In his new book, The Voltage Influence: How to Make Excellent Concepts and Terrific Ideas Scale (Currency, February 2022), economist John Listing argues that scaling is subject to the “Anna Karenina theory,” which dictates that even if a single component is erroneous, the full endeavor will fail. A longtime professor at the University of Chicago, List has worked as chief economist at Uber, Lyft, and now Walmart. In this episode of the Within the Technique Space podcast, he talks with McKinsey senior partner Yuval Atsmon about how business enterprise leaders can evaluate regardless of whether an plan has the power—or the voltage—to effectively scale. This is an edited transcript of their dialogue. For much more conversations on the technique difficulties that make any difference, stick to the collection on your chosen podcast system.
Yuval Atsmon: What inspired you to generate a book about scaling now?
John Listing: Around 2015, a confluence of occasions brought about me to get started contemplating about scaling. I was the main economist at Uber, and we have been imagining about new thoughts that had a very good shot of scaling. I had also begun a preschool in an underserved community south of Chicago that, by 2014, experienced gained very good final results. I went to plan makers declaring, “I have a terrific curriculum, we require to scale my system,” and the regular response was, “Your software appears to be like great, but don’t hope it to happen at scale.” When I worked in the White Property on packages like Electricity Star to encourage vitality effectiveness, we would continually request ourselves, “Do we feel that method will scale?”
That confluence led me to talk to what we know scientifically about scaling, since the policy makers’ remarks didn’t feel like science, and our conversations at Uber also felt much more like artwork than science—we were being adding info, but it was far more gut feeling and “fake it till you make it.” My objective was to write tutorial papers on the science of scaling, but if you want to modify the entire world, you require the entire world to kick the tires of your strategies. As well as, the thread of scaling operates by means of all areas of lifetime, and the aspects that bring about suggestions not to scale manifest them selves in all settings. Economics is existence, and lifetime is economics.
Yuval Atsmon: I was struck by how considerably of your reserve is about steering clear of errors. You seize that in the Anna Karenina theory.
John Checklist: Certainly. The initially factor persons need to have to imagine about in the thought lookup section or when thinking of scaling is, what are the warts? It shows you exactly where you should make advancements. It then presents you a recipe for step two, which is thinking about the whole addressable market and how to increase it. If there is a wart, these types of as that the addressable industry is too small, how can you grow it in advance of you scale or as you scale?
Yuval Atsmon: The to start with error you converse about is what you contact “false positives.” What are these?
John List: If the plan never experienced voltage to begin with, why have been you tricked? In additional than fifty percent the cases where a federal government attempts to scale an idea, it in no way experienced voltage, and when you check out to replicate it, it does not work. The data have been lying to you, or you acquired a poor draw of info. In the private sector, behavioral economics arrives in. Just take confirmation bias, exactly where a determination maker has an instinct about what need to do the job, and when you convey facts displaying it labored, they say, “I was right. Let’s scale this detail up.” If the facts displays it did not work, the human being says, “There is a flaw someplace. We did not acquire the appropriate information.” Why? Simply because ordinarily, the human being with the thought will take a look at the idea, winner that notion, and then get the reward for the idea. Is this how strategy generation, dissemination, and scaling must transpire?

Each individual firm really should have a scale device that features a naysayer who suggests, ‘I really don’t believe that notion will perform, and I will make knowledge to prove it.’


