More on Productivity
Jano le Roux
3 years ago
My Top 11 Tools For Building A Modern Startup, With A Free Plan
The best free tools are probably unknown to you.
Modern startups are easy to build.
Start with free tools.
Let’s go.
Web development — Webflow
Code-free HTML, CSS, and JS.
Webflow isn't like Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify.
It's a super-fast no-code tool for professionals to construct complex, highly-responsive websites and landing pages.
Webflow can help you add animations like those on Apple's website to your own site.
I made the jump from WordPress a few years ago and it changed my life.
No damn plugins. No damn errors. No damn updates.
The best, you can get started on Webflow for free.
Data tracking — Airtable
Spreadsheet wings.
Airtable combines spreadsheet flexibility with database power without code.
Airtable is modern.
Airtable has modularity.
Scaling Airtable is simple.
Airtable, one of the most adaptable solutions on this list, is perfect for client data management.
Clients choose customized service packages. Airtable consolidates data so you can automate procedures like invoice management and focus on your strengths.
Airtable connects with so many tools that rarely creates headaches. Airtable scales when you do.
Airtable's flexibility makes it a potential backend database.
Design — Figma
Better, faster, easier user interface design.
Figma rocks!
It’s fast.
It's free.
It's adaptable
First, design in Figma.
Iterate.
Export development assets.
Figma lets you add more team members as your company grows to work on each iteration simultaneously.
Figma is web-based, so you don't need a powerful PC or Mac to start.
Task management — Trello
Unclock jobs.
Tacky and terrifying task management products abound. Trello isn’t.
Those that follow Marie Kondo will appreciate Trello.
Everything is clean.
Nothing is complicated.
Everything has a place.
Compared to other task management solutions, Trello is limited. And that’s good. Too many buttons lead to too many decisions lead to too many hours wasted.
Trello is a must for teamwork.
Domain email — Zoho
Free domain email hosting.
Professional email is essential for startups. People relied on monthly payments for too long. Nope.
Zoho offers 5 free professional emails.
It doesn't have Google's UI, but it works.
VPN — Proton VPN
Fast Swiss VPN protects your data and privacy.
Proton VPN is secure.
Proton doesn't record any data.
Proton is based in Switzerland.
Swiss privacy regulation is among the most strict in the world, therefore user data are protected. Switzerland isn't a 14 eye country.
Journalists and activists trust Proton to secure their identities while accessing and sharing information authoritarian governments don't want them to access.
Web host — Netlify
Free fast web hosting.
Netlify is a scalable platform that combines your favorite tools and APIs to develop high-performance sites, stores, and apps through GitHub.
Serverless functions and environment variables preserve API keys.
Netlify's free tier is unmissable.
100GB of free monthly bandwidth.
Free 125k serverless operations per website each month.
Database — MongoDB
Create a fast, scalable database.
MongoDB is for small and large databases. It's a fast and inexpensive database.
Free for the first million reads.
Then, for each million reads, you must pay $0.10.
MongoDB's free plan has:
Encryption from end to end
Continual authentication
field-level client-side encryption
If you have a large database, you can easily connect MongoDB to Webflow to bypass CMS limits.
Automation — Zapier
Time-saving tip: automate repetitive chores.
Zapier simplifies life.
Zapier syncs and connects your favorite apps to do impossibly awesome things.
If your online store is connected to Zapier, a customer's purchase can trigger a number of automated actions, such as:
The customer is being added to an email chain.
Put the information in your Airtable.
Send a pre-programmed postcard to the customer.
Alexa, set the color of your smart lights to purple.
Zapier scales when you do.
Email & SMS marketing — Omnisend
Email and SMS marketing campaigns.
This is an excellent Mailchimp option for magical emails. Omnisend's processes simplify email automation.
I love the interface's cleanliness.
Omnisend's free tier includes web push notifications.
Send up to:
500 emails per month
60 maximum SMSs
500 Web Push Maximum
Forms and surveys — Tally
Create flexible forms that people enjoy.
Typeform is clean but restricting. Sometimes you need to add many questions. Tally's needed sometimes.
Tally is flexible and cheaper than Typeform.
99% of Tally's features are free and unrestricted, including:
Unlimited forms
Countless submissions
Collect payments
File upload
Tally lets you examine what individuals contributed to forms before submitting them to see where they get stuck.
Airtable and Zapier connectors automate things further. If you pay, you can apply custom CSS to fit your brand.
See.
Free tools are the greatest.
Let's use them to launch a startup.
Leonardo Castorina
3 years ago
How to Use Obsidian to Boost Research Productivity
Tools for managing your PhD projects, reading lists, notes, and inspiration.
As a researcher, you have to know everything. But knowledge is useless if it cannot be accessed quickly. An easy-to-use method of archiving information makes taking notes effortless and enjoyable.
As a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence, I use Obsidian (https://obsidian.md) to manage my knowledge.
