A catalog of what I'm up to.
I have a lot of historical posts that I'll be migrating and updating, but for now it may be a bit sparse. Items are tagged to keep things organized. Nobody cares about this preamble.
Leveraging LLMs.
Leveraging LLMs means gaining a mechanical advantage, which I think they provide at this stage.
March 3, 2025
Choose boring things
I deeply appreciate boring technology, especially software, but the definition of boring is not common.
January 20, 2025
Coding with Claude
A pretty solid success story about building a little project with Claude
December 22, 2024
A chapter ended…
May 25th, 2022 was my last day at Stripe, 82 day shy of 7 years. Leaving on a Wednesday is weird, but it was the last day of school for my kids and it was fitting.
June 14, 2022
Books that shaped my leadership and management
There is no shortage of really wonderful books, but there is a special type of book that has helped me frame my strategic and tactical leadership and management thinking and problem solving.
October 21, 2020
Establish proof of existence, then do it again
My energy comes from working on interesting, high impact work that I do alongside great people. The best way to increase the chances of doing this work is for people to tell me about the...
July 24, 2020
Management by walking around, Remotely.
MBWA is a critical part of learning what an organization really is, and not what you think it is. An organization is composed of people, and people are complex and mercurial.
July 1, 2020
The next generation can end extreme poverty
I read Factfulness and was quite inspired to learn that extreme poverty can be eliminated by 2100. This, of course, means allowing countries with extreme poverty (about 800 million people now) to...
December 31, 2019
We don't know where the Spanish Flu started, or why Wikipedia doesn't agree
My wife started reading a new book, which prompted a conversation this morning about the Spanish Flu. At some point, we shifted and started talking about the origins of the flu.
December 30, 2019
A man who could ask anything
When Samuel was 6 he asked himself if other people were like him. It wasn’t a satisfying answer, because nobody is like anybody.
December 16, 2019
A Career Development Methodology
Here I document my process, as an engineering manager, to support the career growth of individual contributors that report to me.
April 10, 2019
A month in the office
Me and my family moved to Seattle at the beginning of January, ending a 12 year streak of working from home. This is my look back on how that month went and what stood out.
February 3, 2019
The Emperor's Old Clothes
This is a cleaned up transcription from Tony Hoare’s 1981 lecture, “The Emperors Old Clothes”. This is one of the most fascinating and helpful reads around software design and management practices to...
November 20, 2018
Spend less time estimating, more time shipping.
I was recently asked if I thought estimating is a valuable skill for a software engineer to develop. This is a deceptively simple question that everybody is quick to affirm.
October 11, 2018
Predictability creates inclusive teams
Recently I had the opportunity to interview for a manager of manager role. This caused me consider more deeply what I really want for my own career.
June 10, 2018
Working (very) remote.
I've been working remote for 12 years now, starting with my first kid. It was really important for me to be there with my kids as they grow up and it's been well worth it.
May 22, 2018
The feedback I wish I got
Yesterday my son and I were out shopping for his science experiment and he got distracted by some of the wood assembly kits.
January 5, 2018
Forecasting Success
There is no perfect success, nor absolute failure. Getting closer to perfect success is like accelerating in a car.
January 17, 2017
The Boy Who Cried Almost Wolf
How many times do we react, loudly, to distant potential threats around us? Kids do this a lot, my son in particular. It burns out those who support them and even they themselves.
October 27, 2016
A Journey, My Journey
Why do we care about what other people think about our hobbies? Well, they probably don't. They may think it's funny or unusual, but they don't care. I care, though.
October 1, 2016
When it matters to be understood
We learn from everybody around us, but only if we open ourselves up and trust the teachers around us. My son was incredulous that I could learn from him, and when I explained how I was surprised that...
July 29, 2016
Motivation: Recognition or Achievement?
What's the difference between recognition and achievements? How do the two motivate differently, or worse, demotivate. What can be taken away and what stays with us? I have a lot of questions here.
June 5, 2016
Invest in the Right Goal
I've previously talked about the Eisenhower Matrix of Important vs. Urgency, and now I'm talking about how to work towards those identified goals.
January 29, 2016
3 Ways I Remember What I Read
It's a terrible feeling to remember some exciting bit of knowledge but forget entirely where you read it or who wrote it.
January 19, 2016
Cultivating Environments, Fixing Situations
The environment is the medium in which we exist. It is the canvas we paint our life's work on, but it is not immutable.
January 11, 2016
2015 in Review
2015 was an unexpected year on several fronts, but a good one. Upon reflection I've realized quite a few things I've done poorly at, and devising plans to improve.
December 31, 2015
In just 5 minutes...
Being stuck in a rut, battling procrastination takes up so much energy. It creates feelings of guilt. 5 minutes can help this.
December 7, 2015
Know your Limits
Why do we have limits? Sometimes the limits are only in our head, other times they are real constraints for good reason.
September 17, 2015
Intents and Outcomes
I'm trying to formalize my approach to breaking down goals and working towards them in smaller, more easily discussed and understood chunks. This is what I came up with.
September 4, 2015
But why don't I wait until I'm in college?
