I attended a book fair in December. I went to the same fair in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

In the first year, I bought books like Sell Like Crazy, Corporate Chanakya, Hooked, No Rules Rules, etc.,—popular, business-y books anyone would know and recommend.

In 2023, the number decreased. I bought a Chhota Bheem comic, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a short story collection from Ruskin Bond, etc. It was the time I was exploring different formats.

In 2024, I bought only two books—Longitude and The Obesity Code. Both niche books on horology and insulin, which are otherwise boring if not for my interests.

The afterthought; and the Genesis

I was back home from the fair, disappointed I couldn’t buy many books.

I opened my Mac and tried to tweet:

I abandoned the tweet and digged into questions like

• What defines taste?

• Is it truly subjective?

• Is there a way to constantly and consciously improve our taste?

After a lot of YouTubing, Redditing, speaking to people and observing them, asking AI, and most importantly, looking inward at my own behaviour, I articulated ten traits of a person with good taste.

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But first, what the fuck is a taste?

Taste is one of those words you ask a thousand people and get a different answer each time. My first thoughts:

• Agreeability: Does a sizeable population agree what you say is good is good

• Rarity: Do people think what you share is not easily found?

• Notions or Stereotypes: Does your way of doing things tweaks existing notions for good or challenge stereotypes?

Take dressing up, for example.

You might think you donned the hottest pair of sneakers. But that doesn’t mean you have taste. The room thinking, “wow, that’s cool sneakers” makes you a guy with good taste.

The room is the jury. Not you.

The way I see things, I define Taste this way:

Allow me to press on three terms: Circle, Judgment, Prediction.

Circle:

A circle is a specific, clearly defined surrounding. It includes people, places, and culture.

If you speak at a conference, a room with a hundred people is the circle. If you publish film analysis on YouTube, the market that consumes entertainment content becomes your circle. If you recommend a book to one person, then the person himself is the circle.

Get this straight:

The entire circle need not like your opinions, but a sizeable, considerable chunk must.

Judgment and prediction:

Your taste (opinions on a particular subject) can be post-output or pre-output.

Judgment is post-output. It is knowing what movie, painting, book, app, etc., is good after the product is released.

Prediction is pre-output. It is knowing how a product’s final version might perform in a circle. Think of signing a movie after reading the script. Or picking a dress for a wedding three months from now. Or beta testing a product that launches v1 100 days later.

If this is clear, we will move on to the heart of this essay.

How to develop taste?

I derived a hypothesis that works for me. In my strong opinion, this is how you turn into a person with great taste:

1/ Get Strong at Fundamentals

Think sports, filmmaking, photography, app building, fashion, business, cooking, health, etc. All subjects have fundamentals; the traditional techniques that theoretically determine if you’re good at a subject.

You must know all the fundamentals but need not follow them blindly.

Because fundamentals talk about safe, proven approaches that minimize errors. But in no way ensure success or effectiveness.

If that were the case, Bumrah, Steve Smith, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and MS Dhoni would have never been great cricketers.

To follow the textbook or be unorthodox is up to you. But you can only decide if you are a first principles thinker.

2/ Become a First Principles Thinker

The gist of the first principle is to get at the why of everything. It empowers you to skip templates and build your own frameworks.

If a fundamental says you need to follow method A, first principles is asking yourself:

• Why method A? What makes it reliable?

• Why not method B, C, D… or Z?

• Method A is popular but is it applicable in my circle?

3/ Know your moral code

There is no right or wrong—only what you’re okay with and not.

Remember Poonam Pandey’s campaign? Some people argue using death for marketing is insensitive, while others say the campaign delivered the message it was supposed to.

What qualifies as insensitive is a line you draw for yourself.

It matters in taste-building because your moral code makes you take a side and find the right segment in huge circles.

4/ Consume A LOT!

Exposure. If you wish to have good taste in music, listen to all you can. If you wish to predict marketing campaigns’ success, watch as many campaigns as you can.

The volume should be more than what an average person consumes. If you don’t know that number, keep consuming as much as you can, as long as you can.

5/ Analysis and Reasoning

Every time you consume, derive the ‘Because.’

I think X is good because of A, B, C, and so on.

Since you already know fundamentals and have adopted first principles, you constantly validate or search for alternatives.

Give maximum attention to details.

6/ Form Insights

Insight is your broadly applicable statement once you analyze enough cases to notice patterns.

Let’s say you want to develop taste in clothing, and you observe a guy wearing jeans and a black shirt. Then you keep observing multiple men.

7/ Openness to change

After all this, you will be wrong.

Don’t be a rigid person. Take a stand for what you believe while knowing you could be wrong, there is scope for improvement, or exceptions exist.

8/ Taste-Personality Awareness

You might judge a shirt is top-notch in design. But it might not reflect your personality. Even with the coolest shirt, there might be a mismatch.

Taste-Personality Awareness is handy when you use your taste to choose for yourself—books, clothes, and even dates.

Constantly seek feedback to bridge the gap between what you think suits you vs what the circle thinks suits you.

PS: This doesn’t mean you always choose keeping ‘circle’ in mind. Only saying you do things you like, but better.

9/ Have an Eagle’s Eye View of Evolution

Be it sports, politics, science, academics, anything - Know the timeline/history.

If you’re into movies, see how movies have evolved from the 60s to the present. Notice how industries differ traditionally.

You are better positioned to predict how things change when you know how things have changed historically.

10/ Hit the road

The more you talk to people, the more POVs your insights will have.

Join communities that passionately talk about your interests. I suggest Reddit. Spend time with people with better taste than yours.

Endnotes.

Even with this long essay and 100000000 other resources on the internet, great taste is only a result of high-volume exposure with active observation and iterative learning.

I have only articulated what’s obvious, hoping this essay will give you a starting point plus structure.

Good luck in developing taste.

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Love,
Vikra.