31st December 2023 2023 was the breakthrough year for Large Language Models (LLMs). I think it’s OK to call these AI—they’re the latest and (currently) most interesting development in the academic fie
Introduction It was the middle of 2020, and it became clear to Slack’s Chief Product Officer Noah Desai Weiss that the product’s first-day user experience needed a complete overhaul. Up until this poi
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is the book on open source. It contrasts closed source software development (the cathedral), where a centralized and hierarchical authority designs and builds a well-defin
I wrote most of this post sometime in 2022 but I think it holds up alrightin 2024 so I decided to publish it for posterity.I don’t really like doing posts like this—I’d much rather share someinnocuous
When working with a legacy system it is valuable to identify and create seams: places where we can alter the behavior of the system without editing source code. Once we've found a seam, we can use it
Almost everyone I’ve ever met would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. —Sam Altman In May 2020, we parked two moving trucks in the harbor and carried everything we o
The ancient Romans were master builders and engineers, perhaps most famously represented by the still-functional aqueducts. And those architectural marvels rely on a unique construction material: pozz
The hidden depths of the input element by Phil Nash published on Dec 08, 2023 The element is the most fascinating element in HTML. Most elements behave the same way regardless of their attribu
Midjourney, a renowned name in AI-driven image generation, has recently introduced its V6 alpha model, marking a significant step in the evolution of AI imagery technology. While it's crucial to empha
“Your outcomes are a lagging indicator of your habits.” - James Clear As I became a better software engineer, I noticed 4 key habits in my daily workflow that had made me much more productive. SWE Qui
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here . For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have
This is another post in our Code Health series. A version of this post originally appeared in Google bathrooms worldwide as a Google Testing on the Toilet episode. You can download a printer-friendly
This post examines the various replication strategies used by populartime-series and OLAP databases to implement high-availability. Our learningsfrom this research have inspired us as we continue to b
Many ancient thinkers have written about the dangers of arrogance. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius warned against losing one’s modesty in The Meditations. Saint Augustine called pride the “origin of evil” in The City of God. Confucius said, “A superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in…
Before a flight, I get a Pavlovian stress reaction—not from the prospect of hurtling at 30,000 feet in a concrete tube, but from my email inbox. Airline tickets sometimes get lost in an email abyss, r
Speed determines victory for technology companies. Since the internet was invented, the fast have killed the slow. And out of all the ways that speed matters, product velocity – the pace at which you
“Leadership is about overcoming crises.” “Leadership is about acting when others hesitate.” Management blogs, consulting pitches, and social media posts are rife with similarly catchy leadership clichés. As a historian teaching at a business school, however, I know that such simple wisdom…
Introduction Eng folks — does this sound familiar? A high-performing engineer on the team moves into a management role (often with a not-so-gentle nudge from leadership). After all, the team is growin
On this page Something not working? Report broken page Usability and aesthetics usually go hand in hand.In fact, there is even what we call the “Aesthetic Usability Effect” :users perceive beautiful i
Maureen Dowd Sam Altman, Sugarcoating the Apocalypse Dec. 2, 2023 By Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide t
I saw Steven Sinofsky use the phrase “ Writing isThinking ”recently and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. In hisexcellent annotated Twitter thread (what a time to be alive), hetalks
Unfortunately, when it comes to understanding random phenomena, our intuition often lets us down. Take a look at the image below. Before you read the caption, see if you can pick out the data set gene
“Revenge travel.” It’s what a lot of people are doing these days—hitting the runways in big numbers to make up for travel time lost during the pandemic. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast , McKin
Throughout history, people have developed tools and systems to augment and amplify their own capabilities. Whether the printing press or the assembly line, these innovations have allowed us to do more
Hey everyone, it’s Jordan 👋. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving if you celebrated or at least are enjoying a long weekend! Also, a big thank you to the growth to 29k+ subscribers!!! We’re almost at 30
One of the most common anti-patterns I see that can create conflict in anotherwise collaborative environment is people asking for permission instead ofadvice. This is such an insidious practice that i
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. The typical career is about 80,000 hours long, or one-sixth of the ave
Avoid meetings as much as possible. Instead of having them, communicate asynchronous to each other via tools such as Linear , GitHub , Figma , Slack , and similar . Provide at least three days of focu
I want to talk about the future of organizations, but to do that, we need to start with their past. In fact, I want to start as far away from AI as possible, with the New York and Erie Railroad of 185
Here’s Kyle Aster on why thoughtful URL design is important (in 2010) : URLs are universal. They work in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, cURL, wget, your iPhone, Android and even written d
Technical managers wonder why developers don’t write tests. Tests are helpful! Why don’t they write them? The usual answer is they don’t want to write tests, or there is too much business pressure. Wh
Boris SV/Getty Images Oshan Jarow is a Future Perfect fellow, where he focuses on economics, consciousness studies, and varieties of progress. Before joining Vox, he co-founded the Library of Economic
Our genetic material is encoded in DNA ( deoxyribonucleic acid ). DNA is famous. But you may also have also heard of RNA ( ribonucleic acid ). So, what is RNA, and what is it good for? Quite a lot rea
Large language models like ChatGPT are immensely powerful — the first artificial intelligences to produce truly human-like content. They are already being used to provide customer service, write software, and aid in drug discovery, among many other applications. But despite their genuine potential…
In my experience, it's easy for developers (me included) to hang out at either end of the following spectrum: On the left is when we stay in our lane . We're given a requirement, we interpret the requ
How to Build Trust Most managers know intuitively that trust is the foundation of good management. Everything about the job gets easier when you have a team that trusts you. Many managers can sort of
Lee Harvey Oswald and CIA officer George Joannides. Photo: JFK Assassination Records Collection (Oswald) & CIA FOIA files (Joannides) This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading
Maybe this sounds familiar: You’re expressing a difficult idea, thought, or feeling, and at the moment, it seems to be going well. Your audience is nodding at the appropriate beats. Your cadence has an uncharacteristic flow and eloquence. You even snuck in the world profligate and are 90% sure you…
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far, away, when I first got into management, I had mistakenly assumed that progression up the org chart meant only managing other managers. How I was totally wrong.