Perfectionism vs. High Standards and Taste, and Why Taste Matters

"You're such a perfectionist!"

Often, when someone labels you a perfectionist, they think they're praising your taste or high standards. Most people interpret "perfectionism" a positive trait in and out of the workplace.

Why should you care about the difference between high standards, taste, and perfectionism?

1. Great products aren't made from technology alone. They're born from values, refined through taste, and brought to life through discipline.
2. Perfectionism is the enemy of great. Real perfectionism destroys creativity and progress. It paralyzes teams, delays launches, and turns brilliant ideas into unrealized gains.

Every small thing matters if you're aiming to build a lasting business around a product. A litmus test of a truly "great" product? They pass the test of time!

Businesses built around a great product have an extremely loyal customer base, benefit from a high degree of word-of-mouth marketing, and tend to become a moat in their industry.

Look at Apple and Spotify. Their moat isn't just technological innovation. It's taste.

Taste silently differentiates top companies, while high standards build the foundation of world-class teams. Yet few professionals truly understand these concepts.

Consider these facts:

• Top companies succeed because they have people with both high standards and taste. Understanding these traits helps you develop them and hire the right team members.
• As a manager or leader of teams building your product, mastering the concept of "taste" will make you better at measuring and coaching the performance of your teams.

While perfectionism obsesses over flaws, taste and high standards focus on what makes products exceptional. These concepts aren't well understood, but they directly impact how you hire teams, enforce company values, and develop products. Understanding this difference transforms how you create and ship something.

Taste remains particularly under-discussed. It's a fuzzy concept. Top product leaders talk about how product managers, designers, and marketers should have taste - but mostly in private mentoring sessions. Here's what makes it powerful: taste can be learned.

What do the most innovative companies know about taste that others miss? How can you tell when you've crossed from high standards into problematic perfectionism?

What is "Taste"?

In the context of creation, "taste" means having a refined sense for quality, originality, and cultural relevance.

It's your ability to recognize what makes a creation "great" before others do. This applies to any creation: a product, a service, or a piece of writing or art.

Taste goes beyond subjective opinions. It embodies a consistent set of values and cognitive empathy that guides the creative process. Taste requires you to develop conviction about what matters, even when data doesn't yet support it. You instinctively understand what feels right and what will resonate with users.

It's not just about making things pretty. Taste means bringing genuine insight to what you create, not copying existing ideas.

Taste is what makes a product feel cohesive, thoughtful, and distinctly valuable.

Steve Jobs explained taste perfectly when discussing Microsoft products:
"They have no taste... They don't think of original ideas and they don't bring cultural richness into their products."

Now, Jobs was known for spicy takes. This wasn't meant to be a "punch down" at Microsoft. To be fair, Apple's success wouldn't have been possible without Microsoft making computers mainstream first. If Jobs were alive today, he might even be disappointed with Apple in some ways. In this interview, he spoke specifically about Microsoft in the late 80s and early 90s context.

The Essence of Good Taste in Products

Here's my formal and nuanced definition of Taste, in the product context:

In the context of creating products, having "taste" refers to a refined sensibility for discerning quality, originality, and cultural richness that drives creativity in building pleasing user experiences and useful innovation. It's about bringing something genuinely insightful and well-conceived into what is being created, rather than just replicating existing ideas.

While inherently subjective, having "good" taste means having these 3 traits:

1. Caring deeply about the quality of ideas and their impact on users. Its innate nature represents a consistent set of values and cognitive empathy that drive the creation of products.
2. Possessing a sensibility that drives the creation of products and experiences that feel original, relevant, and useful. Aesthetics can be a component of a thoughtful UX, but they're not the primary driver of "taste" in this context.
3. Embodying the most underrated leadership trait, often manifested by rebels who see the world differently than the status quo.

Can you tell when a product has been built with taste versus one that's merely functional?

People with taste ask questions in their creative process that others don't think to ask themselves:

1. Why does this feel wrong even though it meets all requirements?
2. How could this experience be more intuitive and delightful?
3. What cultural context is valued by our users that others have missed?

Having "taste" looks like a strong conviction about what matters, even when data doesn't yet support it. It is one of the components that makes up "Product Sense."

Differences: Perfectionism vs. Taste vs. High Standards

Nuance, first:

1. You can have taste without necessarily being a perfectionist, and you can have high standards without demanding absolute perfection.
2. If you've ever shipped anything, it was imperfect. If you've ever published an article or launched a product, you succeeded despite your perfectionism, not because of it.
3. You need both taste and high standards for creating exceptional products. High standards without taste lead to well-built but uninspiring products (think of Microsoft Teams). Taste without high standards produces brilliant concepts with poor implementation (think Evernote). The best product people combine taste with high standards while avoiding perfectionism's trap (think Apple).

