/Management

The Great Resignation? More Like A Great Opportunity

- Shem Magnezi tl;dr: "We’re witnessing a permanent change in how people think about work and long-term career development. Covid was just an accelerant for existing trends — an opportunity for many people to stop and think about what they want to do with their lives."

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FizzBuzz Is FizzBuzz Years Old (And Still A Powerful Tool)

- Tom Wright tl;dr: "In today’s blog post I’d like to take a moment to celebrate what makes FizzBuzz so helpful, discuss some common patterns I’ve observed in the many attempts I’ve witnessed, and finally explore some tweaks that can be deployed to keep the challenge fresh."

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Data Teams Are Getting Larger, Faster

tl;dr: "But something happens when a data team grows past 10 people. You no longer know if the data you use is reliable, the lineage is too large to make sense of and end-users start complaining about data issues every other day." Mikkel discusses how to deal with scaling teams.

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Operating Well: What I Learned at Stripe

- Sam Gerstenzang tl;dr: "Operating well is a state, not an outcome." Key lessons are: (1) Reinforce your goals everywhere. (2) Focus. (3) Changing strategy feels like progress but it usually isn’t. (4) Turn up the heat in every interaction and ask uncomfortable questions e.g. What could we cut, even if it’s painful? (5) Unblock psychological barriers by asking a report what's holding them back. And more. 

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Why Most Strategies Lack Clarity

- John Cutler tl;dr: "The unlock, I think, is realizing that you can confidently communicate a coherent strategy that also acknowledges uncertainty. You know what you know. You assume what you assume. You believe what you believe." John explains that the reason this tends not to happen is we fear showing that we lack clarity, and lean towards displaying certainty. 

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How To Hire Employees For A Startup, Fast And Pain-Free?

- Yuliia Mamonov tl;dr: Studies have shown that startup owners spend up to 40% of their time on hiring. How do vetting marketplaces can help them get talented staff effortlessly, and why are they better than job boards or bidding platforms? Read on to find out!

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Downturn Career Decisions

- Will Larson tl;dr: "My general advice to folks would be to stay where you are as long as you’re reasonably happy day to day and feel like you’re learning at a good rate. Even if your effective compensation has declined a bit, it’s very hard to determine if the compensation at any other company will hold up either. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re unhappy for non-compensation reasons, then of course you should find another role." Will provides advice to both managers and ICs on navigating career decisions in the current climate. 

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Reflecting On YC, 2 Years On

- James Hawkins tl;dr: "YC is seen as the world's best, and most prolific, three-month accelerator program. Upwards of 7,000 founders have taken part. Yet, no one really talks about what happens afterwards." James discusses the network, database of investor reviews, office hours, fundraising, and more. 

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Write Simply, Change Effectively

- Paulo André tl;dr: "I’ll delve into how to write well in the context of driving effective organizational change that people do understand — and buy into." Clear writing should be intentional, emotional and empathetic. Paulo cites the SCARF framework as a tool to navigate the written document away from language that may feel threatening to those impacted by the organizational change.

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Risk, Decisions, and Scarcity

- Jason Fried tl;dr: "Risk tolerance is the scarcest resource in most companies." This sets founder-led companies apart from founder-less companies. Founder-led companies tend to take more risks. Risk is also a function of company size and "distance" - "the further away a founder is from risky decisions, the more likely those decisions will be safe decisions," which has implications as to how a founder should perceive risk, and operate their company. 

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