Archives| Rands in Repose
Your robot experience started simple. You typed a question into a chatbot… just to see. Can it answer that question? I'd be impressed if it did. Your query was simple. A simple knowledge question that with a little effort using legacy tools like Google, you would have discovered yourself, but the r| Rands in Repose
There’s a lot of content hiding in the Rands archives from the past three decades. Over the years, some of that content keeps showing up. I keep forwarding the same links to the same articles; I get asked the same questions at Q&A. I’ve decided to synthesize the advice into a single artifact. My writing… More| Rands in Repose
One of the more interesting robot-assisted tools I’ve built in the last few months is tracking the various metrics for Rands-related properties. Think social like Mastodon, BlueSky, and Threads. Think blog analytics like new users, session duration, and popular articles. I’ve been plopping this data into a spreadsheet every month for the last two years.… More| Rands in Repose
In our 91st episode, we talked about Founder Mode long after everyone else had moved on. Enjoy it now, or download for later. Here's a handy feed or subscribe via Overcast or iTunes. https://traffic.libsyn.com/rands/theimportantthing0091.mp3| Rands in Repose
The robots and I were tinkering with the script, and I somehow asked ChatGPT to make three sentences sound like me, but… just a bit. There's enough writing out there that the robots have a rough idea of my style, but this prompt somehow triggered deep research. The robot did a full analysis of all m| Rands in Repose
The 9th floor of The Standard located in Greenwich Village of New York City. Pre-pandemic. I wake up mid-day and a full-sized giraffe stands in the corner of my hotel room. The view of mid-day downtown Manhattan is obscured by a full-sized living breathing giraffe. This animal is staring at me. Bli| Rands in Repose
My family has a disproportionate love of Superman and I never quite understood why until recently. When I say disproportionate love, I mean manic crazy love. My sister took a tape recorder into Superman II, recorded the whole damned thing, and then transcribed the entire movie via a typewriter. Why| Rands in Repose
I was lying on the 22nd floor of The Standard1 I was three martinis up the Hudson and surfing YouTube when the new Superman trailer dropped. This one: This trailer hit me hard. The prior Superman, as we'll read about in a moment, was a watered-down meh version of the hero. This brand-new take on| Rands in Repose
I had a dog, his name was Marleau. He was a Boston Terrier, and he just wasn't that smart. His nickname was "Derpity Doo" because he was was that derpy. We all loved him a lot. One day, we visited my parents, and we brought the Derp along. We got in the house, let him off the leash, and forgot abou| Rands in Repose
I was in the city a few weeks ago and exclusively used Waymo for the entire trip. My biggest complaint? I needed to walk four minutes to a pick-up spot. Other than that, the car just showed up, traversed San Francisco streets easily, and the cost was reasonable1. Sitting in the back seat watching t| Rands in Repose
In our 90th epsiode, we walk through all the benefits of improving our exercise strategy. Enjoy it now, or download for later. Here's a handy feed or subscribe via Overcast or iTunes. https://traffic.libsyn.com/rands/theimportantthing0090.mp3| Rands in Repose
You don't need Product Managers. There. I said it. If you work for a company that builds primarily consumer software1, there are, hopefully, three groups of humans who believe they are accountable for the product. They are: Engineering. They build the product. Design. No, they build the product.| Rands in Repose
The majority of people-related disasters I’ve created originate with my choice to not say the hard thing. On my short list of critical leadership skills, the ability to “say the hard thing” is right after “delegate until it hurts.” I didn’t give feedback when behavior was off because the person was| Rands in Repose
Stephen was a hired gun at my first start-up. His contract started a year before I arrived, but he was long gone before I walked in the door. The story goes that when Stephen started, he found a small, solid team of five engineers, a QA lead, and a project manager. They were slowly and steadily goin| Rands in Repose
I am told that the manner by which others understand that I am busy is when my writing coherence suffers. This primarily occurs in email when whole words are dropped, sentences become jumbled, and logic falls on the floor. Rands, I literally did not understand what you were asking in that email. Po| Rands in Repose
The quiet is my favorite attribute of a holiday break. My various Slacks are quiet, the house is quiet, and while it takes three days of quiet, eventually my head is quiet. Quiet creates reflection. I replay the critical parts of recent life and rather than living them, I observe them… at a distanc| Rands in Repose
Resignations happen in a moment, and it’s not when you declare, “I’m resigning.” The moment happened a long time ago when you received a random email from a good friend who asked, “I know you’re really happy with your current gig because you’ve been raving about it for a year, but would you like to| Rands in Repose
For a role as crucial as Leadership, there is a shocking lack of required training on the topic. Combined with a tremendous collection of impenetrable literature, leadership is an essential skill learned on the job. The Rands Leadership Slack (“RLS”) exists to help longtime, new, and aspiring leader| Rands in Repose