The article has three parts:
- What is a note, how to organize notes, tags, folders, and links? This section is tool-agnostic, so you can use most of these ideas with any note-taking app.
- Instructions for using Obsidian, managing notes, reading lists, and useful plugins. This section demonstrates how I use Obsidian, my preferred knowledge management tool.
- Workflows: How to use Zotero to take notes from papers, manage multiple projects' notes, create MOCs with Dataview, and more. This section explains how to use Obsidian to solve common scientific problems and manage/maintain your knowledge effectively.
This list is not perfect or complete, but it is my current solution to problems I've encountered during my PhD. Please leave additional comments or contact me if you have any feedback. I'll try to update this article.
Throughout the article, I'll refer to your digital library as your "Obsidian Vault" or "Zettelkasten".
Other useful resources are listed at the end of the article.
1. Philosophy: Taking and organizing notes
Carl Sagan: “To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
Before diving into Obsidian, let's establish a Personal Knowledge Management System and a Zettelkasten. You can skip to Section 2 if you already know these terms.
Niklas Luhmann, a prolific sociologist who wrote 400 papers and 70 books, inspired this section and much of Zettelkasten. Zettelkasten means “slip box” (or library in this article). His Zettlekasten had around 90000 physical notes, which can be found here.
There are now many tools available to help with this process. Obsidian's website has a good introduction section: https://publish.obsidian.md/hub/
Notes
We'll start with "What is a note?" Although it may seem trivial, the answer depends on the topic or your note-taking style. The idea is that a note is as “atomic” (i.e. You should read the note and get the idea right away.
The resolution of your notes depends on their detail. Deep Learning, for example, could be a general description of Neural Networks, with a few notes on the various architectures (eg. Recurrent Neural Networks, Convolutional Neural Networks etc..).
Limiting length and detail is a good rule of thumb. If you need more detail in a specific section of this note, break it up into smaller notes. Deep Learning now has three notes:
- Deep Learning
- Recurrent Neural Networks
- Convolutional Neural Networks
Repeat this step as needed until you achieve the desired granularity. You might want to put these notes in a “Neural Networks” folder because they are all about the same thing. But there's a better way:
#Tags and [[Links]] over /Folders/
The main issue with folders is that they are not flexible and assume that all notes in the folder belong to a single category. This makes it difficult to make connections between topics.
Deep Learning has been used to predict protein structure (AlphaFold) and classify images (ImageNet). Imagine a folder structure like this:
- /Proteins/
- Protein Folding
- /Deep Learning/
- /Proteins/
Your notes about Protein Folding and Convolutional Neural Networks will be separate, and you won't be able to find them in the same folder.
This can be solved in several ways. The most common one is to use tags rather than folders. A note can be grouped with multiple topics this way. Obsidian tags can also be nested (have subtags).
You can also link two notes together. You can build your “Knowledge Graph” in Obsidian and other note-taking apps like Obsidian.
My Knowledge Graph. Green: Biology, Red: Machine Learning, Yellow: Autoencoders, Blue: Graphs, Brown: Tags.
My Knowledge Graph and the note “Backrpropagation” and its links.
Backpropagation note and all its links
Why use Folders?
Folders help organize your vault as it grows. The main suggestion is to have few folders that "weakly" collect groups of notes or better yet, notes from different sources.
Among my Zettelkasten folders are:
My Zettelkasten's 5 folders
They usually gather data from various sources:
MOC: Map of Contents for the Zettelkasten.
Projects: Contains one note for each side-project of my PhD where I log my progress and ideas. Notes are linked to these.
Bio and ML: These two are the main content of my Zettelkasten and could theoretically be combined.
Papers: All my scientific paper notes go here. A bibliography links the notes. Zotero .bib file
Books: I make a note for each book I read, which I then split into multiple notes.
Keeping images separate from other files can help keep your main folders clean.
I will elaborate on these in the Workflow Section.
My general recommendation is to use tags and links instead of folders.
Maps of Content (MOC)
Making Tables of Contents is a good solution (MOCs).
These are notes that "signposts" your Zettelkasten library, directing you to the right type of notes. It can link to other notes based on common tags. This is usually done with a title, then your notes related to that title. As an example:
An example of a Machine Learning MOC generated with Dataview.
As shown above, my Machine Learning MOC begins with the basics. Then it's on to Variational Auto-Encoders. Not only does this save time, but it also saves scrolling through the tag search section.
So I keep MOCs at the top of my library so I can quickly find information and see my library. These MOCs are generated automatically using an Obsidian Plugin called Dataview (https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview).
Ideally, MOCs could be expanded to include more information about the notes, their status, and what's left to do. In the absence of this, Dataview does a fantastic job at creating a good structure for your notes.
In the absence of this, Dataview does a fantastic job at creating a good structure for your notes.
