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Principles of Technology Leadership

2018-09-04
  • Bryan Cantrill
    • 2017-10-05

    Monktoberfest 2017 Bryan Cantrill - Principles of Technology Leadership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QMGAtxUlAcf

    What are Principles

    • Principles: fundamental, universal human truth […] that transcends culture and time
    • Values: expressions of relative priority
    • It’s good to reiterate principles from time to time in order to appeal to “the better angels of our nature”

    Historical examples

    • Declaration of Independence
      • “We find these truths to be self evident–that all men are created equal […].”
      • this is the ur-statement of principles, written by our ur-hypocrite, Thomas Jefferson [who] believed in his right to own slaves
    • Gettysburg address
      • what is Lincoln doing at this darkest hour of the union, 1863
      • what he is saying is these people died not for a nation, but for a principle
      • we are using that principle to address that fundamental hypocrisy
    • I have a dream
      • “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.””
      • The reason I believe that that is the most American sentence in our history is because it takes that creed and exposes it as “we’re not there yet” and yet it is also fundamentally American in its aspiration that “we can do better, we must do better”. It is fundamentally very forward-looking
    • There was tremendous value in spelling those principles out.

    In Organizations

    • principles + values + X ==> Mission ==> Purpose
    • Purpose is one of the factors in the triad (Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose) put forward in Daniel Pink’s “Drive”
    • Examples from when companies started realizing they performed better if they made people want to work rather than forcing them to work
    • Levi Strauss, 1990 (CEO Robert Haas)
      • paraphrasing from Robert Haas: when you articulate values, ou as a leader or any leader needs to live those values. people really really will do what you do as much as what you say.
    • Sun Microsystems
      • Formally, “kick butt and have fun”
      • after the fact: Kicked butt, had fun, didn’t cheat, loved our customers, changed computing forever
      • “I never had to hide the newspaper in shame from my children.”
    • Google: “don’t be evil”
      • that was kind of a joke at the time
      • I feel it’s getting taken more and more literally over time
    • Facebook: “move fast and break things”
      • it’s very revealing of a Silicon Valley ethos
      • there are reasons why might not want to do that
      • our new motto is “move fast on stable infra”
      • okay, first of all, “infra” is not a word
      • unfortunately, the things they’re breaking look a lot more like democracy

    Amazon’s Leadership Principles

    • The Principles
      • Customer Obsession; Ownership; Invent and Simplify; Are Right, A Lot; Learn and Be Curious; Hire and Develop the Best; Insist on the Highest Standards; Think Big; Bias for Action; Frugality; Earn Trust; Dive Deep; Have Backbone–Disagree and Commit; Deliver Results
      • Are Right, A Lot
        • that’s not a principle or a value, that’s just a naked assertion. That’s just ruling by fiat. If somebody is incorrect are they not a leader, or is there like some kind of batting average they have to be at
        • “they seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs” – why? they’re right! why would they bother. “I am tautologically right, comma, a lot.”
      • Hire and Develop the Best
        • “Leaders raise the bar with every hire and promotion” – i hate raise the bar with every hire, because, what does that say about your existing team – “Good news, shitheads, I found someone who’s raising the bar!”
        • “They recognize exceptional talent and willingly move them throughout the organization” – “this person is so good, we should reorg them every thirty days. They’re not the vectors for some sort of excellence disease.”
      • Insist on the Highest Standards: “many people may think these standards are unreasonably high” – if many people think your standards are unreasonably high, your standards are unreasonbly high, I’m sorry, I hate to tell you this. That’s actually what unreasonable means.
      • “Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume” – does that idiom make more sense in whatever language you Google Translated that from?
      • Have Backbone
        • “they do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion” – a bit strange, fundamentally a compromise is a bit of a social act
        • “once a decision is determined they commit wholly” – that does not make sense at all with what you just said, do you want me to be right a lot and have convictions and be tenacious, or do you want me to disagree and commit
    • These aren’t principles; some of them aren’t even values
    • They contradict each other so sufficiently that they can be used for any action

    The next generation

    • The Amazon principles set a bad standard for the next generation of software companies (Marc Andreesen’s “Why Software is Eating the World”, 2011)
    • “Me want services” generation
    • Companies that see themselves as disuptors
    • Amazon’s are teetering and cringy; if you, me-want-services generation write your own principles, it’s going to be an absolute disaster

    Uber’s 14 Cultural Values

    • Uber’s 14 Cultural Values
      • Meritocracy and toe-stepping; Own it don’t rent it; Super-pumpedness; Optimistic leadership; Champion’s mindset; Celebrate cities; Inside out; Making bold bets; Make magic; Always be hustlin'; Principled confrontation; Let builders build; Being yourself; Obsession with the customer
      • Meritocracy and toe-stepping
        • meritocracy – we all know that’s kind of a dog whistle to preserve stereotypes about who’s doing what
        • toe-stepping – “but stepping on toes isn’t nice”
        • I actually found a video of Travis talking about it, and Travis says toe-stepping means “listening”
        • If toe-stepping means “listening” in your language, I highly recommend saying “listening”
      • Super-pumpedness
        • are you talking about excitability?!
      • Make magic
      • Always be hustlinnnnnnn'
      • Let builders build
        • this one also makes me nervous, let’s builders build is, that, is to me, a free pass to let people do whatever they want whenever they want
    • Greyball
      • software that Uber wrote to give regulators a different view of Uber
      • it’s clearly a reference to blackball, which is a reference to keeping someone out of a secret society. Clearly this is designed to do what it was doing, which was prevent regulators from seeing what you’re actually doing, so you can violate the law. Let’s be clear about that. A software engineer wrote this. A lot of software engineers implemented this.
    • Self-driving cars
      • Letter written by DMV to Levandowski, saying “you don’t have the permits you need to do that thing you announced today in press releases”
      • video of Uber autonomous vehicle running a red light at SFMOMA while a pedestrian is starting to cross to Yerba Buena gardens (Cantrill’s kids went to preschool right there)
    • Anthony Levandowski
      • went to work for Google’s self-driving car unit and conspired with Uber to establish a startup that’d be bought by Uber, and left Google with lots of Google’s IP
      • that’s probably not civil, that’s millions of dollars of IP, that’s probably criminal larceny
    • Susan Fowler
      • It was ultimately the Uber investors' hand that was forced
      • findings from Eric Holder’s writeup included that the cultural values needed to go