election vibes

Hi everyone, our CEO just sent this out to our team ahead of the US Elections and we thought we'd share it here. We hope it helps others. 💫❤️

This is exactly how it felt

Me at 12:01am on September 1st

Finally. My perfect LinkedIn headline. 😌

Stop scrolling and ask yourself this question: What is it that your body and mind needs in this moment? Is it to be scrolling social media? Or is it something else? Close your eyes if it helps feel into the answer. Welcome whatever comes without judgment.

Can’t wait to get screamed at by an army of 14-foot monsters when I walk in to buy an air filter this August. 😌

Happy 7/11

One of the most interesting metrics of company culture is what I call the "work to do the work." How much time is spent on information gathering, stakeholder alignment and decision making, and how much is spent on actually doing the thing. An early startup's biggest advantage is that alignment tends be easy, since you have a small team all working on the same product, a founder who is the ultimate decision maker, and a necessary bias to action (maybe a 1:10 WTDTW:W ratio). As you scale, this ratio invariably shifts: bigger teams, more hierarchy, more complexity, more feedback to inform future decisions. Good processes should be in service of helping teams make and communicate well-informed decisions so they can still spend the bulk of their time actually moving things forward. The problem with a high WTDTW ratio isn't just that it slows teams and companies way down, but that it changes the incentives of an organization. In a company with a 10:1 ratio, for example, employees are rewarded for their ability to navigate and influence the organization, rather than producing results. I distinctly remember a moment in my career when I realized, with horror, that I was pouring the vast majority of my creative energy into solving problems in the WTDTW realm (and getting real personal satisfaction from playing that role well)...but I was exhausted by the time we actually got to execute. And it's a dangerous trap, especially for executives, to think that all the "strategy" is in the WTDTW bucket, because the creativity, iteration and debate that goes into actually bringing something to life is where the magic happens, whatever your company's size. 🪄

kind of hate how much I keep laughing at this

Yep. They’re all here. 😌

Way back at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I subscribed to the lifestyle of "busy." Busy was something I thought I should predictably feel while growing a company. Busy felt fast, and I loved the dopamine hits of putting out fires all day. But, as the years went by, I started to become skeptical of busy and all the ways it wasn't serving me or the business. Busy meant: I was in a frenzy and perpetually in survival mode. It wasn't sustainable for the long term. I wasn't focusing on the things I could uniquely do. I wasn't delegating and, therefore, wasn't giving others the space to step up and bring their own unique solutions to solving hard problems. Busy was a lifestyle, but it wasn't the best one for me or the business. It’s easy to confuse being busy with progress but see how much further you can go when you slow down and use your time more wisely.

This is what LinkedIn users do all day

the world’s absolute cringest thoughtleaders and business influencers waiting for Linkedin to come back online

The nearly universal support and uplifting (and surprise!) in the replies to this T-Pain post on this hellsite gives me the hope I need going into 2024.

This is the greatest ad for public transit of all time. x.com/beater_rides/status/17…

“Thanks everyone for comments on the draft, here it is revised with all your edits.”

actually saw one of these at a Nero Fiddles concert in Rome

Hang this in the Louvre. What a photo!