Discover great authors from HEY World

Don't defer quality

Ever find yourself about to ship something that isn't good enough? You know it, you feel it, but you still want to get it out there because regardless of outcome, lots of work went into it. You want something to show for it. You can often make yourself feel a lot better by wrapping the uneasiness with a statement like "We can always co...

Uncertainty tolerance

Your brain is a prediction machine, meaning that when things don't go as planned, there can be significant consequences. You’ll have experienced this many times. That tight feeling in your chest when receiving adverse news. That sinking feeling when a decision you made starts to look like a costly mistake. That anxiety when your schedu...

Who's been swimming naked?

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked", says Warren Buffett, and now we're indeed seeing just how many tech companies have been indecently exposed as the investment mood snaps from greed to fear. Bolt, for example, just announced a brutal 1/3 cut of all staff, after touching the sun with a $11 billion v...

It hit me like a slap to the face.

It was my first time back. Each month, my wife Katie gets an infusion for Multiple Sclerosis. Aside from the first one, I’ve been absent (with Katie’s permission). That’s why coming back shook me up. Emotions that I haven’t seen in awhile came out to play. The same emotions I had almost a year ago when she was diagnosed: • Anger (at Go...

Enterprisey expectations

As a customer, I can't think of something I value more than how a company handles the problems I have with them. I have recently been evaluating Datadog for Basecamp. It's a fantastic product, and we are in the final testing stage. We recently tried the new version of its official Ruby/Rails gem, finding a severe memory leak problem. I...

Shape Up - Advice for Tech Teams

Just a few thoughts on how our first couple of projects went using Shape Up. We deliberately picked some shorter projects so we got feedback quickly. The extra work put into the shaping, the clear expectations/boundaries really shine through with this approach. From a developers point of view it should be a more enjoyable way to work w...

The Startup Marketers Tech Stack (12 Tools To Use) 🧰

So you’re a marketer at a startup. Rad. I am too. That is neat. If there’s two things to know at a startup it’s that cash is precious and growth is king! Now, you’re probably racking your brain trying to help you find the right tools that can help you maximize performance without breaking the bank. I’ve been there. The problem when you...

Theoretical books > practical books + why that's true.

I recently read a book called The Power Of Ignorance by Dave Trott. It's a lot like the book Alchemy by Rory Sutherland in that it conveys wisdom through stories. It's like the Bible (i.e., teaching through stories and parables). This made me realize there are two types of books: • Practical (Improve your action) • Theoretical (Improve...

Bullshit jobs hide more easily in big companies

The late, great David Graeber struck a nerve with his 2013 essay On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs. It diagnosed the "moral and spiritual damage" caused to our "collective soul" when masses of white-collar employees work pointless jobs. The thesis was confirmed by a startling poll a few years later that showed 37% of British workers t...

2 ways to be more brief (with writing and talking).

If you know me, you know I’m long-winded. I could talk for days. That directly correlates to my writing. Put simply; I struggle with brevity. I’m a verbose guy. If I can say something with five words, I’ll use fifteen. I’ve always been that way. But over time, I’ve realized that it’s a significant weakness. It’s a weakness in a couple ...