You try to miss the potholes when you see them.

Sometimes you don’t see them in time, or at all, and then bang! Cursing the road crew, the state, the county. You might even take this moment to sling some mud at a presidential candidate.

“Oh, I hope something didn’t break.”

But sometimes it does. Then you’re stuck, waiting for AAA or limping on the donut tire to the first available tire supplier (who’s open). You’re gonna be late. You might even miss it. Not to mention the several hundred dollars you weren’t prepared to spend.

Hitting the pothole sucks.

Did you ever think about it from AAA or the tire supplier’s point of view?

They love the potholes.

How do you decide which one to choose?

It’s partly an engineering question because you have requirements. When making your choice, you must ensure that it meets the requirements, or you’ll be disappointed.

Don’t buy a chair if you need a car. On the other hand, if you need a chair, you could buy a car. Unless you need that chair to fit in your kitchen — and then again, we’re back to requirements.

It’s mostly an emotional decision. Who buys a car because they need a chair? People do, and that’s ok.

One way to satisfy both the engineering and emotional needs of a decision is to find the knee in the curve and choose that one.

The knee in the curve is the spot at which one or more of the constraints go exponentially higher.

The basic model costs $10, the plus costs $12, and the deluxe costs $100. The knee is the plus model.

The basic model is available today for pickup, the plus model is a 3-day lead, and the deluxe will take 6 months. The knee is the plus model.

If you’re a decider, the knee is a great place to position your decision. If you’re a provider, the knee is a great place to position your product.

I saw one. Then another. Then I had an idea.

I’m talking about driverless taxis, of course. I’ve been in Austin this week, and Waymo’s white Jaguars with futuristic sensing pods adorning their outsides are not hard to spot. 

I would.

I downloaded the app and tried to summon one for a trip from the convention center to South Congress. Only about two miles. What could go wrong in a two-mile journey that likely only required one turn?

Ah, but I was denied. “Austin coming soon.” Damn.

Last year, when I was here, I saw the GM Cruise cars cruising around. So I thought maybe that service is available.Because now, I’m emotionally committed to giving this a try. 

Also no. In fact, I can’t quite figure out if that’s even a business anymore. I think GM is also trying to figure out if it’s a business.

I didn’t get a chance to give it a try. But I would.

Would you?

A friend once told me, “never give away your work for free.”

Eh. Because what is “work” and what is “free?”

If you paint your own house, that’s probably not work in the sense we’re describing. But if you do the exact same thing for your neighbor, it probably is work.

If you write and email a newsletter around to your family that recaps the Phillies’ devastating loss to the Mets in the NLDS, you wouldn’t expect them to pay you. But what if your cousin who works for a sports media publisher read it and asked if they could publish it? You’d probably expect them to pay you.

Now three and a half months into our 4TLAS startup journey, I’ve thought a lot about what work and free mean in our context. 

I’ve spoken to many people who are generous with their expertise, time, and energy — gave much to me for free. One could definitely argue that it was work for them. OK, maybe not grueling, but still. I’m ever grateful for those people. 

I’ve also run into a few who were uninterested in having a discussion unless money was on the table. I get it. 

Working for free is an investment. If you give away your expertise, skills, or labor for free, you are (as you should be) looking for a return on that investment. It might be monetary, but it might also be something entirely different, such as connection, respect, or that good feeling you get from helping.

I think it’s about reading the moment and deciding what kind of value you’re after. Money is one way to measure that worth. But also, the return comes in the form of ideas, momentum, and doors that open simply because you chose to invest yourself in the right place, with the right people. 

And many times, that ephemeral return turns into monetary wealth. 

Ship it now. Fix it later.

Is this the right approach?

Well, you gotta ask yourself:

• Can you fix it later?
• Is it good enough to ship now?
• Should you fix it later?

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then ship it now and fix it later. 

Assume they have dedication, responsibility, and adultiness.

Let them work where they want.
Let them work when they want (of course, with important times/events covered).
Let them determine the how.
You provide direction, insight, tools, and resources.
You swat the flies and allow them to focus.
You help unstick.
You trust.
You empower.
You support.

Hire people who can work in a macro-managed environment and then provide it.

How do you get over the hump?

“Over the hump“ originated during World War II, specifically referring to the dangerous air route known as “The Hump.” It was an Allied air route over the eastern Himalayas. This route was critical for transporting supplies from India to China, particularly when ground routes were compromised by Japanese forces.

The hump had treacherous weather and mountainous terrain. It was hard. It was terribly hard. Over 600 planes crashed during the war when flying that route. It took teamwork, skill, focus, stamina, and a little luck to get over the hump. Once a pilot made it over the hump, the hard part was behind them. 

Whatever the humps are in your life, starting with teamwork, skill, focus, and stamina are the right place to start. 

And when you have a little luck along the way, don’t be afraid to acknowledge it. 

You want to be confident.
But you feel apprehensive.

The solution is presence.

I’ve never tried to skin a cat. I really don’t know. 

“The earliest alternate version appears in 1678, in John Ray’s collection of English proverbs as there are more ways to kill a dog than hanging, with the popular British version, there are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream.”

“Even Mark Twain got in on the action within his story A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in 1889 when describing the Church: ‘she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat'”

You can walk, ride a bike, or drive a car to get across town.

You can put the dish in the dishwasher or grab the scrub brush and fill the sink.

You can listen to the audio version, fire up your e-reader, or grab the book off the shelf.

There are multiple ways to skin the cat. Let’s reserve judgment. 

Merriam-Webster regularly updates its dictionary. Here’s a few for you.

Freestyle — an improvised performance especially of a rap.

Street corn — grilled corn on the cob that is coated with a creamy spread.

For You page — a social media feed that contains personalized content based on the user’s interests.

Breach read — a usually light work of escapist fiction.

Burrata — mozzarella formed into a ball-shaped casing that contains curds and cream.

Nepo baby — a person who gains success or opportunities through familial connections.

Touch grass — to participate in normal activities in the real world, especially as opposed to online experiences and interactions.

Cash grab — the greedy pursuit of an opportunity for making money, especially when done without regard for ethics, concerns, or consequences.

Shadow ban — to cause (a user or their content) to be hidden from some or all other users, usually without the user’sknowledge.

IDGAF — Well, you know.

Ever been called a Slick Willie?

Willie Sutton was a fascinating guy. The original Slick Willie — he robbed more than 20 banks from 1927 to 1952. Then, after being incarcerated, he escaped three times from three different prisons, including once from the famous Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly (a great place to spend an evening in the fall if you’re so inclined). 

He was a master of disguise, charming, and very clever — slick.

He also brought us “Sutton’s Law.”

Willie allegedly responded to a reporter’s question about why he robbed banks by saying, “Because that’s where the money is.” Duh.

Sutton’s Law is often referred to in medical contexts. For example, when diagnosing a patient, one should first consider the most obvious possibilities and conduct tests that are likely to confirm or rule out the most probable diagnosis. 

If you have a runny nose, first check for the common cold and allergies rather than immediately testing for cancer.

Sutton’s Law and Occam’s Razor are bedfellows, and although sometimes the more complex solution is required or the more dubious explanation is correct, they’re a great place to start. 

The World is a tricky place right now. AI is making it trickier. Sutton’s Law is a great little tool to help you think correctly about what The World is presenting to you. Start with simple, obvious, and most probable. 

You don’t have to end there, and to be fair, you shouldn’t end there. But definitely start there. 

It doesn’t take Mother Teresa-level compassion to make a dent.

A great mission statement for a company starts with “We help…”
A great mission statement for an organization starts with “We help…”
A great personal mission statement starts with “I help…”

Helping is a great path to making money, making a better world, and making a better community. Everybody needs help.

Always help.

What is the most expensive asset in your company, organization, or team?

Your people, of course.

When executives, bosses, and number-crunchers look at the spreadsheets, and especially if those spreadsheets get shown to the shareholders, the human assets are the no-duh place to “optimize.”

Adding machines to the picture intoxicates those same lever-pullers beyond their ability to control themselves. Now, they can sell the story of ramping up productivity while minimizing cost. 

The perfect solution. Easy pickens to maximize a bonus. Next quarter’s gonna shine.

But what is the most important asset of your company, organization, or team?

Your people, of course.

You can optimize your productivity, cost, and profit margins by replacing people with purpose-built machines for the next quarter or several quarters. But then the world changes, and your machines get confused, clunky, and petulant. Machines don’t change. Even AI-powered ones. 

Automating with machines isn’t about replacement. It’s about enhancement. 

A human with a drill is 1000X more resilient and adaptable than a drill press with an AI brain. 

When is good enough good enough?

Good enough depends on where you are in your history. If you’re at the beginning, then it’s good enough when:

• If you ship it, you’ll learn something
• If you ship it, it will make a difference
• If you ship it, you’ll have something to talk about

Good enough is likely sooner than your comfortable self will tell you it is.

The fine print.
The pages and pages of legalese.
The motormouthed disclaimer.
The buried clause.

Go ahead and feed every legal document and contract you’re asked to sign into AI with the following prompt:

“Summarize this from my point of view. What am I signing up for? What are my obligations? What are the key things to be aware of? Are there any weasel clauses? What can I get caught on? Are there any unusual terms and conditions?”

Help others do the same.

Here are some interesting statistics for 5k times:

• World Record Men: 12:49
• PA High School State Championship Record Men: 15:02
• PA 40-49 Years “Competitive Time” Men: 18:13
• PA 50-59 Years “Competitive Time” Men: 19:31
• PA Typical Community Fundraiser First Place Time Men: 18:00-22:00

My personal best time in a 5k was around 20:15, which I ran in my 40’s. Today, I would probably be between 24:00 and 25:00. 

The day I ran the 20:15, I didn’t place. Went home with the banana and the same T-Shirt as the walkers.

One time, however, I ran a 22-something on a Thanksgiving morning and took first place in my age group and 9th overall. It was stupid cold. Snow on the ground. Lots of people stayed home. 

Who’s your competition?

If you’re not in the top 5% of the room you’re standing in, you could switch rooms. When looking for that new room, you might want to find the one that others shy away from.

Have you ever seen a keyboard on a UK computer? 

At first, you won’t notice a difference because it’s almost the same as a US keyboard, but not quite. There are a few more keys, and some of the symbols are in different spots. 

Of course, you’ll be able to use it, no problem. It’s English, 95%+ is the same, and you have eyes. But if you’re an accomplished typer, you’re gonna occasionally get it wrong. Will it make a difference? It depends on what you’re doing. 

DeWalt vs Milwakee vs Makita drill.
Ford vs Chevy vs Toyota truck.
Outlook vs Apple Mail vs Gmail.
Windows vs MacOS vs Linux. 

You probably have an opinion about which is “for you.”

It might be brand (i.e., tribe), or country, or privacy, or something else you identify with.

Or it might be a nuance of efficiency. “I know this one better. I understand it better. I’m faster and better when I use it.”

If you’re a leader, your people will have an opinion about the tools they use to do their work. That’s good. You want people with these opinions because you want craftsmen. Craftsmen care about their tools. 

But it’s your job to figure out which of those opinions matter for the personal and collective good of the organization and which are simply religion. 

Of course, most business value propositions are, at their core, some version of “faster, better, cheaper.”

You’ve probably spent your career working under some part of that value proposition. I certainly have. It’s almost exclusively what technology is about. It’s what we at 4TLAS do for our clients. 

But what about life?

We have to eat, fix the leaky roof, keep the checking account (reasonably) balanced, maintain the car, etc. 

Millions of companies and people exist to “faster, better, cheaper” those things for us. Why make a meal when I can have someone do it faster, better, cheaper? Why refinish my own kitchen cabinets when I can have someone do it faster, better, cheaper? Why change the oil myself…

Faster, better, cheaper. It’s hard to argue with.

What do you like doing? And I mean doing — actively participating in some sort of labor.

The enjoyment of labor — whether it’s working on your house or car, crocheting, writing, or cooking — is in the labor itself. The doing. Slower. 

The outcome of your labor may not be as good as someone else could do. You’re not the best, but you’re still proud of it. Worse.

You’re not buying in volume. Maybe you’ve wasted material or money on the wrong thing. Maybe you’ve redone it several times. But now you’re happy with it. More expensive. 

Enjoyment is about engaging. Putting yourself into it through your labor. 

Slower, worse, more expensive. 

If you’re hiring AI into your organization, it will have specific purposes with specific job descriptions.

“AI-3691’s job is to convert all of the incoming data from INF, XML, and binary to JSON format with the following spec…”
“AI-8133’s job is to serve as the initial point of contact for our clients, gather all needed information about their case, provide initial legal guidance through research of case precedents, conduct follow-up documentation acquisition, and provide support to the assigned lawyer.”

Some of those job descriptions might look like replacements for what people used to do. In fact, that’s probably inevitable. You might even say, “Hey! That’s what I’m supposed to do!”

But then the world changes. Consequently, the organization needs to change with it. Suddenly, all of those very specific job descriptions are either no longer relevant or look like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

Even though some specific job descriptions will always be required in organizations, it’s the humans who traverse job descriptions that move the organization forward through the inevitable changes of the world. Problem solvers. People who follow their curiosity. Improv artists. Those who do what needs to be done. Humans who care.

People who don’t need a specific job description.

AI sucks at being human. Humans are great at being human.

An artist can’t price her work based on how many hours she spent at the easel.
The software developer can’t price their app based on how many hours he spent at the terminal.
The soft drink producer can’t price the drink in the vending machine based on how many hours it took to build the can, mix the liquids, fill the can, store it, deliver it, and place it in the machine.

All of these are priced based on (perceived) value to a customer willing to purchase.