2. Tools: Knowing Obsidian
Obsidian is my preferred tool because it is free, all notes are stored in Markdown format, and each panel can be dragged and dropped. You can get it here: https://obsidian.md/
Obsidian interface.
Obsidian is highly customizable, so here is my preferred interface:
The theme is customized from https://github.com/colineckert/obsidian-things
Alternatively, each panel can be collapsed, moved, or removed as desired. To open a panel later, click on the vertical "..." (bottom left of the note panel).
My interface is organized as follows:
How my Obsidian Interface is organized.
Folders/Search:
This is where I keep all relevant folders. I usually use the MOC note to navigate, but sometimes I use the search button to find a note.
Tags:
I use nested tags and look into each one to find specific notes to link.
cMenu:
Easy-to-use menu plugin cMenu (https://github.com/chetachiezikeuzor/cMenu-Plugin)
Global Graph:
The global graph shows all your notes (linked and unlinked). Linked notes will appear closer together. Zoom in to read each note's title. It's a bit overwhelming at first, but as your library grows, you get used to the positions and start thinking of new connections between notes.
Local Graph:
Your current note will be shown in relation to other linked notes in your library. When needed, you can quickly jump to another link and back to the current note.
Links:
Finally, an outline panel and the plugin Obsidian Power Search (https://github.com/aviral-batra/obsidian-power-search) allow me to search my vault by highlighting text.
Start using the tool and worry about panel positioning later. I encourage you to find the best use-case for your library.
Plugins
An additional benefit of using Obsidian is the large plugin library. I use several (Calendar, Citations, Dataview, Templater, Admonition):
Obsidian Calendar Plugin: https://github.com/liamcain
It organizes your notes on a calendar. This is ideal for meeting notes or keeping a journal.
Calendar addon from hans/obsidian-citation-plugin
Obsidian Citation Plugin: https://github.com/hans/
Allows you to cite papers from a.bib file. You can also customize your notes (eg. Title, Authors, Abstract etc..)
Plugin citation from hans/obsidian-citation-plugin
Obsidian Dataview: https://github.com/blacksmithgu/
A powerful plugin that allows you to query your library as a database and generate content automatically. See the MOC section for an example.
Allows you to create notes with specific templates like dates, tags, and headings.
Templater. Obsidian Admonition: https://github.com/valentine195/obsidian-admonition
Blocks allow you to organize your notes.
Plugin warning. Obsidian Admonition (valentine195)
There are many more, but this list should get you started.
3. Workflows: Cool stuff
Here are a few of my workflows for using obsidian for scientific research. This is a list of resources I've found useful for my use-cases. I'll outline and describe them briefly so you can skim them quickly.
3.1 Using Templates to Structure Notes
3.2 Free Note Syncing (Laptop, Phone, Tablet)
3.3 Zotero/Mendeley/JabRef -> Obsidian — Managing Reading Lists
3.4 Projects and Lab Books
3.5 Private Encrypted Diary
3.1 Using Templates to Structure Notes
Plugins: Templater and Dataview (optional).
To take effective notes, you must first make adding new notes as easy as possible. Templates can save you time and give your notes a consistent structure. As an example:
An example of a note using a template.
### [[YOUR MOC]]
# Note Title of your note
**Tags**::
**Links**::
The top line links to your knowledge base's Map of Content (MOC) (see previous sections). After the title, I add tags (and a link between the note and the tag) and links to related notes.
To quickly identify all notes that need to be expanded, I add the tag “#todo”. In the “TODO:” section, I list the tasks within the note.
The rest are notes on the topic.
Templater can help you create these templates. For new books, I use the following template:
### [[Books MOC]]
# Title
**Author**::
**Date::
**Tags::
**Links::
A book template example.
Using a simple query, I can hook Dataview to it.
dataview
table author as Author, date as “Date Finished”, tags as “Tags”, grade as “Grade”
from “4. Books”
SORT grade DESCENDING
using Dataview to query templates.
3.2 Free Note Syncing (Laptop, Phone, Tablet)
No plugins used.
One of my favorite features of Obsidian is the library's self-contained and portable format. Your folder contains everything (plugins included).
Ordinary folders and documents are available as well. There is also a “.obsidian” folder. This contains all your plugins and settings, so you can use it on other devices.
So you can use Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox for free as long as you sync your folder (note: your folder should be in your Cloud Folder).
For my iOS and macOS work, I prefer iCloud. You can also use the paid service Obsidian Sync.
3.3 Obsidian — Managing Reading Lists and Notes in Zotero/Mendeley/JabRef
Plugins: Quotes (required).
3.3 Zotero/Mendeley/JabRef -> Obsidian — Taking Notes and Managing Reading Lists of Scientific Papers
My preferred reference manager is Zotero, but this workflow should work with any reference manager that produces a .bib file. This file is exported to my cloud folder so I can access it from any platform.
