This past Summer, I monthly 1:1s with Adriana, our prolific Design. Among the many wonderful topics of discussion we have, we were talking about the "Galaxy Brain" people at Replit. There are incredibly smart people at the company, and when you have smart people and an ambitious mission, the balance of everything you need to do and what you need to do is a fine balance.

"We should pair Galaxy Brain people with Gravity Brain people," the CMU HCI student said to me. Great teamwork happens with diverse thinking and perspectives—a form of checks and balances. Every person has a unique way of thinking which have strengths and challenges that come with it. Let’s look at the three types of brains you often encounter at work: Galaxy Brain, Gravity Brain, and Ecosystem Brain.

Galaxy Brain

The Galaxy Brain thinkers are in 3023 while we're in 2023. They relentlessly pursue the questions, “What if?” Imagination and wonder fuel the possibilities of what the world could be.

Strengths

Galaxy Brains are incredible concept creators, usually in the form of a prototype or demo. They thrive in making an idea tangible and rise to the challenge of making the impossible, possible.

Challenges

Galaxy Brains can be over-skilled at thinking too big. This results in working on things out of the realm of feasibility. This is Alejandro Jodorowsky blowing the entire budget for his Dune movie in pre-production, resulting in the movie getting killed.

Encourage Galaxy Brain in ideation sessions or Product Discovery. This mode of thinking protects you from falling too short on your ambition. Giving Galaxy Brain people time to do deep work with light-weight bounds results in very impactful results.

Galaxy Brain people are often designers, prototypers, and art directors. Their love language is deep work and exploration.

Gravity Brain

I believe every strong team requires skeptics and realists. Introducing, the Gravity Brain. Don't get it twisted in thinking this is negative—it's a huge positive. If you say "jump," to a Gravity Brain person, they won't say, "how high?" Instead, they say, "Why are we jumping? Have we considered climbing a ladder? Based on the average vertical jump of humans on Earth, this isn't worth our time." Ambition and vision don’t matter if you don’t make progress towards them.

Strengths

Gravity Brains provide doses of reality with observed experiences, data, and evidence. This allows work to be pragmatic and stay on track. These folks are exceptionally great at breaking down work into milestones that are achievable.

Challenges

Because of the pragmatism of Gravity Brains, they might make assumptions on an idea or project before it starts. This can make ambiguity and unknowns difficult for Gravity Brains. Taking them from Earth to another planet where the gravitation pull is completely different is a challenge. Encourage them to explore the realms of the unknown.

Many Gravity Brains become managers of people (usually first line) or programs or product managers. Their love language is clarity, specificity, and sequencing.

Ecosystem Brain

Ecosystem Brains think a lot of forces of nature and behaviors. They are usually architects and world builders. When they join a new company, they do an archeological dig to understand the history of society, language, and other rituals.

Strengths

The top strength of Ecosystem Brains is they are systems thinkers—the ability to look at multiple systems and make sense of it. They thrive in projects that are ambiguous and put structure and order to them.

Challenges

The Ecosystem Brains can confuse other people because of their attempt to connect everything. Sometimes collaborators only want to know what’s relevant to them, not the entire picture. Ecosystem Brains are typically lateral and visual thinkers (lots of diagrams) and this can be a challenge for people who prefer reading a structured document.

Many Ecosystem Brains are researchers, managers, and systems designers. Their love language is connecting the dots and architecting.

Like any personality exercise like Meyers-Briggs or HBDI, the goal isn't to box people into a certain type. It's identifying how to leverage strength based on certain dynamics. The point isn't to name names on who is what. Curating the right brain types and knowing when to switch into that mode can merit great results. One of the most valuable lessons I've learned in my career is people have natural tendencies, and you should not force change on it. Embrace the strengths of people while growing the challenges. As a manager once told me, "everyone is bad at something." Double down on the strengths and complement the weaknesses with the team and environment.

Which brain mode do you natural fall to? How can you apply your strengths across all of your work? Who are the people you should pair with to counterbalance your strengths?

Hype links

Collection of what I read and related to this week's pos

• A great post by Siqi Chen about teams doing things their own way

• A love letter to New York City by Polina Pompliano

• The democratization of design by Mia Blume

• The State of VC Investing in Data & AI Startups

• To Be A Writer, You Must Write:” How Joan Didion Became Joan Didion

Job opportunities

We're hiring at Replit

• Software Engineer, Platform - OS

• AI Engineer

• Software Engineer, Front End AI Infrastructure

• Software Engineer, Frontend Infrastructure (Workspace/IDE)

• Product Engineer

• Product Engineer (Web Infrastructure)

• Product Manager, AI

Other roles

• Pluralsight is hiring a VP of Product Design, Skills

• Pinterest is hiring a Senior Director, Product Design (Monetization)