Companies That Lead with Taste

1. Apple is often cited as a company with good taste due to its focus on sleek design, user-friendly interfaces, and a strong ecosystem of interconnected devices. Their products often emphasize minimalist aesthetics and intuitive software, creating a sense of exclusivity and quality. They're the gold standard of what it means to "lead with taste" (despite some hiccups in the past two decades.)
2. Spotify demonstrates good taste through its personalized music recommendations and curated playlists. Their algorithms consider user preferences, trends, and content characteristics to provide relevant and enjoyable content, enhancing the user experience.
3. Dyson, particularly with its vacuum cleaners and hair care products, demonstrates taste through innovative engineering combined with distinctive design. Their transparent canisters showcase cyclonic technology while their futuristic aesthetics turn functional products into status symbols.
4. Costco shows taste through its membership model prioritizing value and efficiency. Its limited selection, bulk offerings, and Kirkland brand represent an innovative approach to retail. Culturally, Costco resonates strongly with consumers who value practicality and affordability, becoming a recognizable and even communal shopping experience.
5. Airbnb demonstrates good taste by focusing on the design and presentation of unique and diverse accommodations. Their platform emphasizes visually appealing listings with high-quality photography and detailed descriptions, allowing users to discover spaces with distinct character and local flavor. The taste here lies in curating and showcasing a variety of aesthetically pleasing and interesting living experiences, connecting travelers with authentic and well-designed spaces, regardless of price point. It's about appreciating diverse styles and the thoughtful presentation of those spaces.

Why Taste Gets Confused with "Luxury" Status or Branding

Taste isn't synonymous with luxury or strong branding.

1. Taste reflects the genuine sensibility behind a product's creation, not its price tag or marketing strategy.
2. Good taste exists across all price points and market segments.

Luxury without Taste
Expensive products can lack coherence or originality. Think of ornate designs that prioritize status over thoughtful design.

• Example: A handbag made with premium materials but featuring excessive, clashing embellishments might be luxury but lacks taste in its design and usability.

Good Branding without Taste
Companies can create appealing brand identities while their actual product experience remains uninspired.

• Example: A social media app with trendy marketing might still have counterintuitive navigation and poorly integrated features. The branding attracts users, but the product itself lacks thoughtful design.

Creating Product Differentiation Through Taste and High Standards

To be clear, a company can succeed without prioritizing taste. Microsoft products are widely recognized for lacking taste, yet remain among the top 5 tech companies globally.

But when you prioritize good taste, you gain a fiercely loyal customer base and significant word-of-mouth marketing.

Here's how some companies have differentiated themselves through taste and high standards:

Product Marketing Examples

1. Apple's Think Different Campaign: This campaign wasn't just about selling computers; it celebrated visionary individuals, artists, and thinkers who challenged the status quo. This resonated with a "taste" for innovation, creativity, and a certain counter-cultural spirit.
   1. The high standards were reflected in the quality of Apple's products and the aspirational image they cultivated. This aligns with Jobs' idea of bringing more "culture" and a sense of something beyond mere functionality to their products.
   2. Jobs preferred a values-based marketing approach. He believed brands must reflect purpose and belief. Apple’s marketing under his leadership weren’t slogans, they were operating principles.
   3. Fun fact: The autobiography of a Yogi was the only book on his iPad and he asked for it to be handed out at his memorial service. The book’s teachings on simplicity and inner clarity deeply informed his design sense.
2. Aesop's Brand Approach: Aesop is a subsidiary of L’Oreal, and is a cosmetics brand that produces skincare, haircare and fragrance products.
   1. Aesop’s marketing goes beyond simply listing product benefits. They craft narratives around their ingredients, their scientific approach, and their commitment to sensory experiences.
   2. Their retail spaces are designed with a consistent, understated aesthetic, often incorporating natural materials and a sense of calm. This reflects a "taste" for intellectualism, natural quality, and a refined sensory experience, moving beyond mere product pushing.
   3. Their high standards are evident in the quality of their formulations and the thoughtful design of their packaging and retail environments.

Product Design Examples

1. IKEA's Democratic Design: IKEA differentiates itself not just on price, but on a design philosophy that blends form, function, quality, sustainability, and affordability.
   1. Their Scandinavian-inspired aesthetic is a distinct "taste" that resonates with a global audience seeking clean, minimalist, and practical design. This isn't about luxury; it's about a well-considered approach to everyday living, making good design accessible.
   2. Their high standards are maintained through efficient manufacturing and a focus on user-friendly functionality. The "taste" here lies in democratizing good design principles.
2. OXO's Kitchen Utensils: OXO revolutionized everyday kitchen tools by focusing on universal design principles. Their "taste" is in the intelligent and accessible design that improves everyday tasks.
   1. Their ergonomic handles, thoughtful functionality, and clean aesthetics demonstrate a "taste" for user-centered design that prioritizes comfort and ease of use for everyone.
   2. Their products aren't necessarily high-end in price, but their design reflects a deep understanding of user needs and a commitment to creating well-designed, practical tools.

