Posted on 29th February 2008 by jeff in Product Strategy
Amazon Web Services
Terry Goertz and I are writing a series of articles on designing, hosting and managing your application using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Our first one, which provides a basic overview of AWS, is up on RedCanary.
We needed a portrait for RedCanary and not really being into the glamour shot scene, my son and daughter pulled together this drawing of the two of us. Yeah I’m convinced my kids have a pretty demented view of what we actually do. They know we do something with whiteboards. My daughter demanded help drawing UML actors and then my son proceeded to draw the hair and Terry’s beard. Finally it’s clear who the evil one is.
Posted on 28th February 2008 by jeff in Startups
Alex Iskold asks Are YOU Replaceable? He says what I’ve been thinking for a couple of years now. The idea that everyone is replaceable just isn’t the case anymore. Sure some people are but for small growing companies, I’d argue the Top 15-25% simply aren’t replaceable without a serious hit to the organization.
Things get really scary when it comes to visionaries and leaders. Alex says it well:
Losing leaders and visionaries is very, very costly. The knowledge, the vision, and the game plan that was in his head is unique and can not be replicated.
What’s interesting is that few if any startups consider this during their hiring strategy. Sure everyone wants to recruit the best talent, usually you’re going to toss in some options to keep the person engaged but then what? Our industry is very cyclic. Right now we’re (ok I’m) seeing some interesting stratification of talent happening. The Top 10% (aka the freakishly good) are now able to command above market rates – significantly above market rates. As the market heats up people really do seem to be willing to cherry pick and to pay for that privilege.
Recently I’ve had a couple of opportunities float by. In both cases the compensation for the year outstripped what I was currently making and the potential upside that I as a non-founder of a startup could expect over the life of a startup. Holy crap.
I can tell you that the super-sized packages make for interesting over coffee discussions but it makes trouble for the startups themselves. It also makes trouble for the person themselves because once $200k becomes the new $100k and then $250k, etc… it’s really hard to roll back to last year’s lifestyle.
I’m taking this as a wake-up call personally. Now more then ever companies really need to consider their retention policies. Clearly retention doesn’t just include raw compensation but the market does dictates rates. So take a look at your team, segment your talent and figure out a plan to keep your Top X% happy and engaged before it’s too late.
Posted on 4th February 2008 by jeff in Startups
Developers
I was asked a deceptively simple question last week, “if you could buy your development team just 1 book, what would it be?” After first thinking “that would make a dang fine interview question!”, I started to iterate through some of my fave titles on my bookshelf, err in my boxes (we recently moved).
First I thought of “PeopleWare”, a classic but not really what I’m looking for. Then I rattled through some of the Agile classics such as the “Lean” series by the Poppendeicks and some of Ken Schwaber’s Scrum books. Good but I don’t think so.
Pulling up a layer, maybe something architectural like Martin Fowler’s “Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture” or “Refactoring”? Also good but only 1 book!?!?! Ok let’s go for the “your code is your craft” approach. I know! Mike Gunderloy’s “Coder to Developer” but it is a little .NET centric. What about “The Pragmmatic Programmer” by Hunt and Thomas? Yeah you’re right, it’s getting long in the tooth.
Can I buy 2 or 3 books for the team? No? Ok then I need your help. What book would you buy and why? Blog about it or leave a comment and I’ll write up a summary of the results.
Posted on 1st February 2008 by jeff in Uncategorized
personal
I’m cursing Jim Murphy for tagging me in his 8 things you didn’t know about me post. For the record I didn’t know of few of those, mental note: avoid karaoke bars with Jim. Ok buckle up, here we go…
- I have a wicked collection of 80s and 90s tunes, hence my kids (age 5 and 7) rock out to Ministry, Killing Joke and Prodigy in our basement routinely. They also love classical music.
- Our basement is reminiscent of the bars I hung out in the 80s complete with mirror ball and sound driven lighting but no smoke machine (yet). In the evenings, you’ll usually find my kids down there.
- I was a competitive BMX racer and represented Canada a few times including the 1984 BMX World Series in Whistler. Nothing like flying down a mountain on a bike that weighs 18 pounds.
- I was also into skateboarding at an early age and had my own half-pipe in our driveway. Yet no broken bones until I started running. Go figure.
- Got my first motorcycle at age 3 — a Carabella Moto Pony. I currently have a vintage Vespa P200e.
- Got my first snowmobile at age 4 — a SnowBrute? Man I can’t remember. I currently don’t own snowmobile and I absolutely hate winter.
- As a result to most of the above, my hair has been dyed many, many different colours and my head has been routinely shaved on purpose.
- I like cooking/grilling to unwind and I have a strange quest to make artisan breads yet I can’t make Jello if my life depended on it.
+1: I failed Grade 10 math for skipping too many classes despite an ok mark — (trust me I calculated the odds). No wonder I love bureaucracy to this date.
I haven’t figured yet who I’ll spread this joy to next. I just wanted to get the 8 item monkey off my back quickly over lunch. I’ll post a follow-up with the victims names.
We needed a portrait for RedCanary and not really being into the glamour shot scene, my son and daughter pulled together this drawing of the two of us. Yeah I’m convinced my kids have a pretty demented view of what we actually do. They know we do something with whiteboards. My daughter demanded help drawing UML actors and then my son proceeded to draw the hair and Terry’s beard. Finally it’s clear who the evil one is.
