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Once again , some supremely well-thought and useful content from Oxide:  https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576 This time it is about the use of LLMs within Oxide , here are my main take aways: start from values ! A phenomenal example of how values can be so much more than the vanity checklist that most companies use them for focus on the receiving end : why should I spend time reading something that the author did not think was worth enough spending the necessary time to write it? Again, goes back to their strongly writing-oriented culture and values corollary of item number 2: self review AI-generated code before asking others to review it!

One of the things I like the most about Accelerate is how it puts the focus on Culture and how a (measurable) Culture affects information flow. In other words, you can have a great working place and be business-effective (the two are not mutually exclusive, in fact they compound each other). Also, Accelerate introduced Generative Culture to a wider audience. Recently, I read the  Poor Charlie's Almanac and one of the things that caught my attention was the inversion principle . In my words: Inversion says that, often, the best way to solve a problem is to ask ourselves how to cause the problem, and then stopping/avoiding doing that I've set a goal to apply the inversion principle more in my activities, and today I said: what if I applied it to Culture? Being the lazy person that I am I asked Claude the following question: you are a manager in a medium-sized organization. How can you actively disrupt the flow of information in order to reduce the organization's effectivene...

Came across this inspiring post by Psych Safety on Ikigai last week, and I immediately felt I had to save it here, if not for the sake of better interiorising it by writing about it. The post immediately resonated with me because it captures exactly how I felt, many moons ago, when I came across the Internet, around 1996. I felt that the internet, with its rebel, distributed architecture would have changed the world, and for the better. I wanted to be a part of it because I thought I would be good at it, I would enjoy it and I could earn an income at the same time. 25 years later I still find that it's the same combination of things that motivates me the most deeply and ultimately allows me to be effective: Am I good at this (or willing to improve)? Does this benefit others and have a positive impact on the world? Will this help me make a living (or am I consciously choosing to do it for free)? Does it feel good? Do I love it? If I had to point at something that I feel is missing ...

When you have, when your engineers know what the right answer is, but they also feel that the right answer is culturally unobtainable, you have a cultural problem. Bryan Cantrill on Intel after Gelsinger @ 33:22

“The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life.” Pick your work colleagues and culture wisely. One third of your awake time is spent at work.

Last week I was helping one of my children with their history study, and I came across something I had forgotten: the clear distinction between prehistory and history. Prehistory ends with the discovery of writing, and history begins. Is there a prehistory and history for organizations too? Can an organization benefit in a similar way as the human civilization did by committing to a writing culture? I think so. I wrote an advocacy piece on writing culture here .

4 podcasts to listen to while commuting (in no particular order): DevOps cafè  : hosted monthly, features great guests and packs a tremendous amount of valuable information. Warm up by listening to a great episode with with Tom Limoncelli MagPipe Talk show  : I discovered this gem because it recently featured Martin Fowler The Changelog : more targeted towards developers than the previous two. Make sure you listen to the recent episodes with Yehuda Katx and Mitchell Hashimoto Hansel Minutes . Usually this one is mostly of interest to Windows people. Useful if one wants to keep an eye on the ther side of the pond or catch the occasional high-level talk