Whenever you’re making stuff, remember that it’s not about how much time you put in. It’s about how much value you’re providing.

Most people want to be most people. 

We say things like, “Everybody…” and then fill in the blank. Or, if we’re justifying, we say things like, “But everybody…” and fill in the blank. 

Being a most people provides safety. Protection in numbers. Comfort. No emotional risk. It makes a lot of sense. There’s no problem with being a most people. 

Unless you’re trying to do something.

If so, walk around with your head up.

If you can be the one with your head up for any length of time, this is what you’ll see:

• Most people don’t have their heads up. 
• Most people are hypnotized by their handheld machine.
• Most people don’t say “Hi.”

If you’re trying to do something, you probably don’t want to be a most people.

One way to start is to walk around with your head up.

Authenticity is for your marriage, parents, and closest friends.

Consistency is for your kids, job, and team.

Sure, there are opportunities for your authentic self to show up for your kids, colleagues, and those depending on you. And there is a wonderful congruency in the world when you’re able to align your authentic self with your consistent self.

But when the shit hits the fan, and you’re angry, tired, and drained, those depending on you need the consistent you, not the authentic you.

You always have the right to be the authentic you in any situation, but we also have the right to disagree with, dislike, and reject that version of you. You have the right to sink the ship with authenticity. We have the right to throw you overboard.

Authenticity is overrated in most situations that call for leadership.

“Oh, you’re one of them.”

Depending on context and source, that’s either a slur or a compliment.

The beauty is that it’s up to you to decide.

If you don’t know, you can pause.
If you need to think, you can pause.
If you need to calm down, you can pause.

Never underestimate the pause.

Who’s it for?

It’s not for everybody, so don’t worry about everybody. Worry about your person. Are they an expert or a beginner? You’ll have to make assumptions about terminology, visuals, and workflow. Build them around who it’s for. 

Why are they here?

They’re using your UI to do something. What is that, and why? Simplify around the why. Make the why front and center and dead-easy to understand and recognize. The default workflow should naturally support the why. 

What do they care about? 

Attend to what they care about, not what you care about. They care about feeling smart, heard, and accomplished. Your UI should make them feel all of those.

What do they struggle with?

Tolerate mistakes. Simplify terminology and workflow. Guide via defaults. Use visuals consistently with terminology. Less clicks. Less talking. Less time.

Use the above questions to design your UI. Whether its an app, service, or you. 

When I worked at Accenture, I routinely failed the email phishing test.

Reprimanded by the email police, I had to take remedial scam email training. My coworkers (rightfully) chided me about it often.

Snake oil, timeshares, mail-order brides, amazing jobs, and Nigerian princes who just need some upfront funds to unlock the riches that they wish to share with you. They all poke right in the heart. Everybody — everybody — is susceptible to something, if even for just a moment in time.

Some are obvious, but many are not. Many look completely legit.

For me, it was a simple matter of not investing the time required to flesh it out as a scam. I just didn’t care. Those testers were good (enough) at making it look legit.

He/She is called scam “artist” because that’s what they are — an artist. They play on your emotions and use a bit of psychology to “get you.”

What does the future of scam artistry look like with AI?

Well, I assume the volume will ramp up exponentially. Given AI’s ability to try new and voluminous iterations quickly, I also suspect they’ll start honing in on each individual’s susceptibility. You’ll have to pay more attention.

Maybe AI filters will help combat.

But at the end of the day, AI is no artist. It’s a tool for the artist. Behind each scam is a human artist.

Find the artist, find the scam.

Back porch:

Silence. A breeze rustles the leaves in the trees. The smell of coffee. A blue jay whisks by and screeches. More silence. A dragonfly buzzes. Another rustle. More silence. Stationary.

Front porch:

Distant murmurs. The sun peaks under the eaves. A car rolls past. Kids run by. Neighbors stop on the sidewalk for an exchange of pleasantries. A dog barks. Another car. Leisurely.

The Screen:

A cacophony. Three-second blurbs. Scroll and swipe. On to the next. Flashing colors. Free! You’ve won! Special offer! Attention seekers. Energetic.

Porch pace is boring. Not much happens, and certainly not quickly. Go inside to fill your mug and you won’t miss much, if anything.

Screen pace? Exciting. Do it now. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.

You’ll need to engage at screen pace, at least sometimes. The world moves at screen pace. But porch pace teaches you to appreciate where you are right now.

We don’t all believe the same things, but we all believe in each other.
We don’t all have the same ideas, but we all respect each other.
We don’t all have the same perspective, but we all value each other.

We can have unity without conformity. It just takes commitment to each other.

It sounds and reads like there’s an I, which can be confusing.

We often anthropomorphize machines, which adds another layer of misdirection because this machine really seems to think for itself.

But it doesn’t. There is no I in AI.

Ever hear a recording of your own voice and think, “ugh.”

You’re not alone. 60-70% of people feel uncomfortable when they hear the sound of their own voice. People report that a recording of their voice sounds tinny, weak, and whiny compared to how they hear it live.

Live, you hear it from inside your head. The vibrations in your skull make it sound fuller and more resonant. But on playback, you’re hearing it like everyone else does — just through the air — so it comes across sharper and less familiar.

What about your message, though?

What do you feel about your message when you hear a recording of your own voice?

You can’t control what your voice sounds like, but you sure can control your message.

John the Baptist was the original voice in the wilderness.

Then came others AI such as Galileo Galilei, MLK Jr, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Banksy, Ai Weiwei, and Pussy Riot.

AI can do many things. It can help you work, generate new ideas, and tighten up your message.

But it could never be the voice in the wilderness.

You might not agree with the voice in the wilderness, but you can’t deny that the voice is 100% human.

When I was a kid, we had a neighbor who amazed me with some basement magic. Card tricks, disappearing hankies. You get the point.

He taught me a bit along the way as well:

• Magic is an illusion.
• The key to the illusion is to get your audience to focus on what you want so they don’t see what’s really happening.

If you’re diligent or know where to look, maybe you’ll pick it up. But, a master illusionist can control your focus so thoroughly that you might not see it happening even if you know how the trick works. You start to wonder. 

But you’re smarter than that. 

Our world is filled with master illusionists. Remember that as you read the news, scroll through social media, listen to advertisements, and watch the presentations.

Truth doesn’t match the illusion. 

“It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.”

– Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

The parking lot is for the tailgaters. They’re only there for the party. They’re not even watching. They have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. 

“What happened? Why did he do that? That’s interesting. More beer, please.”

The stands are for spectators. They’re only there for entertainment. They may care about the outcome, but they can’t affect it. They’re probably hoping you get stomped. 

“No! Yes! Go that way! Run!”

The arena is for you. 

That’s where anything and everything happens. The outcome is uncertain. You matter. The bull matters. The risk is high. The reward is high. People are probably rooting for you to get stomped. 

Get in the arena. 

The people in the arena matter. The tailgaters and spectators don’t.

From where you stand makes all the difference.

You can’t see home plate from behind the stanchion.
You can’t see the Aurora Borealis from the city.
You can’t see the Great Wall from Toledo.

You may like where you stand. It’s probably comfortable. It makes sense to you. You understand it. You may have spent a lifetime cultivating that space and the view it provides. You’re standing there on purpose.

But sometimes, you should go stand somewhere else and take a look around. If even just for a few minutes.

The world’s a big place, and it has many spectacular, interesting, and perspective-altering views.

You get tired. AI does not.
You have finite time. AI does not.
You have limited energy. AI does not.

Also…

You care. AI does not.
You share. AI does not.
You create. AI does not.

You labor. AI does not.

Labor is something only a human can understand, feel, and do.

Embrace the labor. That’s how you win.

The first jetliner, the de Havilland Comet, was originally built with square windows. A simple aesthetic choice. 

Then, in 1954, two Comets disintegrated midair within a couple of months of each other. They crashed because of the square windows. A subtle yet critical engineering design flaw, the square windows caused unusual and unaccounted-for stress on the airframe. 

Initially, though, nobody thought about the square windows as the cause of the metal fatigue. Because, well, let’s face it — the window shape? That’s crazy. The fuselage disintegrated. What’s the difference between a square window and a window with rounded corners? How could that simple aesthetic choice be the root cause of a mechanical failure?

It’s such a little and seemingly unrelated thing.

Sometimes, however, that little thing that might not seem like a big deal, or you don’t want to believe is a big deal, ends up being the cause — the cause of your failure, your feeling bad, your mediocrity, your lack of progress, or your inability to get where you want to go. 

What are the square windows in your life?

It’s time to get rid of them.

Is the model right?

As it turns out, the decision to forgo Boeing’s Starliner return of the stranded astronauts came down to whether they believed the model’s prediction of thruster degradation — will the thrusters have enough helium for the return trip?

Boeing says, “yes,” and NASA says, “we’re not so sure.”

During Mercury, Geminin, and Apollo (I have no idea what their policy is today), NASA had a policy of “prove to me it will work” rather than the subtly distinct but oh-so-different, “prove to me it won’t work.” We don’t go unless you can prove it works. The Challenger disaster happened because management violated that policy of decision-making. 

As an engineer, I have built and used models my entire career. Models are amazing tools, but they all have limitations. The more complex, the more limitations. 

Models are tools, not guarantees. That’s always the model dilemma.

Boeing might be right (I’d be willing to bet they are), but NASA made the right call. Because in this game, human lives don’t get a second chance.

Today, I turn 55. 

One could make a plausible (although far-fetched and dubious) argument that 100 is attainable. Therefore, 50 is the middle. One cannot make that argument about 110.

The point is we’re definitely on the backend. 

What’s the wisdom? What’s the lesson? What’s the path forward?

I’m focusing on keeping “I am’s” and “I will be’s” list long and inspirational.

We usually say, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

That’s a shield. What we usually mean by that is:

“I’m afraid of blame.”
“It’s not my responsibility.”
“It’s not my message.”

But if we care enough, we realize that even though we might not resonate with the content of the message, if we’re delivering it, it’s our message.

The message matters. The messenger matters.

Well, introverts, you did it. But there’s one last thing you need to do.

When you get home, or first thing the next day, send everyone you met a message. It’s a very simple message:

“Hi _, it was nice to meet you tonight. Hope you have a great rest of the week.”

That can be it. Literally.

However, if you had talked about something specific, you mention it here. Or, if you had talked about getting together in the future, or about providing information, or answering a question, etc, mention it here.

“Hi Bob, it was nice to meet you tonight. Hope you have a great rest of the week. I promised to send you that article I found about the security leak, so here it is. I’d love to get your perspective on how you would handle it. Could we have a call next week?”

Just keeping conversations going. That’s all you’re doing.

You can do this networking thing. It’s daunting, yes. It’s easy to convince yourself it’s not important. It’s easy to convince yourself it’s dumb. It’s easy to convince yourself there are better ways to spend your time.

But deep down, you know better. Also, you can do it.

Don’t wait till the end to leave.

That’s right, introvert, now you can leave (thankfully). You can stop the pain. 

But…

You have one very important task on the way out — say “Goodbye” to each person you met tonight. That means walking around and seeking them out. 

Seeking people out to say “Goodbye” cements the connection you made. Plus — here’s the real benefit — it gives you a great opportunity to meet people casually on the way out.

Do this:

• Be moving. Yes, actually walking, and then pause at the group.
• Catch some eye contact and break into the conversation to say, “Goodbye.” You don’t need to wait until a comfortable moment (like earlier in the event). Just a slight pause. It’s not (that) weird to be interrupted when someone is saying goodbye. 
• “Just wanted to say Goodbye and that it was nice meeting you. Have a great night.”

Don’t do this:

• Don’t pause outside the group for any longer than a few seconds. If you can’t make it happen in that time, find the next person.
• Don’t get into more conversation than “Goodbye” unless… (see below).
• Don’t say anything like, “Finally, I get to leave” or give any reasons as to why you’re leaving.

You’re hoping for two things:

1. The other people in the conversation (these will be the extroverts, and that’s OK) will quickly introduce themselves to you. If so, you can decide if you want more conversation.
2. The person you’re saying “Goodbye” to wants to engage some more before you take off. 

You’re standing on a good run of the power ladder in each of these situations because you get to decide whether you want to keep talking. 

Then get the heck out of there.

Stay tuned for the final installment…

Now it’s time to throw your fellow introverts a bone.

Once you’re in a conversation, inevitably, someone else will look to break in. Although every ounce of your being wants to reject this (rude, focus, etc), this is your time to shine. Always invite them in. It doesn’t matter how. Even mid-sentence with your current conversee.

When you do the inviting, you keep the power and energy. Plus, you’ve helped out a fellow introvert.

You can do this all night. With this strategy, you might not have to start another conversation.

Stay tuned for the last installment…

Introverts, this is for you. 

Here’s another first-step strategy to use at networking events — break into a conversation.

To be honest, this isn’t better than starting one on your own because of power and energy. If you’re the third (or fourth, fifth, etc) wheel, you’re already not standing on the same rung of the power ladder. But sometimes, it’s the best you can do, and that’s OK.

To break into a conversation, simply walk up to some people already talking, smile, make eye contact, but be silent.Whether it’s right away, or 20 minutes from now, somebody eventually will greet you. Most likely asking you a question. 

Here’s what you say:

• Answer the question.
• If you’ve been listening to the conversation, make a point about it, or better yet, ask a question about it. 
• If context is missing, ask something like, “Tell me about what you do?”

Never say:

• “I never know what to say at these things.”
• “I hate these things.”
• “I’d like to tell you about…”

Power and energy. It’s very hard for us introverts in a room full of extroverts to earn power and keep energy. But you can do it. 

Stay tuned for the next installment…

Introverts, this is for you.

