lots of people mocking the guy who lost his code because a cursor agent overwrote it. not enough people asking why we don't have the agents auto-branch and auto-commit. (we should both teach source control and simultaneously re-imagine what agentic software engineering means)
Best thing I've read today from "Systems Thinking" by Donella Meadows, and lots of applications in business.
Once a business has the basics down, many problems are a lack of resilience: sales collapsing, talent pipeline problems, difficulty raising capital, etc. Easy to mistake luck for resilience.
Leaders don't fail at goal-setting because they pick the wrong framework. They fail because setting real goals is deeply uncomfortable, and they unconsciously sabotage themselves.
I know this because in 2019, I caught the OKR bug and learned some things the hard way, like:
My thoughts about what goal-setting frameworks evolved as a result. You can see all the details, along with some ways to avoid this pitfalls, here: open.substack.com/pub/ceehart...
Many leaders flinch when considering having a difficult conversation. While this can avoid short-term pain, it works against their – and employees – long-term interest. It happens with comp conversations, and others too. As a result, employees aren't aligned with business goals.
Avoiding communicating about goals and progress often isn't a symptom of laziness but a reflexive reaction to avoid admitting a problem or explaining a change in direction. If you feel like "mailing it in" when talking about goals, take a deeper look at why.
The unpleasant truth is that working on and committing to goals is more uncomfortable than working on systems and processes. They are the knowledge work equivalent of spending hours analyzing what new running shoes to buy instead of just going for a run.
Leaders don't fail at goal-setting because they pick the wrong framework. They fail because setting real goals is deeply uncomfortable, and they unconsciously sabotage themselves.
I know this because in 2019, I caught the OKR bug and learned some things the hard way, like:
Thanks!
How many subs did you have when you moved? Did you feel like you the network effect on Substack was real / worth it when you were there?
Overheard in a gym bathroom today: a manager having a comp conversation with their employee. (Employee didn't get much of a bonus this year, but manager acknowledged he worked really hard! Much bigger bonus next year.)
Seriously, just tell your employee you're running five minutes late.
At my last company we found we needed to benchmark released models regularly just to detect when there were changes in performance (availability, speed, accuracy, consistency). Just because they call it the same model doesn't mean it behaves the same day-to-day! (And use them on new models too)
When you’re choosing who to go into business with, character matters more than any other attribute.
It's a good thing we didn't collectively give up on end to end encryption a few years ago...
What’s everybody reading right now and why?
This is such a superior experience for adding cards to Apple Wallet that I can’t believe it took so long for Apple to ship it.
The breathless praise for AI app generation tools (v0, Bolt, etc) do a disservice to their capability. 1) Building anything of substance using them has a lot of bumps, but more importantly 2) they are GREAT for prototyping where bumps matter less. The latter rarely comes up but is a huge benefit.
The first time we told my dad he wasn’t going to get a new heart, we were sitting on our patio.
“The doctors decided you aren’t a good candidate for a transplant,” our choreographed explanation abruptly ended. Speaking these words out loud only intensified our sadness.
He swore, then sobbed...
Focused on new businesses that have unique data or distribution advantages. Recently shut down an applied AI, B2B SaaS business where we had raised >$2M - the world changed quickly around us: substack.com/home/post/p-....
This works surprisingly well. Does everyone else here just know about this?
thanks!
is there any automated way to find Twitter connections who are also here?
