The Observer Effect – Mike Cannon-Brookes

The more complex or valuable is whatever you’re trying to sell, the more important it is for you to build a world around that idea, where other people can walk in, explore, and hang out – without you having to be there with them the whole time. You need to build a world so rich and captivating that others will want to spend time in it, even if you’... See more

We are beating the dealer on this one now at Axios by communicating internally the way we communicate with readers. It started with what we call 5 Big Things—a weekly newsletter, all in Smart Brevity, that details in order of importance what we’re thinking or doing. It is blunt, fun and essential. ... Roy had the genius idea of having every executi

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The only way for me to capture all of it—good ideas, priorities, roadblocks, the dates that people promised to deliver, and the major internal and external heartbeats ahead—was to take notes in every meeting. Longhand. Not on a computer. [See also: Figure 3.5.1, in Chapter 3.5.] Writing by hand was important for me. I wasn’t staring at a screen, ge

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I spend 90% of my time thinking about stories and narratives, and like so many other things, narrative formation is getting decentralized. This is my attempt to figure out what’s happening and where it’s heading.Crafting and telling stories is part of what makes humans humans. Stories let us coordinate across time and space. Stories are undeniably ... See more

So many tech companies have the same problem that Jason did at Apple, MightySignal, and Instacart: it’s hard to grow efficiently when critical knowledge is siloed in outdated docs, back-and-forth emails, and worst of all—in people’s brains. Remote work makes it even harder to deliver, measure, and recommend necessary learning to those who need it.