I get it. New people are scary. Talking to new people? You gotta be kidding me. What do I say? What will this person think of me? How do those people seem so comfortable? I look stupid. These people see right through me. I think I’m leaving. 

As an introvert, I know you need a plan. You can do this. Here it is. 

First, don’t leave. At least not yet. Your plan is very simple — Get one single conversation started. That’s step one. We’ll talk about step two later. In fact, don’t even think about that right now. 

To start a conversation, do this: 

Scan the scene (that’s your thing, anyway, right?) Find the people that look friendly. Don’t think about that too much. Yes, this is pure “book by its cover” and “window dressing,” which goes against everything you believe in. It’s OK right now. Push through. 

Try to make eye contact with someone physically close to you. Walk around if you need to. Smile once you make eye contact (most likely by accident). If they smile back and hold your gaze for even a fraction of a second, simply say, “Hi, I’m <name>.”

Pause there. If they engage, keep smiling. If they don’t, simply move on. Do it again until someone reciprocates. Yeah, it feels terrible. 

The very next thing you say is something like (pick what feels comfortable):

• “So what’s your story?”
• “Tell me about what you do?”
• “Tell me about your business?”

That’s it. You’ve passed the baton to them, and now you’re already more comfortable because they are talking, not you.

Never lead with these:

• “I hate these things.”
• “Don’t you hate these things?”
• “What brings you here?”
• “My business is… [prepared speech]”

The “do this” and “never do this” above are about power and energy. You want/need to be at least on equal power ground with the extroverts bubbling over with the energy gleaned from the room. Getting them talking gets you responding. You’re good at responding and then volleying back. The “nevers” start you out on a lower rung of the power ladder. It’s hard to regain equilibrium. 

Stay tuned for the next installment…

Corn sweat. Who knew?

“One acre of corn can release 4,000 gallons of water a day.”

Are you kidding me? Nature is crazy interesting.

That’s it. Just an appreciation post about showing up each day with curiosity and ready to be surprised.

Don’t ever let age, those around you, or the system beat the sense of wonder out of you. 

Great read here from Daniel Miessler.

Summary:

1. The primary reason we’re seeing all this disruption in the job market is because we’ve been part of a mass delusion about the very nature of work. 
2. We told ourselves that millions of corporate workforce jobs—that pay good salaries, have good benefits, and allow you to save for retirement—were somehow a natural feature of the universe. 
3. In fact, that entire paradigm was just a temporary feature of our civilization, caused by builders and creators not being able to do the work required by themselves. And that’s going away. 
4. But it’s ok. 
5. Most of the jobs sucked anyway, and they took up most of the daily waking hours we were supposed to be spending with family and friends. 
6. Plus even if this transition happens really fast, it still won’t be overnight. Big things take a while. 
7. And most importantly—what waits for us on the other side is a better way to live. A more human way to live—where we identify as individuals rather than corporate workers and exchange value and meaning as part of a new human-centered economy.

I think a lot about work. I think a lot about AI. Write about them here quite a bit also. The above is a great summary of the conclusions that I’ve come to myself.

So what to do? Practically. Existentially.

• Your boss, the company, the country, or the universe doesn’t owe you work. Don’t act like it.
• Solve problems.
• Give a shit.
• Help others.
• Learn how to use the tools.
• Make it better.
• Rise above.
• Follow your curiosity.
• Dig in.
• Share the accolades, blame, and wealth.
• Take responsibility.
• Embrace the mission.
• Be more human.

The real problem with the job market is that it’s just a cultural construct. The future will allow you (or your kids and grandkids) to do more yourself. Embrace it. 

It’s now official. 

SpaceX is gonna bail out the astronauts that Boeing has stranded. An eight-day mission stretched to eight months. 

NASA awarded both SpaceX and Boeing money in 2014 to develop private transportation to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has successfully flown nine crewed NASA flights to the ISS since 2020. Boeing has yet to complete a successful mission despite reportedly going $1.5B over budget.

What’s the problem here?

There’s a host of issues, of course, but here’s a core pillar:

“Boeing, as we’ve all recently seen, is no longer an aeronautics company — it’s a profit company, the kind of business you get when MBAs hellbent on “efficiency” take over from the engineers.”

Quartz

Both SpaceX and Boeing’s cultures run on fear. 

Boeing’s culture runs on the fear of taking responsibility, of looking bad in front of the boss, of making a mistake that leads to reprimand, of losing control, and of stepping on toes. 

SpaceX’s culture runs on the fear of being unsuccessful.

Mouse poop versus elephant dung. Keep the thing the thing. 

A friend of our son’s was at our house and said, “Oh, you have an ingredient kitchen.”

Didn’t know what he meant at first.

“It means you don’t have prepared meals, you have the ingredients to make meals.”

Ah. We don’t have frozen waffles, but we do make waffles from (gluten-free) flour, eggs, baking powder, butter, and milk.

It’s slower to make waffles from ingredients, but you can get exactly what you want. You want blueberries? No problem. Maybe a little cinnamon. Sure.

Today, maybe we’ll make pancakes instead of waffles. If you have the right ingredients, you have flexibility. Plus, single ingredients are healthier. Fresh. Less-processed.

That’s also how you build a great team — ingredients.

I want an ingredient team.

Scientists have built an inorganic squishy gel brain that can play pong.

We’re all doomed. Skynet is coming. Now, it’s just a matter of time before AI-enabled squishy gel brain robots will take your job, make humans obsolete, and then kill us.

“But that doesn’t mean that the material is sentient, or behaving deliberately – just that the material has retained an impression of a physical influence, something that can be said of the skin on your cheek after laying on a crinkly pillow.”

– sciencealert.com

Squishy gel brain can’t think like us. Just like we can’t fly like a bird. Neither does it care about anything. Squishy gel brain will get its incentives from us, the humans. 

Let’s keep our eyes on the incentives. 

You can tell when you find one.

They’re curious about different things than the others you’ve spoken to, but likely the same things as you. They ask questions that make you nod your head. They might ask questions that make you say, “Aha!” They also ask questions that make you feel uncomfortable.

This is a person who cares enough to make it better. Just like you.

If you’re talking to someone who cares enough to make it better, put that person in your contact list on your phone. Name, number, email address — Not “Philly guy” or “Red girl” or “Jake from State Farm.”

People who care enough to make it better are your people. You definitely want to know when they’re calling you.

Such a simple word. Such a slippery slope.

When applied correctly, no means focus, we’re this not that, generosity, self-care, principles, my people are over here, and growth.

When not applied correctly, no means missed opportunities, narcissism, I’m afraid, you see it wrong, and those people are dumb.

You’re gonna have to say no. The magic is knowing when to do it correctly.

Modern life is all about comfort.

We strive for comfort across all the axes — physical, emotional, intellectual, status, social…pick your own.

If you can withstand discomfort on at least one axis, or better yet, learn to thrive amid discomfort, you can make a difference.

I was describing my startup company, 4TLAS (pronounced “atlas”), to someone recently, and the person said something like, “Maybe someday you’ll get on the Great Places to Work list!”

Hmmm. Is that what we want? 

I mean, yeah, we definitely want our people to love working here. We want it to be a great place to work. But do we want/need to be formally recognized by some external entity?

If you go to Fortune’s Great Place to Work list for 2024, you’ll notice a few things:

1. The Great Place to Work list is a business. 
2. They created the criteria (ie, KPI’s).
3. They tell you whether you win.

All of that is fine if you’re OK signing up for that game. 

But, KPIs will be gamed, the criteria they choose might not be what we care about, and we might value someone who thinks differently about this. 

Here’s what we’re going to do to be a great place to work:

• Ensure our people’s mission is aligned with our mission
• Encourage their curiosity
• Empower them
• Challenge them
• Value them
• Grow them
• Reward them

So yes, I definitely want 4TLAS to be a great place to work, but we don’t need to be on a list.

If you’re a serious backpacker, astronaut, artist, startup founder, or anybody who does new things or creates new ideas, you know the wilderness.

You may have a map and water bottle, which is helpful, but at some point, you’re off the grid. You’re flying blind. It’s midnight with no moon. You got your hands out in front of you, trying not to run into things.

The ground is rocky. Sharp edges everywhere. Then mushy. You’re in a swamp. You’re just trying to take the next step without cutting yourself, or losing your leg in the quicksand, or falling off the cliff.

But then someone steals your shoes. You never even considered that would pop up.

Now what?

Well, that’s the question. How will you handle it when they steal your shoes?

You are the only one who walks around with your eyes — your personal history, experiences, and outcomes.

Maybe that sounds dumb, or you think, “so what?”

But that is the most powerful, most important, and most beautiful thing you bring to this world.

What do you see?

I’m an athlete (or I loosely identify as one — or a former one — or, OK, I still run about 20 miles a week — let’s leave it there). I also love cards, Catan, Survivor, and backyard games.

Win or lose, I love brilliant gamesmanship.

We’re seeing brilliant gamesmanship in the US political landscape right now. It’s fascinating.

It started with the right. First, they hooked into the mental capability rhetoric and found a path that was working. Then, they were thrown a bone. They took the assassination attempt and used it perfectly. It worked.

The left was on the ropes. Bloodied and confused. Reeling. Praying for the bell.

But then the left countered perfectly. They stung and wobbled the right. They’ve done it. They completely turned it around.

Now, the right is on the ropes, praying for the bell. What will they come up with?

Make no mistake. National politics is, and always has been, a game. It’s not about who is better or will be better. Nor is it about principles or right and wrong. It’s about who has the power.

Watching it unfold is a fascinating study in gamesmanship.

Moravec’s paradox is the observation that some tasks that are easy for humans are very difficult for AI systems to replicate, while some tasks that are challenging for humans are relatively easy for AI. 

We also call this the “easy-hard problem for AI.”

Here are some tasks that are (generally) easy for humans but hard for AI:

• Recognizing objects in complex real-world scenes (finding the squirrel in the woods)
• Understanding natural language in context (sarcasm, idioms, etc)
• Transferring knowledge to new tasks (learning the guitar after learning the piano)
• Reasoning about abstract concepts (justice, empathy, etc)
• Common sense understanding (if you have an umbrella, I know it’s probably raining)

Here are some tasks that are easy for AI but (generally) hard for humans:

• Strategy games (chess, go, etc)
• Complex calculations (weather forecasting)
• Large datasets (genomic data)
• Predictive modeling (protein folding)
• Image recognition (MRI analysis)

The good news for us humans is that we can use AI to augment our capabilities for the hard (for us) tasks. You can and should be doing that already. 

Will AI someday use humans to augment its capabilities for the hard (for it) tasks?

Better safe than sorry.

But…

The smoke detector shouldn’t go off because we burned dinner.
The car shouldn’t automatically stop in the middle of the road because of a pedestrian on the shoulder.
The security system shouldn’t call the Police if the dog trips the alarm.

These decisions aren’t simply a math problem for humans.

We humans are good at the nuance of detection. We make an assessment of the situation with all of our faculties. If we’re in charge of the decisions above, we know how to quickly and accurately process all of the signals provided to ensure we make a reasonable decision. Reasonable does not have to mean “better safe than sorry.”

AI’s not (yet) good at processing the complexity of real-world systems. Even Tesla’s full self-driving (which is amazing — I’ve used and witnessed it myself) is much more conservative than the most conservative driver you know.

AI can’t think, or at least not the way we do. AI doesn’t care.

That’s the difference. We humans can make reasonable decisions because we care.

Don’t stop caring.

Does it make a difference if you blow the red light when nobody is around?
Would it have made a difference if the US boycotted the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
Will it make a difference if I have another beer?
Does it make a difference if we contract out this piece?
Would it have made a difference if I had made the bed?
Will it make a difference if we elect (whomever)?

Sometimes, leaders get caught up trying to answer the question of whether it makes a difference. Here’s the Cliffs Notes: the answer is always “yes.”

The question you should be trying to solve is, “To whom does this make a difference?”

Pinocchio says, “My nose will grow now.”

But Pinocchio’s nose only grows if he’s lying. Therefore, if his nose grows, he’s lying. Conversely, if it doesn’t, he was lying, thus making the statement true again.

The AI says, “I always tell the truth.”

But who’s truth? And when?

I just signed up as a claimant in (yet another) class action lawsuit. This one is against Visa and MasterCard.

“The deadline for the Visa/Mastercard $5.54 billion settlement claim is approaching quickly…This settlement provides all eligible businesses the opportunity to reclaim a portion of the interchange fees paid between 2004 and 2019.”

Class action lawsuits, like many other boondoggles, are good-intentioned at their core.

The primary purpose of a class action lawsuit is to allow a group of individuals to band together and sue collectively against larger entities. If Big Evil Company has misrepresented, mischarged, or otherwise duped us little people out of what we deserve, then we can get together and stick it to the man.  

Power to the people, and whatnot.

Y’all know how it works in practice. The law firm gets a pile, and we, the claimants, get a tiny drop. 

“Hey! That’s not fair!” 

Sure it is. It’s actually the very definition of fair.

I don’t fault the law firm, nor am I bothered by the distribution. If I was duped out of $3.64, then I should be repaid $3.64. The law firm does the work on behalf of all of us. They should get paid. 

The problem is the incentive. 

It’s the Cobra Effect, the social media algorithms, and KPIs. 

We usually get what the system incentivizes.  

The pilot who successfully lands the crippled airliner gets the headlines. So does the emergency room doctor who restarts the heart of a 53-year old man.

As they should. These are extraordinary efforts that lead directly to saved lives.

Plus, it’s easy to point at “who did it.” Headlines love who did it.