My Zotero library is tagged as follows:
My reference manager's tags
For readings, I usually search for the tags “!!!” and “To-Read” and select a paper. Annotate the paper next (either on PDF using GoodNotes or on physical paper).
Then I make a paper page using a template in the Citations plugin settings:
An example of my citations template.
Create a new note, open the command list with CMD/CTRL + P, and find the Citations “Insert literature note content in the current pane” to see this lovely view.
Citation generated by the article https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.24.22269144
You can then convert your notes to digital. I found that transcribing helped me retain information better.
3.4 Projects and Lab Books
Plugins: Tweaker (required).
PhD students offering advice on thesis writing are common (read as regret). I started asking them what they would have done differently or earlier.
“Deep stuff Leo,” one person said. So my main issue is basic organization, losing track of my tasks and the reasons for them.
As a result, I'd go on other experiments that didn't make sense, and have to reverse engineer my logic for thesis writing. - PhD student now wise Postdoc
Time management requires planning. Keeping track of multiple projects and lab books is difficult during a PhD. How I deal with it:
- One folder for all my projects
- One file for each project
I use a template to create each project
### [[Projects MOC]]
# <% tp.file.title %>
**Tags**::
**Links**::
**URL**::
**Project Description**::## Notes:
### <% tp.file.last_modified_date(“dddd Do MMMM YYYY”) %>
#### Done:
#### TODO:
#### Notes
You can insert a template into a new note with CMD + P and looking for the Templater option.
I then keep adding new days with another template:
### <% tp.file.last_modified_date("dddd Do MMMM YYYY") %>
#### Done:
#### TODO:
#### Notes:
This way you can keep adding days to your project and update with reasonings and things you still have to do and have done. An example below:
Example of project note with timestamped notes.
3.5 Private Encrypted Diary
This is one of my favorite Obsidian uses.
Mini Diary's interface has long frustrated me. After the author archived the project, I looked for a replacement. I had two demands:
- It had to be private, and nobody had to be able to read the entries.
- Cloud syncing was required for editing on multiple devices.
Then I learned about encrypting the Obsidian folder. Then decrypt and open the folder with Obsidian. Sync the folder as usual.
Use CryptoMator (https://cryptomator.org/). Create an encrypted folder in Cryptomator for your Obsidian vault, set a password, and let it do the rest.
If you need a step-by-step video guide, here it is:
Conclusion
So, I hope this was helpful!
In the first section of the article, we discussed notes and note-taking techniques. We discussed when to use tags and links over folders and when to break up larger notes.
Then we learned about Obsidian, its interface, and some useful plugins like Citations for citing papers and Templater for creating note templates.
Finally, we discussed workflows and how to use Zotero to take notes from scientific papers, as well as managing Lab Books and Private Encrypted Diaries.
Thanks for reading and commenting :)
Read original post here
Pen Magnet
3 years ago
Why Google Staff Doesn't Work
Sundar Pichai unveiled Simplicity Sprint at Google's latest all-hands conference.
To boost employee efficiency.
Not surprising. Few envisioned Google declaring a productivity drive.
Sunder Pichai's speech:
“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have. Help me create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer focused. We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”
The primary driver driving Google's efficiency push is:
Google's efficiency push follows 13% quarterly revenue increase. Last year in the same quarter, it was 62%.
Market newcomers may argue that the previous year's figure was fuelled by post-Covid reopening and growing consumer spending. Investors aren't convinced. A promising company like Google can't afford to drop so quickly.
Google’s quarterly revenue growth stood at 13%, against 62% in last year same quarter.
Google isn't alone. In my recent essay regarding 2025 programmers, I warned about the economic downturn's effects on FAAMG's workforce. Facebook had suspended hiring, and Microsoft had promised hefty bonuses for loyal staff.
In the same article, I predicted Google's troubles. Online advertising, especially the way Google and Facebook sell it using user data, is over.
FAAMG and 2nd rung IT companies could be the first to fall without Post-COVID revival and uncertain global geopolitics.
Google has hardly ever discussed effectiveness:
Apparently openly.
Amazon treats its employees like robots, even in software positions. It has significant turnover and a terrible reputation as a result. Because of this, it rarely loses money due to staff productivity.
Amazon trumps Google. In reality, it treats its employees poorly.
Google was the founding father of the modern-day open culture.
Larry and Sergey Google founded the IT industry's Open Culture. Silicon Valley called Google's internal democracy and transparency near anarchy. Management rarely slammed decisions on employees. Surveys and internal polls ensured everyone knew the company's direction and had a vote.
20% project allotment (weekly free time to build own project) was Google's open-secret innovation component.
After Larry and Sergey's exit in 2019, this is Google's first profitability hurdle. Only Google insiders can answer these questions.
Would Google's investors compel the company's management to adopt an Amazon-style culture where the developers are treated like circus performers?
If so, would Google follow suit?
If so, how does Google go about doing it?
Before discussing Google's likely plan, let's examine programming productivity.
