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How To Get Ahead Of 90% Of People in 2026

| 6 products mentioned
My First Million My First Million host
Sam Parr co-host
Shaan Puri co-host
Watch on YouTube taste and aesthetics design history personal branding fashion copywriting skill development cultural history

Sam Parr and Shaan Puri explain how to develop good taste—a critical competitive advantage in the AI era—through a systematic four-step process. As AI commoditizes the ability to build products, the hosts argue that the ability to appeal to people emotionally and aesthetically will separate winners from the 90%, and they demonstrate this framework using examples from design history (the Bauhaus movement and T3 radio), fashion, and hip-hop music production.

Key takeaways
  • • Good taste requires identifying what identity you want to communicate and learning to express it authentically through lifestyle choices, not simply having innate aesthetic sense.
  • • The first step is deciding what message you want to send; most people skip this and copy blindly without direction, similar to how learning guitar requires intentional practice with specific songs.
  • • Blind copying of people whose aesthetic you admire—whether in fashion, web design, or writing—builds intuitive understanding of style and texture faster than trying to innovate from scratch.
  • • Learning the underlying rules through books, blogs, and research (e.g., why a sports jacket should follow the "rule of thirds" or why certain color palettes create trust) transforms copying from imitation into true skill development.
  • • Studying design and cultural history—from Gutenberg's printing press to Swiss design neutrality to Motown's influence on modern hip-hop—provides constraints and frameworks that make your work more coherent and compelling.
  • • Mastering the rules first is what separates "good taste" from "great taste"; great taste comes from understanding tradition deeply enough to break it intentionally, as Dr. Dre and Kanye West did by sampling and reimagining classic music.

Recommendations (2)

Dressing the Man uses

"There's literally books that show you based off of your face shape what your collar should look like or if you're wearing a sports jacket, how long it should go."

Sam Parr · ▶ 10:35

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Black Ivy uses

"It's about how in the 1960s, black men in America started copying the Ivy style. They wore it out of an act of defiance and wanting to fit in. I thought the way they looked was badass."

Sam Parr · ▶ 11:41

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Mentioned (4)

Status and Culture "He says, 'Good taste, it requires two things. One is proposing an identity that matters to be val..." ▶ 1:22
Braun T3 radio "This radio was really interesting because if you zoom in on it, there's not really too many butto..." ▶ 2:16
Stripe
Stripe "When I'm designing a website, why does this website that I go to, when I go to stripe.com, what a..." ▶ 8:12
Figma
Figma "If you are actually a designer, you can go in Figma and I highly encourage you to copy it exactly..." ▶ 14:25

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