Category: Business
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A Permanent Offensive Footing: Confronting My Career Complacency
As I prepared to sign off from work one afternoon in April 2024, I noticed a mass email from my company’s general counsel. “If any reporters contact you to comment on the article,” he wrote, “our corporate policy is that you do not talk to reporters.” “Article?” I thought. “What…
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On Disconfirming Information: The Value of Changing Your Mind
One day, I walked into my college decision science class and found my seat. Opening the class, the professor declared, “Disconfirming information is the most valuable kind of information!” And he encouraged us to seek it out every chance we can. I felt intrigued. Disconfirming information, he explained, is information…
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On Operational Efficiency: The Phoenix Project Notes
After working in the software industry for 15 years, I realized that I knew surprisingly little about how companies deliver cloud software. To better understand what it takes to develop and deploy software in the cloud, I recently read The Phoenix Project, which a colleague recommended. I was surprised at…
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On Waste and Its Elimination: Notes on Toyota Production System
I’ve only just read Toyota Production System, written by its inventor Taiichi Ohno, despite admiring Toyota’s world-class operational rigor for many years. The Toyota Production System (TPS) is the company’s comprehensive manufacturing philosophy and methodology, which aims at improving efficiency, eliminating waste, and producing high quality output. While I found…