What determines a programmer's productivity is simple:
How would we answer Google's questions?
As a programmer, I'm more concerned about Simplicity Sprint's aftermath than its economic catalysts.
Large organizations don't care much about quarterly and annual productivity metrics. They have 10-year product-launch plans. If something seems horrible today, it's likely due to someone's lousy judgment 5 years ago who is no longer in the blame game.
Deconstruct our main question.
How exactly do you change the culture of the firm so that productivity increases?
How can you accomplish that without affecting your capacity to profit? There are countless ways to increase output without decreasing profit.
How can you accomplish this with little to no effect on employee motivation? (While not all employers care about it, in this case we are discussing the father of the open company culture.)
How do you do it for a 10-developer IT firm that is losing money versus a 1,70,000-developer organization with a trillion-dollar valuation?
When implementing a large-scale organizational change, success must be carefully measured.
The fastest way to do something is to do it right, no matter how long it takes.
You require clearly-defined group/team/role segregation and solid pass/fail matrices to:
You can give performers rewards.
Ones that are average can be inspired to improve
Underachievers may receive assistance or, in the worst-case scenario, rehabilitation
As a 20-year programmer, I associate productivity with greatness.
Doing something well, no matter how long it takes, is the fastest way to do it.
Let's discuss a programmer's productivity.
Why productivity is a strange term in programming:
Productivity is work per unit of time.
Money=time This is an economic proverb. More hours worked, more pay. Longer projects cost more.
As a buyer, you desire a quick supply. As a business owner, you want employees who perform at full capacity, creating more products to transport and boosting your profits.
All economic matrices encourage production because of our obsession with it. Productivity is the only organic way a nation may increase its GDP.
Time is money — is not just a proverb, but an economical fact.
Applying the same productivity theory to programming gets problematic. An automating computer. Its capacity depends on the software its master writes.
Today, a sophisticated program can process a billion records in a few hours. Creating one takes a competent coder and the necessary infrastructure. Learning, designing, coding, testing, and iterations take time.
Programming productivity isn't linear, unlike manufacturing and maintenance.
Average programmers produce code every day yet miss deadlines. Expert programmers go days without coding. End of sprint, they often surprise themselves by delivering fully working solutions.
Reversing the programming duties has no effect. Experts aren't needed for productivity.
These patterns remind me of an XKCD comic.
Programming productivity depends on two factors:
The capacity of the programmer and his or her command of the principles of computer science
His or her productive bursts, how often they occur, and how long they last as they engineer the answer
At some point, productivity measurement becomes Schrödinger’s cat.
Product companies measure productivity using use cases, classes, functions, or LOCs (lines of code). In days of data-rich source control systems, programmers' merge requests and/or commits are the most preferred yardstick. Companies assess productivity by tickets closed.
Every organization eventually has trouble measuring productivity. Finer measurements create more chaos. Every measure compares apples to oranges (or worse, apples with aircraft.) On top of the measuring overhead, the endeavor causes tremendous and unnecessary stress on teams, lowering their productivity and defeating its purpose.
Macro productivity measurements make sense. Amazon's factory-era management has done it, but at great cost.
Google can pull it off if it wants to.
What Google meant in reality when it said that employee productivity has decreased:
When Google considers its employees unproductive, it doesn't mean they don't complete enough work in the allotted period.
They can't multiply their work's influence over time.
Programmers who produce excellent modules or products are unsure on how to use them.
The best data scientists are unable to add the proper parameters in their models.
Despite having a great product backlog, managers struggle to recruit resources with the necessary skills.
Product designers who frequently develop and A/B test newer designs are unaware of why measures are inaccurate or whether they have already reached the saturation point.
Most ignorant: All of the aforementioned positions are aware of what to do with their deliverables, but neither their supervisors nor Google itself have given them sufficient authority.
So, Google employees aren't productive.
How to fix it?
Business analysis: White suits introducing novel items can interact with customers from all regions. Track analytics events proactively, especially the infrequent ones.
SOLID, DRY, TEST, and AUTOMATION: Do less + reuse. Use boilerplate code creation. If something already exists, don't implement it yourself.
Build features-building capabilities: N features are created by average programmers in N hours. An endless number of features can be built by average programmers thanks to the fact that expert programmers can produce 1 capability in N hours.
Work on projects that will have a positive impact: Use the same algorithm to search for images on YouTube rather than the Mars surface.
Avoid tasks that can only be measured in terms of time linearity at all costs (if a task can be completed in N minutes, then M copies of the same task would cost M*N minutes).
In conclusion:
Software development isn't linear. Why should the makers be measured?
Notation for The Big O
I'm discussing a new way to quantify programmer productivity. (It applies to other professions, but that's another subject)
The Big O notation expresses the paradigm (the algorithmic performance concept programmers rot to ace their Google interview)
Google (or any large corporation) can do this.
