Oct 8, 2025 · 2 min read · Credit to Sue Ko who taught me this many years ago. Gratitude circles are a beautiful way to get team members feel seen by their peers. I run them in-person at least once a year with each of my teams. Quote from one of my engineers after their first ...
Join discussionSep 11, 2025 · 1 min read · 1. Know all your details Know and be able to speak to all the details. Review your own work and ask yourself what somebody else might ask you about it, then make sure you have a solid answer to all those questions. Even things that are technically ou...
Join discussionJun 27, 2025 · 3 min read · I’ve been deep-diving into Duolingo for a while now, and honestly, I’ve been obsessed with figuring out what exactly makes it so ridiculously successful. It’s not just a language app; it’s a global phenomenon! After spending way too many hours on it ...
Join discussion
Jan 30, 2025 · 1 min read · Send me messages whenever inspiration strikes or when it makes sense for your workflow. I'll respond when I'm back online. This isn't about being "always on," quite the opposite: it's about respecting that we each know how to structure our own work l...
Join discussionJan 7, 2025 · 1 min read · Kanban board with five columns: Inbox, Backlog, Blocked, Delegated, Done Most importantly: GTD-style “if it takes less than 2 minutes, do it immediately.” Create todos for everything (and I mean, everything, including replying to people) that go in...
Join discussionOct 2, 2024 · 1 min read · Start with a checkin question for connection (10% of the meeting length) Capture decisions made Capture open action items and check in on open ones every time, otherwise they get lost/forgotten due to poor personal execution Align on discussion ...
Join discussionAug 22, 2024 · 2 min read · I would phrase the goal of brainstorming as generating many creative ideas quickly. I like the general idea, but I've often seen it fail to achieve this goal. But, I noticed a pattern in the times that it worked exceptionally well: Shannon Soper fac...
Join discussionAug 19, 2024 · 4 min read · A big part of the reason some of my open source projects were successful was that I was unreasonably responsive. I used to respond to new issues within a few hours, ideally with a fix if they were bug reports. In fact, for react-boilerplate, I spent ...
Join discussionAug 19, 2024 · 1 min read · After having founded two startups and shipped over half a dozen products, I learned one thing over and over and over: It is immensely difficult to get any feedback from your users. That's why I am vigorous about giving feedback to the products I use—...
Join discussionAug 19, 2024 · 5 min read · Making decisions is a core part of my job. As a software engineer, the decisions are technical; as a CEO, the decisions are strategic. Either way, I'm making decisions all the time. So, how do I get better at it? Below is an ongoing log of what I hav...
Join discussion