The Musk Algorithm

Hello, 👋

The vast majority prefers getting the newsletter at the current time so they can start their week or get a head start on Sunday evening by reading through the most influential leadership articles.

And also, almost everyone chooses quality over quantity. The top 5 most interesting articles. No more than that. And ideally, with great summaries and takeaways. I’ll do my best. 🫡

Thank y’all for your time and feedback. It’s the most important part that helps making this newsletter better.

The Musk Algorithm
4 minutes by DHH

A succinct distillation of a practical and powerful work method but one for a successful company culture too. And this is how Musk runs his companies.

1. Question every requirement.

2. Delete any part or process you can.

3. Simplify and optimize.

4. Accelerate cycle time.

5. Automate.

Most founders and executives would do well to add at least 10% of Musk's intensity to their personal recipe.

Build or buy: Native SaaS Integrations?
sponsored by Paragon

Your B2B SaaS company needs to provide seamless native integrations to sell into the market today.

However, it requires months of engineering to build and maintain each native integration in your product.

That's why the fastest growing SaaS copmanies buy embedded iPaaS solutions. But what are the tradeoffs?

We cover all the factors you need to consider when making a Build vs. Buy decision.

Estimating how much it costs to run greenfield systems
11 minutes by Ryan Dawson

It is all too tempting to overlook cloud compute costs when planning a software system. Focus tends to be on cost to build. But for some systems the cost to run can greatly exceed the cost to build. This article explains how to break your system down into component parts and estimate your cloud compute costs.

Internal vs. External Accountabilities
4 minutes by Aaron Stannard

What people get wrong about manager and employee relationships. Within an organization accountabilities are structured into:

1. Accountable to customers or potentially other external stakeholders.

2. Accountable to team.

3. Accountable for individual performance.

And these accountabilities compound on top of each other.

A Management Maturity Model for Performance
34 minutes by Alex Russell

Despite advances in browser tooling, automated evaluation, lab tools, guidance, and runtimes, modern teams struggle to deliver even decent performance with today's popular frameworks. This is not a technical problem per se. It's a management issue, and one that teams can conquer with the right frame of mind and support.

Kind Engineering: How To Engineer Kindness
24 minutes by Evan Smith

How do you avoid becoming a Brilliant Jerk? This article helps you to learn practical tips on communication, honesty and psychological safety.