Sort organizational roles into categories and specify their impact vs. time objectives. A CXO role's time vs. effect function, for instance, has a complexity of O(log N), meaning that if a CEO raises his or her work time by 8x, the result only increases by 3x.
Plot the influence of each employee over time using the X and Y axes, respectively.
Add a multiplier for Y-axis values to the productivity equation to make business objectives matter. (Example values: Support = 5, Utility = 7, and Innovation = 10).
Compare employee scores in comparable categories (developers vs. devs, CXOs vs. CXOs, etc.) and reward or help employees based on whether they are ahead of or behind the pack.
After measuring every employee's inventiveness, it's straightforward to help underachievers and praise achievers.
Example of a Big(O) Category:
If I ran Google (God forbid, its worst days are far off), here's how I'd classify it. You can categorize Google employees whichever you choose.
The Google interview truth:
O(1) < O(log n) < O(n) < O(n log n) < O(n^x) where all logarithmic bases are < n.
O(1): Customer service workers' hours have no impact on firm profitability or customer pleasure.
CXOs Most of their time is spent on travel, strategic meetings, parties, and/or meetings with minimal floor-level influence. They're good at launching new products but bad at pivoting without disaster. Their directions are being followed.
Devops, UX designers, testers Agile projects revolve around deployment. DevOps controls the levers. Their automation secures results in subsequent cycles.
UX/UI Designers must still prototype UI elements despite improved design tools.
All test cases are proportional to use cases/functional units, hence testers' work is O(N).
Architects Their effort improves code quality. Their right/wrong interference affects product quality and rollout decisions even after the design is set.
Core Developers Only core developers can write code and own requirements. When people understand and own their labor, the output improves dramatically. A single character error can spread undetected throughout the SDLC and cost millions.
Core devs introduce/eliminate 1000x bugs, refactoring attempts, and regression. Following our earlier hypothesis.
The fastest way to do something is to do it right, no matter how long it takes.
Conclusion:
Google is at the liberal extreme of the employee-handling spectrum
Microsoft faced an existential crisis after 2000. It didn't choose Amazon's data-driven people management to revitalize itself.
Instead, it entrusted developers. It welcomed emerging technologies and opened up to open source, something it previously opposed.
Google is too lax in its employee-handling practices. With that foundation, it can only follow Amazon, no matter how carefully.
Any attempt to redefine people's measurements will affect the organization emotionally.
The more Google compares apples to apples, the higher its chances for future rebirth.
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Sanjay Priyadarshi
3 years ago
Meet a Programmer Who Turned Down Microsoft's $10,000,000,000 Acquisition Offer
Failures inspire young developers
Jason citron created many products.
These products flopped.
Microsoft offered $10 billion for one of these products.
He rejected the offer since he was so confident in his success.
Let’s find out how he built a product that is currently valued at $15 billion.
Early in his youth, Jason began learning to code.
Jason's father taught him programming and IT.
His father wanted to help him earn money when he needed it.
Jason created video games and websites in high school.
Jason realized early on that his IT and programming skills could make him money.
Jason's parents misjudged his aptitude for programming.
Jason frequented online programming communities.
He looked for web developers. He created websites for those people.
His parents suspected Jason sold drugs online. When he said he used programming to make money, they were shocked.
They helped him set up a PayPal account.
Florida higher education to study video game creation
Jason never attended an expensive university.
He studied game design in Florida.
“Higher Education is an interesting part of society… When I work with people, the school they went to never comes up… only thing that matters is what can you do…At the end of the day, the beauty of silicon valley is that if you have a great idea and you can bring it to the life, you can convince a total stranger to give you money and join your project… This notion that you have to go to a great school didn’t end up being a thing for me.”
Jason's life was altered by Steve Jobs' keynote address.
After graduating, Jason joined an incubator.
Jason created a video-dating site first.
Bad idea.
Nobody wanted to use it when it was released, so they shut it down.
He made a multiplayer game.
It was released on Bebo. 10,000 people played it.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple app store, he stopped playing.
The introduction of the app store resembled that of a new gaming console.
Jason's life altered after Steve Jobs' 2008 address.
“Whenever a new video game console is launched, that’s the opportunity for a new video game studio to get started, it’s because there aren’t too many games available…When a new PlayStation comes out, since it’s a new system, there’s only a handful of titles available… If you can be a launch title you can get a lot of distribution.”
Apple's app store provided a chance to start a video game company.
They released an app after 5 months of work.
Aurora Feint is the game.
Jason believed 1000 players in a week would be wonderful. A thousand players joined in the first hour.
Over time, Aurora Feints' game didn't gain traction. They don't make enough money to keep playing.
They could only make enough for one month.
Instead of buying video games, buy technology
Jason saw that they established a leaderboard, chat rooms, and multiplayer capabilities and believed other developers would want to use these.
They opted to sell the prior game's technology.
OpenFeint.
