đź’ˇ You cannot survive poor management (and more)
You cannot survive poor management
Yes, amen to this.
As a manager, be honest to your executives and your reports. Given enough people in your team, there is no tactical decision that will make your engineers work faster. Your only real option is to admit early that your deadline is untenable, and replan by reducing features, or extending deadlines. Whipping your engineers to work harder has never worked, and will ruin their trust in you forever.
Source: You cannot survive poor management 
Essential Reading for Agentic Engineers
Great list of resources here by Pete Steinberger:
These resources will help you master the new paradigm of AI-assisted development, where agents become true collaborators that can handle entire codebases and ship production features. Each piece was chosen for its practical, real-world insights.
I especially appreciate that it’s a combination of articles (yay!) and videos (not for me!), and that he provides a nice overview of each so you can decide if you want to click through or not. Excellent curation, would recommend!
Read Essential Reading for Agentic Engineers
Some Products Just Aren’t Big Companies
This take on the Pocket shutdown resonates with me real hard:
“What began as a read-it-later app”, they assert, “evolved into something much bigger.” That was the whole problem: the mistake that led ultimately to this “difficult decision” by Mozilla. Pocket was a good tool. Its integration with Kobo, another excellent tool, made it that much more valuable to users like me. We didn’t need “something much bigger”. But by trying to turn Pocket into something much bigger, Mozilla actually killed it.
I feel like nothing has changed since I wrote about this kind of thing in… 2012:
This is the core of the disappointment that many of us feel with the Sparrow acquisition. It’s not about the $15 or less we spent on the apps. It’s not about the team’s well-deserved payout. It’s about the loss of faith in a philosophy that we thought was a sustainable way to ensure a healthy future for independent software development, where most innovation happens.
→ Some Products Just Aren’t Big Companies
New advice for aspiring managers
Great advice here for new managers in this wild time we find ourselves in. In general:
Whereas the previous focus of managers was to rapidly hire and scale their teams, today’s focus is on expanding impact. This is because in today’s macroeconomic environment, output is key. In the eyes of a 2025 company, the more that you can do with fewer people, the better. There are very few additional people to go around, so the focus is on how you can help your team do more with less.
James focuses specifically on EMs, but the advice definitely applies to PMs too, so check out his post if this is you!
→ New advice for aspiring managers
Thanks for reading Elezea! If you find these resources useful, I’d be grateful if you could share the blog with someone you like.
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PS. You look nice today 👌