How to Measure Taste?

Evaluating taste can be subjective. For those who practice and understand its impact, however, it becomes less ambiguous.

Look for these four traits:

✅ 1. Originality in design and function (incl. connecting branding with cognitive empathy)

✅ 2. Cultural relevance (context and values that resonates with your target users)

✅ 3. Quality craftsmanship (high standards of quality)

✅ 4. Pleasing user experience (both pre-sales and post-sales)

For software products, quality craftsmanship can be measured through:

• Code reliability and performance (low bug rates, fast execution)
• Consistency across features and platforms
• Attention to edge cases
• Thoughtful architecture decisions
• Precise implementation of design specifications

For physical products like cars, it's measured through:

• Material selection and durability
• Manufacturing precision
• Fit and finish details
• Functional reliability (consistent performance in varied conditions)
• Longevity under normal usage

Both share measurements of reliability, consistency, and thoughtful implementation, but diverge in how these manifest based on the medium.

Nuance: Developing taste in your products is often a journey, not a destination. You can prioritize certain taste traits initially based on your market position, then develop others as you mature. The most innovative products rarely check all four boxes from day one, unless emerging at a unique market inflection point. Apple in the 90s exemplifies this exception, differentiating against Microsoft using all four taste traits after computers had already become mainstream.

The Tesla Cybertruck is my favorite case study to explain how to measure taste.

Tesla Cybertruck: Does it have Taste?

Its sharp angles and minimalist, almost brutalist design are undeniably unique. From a taste perspective, it's polarizing.

The design draws from utilitarian and science fiction concepts, representing a specific taste for raw, functional aesthetics over sculpted, refined forms.

Some view the Cybertruck as a bold, futuristic statement that deliberately challenges conventional automotive design taste. Others see it as impractical and alienating to traditional truck buyers.

However, I think the Cybertruck's radical departure from conventional automobile design limits its mainstream appeal. Undeniably, it has generated significant buzz and attracted a dedicated fanbase. Yet, its aesthetic hasn't resonated with large segments of the traditional truck market.

A product with debatable taste will prove itself over time.

Whether the Cybertruck becomes widely embraced remains uncertain. They have significant issues to address.

Currently, the Tesla Cybertruck checks only 2 of the 4 key traits of taste:

1. originality ✅
2. cultural relevance ✅
3. quality craftsmanship ⁉️ No. Recently, regulators forced Tesla recalled nearly all Cybertrucks due to a safety issue with the stainless steel exterior panels that could detach while driving
4. pleasing user experience ⁉️ No. It has consistently struggled with providing a good user experience, both pre-sale and post-purchase
   1. The unconventional design and materials present several production challenges. Acquiring a Cybertruck is not an ideal experience today, and it could potentially not be a thing you can acquire in the future
   2. The Cybertruck's maintenance requirements create inconveniences. It requires specialized care during sunlight and rain, for example

In contrast, Tesla's standard (non-truck) models demonstrate all the traits of good taste, except high standards.

1. originality ✅
2. cultural relevance ✅
3. quality craftsmanship ⁉️ No. Tesla owners have repeatedly reported significant issues with build quality
4. pleasing user experience ✅

Despite the build quality challenges, Tesla has managed to create a loyal customer base around its standard flagship models through thoughtful design and user experience.

Overall, in my books, Tesla comes very close to becoming a company that can lead with taste (once they fix their build quality issues). It's because Tesla integrates technology as design. If you’ve driven any one of their regular flagship models (not the Cybertruck), you probably fell in love with it due its focus on user experience. Their large touchscreen interface and intuitive software create a seamless experience. Tesla doesn't just add technology, they integrate it into the vehicle's core design. There is a lot of originality and thoughtfulness in how Tesla designs its cars.

Cultivating Taste in Your Work

Perfectionism paralyzes. High standards elevate. Taste differentiates.

The most successful products combine thoughtful taste with disciplined standards, while avoiding perfectionism's trap of endless revision.

"You’re what you eat.” To develop your own taste:

1. Study products you admire across industries. Focus on the nuances and intentionality of their design decisions
2. Ask why certain designs resonate with users. Understand cognitive biases and how they shape perceptions of value and quality in products
3. Consider cultural context in everything you create
4. Focus on originality over imitation

"It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you are doing."
- Steve Jobs

To maintain high standards without falling into perfectionism:

• Set clear criteria for "good enough"
• Celebrate progress and shipping
• Learn from feedback rather than fearing it. Gather diverse feedback early and often, using it to improve rather than validate
• Remember that great products evolve over time

The best builders know when to polish and when to ship. They understand that taste creates loyal followers, high standards ensure quality, and overcoming perfectionism lets great ideas reach the world.

What would you create if you embraced taste, maintained standards, and abandoned perfectionism?