“The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.” -Rosabeth Moss Cantor⁠⁠ #Quotes

Credit is a lagging indicator of politics. Impact is a leading indicator of value. Choose accordingly. #ProductManagement

“Bureaucracies form when people’s jobs are tied strictly to rules and procedures rather than the effect those things are supposed to have on the world.” -Scott Berkun #Quotes

"Gray hair signals an enhanced ability to survive—conditional on having reached the gray hair stage, a man is likely to be more resistant to the vagaries of life.” -Nassim Nicholas Taleb #Quotes

Truth!

“Place a monkey in a cage, and it is the same as a pig, not because it isn’t clever and quick, but because it has no place to freely exercise its capabilities.” -Huainanzi #Quotes

“Good listening, when it works, reveals new worlds beneath the surface of people’s words.“ -Charles Duhigg #Quotes

This is a story I've been wanting to write for so long — how a teeny, tiny gaming controller became an essential tool for med students.

I wrote a bit about my dad and the importance of working on meaningful problems. www.imminentmurphy.com/2025/06/30/g...

Designing for AI or any kind of experience w/machine response always requires solving for trust. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the AI has to be 100% correct. But it does mean that the user should have agency to question or change the output, or know the range of uncertainty.

As of this morning, Deploy Empathy is only 9 (!!) copies away from selling 5,000 copies So I’ve reduced the paperback to $£€ 10. If you’ve wanted to get copies for your team, today is the day! **today only** 🇺🇸 www.amazon.com/Deploy-Empat... 🇬🇧 www.amazon.co.uk/Deploy-Empat...

"Adopt this ruthless strategy toward the past: Burn all the books, and train yourself to react to circumstances as they happen.” -Robert Greene #Quotes

"Indefinite attitudes to the future explain what’s most dysfunctional in our world today.“ -Peter Thiel #Quotes

As a programmer it is the closest thing the world has to magic

The creator of Vim, Bram Moolenaar, allegedly wrote the entire initial version of Vim using only a magnetized needle and a steady hand to directly manipulate bits on a hard drive. Thus, Vim is pure, made without using any other text editor. #vim

”We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” -Ray Bradbury #Quotes

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” -Maya Angelou #Quotes

"If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems.” -Frank Wilczek #Quotes

"As the economy changes, and our capacity to achieve creative insights becomes more important than ever, the need for fast originality is even more urgent.“ -Charles Duhigg #Quotes

“Instead of seeing philosophy as an end to which one aspires, see it as something one applies. Not occasionally, but over the course of a life - making incremental progress along the way. Sustained execution, not shapeless epiphanies.” -Ryan Holiday #Quotes

“Every individual is unavoidably an investor, too. When you choose a career, you act on your belief that the kind of work you do will be valuable decades from now.” -Peter Thiel and Blake Masters #Quotes

Proprietary formats rot: https://www.imminentmurphy.com/2025/04/10/proprietary-formats-rot.html

“If you want to kill creativity: Get five hours of sleep a night, fight traffic for two hours a day, and start each day with a piping hot thermos of a psychoactive drug. This is the unfortunate and inescapable reality of most Americans today.” -David Kadavy #Quotes

I used to think that every time I join a new company I’m going to try to replicate the last best team I was a part of. But I no longer think that. I’m open to the secret sauce of each person and what they can teach me. Whatever process we create is unique to us, our challenges and aspirations.

"Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one.” -Heraclitus #Quotes

For the youngs who have no idea what I’m talking about

I wrote a bit about the importance of “Visibility of System Status” in #productmanagement. elezea.com/2025/03/ack-...

One of the really special things about Sesame Street was always these little art films that were less about teaching a specific thing than they were about instilling a sort of meditative sense of wonder at how the world works.

“Bureaucracies form when people's jobs are tied strictly to rules and procedures rather than the effect those things are supposed to have on the world.” -Scott Berkun #Quotes

“Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves.” -Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace #Quotes

Obsidian is now free for work. Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore the organizations that support Obsidian on our site. obsidian.md/blog/free-fo...

In severance terms, LinkedIn is for innies

“Some men have shrunk so far into dark corners that objects in bright daylight seem quite blurred to them.” -Pomponius #Quotes

Commodore 64 1985 Sears Catalog

Nothing better than giant dinosaur model transportation photos. Nothing better.

“The moment you rigidly follow a plan set in your youth, you lock yourself into a position, and the times will ruthlessly pass you by.” -Robert Greene #Quotes

I sometimes thinking about this Canon ad with Godzilla at a copy machine when I’m feeling sad

"I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen but as the years wasted on nothing ever did unless I caused it." -Charles Bukowski #Quotes

On January 24, 1984, Macintosh computers were introduced by Apple. Happy Birthday 🎂 Today, Mac is one of the few certified Unix machines you can buy easily. Do you use a Mac?

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me." -Steve Jobs #Quotes

"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?" -Seymour Cray #Quotes

Good hybrid meetings are such a balancing act. You need to maximize the humans who are in immediate proximity to each other - without accidentally alienating everyone else. And that means ensuring that most everything that happens gracefully degrades to the lowest common denominator connection.

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” -Oscar Wilde #Quotes

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson #Quotes

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” -General George S. Patton #Quotes

Can’t decide which blows my mind more: • the Apple ][‘s peak sales year was six years after its introduction • the Apple ][ was an active SKU for 16 years • the Apple ][‘s lifetime sales of 6 million units is routinely bested by a few *days* of iPhone sales

"Humanity always reenacts the same bildungsroman. All the principles you learn through your struggles today had been written down by the ancients thousands of years ago.” -Ken Liu #Quotes