Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job."
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here." As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
LPs:
- customer obsession
- ownership
- invent and simplify
- are right, a lot
- learn and be curious
- think big
- bias for action
- frugality
- earn trust
- dive deep
i moved to medellin, colombia knowing not enough spanish. I wanted to learn enough to order a cab or ask for directions. So, I put ~40 hours into duolingo. It didn't help me understand conversational spanish.
As a beginner, the mechanics of understanding spanish are:
- break word soup down into individual words
- translate to english
My hunch was I could speed up the learning loop with:
- authentic spanish
- dual english/spanish captions
I set out to build something that would take me from zero to conversational spanish. I also hoped to build a business that would sustain my nomad lifestyle.
I got a rough python command line app working. It helped me get deliberate practice translating spoken spanish. I saw enough self-utility to hold out hope for helping others, too.
Next was to get it in users' hands. I did, and I learned it was unrealistic for non-computer natives to feel comfortable in a terminal. I pivoted to a web app.
After finishing a react prototype, I needed more user feedback. I volunteered teaching english as a second language in Austin to find more users. I found a Colombian man who was nice enough to tolerate my ugly app. I watched him struggle with it. The video vocabulary was too difficult. I learned I needed progressive difficulty content. It would keep users in a sweet spot between too difficult and too easy.
My Colombian friend was not living in a penthouse. I realized I would need 2,000 monthly users paying $5/month to get to $10,000/month. I would need 20x that number at the top of my user acquisition funnel, 40,000 free users. I realized I couldn't continue because I didn't see a path to that number.
I learned the most in the shortest time during this experience:
- the importance of thinking about total addressable market and acquiring users
- how to get unbiased info by asking users non-leading questions
- how to observe users' body language for clues of discomfort
- I strengthened my google skills and my confidence in solving ambiguous problems
- I used my learnings to earn my first contract employment through upwork
LPs:
- customer obsession
- ownership
- invent and simplify
- learn and be curious
- insist on the highest standards
- bias for action
- frugality
- dive deep
- deliver results
TAs were taking ~1.5 hours to grade student homeworks by clicking through pgAdmin. I thought we could do better. I set out to speed up this manual process. I settled on psql, a postgres cli, and bash, a linux scripting language.
To wrap my head around the problem, I wrote down in english all steps I was doing with my mouse in pgAdmin. Then, I searched the psql docs for similar functionality. I tested whether each psql command was working as I expected from my pseudocode.
As a result, I reduced sql homework grading time 80% from 1.5hrs down to 15min per assignment. The parent corp. 2U should save 1.25hrs*40students/cohort moving forward.
LPs:
- ownership
- invent and simplify
- are right, a lot
- learn and be curious
- insist on the highest standards
- think big
- bias for action
- frugality
- dive deep
- have backbone; disagree and commit
- deliver results
My previous company went out of business due to outdated technology. I had a choice to continue in trading or buyin to the idea that software is eating the world. What I saw as a trader convinced me of the latter.
My goal was to build a syllabus that would equip me to build my own company. Failing that, leave a smooth transition to a big tech company.
In 2017, I heard about professional poker pros losing to an AI program. So, that's where I started. I took Andrew Ng's and caltech's machine learning courses. And, I learned you need vast amounts of data to produce any value.
Solo, without that type of access, I had to pivot. Web development allows you to build something independent of data or team requirements.
In 2018, I built caplearn, a language learning app, as a potential business. It failed, but this is where most of my learning happened. I still use a competitor today.
At this point in 2019:
- money running out
- in a foreign country
- speaking broken Spanish
It was time to pivot again. Data structures and algorithms make ~$150,000/year salaries available. ~3x the median US wage.
My story isn't finished, but I've learned so much:
- product development from caplearn
- how to learn hard things via google and a computer
- perseverence without any support network
- a bit of spanish and a lot about different cultures
LPs:
- ownership
- invent and simplify
- frugality
- have backbone; disagree and commit
- deliver results
I started coding with a $100 ebay laptop
This made me:
- learn vim to avoid the crappy trackpad
- install linux because the cpu couldn't handle windows
Constraint breeds creativity
LPs:
- ownership
- learn and be curious
- insist on the highest standards
- think big
- bias for action
- dive deep
I've never earned money for functional programming, but it has taught me a lot. Including:
- recursion
- pattern matching
- programming without side effects
I can bring these ideas back to object oriented world, too. They make me a better coder.
There are new tricks to learn from all programming languages. That's why I'll continue learning new ones.
LPs:
- customer obsession
- ownership
- invent and simplify
- think big
- bias for action
- earn trust
- dive deep
My bootcamp could do more to prepare students for the technical interview.
I decided to do something about it:
- I created #interview-prep slack channel. We've started building a community around this tough, but necessary topic.
- I created a getting started youtube playlist that fit students current skills
- I paired students off to give each other mock interviews and resume reviews
- We're working on setting up a weekend hackathon to work on shipping products fast
results:
- ~33% of the class has joined #interview-prep
- ~5% of students have participated in a mock interview or resume review
LPs:
- customer obsession
- ownership
- invent and simplify
- hire and develop the best
- insist on the highest standards
- think big
- earn trust
a gifted student told me he was set on becoming a bootcamp TA. I thought he should aim higher.
If he pushed himself to work in a big tech company, I knew he would be proud of himself. So, I set out to push his aim higher.
- I introduced him to triplebyte and an article highlighting another Texas oil worker becoming a software engineer
- I showed him what leetcode is and gave an easy to hard game plan
- I introduced him to an awesome-drones github repo. It would be a great source for a passion project that would highlight his technical ability
It's early, but:
- He's participated in one mock leetcode interview and is ready for more
- We're chatting about potential drone side projects
I'm excited about following his progress in the future.