2023 felt both long and short for me at the same time! It was a year of professional changes, and I wanted to capture some of my learnings. My thoughts in no particular order
-
It’s weird that I learnt this lesson in Silicon Valley of all places but people >>> technology. It might seem unfair but people bet on people. The kind of person you are, how you carry and represent yourself, your intelligence, morals, and ethics; these characteristics disproportionately drive individual success, especially in the Bay Area
-
When I made the switch from Google to Temporal, my decision was universally celebrated in San Francisco, while people in India were baffled. Perspective is everything
-
I thrive when I have the autonomy to make decisions and drive things forward. For better or for worse, I have very little patience with stasis. Doing something and learning from the outcome is better than doing nothing
-
Do things that make you happy and bring you joy. Don’t follow the herd. This is important because nothing changes overnight. You have to invest in learning and building relationships over the long term to see results. If you hate the process, then you’re setting yourself up for a world of pain
-
When evaluating between jobs, I’ve learnt to prioritize the product, the manager, and the company culture. The rest is gravy
-
Don’t be shy about asking anyone for anything. Doesn’t matter how senior they are or how well you know them. Just be polite
-
Let the small things go. I tend to have strong convictions about things but sometimes, you gotta let the small things go. You can’t control everything; sometimes you have to let people make their own mistakes, and sometimes you have to admit that you don’t know everything!
-
Similar to the point above, don’t burn bridges. The tech industry is small and memories are long. You don’t need to have the last word, just let it go
-
Read and write as much as much as possible, it is a huge competitive advantage (and I don’t just mean work-related reading and writing)
-
You can’t create a startup culture in a big company. You can emulate it, simulate it, attempt a close mockery of it, but there is no substitute for the real thing
-
I’m a little afraid of what the future holds because I find it difficult to imagine going back to work at a large company. I’ve joined the church (cult?) of startups