meterplech

I think a critical component of making platform teams work is to allow internal competition between the platform team and the stream-aligned team using some other technology. In this way the platform team is a stream-aligned team whose customers are internal, and they have to win or lose within their market (internal teams). For example, a stream-aligned team can either use platform team CI/CD or github actions.

What I've seen is that platform teams work well in either small scale (because focus is clear to all) and large scale (because of this internal competitive dynamic) but are extremely hard to execute between the two.

Really helpful - thanks for the details!

This is really cool. Out of curiosity - how did you actually set this up for him to use? Was it on tablet or a computer or phone? Any suggestions for a dad of a 3.5 year old?

Also, is he reading / at what level? Trying to get a feel for when I can introduce it to him.

Oh I see. You allow this in-app.

Your signup flow, though, has a start time + end time and doesn't make it clear you can add these windows in. It made me pause during sign-up and I wonder if it would cause other folks to drop off. Maybe could be solved with copy somewhere even?

Similarly, as far as I can tell the signup flow does not let me add half hour increments (e.g 8:30am - 6:30pm). I also can't figure out how to add that even in-app.

Just went through sign-up flow. Heard of the product for years + interested in it.

One note - I have a bit of an idiosyncratic schedule. I work 9-6:30 and then stop for the evening (dinner with family, put kid to bed) and resume work ~9pm typically. I'd love the ability to block off that time slot (6:30-9) but keep space for working before and after.

Beyond with, excited to try it out.

Love this idea. Some quick thoughts:

1) Tool to tool choices: Many migrations involve making decisions that are judgement calls because of service inconsistency (e.g the security roles in the two systems aren't exactly the same so you have to evaluate tradeoffs in how to handle in the new one). I bet many of these 'decision points' could be a defined for particular migrations, allowing the destination service to present to their customer options with tradeoffs, and then automate the migration from there. Even more valuable than the data flowing would be being the central tool that knows about these 'choice-points' in specific migrations.

2) White labeling: a lot of B2B SaaS companies would love to offer migration services. I would have paid $ per migration for something like this if it worked.

3) Services work as needed: I still think many migrations custom work is needed. I would lean into this actually if I were you. We would have loved a trusted 3rd party that just wanted to do migrations. It was hard to get incentives aligned, though, with many systems integrators because they obviously wanted a direct relationship with the customer & hoped to sell them more stuff afterwards. If B2B companies trusted this was your specific focus you could be a better 'full service' partner across both what can be automated and what can't be.

100% true.

And a good reminder of how much exposure housing prices have to interest rates. To frame the same math another way:

If you bought a house for, say, $580k with a $500k mortgage... You paid $80k down payment + $20k closing costs and your monthly would be ~$2,073/month.

If interest rates go up to 6%, and the person buying your house also wants to pay the same ~2,073/month, they would only be able to afford a $344,649 mortgage. Assume the same $80k down payment and $20k closing costs... and they should be willing to pay $444,649 for your house ($135,351 less than you paid!).

Obviously with inflation the person may be willing to spend more than you spent! But there's a lot of risk for homeowners who need/want to sell if/when interest rates go up. That's why the 30 year fixed is such a fantastic bet if you are willing + able to hold and lock that fixed price... but housing is a pretty lousy investment if you need to sell.

There are many photos one could take without uploading or saving them in the cloud. The question is can I safely store things locally on my device without a multi-national corporation being able to set the policy of what's allowed there. The article cites examples of banned memes/images by the Chinese government.

There is also the risk of algorithm mistakes. Without the trust + safety team or any cloud verification, does this just get immediately forward to the FBI?

What is the process to be made non-guilty if the Apple algorithm thinks you have something illegal and you don't if there is no human in the loop involved before it's forwarded to authorities?

At least if you upload to a service someone on the trust + safety team can verify the algo worked properly. I would be very nervous building this kind of system of the risk of false positives! Maybe even so nervous to introduce many more false negatives - which is in itself terrible in the case of something like CSAM.

My current job has a lot more video calls than prior. It took some getting used to. I find the biggest challenge to be the urge to do some low-quality work simultaneously. What's helped me on that is:

- Use a good monitor or TV. Ideally not the main one you use to work. - Move, physically, from my desk to a place I take the calls in. Enter 'meeting mode' not 'desk mode' - Close all other applications. Full screen video. - Turn off other monitors - Take notes via notebook

I bet building a room would help, but these things worked for me in an apartment where that wasn't an option. Still takes energy to focus on it though.

As a new parent I think about this a lot in terms of how to educate my son.

I find it especially relevant as my first job was starting my own SAT tutoring company. Anecdotally I found it interesting that immigrant parents & most of the wealthiest US-born parents shared a recognition that this was a game. They were direct and explicit to their kids that this was a system that they must participate in, so they might as well win at it.

I think that is the key: make sure your kids can recognize when something is a bs system they need to hack (like selling enterprise software) and when something is actually about craft and the best will win (like building great products that end-users want to use).

Agreed. Valuation is based on sum of future profits - so essentially how profitable the business can be AND how big it can be. If

1) Ratio of fixed to marginal costs is high you have economies of scale, and will get much more profitable as you grow (software vs consulting)

2) You can capture revenue quickly because it's operationally simple to add customers (e.g don't need to hire with each dollar of revenue) you are more likely to reach that profitable scale faster.

If your company uses tech to achieve (1) and (2) then they should have high valuations. If you happen to use cool tech but don't have economies of scale or easy operational growth than how you brand the company shouldn't really matter.