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A while back I listened to this conversation between Martin Fowler and Luca Rossi on the refactoring podcast. Since then I made a note to write down the most important things I learned (or re-discovered), but always postponed until today I was able to make some time for it. Here's my take on the two most important things in that one hour long conversation. Dosage The concept of dosage is very familiar and very important to me. I've already written about it, under the name quantity . I appreciate how Martin Fowler was able to find a better (and fancier) name for it. Context Software engineering, being as elusive as it is as a proper engineering discipline, is perhaps one of the most studied and written about fields of engineering . And yet, we struggle to come up with truly universal practices that work everywhere. One way to understand why some things work sometimes and don't work or fail miserably other times is by considering the context that was present when the solu...

Besides the two breathtaking episodes on TSMC and Dr. Morris Chang , I am just 10 minutes into  The Art of Selling Enterprise Software (with ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott) and then this quote blows my mind so much I had to pause listening to write it down: I always tell people in sales, and I said it then, performance is the price of freedom. I never wanted to sit in internal meetings and have a boss tell me what to do or how to do it. What I would just tell them is, I’ll be number one in the country or number one in the world. Just let me run. I'll just add that this should not be the case for Sales only. (I think I've found another favorite  podcast  😅 , and I got the t-shirt )

After some postponing due to a busy April, I've eventually made time to listen to another Refactoring podcast episode: How to Coach CTOs . Here are my customarily short notes on the most important takeaways. I added this episode to the compilation of my favorite podcast episodes . Focus on your strengths This is brilliant advice, which is often overlooked, even though it surfaces in lots of places (Drucker, Munger, Rumelt, Covery). I'd pair it with Munger's advice to, erm, minimize your errors (he calls it avoiding stupidity ), which I interpret as a more active version of focusing on strengths. Understanding the fear(s) of your peers This is not covered in the episode, but I thought it would make a great complement to understanding their goals and their objectives. I wrote about fear last year and it's been very valuable for me to unpack executives requests and ideas. Relationship with peers Can't believe this advice is actually free: Many early-career CTOs strug...

I recently added Acquired to my go-to podcast short list and picked the Enron story from 2022. The story comes out hot on the heels of the FTX scandal/tragedy/fraud because of their similarities (and why the regulation that came after it helped prevent other Enrons). It's a long episode (1h 50m) but it's narrated so well and the story is so riveting that I didn't even notice. Theres this passage that I found interesting about half-measures and how they can and will be gamed (emphasis mine):

Podcast Ryan Holiday: How to Win the War with Yourself [The Knowledge Project Ep. #208] I am sure The Knowledge Project helped me, actually, showed me how to become a better person: at home and at work. This 1h 39' episode is densely packed with life-changing advice. Some quotes from the passages that speak the most to me: You’ve said before that life is always whispering at you, and if you’re not paying attention, it’ll eventually scream at you. Yeah, there’s a Latin expression called festina lente, which just means “to make haste slowly.” We often look for shortcuts, and it takes longer than if we’d just done it slow and steady. And this is a very core idea of Stoicism. Epictetus said, “It’s not things that upset us; it’s our opinion about things.” that’s what sports are; they’re a metaphor for any kind of pursuit of excellence. [Sport] is just the most visible. The problem is that the financial upside is always clear. Opportunity costs are sometimes clear, but often not clear. W...

From tech, to leadership, through people, architecture, design and music. A curated collection of my personal favourites.

I don't remember exactly how I came across this podcast, but it should have been through somebody in my mastodon circle:  https://500songs.com/ Anyways, I've now listened to two episodes (spread over a few sessions) and I'm blown away by the sheer amount of detail that you get to discover about the covered artist or song. And that explains why each episode is rather long, I think the two I listened to are over 2h each . Music has always been an important part of my life and knowing trivia or facts about a certain artist, album or song has always been meaningful to me, in order to better appreciate the music and augment the listening experience. If you feel the same you won't regret diving into this podcast. The two episodes I listened to so far are: https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-163-sittin-on-the-dock-of-the-bay-by-otis-redding/ I chose this one as incidentally I was listening to Otis Blue at the same time. I was amazed that the whole album was recorded in just 2...

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