Carolyn, my chief of staff, sat on the couch as I ran into my office. The Palo Alto building wasn’t built for tech; it’d been adapted to support the use case over the years. My office was in the center of the building, which had an inner atrium. Way too many windows. Maybe a salon?… more
I don’t like fish. “But Rands, have you tried…” Yeah, I tried that. I don’t like fish. “Wait, wait, wait, what you need to try is…” Tried that, too. A couple of times. I don’t like fish. “Rands, you haven’t had good fish.” Yeah, I’ve had good fish. Many times. Girlfriends, good friends, bad friends.… more
At this moment, at the beginning of the year, I have eight active big rock projects. The following attributes define these projects: I am the primary owner and have committed to someone that they will be done at a specific time. I am the correct owner of this project. There is no obvious better owner.… more
At some point in the last year there was too much email. I’ve considered myself a competent manager of email and to-dos for much of my career, but the quantity of email that needed my attention exceeded a heretofore unknown ceiling and I began to understand how the smallest parts of my inbox policy could… more
Think of this. You have a job where, whenever you need to, you can find the absolute truth. When someone asks you, “Phil, why is this happening?” you are 100% confident that you can figure out the precise answer. This is the idyllic situation many engineers on the planet Earth live in, and, well, it’s… more
The $150,000 mistake, your shipping schedule being off by a year, and The Really Bad Hire (aka: we’re being sued). These are not screw-ups, these are fuck-ups. When you discover them, the air leaves your lungs, the back of your head tingles, and there’s an odd metallic taste in your mouth. Your mind goes blank… more
Somewhere between individual contributor and middle management, it became essential that I have a to-do list. I resisted this for years, secretly hoping that I could keep track of all the crap I needed to do in my head or an a conveniently located post-it note, but then stuff started spilling all over the floor… more
