Gaia Soykok

polymaths are often known as generalists, the knowledge of many disciplines is their speciality.

Building 20 in MIT, was ugly, and disorderly but its residents loved it. a building with a special spirit, a spirit that inspires creativity and the development of ideas

you can design think the best collaborator experience for a group of people at a point in time, and there will still be people who will be left behind. Whenever one more person joins everything changes, and your design might not be relevant anymore.

Herzberg wrote 25 years ago (“One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” January–February 1968), a “KITA”—which, he coyly explains, stands for “kick in the pants”—may produce movement but never motivation.

"Prisoners Dilemma: .... There’s a much better outcome available if they could figure out the coordination, but coordination is hard."

Recent studies emphasize the strategic relevance of identity.8 The concepts of identity and strategyare interlinked in a pragmatic, theoretical and methodological sense. In a pragmatic sense, bothorganizations and their actors ideally need to have a sense of identity when deciding what the goalsand direction of their organization should be, and... See more

consider nontangibel rewards - praise and positive feedback are much less corrosive than cash and trophies

Most execution problems in high-performing teams are because of a lack of strategy or culture misalignment. it is rarely an only execution problem like infrastructure or skills gap.

Gokul is against VP and Director titles because there is where the conflict comes from and giving titles too early in a startup. Just call them by the function so people know what they are doing. Lead and Head of are more adequate.