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The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants them to do, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
An effective leader is not an autocrat. The best leaders who build the most support and achieve the most lasting success [...]

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

-John W. Gardner

Quality is important in plumbing, philosophy, and coding all the same…

We Americans have been taught that safety and security should be the highest goals of our lives. You should strive to work a “safe job” with “good benefits” so you can raise your children in the same fashion, perpetuating the cycle of excruciating mundanity until the guys you pay for your security cause the nuclear [...]

Recently I used Fog Creek’s Copilot software to attempt to help a family member import some favorites into Firefox. I followed the original Project Aardvark team two summers ago and knew what Copilot was in broad strokes.
So I ran the two minute trial and things seemed to work as expected. I bought a day pass [...]

Recently, Jason Kottke wrote about how Facebook is “a step sideways or even backwards (towards an AOL-style service) for the web”. Essentially, he argues that because nearly all data on Facebook is in their “walled garden”, inaccessible by Google and other non-members on the open web, the service is ultimately doomed. [...]

What follows is the briefest of summaries about my feelings on parenthood.
Most people suck. My parents were (separately) very good at teaching me relevant things for life and now I’m a pretty good person for it. Kids are expensive and time-consuming, but I feel a little guilty not imparting good sense and knowledge on at [...]

One of the most frustrating aspects of driving in the US is the utter lack of understanding and attention paid to the simple rule: “Slower traffic keep right.”
It’s not a difficult rule to follow and many drivers in many other countries seem to live quite successfully by this rule. The left lane is not your [...]

What is your online banking password? I have 10 to 1 odds that say it sucks. You should probably do something about that. If you like money, that is.

Alex King wrote a couple of posts [1, 2] on using password hashing software to abstract your passwords out of your head, ostensibly increasing the level of security involved with the web sites you entrust your information to.

You’re up late in Widener Library on the Harvard campus, studying for your MCAT to get into Johns Hopkins Medical School. There’s a familiar face at one of the tables next to you — it’s that kid who never shows up for lecture and is constantly struggling through the same material that you and your [...]

“Business is business.” says the old adage. It is, of course, true. Naïvety, anxiety, or eagerness can cloud issues of business and lead to unsupported judgments and decisions. It is not immediately apparent that trust in the business world is something to be reserved for the most solid of relationships — though none is probably [...]