Software Lead Weekly
Issue #652, 23rd May 2025
This Week's Favorite
Everything Not Forbidden Is Compulsory
5 minutes read.
"It may sound like Gell-Mann stated the obvious: What can happen will happen. Yet, most people operate on the assumption that only what is likely to happen will happen. The same is true for companies, governments, and other systems. [...] This is not just a world of new winners or new knowledge, but a world that redefines what it means to know and what it means to win. Every victory is ephemeral, every insight is contingent and limited. As soon as something is known, it will be exploited until the knowledge becomes useless. In the past, our knowledge accumulated, and our actions were limited. Now, it is exactly the opposite: Our actions can achieve unlimited outcomes, but knowledge decays rapidly." -- I agree with Dror Poleg's take on how GenAI is shifting our industry. Read his paragraph on "We must cultivate a portfolio approach to ideas" to judge your ideas and investments.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
"It may sound like Gell-Mann stated the obvious: What can happen will happen. Yet, most people operate on the assumption that only what is likely to happen will happen. The same is true for companies, governments, and other systems. [...] This is not just a world of new winners or new knowledge, but a world that redefines what it means to know and what it means to win. Every victory is ephemeral, every insight is contingent and limited. As soon as something is known, it will be exploited until the knowledge becomes useless. In the past, our knowledge accumulated, and our actions were limited. Now, it is exactly the opposite: Our actions can achieve unlimited outcomes, but knowledge decays rapidly." -- I agree with Dror Poleg's take on how GenAI is shifting our industry. Read his paragraph on "We must cultivate a portfolio approach to ideas" to judge your ideas and investments.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
Here, I Drew the Missing Chart From All Those "AI Improves Our Productivity!" Surveys
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
The Software Engineering Kawagara Moment
5 minutes read.
"This isn’t the end of software engineering. But it is the end of one version of it. I don’t know what version comes after this. I do know we don’t get to stop the wave that’s coming." -- How do you see your role changing? What do you think is your leverage, given the changes we see? How do you pick where to double down, learn, and experiment?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
"This isn’t the end of software engineering. But it is the end of one version of it. I don’t know what version comes after this. I do know we don’t get to stop the wave that’s coming." -- How do you see your role changing? What do you think is your leverage, given the changes we see? How do you pick where to double down, learn, and experiment?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
The Self-Promotion Horror Show
6 minutes read.
Hilary Gridley writes it beautifully: "It takes humility to recognize that people won’t automatically see our work. They’re busy, they’ve got their own stuff going on. Instead of assuming our work will magically break through the noise, we proactively share and connect the dots for how it can help others. It takes empathy to understand what makes other people’s jobs difficult and what’s important to them. Taking the time to frame our work in a way that helps inform other people, not in way that is primarily about us, shows that we care." but what I loved most about her post is the traps to avoid: "Watch out for the trap of sharing process over insights" and "Pay attention to whether you're creating cognitive load for others."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
6 minutes read.
Hilary Gridley writes it beautifully: "It takes humility to recognize that people won’t automatically see our work. They’re busy, they’ve got their own stuff going on. Instead of assuming our work will magically break through the noise, we proactively share and connect the dots for how it can help others. It takes empathy to understand what makes other people’s jobs difficult and what’s important to them. Taking the time to frame our work in a way that helps inform other people, not in way that is primarily about us, shows that we care." but what I loved most about her post is the traps to avoid: "Watch out for the trap of sharing process over insights" and "Pay attention to whether you're creating cognitive load for others."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
On Work Processes and Outcomes
6 minutes read.
"Note that this second model doesn’t imply that we should always just keep doing things the same way we always do. But it does imply that we should be humble in enforcing changes to the way work is done, because the way that work is done today actually leads to good outcomes most of the time." -- Being humble when enforcing changes is a wonderful take. Many minor optimizations in how humans interact with humans and systems are too complex to assume there is one local maxima to strive for. Many small changes will often produce unexpected leverage.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
6 minutes read.
"Note that this second model doesn’t imply that we should always just keep doing things the same way we always do. But it does imply that we should be humble in enforcing changes to the way work is done, because the way that work is done today actually leads to good outcomes most of the time." -- Being humble when enforcing changes is a wonderful take. Many minor optimizations in how humans interact with humans and systems are too complex to assume there is one local maxima to strive for. Many small changes will often produce unexpected leverage.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
Managing Strong Personalities
3 minutes read.
"I guess being compared to Cristiano Ronaldo landed well in this case." -- Well, if you like football (soccer for the US readers :)), that should do the trick. But you can replace it with anyone considered top-notch in their field. We need to understand how to get someone to feel valuable while getting them to realize we win as a team that can complement each other.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
"I guess being compared to Cristiano Ronaldo landed well in this case." -- Well, if you like football (soccer for the US readers :)), that should do the trick. But you can replace it with anyone considered top-notch in their field. We need to understand how to get someone to feel valuable while getting them to realize we win as a team that can complement each other.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Breaking the Ceiling: Scaling Your Impact at the Staff-Plus Level (Video)
51 minutes read.
This talk by Thiago Ghisi is a must-watch if you consider taking steps on the IC track and pushing your limits and influence to the next level. Usually, I recommend listening to it on your commute, but this one has great slides and references worth watching. Share it with your teammates or friends who seek to get some helpful and concrete tips.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
51 minutes read.
This talk by Thiago Ghisi is a must-watch if you consider taking steps on the IC track and pushing your limits and influence to the next level. Usually, I recommend listening to it on your commute, but this one has great slides and references worth watching. Share it with your teammates or friends who seek to get some helpful and concrete tips.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Thoughts on Thinking
4 minutes read.
This is very meta topic, I know. Still, in a world where the "blank page problem" might disappear as GenAI tools will help us brainstorm and kickstart the process, we might be stuck uncovering the deeper insight we feel yet finding hard to explain and share with the world: "My thinking systems have atrophied, and I can feel it–I can sense my slightly diminishing intuition, cleverness, and rigor. And because AI can so easily flesh out ideas, I feel less inclined to share my thoughts–no matter how developed. [...] Intellectual rigor comes from the journey: the dead ends, the uncertainty, and the internal debate. Skip that, and you might still get the insight–but you’ll have lost the infrastructure for meaningful understanding. Learning by reading LLM output is cheap. Real exercise for your mind comes from building the output yourself."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
This is very meta topic, I know. Still, in a world where the "blank page problem" might disappear as GenAI tools will help us brainstorm and kickstart the process, we might be stuck uncovering the deeper insight we feel yet finding hard to explain and share with the world: "My thinking systems have atrophied, and I can feel it–I can sense my slightly diminishing intuition, cleverness, and rigor. And because AI can so easily flesh out ideas, I feel less inclined to share my thoughts–no matter how developed. [...] Intellectual rigor comes from the journey: the dead ends, the uncertainty, and the internal debate. Skip that, and you might still get the insight–but you’ll have lost the infrastructure for meaningful understanding. Learning by reading LLM output is cheap. Real exercise for your mind comes from building the output yourself."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@JamesClear: Your first task is to find what feels effortless to you. Your second task is to put maximum effort into it.
@nukemberg: Schrodinger's backup: It both exists and doesn't exist until you actually try to restore
- Oren
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.