163. Will Page. Tarzan Economics.
Will Page
May 13, 2021
Listen to full episode :
“Music was the first to suffer, and the first to recover, from the forces of deep technological disruption, making it something we can all learn from.”
– Will Page, Tarzan Economics (Simon & Schuster, April 2021)
Tarzan Economics suggests that the crucial thing we all need to understand in today’s exponentially changing world is how to risk forward and be willing to change the fundamentals of what we do, rather than carrying on fighting a battle that is already lost.
In today’s podcast Will discusses his book and how music’s disruptive history provides pivotal lessons for any business facing disruptive change.
Topics include:
Why the music industry was the canary in the digital disruption coal mine.
Why understanding what a customer thinks they are buying (and why it might not be what you think it is) is important.
How gin and tonic is a useful (and memorable) metaphor when thinking about the ways in which consumers carve up their attention.
Why understanding how “contestable” the attention a product demands is important to understanding and predicting how consumers will behave.
How quantification bias limits insights and hurts businesses in ways they can’t understand.
Why engaging with consumers directly will allow you to learn things that will never show up on the tableau dashboard.
Why there isn’t just “one rule” that can change your life or your business.
Will Page is the former Chief Economist of Spotify and PRS for Music where he pioneered Rockonomics.. At PRS he published work on Radiohead’s In Rainbows and saving BBC 6Music. At Spotify he helped redefine catalogue, uncover the anatomy of a hit and articulated the global value of music copyright. His first book, ‘Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles in Pivoting through Disruption’ will be published in April 2021, A passionate communicator, Will’s work is regularly featured in Billboard, The Economist and the Financial Times. His most recent publication, a FT Opinion piece The music industry makes more money but has more mouths to feed showed how the industry pie has grown, but the number of creators wanting a piece of it has grown even faster. He is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and a fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts.
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