Essentials
I couldn’t fall asleep last night. I had an epiphany. I grabbed my phone, opened SilverBullet and quickly jotted down a formula. “I need to remember this in the morning,” I thought. Little did I know that the morning was still far out. Plenty of time to start applying
There’s a rare gem buried in most companies’ secondary benefits: the training budget. Every year we’re allowed to spend a certain amount on “personal development.” Traditionally the intention of these budgets is to send you off on some training course, or attend a conference. However, it’s 2023.
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“We have this amazing idea. We’re going to apply the model of Tinder to... the jobs market! Tinder for Jobs, it’s a slam dunk!” It’s 2018, and I’m being pitched a new job. The product pitch is clear: we’re going to revolutionize the job market
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“Oh, you’re doing OKRs? Sweet. Ah, a feature lists masquerading as key results. Classic mistake. It’s where we were in my previous place two years ago. I know how to fix this, allow me to fast forward you two years. You’re welcome.” In the new place, I
Yesterday I accepted a job offer. I’ll start in a few weeks, and I’m very excited about it. I’ll share more specifics when I can, but not today. The search is over. I’m happy and relieved. As I’m still processing this, let me dump an
Dear recruiter, dear potential employer, dear future self, I’m reaching out to you during likely one of the more stressful periods of my life. I may be casually interviewing to “see what else is out there,” or may recently have been laid off, with no money in the bank,
Leaving a company is like attending your own funeral — people say the nicest things about you. Just a little late. I was laid off yesterday. I had hoped the lay-off epidemic sweeping across the industry right now would pass by Mattermost, but it didn’t, and I’m one of
“If you treat me like a boss, we will struggle. If you treat my like a colleague, we can do great things together.” Boy, do I wish I was quoting myself here, but I’m not. This is a quote attributed to somebody in my team who said it — so
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I get my best ideas while taking showers or taking walks. If you feel you don’t get enough great ideas, start taking showers. People around you will appreciate it for other reasons as well. And take walks too. Exercise you know. However, contrary to what you may have assumed
Some time ago I wrote about the challenge to turn punch holes into dynamic islands. A fun subset of this problem space is to frame tasks that may appear as chores as life altering experiences. At some point I’m sure I’ll do a world tour asking audiences to
I was an admirer or Steve Jobs. The amount of creativity that he inspired made a huge difference to modern-day technology. To me, he was the ultimate example of a charismatic leader. However, I fear he was better at telling time than that he was at clock building. And as
When I moved into a leadership role at my first start-up, I was recommended to read “Leadership is an Art” by Max Depree. One of the fist sentences in this book always stuck with me: The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. Huh? What do you mean
