Hasnain says:

This was a great read on org design. I like how it focused on the thought processes and did not try to prescribe “the one true way to do things” - which it acknowledges cannot exist.

“The final implication of this essay is that stories of organisational processes are more important than descriptive how-tos of the process. A novice would read Working Backwards or Netflix’s No Rules Rules as “Ahh, here are a handful of mechanisms these successful organisations used to become successful! If I adopt them in my org, I, too, will be successful.”

But this is naive.

An experienced org designer would read them for the stories of how those companies got to those mechanisms in the first place. The story of the iterative process is more revealing than a simple description of the mechanisms, because it tells us the context. Understanding the context is usually key to understanding if the processes have a shot at working when applied to your company.”

Hasnain says:

Great interview that touches on education, politics, society, and economics. And it opened my eyes to a new perspective that any new labor movement also needs to be concerned with putting healthcare costs under control.

“But the big story, which is what Anne and I write about in our book, is the incredible cost of healthcare coupled with the way it’s funded. One dollar in five in America goes to supporting this obscenely swollen industry. And then we’re financing most of it off less-educated workers. That premium per family is now over $20,000 a year. If you take that over a 2,000-hour work year, it’s $10 an hour that has to be met by the firm. And it either has to come out of profits or out of wages. And that destroys jobs.”

Hasnain says:

Even the mob needs good management, like any large organization. And just like any old organization, they need to adapt to how millennials and the younger generations work. Though maybe they should skip out on demanding protection money via text.

“Mr. Curtis said the top-level micromanaging in the Colombo case reflected concerns about the incompetence of lower-level members.

A new generation of wiseguys didn’t properly learn the business, according to former government investigators. Older members complain that the millennials—who grew up in the suburbs instead of city streets—are softer, dumber and not as loyal as mobsters of the past. Plus, they’re always texting.”

Hasnain says:

Pretty reasonable tips in here.

“Every system eventually sucks, get over it

Bjarne Stroustrup has a quote that goes “There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses”. This can be extended to large systems as well. There is no “right” architecture, you’ll never pay down all of your technical debt, you’ll never design the perfect interface, your tests will always be too slow. This isn’t an excuse to never make things better, but instead a way to give you perspective. Worry less about elegance and perfection; instead strive for continuous improvement and creating a livable system that your team enjoys working in and sustainably delivers value.”

Hasnain says:

This was oh so depressing. I wonder why there isn’t a system that flags severe outliers like this just from the data - so people can investigate to see what’s going on. A county where 48% of juvenile cases end up with a jail sentence compared to the state average of 5% deserves at least an initial investigation.

“What happened on that Friday and in the days after, when police rounded up even more kids, would expose an ugly and unsettling culture in Rutherford County, one spanning decades. In the wake of these mass arrests, lawyers would see inside a secretive legal system that’s supposed to protect kids, but in this county did the opposite. Officials flouted the law by wrongfully arresting and jailing children. One of their worst practices was stopped following the events at Hobgood, but the conditions that allowed the lawlessness remain. The adults in charge failed. Yet they’re still in charge. Tennessee’s systems for protecting children failed. Yet they haven’t been fixed.”

Hasnain says:

“Forde-Mazrui, who said the Supreme Court has long protected speech that’s racist in nature, wondered whether the racial epithets and sounds could be classified as “fighting words” — a category of speech not protected by the First Amendment that can “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” The law professor questioned whether there was a societal double standard as to which victims were protected by authorities.

“Without speaking directly to the motives of Virginia Beach or its police department, would authorities be willing to intervene if a White family was being subjected to this kind of thing in the privacy of their own home and on their own home property with language that would be as insulting?” he asked. “This will seem like an anecdote of a bad apple to a lot of people, but incidents like this happen every day in America.””

Hasnain says:

“To summarize, we drove a magnitude change in our CI infrastructure spend by using three ideas:

Adaptive capacity to decrease the cost of each test by changing the infrastructure runtime.

Circuit breakers to decrease the number of tests by changing the infrastructure workflow.

Pipeline changes to decrease the number of tests by changing our user workflows.”

Hasnain says:

…

“Body camera footage of Minneapolis police officers' response to the protests in the days after George Floyd's death reveals officers talking about "hunting" people as part of a response to quell the unrest.”

Hasnain says:

This was a great lesson.

“This childish game of “Nuh-uh/Yuh-huh!” went on while the user sat there dumbfounded and helpless, watching the icon for their .XYZ files flicker back and forth between the two programs, both of whom egotistically believed they were doing the user a “favor” by insisting on being the program that runs .XYZ files.”

Hasnain says:

I am so glad this passed. This has been the result of years of hard work from these women that were unjustly discriminated against - working so no one else would suffer the same way and holding employers accountable for the harm they do.

“Emphasizing the need for SB 331, two Black women recently raised gender and race discrimination claims against a company where “they were underpaid, faced racist comments from their manager and were subject to retaliation.” (1) While the company initially dismissed their claims, the women’s stories generated tremendous media interest and inspired other women to speak openly about their own experiences. The women eventually settled their claims and were protected by the STAND Act, though only for their gender-based claims. Though they can speak about their experience involving gender discrimination, they cannot speak about their experience involving race discrimination. As harassment or discrimination claims are oftentimes intersectional (e.g., based on gender and race or age and sexual orientation), SB 331 will resolve a situation where the NDA covers only one aspect of the worker’s experience and claim.”