The Last 1%

There's an old saying that good taste is knowing what to leave out.

I think that's only half the story.

Taste gets all the attention these days. Every other LinkedIn post is suddenly about taste. Everyone wants it. Nobody seems entirely sure what it is.

People treat it like it's a superpower.

Or a font.

I don't think taste is your Pinterest board.

Or wearing Japanese selvedge denim.

Or knowing which shade of beige says, "I summer in Copenhagen."

Taste is accumulated judgment.

It's embarrassing presentations.

Campaigns that bombed.

Watching customers completely ignore the idea everyone in the conference room high-fived.

It's stealing one idea from architecture, another from fashion, and another from a conversation you overheard while waiting for coffee.

It's years of collecting references without realizing you're collecting references.

Can you teach taste?

Maybe.

Can you speed it up?

A little.

Can you prompt your way into it?

Not a chance.

Which brings us to curation.

Because taste without curation is just preference.

Curation is where the work begins.

It's looking at one hundred surprisingly good ideas and saying,

"That one."

Then looking at the other ninety-nine and saying,

"Thanks, but no thanks."

AI has absolutely no problem making more.

More logos.

More headlines.

More campaigns.

More concepts.

More everything.

Humans still have to decide what's worth keeping.

The more I use these tools, the less convinced I am that the competitive advantage is making things.

Making is becoming table stakes.

Choosing is becoming the job.

That's the part no model can do for you.

Because curation isn't about finding the best idea.

It's about having the conviction to ignore a hundred perfectly decent ones in favor of the one that actually has something to say.

And if history has taught us anything...

"Pretty good" has never changed a damn thing.