My son asked my why start now, when in college they'll teach him what he needs to succeed and learn core competency.
July 21, 2015
Where the time goes
I stopped writing for a bit and wanted to examine why. The answer, I think, wasn't exactly surprising but the best answers often times aren't surprising.
May 27, 2015
Why I can't believe in Lean Startup
Over the last 2 years, I've pursued building products and businesses but more importantly building up myself. The Lean Startup came highly recommended and I see why, but it's just not for me.
February 20, 2015
2015 Areas of Focus
Each year I sit down and decide what is most important to focus on. I balance my desires and ambitions with my capabilities, and how I want to improve myself and relationships to others.
January 29, 2015
Is it really the tool?
How often do I complain about the inconsequential? Way too often. I find the faults to justify my own failures to complete tasks.
January 28, 2015
2014 in Review
A recap of a momentous year. It started with fear, which changed to optimism and ended with peace.
December 30, 2014
Eisenhower, Master of Priorities
President Dwight Eisenhower was an amazing visionary and was able to share that vision and excitement with others to accomplish amazing things: the Interstates, DARPA, and the mandate for peaceful...
October 14, 2014
Clean Your Sink
We make countless decisions at all hours of the day, our work pulls is in one direction and our passions in another. Then we have families, chores, and many other responsibilities.
August 26, 2014
Gratitude isn't Praise
It's a jumbled world where we confuse gratitude, praise, and flattery. There is a time for each, except flattery. Well, maybe flattery if you sell cars.
August 19, 2014
Finding the Third Peak
The path of success and leadership lies not in compromise but convergence. The only way to find this convergence is to let go of your own ambitions, and find a new, shared goal that incorporates...
August 4, 2014
A Hiatus
Taking three months of writing and other projects was good, but now it's time to ramp back up. Dealing with the failure of a startup, the expectations unfulfilled, and overcoming fear to find new...
July 29, 2014
Atlassian is my ___________
Atlassian, the software company that makes JIRA, held a conference where a senior employee committed yet another offense that drives women from tech. What could they do better in response?
June 5, 2014
Plan. Do. Review.
I recognized how mindless my coffee ritual was, then realized it was representing most of my life. I wanted to break out of the repetitive, unenriched existence and step into something better.
May 13, 2014
Power of Inclusion, Damage of Exclusion
More research is pointing to a loss of empathy, getting worse over time. This trend will be damaging to all of our efforts to decrease discrimination and exclusionary behaviors in the tech sector.
May 5, 2014
Ideas are worthless. Stories are everything.
I quickly react to ideas, often hurting the final product. If execution is everything, and ideas are worthless, why are the end results not good enough? It's because that sentiment is wrong.
April 29, 2014
Obstacles & Opportunities
Obstacles inevitably arise as we progress towards our goals. Rather than get discouraged, or worse, burn myself out attempting to overcome them I wanted to shift my perspective.
April 14, 2014
Why do we build when we can buy?
Sometimes we are compelled to build instead of buy. We call it the Not Invented Here Syndrome, and it both launches and destroys businesses.
April 7, 2014
Get the Best Start
I've revitalized my days, given myself focus and purpose. It was surprisingly easy, I just had to start each day by answering 3 questions.
March 31, 2014
Better Decisions with Default Options
As psychologists reveal more about how we make decisions, some surprising (and unsurprising) results have been delivered.
March 25, 2014
The benefits of writing
When I unexpectedly hit a day of no momentum, no inspiration, I looked at why I write and what I hope to gain. The answers were not unexpected, I write to test an idea.
March 17, 2014
The Abstract Customer
It's natural to replace many choices with one simpler representation. This is called the Similarity Heuristic and helps consumers make decisions when faced with so many options.
March 10, 2014
Discovering Purpose
After struggling for years to get a better idea of how to define important work, throwing out mistakes, and questioning success I found a bit of clarity.
March 3, 2014
HOWTO: Hire passionate developers
It's very difficult to recruit top performing developers. There has been a measured 2.5 times performance difference between average and the best.
February 25, 2014
Optimal Encounters
After struggling for years just over a coffee meeting, I tried a few ideas. What I found was something very simple that worked really well. It was so obvious to me but took a long time to discover.
February 18, 2014
On Values and Leadership
I learned a lot about leadership, but I never understood it. My 7 year old son taught me how to understand leadership, and this is the story.
February 11, 2014
3 Steps to Unlock Your Creative Workforce
We can usher in amazing increases in productivity, quality and happiness. Yet we make a push towards Open Floorplans and other disastrous strategies because it's trendy.
February 3, 2014
Better Products with Five Whys
Toyota created many brilliant methodologies to create the best and most innovative cars of the day. Kanban is the most famous amongst developers, but the lesser known Five Whys may be the best way to...
January 27, 2014
Don't cook in a dirty kitchen
Small steps in organization to improve clarity and ability
January 21, 2014
Don't hate, improv.
Improv can teach comedy, confidence and extemporaneous speech. Can it also usher in a culture that is more effective in promoting better ideas?
January 4, 2014