BlueSky Thinking

In recent weeks, there have been many reports about users fleeing Twitter (X? The social media platform formerly known as Twitter?) for similar, less-abusive spaces. Meta’s Threads platform has a big advantage amongst the alternatives, but the upstart platform BlueSky has recently been garnering more attention. Why is BlueSky, with less than 10% the userbase … More BlueSky Thinking

Mastery is Simplicity

“I’m sorry I wrote you a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.” -Blaise Pascal [from Lettres Provinciales] Modern society often confounds mastery and complexity. Someone who speaks in the jargon of their field, pairing big words and in-depth concepts with a silver tongue, is assumed to be brilliant. But the … More Mastery is Simplicity

RIF Raff

The new buzzword in Silicon Valley is “Reduction In Force”, or RIF. In the past six months, hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off by tech companies, with these RIFs following a similar playbook: call out “the macroeconomic environment”, slash some teams, and offer a severance that’s just big enough to avoid any … More RIF Raff

The false dichotomy of hybrid work

Our tale of how modern white-collar workplaces evolved into hybrid work environments usually goes like this: thanks to a massive “natural experiment” from the Covid-19 pandemic, employees demonstrated that remote work is productive, but also showed the limits to camaraderie and innovation in the workplace. As a result, white-collar workers are now mandated (or strongly … More The false dichotomy of hybrid work