The (very excellent website) The Pudding recently did an analysis of Rolling Stone's top albums of all time and it's a great reminder of what you can learn from "top x lists" or "best y" awards. Hint: it's not "what's the best" Definitely check out the whole article, but below is a pretty revealing comparison. On top are the albums sor...

Kate Wagner (most well known for McMansion Hell) is assigned to attend and write about an F1 Grand Prix race: She writes ~5,500 words and they're wonderful. Evocative, funny, insightful. She manages to capture something true (sometimes flattering, sometimes not) about Formula 1. Some samples: “I think if you wanted to turn someone into...

Cirque du Soleil has become a whole thing at this point, but back in the day (1999), it was just a Canadian circus that was doing things a little differently. It was still in a ring, featured well paced aerial and acrobatic acts, but it was intercut with some weird characters in interesting costumes. Denis Lacombe performs an absolute ...

The tweet below from Shreyas struck a chord with me, because it's so true. It took me a while to figure this out (even though I was never able to articulate it this succinctly, even to myself). We tend to think that our problems are special but look for generic solutions. We say "well we tried this before, you haven't considered this q...

It strikes me that “nature vs. nurture” is a silly distinction that mostly sticks around because it sounds catchy. (Or because people have some deeper agenda or justification they’re going for) Of course It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. Nature is the hand that parents deal their children. Nurture is how the people raising the child t...

The concept of AI (or machine learning or algorithms or whatever you feel like calling them) have become a catchall for all sorts of problems and fears. Many of them aren't really problems with AI at all, but issues with capitalism or the internet generally, or just...you know...people. That being said, Ben Evans does an admirable job ...

Sometimes I have trouble putting into words how much I loved No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. It's as if she can read the zeitgeist and is just writing it down. The best I can do is share a few quotes from the book. Here's 40. Hopefully by the time you get to the end, you've concluded that you should read it too. “Why...

I never liked the phrase "ruthlessly prioritize" when it comes to scoping a product's features (or anything prioritization-related for that matter). It's too violent. It implies that you should be unfeeling and cruel when in fact that opposite is true. The best approach involves deepening your empathy to understand the problem. Then st...

It could be that we keep mistaking the map for the territory because maps are where the money is. The experience of being alive isn’t really monetizable. It’s literally “invaluable.” So if people (or capitalists) are going to make any money off of something so universal and important as being alive, they need to focus others (their cus...

faith in humanity: RESTORED I'm only half joking, but if humanity can produce something as majesitc as a machine specifically for wobbling jelly, then surely we can solve climate change and poverty.

One way of thinking about the "$3500 for this thing is way too much no matter what it does" is comparing it to the cost of the original iPhone. This is not to say the Vision Pro will have the same world changing effect as the iPhone, but the price thing becomes less of an issue when you do the math. In 2007 when the iPhone was launched...

Come for the Spiderman-style webslinging, Battlestar Galactica-style secret plots, and Godzilla-style kaiju battles. Stay for the meditations on intergenerational trauma, the cycle of violence, and free will. In Japanese, the title of the manga (and later the anime) is 進撃の巨人 or Shingeki no Kyojin. This translates literally to "The Adva...

Priority (what is important) and sequence (what should get done first) are two different (albeit related) concepts that are often conflated with each other. Distinguishing which one you're talking about helps immensely. It helps when collaborating with others, obviously. But it even clarifies my own thinking. X might be the most import...

Software development is fun when your team can go fast. You see ideas turn into reality, you watch as customers like (or don't care about) stuff you put in their hands, you iterate based on customer feedback, and it just plain feels good. So increasing the autonomy, efficiency and velocity of your team is crucial. But it's hard. You ca...

Curb cuts are the canonical example of how building products with accessibility in mind ultimately makes life better for everyone. It's not just about making a special accommodation for people with permanent disabilities. There are also knock on effects for people with: • "temporary" disabilities (like being on crutches) • situational ...

