hiring, meetings, etc

Problems should come from success, or being on the brink of success rather than being invented by some intellectual quest.

I try to conduct references with an eye to quirky forms of excellence.

During interviews, I try to create a stillness that helps separate signal from noise, elephants from riders. The easiest way to create conditions of stillness is to talk very little. It also helps to have the candidate you’re trying to see clearly ask you questions. Questions have very high signal value compared to most anything else you can get... See more

As a rule, in a corporate environment, never signal that you buy the dream or that you crave an audience, as each of these can be provided at little to no cost for the employer and for little or no lasting benefit to you. Instead, signal that you crave the two things of real, lasting value a quality employer can offer: a learning environment and,... See more

I think a lot of different things can work and what's really important is that you find a style that's suitable to you and the context you operate in. Copying what's worked for someone else is unlikely to work for you

Questions like “what are you compulsive about?” can sometimes reveal the other person’s elephant. Or: “Where have you experienced a moment of ignition, when you saw some older person doing an activity and you intuited that they were wired the same way you were, and you said to yourself ‘I want to be that’?” Or: “How would your spouse/sibling/parent... See more

When something isn’t getting done, it’s because the person a) doesn’t have the time b) doesn’t have the skill or c) has some sort of psychological block. The third case is surprisingly common.