Observability - An Origin Myth
Imagine, for a moment, a world of pure chaos.
Pranay Prateek Blog
Pranay Prateek Blog
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Speed of Light
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On Fear
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Funding in Startups - Food or Oxygen
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Turpentine and Startups
I had come across a tweet mentioning something about turpentine and Stripe. I remembered it had resonated with me at that point. But then I lost it.
Animal Crossing & Community meetups..
In these times, when everyone is concerned about social distancing, dev communities are trying to figure out new ways to interact online. I was pleasantly, surprised when I came across a DevOps meetup which is organized on Animal Crossing.
(1.01)^365 and research papers..
While entrepreneurs don't have the luxury to engage in deep research, they could learn a lot just by grokking through the research papers and understanding the basic concepts. And then let the human mind do its magic 🦄
Zoom Ops & Remote work monitoring
Remote Tools monitoring is very similar to how you monitor an app or service. These tools like Zoom, VPNs, etc. are providing a service. How do we figure out if they are working well for the employees?
Remote Icebreaker sessions..
A remote only world is creating new platforms and formats of interaction. It is also making the world flatter. Since, there are no local meetups now, I can now attend any virtual meetup, webinar happening around the world.
The story we tell ourselves..
Many times we tell ourselves why something is not possible, why we can't do it. But the fact is that unless we are dead, we can always do something. anything. Its all about the story we tell ourselves.
Developer advocates, and why understanding the user is everything...
Developers smell any marketing or selling from far. You just can't "sell" to them. Period. They will only use your product, if it makes life easier for them, saves time or peaks their curiosity.
Who moved my cheese, and other monitoring questions..
The underlying constructs which we use in software monitoring are more universal and applicable in many other domains than we realize. It's just that these techniques are first being applied on softwares
The Effectual Ask
The Effectual Ask makes the barrier to making an ask very low. You just have to go to the other person, tell them what you want and just ask them what would it take for them? You don't have to figure out the right quid pro quo. You don't have to make a pleading request.
Notes from Walden - A book by Henry Thoreau
Walden is a book by Henry D. Thoreau which gives a vivid account of the time that he lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond
Writing good software is a craft
Building a great software is a craft - you get better at it as you spend more time with it. It is the ultimate expression of human mind!
Effectuation
The primary idea of effectuation is that the future is not something which is to be searched. Future is made. It is made by human actions.
RSS Feeds : Still the best way to control the content you consume
I encountered RSS because I was searching solutions for a specific use case I had. To keep up with the pace of development in Application Monitoring space and generate insights, I wanted to monitor different forums where people are talking about topics relevant to our business.
Few notes on reading Economics
I recently came across an old AMA by Sridhar Vembu, where he talks about his interests in economics, and how it helps him put things in perspective. In his words
On trusting ourselves
Trusting yourself enough to give yourself this chance is hard. And the world doesn't fail to tell you what could go wrong if you deviate from the known path.
On the virtue of getting bored
We are addicted to continuous stimulation. Be it an Instagram post, a funny tweet or a WhatsApp forward. Though this prevents us from getting bored, it also prevents us from coming up with something new.
Why the worst get on top?
I used to always question why in many domains, especially politics & governance the worst come out on the top. When many of us agreed that a particular candidate was absolute crass - why does he rise to power? Why don't more educated and intellectual people rose to power?
Boom 💥 or Bust : Both are equally good & bad. Here's why?
But if you look from a more objective long term perspective, the world operates in cycles. Period of booming growths have seeds for recession in them, and period of recessions have seeds of coming growth.
The Cockrach-y startup
Don't think of yourself as a startup. Think of yourself as a business. A "dhandha" business. And the first objective of any business is to survive. You can do anything, have any impact, only if you survive.
On Fear
What is fear? It is the evolutionary response built into our brain when we are about to do something new or we are in a new situation.
B2B Product Positioning
I was reading about product positioning today and found this amazing book by April Dunford. Here are some of my notes from the book.
Do we have enough cloud compute infra for a remote-first world?
There was nothing wrong with my subscription or account. It was just that I was using free Azure credits for my account and Azure was just not allowing free credit users to create VMs.
Should money be an exclusive domain of the government?
While a big portion of our life is governed by money, it's surprising how little we know about how it really works? A huge chunk of our life is spent either trying to earn more of it or spend it in the most virtuous fashion, yet we hardly ever question what money is.
