I've generally found written form to be the clearest way to discuss complex subjects.
A few months ago, I was chatting with a friend who’s a repeat founder. I told him how I was both excited and terrified about starting something from scratch. He asked me what I was afraid of, and as I’ve had more time to reflect, I decided to write those fears down.
According to some recent estimates, about one in four engineers use TDD, a figure that aligns with Google Trends data. Over the past few years, the adoption rate has ranged from 20% to 25%. Based on my recent coding experience, I believe TDD's popularity will decline.
Senior-level transitions aren't often discussed. Having observed many firsthand, and now having gone through one myself, I want to share more details on the process and how I approached my own transition, in case it's helpful for future leaders going through their own. Transitions at this level involve a unique set of challenges and opportunities that aren't broadly visible. Whether you're an executive facing a transition, a founder preparing for leadership changes, or simply interested in the dynamics of high-level corporate shifts, I hope these reflections can offer practical guidance and a deeper understanding of what makes these transitions successful.
As I've been transitioning away from my day-to-day duties at Brex over the past few months, I wanted to fill that time with things I've neglected, hoping to rebuild some habits before diving into my next adventure. Coding was high on that list, and the more I did it, the more I realized how much I'd missed it. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to scratch that itch and build some intuition around frontend development, so I decided to build a personal website as a playground.
Seattle is a city full of terrific restaurants with amazing food. And after living there for four years, I'm pretty happy that I probably ate at ~80% of them. But that means that there's still probably over a dozen places that are really tasty which I didn't try out. Even in my last few weeks living there, I was finding little gems, in the form of lunch trucks around the city or small places in Pike's Place. Given that SF has at least an order of magnitude more restaurants, and the average quality is higher due to the inherent competition, a new strategy was needed.
This week was my first week at Stripe, and so far it's been a thrilling experience, even though my mind is still coping with the overload of information it's been subjected to. The people have been extremely friendly and welcoming. The office is both great and in a great location. The food is tasty and the beer selection is spectacular.
Back in high school and college I used to write. Sometimes quite a lot. Sometimes only for myself and sometimes I would publish them publicly. The things I wrote were varied: thoughts, ideas, speeches, articles, reviews, technology etc.