garry’s posthaven

A manager has to make many decisions for which he is accountable. Unlike an entrepreneur with his own business, however, his decisions can be reversed at any time by someone higher up the food chain (and there is always someone higher up the food chain). It’s important for your career that these reversals not look like defeats, and more generally you have to spend a lot of time managing what others think of you. Survival depends on a crucial insight: you can’t back down from an argument that you initially made in straightforward language, with moral conviction, without seeming to lose your integrity. So managers learn the art of provisional thinking and feeling, expressed in corporate doublespeak, and cultivate a lack of commitment to their own actions. Nothing is set in concrete the way it is when you are, for example, pouring concrete.

The unfortunate upshot of this style of doublespeak is that you lose transparency and honesty. When people are too busy looking for ways to cover their ass and avoid looking bad, the business suffers.

Preach on, brother.

Great to see my old colleagues and friends getting the recognition they deserve. Palantir is easily the best kept secret in Silicon Valley.

The culprit for poor WiFi turns out, in almost all cases, to be interference. And it's not generally interference caused by other WiFi radios; the problematic interference is caused most by baby monitors, microwaves, [and] portable phones...

Wifi is as important as cell phone service. But the reliability and configuration experience for the standard is atrocious. I know I've probably spent untold hours in wifi configuration trying to get the dang thing to work, both on my laptop and for other people's machines.

Isn't it time we set aside some real bandwidth for this critical standard? Baby monitors and portable phones that mess with my wifi channel can go in the trash as far as I'm concerned.

If Wifi were as important as public roads, then our current system of allowing other services on the same 2.4Ghz band would be like allowing riding lawnmowers on the freeways. Tech policy wonks and networking equipment firms need to get their act together and prioritize wireless Internet access.

We measure traffic jams in terms of economic opportunity loss in the hundreds of millions. Is it time that we measure wireless access in the same way?

Every night I would take home a different software manual, and I would read them... Peachtree, PFS, DBase, Lotus, Accpac… I couldn’t put them down. Every night I would read some after getting home, no matter how late.

It worked. Turns out not a lot of people ever bothered to RTFM (read the frickin’ manual), so people started really thinking I knew my stuff.

My friend Dan Haubert of Ticketstumbler (the most awesome way to buy tickets for sporting events and concerts) cites Mark Cuban as one of his personal heroes. This is a great reason why he should be yours too.

Hustle.

Case No. 218

How’s this for the good life? You’re rich, and you made the dough yourself. You’re well into your 80s, and have spent hardly a day in the hospital. Your wife had a cancer scare, but she’s recovered and by your side, just as she’s been for more than 60 years. Asked to rate the marriage on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 is perfectly miserable and 9 is perfectly happy, you circle the highest number. You’ve got two good kids, grandkids too. A survey asks you: “If you had your life to live over again, what problem, if any, would you have sought help for and to whom would you have gone?” “Probably I am fooling myself,” you write, “but I don’t think I would want to change anything.” If only we could take what you’ve done, reduce it to a set of rules, and apply it systematically.

Right?

Case No. 47

You literally fell down drunk and died. Not quite what the study had in mind.

In 1937, 268 well-adjusted Harvard sophomores were selected for a study by the Harvard Study of Adult Development. For the first time, the results have been published by the Atlantic and in a new book by the study's author, Dr. George Vaillant.

The takehome lesson: Enjoy where you are now. --Dr. George Vaillant

By the time these men turned 50, virtually all of them turned out to be something... and most people didn't know what they would be at even 30. One of them was actually John F. Kennedy (though his files are sealed until 2040). Success would come to them, but throughout their younger years there was an anticipation and anxiety of what they were to be. I feel that too. We all do. But perhaps the anxiety is unnecessary. This study certainly suggests so.

For decades, psychologists have focussed on raw intelligence as the most important variable when it comes to predicting success in life. Mischel argues that intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework.

My parents were right. Self control, focus, and delayed gratification are critical components. Self-discipline matters.

This article is good news for strivers everywhere. It means that we aren't slaves to the raw talents that we are born with, and that our futures aren't written in stone. Self-control is a trait that can be learned and developed.

If we can control ourselves, then we can control our destinies. *high five*

I'm trying to tackle some pretty tough stuff tonight... Sunday night, of all nights, usually ends up being my most productive. It's definitely a long hard slog, but this definitely brightened my evening.

The blood, sweat, and tears are worth it. You're right, Sherman! The juice is worth the squeeze.

Music by Gui Boratto, music video by Cadú Datoro. I've been really digging Gui Boratto and The Field lately -- very atmospheric, ambient, but with a driving beat.