Every firm really should have a scale device that involves a naysayer who claims, “I never assume that strategy will get the job done, and I will make data to prove it.” That human being will arrive up with some so-termed moderators—settings in which the thought doesn’t work—and that will direct you to make the products or service better.
Yuval Atsmon: What if the notion is valid but it is not as scalable as men and women suppose it to be?
John Checklist: If you have jumped around the 1st hurdle and your concept has voltage, for how several people will that voltage be authentic? In other words and phrases, what is the size of the complete addressable industry? Scaling is about retaining prospects as a great deal as adding new consumers, so the problem is partly about the stickiness of your idea. Can you develop incentive regimes to make your product or company stickier? That’s how people need to assume about membership and details programs—essentially, they are financial mechanisms to make shoppers occur again for more.
If the industry does not by now exist, how can I acquire facts to validate no matter whether the solution or assistance is viable? A person way is to glance at substitutes and use hedonic regression to predict what an supplying with unique functions would
do in the market. An additional possibility is a target team, but there are two big issues with that. To start with, when you provide in a group of individuals to, say, examination a hamburger, they are probably hamburger lovers,
so they are previously open to your item. The 2nd issue is that when you inquire a concentrate team member, “Will you get the hamburger for $4?” and they say “yes,” then you raise the cost and they hold saying “yes,” what incentive does that individual have to inform you their actual desire for the merchandise? I compare it to choice price. In asset markets, people today shell out for an options deal that may possibly say, “In six months I can get Alphabet stock at $120 a share.” The concentrate group member, on the other hand, is getting an alternative for a new item for cost-free. They’re in essence indicating, “If you introduce it, my decision established is richer, but there is no cost to me if I really don’t order.”
Yuval Atsmon: This is anything to look at out for with items that depend on a great deal bigger cost details than individuals could previously have paid for comparable merchandise. We see that with sustainability offerings. Ten decades in the past quite a few merchandise unsuccessful, simply because couple individuals have been prepared to acknowledge the inconvenience or larger selling price of those people greener merchandise.
John Checklist: You’re 100 % right. We ran
some surveys at a rideshare corporation, and prospects claimed they would fork out to get a eco-friendly auto somewhat than a auto that operates on fossil fuels. The surveys made it look like a viable current market, so we ran a pilot and uncovered that when you charge 50 cents or $1 a lot more for that vehicle, the demand from customers goes to zero. It is one thing to condition your ambitions and tastes in a survey and a completely unique thing to again them with authentic money. We find that in each individual market. Now, the discovered choice for eco-friendly solutions is favourable and increasing, but I feel the expectation is continue to exaggerated in most instances.
Yuval Atsmon: The up coming hurdle you describe is an notion that will work but is tricky to scale since it has some unscalable components. Can you elaborate on what you signify?
John Record: This is about asking, “Was there something unique that manufactured our first results but could not be replicated at scale?” Lots of places to eat have great success, and their proprietors say, “If I could scale to 50 or 100 dining establishments, I’d basically be cooking,” but a lot of them fall short. If the initial achievement was based mostly on the chef—a exclusive human—it will in no way scale since exclusive humans really do not scale. If you can convert that one of a kind human into a process, often that works. That is occurring now in laptop or computer programming, the place machines can method as properly as human beings can or superior. But if Uber or Lyft had been only in a position to work with Michael Andretti or Al Unser Jr., they would not scale. If they can use ordinary people today, they have a shot.

If the original results was based on a special human, it will never ever scale because special humans do not scale.


So you require to figure out early what your non-negotiables are. When you scale throughout international locations, the rules and customs improve, least-wage regulations could modify, and if those people variations reduce you from scaling your inputs, you’re dead.
Yuval Atsmon: In your ebook, you speak about unintended repercussions or spillovers—things that result in scaling efforts to fall short. Can you give some examples?
John Checklist: Yeah, the outdated “negative externality” case. In “economese,” that means that an exchange in between two people in a marketplace negatively has an effect on a 3rd party in vital techniques. In 1968, the US government mandated that every new automobile have seatbelts. In 1975, my colleague Sam Peltzman located that zero life experienced been saved in those people very first many years. He argued that people who were sporting seatbelts drove a lot more aggressively, undoing the added benefits of seatbelts. That is an unique kind of spillover there are also market place-wide spillovers.
Yuval Atsmon: That provides to head rate promotions. They will create rapid uplifts but may adjust consumers’ willingness to shell out more for future merchandise you launch.
John Record: Particularly. It also has an effect on relevant items that consumers buy. The complementarity in baskets of merchandise or companies that people acquire is the upcoming frontier of considering about price tag relationships. Economists contact these personal-selling price elasticities and cross-value elasticities. Next-generation machine mastering designs will be able to forecast the place to acquire gain of these interrelationships and where to give surplus again to consumers.


