/Leadership

Malte Handbook

- Malte Ubl tl;dr: The CTO at Vercel wrote an instruction manual for himself, covering values, principles, beliefs, engineering style, general style, stuff I do & personal.

featured in #528


The OARB Framework: Why You Should Appeal To Self-Interest When Giving Feedback

- Wes Kao tl;dr: I’ll share an advanced technique for getting your feedback recipient to perk up and take action. (1) The OARB framework (Observation, Assertion, Repercussion, Benefit). (2) Make feedback feel visceral by using good logic. (3) Adopt a neutral posture & comment on the behavior, not the person.

featured in #527


Deltas To The Global Maxima

- James Stanier tl;dr: “The global maxima is the point at which we are at our most skilled, our most impactful, and the most satisfied. The global maxima may not even be a role, but a state of being where everything comes together: life, work, compensation, contribution, and happiness. Try restarting your career conversations with your direct reports by asking them what this global maxima is for them.” James shares some primer questions. 

featured in #527


15 Life And Work Principles from Jensen Huang

- Peter Yang tl;dr: (1) “My goal is to create the conditions where amazing people come to do their life’s work.” (2) “I have 60 direct reports, and I don’t do 1 on 1s.” Almost everything that I say, I say to everybody at the same time. (3) “I give feedback right in front of everyone.” (4) “I spent alot of time reasoning with decisions.” (5) “We don't do just vice president meetings or director or board meetings. At the meetings I have, there are new college grads there. There are people from every different organization. We are just all sitting in there.”

featured in #527


Useful And Overlooked Skills

- Morgan Housel tl;dr: (1) Calibrating how much you wanting something to be true affects how true you think it is. (2) Respectfully interacting with people you disagree with. (3) The ability to have a 10-minute conversation with anyone from any background. (4) Getting to the point. (5) Diplomatically saying “No.”. (6) Respecting luck as much as you respect risk. 

featured in #526


Goal Crafting

- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: (1) Make your goal unarguable: An unarguable goal is one that most people agree with as it aligns with the organizational principles and direction. (2) Manufacture consent: A leader’s job involves creating willingness for others to work with the organization to support their objectives. (3) Let it make everyone uncomfortable: They should put your team out of their comfort zone, testing their assumptions and technical and human-relationship competencies.

featured in #525


Senior Engineer Fatigue

tl;dr: “Senior Fatigue is characterized not by a decline in productivity but by a deliberate deceleration. The vibrant energy of younger engineers, bursting with rapid pull requests and overflowing with design documents, starts to give way to a more measured pace. At this stage, seniors might send fewer pull requests or be quieter in meetings, but this isn't an indicator of lost productivity. Quite the opposite — seniors are often finding more efficient, impactful ways to contribute, leveraging their vast experience.”

featured in #525


Senior Engineer Fatigue

- Kirill Bobrov tl;dr: “Senior Fatigue is characterized not by a decline in productivity but by a deliberate deceleration. The vibrant energy of younger engineers, bursting with rapid pull requests and overflowing with design documents, starts to give way to a more measured pace. At this stage, seniors might send fewer pull requests or be quieter in meetings, but this isn't an indicator of lost productivity. Quite the opposite — seniors are often finding more efficient, impactful ways to contribute, leveraging their vast experience.”

featured in #524


Why Data-Driven Product Decisions Are Hard (Sometimes Impossible)

- Andrew Chen tl;dr: “We strive to be data-driven in our decision making. And barring that, data-informed, overlaying our intuition and thoughts on top of the data. We certainly don’t want to be ignorant, and just make decisions with our gut. And yet sometimes that is exactly what happens — and some argue, better than being data-driven.” Andrew shares the limits of decision making with data. 

featured in #523


What Do GenZ Software Engineers Really Think?

- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: “These days, most new grad software engineers belong to GenZ, having been born between 1997 and 2012... strap in as we dive into responses from the latest generation of tech talent, and find out what young professionals really think about modern workplaces and their more “experienced” colleagues!”

featured in #523