Disclaimer: This post is not about you. Please do not take offense. It is an exaggerated amalgam of people for the sake of making a point. Over the past several months, I have talked to a number of people looking for jobs or practicing company pitches. And what I see is people getting frustrated that […]
Category: thoughts
Inequality, Globalization and Technology
There has been a discussion about economic inequality on an email list I’m on. It started with a link to this CNN summary of “must reads” on inequality, and has continued over a few other threads the past couple months. I’ve written a few thoughts in those threads, and thought I would assemble them here […]
Consistency
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve gotten back into playing volleyball this summer at Google, and have been really enjoying it. The sand court on Google’s main campus is in regular use, and I’ll occasionally stop by and watch to pick up some pointers. One Wednesday at lunch, I was watching the really […]
Being a good teammate
As those of you who follow me on Facebook know, I have gotten back into playing volleyball this summer, specifically sand doubles volleyball. I have been playing with a variety of folks on the main Google court. We typically get 4 people together to play, and then rotate through teammates, so everybody plays with everybody […]
Big Data isn’t the answer
I was talking to somebody last week who had recently moved to San Francisco, and she randomly interjected Big Data into the conversation. She said she’d learned that’s what you do in SF – Big Data is a buzzword that can be used at any time on any topic. I found this amusing, because Big […]
Career development in the 21st century
It’s performance review time at Google, and that means that I am reassuring the young’uns in their mid-20s that it’s all going to be fine. They have been at the top of their class their entire life, they got into the best colleges, and they plan on continuing to ace every test they’re given. And […]
The Idea Factory, by Jon Gertner
Amazon link In light of my last post on the Anthropology of Innovation, it was apropos that I was just finishing The Idea Factory, by Jon Gertner, a history of Bell Labs and its impact on 20th century innovation. I actually also saw Gertner at the Computer History Museum in March, but had to wait […]
The Anthropology of Innovation panel
Last week, the Computer History Museum hosted a panel on “The Anthropology of Innovation”. I had to attend since I’m a fan of anthropology, I’m fascinated by corporate culture and how it leads to goals like innovation, and the panel featured Genevieve Bell of Intel, who Jofish and Janet interned with in Portland one summer. […]
The limits of rationality
I’ve started occasionally listening to Rationally Speaking podcast, a production of the New York City Skeptics. What’s funny is that part of the reason I listen to it is that I get into arguments (in my head) with the hosts of the show, who are dedicated to the idea that rationality will lead people to […]
Principled Leadership
I like thinking about how to scale a company without making it feel like a big company. The standard way to scale a company is to use hierarchy and process to manage the larger scale – big decisions get passed up the chain to an appropriate decision maker, and little decisions are handled by a […]
