SWLW #642: Organization structures in the age of AI, Vibe Coding thoughts & predictions, and more.

Like always, I am sharing my best findings for the week. Under "Culture," you'll find content worth reading and sharing with others; you'll need others' help to pull it off. Under "Peopleware," you'll find content that can help you approach situations differently with new perspectives and frameworks.   

 

This Week's Favorite

Vibe Coding, Some Thoughts and Predictions
7 minutes read.

"Thus, most code will be written by kids/students rather than software engineers. This is the same trend as video, photos, and other social media. Of course this seems surprising because today most software is being written by highly trained adults, who are generally time poor but money rich. This will change, and it means that over time, software will become dominated by youth culture the same way that social media is. Are you ready for software memes? Or memes in the form of software? It’s all coming." -- This is how I know Andrew Chen is both a genius and right. The future is always stupid before it's amazing.

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Culture

Vibe Engineering 🫡
1 minute read.

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

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Snowflake CEO Calls His Role ‘Insanely Confrontational’ and Knocks Leaders Who ‘Sit Back and Wait for Greatness’
4 minutes read.

Intensity is part of any competition. Companies that raise money enter a game of providing financial outcomes to the founders, investors, and employees. Why did we become so apologetic for trying to win? The worst is not working hard; it's letting go of people you admire yet cannot afford it or playing a game you don't want.

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Product Principles at GitLab
15 minutes read.

This page represents an interesting balance. On the one hand, it's super detailed and long, and on the other hand, it's very inspirational. What did you take from it to your company and philosophy? The sections "Take pains to avoid instance-level features," "Every feature is owned by a group," and "Build for production use, not demo use" are my favorites.

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Organization Structures in the Age of A.I. Agents Will Be Fluid, Not Fixed.
4 minutes read.

"In the same way that software is going from deterministic to non-deterministic, org structures within companies will do the same." -- I don't know if that's the manifestation due to AI. It's very likely that the reasons humans create organizations - to balance mental capacity and increase control span - will dramatically improve due to AI. If that's the case, the org structure can still be relatively fixed, yet very different than today. It reminds me of organizations where managers have 20-50 direct reports. We might see much more of it with higher numbers.

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Peopleware

Raw Wisdom for Modern Founders With Serial Founder Hiten Shah (Video)
55 minutes read.

Hiten Shah is someone I've been following for more than 14 years, and I always enjoyed his depth and quality of ideas. He has a distinct way of building companies and products, unlike the classic VC-backing path. This interview captures many of Hiten's insights on building products and taking them to market.

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Andrej Karpathy’s Bombshells on How to Learn
4 minutes read.

Andrej Karpathy's tips on learning should be shared with kids as it's getting harder as adults to deal with frustration and perception (how we see ourselves and how others see us). That being said, we cannot be great without constantly training our beginner mindset on various topics.

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How to Plan an Annual Family Summit
6 minutes read.

It's harder to focus at work when you don't have a calm environment at home. Bethany Crystal provides an excellent framework for a family summit that can help you create alignment and focus on what matters most and how to get there together.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@ShaanVP: Heard this concept the other day and kinda love it: Type 1 Fun = fun now, but bad for you later (eg. getting drunk) Type 2 Fun = hard now, but fun later when you look back (eg. having kids, starting a company) what about Type 3 fun? Fun now, Fun later. (eg. travel)

@jjen_abel: 0-1 sales talent does not exist. In a startup’s early days, the Founder is the product.



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.