What about the engineer who designed a redundant switching mechanism in the aileron control system? That system has never once failed over the lifetime of the aircraft fleet on which it has been installed for over 30 years.

What about the 53-year-old man who changed his lifestyle ten years ago and is now healthier than he was at 40?

If nothing bad or dramatic happens, it’s harder to point at who did it.

But that doesn’t mean somebody didn’t do it. As a leader, your job is to look under the covers, past the mundane, and point at who did it.

The benevolent monopoly can make life easier and better for customers. That’s why they’re benevolent.

Bell Telephone, Standard Oil, and Microsoft all were benevolent monopolies. The efficiencies of their monopolies were passed on to customers in the form of lower prices, standardized practices, and consistency in quality.

Walmart and Costco are not technically monopolies, but they kinda are, and they’re benevolent. If you’re a widget or foodstuff (and I use foodstuff in the very loosest way possible) producer, you want to be on their shelves. They are also benevolent. Consumers love both of them, mostly because of price.

But is it really better?

What innovations never see the market because they decide? What supplier doesn’t get a chance to make a difference because they can’t get in the door? What ideas never see the light of day because they don’t fit their vision?

The problem with benevolet monopolies is the same as with plain-ole monopolies.

Boeing has pedigree. SpaceX is the young upstart.

Boeing is slow and steady — do it right the first time. SpaceX fails fast and fixes it later.

Boeing conjures feelings of pride, trust, and safety. SpaceX’s CEO pisses off the public regularly.

Boeing is inclusive. SpaceX is divisive.

Currently, Boeing has stranded astronauts at the space station. SpaceX may be the one to rescue them.

Who do you want to be?

James Hetfield said that when he found Lars, he had finally found the other person who was just as committed as he was to making it work. Everybody else was just f’n around.

That’s who he was looking for. Someone else who was committed. He knew this was who he was going to hitch his wagon to, regardless of their differences.

You know the difference. You see it in others. If you’re honest with yourself, you see it in you. You know when you’re committed or just f’n around.

Commitment overrides differences. It engages complementary skill sets. It makes 1 + 1 > 2. It breeds trust. It pulls through.

Just f’n around is fine. We can’t be committed to everything in our lives all the time. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t kid yourself.

Success, whatever that looks like, requires committment — marriage, startups, bands, hockey teams, congregations, communities.

Are you committed or just f’n around?

More. Better. Faster. Cheaper.

1. Every software engineer will have an army of coding interns who rarely get it wrong. 
2. Therefore, every software engineer will be an architect, chief engineer, and engineering manager. 
3. You may think this means less software engineers, but it will be the opposite. Today, software is expensive and slow to create. Unshackling army size and cost will lead to an exponential increase in software applications. More software engineers will be required.
4. Given the changing software engineer’s role, so will his/her language (more natural language, less syntax) and skillset (vision, requirements, higher level problem thought, etc).
5. The coding interns (ie, the AI generative coding models) have a great advantage over other generative AI use cases — namely, they live in a closed system with specific purpose and requirements. Given an endpoint and purpose, AI can easily write code, generate tests according to the purpose and implementation, execute tests, and then adjust the code until the requirements are met. 
6. Product quality will increase, but probably after some famous and widely reported bumps in the road. 
7. The coding interns bring another advantage — they can quickly try adjacent use cases and what-ifs, which helps the software engineer rethink purpose and outcomes. 
8. The coding interns will get good at making decisions about applications and services to use to solve problems. Will we start marketing to AI? I think so.
9. Similar with UI. AI uses the CLI (just like me) and API. These will become even more important than today. 
10. Startups, especially solopreneur startups, will increase. New ideas, applications, and creative endeavors will become more accessible to more people through software abundance. Business will follow. This might be, at the end of the day, the most important and largest effect.

Anybody who can read a map can lead when you’re on the perfectly mapped grid of the city streets. “We want to go over there. To get there, we walk two blocks north and then 5 blocks east.”

But what about when you’re off the grid?

If your spacecraft is in peril, you’ll want a leader who can assess quickly, keep the team focused and prioritized, and command clearly.

If your Church community is faltering, you’ll want a leader who cares about and cares for the people.

If your startup just launched, you’ll want a leader who has a vision, creates a followership, and remains open to possibility and opportunity.

Not all leaders are equipped to handle the wilderness. To navigate off the grid, you’ll need one who assesses the terrain, gives a shit, digs in, anticipates, adapts, and rallies others around a common goal.

If you’re stuck off the grid, you can look for that kind of leader.

Or you become one.

I had a special moment this last weekend.

Shared it with my youngest son, which both made it more special and has me reflecting on it. 

Daily life is a procedure. Wake up, do these things, go to bed, do it again tomorrow. A pattern. The grind. A script we follow without much thinking.

The magic, of course, is in the “do these things.” If you’re aware, you can be present. If you can be present, you can appreciate. But yeah, it’s hard. Hard to appreciate when you’re neck-deep in it. Plus, I’m a destination guy, and I’ve got a destination on my radar right now. As I’ve aged, I’ve gotten much better at awareness and presence, but old dog and new tricks, ya know. 

But this weekend broke the script in the best way possible.

Thank you, Luke, for not only forcing me out of the grind but sharing it with me. I’m still processing how special it was. May never fully process it.

For sure, I won’t ever take it for granted. 

(P.S. We went here. I’ve seen them 5 times now — 1986, 1988, 1989, 1992, and now again in 2024. That’s 32 years between shows 4 and 5. 32 years of build-up discharged in one 36 hour period.)

Knowledge is facts, figures, and theories. You’ll find the path to knowledge in books, museums, and YouTube.

But knowledge doesn’t get you anywhere until you turn that knowledge into learning.

Learning happens when you take that knowledge and act on it. You try stuff. You build skills. You turn book smarts into street smarts. What to do into how to do it.

It’s the practice — the behavior — that matters.

Knowledge is useful at a dinner party, but learning is how you change your life.

Your skins cells are replaced every 2-3 weeks. Your red blood cells get replaced every 4 months. Fat cells every 8 years. Skeletal muscle cells may take 10 years.

The whole process adds up to a full replacement of your cells approximately every 7-10 years. You’re an entirely new you every 7-10 years. But are you?

Stand next to a stream and watch the water flow. The stream exists in perpetuity, but the individual water molecules flowing through are replaced every few seconds. The contents of the stream is entirely new as each second passes. Is the stream the same?

You are not a static being but a dynamic process, continuously evolving, never truly the same. If you don’t like who you are right now, just wait a bit.

Your opportunity to replace your current self is just around the corner.

Many people just want to be told what to do. That’s not a judgment or a bad thing. It’s just a fact.

If you’re a listener, be careful who you’re listening to. A hack that faux-leaders have used since the dawn of time is to be the one who talks the loudest. Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler gained power partly because they were the loudest talkers.

On the flip side, you can stand out by being the one who does the telling.

Use that power wisely.

The speed of sound. The four-minute mile. The top of Mount Everest. The 2-hour marathon. Human flight. Splitting the atom. Cloning a mammal.

All invisible barriers that were once thought impossible to cross. It makes sense, though, because we like barriers. Especially invisible ones. Barriers make our lives more understandable, deterministic, and easier. We like to live inside the box.

But we crossed these barriers. How?

By being open and willing.

Open to new beliefs. Willing to challenge. Open to possibilities. Willing to try new paths. Open to other ideas. Willing to put in the work. Open to (apparent) magic. Willing to believe.

This works for you personally as well.

What are the invisible barriers that exist in your life? Are you open and willing to overcome them?

It won’t be comfortable, but it will be worth it.

ChatGPT hallucinates. So do we humans.

“AI hallucination is a phenomenon wherein a large language model (LLM) perceives patterns or objects that are nonexistent or imperceptible to human observers, creating outputs that are nonsensical or altogether inaccurate.”

— IBM

And just like with other humans, we humans must figure out if we trust the output we’re getting.

How do we do that with other humans?

We apply our own trust calibration factor. We ask ourselves questions like:

“Do I trust this person?”
“How much do I trust this person?”
“Do I trust this person’s character/integrity/expertise/credentials?”
“Why should I trust this person?”

But it’s rarely a toggle switch of either “trust” or “do not trust.” It’s usually more of a spectrum. Unfortunately, we sometimes have to take action as if it’s a toggle switch, but we likely don’t feel that way. 

“I will (not) get the vaccine.”
“I will (not) have an abortion.”

When it comes to AI, we need to do the same thing. We need to apply some trust calibration factor. The good news is that some people are starting to apply some very smart logic to this problem.

It’s called “Thermometer,” and it helps AI avoid being overconfident about its own answers, which in turn helps us avoid being overconfident about its answers.

The fundamental problem, though, is the same as we humans have — do we trust ourselves to properly calibrate our trust factors?

Ever have a moment where someone recounts something you did, assumes you would do something, or replays a dream in which you played a part?

Yes, of course, you have.

When you hear it, did you ever think or say, “Yup, that sounds like me.”

How did that make you feel? Happy? Embarrassed? Cringey? Empowered? Meh?

This tells you something about yourself and how you show up in the world. Do you like how you show up in the world?

As a leader, you can apply the same principle to your team, organization, or community. Observe how others describe what you did, or what they assume you’ll do, and how they perceived it. Listen, seek feedback, and ask yourself, “Does that sound like us?”

Whether you like or don’t like the answer, now you have an opportunity.

Don’t waste opportunities.

I

I looked over something I had written years ago, and I was appalled.

The writing itself, of course (oh dear), but I give myself grace on that because that’s just experience. But the content, oh my. I just don’t believe it anymore. What was I thinking?

And then it hit me.

I was a different person at that time. Since then, I’ve seen different things, had different experiences, and lived more life. Of course, I don’t believe it anymore. Why would I?

That’s ok. In fact, it’s better than ok. Rethinking, refreshing, and revising one’s beliefs is not only natural, it’s growth.

Give yourself grace when you change your mind. And maybe, more importantly, give others grace when they change theirs. Both science and humanity require it.

The Chicago White Sox did it first in 1960.

They were the first to add the player’s names to the back of the jerseys on their road uniforms. It was marketing aimed at enhancing player identification.

It worked, and it spread.

Today, only three pro teams do not display the player names — Yankees, Red Sox, and Giants. Somewhat ironically, they’re all baseball teams.

“We play for the logo on the front, not the name on the back.”

Who do you root for? Do you follow your favorite player from team to team, or are they dead to you once they don the enemy colors?

The magic happens when you don’t have to choose. “My favorite player plays for my favorite team.”

The same is true for brands, political parties, institutions, and systems.

Who do you root for, the player or the team?

Nobody talks about the gantry when they reminisce about the Saturn V and Apollo.

Except everyone who worked on the program.

The gantry — the red steel skeleton that stood watch next to the giant launch vehicle — was a critical piece of the mobile launch platform (MLP). The MLP allowed the rocket to be assembled vertically in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and then transported to the launch pad while maintaining its vertical orientation.

The seemingly innocuous curiosity of moving a 363′ rocket from assembly building to launch pad was one of the first program-level design decisions to be made because everything depended upon it.

It enabled the verticle assembly and transportation of the rocket, pre-launch activities and preparation, stability during pre-launch and launch, fueling and provided power. The disconnection of the gantry from the rocket happened at the very last millisecond it lifted off the ground. It was only at this moment that Saturn V became a fully autonomous system.

It wasn’t just a support structure; it was the backbone of the entire operation.

Don’t forget about the gantry. Who and what helped you? Who and what made it possible for you to become who you are? Who and what supported you until that very moment you launched?

Also, you can be or you can make the gantry for someone else. You can be an idea gantry. You can be an emotional gantry. You can make the system that enables the system.

You’ll probably fail.
You’ll probably make a fool of yourself.
You’ll probably end up back where you started.

But…

You’ll probably learn something.
You’ll probably gain confidence.
You’ll probably never regret it.

Do you know the Pixar movie “A Bug’s Life?”

Possibly not, because it didn’t have nearly the success that its predecessor, “Toy Story” did. It’s been labeled less polished, less relatable, and just not as good.

I disagree, however. I’ve always liked the movie better than “Toy Story.”

Because I think about leadership, individuals, and systems all the time. And this movie is 100% about leadership, individuals, and systems. 

• Flik, the leader: Innovation, courage, a willingness to be wrong, and an ability to create a followership.
• The Circus Bugs: Each individual with their unique strengths adds up to a greater whole. 1 + 1 > 2
• The Colony: You want real, lasting change? Change the system.

Whether you stand at the front or sit in the back row, maybe give A Bug’s Life a whirl.

You think you have a good idea?

Prove it. Go find some (3? 10? 100?) others who agree. If they exist, then you might have a good idea.

What if you can’t find them? 

1. Maybe you’re not looking in the right place.
2. Maybe you’re not looking for the right people.
3. Maybe you don’t recognize them. 
4. Maybe they don’t recognize you.
5. Maybe their clock and your clock aren’t synced 
6. Maybe you don’t have a good idea

If you think you have a good idea, you should definitely work through 1 – 5. These are skills you can develop through action and thoughtfulness. It might take longer than you want or expect, but you can do it. 

The trouble with looking for proof is that you might just find it.

Cows run away from the storm. Buffalos run toward it.

Or at least that’s how the myth goes and how the motivational speakers frame it. I’ve never tested it myself. I just don’t have any Buffalos. I do, however, watch the cows across the field, and they seem to generally follow this trend.

OK, so let’s just go with it, at least in spirit.

Today is a big day. You’re a bundle of nerves. How will it turn out?

One way to manage it is to try to forget about it. Distract yourself. Tell yourself it doesn’t matter. Run away. Another is to lean into it. Overprepare. Tell yourself it means everything. Run towards it.