The more you want to get something out of life, the less likely you are to get it. Just like a Chinese finger trap. The harder you pull your fingers to get them out, the more stuck they get.

Readwise Reader is an incredible app. It's coming out of private beta this week and if you read on the internet (if you're reading this, that probably means you) you should give it a try. It's made saving, managing, highlighting, and remixing everything I read for work and pleasure much easier and MUCH more fun. RSS, newsletters, PDFs,...

The most unrealistic part of fantasy stories is that there are people in them who think magic is amazing or special. Anyone who has: • graduated from school • taken out a loan • gotten married • had a kid • used a passport has done magic. What did you think you were doing when you imbued your sigil on a piece of parchment with special ...

Alan Watts was a translator of Eastern philosophy to Western audiences. There were many who did the same, but what took him to another level was that we talked philosophy like a standup comedian. He described deep truths the way a Jerry Seinfeld crafts jokes. Masterfully using tension. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxDNW...

Check out this video of a fan talking about catching Aaron Judge's 60th home run ball. At 0:53 a reporter asks "Do you have any expectations about catching the ball and receiving anything in return?" Michael, the fan gets visibly emotional and replies, "No." "Just wanted to give him back...it's a success story...so any way I could give...

A post by Sheila O'Malley reminded me of a subtle lesson from my theater days: "It's for the audience to decide." Most people get into something (theater, product, engineering, history, philosophy, sports) because it moves them in some way and they want to bring that feeling to others. But you can't feel it for the audience/reader/list...

The Ulster County Board of Elections has 3/4 of a McBoatface on their hands. 1. Participatory poll or contest 2. Entry that is within the rules but not what the admins intended, yet captures the spirit of the contest 3. Entry goes viral 4. Admins accept and celebrate the winner Much attention is paid to the way in which internet mobs c...

👆what most cross-functional planning meetings can feel like i love the way ideas collide on twitter. Ted Gioia wrote about sophistry in his newsletter and it clarified something in the impact/execution/optics framework that Shreyas Doshi talks about: it's not about moral judgements (impact = good, optics = bad) it's about what the PM v...

There are so many problems to solve in any organization. It’s exciting to jump in, identify something that needs to solving, and fix it in your own unique way. But there’s a common trap (one I’ve fallen into several times): creating a Values Oasis. Will Larson gives an example of a Values Oasis: ““A few years ago, I heard an apocryphal...

This is a repost from May 2020. I've moved on from this job, but the lessons still ring true. Below is a summary (if you can call 2,600 words a "summary") of how my development team and I used some of the ideas from Basecamp's Shape Up to improve our process. If you'd like a summary of all the techniques in Shape Up, here's a good one ...

Dunking on politicians is easy because everyone can agree that although they are given a lot of power, they almost never know what they're talking about. Putting aside truly malignant politicians, they can seem like Lenny from Of Mice and Men: powerful, meaning well, but ultimately ignorant of the ramifications of their power. The appr...

It can seem like there's a catch-22 when trying to break into product. You feel like you won't get an opportunity to do product if you don't have any product experience and you can't get any product experience if you aren't given an opportunity to do product. But it only seems like a catch-22 if you make an incorrect assumption. The tr...

This tweet from Visakanv resonated with me. However you do it, preventing imposter syndrome from being a significant factor in your thinking and doing is one of the most important things you can do for your friendships, career, and life in general. It was for me. This goes beyond the quaint realization that EVERYONE from the new kid in...

You can call it privilege. You can call it utopianism. You can call it self-regard. Whatever you call it, people have a blind spot that I see pop up over and over again. We tend to view our relationship with the world as a one-way street, when it actually goes in both directions. For whatever reason (egotism? present bias?), it's easy ...

If you haven't seen Ted Lasso yet, I envy you. You have a fantastic experience to look forward to. The premise is somewhat silly and simple (which makes sense because it's based on a series of commercials promoting Premier League Football in the United States). An American football coach becomes the coach for a British football (i.e. s...