💡 My 2024 in Music
My 2024 in Music I love reading end-of-year music wrap-ups from the personal blogs I follow (two highlights this year include the posts by Sarah K. Moore and...
💡 A career ending mistake (and more)
A career ending mistake This is lovely post by John Arundel (“Come for the schadenfreude, stay for the thought-provoking advice” indeed!). I especially like...
💡 How to Make Planning Better (and more)
Hey friends, just a quick note here this week. It seems like the Product People have finally arrived on Bluesky! There’s been so much activity there over the...
💡 A Deadly Gravitational Pull in PLG B2B (and more)
The Cure Deliver the Power-Doom Epic We’ve Been Waiting For Great Rolling Stone review of a perfect late-career album by The Cure : ‘Songs of a Lost World’...
💡 “The kids are too soft” (and more)
“The kids are too soft” This is another amazing AHP essay , this time about the critiques of Gen Z employees: I’ve long argued that the critique of younger...
💡 Talking to customers (and more)
Bulding a quick “Guess Who I Am” AI game, and the trouble with prompt writing As I spend more time building little AI projects, I’ve become fascinated with...
💡 Why competent workers become incompetent managers (and more)
Why competent workers become incompetent managers This isn’t a new revelation , but it’s helpful to see research to back up how important good managers are:...
💡 Executive translation (and more)
Executive translation This is excellent advice from Will Larson: Many high-agency managers try to prevent executives from doing silly things, but it’s almost...
💡 Introducing “Listen To More”
Introducing “Listen to More” Things have been a bit quiet on the blog, and there are couple of reasons for that. The first is that I’m still ramping up in my...
💡 Trust as a bottleneck to growing teams quickly (and more)
Trust as a bottleneck to growing teams quickly I am a big believer in “moving at the speed of trust” with teams. You cannot shortcut the work to build strong...
💡 High-reaching informality and the difference a good manager makes (and more)
High-reaching informality and the difference a good manager makes Neil Perkin tackles some important leadership points in High-reaching informality (emphasis...
💡 You are not your team’s umbrella (and more)
You are not your team’s umbrella Two recent articles about engineering management stuck with me because they complement each other well to articulate a...
💡 Link roundup: leadership anti-patterns, communication when trust is low, clarity for product managers (and more)
Link roundup: leadership anti-patterns, communication when trust is low, clarity for product managers I’ve been pretty bad at sharing what I’m reading over...
💡 Don’t cancel your 1:1s (and more)
Don’t cancel your 1:1s I’ve linked to and written about the importance of 1:1 meetings before, and here’s another reminder: The long game of building a...
💡 A few tips for job seekers (and more)
A few tips for job seekers I am in the process of hiring for a couple of roles at Cloudflare, so I’ve been talking to a lot of candidates over the past few...
💡 The compounding, non-obvious value of doing exceptional work (and more)
The compounding, non-obvious value of doing exceptional work In Crazy Charlie’s Window Michael Lopp says something that has stuck with me for a couple of...
💡 How to move into Product Management at your company (and more)
How to move into Product Management at your company I am currently in the process of hiring a product manager for my team at Cloudflare. One of the neat...
💡 System Diagrams are Performance Caches for Cognitive Load (and more)
System Diagrams are Performance Caches for Cognitive Load I recently mentioned how I like to draw it until it works when I’m ramping up on a new system....
💡 Move at the speed of trust (and more)
Move at the speed of trust Mandy Brown nails it, once again: One of the principles I come back to over and over is adrienne maree brown’s invitation to move...
💡 Make better documents (and more)
Hey friends, Today I'm coming to you from San Francisco during week 2 of my new role at Cloudflare! So not a lot of time for a preamble except to say that...
💡 Books and newsletters that shape my thinking (and more)
Hey friends, We have a bit of a lighter newsletter this week as I have been "between jobs", as they say. I am starting a new role tomorrow, so I spent the...
💡 Building Engineering (and more)
Building Engineering This is a really great post by Ben Werdmuller. On the surface it’s about Building Engineering, but it’s mostly about good leadership and...
💡 Can AI therapists do better than the real thing? (and more)
Can AI therapists do better than the real thing? My wife is a therapist, so the story Can AI therapists do better than the real thing? (oh hello,...
💡 On kindness and decisiveness (and more)
On kindness and decisiveness Mike Fisher reminds us how important it is for leaders to be excellent listeners in Listen or Speak. This part particularly...
💡 Explorations On Leadership (and more)
Explorations On Leadership Big +1 from me on James Whatley’s thoughts on leadership in the latest edition of his Five things on a Friday newsletter:...
💡 How Asana and Slack’s meeting purges have paid off (and more)
How Asana and Slack’s meeting purges have paid off The importance of async work and cutting down on meetings to allow for more Deep Work time won’t be new to...
💡 Organizational health is (still) the key to long-term performance, and more
Organizational health is (still) the key to long-term performance This is an excellent read from McKinsey. It turns out that, unsurprisingly, organizational...
💡 Say the quiet part out loud: simplifying communication in high context environments, and more
Say the quiet part out loud: simplifying communication in high context environments The Culture Map by Erin Meyer is a great book about how to improve...
💡 No running in airports, and more
No running in airports Every time I travel, just before I leave the house, I do a weird thing. I stop at the front door of our house, look myself in the...
💡 South African sunsets, fixing systems not people, and Sales is your friend
Hello friends, and Happy New Year! We are back from our long trip to South Africa (see below for some sunset photos), and re-entry has been—as you might...
💡 Feature/Product fit, how to ship fast, and a great communication framework for leaders
Hi friends, This is probably the last time you'll hear from me this year. On Wednesday we are flying to South Africa for our first family trip back "home"...
💡 Sales-first storytelling, Zoom fatigue, and replacing product managers
Hello friends 👋 I'm going to be traveling this week so I'm sending the email roundup slightly earlier than usual. I also wanted to mention (for my fellow...
💡 You are probably not one feature away from success
Hello friends 👋 Well, this is neat. I used the long weekend to finally switch my RSS-to-Email platform from Mailchimp to Buttondown, and I'm so happy I...