The thing that feels better than I told you so
December 10, 2025
Even as we’re setting up something ambitious, we can often spot the things lurking in the shadows that are going to get in the way.
Archives
All hat, no cattle
November 26, 2025
If your org is on your seventh layoff or Lord-have-mercy, your 82nd re-org, we suggest that it’s time to take a hard look at your underlying planning issues
With love in our hearts for your eventual revolution
November 12, 2025
If we want work to be better, we need possibility, not futility.
Don’t let the Doerr hit you on the way out
October 29, 2025
The real test for an org is not whether you ever bet wrong. The question is, when the results start to come in, what do you do now?
The price of admission
October 15, 2025
It’s hard to push decision-making to the edges if we’re not sure how the edges are making decisions.
You’re probably not that hardcore
October 1, 2025
You can drop a lot of frogs in that pot and very few will feel their feet get warm.
You are not a machine that receives tasks
September 17, 2025
Folks who study meaning at work have three buckets. We love a good three-bucket framework. Let’s go.
If you’re not reading this email, you’re fired
September 3, 2025
The first and easiest gut check in terms of whether your workplace surveillance is helpful or harmful is this.
I hope they’re paying you enough for this
August 20, 2025
The shift in this model is that we’re no longer talking about a cofounder or a bestie or work spouse.
None of this is real and it doesn’t matter
August 6, 2025
The difference between the theater of work and actual work.
How did they not know?
July 23, 2025
We’re still in the early days, this is still mostly anecdotes, but the anecdotes are multiplying fast. And they’re haunting.
The narrowest definition of ambition
July 9, 2025
The people who tout this model of ambition have a whole cinematic universe of heroes and villains and moral dramas and cautionary tales.
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