TL;DR- just notes and takeaways from recent podcast episodes. They’ll mostly be about product development, software engineering, or other tech stuff (GIS related probably).
Podcasts
Takeaways and notes from recent podcasts I’ve listened to - I’m finding that taking actual notes is helping me retain info and more actively listen lately - and I figured why not share publicly in case it gets someone else interested in listening to (or not) the episode.
My First Million
Episode with Christina Cacioppo
The guest on this episode was the CEO of Vanta
Consistency
Inspired by her attitude + the story of founding Vanta
- From her experience at USV - founders not all successful on first or second shot - most are on the “5th or 55th” attempt
Creative work
I really liked the quote from Art and Fear “The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars.” It makes me feel better about the tons of random projects I do for fun, writing, etc. I have a tendency to start projects or writing and then not ship…
Start up mental stuff
- Moving goal posts aren’t necessarily bad, if you like the actual process they won’t stop you from being happy
- Stick with whatever helps you clear your mind - running, reading, misc exercise, etc, no matter what’s going on or how busy you are
Lenny’s Podcast
Episode with Anneka Gupta
The guest on this episode was Anneka Gupta, Chief Product Officer at Rubrik. She talked about leadership, strategy, decision making and product dev.
On what does “being strategic” actually mean?
Or what do people really mean when they “want to be more strategic”?
- She suggests that they’re usually looking two things (1) to be able to present a simple and compelling ‘why’ for your project, and (2) you need to be a champion/change agent for big changes or ideas that might be hard in the short term / but beneficial long term
- Basically - drive big ideas and/or tough decisions to drive projects forward AND be able to convey the simple and compelling why behind it, either without the other doesn’t appear “strategic”
On finding what to do / the next ‘big idea’
- I liked that they discussed the Idea of “constant betterment” - consistently find the biggest bottleneck or constraint, and make it better. The improvements will compound over time. There’s no need to go huge all the time - just consistent improvement
- Getting people together, listening to ideas - and asking “How do I make this idea one click better?”
- Roger Martin - “Playing to Win” - mentioned, I might check it out
On “Becoming a Historian” at work
- She presented the idea of building up a history by researching and asking about different past products and projects and writing it up.
- Gather information about what was tried, what didn’t work and why. Learn from mistakes that you didn’t have to make yourself, and build more context
- It also helps understand the people and potential “baggage” around “we tried X before and Y happened". You can anticipate those response and be more prepared to address concerns and get buy in
On decision making
- It’s not always about making the right decision, it’s about making the decision - avoid analysis paralysis - just focus on having a good hypothesis based on what you know
- People are often hesitate to make a decision on incomplete information. Once you commit, you start to get more data which you can use to iterate. If you never take the step, you might never get any additional data. Even if it means you go backwards a bit, you will have learned something, in the no decision case, you didn’t
- Basically: have a strong hypothesis, got for it, get data, iterate
- How do you encourage this type of culture? You don’t want your team to be too hesitant to make a decision that doesn’t pan out. It’s important to focus on and reward the learning versus the outcome