An article in the Harvard Business Review gives some great examples of how product quality requires ruthless honesty
When you have a document to review in a meeting, you should do a really counter-intuitive thing: Don’t send it out beforehand. Instead, share the doc at the beginning of the meeting and have everyone read it, silently, in the meeting.
When talking to almost any ambitious young person in tech, I find myself referring them to Marc Andreessen’s “Guide to Career Planning”. It’s an excellent series that I wish had been written before I graduated from college—if I’d read it then, it might have changed my entire career path.
There are two points in particular that I highlight. Stated here in my own word
My curse in life is to always make the opposite mistake that everyone else makes.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I read too much advice, and I take it to heart before I understand the full context it came from. I think that’s what happened the first time I became a manager.
So, you read my career management advice and you’ve decided you want to join a mid-stage, hypergrowth startup. Great. Now—how do you go about it?
The 3 Levels of Employees: Level 1 — You do what you are asked to do. Level 2 — Level 1 + You think ahead and solve problems before they happen. Level 3 — Level 2 + You proactively look for areas of opportunity and growth in the business, and figure out how to tap into them.
The two skills of modern business: Storytelling and spreadsheets. Know the numbers. Craft the narrative.
The danger of collaboration: The more people involved in a project the less any single person takes responsibility for the work.
Two questions: (1) What is your job? (2) What is one strategy or tactic you use at your job that is also useful in other areas of life?
How to generate great ideas as a team: 1) Brainstorm privately. Any idea goes. Avoids groupthink. 2) Compile ideas, but hide the sources. Avoids "highest paid person" winning. 3) Discuss as a group to find the best answer. 4) Reveal the winner so the right person gets credit.
In business, you'll learn more by making friends with peers who are two steps ahead of you than you will from mentors. In life, you'll learn more by making friends with someone who is two decades older than you than you will from peers.
Books for mindset. Quiet time to think for strategy. Conversations with successful peers for tactics.
Most people consider what is possible and then decide what result they want to create. Entrepreneurs decide what result they want to create and then consider what is possible. Start with your vision and deal with reality—not the reverse.