@parody_ceo This is why my first three interview questions are always: 1. Do you have a good relationship with your parents? 2. Are you married? 3. Does anyone love you? If the answer to any of them is a yes, then I know they're not someone who prioritizes their career, and they're not a

Just finished mentoring a young startup founder. They'd been growing fast, but had been making a crucial hiring mistake! They had a ratio of 5 engineers for every 1 PM. I'm not sure who gave them that idea, but it's an awful strategy and is sure to doom any startup! I helped

Just offered my team an extra few weeks off for the holiday break, if they wanted it! 2 of my team members accepted, they wanted to take the time off to spend with their kids. They're going to get to spend even more time with their kids in January, because their names have been

A new grad was celebrating his birthday today and brought in a birthday cake. I immediately reported him to HR and requested his immediate termination. Not everyone is able to eat birthday cake. They destroy team cohesion, and ruin productivity. It's a tough lesson to learn,

Nothing makes me happier than seeing a young team full of energy and excitement attending a strategic planning summit together.

Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat forever. It's one of my favorite sayings. Likewise: Host one alignment meeting and you team will be aligned for a week. Schedule a recurring 4 hour alignment meeting every Friday afternoon, and

I remember my first job after college. I was fresh naive grad. I saw my lead engineer work himself to death. He'd ship multiple new features every week, outpacing the rest of the team. Eventually he was hit by a run-away truck that mounted the curb on his way home after leaving

I met with our CEO last week. He wanted to give the entire team the Christmas break off. I told him that was the worst idea I'd ever heard. The type of person who views an additional 3 week break as a good thing is not the type of person who succeeds in tech. I'm sorry, but I

Good morning to everyone who spent thanksgiving night in a 11 hour zoom call with your teams!

A lot of engineers seem to have got it in their heads recently that they're the most important part of a team. I'm sorry, but without a PM you wouldn't have a clue what to build.

I knew my marriage was over the moment my husband told me he didn't want me leaving our son's funeral for a work summit. I'm sorry but if you put your personal life ahead of your team you just don't get it.

Happy thanksgiving to all the team's that spent this holiday wisely. On zoom, building the future.

Just finished up a 4 hour zoom call with my team. I had to leave thanksgiving with my family early, but when you're building the future everything else can wait.

A new engineer just joined our team. He came from a fast moving startup and wanted to start shipping code straight away. I told him to slow down right away. What if he shipped a feature that didn't take into account the org's annual strategic initiatives? I scheduled 3 weeks

Just did a retrospective on my team's failed summit. 3 teams, 18 engineers and a week of intense zoom alignment. We thought we were perfectly aligned on next quarter's OKRs, but within 2 weeks it all fell apart. Why? We didn't factor in enough stakeholders. We've learnt our