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Fired up about modern management?
Us too. We don’t need to burn it all down. But we do need to build something better.
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Build Something Better.
This is our free, biweekly newsletter about management, leadership, and ridding the world of Sunday Scaries. For good.
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.
Director means something
January 10, 2024
And pretending it’s a title or a pay bump without a new set of responsibilities is a disservice to everyone.
Nice, nice, very nice
October 16, 2024
The longer you’re in a culture of niceness and side-channels and things left unsaid, the more you have to wonder about the conversations happening out of earshot.
If you’re doing their job, who’s doing your job?
April 17, 2024
The cure for a structurally overwhelmed team is a better structure. It’s clarity about what matters most, and permission to hand off or put down the work that doesn’t.
Browse the archive
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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.
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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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Busy is not a personality
June 25, 2025
What would you do if you had a week to just clear out backlog?
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Take a chance on me
June 11, 2025
The opportunities that anyone could take, but no one is taking.
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Bring your slop to work day
May 28, 2025
It’s definitely giving some low-key asbestos vibes.
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The switching costs aren’t that high
May 14, 2025
Is this what it means to work with a vendor these days?
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20k of headache
April 30, 2025
If one more exec pastes one more link about workplace dips in productivity, the managers are going lose it.
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The poser manifesto
April 16, 2025
We talk with people building amazing things all the time, from founders to interns, and none of them sound like this.
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The enshittification of work
April 2, 2025
The froth has subsided. And in its wake, organizations have found some truly short-sighted approaches to labour.
Build Something Better
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