Subject
14 entries
Management
Bookmarks
Startup CTO Handbook
The Startup CTO's Handbook by Zach Goldberg is a free, open-source book covering the leadership, management, and technical responsibilities of engineering leaders at startups. Available as a single markdown file on GitHub.
1944 OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual
The 1944 OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual — a declassified CIA document on how ordinary citizens can disrupt enemy organizations through deliberate inefficiency. Accidentally reads as a how-to guide for bad management.
There Are Three Types of Meetings
Cam Daigle's framework for classifying every meeting into one of three types — each with distinct preparation and execution norms. A practical mental model for reclaiming sanity in a meeting-heavy work environment.
Build Your Career on Dirty Work
The Dirty Work Theory: work that most people avoid is underpriced, high-impact, and a reliable career accelerator. A practical career heuristic for finding leverage where competition is low.
If Founders Treated Their Investors the Same Way They Treated Their Employees
Rajiv Prab's essay inverting the founder-employee and founder-investor relationships — if founders applied the same accountability standards to investors that they apply to employees, the asymmetry becomes obvious. A pointed critique of how startup power dynamics work in practice.
Reinventing Organizations: Fundamental Assumptions
The Reinventing Organizations wiki introduces Frederic Laloux's developmental model of organizations — the 'Teal' paradigm of self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose as the successor to traditional hierarchical management.
What You Give Up When Moving Into Engineering Management
Stack Overflow blog post on what engineers actually give up when they move into management — technical depth, maker's schedule, direct contribution. Honest about the tradeoffs rather than cheerleading the transition.
What Got You Here Won't Get You There (Book Summary)
James Clear's summary of Marshall Goldsmith's book on the behavioral habits that prevent successful people from reaching the next level — the 20 bad habits executives have that are actually making them less effective. Surprising because the habits are things that worked earlier in their careers.
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of One-on-Ones
Ben Kuhn argues that regular one-on-ones are unreasonably effective — not because of domain expertise but because they force priority-setting and provide someone who genuinely cares about your progress. The insight that a non-expert who cares deeply can outperform a domain expert who doesn't is worth sitting with.
Topic-First Meeting Principle
The topic-first meeting principle: schedule a meeting only after a topic that warrants verbal discussion has surfaced, not the reverse. The inversion of standing meetings — the conversation creates the meeting, not the calendar slot creates the conversation topic.
How to Conduct A+ Reference Checks
Ryan Breslow's viral Twitter thread on conducting A+ reference checks — 10,000+ checks at Bolt revealed specific questions that surface truth that candidates and polished references won't volunteer. The most useful hiring signal most teams underuse.
How to Get Promoted
Defmacro's contrarian take on corporate promotions — arguing that performance reviews are social fiction and actual advancement happens through visibility, relationship capital, and strategic positioning rather than merit alone. Cynical but useful.
How to Build a Data Team
A practical guide on building an effective data team — roles, hiring order, organizational structure, and the common mistakes companies make when scaling from one data person to a full team. Shared by Ryan Orban from his Galvanize network.
Making Yourself a CEO
Ben Horowitz argues that being a CEO is a learnable skill, not an innate trait — but learning it requires specifically training the muscle of getting honest feedback in an environment where nobody will volunteer it. The central skill is actively dismantling the feedback vacuum that forms around any CEO.