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The problem with “one thing only”
As an antidote to the mediocrity and lack of clarity induced by corporate multitasking, Peter Thiel developed an alternate management approach when at PayPal: focus on a single contribution. This...
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Fundamental Subordinate Dishonesty
This essay has two parts. The first is about the ethics of lying in the context of a job search, whether on a resume or in an interview. The second half focuses on a massively common falsification that...
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The unbearable B-ness of software
I’m not Jack Welch’s biggest fan. For one thing, he invented the “rank-and-yank” HR policies that literally decimate companies. I don’t disagree with the idea that companies would improve their health...
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Flow, ownership, and insubordination (plus D.F.A.)
I wrote, in October, about what programmers want from their work, and one of the most immediate concerns is a state of consciousness called flow: a state of engagement, focus, and high productivity....
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The call for rational economy
If I were to wrap the causes of humanity’s recent political progress (and, quite likely, the scientific and industrial progress that followed) up into two words, I would use rational government....
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What is “at-will employment”?
Since I write a lot about the sociology and HR game theory of software engineering, I get a lot of hits to my blog for queries related to employment and, in particular, its endgame, such “should you...
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Never sign a PIP. Here’s why.
I alluded to this topic in Friday’s post, and now I’ll address it directly. This search query comes to my blog fairly often: “should I sign a PIP?” The answer is no. Why? Chances are, performance...
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Careerism breeds mediocrity
A common gripe of ambitious people is the oppressive culture of mediocrity that almost everyone experiences at work: boring tasks, low standards, risk aversion, no appetite for excellence, and little...
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Fourth quadrant work
I’ve written a lot about open allocation, so I think it’s obvious where I stand on the issue. One of the questions that is always brought up in that discussion is: so who answers the phones? The...
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Why I wiped my LinkedIn profile
I wiped my LinkedIn profile recently. It now says: I don’t reveal history without a reason, so my past jobs summary is blank. I’m a New York-based software engineer who specializes in functional...
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No, idiot. Discomfort Is Bad.
Most corporate organizations have failed to adapt to the convexity of creative and technological work, a result of which is that the difference between excellence and mediocrity is much more meaningful...
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We should pay people not to subordinate
In the very long term, technological society will need to implement a basic income, as soon as full employment becomes untenable. Basic income (BI) is an income paid to all people, with no conditions....
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IDE Culture vs. Unix philosophy
Even more of a hot topic than programming languages is the interactive development environment, or IDE. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of IDEs. As tools, standing alone, I have no problem with them....
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A humorous note about creationism and snakes.
This isn’t one of my deeper posts. It’s just something I find amusing regarding a cultural symbol, especially in the context of Biblical creationism. One of the core stories of the Bible is the...
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Learning C, reducing fear.
I have a confession to make. At one point in my career, I was a mediocre programmer. I might say that I still am, only in the context of being a harsh grader. I developed a scale for software...
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“Job hopping” is often fast learning and shouldn’t be stigmatized
One of the traits of the business world that I’d love to see die, even if it were to take people with it, is the stigma against “job hopping”. I don’t see how people can not see that this is...
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Leadership: everyone is a main character
I tried to be a creative writer when I was younger. I was not very good at it. On the technical aspects of writing, I was solid. My problem was that I didn’t understand people well enough to write a...
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Psychopathy and superficial reliability
Lord Acton says: judge talent at its best and character at its worst. This is a wise principle, yet it fails us miserably when misapplied, as it often is in modern society. Why is that? The world is...
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Tech Wars
Any creative field undergoes periods of divergence and convergence, and technology is no exception. Right now, we’re in the late swing of a divergent phase, with a plethora of new languages,...
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Gervais Principle questioned: MacLeod’s hierarchy, the Technocrat, and VC...
The MacLeod Model of organizational sociology posits that workplaces tend toward a state in which there are three levels: Losers, who recognize that low-level employment is a losing deal, and therefore...
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