SWLW #586: Overfitting (experience), How to Tell Better Stories, and more.

Like always, sharing my best findings for the week.

 

This Week's Favorite

Overfitting
3 minutes read.

"It starts with someone who is faced with a problem. They talk to some friends about it and find that those people have also experienced something similar. And with just those data points they extrapolate out a line. Their local problem is now a global one. And global problems can feel too big to fix. This is a very disempowering turn of events." -- This is why it's easier to be negative and find ways to disempower others and shut down ideas. Fight this inertia, as this mindset is viral just as it's fatal.

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Culture

Nobody Is Getting Into His Phone 💀
1 minute read.

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

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On Managing Expectations - Leadership & Work
5 minutes read.

Given a new year, a time when we often share our goals for the year and budget changes (including merit changes), expectation settings can make a huge difference. Michal Poczwardowski's advice on "Be realistic about the future." and "Point out what you don’t know." can be a couple of checks to verify when communicating with others.

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Our Learnings in the Market Executing Alongside Founders (Thread)
3 minutes read.

Jen Abel shares excellent tips on scaling a company. My favorites: "Hiring before it's working means you're delegating visioning -- a startup delegating vision is dead on arrival," "Never ask the market what they want; they have no idea, hence why it's still a problem," "warm friendly intros almost always lead to false positives."

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Three Keys to the Kingdom
4 minutes read.

"For many founders, the opportunity to build a significant business ties back to the original reason they started the company in the first place. It connects them back to their roots, to their zone of genius, and to their creative and inspirational spark. Without a deep personal reason for building the company, what are we even doing here?" -- I like like to think in a language of "solid ground" and "bright skies" as without the former, people will quit (e.g. day to day sucks) and without the latter people will not stay for long (work is boring). Figuring out how to deal with both simultaneously is a challenge we all face, maybe more so today in 2024 than ever.

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Peopleware

Now You Have the Data
3 minutes read.

"Your hard data comes from subjectivity. A sense of solidity built from mush. False confidence at the finish line, from a shapeshifting starting line. It's all a judgement call. Even the stuff you can measure. And it's a beautiful thing." -- Jason Fried with another great, short, and to-the-point insight.

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How to Tell Better Stories (Video)
103 minutes read.

I've listened to the interview with Matthew Dicks on my commute to work and already picked up a few interesting stories by raising my awareness and capturing them as 1-sentence snippets. Becoming a better storyteller can increase your influence, help you promote your ideas, and drive more impact. "Well, that's the power of story. I tell people this all the time. Why are we telling stories? You've never asked to see a PowerPoint presentation a second time. You've never gone to bed and dreamt about a PowerPoint presentation. [...] But movies, you'll watch a movie a hundred times, because it's a story, and our minds are wired to enjoy story over and over and over again."

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AI-First Product Design
5 minutes read.

It is fascinating to see how our industry adopts new technologies and shifts the way they think about product interfaces. "Adopting a mobile-first approach required a change in the mindset of the entire product team. AI-First would require a similar change." -- How do you see AI changing the way your company builds products? What is now possible that would have been too hard before?

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@paultoo: AI is the 4th major technology wave. The first three were fire, language, and agriculture.

@naval: “You can't get rich renting out your time. You can go to school and study how to make money, but there's no actual skill called business. You get rewarded by figuring out what society wants, but doesn’t yet know how to get, and becoming the person who delivers that, at scale.”



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.