Wisereads Vol. 118 — Product Delight by Nesrine Changuel, Brian Armstrong on action, and more

Last week, we shared H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, a cornerstone of science fiction. This week, we're sharing a preview of Nesrine Changuel’s Product Delight, a groundbreaking guide to making products stand out through surprise and joy.

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Economics writer and creator Kyla Scanlon took her book In This Economy? on the road and observed that while wealth still shows up on balance sheets and in stock portfolios, it is noticeably absent from many Americans’ daily lives. "America’s problem isn’t that we lack wealth - we have enormous wealth - it’s that we’ve made our wealth invisible while letting everything visible decay in a way. We’ve inverted the formula."

Appeals to inevitability and long-termism can be a dangerous way to win arguments, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin warns in his latest piece. "Inevitabilism in our society is most often deployed as a way for people to retroactively justify things that they have already decided to do for other reasons - which often involve chasing political power or dollars. Simply understanding this fact is often the best mitigation: the moment when people have the strongest incentive to make you give up opposing them is exactly the moment when you have the most leverage."

Cambridge honorary professor of politics David Runciman reviews three recent books on depopulation, climate, and migration to uncover the forces keeping fertility rates low and the implications for aging societies. One bracing statistic: "Japan now produces more nappies for incontinent adults than for infants."

Google demonstrates its latest release, Antigravity, an IDE for the era of agents that combines an editor, agent manager, and browser in a single workflow. "Our app seems to be working. Now, let's put a bow on it. We want to be able to add this flight into our Google Calendar. Let's ask the agent to do this for us."

In a refreshingly short tweet, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong cuts to the chase on how to unblock decisions and learn faster: "Action produces information. If you’re unsure of what to do, just do anything, even if it’s the wrong thing. This will give you information about what you should actually be doing."

In a brief, practical PDF, Polymath Investor compiles evidence-based techniques used by the best readers to remember more. "Highlight and underline very selectively – ideally no more than 10–20% of the text. Mark only the most important points or phrases that capture the essence. Why It Works: Over-highlighting is a form of mental laziness that can hinder memory (you end up bypassing the decision of what’s truly important)."

Your browser’s password manager, the Chrome dino, Gmail’s Smart Compose, virtual backgrounds in video calls, auto-matched receipts: what do they all have in common? They create moments of delight for online users, when needs are not only met but exceeded with surprise and joy.

These are the moments product coach Nesrine Changuel helps teams create, now captured in her new book Product Delight. It’s a practical guide for companies looking to stand out by building emotional connection into their products.

"Solving user needs is fundamental, but true product delight comes from going beyond expectations. It’s about delivering value in ways users didn’t ask for but instantly appreciate. Delight happens when a product surprises with effortlessness, memorability, and the feeling that it’s genuinely looking out for them."

We’re thrilled Nesrine is sharing a preview of Product Delight with Wisereads readers. If it resonates, we invite you to support Nesrine by picking up a full copy here. 🎉

This week’s featured author, Nesrine Changuel, draws from a decade of experience building beloved products at Skype, Spotify, and Chrome to help companies design for connection on her Substack, Delightful Tips. From When Hospitality Meets Product: "Functionality creates trust, but it doesn’t create love. Whether it’s the way a waiter remembers your name or how Google Photos quietly curates your best memories into a story, connection comes from the human layer around functionality."