The AI Landslide Is Happening

When it comes to AI changing the tech world, we’re at a juncture where you’ve either:

seen some shit with your own eyes or you believe your imagination of where this is going
or, you haven’t and you’re dubious

It feels like people are living in a fractured reality. For the moment, that is stable. But reality is not completely subjective. The way we each get to live in the world is shaped by things outside of our subjective perspective. That is going to hit all of us, regardless of what we believe.

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The butterfly effect of kindness

A picture of a finger knocking over a domino, triggering a cascade of dominoes falling.

Last week I learned of the death of one of the grownups from my childhood church, George Shores. Mr. Shores was my assigned mentor for an academic competition. Winning it may well have been the first event in a virtuous cycle¹, setting me up for a tremendous amount of opportunity. Learning of his death made me reflect on the ways in which relatively small acts of altruism can make a huge impact.

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Silence is golden

Image of a man overwhelmed by symbols representing a maelstrom of messages — It me

Protect your notification space. This is my #1 tip for managing time and attention.

My goal is to to only get notifications for things that require my timely action or awareness. Everything else needs to be out of my notifications, especially marketing and news. Unfortunately, enforcing this is a continuous job.

I want to talk about why I think this is critically important and then some concrete strategies I apply.

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Expand Your Mind With One Weird Trick

In some ways, the story of my career is taking stretch opportunities that require me to jump into the deep end of unfamiliar territory. At this point, one of my key skills is knowing how to navigate situations where I have a lot of unknowns. I want to share a technique I have developed, which has been immensely powerful for me. Let’s call it mental model rewriting.

Roll Safe meme picture: a guy tapping his head, looking smug, as though he's got secret knowledge

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11 Principles of Engineering Management

More than 2 years ago, I decided to try to create a brief, digestible manual on the expectations of management for senior engineers at my company who are considering making the shift. At the time, I had about 3 years of management experience, including two prior companies. Enough to feel like I knew how to do the job, but not enough to feel like I should be some kind of authority on management. After letting this marinate for a couple years, I’m ready to share what I have learned.

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