On building of All Trades

People in positions of power have a vested interest in workers keeping their heads down and staying in their lanes. Elite schools and corporations run on the backs of excellent sheep. But when you find other people who are open to less linear definitions of success, it will give you the confidence to keep going. Wander on, fellow traveler. I’m... See more

Simone Stolzoff • In Praise of the Meandering Career

The thing about smart people is that they tend to think that if they think really hard about something, they might figure it out, when the truth is, in strategy (and life in general), there is never one right answer.

Strategy requires making choices about a future that is not yet known. I’m one of those people that tends to over-intellectualize

Sari Azout • Both are true

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.

Self-discovery is all about diving deep and uncovering who you are and what you truly want from life. It’s about finding the principles, passions, and goals that are uniquely rewarding and fulfilling to you.

The aim is not to change into someone else, but to become more of who you already are. To chart a course that is genuinely yours, that brings

Treat your company culture like a product, where your employees are the customers. Rather than preserving the established culture, founders should iterate on cultural principles and values to meet the evolving needs of a growing team. Document, iterate, and clarify cultural elements to reflect past, present, and future aspirations.

Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO)

Management systems have been designed to provide reliability and efficiency, not adaptability and agility. Many of the tools and practices of modern management are geared towards solving problems and eliminating deviations in processes, behaviors, and practices. Because of this framework, management training and leadership development is often... See more

Kotter • Why Change Capability Is The Most Important Missing Competency For Today’s Leaders

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

Learning to thrive in a resilient culture is essential. Being indoctrinated into a rigid and fragile mindset is not.

Manipulation, indoctrination and addiction

A century-long vision allows you to build something that mostly ignores short-lived fluctuations in public perception or personal feelings. With a vision of that duration, you can think outside of yourself. If you couple that with a hum-drum process of Google Sheets and brain-trust meetings, you can build something meaningful.

There is something... See more