October 15, 2025
Rethinking the “Picasso Napkin” Story
There’s a (probably apocryphal) story about Picasso that often makes the rounds in my space.
Here’s an example from Reddit:
Picasso is sketching at a park. A woman walks by, recognizes him, and begs for her portrait. Somehow, he agrees. A few minutes later, he hands her the sketch. She is elated, excited about how wonderfully it captures the very essence of her character, what beautiful work it is, and asks how much she owes him. “5000 francs, madam,” says Picasso. The woman is incredulous, outraged, and asks how that’s even possible given it only took him 5 minutes. Picasso looks up and, without missing a beat, says: “No, madam, it took me my whole life.”
Professional service providers (especially older ones) tend to love this story because they interpret it as some sort of dunk on clients who don’t place any value on experience.
They fantasize that the time they’ve spent honing their craft is credible basis for charging higher fees.
As cute as this story might be, the market provides plenty of evidence that this is not how things work.
(ASIDE: Don’t believe me? The next time a prospective client balks at your price, say, “Oh yeah? Lemme tell you a little story about Picasso...” I’m pretty sure they won’t find it persuasive.)
Here’s the thing...
Almost everyone misses the point of the Picasso Napkin story.
They think the key point is that Picasso created a “beautiful work” that “captured the essence” of the lady, and therefore he should get paid for the years of experience it took him to do such a thing.
But that’s completely wrong.
The key point of the story is not that Picasso is TALENTED.
The key point of the story is that Picasso is FAMOUS.
Reread the story... the most important line is this (bold mine):
“A woman walks by, recognizes him, and begs for her portrait.”
Take that line out and there’s no story.
A talented but unrecognized artist could have been sitting there all day long sketching “beautiful” portraits that “captured the essence” of the subjects and the woman probably would’ve just kept walking.
This may sound unfair, but it’s almost never enough to merely do great work.
If you want to charge more than anybody else, it helps quite a bit to be FAMOUS for doing great work.
Yours,
—J