On building of All Trades

Everyone wants to be connected

But we hesitate to be the connector.

Everyone wants to be trusted, but we hesitate to trust.

And everyone wants to be respected, but we often fail to offer our respect.

What an opportunity.

“Why didn’t they simply do the perfect thing on the first attempt?”

The short answer is: that’s not how this works. Things are not linear or clean. We can only asymptote towards perfection through trial and error.

Contrary to what most founders assume, having more resources doesn’t make things easier. Instead, it introduces the challenge of resource allocation — deciding where to invest time, money, and personnel for the best return. As your startup grows, and as you hire more employees, it means you’re going to have more mouths to feed and more people with... See more

There’s a lot of emotional overheard that comes with building a company whose essence is hard to put into words.

It leads to major cost savings for companies. Tech is evolving rapidly, and the truth is that some jobs might become obsolete, making specialized, temporary skills more valuable.

This shift aligns with a cultural change where people are less loyal to long-term employers and more interested in using their skills independently to earn more.

This... See more

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

... See more

I wish when I was at my previous startups I had focused more on building and less on winning. Sure, I may not have done exactly what I had thought I wanted, but finding ways to love the process would’ve allowed for better outcomes anyway. What we want is such an abstract idea, built on a foundation of shifting sand, that it is pointless to try to... See more

With the innovation of the org chart McCallum eased the tradeoff between scale and efficiency that many organizations face as they grow. This new ‘operating system’ for firms operates even more effectively in modern times by leveraging the internet, but the tradeoff between scale and efficiency has not gone away. Structures and processes that work... See more