Leadership

I've been hiring people (and conducting more thorough reference checks) more recently now, and I've learned something important: most reference checks are useless. They're like those mandatory training videos you have to watch at big companies. Everyone goes through the motions, but nobody really learns anything. But it doesn't have to be this way. Reference checks can be incredibly valuable if...

What's the hardest conflict you've ever encountered at your work? It's hard to avoid conflicts, but there are various ways in which we could mitigate conflict as much as possible. As a product person, apart from keeping the team running, working with stakeholders, shipping successful products, you're also tasked with resolving conflicts. As Feynman once said, 'Imagine how much harder physics...

Startups are interesting even if most startups fail. I've found Patrick Collinson's argument to be the most convincing: "Part of the reason startups resonate with people is because the outcome is not guaranteed. If it were guaranteed, it would be boring… Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really...