Johanna

No matter what, as the organization grows, people get disconnected — they have no idea what other people are working on, or what their job entails.Getting a very brief, high-level summary of what each team did last week solves these problems.

Open-minded people see disagreement as a thoughtful means to expand their knowledge. They don’t get angry or upset at questions; rather, they want to identify where the disagreement lies so they can correct their misperceptions. They realize that being right means changing their minds when someone else knows something they don’t.If you recognize... See more

Hiring is all about probabilities. When we evaluate a candidate, we are basically just trying to predict whether that candidate will be a success in the position being filled. We're trying to know the future, but we have no prophets and no Oracle.

“No one comes into work and says, ‘Today I’m going to push a change that’s going to break the site,’ or ‘I’m going to hire someone I know I’ll let go in six months.’ But these things happen. Good intentions don’t fill the gap between what your employees want to accomplish and all the mistakes that inevitably seem to occur.

Even if you have a candidate that would be brilliant at doing your particular task, but wouldn’t be very good in another team, that’s a No Hire. In software, things change so often and so rapidly that you need people that can succeed at just about any programming task that you throw at them.

As the market got bigger, the rewards for winning were greater. The best widget producers of the 19th century made significantly more wealth than the best in the 18th century, even if they took over less of the market. This is why wealth inequality soared when capitalism went global in the 20th century. Potential markets grew to astronomical size,... See more

Instead of having a dozen semi-close friends, get to know hundreds of people casually through meetups and via the internet, and make a small group of really close friends you see many times a week.