The Value of Tools

Tools are often cited as an example of what separates humans from most other animals. And while it’s true that other animals also use tools, humans are a bit unique in that we’ve also developed tools that make tools. My dogs (I have two, Doge and Walter) occasionally utilize tools, but due to their lack of opposable thumbs their tool usage is quite limited. My dogs’ use of tools tends to be limited to acts which involve food or play.

There are much better examples than dogs of animals who employ tools, such as birds using sticks to get at hard-to-catch insects, or how octopuses use coconut shells to build shelters. For humans, however, I’d argue that our creation of tooling is arguably the most clever thing we do. In many ways, the only output of technology are tools: it’s sometimes hard to understand what the purpose of the tool is, and how it works exactly, but nearly everything we build these days is a tool of some form.

Tools as Force Multipliers #

Tools matter because they let us do things our bodies can’t do on their own, or at least not nearly as well. Archimedes famously said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

In terms of our day to day lives, tools provide us with leverage, they allow us to accomplish more with less, we can automate repetitive tasks, and we can of course achieve tooling nirvana by creating tools that make the tools for us.

The Evolution of Tools in the Digital Age #

A lot of big technology companies got big by building tools people kept reaching for:

• Communication tools: The early internet pioneers created email, a way to send electronic mail to anyone anywhere on the globe, which later evolved into instant messaging, arguably one of the most valuable inventions that came out of the internet. What once required physical delivery systems, days of transit, and significant cost became instant and nearly free.

• Information navigation tools: Browsers were developed as a way to visualize and navigate content on the internet through a web of links between documents. The web browser is a tool that unlocked an incredible amount of new technologies by creating a standardized way to access and interact with distributed information.

• Search tools: Google made a search index that used a reputation-based algorithm called “PageRank” (a pun on how one cofounder was named Page) to build a search engine that was remarkably useful at the time. Suddenly you could find some weird page on the open web in seconds instead of stumbling around for it.

• Social tools: Facebook created a simple tool for connecting with friends and family, exchanging messages, sharing photos, arguing about moral panics, political opinions, and spamming your conspiracy theories. While I’m being somewhat facetious, these platforms are remarkably powerful tools for human connection and information sharing.

• Twitter: Created a simple way to broadcast short messages to “followers”—people who willingly subscribe to your content. Despite my personal puzzlement at the format, it’s undeniably a powerful tool for the rapid spread of ideas.

Tools as Media and Message #

Some tools are certainly more useful than others. For example, media is a tool for shaping the global consciousness, sometimes wielded by those with far more power than they deserve, like the modern day media barons and oligarchs. You may have heard the phrase “the medium is the message”, which the BBC also did a nice explainer on, and once understood properly is very difficult to un-understand. The media is not so much about delivering messages, but rather it’s a modern day tool for controlling which messages are permitted to exist in the minds of those who tune in to the media delivery systems.

Marshall McLuhan (of “the medium is the message” fame) also had much to say about ads, recognizing that advertising itself is a tool—one designed to shape perception and desire.

Tools for Creation: Leonardo’s Example #

One well known historical figure was a person named Leonardo from a town called Vinci in the Tuscany region of Italy. During his lifetime he was most well known for his artwork which included paintings and sculptures. Later he became more well known for his writings, contraptions, ideas, and various other creations which we mostly know about through his writings.

What’s interesting about Leonardo’s story is that he invented tools to help create the timeless art we know him for today. The tools he invented allowed him to hide brushstrokes in the Mona Lisa, or present a mythological scene with a non-distorted perspective in The Last Supper. Prior to Leonardo’s use of these techniques, art looked quite wonky to say the least.

Leonardo published his Treatise on Painting with the general theme that painting (perhaps art, more generally) was in fact a science, not an art. One keen observation Leonardo made is presented as the branching rule, which is:

All the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk

What’s most interesting about Leonardo’s observation is that it is, itself, a tool. You can apply this rule as a tool in your own artwork to make your trees look more realistic (if that’s the goal).

Modern Tools That Create Disproportionate Value #

You can see the same pattern all over the place:

1. Development tools: Frameworks like React or Next.js allow developers to build complex web applications with a fraction of the code and time previously required. Version control systems like Git enable collaboration that would be impossible otherwise.

2. No-code tools: Platforms like Webflow, Airtable, and Zapier allow non-technical people to create software solutions that would have required expensive development teams just a few years ago.

3. Creative tools: Digital audio workstations, video editing software, and design applications made it much cheaper and more practical to record music, cut video, or design something decent without renting a studio.

4. AI tools: Systems like GPT for text generation, DALL-E for image creation, or GitHub Copilot for code assistance extend human creativity by handling routine tasks and suggesting possibilities we might not have considered.

5. Productivity tools: Task management systems, note-taking applications, and communication platforms help us externalize our thinking and coordinate with others at unprecedented scales.

The Magic of Abstraction #

At some point the tools become so complex that we forget to think about tools as compositions of other tools either through supply chains or abstractions built atop abstractions, and instead we think of these tools as magic. Software seems to have this modern day appeal as being magical, so much so that we have started referring to any kind of software that appears complex beyond explanation as “AI”. This is especially valuable to sales and marketing people who are trying to ride the AI hype wave which seems to have had a new renassaince recently thanks to some recent advances in text generation.

The most powerful tools often hide their complexity through abstraction. The smartphone in your pocket can do things that used to require a backpack full of separate devices, and most of us don’t know much about how any of it works. That layer of abstraction is a tool too: it lets you use the thing without studying the whole stack first.

Value Creation Through Tools #

To sum up my core thesis in this rambling essay, I think the greatest value from technology is the creation of tools. The act of creation of any kind (whether it’s art, tooling, food, or anything else that is new or novel) is the highest form of value creation. Merely hoarding wealth doesn’t create value, because money is imaginary and on its own it cannot create anything, unless you use that money to pay someone who is creative and has the skills to create new things like tools and art and cooking techniques that produce delicious foods.

The tools I keep valuing most tend to have a few things in common:

1. They provide significant leverage, allowing users to accomplish much more with less effort
2. They lower barriers to creation, enabling more people to participate
3. They solve real problems that people encounter in their work or lives
4. They often become platforms upon which other tools can be built
5. They frequently disappear into the background, becoming infrastructure we take for granted

If you want to build something useful, build a tool that solves an actual problem or opens up some new technical possibility. The really interesting ones make it easier for other people to build too.

Maybe that’s the real trick humans are good at: making tools, then making better tools with those tools, and repeating the process. I’d rather see that aimed at something hard and worthwhile than at another layer of bullshit.