Boris Cherny (Creator of Claude Code): "Latent demand is the single most important principle in product, especially in Facebook's successful products. Every single one has an element of latent demand.
For example, Marketplace. It came from this observation that if you looked at Facebook groups at the time, 40% of the posts were buying and selling stuff. Facebook groups were not designed for commerce, but that's what people were using it for.
It's kind of cool. Like, you design this product in a way that can be hacked. It can be abused by users a little bit, and then you look at the data, you see how they're abusing it, and then you build a product around it.
I think Facebook dating was pretty similar. I think the observation was something like 60% of profile views were people of the opposite gender that were not friends with each other, kind of like creeping on each other.
The principle in product is you can never get people to do something they do not yet do. You can find the intent that they have, and then you can steer it to let them better kind of capitalize on that intent."
@bcherny