On Shipping
Shipping fast beats the best strategy. Speed is a superpower. Create a bias toward shipping. Small teams ship faster. AI-native teams will move 10x faster than those unwilling to change.
Landings matter more than launches. Product adoption is more important than shipping code. Listen, build, ship, tell the customer, then repeat forever.
Demos over memos. You could have built a prototype during the meeting. Only ship things you're excited about yourself.
On Career
You have no career ceiling. Grit beats talent. There's no substitute for putting in the hours. Get 1% better every day.
Work can also be your hobby. This doesn't mean you can't have other hobbies. Passion plus boundaries beats mythical "work-life balance." Your best work comes from following your curiosity.
On Truth
Be ruthlessly truth-seeking. The truth can be painful. You can just change your mind if you're wrong. Have strong opinions, loosely held.
Maximise your exposure hours. "Anecdata" is often more useful than data. Seek the collective truth, not just one opinion.
On Communication
Communication is the job. Clear writing is clear thinking. Everyone needs to become a better writer. Leaders step up to provide clarity when absent.
Be the person taking notes, even if it's just for yourself. Mismatched expectations lead to sadness. Anticipate objections before hitting send, then address them.
On Building
Education is the best form of developer marketing. Be authentic and own your failures. Never use the word "webinar" ever again. Being helpful compounds.
Where do you get your dopamine? The answer predicts your behaviour. Better to get yours from improving your ideas than from having them validated. It's okay to get it from "making things happen."
On Leadership
Leadership means owning outcomes beyond the org chart. Influence beats titles. Leaders have to do the work themselves and delegate. You can write your own playbook. Study what worked for others, then take your own path.
Hiring separates good leaders from great. There are two hiring answers: hell yes or no. Growth potential beats current skill. Hire people you can learn from. Hire people you would someday be happy working for.
On Teams
Smaller teams are better. Faster decisions, fewer meetings, more fun. No need to chop up work for political reasons. No room for mediocre people. Large-scale engineering projects are more soluble in IQ than they appear.
On Assumptions
Always try to assume good intent. Lead with empathy. They might just be having a bad day. Criticism is good feedback if you listen unemotionally.
You can do more than you think. We are tied down by invisible orthodoxy. The laws of physics are the only limit.
On Time
It's important to do things fast. You learn more per unit time because you make contact with reality more frequently. Going fast makes you focus on what's important. There's no time for bullshit. "Slow is fake." A week is 2% of the year. Time is the denominator.