Maybe there’s a third way. Maybe you shouldn’t run at all. Maybe you should sit and be present. Be prepared, but not with a script. Let the situation unfold. Be open. You might end up sopping wet. But you might end up cleansed and refreshed.

Maybe don’t be a buffalo or a cow. Maybe be a human.

Arcadia Publishing created a series of books titled Images of America. You’ve probably seen them in gift shops or local bookstores, and if you’re a history buff (like me), you’ve probably looked through a few of them. Sepia-toned photos of people, places, and things. 

The stated purpose of this series is to document local history, educate, and foster community pride. Photographichistorical storytelling. 

When I pick one up and browse through it, I like to find and compare the images with today. Sometimes, the location they show looks remarkably similar; sometimes, you can make out a few buildings that are the same, and sometimes, they’re unrecognizable. In any case, I always find myself thinking, “Isn’t that interesting.”

Each photograph captures a moment, a story, from the area’s past. By comparing them to the current surroundings, we can see the threads that connect the location to it’s history. That connection is unbreakable and critical.

Just like us. Your personal history leaves an indelible impression on how you view the world. As it does with your neighbor.

“Isn’t that interesting.”

The more we can engage with that in mind, the more we can love, respect, and understand each other. 

In today’s Western life, you don’t have to fix it yourself.

Experts exist to do it for you — better, faster, cheaper. But if you care enough to spend the time and effort to fix it yourself, you will take away some things that matter.

You’ll understand it better. You’ll appreciate it more. You’ll build your skill set. You’ll grow your confidence. You’ll be able to commiserate with others about it. You’ll have a story.

Sometimes, you should fix it yourself.

“To revolutionize the embedded development industry by delivering innovative DevOps solutions that streamline workflows, empower developers, and delight customers. We are committed to modernizing embedded development practices, relieving operational burdens, and consistently providing exceptional value.”

In some ways, mission statements are meaningless cliches. You can say what you want because does it really matter? Does a mission statement make a difference? 

But also, if you care, your mission statement can perform a few important jobs for you:

1. It can provide the North Star when you’re face down in the muck, at night, in the rain, and have no idea which way is up.
2. It can signal to your audience that you might be the people that can solve their problems.

In order for a mission statement to perform either of these tasks, or mean anything at all, you gotta believe it. You gotta be proud of it. You gotta act on it.

Action is everything. 

What’s the value of something? Is that the same as it’s worth? 

When I visited my grandfather as a kid, we’d spend some time with his stamp collection. I loved the smell, the shoeboxes full of colorful unsorted potential treasure, the neatly arranged books of post-sorted commemoratives, first-day covers, and plate blocks, the stories behind the images on the stamps, and being a voyeur to a person with a passion project. 

I had various jobs. One job was to slog through the shoeboxes full of loose stamps and sort what I found — US 1 centers in this pile, 1960s UK with Queen Elizabeth in another, etc. My other job was to take sorted piles and cross-reference them against the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue to generate an estimated value. To do so, I had to find the match in the catalog through its objective characteristics — US, green, 1 cent, Ben Franklin — and then make an assessment of its quality. 

Determining quality was a subjective exercise bounded by some pseudo-objective guidelines. Is it used? Is it postmarked? What is the condition of the perforations? How about the shade of the color and the crispness of the image? Is that a desirable and unique flaw, or just a pedestrian flaw?

I’d come up with a number and show it to my grandfather. 

“This pile here is worth about $24.50.”

He’d take a look and quickly assess my assessment for himself. 

“Eh, maybe I could get half of that.”
“But then why does the catalog say $24.50?”
“The catalog shows retail value. You can’t actually get retail value. You’ll only get what someone will be willing to pay.” 

Huh? Willing to pay? My ten years of experience with our transactional economy included, to this point, only price tags and cashiers. Here’s the listed price. I hand that much to the cashier and walk out with the thing. 

What does “willing to pay” mean?

One time, he rummaged through his cabinet, pulled out a unique, longish box, and handed it to me. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve assessed what this lot here is worth. Maybe you can take a stab at it.”

I opened it to reveal hundreds of first-day covers encased in cellophane wrappers. All from northeastern Pennsylvania. I grabbed the catalog and went to work. The problem I found was that the catalog was equal parts vague (ie, missing much of what I found in his collection) and ultra-specific (ie, the catalog showed only a particular cover with the stamp in question).

After an hour or so, I wasn’t making much progress.

“I don’t how to come up with a value.”
“Yeah, I figured as much. Here’s the next lesson…”

And he explained that this part of his collection was his personal favorite. He had spent a lot of time, effort, and money building it up to what it was. Our family has roots in NE PA and he found this intersection of philatelic history and personal history interesting and nostalgic. He just liked it. 

It had a lot of personal value to him but didn’t necessarily have much value to anybody else.

So what’s it worth? Only what someone else is willing to pay.

What’s your product or service’s value and worth? Find the people who value what you do. 

All three bring unique value to your new venture.

Need strategic direction, industry insight, or reaching into a network? Get yourself an advisor.
Need to learn, grow, or get better? Hire a coach.
Need financial support? Find an investor.

Each comes with a set of pros and cons.

Advisors provide wisdom, experience, perspective, and a network. But they’re not invested in your success in any material way. If you fail, oh well, that’s a shame.

Coaches help you identify and overcome your shortcomings, hold you accountable, and can provide tools and techniques. But they’re only invested in your success to the extent that they can use you as a testimonial. If you fail, you’re just an omission.

Investors provide the fuel (capital), likely strategy, and a network. They are deeply invested in your success, so they 100% want you to succeed. But that can lead to overbearing control of you and your venture. If you fail, you’re in trouble. If you succeed, you might still be in trouble.

You probably want one or more of these types of people along the way. Just remember, they don’t necessarily see what you see.

That’s all on you.

We just launched our company. 

To make it official with the government, the financial system, and customers, we needed a name. It doesn’t exist unless it has a name.

“What goes on the paperwork?” 
“Who do I make the check out to?”
“What do I say when I’m talking about us?”

So we went through that exercise. Even though the four of us have worked together for almost 10 years, we had to collaborate on ideas and in areas we’d never considered. Feelings, perspectives, and personal meaning were all on the table, in addition to practical considerations such as domain availability. It was bumpy, but we got there. Of course, we did; we always do. 

Then, we commissioned a logo. That went pretty darn smooth. We had the right partner on this one.

But now, what is our brand?

Because your brand is not your name or your logo. Once you’ve established your brand, then the logo or the name can invoke it. Not the other way around. You can’t establish your brand with a great name or a great logo. They’re just reminders. At launch, they don’t matter.

Brand, however, does matter. Immensely. In fact, at launch, it might be the most important thing.

So get clear on your brand.

“What do you do?”
“What do you stand for?”
“Who is it for?”
“What do you believe and what do they believe?”
“How do you help?”
“What tension do you relieve?”
“What will they say about you?”

Somedays, you wake up, and you’re energized and confident.

Some days, it’s the opposite. You’re drained and insecure. You’re in the swoon, and the swoon can derail you for a few hours, a few days, or your entire project.

First, acknowledge it. It’s here, and you’re in it. You’re not the first or the last. There’s nothing inherently wrong with you.

Second, remember this: Even though The World talks about launching your project, that’s not how it’s done. You don’t launch your company, book, or program.

You build it. Customer by customer. Paragraph by paragraph. Lesson by lesson.

Keep talking to people. Keep writing. Keep learning.

Hard times are undefeated.

Hard times can teach, hone, and elevate. Or they can overwhelm, crush, and cripple.

Hard times are coming. Not if. When.

How will you respond?

The CEO of Lattice made this announcement a few days ago:

Today, Lattice made history to become the first company to lead in the responsible employment of AI “digital workers” by creating a digital employee record to govern them with transparency and accountability. 

The idea of AI employees, or “digital workers,” is not an entirely comfortable one esp as we seem them being personified.The inevitable arrival of these digital workers raises important questions about their integration, measurement, and impact on human jobs. And many of those questions are without clear answers or precedence.

Within Lattice’s people platform, “digital workers” will be securely onboarded, trained, and assigned goals, performance metrics, appropriate systems access, and even an accountable manager. We know this process will raise a lot of questions and we don’t yet have all the answers, but we want to help our customers find them. And we want to bring everyone along on this journey with us.

AI isn’t human. AI aren’t humans. AI isn’t a human resource. 

AI isn’t a team member with a family, feelings, a desire for purpose, good days, bad days, tragedies, triumphs, vacations, and dreams. 

Does AI being applied to one’s company tasks require management, evaluation, and record keeping? Sure, but AI doesn’tneed an employee record in the human resource system. 

Square peg. Round hole. 

It’s easy and tempting to assume that others are out to get us.

But really they just don’t see what we see, and consequently, they don’t care.

If we want others to care about what we care about, we need to help them see what we see.

AI dominates the zeitgeist.

• By 2025, AI is expected to displace around 85 million jobs but create 97 million new ones.
• AI projects to contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
• Nearly 70% of companies are expected to adopt AI technology by 2030.
• Global AI investment is forecast to approach $200 billion by 2025.
• The AI industry value is projected to increase by over 13x in the next 7 years, reaching $1.81 trillion by 2030
• AI has generated over 100 million music tracks already.
• Over 4.2 billion AI digital voice assistants are currently in use.
• AI-driven recommendation systems are used by 80% of the content watched on Netflix.
• By 2025, up to 90% of online content may be generated by AI.
• AI is currently capable of accurately diagnosing diseases in 87% of cases, compared to an 86% accuracy rate for human diagnosis.
• Legal predictive analytics can already forecast case outcomes with 70-80% accuracy.
• One megalomaniac believes that unregulated AI will become a massive existential threat.

Are you engaged in the conversation?

I loved the Weekly World News when I was in college.

“Alien Bible Found, They Worship Oprah”
“Bat Boy Found in Cave!”
“Bigfoot Kept Lumberjack as Love Slave!”

I sure did love to stand in the checkout line and give it a once-over. The Bat Boy even made a brief splash on Penn State culture, as he/she/it turned up as several Halloween costumes that year.

But this was the Weekly World News. Expectations set and met.

Hyperbole has always been used in marketing and sales copy, including legit newspaper headlines. The snake oil salesman and the paperboy have always had to figure out how to extract the mark’s dollars. Hyperbole was one of his tools in the toolbox. 

Hyperbole grabs eyes and clicks. It always has. AI makes hyperbole effortless and scalable. 

A caution: Be careful how you position your product or service because you might just have to live up to it.

One perspective is that you do what you do for you.

Another is that you do what you do for someone else.

My guess is that, at its core, it’s both. In both cases, what you do is an opportunity to serve. The opportunity to serve is a privilege. It’s what transforms tasks into contributions.

You’ve seen great service. You’ve been on the receiving end. You know what it looks like and what it feels like.

Each time you pick up your drill, phone, or spreadsheet to do what you do, you have an opportunity to serve. What will it look like?

One way to look at all ventures is from the outside in. What are the objective or historical odds of success?

• Powerball: 1 in 292201338
• Roulette (single number hit): 1 in 38
• Blackjack: 100 in 237
• Survive a skydive: 199999 in 200000
• High School player making it to the major leagues: 1 in 6600
• Earn more than $100k per year in an MLM: 1 in 909
• Earn more than $100k per year as a musician: 1 in 1000
• Landscaping startup: 1 in 7
• Tech startup: 1 in 10

You can look at that list and decide which you think is the best investment.

However, it’s not that simple, is it?

For some things, you can measure success on a sliding scale rather than binary. For some things, only you can define success. For some things, you can create an environment more conducive to success. For some things, you can inherit or develop the necessary personal skills for success. For some things, luck may lead to success. 

Can you beat the odds?

Always going out for ice cream is a great hack for your health.

What?

But I can get a half-gallon of ice cream at the grocery store for the same price as a single cone at the ice cream shop. Why would I do that?

1. If you buy a cone at the ice cream shop, how much will you eat? If you buy a half-gallon at the grocery store, guess how much you’re gonna eat?
2. The ice cream shop is 3-10X more expensive, therefore, how often will you do it?
3. How many memories will you make, or how much social benefit do you get from eating an oversized bowl on your couch in your PJs a half-hour before bed?

Always go out for ice cream. 

There’s a budget for everything, and everything is limited. 

Finances, yes, of course. But also time, happiness, energy, giving a shit, distraction, and outrage. 

Whenever you start a project, interact with others, open email, pick up your phone, walk into a bar, or turn on the news, you should ask yourself, “What’s my budget?”

If it sounds simple, you’ve done your job.

That’s your goal, by the way — with your teaching, marketing, presentions, website, and product itself. The complexity is there, of course. Complexity is always conserved. You’re solving hard problems. 

Does your audience understand you? Do they also have the problems you are solving? Can they see themselves using your product? Does it feel right to them? Does it sound simple?

The superpowers of famous physicists like Einstein, Feynman, and Sagan was their ability to make us understand it. To make it sound so simple. 

When you’re able to make it sound simple, that’s when you know you really understand it yourself.

In the early 2000s I applied to be an astronaut. 

I wish I had an interesting story to tell about the screening and selection process — what I learned in talking with the interviewers; cool stuff I got to see; interesting people I met along the way; some nugget of wisdom that has shaped my journey since.

But I got nothing. NASA rejected me almost instantaneously. I never even spoke to a person. Didn’t get past step one. If I had been chosen, I would have been part of either Astronaut Group 19 or 20. 

Astronaut selection is and has always been the ultimate exercise in fitting a precise mold. It’s been true ever since the Mercury 7 were chosen in 1959. The mold has changed shape, but the rigor of the selection process behind it has not.

