SWLW #556: Why Analytics Engineering is game design, Building products that make a point, and more.

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week.
 

This Week's Favorite

20 CEO Lessons Learned at HubSpot on the Journey From $0 to $20billion
6 minutes read.

I loved Brian Halligan's insights on building Hubspot, one of today's most successful public companies. Receiving a 360 review as a CEO and sharing it with the employees and management is a great leadership act: "Once a year we had my co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, do a 360 review for me that was like pure gold. His method is highly replicable. He basically gave an NPS survey to about 25 folks up and down the org asking two questions: (a) “Your likelihood to recommend Brian as the CEO of HubSpot" & (b) “Why?” He took the answers to those questions and put together a 20 page document for me. He found the themes in the feedback (people wrote novellas) and grouped them together with example quotes to back up the theme. [...] I was convinced I was the world’s best CEO after page 10 and the world’s worst CEO after page 20! I shared the feedback with the company and board in a document that was my own performance plan."

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Culture

CFOs Avoiding Requests to Join Vendor Sales Calls
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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For the Love of the Game: Why Analytics Engineering Is Game Design
5 minutes read.

In today's world, data engineers have an amazing advantage of planning and executing better experiences (games-like) to enable better discovery and decision-making based on the company's data. The section on "Quests over questions" is the nugget and observation you should take from this post: "We have to start treating our internal stakeholders as real customers who deserve satisfying, delightful experiences that help them achieve their goals. And we have to get clear on what those goals are."

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In My Experience the Best Founders Develop a Fighter Mentality. Mark Zuckerberg Was a Fighter, and Without That Mentality Facebook Would Never Have Achieved Its Full Potential. Here’s What I Saw Over 13 Years Working for Zuck: (Thread)
3 minutes read.

Building a multi-billion company is so hard, maybe even more so when it's a consumer company where the entire world is looking at you. Having a fighter mentality is what you need to survive the unavoidable ups & downs. But my take from it is also to look at the team that surrounded Mark, and how he set his expectations from them. Lastly, given the latest conversations on the fight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, I find this thread from 2021 more relevant than ever, right?

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Interview With Jason Fried: Building Products That Make a Point (Video)
50 minutes read.

One of the most powerful things I took from Jason Fried and his work over the years is how he frames dilemmas and finds practical solutions that fit the narrative he sets for himself and his company. He shows that there is a different way to build companies, and inspired many entrepreneurs to find their style. If you enjoyed this interview, I highly recommend reading the books they wrote, such as "Shape Up" and "Rework," which I found inspirational to experiment with some of the concepts there.

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Peopleware

The Difference Between Creative & Uncreative People
4 minutes read.

"We’ve fulfilled that craving within us by hyper-processing it and sharing it with others. It’s like satisfying a deep hunger with cheap fast food (we literally call that online space our “feed”). [...] What if, instead [of uploading a Story/TikTok], we went home and journaled about it? Or attempted to capture it with watercolor? Or turned it into a short story? What if we did so only for us – not with any expectation or hope of others appreciating it or validating it externally? It is then that we live a creative life. By digging deeper into those small interactions, occurrences or passing thoughts, by forgoing the cheap “fast food” of capturing or sharing, we nourish our mind and soul. We may even create something that produces meaning for someone else, eventually. But if nothing else, we fully experienced the moment for ourselves. [...] By refusing that initial instinct to share and move on, we allow ourselves to pass into the moment. Only then do we actually, fully "capture" it. We receive our experience, we become part of it, we live." -- Tobias van Schneider with a beautiful take. Embrace it.

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Nurturing Connections in Casual Gatherings
4 minutes read.

"By incorporating participant-driven activities like unconf, fostering deeper conversations, and capitalizing on the opportunities presented by being physically present, we can shape offsites that cater to a wider range of personalities and preferences. These enhanced offsites, while maintaining their relaxed atmosphere, can forge profound connections among team members, bringing about heightened understanding, empathy, and, ultimately, a more productive and cohesive team." -- Allison McMillan is spot on. In a Hybrid office setup and global workforce, understanding how to leverage in-person meetings will be one of the tools great leaders need to master.

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The Power of Words (Video)
7 minutes read.

This is a brilliant and powerful 7 minutes talk by Mohammed Qahtani: "Words have power. Words are power. Words can be your power. You can change a life. [...] Your mouth can spit venom or it can mend a broken soul."

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@dharmesh: The widest, deepest moat is customer love.

@asmartbear: Any decision where the benefit or cost is temporary, you should make without much investment. Any decision which compounds into the foreseeable future, whether benefits or costs or both, you'd better seriously consider. And say "no" if future costs > benefits.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know. If you're leading a team, consider writing your Manager README (it's free) or getting my e-book and interviews Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager's Handbook. You can also support me by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.