On building of All Trades

It offers flexibility and scalability for businesses. Companies can adjust their workforce easily, scaling up or down without long-term commitments. This approach also reduces the need for routine employee management tasks like performance reviews and social events.

Another key factor is cost efficiency – hiring freelancers can be more economical... See more

Michael Houck • Startups are Experiments

On choosing different org structures and hiring models for your businesses

How can I maintain my creativity, optimism, intellectual vitality, and sense of agency in the face of the stress that comes from building a company and the endless forces luring towards conformity?

We start raw, then our hearts and minds get boiled by constraints, pressure, feedback, and challenges. How do we keep our head up and maintain our... See more

sari azout • My Favorite Questions

Different backgrounds, different views, different experiences. The best teams are diverse. These are the ingredients that spark innovation.

Daniel Rizea • Top 5 Learnings After Mentoring 100 Startups

Diversity of backgrounds can also mean diversity of generalist vs. specialist skillsets. Generalists become multi-functional, bringing domain expertise from corners that you might least expect it.

Very, very many people at Stripe today are doing a quite different job to the one that they join for. In order to do that they've often had to learn a lot and stretch themselves into new areas.

Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)

The actual measures of productivity that might be useful range quite a bit:

I did enough to not get fired.

I did enough to get promoted.

I did enough to get hired by a better firm.

I solved a problem for a customer who was frustrated.

I changed the system and now my peers are far more productive.

I invented something that creates new possibilities and

PW 5: Measuring the right thing

At the end of the day, having an exciting vision (even one where illegibility is an asset) does not exempt us from building a product that people actually want.

sari azout • 2023 End of Year Letter

Job titles are just the most visible ladder of them all. It’s interesting that pompous executive job titles were invented during the Victorian era. This is when we started the trend of calling a cleaner a hygiene technician. A bin man became a waste management and disposal technician. Later on, a call-center worker became a communications... See more

Anne-Laure Le Cunff • The tyranny of job titles: from vanity growth to personal growth

Generalists have shirked the the notion of a true job title to fit their work and have followed the thread of providing value and making an impact. No wonder there’s a group of talented professionals hiding in plain sight given how constricting the traditional job titles have become in affirming our professional worth.

First, we get distracted by the inclination to make the group as big as we can imagine. After all, the change is essential, the idea is a good one. It’s for everyone.

Except that’s a trap. Because a group that’s too large cannot be coherent or organized.

Or perhaps, we blink and settle for a group that’s too small. Change requires tension, and if our... See more

Small groups, well organized

On small groups, well organized. An old but new way of building our organizations.

Another emotion I picked up in myself and in others is what feels like we’re floating in space a bit. Since the change is so fundamental and a lot of things aren’t figured out, it’s quite hard to navigate yourself within Buffer currently, since nothing feels “fixed” and ever changing these last few months.

I do get the sense that this is somewhat... See more

How We're Working Without Managers at Buffer

The build is taxing. Empathy with yourself and others who are building alongside you is crucial.