Rant Posts

Stop Creating Decorative Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are arguably the best thing to come out of the computer age. Spreadsheets were the first killer app for computers. Good spreadsheets are powerful, well organized and, most importantly, useful. Decorative spreadsheets, on the other hand, give the appearance of being useful but in reality resist any kind of deeper analysis or utilization. Let me clarify what separates the two and help you avoid creating the latter.

AI is an Accelerator, not a Replacement. AI should be encouraging companies to hire more developers, not fewer.

The narrative that AI will replace developers is everywhere, but it's fundamentally wrong. AI makes developers more productive, which increases their ROI. Basic economics tells us you should invest more, not less, in high-return assets. Companies cutting developers because of AI are either admitting they lack vision or are just making excuses to cut costs.

Speedy meetings are awesome, but not the way Google created them

Google introduced Speedy Meetings in 2011, which shortens meetings from 30 to 25 or 60 to 50 minutes. The intended goal was to allow you to “prep for your next meeting or get to your next appointment if you have a packed schedule.”

Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, speedy meetings the way Google has created them just don’t work. The temptation to keep the meeting going until :30 or :00 is just overwhelming. Human nature leads to people to keep talking past the supposed speedy meeting end time.

But there is a solution. Instead of ending meetings early, I’ve found it works much better to start meetings late! Wait wait, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out.