Your fate is out of your hands. You must be what they want. You must be chosen. 

What if you don’t fit the mold? What if you don’t get chosen?

Choose yourself. Oh, yeah. That’s what I learned.

Almost every discussion with a provider, expert, or consultant starts with “What are your goals?”

Goals. Objectives. KPIs.

Define. Measure. Achieve.

Unfortunately, in the strictest sense, I’ve failed at many (most?) of my goals. So, am I a failure? I’ve felt that way sometimes.

What if, instead, goals are really just a prescription for growth. Go this way, in this direction, toward that marker on the hill up there. You might not make it (you probably won’t), but what you will learn along the way will be immeasurably valuable. You’ll experience wonder. You’ll find purpose. You’ll meet others. You’ll do things you never thought you could.

The purpose of goals isn’t necessarily attainment. It’s growth.

One way to think about it is, “It’s not a big deal if I say no. I’ll just stay here, in my lane. What’s gonna happen if I say no? Nothing, that’s what.”

And those around you probably agree, solidifying what you know to be the right answer. Your comfort zone will certainly agree. Because you’re right.

But the other way to think about it is, “I don’t have to. It’s not a big deal if I don’t. But what if I do?”

Those around you probably won’t agree because the current you is the you they understand — the predictable you. The World needs to make sense or it throws us into turmoil. Predictability thwarts turmoil.

If you ask yourself, “But what if I do?” and those around you start to squirm, that might be a warning you should heed. These people care about you.

But also, it might be a good sign.

Dictator for Life: Julius Caeser

Universal Ruler: Genghis Khan

Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution: Muammar Gaddafi

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular: Idi Amin

Technoking of Tesla: Elon Musk

Chief Happiness Officer: Tony Hsieh

Chief Virgin: Richard Branson

Block Head: Jack Dorsey

Like your name, your title is a proclamation of identity. A good title helps people know something about you even if they haven’t met you. Could be good or bad. 

You’re in charge of your title. 

Being ahead of the curve can help you win.

You could win if you bought a tractor while your neighbors were still using an ox. You could win if you understood search engine optimization at the beginning of Google. You could win if you were using LLM AI to screen candidates a year ago.

Early adopters can have an advantage. The playing field tilts in their direction.

But eventually, everyone has a tractor, figures out SEO, and uses the same AI tools to screen candidates.

Now you’re behind the curve.

We often use late bloomer as an apology or an excuse.

The pre-pubescent teenager who mixes awkwardly with the cool kids. The unpopular high school girl who becomes a fashion model. The young adult who hops from job to job. The mid-life career switcher. The old man who publishes his first novel.

We view them and their actions through a lens of standard societal expectations of age. You mature at a young age. You determine what you want to do with your life at a young age. You do your best work at a young age. You are who you are at a young age, and it carries on throughout your entire life.

A friend of mine who never moved out of his hometown once told me he sometimes wished he’d had because “I can’t escape the 17-year-old me. Everyone still thinks of me as 17. I hate the 17-year old me.”

Doesn’t each of us have our own timeline?

It’s never too late to bloom.

Today’s the day. Today, we launch.

It’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s stressful. It’s hopeful.

The sky’s the limit. The hill is steep. The road is bumpy. The views are spectacular.

Today’s the day I’ve been looking forward to for almost my entire career.

Today, we launch.

Last week, I sat in a waiting room for what felt like an unusually long time.

You’ve been there. For each type of waiting room you sit in, you have a built-in “how long feels right” clock in your head cemented through years of experience and redundancy. If you get called before that time, you’re delighted. If it takes longer, you’re annoyed.

OK, so I’m annoyed, and I’ve left my phone in the car.

There’s some random TV in the corner across the room, but honestly, what’s TV? Who could possibly care about or engage with the moving pictures spewing forth from that thing? It could be a benign fixer-upper show or some ad trying to make me a better man through chemistry. Hard to tell.

I scout the end tables for an interesting magazine. In pre-phone days, I never minded sitting in waiting rooms that offered interesting magazines. Sports Illustrated, Time, and Outside were my gotos. Thoughtful and well-crafted journalism, storytelling, and writing in general. Good magazine articles served a niche between the newspaper and narrative non-fiction and comprised the important pieces of both. I both learned and felt something. Sometimes, while engrossed in a good magazine article, I’d be disappointed when they called my name.

But nothing here. Not one magazine. There’s a few pharma advertising cards laying around, but that’s it. Oh, maybe there’s a rack in a central location. Nope.

I miss magazines in waiting rooms.

Locks are impervious to us mere mortals — the front door people.

But not for a locksmith.

In today’s complex world, the systems we’ve been trained to use and guide our procedural living look impervious.

My credit card didn’t work.
I can’t get into the website.
The website won’t let me do that.
The curriculum says I have to take this class, and I can’t take that one.
The professor gave me this grade.
This paper here says I must do it this way.
The job description indicates I need these credentials.

It’s easy to get lulled into thinking there’s no way to fix it, get around it, get into it, or circumvent the published rules.

But there’s always a locksmith.

The locksmith doesn’t work for free, however. He will test you to determine how committed and worthy you are — a turbulent sea of automated menu options to navigate, circular website links, and inconvenient office schedules.

It’s worth it, though. Keep clicking till you find a phone number. Pick up the phone and fight through the menu system. Walk into her office with a book and stay till she shows up.

The locksmith has the power.

We know the earth isn’t flat, but it’s useful to assume it is when building your patio.
No history books detail a time in which the tortoise beat the hare, but it’s useful to assume it did when teaching about steady effort, overconfidence, persistence, and focus.

We could count the number of grains of sand on the beach in Salvo, NC and find its true value, but it’s not very useful.
A true answer exists to the question of whether or not we’re in a simulation, but it’s not very useful.

We’re humans. We have a constant battle being waged in our emotional being. As a result, we sometimes fail to focus on the useful and get hung up on what we think is the truth.

As a leader, your job is to acknowledge the truth but find the useful.

The promise of the AI brand is that it will either save us/kill us all. It has done neither. Any time saved by AI has mostly been chewed up listening to breathless media reports on management (or lack thereof) drama at Microsoft AI (some people call it OpenAI). The brand is the offspring of capitalism and the Bravo Channel. Staggering increases in shareholder value mixed with IP theft, hallucinations, and constant catastrophizing. It’s as if Rupert Murdoch got married, for a sixth time, to SkyNet. I’m especially proud of the previous sentence.

Scott Galloway, No Mercy/No Malice

Hey Scott, you should be proud of that sentence. It’s at once hilarious and insightful. 

Although I hate talking to my devices, I’m happy that Apple is jumping into the AI game by integrating ChatGPT into my phone. Why? 

Fast followers often win in the market. Who has been the best fast follower in the last 40 years? Well, it’s Apple, of course. They don’t invent the technologies. They just skin them better for all of us and print the money. 

If Apple hasn’t lost all of its core DNA yet (I’m not exactly sure, though), my iPhone and my MacBook will be more useful to me with ChatGPT than just about any other device on the planet except my 18V, 4 A-h drill.

Aren’t I worried about data privacy (yes), AI taking my job (nope), and the machines waking up (not at all)?

Devices are morons. Even devices with neural networks. Artificial Intelligence or Apple Intelligence has no intelligence. It’s not going to save us. It’s not going to kill us. All of that posturing rhetoric is to sell influence through hope and fear, not inform us in any useful way.

Humans save us, kill us, and define the value of work. No amount of device intelligence will change that.  

“What should we charge?”

If you’re an established service, all you need is a calculator. You can use a simple equation based on costs and time.
If you’re building a product, it’s probably not as simple an equation, but based on what the market will pay. A spreadsheet will help you here. If this, then that.

The problem isn’t actually deciding what to charge.

The problem is deciding what you’re worth.

We love to root for the little guy. 

When the big guy loses, it feels like justice. We’re excited at the unexpectedness, and we love to stick it to the man because the man is always out to get us and keep us down. Rock-n-roll might not exist without the man. For sure, Harley-Davidson wouldn’t.

We see the man — the institution, the elite, the system, the organization, the giant corporation, the Yankees — as an evil force. Faceless, soulless, and malevolent. When they lose, we delight in their suffering. 

The man, however, is made up of men…and women. Humans with names, faces, families, feelings, and T-Ball games. 

I don’t understand Schadenfreude on an intellectual level, but I understand it on an emotional level. It feels good when you win and someone else loses. At least for a few minutes. But once you lean into empathy, you can begin to see the faces. Each face has a story.

True progress comes when we move beyond the simple, toggle-switch narratives to a place where everyone has a name and a face. 

That’s how we win. 

“We got 3 months.”

Although the 3-month lens dooms many companies — or if not dooms, then at least shackles them in a cycle of short-sightedness and missed opportunities — it can also be exactly the catalyst that you need.

Time is a sneaky variable. You can feel like you have enough, and then you get complacent or take your eye off the ball.

Ninety days puts a box around it. A frame, outside of which you don’t care. Now you can focus and eliminate all other distractions.

“If we spend this money, will we get a return in 3 months?”
“If we choose this path, will it help us finish in 3 months?”
“If we pick blue instead of green, will we grow in 3 months?”

Burn the ships. Damn the torpedos. You got 3 months.

When I was a teenager, I had a plastic camera that took 110 film cartridges. I snapped random shots on our vacations or during the typical teenage events at the time.

I always bought Kodak film cartridges. I didn’t know there were any other brands.

You also knew Kodak and you also bought their film. They were ubiquitous. At its height in the mid-90s, Kodak had revenues of around $16 billion. Almost $11 billion came from selling and processing film.

Did you know Kodak invented the first digital camera? They also were the technology leaders in the space in the 80s and 90s.

But then they tanked their digital technology. On purpose.

Smart people decided that it would be dumb to cannibalize the core of the company. Why push digital photography when we make all of our money on film? What would the street think?

Makes sense. Hard to argue and easy to make the case.

Especially if you view your business through the 3-month lens of the public trading floor.

There’s no unexpected plot twist coming. You know how it ends for Kodak. They still exist, but its been a rough ride. They’ve been through bankruptcy and in 2023, brought in around $1 billion (and trending down). They’ve turned into primarily a commercial printing and chemical company.

The trouble with the 3-month lens is that it demands output and success right away. Make the decision that maximizes the next 3 months.

The future be damned.

Was Hitler’s birth the cause of WWII?
If you’re hit by a car on the way to buy a pack of cigarettes, did smoking cause your death?
Would we have airplanes without Orville and Wilbur Wright?
Will your trip to the grocery store in your 1966 Mustang cause the 100-year snowstorm in the midwest?
If you sleep less than 8 hours per day, will you get cancer?

AI is great at two things that humans aren’t: a) performing bajillions of iterations and computations, and 2) scaling capability with minimal cost (i.e., more compute resources are cheap).

The answers to the questions above, if answerable at all, lie in the realm of chaos theory — complex, multi-variable, interconnected, non-linear systems.

So, let’s apply AI to them. AI is built for chaos.

Unfortunately, we probably won’t learn the definitive answers because the systems are non-deterministic.

We will, however, learn some things we probably don’t know today. Factors that we’re either not thinking about, or not focused on, but may have large effects. Also, factors that we’re currently focused on, but probably aren’t important. So it’s worth going down this road and AI is a great partner.

However, when you look at the questions up front, you probably already have your answer for one or more of them. How is that?

Because solutions to chaotic, complex, non-deterministic systems aren’t toggle-switch, single-cause, or definitive. They are dependent upon time, space, and perspective.

We, the humans, provide the perspective.

We’ve created a roadmap for our product and business.

It’s the culmination of many discussions, arguments, and efforts. We like it. We think and feel good about it. 

Do we put the blinders on, buckle down, and don’t pick our heads up till we’ve realized the implementation?
Or do we start down that path but keep our heads up and ears open and re-evaluate our priorities and roadmap at each step?

Having a direction, goal, and purpose is important because distraction and constant re-evaluation can derail you just as quickly as going in the wrong direction. However, flexibility and openness are the only ways to ensure you don’t start in the wrong direction. 

Failure is a tractor beam. It’s hard to break free once you’re in its clutches. 

Your job, as the leader, is to determine how to stay out of the tractor beam, recognize when you’re caught in it, and fight like hell to break it’s grasp.

Don’t wag the team around. Keep them focused and heads down. You keep your head up and ears open. If you need to, don’t be afraid to get them moving in a different direction. 

Authority is everywhere, but which do you recognize?

Do you recognize the authority of the laws of your town, state, and country? What about the international laws? Humanitarian laws?

Do you recognize the authority of experts and thought leaders in institutions, industry, and systems? Professors, doctors, physicists, engineers, pastors, your neighbor who runs the book club?

Do you recognize the authority of others in your family? Elders, spouses, or that Uncle that plans the family reunions?

Do you recognize the authority of the chain of command? Bosses, Generals, coaches, and the captain of your team?

Do you recognize the authority of ancient or special texts? The Constitution, the Bible, the Qur’an?

I sometimes wonder if all of our profile bios should indicate the authorities we recognize.

This is obviously a template or AI-generated “first-touch” message.

Hi John,

It’s great connecting with you. How have you been?

When I receive it, I ignore it. There are two problems with it: a) if it were someone I actually knew, they wouldn’t use the “connecting with you” phrase, and b) if it’s someone I don’t know, I know they don’t care how I’ve been.

We’re adults and professionals. It’s ok to use the platform to network and find potential clients. Let’s not pretend or waste time. If you’re just trying to grow your network, say it. If you think I might be a potential sales target, say it. If there is something about my profile or background that does interest you, say it.

Let’s sound human. Leave the other stuff to AI. 

