As the year ends,lemme entertain y'all with kidogo trauma that I have😂

X : Our executive team is concerned that we need to up our game in order to out innovate Amazon.
Me : Do you map?
X : Yes
Me : Like this?
X : No. What's that?
Me : A map of a tea shop.

X : Why is that a map?
Me : Long story, all to do with how space has meaning. To keep it short, maps help people to focus on user needs, the components involved, to communicate missing components and scenario play ideas like staff becoming robots.

Me : They’re also good for measuring and managing capital flow, making investment decisions, removing bias and getting rid of duplication.
X : I don’t see how that helps with innovation?

Me : Well, innovation is a tricky word because we use it to describe many things. If you’re talking about differentiation with the adjacent unexplored then you’re experimenting in the “uncharted” space e.g. immortality with magic provided by the special custom built kettle.

X : That sounds like nonsense.
Me : A lot of what people think will be the next great innovation is nonsense. Actually, most of it is. That’s the nature of the uncharted space, it’s experimental, high risk and generally results in failure.
X : We need more reliable innovation.

For the record: that's not a "strong work ethic."
That's exploiting young unattached engineers and spinning it as "team culture."

Toxic 💀💀

That's not something to aspire to. That's not good management. If you're working sustained 70+ hrweeks, somebody is taking advantage of you.

We have fetishized the overworked engineer. It's toxic but so pervasive that Mr. Ng (and others) feel it's ok to advertise as a positive.

Having this as "culture" breeds a monoculture of unattached, young engineers. Not good for them & not good for your company long term.

It's not good for them because their first job burns them out and physically wears them down. This happened to me and many of my coworkers.

Most software founders, particularly in B2B, need to get radically better at sales. @Steli , who is the best person for explaining the scrappy stages in the beginning and then building out a team with scripts and processes, wrote a guide to:

For technical founders it is irrationally, obscenely hard to reverse years of programming (ba dum bum) that sales is a value-destroying activity. Sales is CLEARLY a value-creating activity, contingent on you have a value-creating product.

The world will not drop what they are doing to adopt your work. This is particularly true in B2B, where simply building a better mousetrap won't overcome the activation energy required to get people with additional non-mice problems to prioritize changing mousetraps today.

This is very non-obvious for founders because founders are not often people who *want* to be sold to. We often come from a background where trying out tools is a bit of a fun hobby. We like looking at all the options, making charts, and ripping out partially complete tests.

"This week I unsuccessfully trialed four software options for automating that thing that has been killing us. Our actual production process remains the same as last week. Don't worry; this was a great use of time." is not a thing you want to write in a progress report to manager.

#Guruvayur_Krishna_Bhakthi  🕉
#Guruvayur
#Storytime
Beautiful Story of Guruvayurappan

Poonathanam Namboothiri was a great devotee of Guruvayurappan. One day Poonthanam was going to Guruvayur Kshetram. It was night time and eventhough Namboothiri was tired he continued to walk

Suddenly some thieves came and blocked his way. Poonthanam cried for Shri Krishna to help. Thieves snatched all valuables from him, but Namboothiri holding his Bhaghavatam book called Shri Krishna to help. That time a man came in a horse back and fought with thieves and protected

Namboothiri. Poonthanam thanked Krishna for helping him from danger and said to the man that "Shri Krishna has send you here and I don't know how to thank you".  The man smiled and told that he is Mangattachan, minister of  samoodhiris. Poonthanam once again thanked him and

gave his ring to Mangattachan as a token of thanks and continued his journey. He reached Guruvayur early morning for Nirmalya Darshan. Temple poojari came near him and told that Guruvayurappan came in his dreams and asked to hand over the ring to poonthanam.

When he opened Kshetra Nada poonthanam was surprised to see his ring on Guruvayurappan, which he gifted to Mangattachan. He understood that it was Guruvayurappan who came as Mangattachan to protect him. This is how Bhagwan treat his devotees.

Hare Krishna
🙏🕉🙏