Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

Scaling Airbnb With Brian Chesky
28 minutes read.

The story of AirBnB is so remarkable, it's always inspiring to hear Brian Chesky tells the story and shares the struggles of the early days. These notes written by Chris McCann worth every minute if you ever consider open your own startup or considering which startup to join to, where this kind of attitude must exist in order to win. I'd watch the video version (listen to it on your commute to work), if you prefer to hear the longer version while doing something else. Two nuggets that made me laugh: "This is when I learned that being an entrepreneur and being unemployed is just a difference in mindset... A number of people have told me that Airbnb is the worst idea that has ever worked."

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Perhaps the Most Important Startup Equation?
1 minutes read.

This week I've decided not to share a funny post here, but rather a concept that would make you appreciate the impact of one consistent improvement, done daily, no matter how small it is.

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Reorgs Happen
5 minutes read.

Re-orgs happen, they are usually painful, loud, dramatic and they are always hard to "get right". I'd print the image inside of this post under "Managing Complex Change" as this is great recipe for what you have to think about when making such change in the organization. Bookmark this post, you'll need it some day to make everyone's life around you a little bit better when designing a re-org.

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Creating an Organizational Culture of Resilience
5 minutes read.

Very much of your organizational resilience is dependent on the resilience of the leaders in the organization The advices in this post are great, specifically I can deeply relate to: "When a resilient attitude is present, destiny must follow. Optimistic people know they will be successful in the end. If they are not successful, its not the end" and "Once you make a decision, have the courage to take responsibility for your actions. Taking responsibility builds trust and respect."

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How to Ruin Your Company With One Bad Process
6 minutes read.

If you're in hyper growth mode, where your company grows really fast, this post by Ben Horowitz will probably save you a lot of money (budget planning) and headaches on scaling the culture and communication as you scale the team: "The enemy of cultural cohesion is super-fast headcount growth... Specifically, local incentives, if not properly managed, will sharply motivate human behavior and defeat the global goals."

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The 3 Reasons Why Engineers Should Learn How to Sell
3 minutes read.

Elias Torres is spot on. It took me many years to understand that falling in-love with my code is a painful mistake, and I should focus my empathy and passion on the problem at hand, rather the current solution I've built. Learning how to sell your ideas, your agenda, your product and yes, your design and code, can take you to your next level as an engineer. Try it at work, or by writing some side-project and share it with the world.

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A Taxonomy of Programmers
3 minutes read.

This programmers taxonomy by TripleByte is mostly useful to think how you can get people out of their comfort zone, and challenge them to grow, or at least practice new ways of building software. Pairing different people might help with that.

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A Beginner’s Perspective on Tech Talks
7 minutes read.

To build a brand where you can attract better talent for your team, you have to put your people first. You have to help them build their own personal brand, to empower the organization's brand. After all, great people constantly seek other great people to work with. Jeremy Privett provides the right motivation, tools and tactics to prepare and deliver great technical talks. Share it with your teammates, help them get there.

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@joshelman: An old friend reminded me that the best teams win when they have huge egos tied up in the team's success and no egos tied up in their own

@mrtazz: Last week I started to keep a more detailed work journal that includes important URLs and commands I run and it’s been super great so far