/Career Advice

How To Write Your Own Job Description (And Invent Your Role)

- Wes Kao tl;dr: “Creating a new position for yourself—one that doesn't yet exist — sounds too good to be true. But many of us have done it, and I’ve personally done it multiple times. I want to share a few ideas that will help you do it too.”

featured in #572

Why Can't We Make Simple Software?

- Peter van Hardenberg tl;dr: Peter explores why creating truly simple software remains an elusive goal. Through examples ranging from defensive coding to scaling challenges, he illustrates how complexity isn't just about technical difficulty - it's an inevitable result of systems interacting, evolving user needs, and organizational dynamics. 

featured in #572

Why Can't We Make Simple Software?

- Peter van Hardenberg tl;dr: Peter explores why creating truly simple software remains an elusive goal. Through examples ranging from defensive coding to scaling challenges, he illustrates how complexity isn't just about technical difficulty - it's an inevitable result of systems interacting, evolving user needs, and organizational dynamics. 

featured in #571

The ACE Technique For Starting New Things

- Charlie Andrews tl;dr: (1) Advice: imagine you’re giving advice to someone else in your position. What are the concrete next steps you’d recommend they take? (2) Commit: identify how long each day you feel comfortable taking your own advice. I usually find 30 minutes or an hour is good. Some activities also have a natural “increment” that you can use as your commitment, like “I will send one cold email to a potential customer every day.” (3) Exit ramp: give yourself an exit ramp by identifying a date when you’ll reevaluate your commitment. This date needs to be soon enough where the commitment feels like a sacrifice but doable. 

featured in #570

Emotions: A Code Book

- Kent Beck tl;dr: Kent shares a personal journey of understanding emotions using an established framework. He views emotions as envelopes containing important messages, encouraging readers to decode these messages instead of suppressing emotions, giving a "cheat sheet" that defines what kind of message each emotion brings, e.g., Fear as a call to focus, Anger as a call to enforce boundaries, and Guilt as a call to change. This self-understanding helps navigate life's challenges and fosters personal growth.

featured in #569

How To Give A Senior Leader Feedback (Without Getting Fired)

- Wes Kao tl;dr: Wes share some ways you can share feedback with senior leaders, or anyone more powerful than you—while being respectful, helpful, and protecting yourself from their wrath.

featured in #569

How To Give A Senior Leader Feedback (Without Getting Fired)

- Wes Kao tl;dr: Wes share some ways you can share feedback with senior leaders, or anyone more powerful than you—while being respectful, helpful, and protecting yourself from their wrath.

featured in #568

Writes and Write-Nots

- Paul Graham tl;dr: “AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work. The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots.” Paul believes this will have larger consequences than we realize. 

featured in #568

Lessons

- Joe Lonsdale tl;dr: “These lessons summarize what Joe Lonsdale learned from working over many years with Peter Thiel, a chairman and founder of Palantir. These are very much worth reading — they will change the way you think.”

featured in #568

Lessons

- Joe Lonsdale tl;dr: “These lessons summarize what Joe Lonsdale learned from working over many years with Peter Thiel, a chairman and founder of Palantir. These are very much worth reading — they will change the way you think.”

featured in #567