Five for Friday – May 29, 2020
This has been one of the most fucked up weeks I can remember. I hope everyone reading this is doing well and staying safe – I only hope I can provide a few minutes of distraction.
- First up – and the item weighing heavily on me right now is everything going on in Minnesota. I just gave a substantial donation to Minnesota Freedom Fund – if you care about what’s going on – and have the means, I encourage you to donate what you can
- I’m a firm believer that product quality starts with team culture – and that psychological safety is a huge part of that. This article on Building Psychological Safety is a good introduction to the topic
- I just read Always Day One – which along with some ideas from big tech companies on staying fresh, contained this all too accurate quote about what’s often called Microsoft’s lost decade. While there are exceptions, a lot of this culture still exists (or at least existed 3 years ago)
Microsoft was different. Under its then-CEO Steve Ballmer, who rose through the sales function, the company was bureaucratic and slow, and clung to the past. Focused on protecting its lucrative legacy businesses, Windows and Office, Microsoft prioritized profit over invention, developing a command-and-control culture that optimized for the short term. The alpha males running Windows—the dominant desktop operating system in the age of personal computers—almost always got their way. - I always find something interesting in the Stack Overflow Development Survey Results – you may too
- Finally – for something a big lighter – some genius at an amusement park put 22 Teddy Bears on a roller coaster. Enjoy.