Regret & Choice
Are you evaluating ALL the choices you have? Many a times we severely limit the choices we consider by considering how difficult they would be or how improbable. However difficult or improbable, they are still a choice.
Intermittent Fasting & Work from Home
You are at home. You are focusing on work. Isn't it good to take a few breaks in between? It helps you get your focus back. And then you see boxes of cookies or some namkeen lying around - and unmindful you pick some of it. Before you realise, you would have had few such servings.
Can politicians seek a 16-year term extension?
I found that Putin was planning to make some fundamental changes in the constitution which would give him power till 2036. Can politicians really do such things? Pass a law which keeps you president for 16 more years, when you have already served 4 terms as president?
Don't be an ant - Study history
As Dalio says, there are many things which we may be experiencing first time in our lives. But they are not happening for the first time in the world. Don't be an ant and react to what is happening.
Lockdown Dairies Day
Today, I read a few pages from Noam Chomsky's Understanding Power. Noam Chomsky is a acclaimed scholar with lot's of controversial opinion - so it's a fun read. One essay which caught my eye was his discussion on free markets.
The Lockdown begins
Today, Prime Minister Modi announced lock down of the whole nation for 21 days. Apparently the threat of corona virus is much higher than it was envisaged to be.
Developers & the shiny new tool syndrome
What I have observed is that developers are a curious lot - and always willing to explore new tools. Now, I have been developer in my past life and have worked closely with devs most of my professional career.
Data and Product Management
Data is the new oil. Deciding what to build in a product is powered by this oil. Especially in B2C products where its virtually impossible to talk to every customer and build product based on that.
Honey, its the Landing Page!
Landing pages are critically important for a SaaS product. How fast does it convey the value proposition of the product? Does it make potential users move down the conversion funnel?
10yrs and counting... (Part I)
10 yrs is a long time .. long enough for a man to reflect on what happened, how it happened and how he felt about it.
Efficient Markets don't exist
The Efficient Market Hypothesis hypothesis relies on a class of people/agents who can be loosely identified as "entrepreneurs" - who identify any opportunity to make higher returns, make money out of it and correct the prices. Hence, markets again become efficient.
Quantity vs Quality
Is quantity more important or quality? This question comes up in many facets of life.Is hard work better or smart work? Is trying multiple things more important or carefully selecting the few you try?
Founder accountability
Being a founder is considered a milestone by many. You have finally taken the plunge to make your dreams a reality. Something you have been carefully tossing around in your mind, can now finally be tested against real people.
If politics is the product, fundamentalism is the growth hack
If you think politics as a product, power is the currency and fundamentalism is the growth hack
Unbundling the Office
In way, office is bundling multiple things - not just work. Its an all-in-one package of work, source to earn money, social circle, friends, etc.
On the importance of Ego
If you look at world history, most of the big events (whether good or bad) were led by Ego of an individual. If you look into how Mao's China and its after effects like cultural revolution came into being, its largely due to the ideas which Mao had and his will to act on it.
Mental Models - Importance of buyer and seller dynamics in pricing
One the key question most of us often face is what is the 'right' price of a product. It could be the price you pay for hiring talent in your company (aka salary), price investors pay for buying shares in a company (aka valuation), etc.
Data Driven Disruptions
Anand is an electric speaker with deep focus on how technology and data can be used to build new types of products. The core of his talk was this fundamental idea that access to huge amount of data will lead to creation of new business models which will disrupt existing players.
My notes from "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K Le Guin
The Dispossesed is a sci-fi novel about an anarchist society formed on the imaginary planet of Anarres. The society has been founded after an anarchist revolution in Urras, which led its government to send the anarchists to an uninhabited Anarres to establish the society of their dreams.
Meditations on Death
If all of us eventually die, does it really matter what you do in your life?
Is decentralisation always better? (Part 2)
What do people really want? Are they OK with sacrificing some privacy and freedom for better user experience and less effort. This is the key question.
Is decentralization always better (Part 1)?
Somehow people believe that decentralization is inherently good. Most of us have a meme of evil corp in our mind - and any thing which gives us hope of taking down these evil corps seems quite appealing. Most of us hate how these evil corps like Google, FB, Uber, etc. make huge profit
Underground : A great book on early days of hacking culture
My notes from the book Underground by Suelette Dreyfus & Julian Assange. It's an amazing book if you want to get a glimpse of the early days of the hacking culture. The culture which created folks like Julian Assange, who is a powerful force in the world today.