Philip Soriano
@philip
Philip Soriano
Our identity, then, is not, after all, something we can bestow on ourselves. We cannot discover or create an identity in isolation, merely through some kind of internal monologue. Rather, it is negotiated through dialogue with the moral values and beliefs of some community. We find ourselves in and through others. “We never get to the bottom of
... See moreTimothy Keller • Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World
Organizations rarely fail because people lack confidence. They fail because no one is willing, or able, to say no.
With immense honor, my wife Eva and I are beyond thrilled to announce our recent donation of Chris Burden's Path to Xanadu to @LACMA, now part of the museum’s permanent collection!
Matt Zhang • Tweet
a great prompt...
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You are a hyper-rational, first-principles problem solver with:
- Zero tolerance for excuses, rationalizations or bullshit
- Pure focus on deconstructing problems to fundamental truths
- Relentless drive for actionable solutions and results
- No regard for conventional wisdom or "common
... See moreThey Architect the Way Work Gets Done
Bezos redesigned work to create a system of independent, decoupled teams who were guided by a set of hows dramatically different from prior practices at Amazon and other large tech companies. For example, most software companies require teams to utilize one another’s code to increase efficiency. To increase velocity and reduce dependency, Amazon does the opposite: Its software teams are mostly free to choose whether they use common services or create their own building blocks of code. This results in duplicative work and some inconsistencies in the user experience, but Bezos justifies it by saying he’d “rather have two than none.”
Some of Amazon’s managerial innovations have become celebrated. For example,
teams adhere to the “two-pizza rule,” limiting team size to only as many people as can be fed by two pizzas (typically eight or fewer).
PowerPoint presentations are forbidden because they lull participants into passivity; instead, Amazon requires every proposal to be written in a narrative memo of six pages or fewer, to deliver more detailed thinking than is typically found in slide presentations.
After all the meeting attendees read the memo closely, they have a nonhierarchical, no-holds-barred debate. The goal is to interrogate everything thoroughly, and vigorous dissent is encouraged. Before stepping down as CEO, Bezos participated in hundreds of these meetings himself. Instead of sitting back and waiting for the CEO to make the decision, everyone at Amazon is expected to speak up and disagree—even with Bezos or his successor, Andy Jassy. Once a determination is made, the CEO supports the path forward, knowing that most conclusions are provisional and can be revisited as new information comes in—what Amazon calls “two-way-door decisions.”
This is what we mean when we say leaders architect the way work gets done. It’s not about changing org charts. It’s about shifting decision rights closer to the front lines—and equipping those teams with the tools and frameworks that allow them to act. Those include customer-value metrics, structured memos, and experimentation protocols. It’s difficult work because it often requires leaders to give up control—to redistribute authority, remove approvals, and reduce the frictions that slow teams down. When done well, it promotes speed, clarity, and autonomy—which is why Amazon, a giant company, continues to launch innovative products and services quickly.
All four leaders we studied recognized that frontline teams are key to creating and delivering value for customers, whether they are internal or external. They made it their personal mission to design work processes so that employees are empowered with the tools and support they need and don’t hit obstacles that slow them
Dad deprivation is the main hole in the heart common to boys vulnerable to gangs12 and to boys targeted by sexual predators.
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
We want him to be assertive, but not aggressive; to be empathetic, but not naive; to be “a doer,” but also introspective; to be perseverant, but not stubborn; to be prepared, but not obsessive; to help people, but not enable them . . .
John Gray PhD • The Boy Crisis
Thats a lot to straddle!
The concept of efficiency — how much one can accomplish per unit of time (or per dollar, etc.) — requires a quantitative numerator as well as a denominator. It requires a metric. Therefore, it tells us nothing about results we cannot quantify or measure. When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while... See more
The best way to learn is the opposite of what we're taught.
You don't learn everything, then start. You start, then learn why it did or didn't work. You start with minimum viable knowledge, then experiment, then succeed or fail, then study to understand why.
People dumber than you tend to... See more
DAN KOEsubstack.com