After Tel Aviv, I met my family for a 10 day trip in Italy. Rome, Florence, and then Venice were our destinations. This is mostly for my personal journal, but maybe you will find it useful if you ever visit. Rome Rome is a weird city. It ruled the known…
I have been busy building the UX and Docs teams for work. California has been difficult for me as the time zones are so different. The center of gravity in the company is on the other side of the world including centers in Tel Aviv, Prague, and Bangalore. I decided…
I just retired the zoom interview technique I have been using for the past few months. You might hate it, but it was fun and had some real benefits. Decide for yourself. It seems long to read, but it went quick in a 30 min interview. I ask the candidate…
Hot TakeThe user does not come first. The user is not the center of design. The user is one of many factors in a good product. Glen Lipka, 2023 I have never liked the terms User-Driven, Data-Driven, and User-Centered. I think it fundamentally weakens the design team and devalues creativity,…
I live in “Silicon Valley” halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. I moved to the Bay Area in 2002 and have loved it ever since. My first impression was that “everyone here loves technology like I do!” and that has stuck with me for 2 decades. However, I see…
I feel like most designers put very little design thinking into their own design portfolio. This is weird, right? I mean, there is literally only one website in the whole world that you get to control 100%. No engineers, no product managers, no executives or sales people. Its just you.…
The truth is that I hardly ever use Twitter these days. It’s not a source of news for me (NYTimes, John Oliver). It’s not a source of joy or information (YouTube). It’s not a place to gain reputation for answering questions (Quora) or mentoring people (ADPList). It’s not addictive fun…
WordPress just keeps getting better and better. I am now using the 2023 theme on top of WordPress 6.1. It has many nice features making vanilla WordPress of a full site editor. It certainly doesn’t have all the bells and whistles like Webflow or EditorX, but for my purposes (a…
The phrase “Burn the Boats” comes from historical military events. It’s a phrase used once in a while in the tech industry. I used it recently and thought to write about it. Origin In 1519, Hernan Cortez wanted Aztec treasure. He invaded the Yucatan shores with only 600 men. Clearly,…
It’s recruiting time again! This time in Tel Aviv, Israel. My new company, SenintelOne has a strong engineering and product management presence there. Since my budget is limited, I decided that it would be best to replicate the success I had at Treasure Data by hiring junior folks and training…
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a psychological tool proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”. In short, it shows how people focus their energies in a cascading series of needs. The idea is that you can’t really focus on self-esteem when you are dying…
Note: I was one of the first 100 users of Figma and use it daily for work. It’s a terrific tools and has inspired me for many years. Adobe is a fascinating company. Almost all of their products have been acquired over the years. They are one of the last…
When my kids were little, we would all watch Naruto as a family. Recently, they have all moved out and are successfully adulting. (A verb I made up) Maybe out of nostalgia or empty nest coping, I have been binge watching the original Naruto. It is an exceptional show with…
As a new employee, I am meeting lots of new people. I have never been an avid note taker, but with a large group of new information and new people, I am finding it crucial remember names and what was said in meetings. It has me thinking of all the…