Assisting other game developers
They had no money in the bank to create everything needed to make the technology user-friendly.
Jason and Daniel designed a website saying:
“If you’re making a video game and want to have a drop in multiplayer support, you can use our system”
TechCrunch covered their website launch, and they gained a few hundred mailing list subscribers.
They raised seed funding with the mailing list.
Nearly all iPhone game developers started adopting the Open Feint logo.
“It was pretty wild… It was really like a whole social platform for people to play with their friends.”
What kind of a business model was it?
OpenFeint originally planned to make the software free for all games. As the game gained popularity, they demanded payment.
They later concluded it wasn't a good business concept.
It became free eventually.
Acquired for $104 million
Open Feint's users and employees grew tremendously.
GREE bought OpenFeint for $104 million in April 2011.
GREE initially committed to helping Jason and his team build a fantastic company.
Three or four months after the acquisition, Jason recognized they had a different vision.
He quit.
Jason's Original Vision for the iPad
Jason focused on distribution in 2012 to help businesses stand out.
The iPad market and user base were growing tremendously.
Jason said the iPad may replace mobile gadgets.
iPad gamers behaved differently than mobile gamers.
People sat longer and experienced more using an iPad.
“The idea I had was what if we built a gaming business that was more like traditional video games but played on tablets as opposed to some kind of mobile game that I’ve been doing before.”
Unexpected insight after researching the video game industry
Jason learned from studying the gaming industry that long-standing companies had advantages beyond a single release.
Previously, long-standing video game firms had their own distribution system. This distribution strategy could buffer time between successful titles.
Sony, Microsoft, and Valve all have gaming consoles and online stores.
So he built a distribution system.
He created a group chat app for gamers.
He envisioned a team-based multiplayer game with text and voice interaction.
His objective was to develop a communication network, release more games, and start a game distribution business.
Remaking the video game League of Legends
Jason and his crew reimagined a League of Legends game mode for 12-inch glass.
They adapted the game for tablets.
League of Legends was PC-only.
So they rebuilt it.
They overhauled the game and included native mobile experiences to stand out.
Hammer and Chisel was the company's name.
18 people worked on the game.
The game was funded. The game took 2.5 years to make.
Was the game a success?
July 2014 marked the game's release. The team's hopes were dashed.
Critics initially praised the game.
Initial installation was widespread.
The game failed.
As time passed, the team realized iPad gaming wouldn't increase much and mobile would win.
Jason was given a fresh idea by Stan Vishnevskiy.
Stan Vishnevskiy was a corporate engineer.
He told Jason about his plan to design a communication app without a game.
This concept seeded modern strife.
“The insight that he really had was to put a couple of dots together… we’re seeing our customers communicating around our own game with all these different apps and also ourselves when we’re playing on PC… We should solve that problem directly rather than needing to build a new game…we should start making it on PC.”
So began Discord.
Online socializing with pals was the newest trend.
Jason grew up playing video games with his friends.
He never played outside.
Jason had many great moments playing video games with his closest buddy, wife, and brother.
Discord was about providing a location for you and your group to speak and hang out.
Like a private cafe, bedroom, or living room.
Discord was developed for you and your friends on computers and phones.
You can quickly call your buddies during a game to conduct a conference call. Put the call on speaker and talk while playing.
Discord wanted to give every player a unique experience. Because coordinating across apps was a headache.
The entire team started concentrating on Discord.
Jason decided Hammer and Chisel would focus on their chat app.
Jason didn't want to make a video game.
How Discord attracted the appropriate attention
During the first five months, the entire team worked on the game and got feedback from friends.
This ensures product improvement. As a result, some teammates' buddies started utilizing Discord.
The team knew it would become something, but the result was buggy. App occasionally crashed.
Jason persuaded a gamer friend to write on Reddit about the software.
New people would find Discord. Why not?
Reddit users discovered Discord and 50 started using it frequently.
Discord was launched.
Rejecting the $10 billion acquisition proposal
Discord has increased in recent years.
It sends billions of messages.
Discord's users aren't tracked. They're privacy-focused.
Purchase offer
Covid boosted Discord's user base.
Weekly, billions of messages were transmitted.
Microsoft offered $10 billion for Discord in 2021.
Jason sold Open Feint for $104m in 2011.
This time, he believed in the product so much that he rejected Microsoft's offer.
“I was talking to some people in the team about which way we could go… The good thing was that most of the team wanted to continue building.”
Last time, Discord was valued at $15 billion.
Discord raised money on March 12, 2022.
The $15 billion corporation raised $500 million in 2021.
Keagan Stokoe
3 years ago
Generalists Create Startups; Specialists Scale Them
There’s a funny part of ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson where Jobs says that Bill Gates was more a copier than an innovator:
“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas….He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.”
Gates lacked flavor. Nobody ever got excited about a Microsoft launch, despite their good products. Jobs had the world's best product taste. Apple vs. Microsoft.
