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
It’s been more than 3 years since I joined LinkedIn in the summer of 2021. In that time, I’ve moved from the Business org to Engineering, gone a level more technical from Business Analytics to Data Engineering, served as the SF Office lead for LinkedIn Asian Alliance, and worked with dozens of teams and colleagues … More LinkedIn Lessons Learned
The ways we describe the world of work often make zero sense outside of an employer-employee context. The words we use to talk about work reveal a lot about the time period they emerged, about worker-employer power dynamics, and how the system of work evolves over time. What words do we use to refer to … More How we talk about work (and why it matters)
“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
Zoom made headlines this week for announcing its own “return to office” policy, requiring all workers within a 50-miles radius of an office to commute at least 2 times a week. It’s certainly ironic for a company that massive expanded thanks to remote work. It’s also not the only one. Across industry and geography, companies … More Where to Work, and Why?
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
Ever since OpenAI’s ChatGPT program created a simple way for the everyday person to widely apply AI technology, the AI hype cycle has risen anew. Time will tell if this is a truly revolutionary time or if things fizzle again, but with Microsoft’s Bing GPT, Google’s Bard AI, and many other players rising up in … More ChatGPT and AI-boosted Productivity
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
One of the great perks I get from working at LinkedIn is free LinkedIn Premium, but many other people pay for the upgrade out-of-pocket. A common question I’ve been asked as a result is “what’s great about Premium?” Here are some major benefits and “hidden gems” that I think make Premium very worth it. Disclaimer: … More Top Perks of LinkedIn Premium
Edit 12/13/22: The Respect for Marriage Act has been signed into law by President Biden. The bill has been updated since its initial short text, but in exchange for narrower definitions has passed with a filibuster-proof majority needed to enshrine the rights into law. For the first time in the US, guaranteeing the right to … More Pass the Respect For Marriage Act
Andrew Jabara 