I’ve spent a good deal of time and effort over my career learning how to make myself, my teams, and the teams around me more productive.

In fact, my current venture is fundamentally about helping small software teams be more productive. My team and I have been working on and building our product for almost 10 years. We’re pretty darn good at it.

I’ve talked a lot about productivity in this space — time prioritization, working from home, leadership, procrastination, AI, etc. While I stand behind all of it, in some ways, these are strategies and tools that nip around the edges. They’re accelerators and ways to be more efficient. Not quite as insignificant as cleaning up the mouse poop in a room full of elephant dung, but there is an assumption that the person, leader, or team has a fundamental quality.

Purpose.

Purpose is an engine. Purpose is grease. Purpose can’t be stopped.

Everybody is productive when they have purpose.

Search. Internet and data.

The best at it? perplexity.ai. You should try it.

As Seth says, “Perplexity is more powerful, more pleasant and more effective.”

He’s right. I came to that same conclusion independently and coincidently. I’ve been using it for a couple weeks now. 

No ads. Conversational results, but also all sources cited and easily seen. It’s awesome. 

I mentioned before AI is sneaky stupid because it looks smart, like it knows everything, and like it can solve all of our problems. It’s a bit like the blow-hard teenager puffing out its chest. But we’re not exactly sure what we can or should do with it. The scope is too large. 

Not so with Perplexity. It claims to do one thing: search. Perplexity isn’t coming for your job.

This is the best use of AI right now and an easy introduction to all those who have been hesitant to jump in.

In the early 00s, I worked on developing Bluetooth. My company, Agere Systems, was an early licensee of the technology, and we were building a chip and firmware to sell to computer and consumer electronics companies. I suspect you had never heard of something called Bluetooth at this time.

We had some typical marketing, project, and engineering difficulties and missteps, but we were getting there. However, the market wasn’t materializing, and it wasn’t clear that it would, so the executive team made the decision to cancel the project. Zero revenue earned.

My guess is that not only do you know what Bluetooth is, but you have double-digit devices in your home that have it. Almost 6 billion Bluetooth-enabled devices will be shipped in 2024.

Bluetooth was a huge missed opportunity for Agere. All they needed to do was hang on till the market happened.

For the last almost eight years, I’ve been working in fintech. The company I worked at till recently, IDEX Biometrics, makes fingerprint sensors for credit cards.

The idea was good. Our tech is good. Our engineering team is good. Our ability to produce and deliver these sensors is good. However, my guess is that you don’t have a credit/debit card with a fingerprint sensor.

The market hasn’t developed.

Is this the same as Bluetooth? Does IDEX just need to hang on?

I don’t think so. I’d be willing to bet that you never will have a credit/debit card with a fingerprint sensor.

What’s the difference between Bluetooth and biometric sensors in credit cards?

Bluetooth is a painkiller. It filled a market and consumer need. Once it started rolling out, its usefulness and desirabitlity skyrocketed. Fingerprint sensors in credit cards are a vitamin. Only one side (the bank side) sort of wants it because it might help in one particular area (authentication). It doesn’t fill a need.

Knowing when to hang on or quit in all aspects of your life is a magical skill. One way to figure it out is to apply the painkiller or a vitamin analogy.

When I got out of college in the early 90s, I started working on satellites at GE Aerospace. Not long after starting, a colleague introduced me to the sign-off table.

The sign-off table was a physical desk in an office. Usually a drafting table to accommodate both the size and volume of the papers that accumulated. A stack of paperwork that included drawings, schematics, analyses, and memos piled up over the course of about a week. In some ways, it was the most important location within our entire facility because the sign-off table was the gate to GE getting paid.

Each set of papers required the physical signature of the responsible person. An actual person. A human with a name and a location within the building, scrawled their signature on the physical papers to indicate, “I agree this is complete, accurate, and fulfills the intention. I stand behind it.” The signature represented the person.

No money came in until that set of signatures was delivered.

The sign-off table generated tons of drama.

“You can’t sign off on that yet!”
“There is no way I’m putting my signature on that like it is!”
“Why hasn’t she signed off on this yet?”
“Can you believe he signed off on that?”

If it was you who had to sign off, your signature mattered. You thought about it. It meant something to both you and the team. Because your signature represented you, the person. And you mattered.

What does our signature represent today in the world of e-signatures, PIN numbers, and click-this-checkbox-to-sign? I even have a bitmap image of my signature stored in my computer that I can simply copy and paste into a document.

Was it really me that signed it? Am I putting my stamp of approval on it? Am I standing behind it? Does it matter?

Although I sure do love the convenience of these new forms of signature, I think we’ve lost a little bit of the human.

We get all excited about inventors and first to market, but sometimes, fast follower is the best strategy.

In the early 2000’s, the company where I worked (called Agere Systems at the time) was the partial inventor of and first to market with a technology that ultimately transformed everyday life for most of the globe. We called it WaveLAN, and then bewilderingly, ORiNOCO. My guess is you’ve never heard of WaveLAN or ORiNOCO.

But you know it by the more ubiquitous term, WiFi. 

At the time, WiFi wasn’t a thing. Not only the term, but the technology itself — unless you had Apple gear. They were the first one’s to push wireless networking into the consumer world at scale. They called it AirPort and it comprised almost 100% of the early consumer WiFi market.

Our stuff, i.e., Agere’s WaveLAN, was inside all of the Apple products — the desktops, laptops, and the wireless router itself (called AirPort BaseStation). We had a one-size-fits-all solution for all three components. Therefore, we also enjoyed almost 100% of the early consumer WiFi market. At its largest, the WaveLAN business for Agere was between $300 and $400 million. Thank you, Apple.

And within about 18 months, the WaveLAN business went from almost $400 million to zero. Totally gone. 18 months.

Our solution, although functionally solid as a system, was expensive, power-hungry, kludgy, difficult to program, and required a ton of engineering customization throughout the entire system, from the IC design and manufacture to embedded and application software and the PCB board design. We filled in sinkholes and shortcomings in one area of the system by making adjustments in another. 

Then, once the market was established, more computer and router companies jumped in. To support them, more semiconductor companies jumped in to improve on the shortcomings of our system. The IEEE 802.11 spec continued to evolve and new versions came out that increased speed and took less power.

We just couldn’t keep up. Our initial solution was basically a one-off that relied so heavily on our vertical integration, that not only couldn’t we quickly introduce new features, we couldn’t scale. We lost it all.

The fast followers ate our shorts.

Being second in the market has some advantages. You get to see where the first one made mistakes. You get to think about how to apply economies of scale. You get to see what customers really care about. You get to move the state of the art forward in the areas that matter.

First is sexy, but second may win the day.

Apple just announced Apple Intelligence.

Intelligence is an interesting and clever description. Good marketing, as usual. 

(several definitions of intelligence from around the web)

intelligence /ĭn-tĕl′ə-jəns/
noun

1. The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge.
2. Skilled use of reason
3. Mental acuteness

Is AI actually intelligent? 

It can acquire knowledge. It can use knowledge. It can reason if, by reason, we mean applying statistics and algorithms to data to draw conclusions. It certainly has acuteness, which is associated with memory and focus. 

But it can’t understand. Not the way we do.

Understanding requires comprehension of the existential world around us. Experiences, emotions, consequences, seasons, geography, physical space, relationships — all required for understanding.

As a user, I’m happy that AI is being integrated into my phone and computer OS’s. But also, I’m under no illusion that my devices are intelligent.

AI lacks awareness.
AI has incomplete, corrupt, or biased training data.
AI’s objectives are unclear.
AI utilizes finite machinery.
AI’s underbelly is opaque.
AI doesn’t care about anything.
AI gets bad input.

These are all reasons that AI makes mistakes. So do we.

Where can you plug your humanity in so as not to make the same mistakes as AI?

I was asked that the other day.

It caught me off guard because what do you say? What’s the context? Who’s asking? When? What do they care about?

Like you, I’m many different things, but does “who” ever change?

I’m still working on it.

What’s the cost of a mistake?

Sometimes, it’s almost nothing. If I spell a wrod wrong in this article, nobody’s gonna care.

Sometimes, it’s life and death. If the mechanic neglects to secure the lug nuts or the heart surgeon skips a step, somebody’s life is in danger.

Most of the time, it’s somewhere in the middle, and you can measure it in terms of dollars, time, or reputation. You get to decide which axis matters most to you. But also, your customers, partners, family, and team get to decide what matters most to them. The beauty of existential experience. Are you sync’d up?

Your job is to ensure that you minimize the chances of high-cost mistakes. You can invest in systems to do so — education, procedures, tools, automation, and redundancy. Installing systems also costs dollars, time, and reputation.

Should we build the robot and write the code to automate this testing?
Should we buy the robot and automated test tool?
Should we buy another mower so we can keep mowing if this one breaks?
Should we get AWS certified?
Should we outsource this part of our process?

Systems cost you on the front-end. Mistakes cost you on the back-end.

You get to decide which is more expensive.

Seeing the official notice is jarring.

It’s not surprising. You knew it was coming.

The bell tolls. The end of an era. The end of your time in this organization, with this community. You poured yourself into this place. You built great stuff, a great team, and great relationships. You’ve bled and sweat with these people. It wasn’t your fault, but also it wasn’t enough.

It’s necessary. Growth requires it. Your journey requires it. You will be OK, probably even better. So will they.

When the bell tolls, listen, feel, step off the old path, and head out on the new one.

Does this look familiar?

You: OK, great! I’ll send you the invite for tomorrow at 3.
Them: Sounds good. Looking forward to it.

And then silence. Or worse, they accept the meeting but then ghost you.

How about this one?

You: To confirm, you’ll have this ready for tomorrow?
Them: Yes! It’s my highest priority.

Tomorrow rolls around, and nothing. Or maybe it’s “done,” but it’s not what you discussed and certainly not what you need.

Ever been here?

You: So you’ll help introduce me to that person?
Them: Yes, of course! I’d be happy to help.

And then it never happens.

We’re quick to judge. We feel like the other person is lazy or incompetent. We get frustrated, and we complain to the poor souls who happen to be standing around within earshot.

It’s not true. The other person isn’t lazy or incompetent. 

What is true, however, is that the other person doesn’t care about our thing as much as we do. How could they? They’re not us.

As Seth Godin says, “The person we’re counting on doesn’t see what we see, doesn’t know what we know and might not even want what we want.”

There are two important leadership lessons here. The first is that when counting on someone else to help, I need to create the conditions for success. The second is that I need to care about them first.

Both of those are my jobs. 

Barreling ahead: Unstoppable. Force of will. Make it happen. My way or the highway.

Laying back: Patience. Conservation. Waiting for the right time. What do you think?

Which do you apply and when? Exactly, that’s the question. 

I find my comfort zone is the best guide.

In hindsight, I can see how the comfort zone has shaped my journey. I recognize the little monuments of both growth and regression over my path that directly related to my level of comfort. Most times I grew, made progress, or ended up better, it was because I stepped out or was forced out of my comfort zone. I can also look back and regret the opportunities missed or not taken because I was too afraid to test the waters outside the comfort zone.

Which feels more uncomfortable in the moment?

Do the uncomfortable. 

Every business is in the business of customer service.

The customer isn’t always right, but it would be almost impossible to overstate how important customer service is to your business. 

What does your customer want?

On the one hand, they want the principle of least astonishment. If you run a $$$$ restaurant with linen tablecloths, you shouldn’t serve your wine in pink plastic kids’ cups, and you shouldn’t ignore them for 90 minutes. Your customers have some expectations of the environment you will provide. 

But on the other hand, they want to be delighted. To delight them, you may indeed wish to astonish them. It’s all about the axis on which you choose to astonish.

The magic of competing in your marketplace is to know which axes require least astonishment and which axes are ripe for astonishment. This rings true whether you’re a restaurant, tire installer, accounting firm, or software company.

You should know which is which. 

If you’re trying to do or make something for someone else, you’ll either be judged or you’ll be ignored.

We say we don’t like being judged. I certainly say that.

Being ignored is the alternative. It’s certainly more comfortable to be ignored. No risk. Very safe. Won’t make you distracted as you sit comfortably on your couch in the evening.

But is that better?

The best time to start, buy the real estate, max out your retirement savings, build your network, eat healthy, train for a marathon, or find a mentor was before.

The 2nd best time is now.

Don’t let the 2nd best time go to waste. It’s severely underrated.

The paradox of social media is the echo chamber.

Social media algorithms are really good at showing us the entire world while at the same time narrowing our view of it. If you engage, even passively, you start to get more of what you want, think, and feel.

The more you get what you want, the easier it is to nod along. Nodding along is about rightness and righteousness. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, I’m right. And with social media, you can nod along without incurring any risk.

Is this a feature or bug of social media?

When you’re nodding along in person, you incur risk, even if you’re in a group and enjoying the benefits of safety in numbers.

You’re standing with others. This side of the line, not that side. My sign says I’m with these people. People can see you. People can point at you. You have to walk back down the street or get into your car once you’re done nodding along.

So, is it a feature or a bug?

Neither. It’s a mirror. Social media reflects not just our desires but our fears. It doesn’t just amplify our voices; it echoes our silence. The real question is our willingness to engage with risk.

When we look in the mirror, are we happy nodding along?

I had something happen today that was hard to believe. I’m still not quite sure I do.

The mid-50s engineer in me is a bit cynical: That can’t be right. What’s the catch? That’s how they get ya.

But the other guy, the little flicker of the guy I want to be, wants to believe it. He’s a little wary but in a trust-but-verify way.

Belief is hard. Hard to believe is easy.

Sometimes you gotta take the hard way.

When someone asks me what I do for a living, I usually say, “I’m a typer.”