A CEO's core job functions are all driven by taste: recruiting, vision, and company culture all require good taste. Depending on the type of company you want to build, know where you stand between Microsoft and Apple.
How can you improve your product judgment? How to acquire taste?
Test and refine
Product development follows two parallel paths: the ‘customer obsession’ path and the ‘taste and iterate’ path.
The customer obsession path involves solving customer problems. Lean Startup frameworks show you what to build at each step.
Taste-and-iterate doesn't involve the customer. You iterate internally and rely on product leaders' taste and judgment.
Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda explains this method. In Creative Selection, demos are iterated and presented to product leaders. Your boss presents to their boss, and so on up to Steve Jobs. If you have good product taste, you can be a panelist.
The iPhone follows this path. Before seeing an iPhone, consumers couldn't want one. Customer obsession wouldn't have gotten you far because iPhone buyers didn't know they wanted one.
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz writes:
“It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about — figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job. The customer only knows what she thinks she wants based on her experience with the current product. The innovator can take into account everything that’s possible, but often must go against what she knows to be true. As a result, innovation requires a combination of knowledge, skill, and courage.“
One path solves a problem the customer knows they have, and the other doesn't. Instead of asking a person what they want, observe them and give them something they didn't know they needed.
It's much harder. Apple is the world's most valuable company because it's more valuable. It changes industries permanently.
If you want to build superior products, use the iPhone of your industry.
How to Improve Your Taste
I. Work for a company that has taste.
People with the best taste in products, markets, and people are rewarded for building great companies. Tasteful people know quality even when they can't describe it. Taste isn't writable. It's feel-based.
Moving into a community that's already doing what you want to do may be the best way to develop entrepreneurial taste. Most company-building knowledge is tacit.
Joining a company you want to emulate allows you to learn its inner workings. It reveals internal patterns intuitively. Many successful founders come from successful companies.
Consumption determines taste. Excellence will refine you. This is why restauranteurs visit the world's best restaurants and serious painters visit Paris or New York. Joining a company with good taste is beneficial.
2. Possess a wide range of interests
“Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There’s something magical about that place… The reason Apple resonates with people is that there’s a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves.” — Steve Jobs
I recently discovered Edwin Land. Jobs modeled much of his career after Land's. It makes sense that Apple was inspired by Land.
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War notes:
“Land was introverted in person, but supremely confident when he came to his ideas… Alongside his scientific passions, lay knowledge of art, music, and literature. He was a cultured person growing even more so as he got older, and his interests filtered into the ethos of Polaroid.”
Founders' philosophies shape companies. Jobs and Land were invested. It showed in the products their companies made. Different. His obsession was spreading Microsoft software worldwide. Microsoft's success is why their products are bland and boring.
Experience is important. It's probably why startups are built by generalists and scaled by specialists.
Jobs combined design, typography, storytelling, and product taste at Apple. Some of the best original Mac developers were poets and musicians. Edwin Land liked broad-minded people, according to his biography. Physicist-musicians or physicist-photographers.
Da Vinci was a master of art, engineering, architecture, anatomy, and more. He wrote and drew at the same desk. His genius is remembered centuries after his death. Da Vinci's statue would stand at the intersection of humanities and science.
We find incredibly creative people here. Superhumans. Designers, creators, and world-improvers. These are the people we need to navigate technology and lead world-changing companies. Generalists lead.
Rishi Dean
3 years ago
Coinbase's web3 app
Use popular Ethereum dapps with Coinbase’s new dapp wallet and browser
Tl;dr: This post highlights the ability to access web3 directly from your Coinbase app using our new dapp wallet and browser.
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) have gained popularity in the last year (DAOs). The total value locked (TVL) of DeFi investments on the Ethereum blockchain has grown to over $110B USD, while NFTs sales have grown to over $30B USD in the last 12 months (LTM). New innovative real-world applications are emerging every day.
Today, a small group of Coinbase app users can access Ethereum-based dapps. Buying NFTs on Coinbase NFT and OpenSea, trading on Uniswap and Sushiswap, and borrowing and lending on Curve and Compound are examples.
Our new dapp wallet and dapp browser enable you to access and explore web3 directly from your Coinbase app.
Web3 in the Coinbase app
Users can now access dapps without a recovery phrase. This innovative dapp wallet experience uses Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology to secure your on-chain wallet. This wallet's design allows you and Coinbase to share the 'key.' If you lose access to your device, the key to your dapp wallet is still safe and Coinbase can help recover it.
Set up your new dapp wallet by clicking the "Browser" tab in the Android app's navigation bar. Once set up, the Coinbase app's new dapp browser lets you search, discover, and use Ethereum-based dapps.
Looking forward
We want to enable everyone to seamlessly and safely participate in web3, and today’s launch is another step on that journey. We're rolling out the new dapp wallet and browser in the US on Android first to a small subset of users and plan to expand soon. Stay tuned!