three things in life are certain: death, taxes & Alex Danco.

Armed with sizzling hot takes on the sad death of Twitter likes and a new secret weapon in the form of his catchphrase-turned-episode theme (“Without mystery, there is no margin”), Alex returns for his eighth episode.

Despite our intentional lack of preparation, somehow this ended up as one our most cohesive conversations yet.

As usual, we’ve included links and an episode transcript over on our Substack, where we’ve also made the foolhardy attempt to distil one overriding theme from eight episodes of fiercely unstructured, defiantly unplanned, proudly meandering conversation.

Important Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alex_Danco
• Website: https://alexdanco.com/
• Previous episode: https://www.infiniteloopspodcast.com/alex-danco-on-self-delusion-sancho-panza-safe-words-seinfeld-ep156/

Show Notes:

• What the fuck is going on? & the sad death of Twitter likes
• Where are the journalists?
• Without mystery, there is no margin
• Why aesthetics are underrated
• Friction is good, actually
• Make things to gain agency
• Empowering small firms to access the mysterious margin
• Everything is positioning
• How to learn effectively
• Alex as emperor of the world
• MORE!

Books Mentioned:

• The Fifth Science; by Exurb1a
• What Works on Wall Street: A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time; by Jim O’Shaughnessy
• The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”; by Venkatesh Rao
• The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism; by Howard Bloom