Software development, like many jobs today, is just typing. But is it?

How many times have you looked at someone else in your company and thought, “that job is easy,” or “I could do that job better than them.”

That might be true, but remember, your job is also just typing.

Hollywood loves making movies about serendipity.

RomComs, of course. Serendipity is almost always the inciting incident in a RomCom. However, most other genres also use serendipity to either throw the characters into the action or provide a critical piece to the puzzle along the journey. 

Because serendipity makes a great story.

Is it chance? Is it fate? Is it Providence? Is it some other over-arching force from the Universe that wants it to happen?

It taps into something deep inside us. We want to believe in destiny, that someone or something is watching over us, and that our lives have a greater purpose. We want to believe we can win the lottery. We can picture ourselves with the great big check in our hands as we stand at the front of the room full of flash bulbs. We dream about serendipity. 

Serendipity makes it all change in a heartbeat. One minute, you’re A. The next, you’re B. And B is amazing. 

But progress rarely happens due to serendipity in real life. 

I’m sure each of us can recall serendipitous events in our lives. Maybe even one or some of those led to something remarkable. You still tell that story. 

However, progress usually happens due to plain old incremental steps in the right (or wrong) direction. Get up today and do the work. A little better or more complete today than yesterday. 

Then, next week or next month, you look back and realize how far you’ve come.

Even if you’ve never been fishing, you’ve told fish stories. 

You know the kind of stories I’m talking about.

You catch a 6″ bass and release it back into the lake. A month later, you’re telling your buddies over beers about the 12-incher you caught. By the time you’re retelling the tale at the family reunion, that fish has become a 20″ monster that put up a fight worthy of Hemingway.

Why?

It might be rather simple. Maybe you’re just exaggerating. You’re trying to be relevant or one-up someone else with the guys. Yeah, you’re human. 

Or maybe…

You’d had a difficult week. In fact, you just got laid off, and now you don’t know what’s next. Let’s face it: you’re a failure. Your wife knows it. Your kids know it. Your friends know it. You’ve been exposed.

You and your son are at the lake, and it’s been a slow day. Nothing biting at all. Jeez, you’re even a failure at fishing. Of course you are. 

And then, you get one! Out of the blue, a bass hits the line and puts up a good fight. You get it to the boat and bring it in. Now, you’re not a total failure. That’s a win! 

When you look back on that day, you remember the win. You feel the pain that preceded it. You feel the boost to your morale.

That win felt like a 20″ monster that put up a fight worthy of Hemmingway. 

You never want to hear that.

But, on the other hand, you really do need to hear that. Because unless it sounds stupid to someone, it’s not creative, innovative, or daring enough. 

Your creativity, innovation, and courage are exactly what this world needs. That’s the only way you can move yourself, the state of the art, or your people forward. 

Yup, it better sound stupid because it just might work.

For every person who stands at the front of the stage, there was someone who worked behind the scenes.

For every person whose name is on the front of a building, there was someone, or more likely many someones, who worked behind the scenes.

For every person whose name appears on the front of the script, there was someone who worked behind the scenes.

For every person whose name is on the placard at the bottom of the trophy, there was someone who worked behind the scenes.

Read the credits. Read the memoirs or journals. Read the biography. Read the footnotes and references. That’s where you’ll find them. 

If you’re someone looking to have their name on something or stand at the front of something, you’re gonna need those someones behind the scenes. The better you are at finding, engaging, and appreciating them, the sooner your name will be there. 

As it turns out, we now have two universal solutions.

The first is AI. “We’ll just plug AI into that!” AI will solve most of our problems. It certainly is creating mountains of business opportunities.

And if you translate the headlines coming out of the pharma world, it looks like the second universal solution are GPT-1 drugs (Ozempic, WeGovy, etc).

I mean, what can’t it do?

It makes you skinny. It cures your diabetes. It helps lower your cholesterol. It also cures your heart disease and kidney disease. 

It’s the miracle drug. Let’s just plug Ozempic into that!

I think maybe, just like with AI, what Ozempic does is shine the light on humans’ current struggles and our inherent desire to move forward. To find solutions to the human problems of emotional, intellectual, and physical pain. Progression rather than conservation. There’s a lesson about humanity in there somewhere. That’s for another day.

But also, just like with AI, Ozempic doesn’t think. It doesn’t feel. It has no inherent desires or purpose. It isn’t a solution for anything without you and your pain. You’re the human, and you’re the star of the show. You can make the decisions.

Don’t ever forget that. 

“Everything is amazing and nobody is happy”

– Louis CK

Your mobile phone is a stone-cold miracle. Yes, of course, physics and blah, blah, blah…

It’s a miracle. Make no mistake.

Driving down the highway at 70 mph, you just call your friend sitting in his house 400 miles away. And it works. Oh, look at that: Bryce Harper just jacked one (seconds ago) to win it in the 10th. Did you close the garage door? I’ll check. Looks like I can get the grass cut with about 10 minutes to spare before the thunderstorm hits. Hey Siri.

Nothing demonstrates the law of conservation of complexity more than the phone in your pocket. Using your phone to do stuff is intuitive, (mostly) simple, and (mostly) just works.

But under covers, the complexity that exists is mind-boggling. ChatGPT estimates that the current iPhone required 3-4 million man-hours of engineering effort. That’s just the phone and iOS. Then add in the millions of additional engineering hours for the over 2 million applications. 

And that’s not even considering the hundreds of years of scientific research and understanding that preceded it and makes it all possible. It’s a miracle.

And now we expect it. What’s wrong with this thing? Why didn’t the dentist remind me of my appointment? Damn phone won’t connect! I don’t have service.

Our phones have simplified living in our world. And therefore, in some very tangible ways, have disconnected us from the realities of living in the physical world. Once you expect miracles, it’s hard to live without them.

So, as Louis CK says, “Will ya give it a second?”

Remember trying to install a modem or network card into your PC in 1995?

First, you had to grab your screwdriver to deconstruct and open up that machine like you were performing open-heart surgery. Once laid bare, you’d insert the new card, being careful not to zap it with ESD and render it useless, into an open ISA or PCI slot on the motherboard. Once the new board was installed, you’d reconstruct it and hope you got everything back in the proper spots. Oh shit, I forgot to put this screw back somewhere…

But that was just the beginning because the real fight was still before you. You had to come to blows with the system software to get it to recognize what you just put in there. Boot into the BIOS. Now, which PC manufacturer is this? What was the key sequence? Oh shit, I didn’t hit it fast enough. Once into the esoteric BIOS screen, you had to hunt around for the ISA/PCI settings to configure the address range and interrupt. Address range? What’s that even mean? Which interrupt? What’s an interrupt? How many times will I have to reboot? Oh shit, I must have the interrupt wrong because now it won’t even start up. 

You were poking and praying. It was trial and error. Sometimes, it took an hour. Sometimes, you never got it to work. 

Even my colleagues and I, who knew and understood what this all meant, struggled mightily to make it all work. 

Then along came USB.

I worked on the development of USB technology in its infancy. I wasn’t the inventor or a contributor to the specs or working group, but I was part of a team inside Lucent Technologies working to implement it. We were developing a USB chip and low-level software to sell to PC manufacturers. 

USB was the first PC technology during that era that said, “OK, enough! This is stupid. There’s gotta be a better way.” 

The whole point of it was to make it dumb-simple for a user to use. Therefore, the part that the user sees and interacts with has to be easy to understand, robust, and “just work.” No opening up the computer. No connector mismatch. No “is this a Dell or a Compaq?” And, most importantly, no f’n software configuration. When I plug it in, the system sees it, and it just works. Let’s go. 

But, like it is with so much in this world, a pile of complexity under the covers is required to make it simple on the outside.

We call this the conservation of complexity — every application has an inherent amount of complexity that cannot be removed. You can move it around to different areas of the system — hide it here, deal with it there — but the complexity inherently exists. 

So, who gets exposed to that complexity? Who has to deal with it?

As an engineer or anybody who makes something for someone else to use, your goal is to deal with the complexity and keep it away from your users. 

Ask yourself, “Who is my user and how can I make the right thing to do the easy thing for them to do?”

Preoccupied — A state of being so focused on a particular task, problem, or concern that it dominates one’s mental and emotional energy.

When you’re preoccupied, you’re focused, coming up with creative solutions, productive, and committed. 

But you’re also probably stressed, neglecting those around you, neglecting other responsibilities and tasks, neglecting what’s going on in the world, and not sleeping well.

Preoccupation, like so much else of our lives, is a double-edged sword. You can get there and solve the problem, but not without some cost. 

What are you willing to pay?

Software developers work with a tool called a “Source Code Control” (SCC) tool.  

Think of an SCC tool as a library card catalog system that keeps track of everything about the books. The card catalog shows you what books exist, where they are, who the author is, and who has them checked out. And in this card catalog system, you’re allowed to change the contents of the books! If anybody checks out a book and changes it, that person becomes the new author. 

When you author a change, you attach a little note that describes it. This message is called the commit message.

It looks like this:

commit 14eacff768fcf58530a65f4bee4fc8f36b251c7a (HEAD -> DEVOPSDEV-1635-modify-status-utils, origin/DEVOPSDEV-1635-modify-status-utils)

Author: John Macdonald 

Date:   Fri May 10 15:54:52 2024 -0400

    DEVOPSDEV-1635 for the love of god...

The gobbledygook at the beginning is all of the “what” info that the tool includes automatically. The engineering stuff. With it, you can learn all you need to know about what changed, by who, when, and what it looked like before the change. You can even undo any change. 

The line at the end is what I typed in as the commit message. 

The best commit messages are brief, but tell you something beyond the what. The why. The purpose. Ancillary effects. Or the author’s state of mind at the time.

You only have a few characters. What will your commit message be?

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do…Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun

– Ecclesiastes 9:7, 9

Racing to get to the end.
Why? What’s at the end?
What even is the end? Death, of course.

So why race?
Why look past what is now to get to what is later?

Presence. 
Presence is the gift. 

All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean…This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. 

Ecclesiastes 9:2-3

We’re all on the unavoidable path. We share the common destiny. 

We may live virtuously. We may live in depravity. It doesn’t matter. Death awaits us all.

But perhaps, in this shared fate, we’re called to live fully. To embrace our moments, to feel the low times, to find joy in the present, because in the end, it’s the life we’ve lived that defines us, not the inevitable end.

What does a full and authentic life look like to you? Only you can define that, but for sure, it doesn’t come from your social media feed. It doesn’t come from your neighbor. It doesn’t come from the outside. 

It comes from within. Within you and your inner circle. Within your relationship to God or the Universe or the Spirit. 

We call share common destiny. Look within to find your road. 

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

Solomon got it (assuming Solomon wrote it).

You can plan. You can get ready. You can be wise, swift, and strong. And sometimes, it will go exactly as you predicted or prepared for. You should be prepared.

But time and chance happen to all of us.

Life has a way of surprising us. What will you do when time and chance happen? With the proper mindset, they open doors to unexpected opportunities and paths previously unknown.

I just keep telling myself this. Maybe you should too. 

In engineering, choosing a network topology affects the short-term and long-term operations, performance, reliability, and abilities of the network and its constituents.

Star Network

The hub and spoke model. Every connection runs through the critical hub. It’s simple to create and easy to maintain and can be efficient. The overall network remains unaffected if an outside node goes down. However, if the hub goes down, everything crashes and burns. 

If you’re the hub of your network, you are the one maintaining the direct relationships to your people. You control who and how deep the relationship. However, it puts a lot of pressure on you to manage all interactions, and can be vulnerable if you’re unavailable.

Ring Network

The loop model. Data moves in either direction serially through each node. It’s very efficient and predictable. It’s also easy to configure, create, and diagnose issues, as each node needs only know about two others. However, a single breakage brings the entire network down. 

You’re connected to a small number, and relying on the connections of your connections. Each person linked to the next can pay dividends without you. But if a single person drops the ball, or doesn’t care as much as you, the whole thing falls apart. 

Mesh Network

The distributed web model. Every device has a connection to every other device, either directly or indirectly. Mesh networks are complicated and costly to create and diagnose issues but offer superior resilience. Nothing can bring the entire network down. 

You’re part of a larger web of interconnected contacts. Each person is not only linked to you but also to each other. This creates a robust network where referrals and recommendations can flow freely, increasing your reach and resilience. But it requires more effort to build and maintain.

Which One?

Any of these topologies can bring you success. However, only the mesh network can help you knock it out of the park.

How will you build your mesh network?

My 19-year-old son and I were in the grocery store recently, and he said to me, “Hey, Dad, don’t you think the number of ice cream flavors has exploded since I was a little kid? It’s crazy how many there are.”

He’s right. It’s crazy. 

My Dad always talked about setting up an ice cream stand on the boardwalk at the beach with only two choices: vanilla or chocolate. And every scoop is served in a cone. No dishes here. 

He’d smile, actually relish, as he could picture the conversation with the customer who asked for something off-script, “But don’t you have anything else? What about mint chocolate chip?”

“We got vanilla, and we got chocolate. Which would you like?”

He loved talking about that. 

Vanilla and chocolate are by far the most popular ice cream flavors in America, and have been since the beginning. Most people choose one, even when presented with a potpourri of other choices. 

So why all the flavors?

Do more flavors help the ice cream industry as a whole sell more ice cream? Do you, as an ice cream retailer, need to stock a million flavors? Can you build a better business with more choices?

I don’t know. Maybe. 

I do know, however, that the number of choices, not just in ice cream but in all things, has increased exponentially over the last 50 years. That has split markets into ever-decreasing niches.

In a world of endless choices, find the one that you can most delight your people with, and focus there.