Shishir Mehrotra
The Eigenquestion
Inspired by Shishir Mehrotra episode
Shishir Mehrotra asks teams to find their eigenquestion - the one question that, if answered, makes other questions easier. Every family has one too.
Shishir Mehrotra introduced eigenquestion thinking at Coda. It's the foundational question that, once answered, makes everything else click. For a product team, it might be "who is this really for?" Answer that, and feature debates resolve.
Every family has an eigenquestion. Figure out yours and you'll stop having the same fight seventeen different ways. Maybe it's "are we raising them to be kind or successful?" Maybe "are we optimizing for their comfort or their growth?" Maybe "short-term peace or long-term skills?"
Playground. Your kid wants to quit the monkey bars after one attempt. Push them or let them move on? Check the eigenquestion. Bedtime drama over another story? Check it. Struggle with the shoe or do it because you're late? Eigenquestion.
Once you've answered it, you stop reinventing parenting from scratch every single day. You've got a framework. Not a rigid rule. A question that points you somewhere when you're too tired to think.
Find your family's eigenquestion. Then actually answer it.