Yuval Atsmon: The remaining essential indication of scalable thoughts is close to value. Can you talk about that?
John List: The provide facet of scaling is exciting. Coverage makers have a tendency to assume about the rewards [of scaling] and who will get them, whereas most business owners start on the supply facet. This would make perception because governments are monopolists: they really don’t will need to get worried about opponents they will need to fear about earning much more people’s life far better.
In distinction, a company requires to assume about the value trajectory for two reasons. The initial is that, as you scale, you will go down the demand from customers curve as persons are significantly less ready to pay out for your product. So as you scale to extra men and women, you want to change the desire curve out and acquire benefit of the provide facet.
The next rationale is that scale can be a barrier to entry. An giving with significant economies of scale has an important first-mover benefit due to the fact entrants will require deep pockets to contend with you. If I experienced to retain the services of 20,000 teachers, I would have to hire them absent from an additional business, and to do that, I would need to go up the offer curve by shelling out them more. If I’m hoping to scale with unique features, or unique inputs, and the only way I can get them is to boost my budget, I have a offer-facet issue. That’s how the uniqueness of the inputs and the source facet get the job done jointly.
Yuval Atsmon: One example that brings this to lifestyle is the streaming wars. We have witnessed massive investments in that space and that expending on material has been rising disproportionately to the audience for that articles. Streaming wars could also exemplify the dilution basic principle: once you add mediocre content material close to baseline robust content material, people’s notion of all the information drops.
John Record: You’re specifically ideal. I wrote a paper about 20 many years in the past titled “The ‘more is less’ phenomenon,” centered on an experiment in which I auctioned off 10 baseball playing cards as a team. Then, in one more auction, I additional 3 faulty playing cards to the unique ten. You would believe that individuals would bid extra because it is the ten cards in addition the a few defective types, which together even now have value. But they bid less since they seemed at the three defective kinds and interpreted the other 10 as remaining of decrease top quality.
Yuval Atsmon: Let us talk about your tips for executing ideas that people want to scale. You mentioned incentives earlier—what’s the suitable way to use them?
John Checklist: When people listen to that an economist will converse about incentives, they feel, “He will say that money is critical.” And I’m below to inform you that funds is crucial, but the way you current the cash is also important. Nonfinancial incentives are significant, as well, this kind of as social picture, social pressure, self-picture. Social incentives are all around us, and we require to take edge of them to implement incentives that can scale.
On the pecuniary aspect, bonuses usually get the variety of money at the stop of the yr, but you could shift the funds to the front conclude. In Chicago Public Colleges, I gave instructors $4,000 up entrance and explained, “If your learners reach more than the college calendar year, you can keep the cash. If they really do not, you will have to give some of it back.” I executed very similar measures in a producing plant in China and in Wisconsin. In each and every situation, people today worked more challenging if there was a possibility of their bonuses currently being clawed again.
I was leveraging decline aversion—people really do not like to shed issues. Now, you may well imagine, “That’s not sensible because we can’t give people today revenue and then just take it again.” That is correct, but I only provisionally gave folks revenue by environment up accounts where they could see it, but they could not invest it nonetheless. If they did not reach around the 12 months, they saw the quantity drop.
Yuval Atsmon: A person of my most loved chapters in your book is the one particular about revolution on the margin. It is so clear that returns on investment decision are nonlinear, but most of us aim on averages.
John Listing: Rule selection 1 when I teach Economics 101 is: economists think on the margin and other individuals feel in averages, and individuals others are wrong. Men and women normally say extra facts is better. It’s not. You want to use the thinnest cuts of facts that you can. If you are seeking to forecast what will occur in the up coming step, it is much better to count on what transpired in the past phase than 25 ways again. The only way what took place 25 ways back would make sense to use is if that was a particular regime that you are probably to enter in the next action.
Yuval Atsmon: That is also our experience. Challenging styles can conclude up telling you what worked right before as a substitute of what will do the job up coming. People today escalate their commitments irrespective of the option simply just for the reason that of the hard work that they have presently place in.
John Listing: In economics, it is termed “opportunity price.” We must constantly recognize and regard the possibility charge of time and means. Humans really do not quit enough for two principal factors. The initially is that modern society tells us quitting is repugnant. The next is that we neglect our chance price tag of time. I surveyed men and women who had just lately stop their careers, inquiring them why. Rationale range a person: “The manager no for a longer period appreciated me.” Reason number two: “I did not get the promotion.” Purpose selection three: “I did not get the reward or raise.” The record goes on, but every motive was about the person’s present great deal in life. It was hardly ever, “My option set bought better.” When you pivot away from a little something, you ought to be just as probably to pivot toward a better option.

People really don’t stop enough for two primary factors. The initially is that society tells us quitting is repugnant. The 2nd is that we neglect our opportunity cost of time.


The time to stop is when your very best outside chance exceeds your present prospect.
You ought to periodically seem about, but most
of us never mainly because we say, “I’ve invested so a lot in this notion, I can not give up on it now,” or, “I’ve long gone down this hole for so extended, and I have to have grit.” That is referred to as the “sunk-charge fallacy.” I promise you: if you are digging down a dry properly, you can dig an additional 5 toes for an additional 5 yrs, and it will continue to be dry.
Yuval Atsmon: In the previous chapter, you speak
about scaling cultures. It’s yet another strategy that is hard to get correct and whose significance is often underestimated.
John Record: As an tutorial, I did not recognize the significance of organizational lifestyle for the reason that academia is additional of a lone-wolf life-style. That improved following my investigation team visited villages in Brazil. In one particular, a team of individuals went out to fish in teams and brought that teamwork back to their group. The group had fantastic public-superior provision. In the group future doorway, individuals fished solo, and they introduced that mind-set back to the neighborhood, where there were numerous much less general public goods.
Now, when you discuss about culture, it is important to outline it. I imagine of culture in two ways: Does it permit people to access their productiveness frontier, and does it make people today sense secure, cozy, and valued?
Yuval Atsmon: In founder-led corporations, the tradition mimics the founders, so those leaders have to have to be knowledgeable of their management design and style.
John Listing: That’s a terrific issue. The society is an extension of the person, and it often needs to be mainly because the founder has terrific insights. But I have uncovered that going from zero to $500 million is pretty distinctive from going from $500 million to $10 billion, and it usually will take very distinct men and women to carry off just about every of people levels.
