https://codahale.com/work-is-work/
📺 How to Disagree with Someone More Powerful than You [Video]
Many of my coachees need to disagree with their CEO. And many don’t know how and just eat up whatever comes down. This leads to unhappiness and demotivation. Here is a small video on how to disagree with someone more powerful than you
https://hbr.org/2016/03/how-to-disagree-with-someone-more-powerful-than-you
Software Component Names Should Be Whimsical And Cryptic
Funny - but impactful - must read. “See, the scope and purpose of something change faster than its name can. For fun, I did a search on Github READMEs just now for the phrase despite the name
. About 20,000 results”
https://betterprogramming.pub/software-component-names-should-be-whimsical-and-cryptic-ca260b013de0
Quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on developer productivity and happiness
“When using Github Copilot I am more productive - 88%” Are you using AI assistance yet?
One-on-ones with executives
Another excellent read from Will, the author of “An Elegant Puzzle.”
https://lethain.com/one-on-ones-with-executives/
What we learned from passing our SOC 2 Type II audit
Again very good hands-on experience from implementing a security standard and surviving an audit. Many fresh CTOs ask “Where to start with security?” Here you find some easy-to-implement things to get you started. Having low-hanging fruits implemented makes a huge difference to your security already. And it gets you on track to a security-focused engineering culture.
https://tailscale.com/blog/soc2-type2/
Why We Don’t Have an Exit Strategy
The article talks about exists, about how “most acquisitions outright kill your company.” Seeing companies being acquired and then running against the wall so often, I agree. The most important part is, that the company is aligned with the “no exit strategy”. What I see too often are founder teams who are not aligned. One founder wants to flip as fast as possible, one wants to build something great, and one wants to become famous. Those teams can’t build a business strategy together. This results in unalignment, chaos, fighting, and friction. No exit strategy is fine, just be aligned around that.
https://blog.doist.com/no-exit-strategy/
🤣 Funny: Version Numbers
Funny story. I once was not allowed to roll out some open source software the developers urgently needed, because company policy was “no betas”. I got the open-source developer to bump the version to 1.0 and we could roll out the - same - software.
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/version-numbers
Futurist prediction methods and accuracy
"[..] it appears that futurists often have a fairly poor track record of prediction" Who would have thought. But a good article on predictions. One of the core problems of a CTO is predicting the future. What do we need to scale? What database do we need in five years? Is Vue going down or up? Predicting the future is difficult, or you would play the lottery and not read my newsletter. One thing that makes predicting the future easier is a good business strategy that is stable and a tech strategy that aligns with it. Too many CTOs build tech strategies that are not aligned with the business strategy, too many CEOs have no stable business strategy but expect CTOs to keep development productive. “Superforecasting” is a nice term though.
https://danluu.com/futurist-predictions/
What Makes a Senior Engineer? Writing Software vs Building Systems
A question I often discuss with my CTO coachees. In my book, there are many “unusual” requirements for senior engineers. They need to be able to manage people, lead initiatives, and understand business. Here it’s “Senior Engineers care about building Systems” Some good points if you need to flesh out your senior engineer roles.
https://codewithstyle.info/software-vs-systems/
🐸 Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs
Controversial “If you get a Chipotle gift card when you meet a deadline and a public shaming when you miss a deadline, guess what buddy: you’re in hell.”
https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/excuse-me-but-why-are-you-eating
🤣 You can never have too many backups. Also, you can never have too many backups
Hehe.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/29/who_me/