Naming things clearly
Here s a memo I sent out to the engineering team this week: Time for some real talk people. We have a problem that we’re either not aware of or we’re tolerating. I had to stop a meeting last month Continue reading
Brendan Sterne
Product Management, Software Development
Latest posts
Inconvenient Truths about Operating Mechanisms
Operating Mechanism is a fancy term for processes (and the corresponding tools) used to run an organization. Examples of operating mechanisms are: The quarterly talent review process The developer interview process Weekly product review The growth-board / project-funding process These Continue reading
Successful Second Products are Rare
The odds of developing a second successful product that is commensurate with a first successful product are low. As someone who works on the product exploration side (a.k.a. launching new products) vs the exploitation side (a.k.a. optimizing and Continue reading
How Can I Help?
One of the best business lessons I ever learned was at summer camp. When I was sixteen I worked for a summer as a lifeguard and sailing instructor at a family camp in Ontario, Canada. Families would attend the camp Continue reading
Gmail wasn’t really a 20%-time project
I always thought gmail was an example of an employee coming up with an idea, and having automatic-permission to explore it due to Google s 20% time. It is constantly referenced in articles about the policy. But there is some nuance Continue reading
Criteria for continued funding of new products
At Indeed we ve been working on continually improving our processes for funding, staffing, executing and assessing new experimental products. One of our challenges is assessing early products and figuring out whether to kill or continue them. One approach used in Continue reading
Seeds, Pods and Big Bets
Indeed is investing more and more in discovering and building new products. As the product team discussed and evaluated our successes and failures I found it difficult to communicate without some common terminology around the different types of innovation Continue reading
Technical Risk vs Market Risk, Part II
Haters gonna hate. Engineers gonna build. Unsurprisingly, engineers are drawn to the challenges that interest them: reliability, scalability, and reduced technical risk. In a product space where Market Risk dominates (see Part I), these are the wrong priorities. A lot of Continue reading
Technical Risk vs Market Risk, Part I
If someone could build a teleportation device that worked, and that cost less than $2,000 to transport a person across the planet, they would be rich. If someone were to build a bluetooth-controlled LED display that could be affixed to the Continue reading
Inside Amazon.com, what’s the culture really like these days?
I m inclined to agree that the recent New York Times article on Amazon Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace appears pretty slanted and seems written to match a pre-conceived narrative. I ve never worked at Amazon, but I Continue reading