• Recommended: A Piece of Work

    Reading (listening really) to Abbi Jacobson’s memoir I Might Regret This reminded me of her brilliant single-season podcast A Piece of Work. In it, she explores the topic of modern art like Duchamp’s in a very approachable way, from Duchamp’s surrealist art, Yves Klein’s blue, to James Turrell’s light installations, and a whole lot in…

  • Working with Product, not Working for Product

    John Cutler once again succinctly puts words on a general feeling that I’ve had on the state of the tech industry. In one of his latest weekly articles on The Beautiful Mess, he talks about three different team models for building tech products: For most of my career, I have worked on teams with one…

  • Book Notes: Soft City

    The architect David Sim has managed to compile a manifesto on how livable cities ought to be designed. One of his main arguments is to soften the harsh form of built-up density by explicitly designing for as many exposures as possible. Exposing people to their fellow neighbours, be that the immediate neighbours living under the…

  • Recommended: Passenger railway in the USA

    Wendover Production’s latest video on the history of passenger and freight railway service in the USA is interesting. On the tracks freight wins over passenger service any day leading to frequent service disruptions, even though there are laws in place that give right of way to passenger trains. So much so that Amtrak’s long-distance service…

  • On Layoffs and Their Inhumanity

    This interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer, Standford Professor of Business, got me thinking, again, about the wave of tech layoffs throughout 2022. For which there is not even a sign of it slowing down as of the first weeks of 2023. I went through two separate layoffs in 2022. The first was early in the year,…