Principle one: Look for messy jobs.

Principle two: Be wary of work from home.

Principle three: Be proficient with AI tools.

Principle four: Work in the biomedical sector.

Principle five: Run experiments.

Principle six: Gather data.

Principle seven: Get a hands-on job in the energy sector.

Paradoxically, by being disposable, you free yourself. You make it easier for yourself to grow into a higher-level role and you make it easier for yourself to change the projects you work on. He suggests 10 specific things one can do:

📕 Document your knowledge.

🏁 Document your long-term plans.

🤝 Document your meetings. Keep (public, within the team) notes for all meetings you attend, listing who was there, what was discussed, and any conclusions.

🚶♂️Bring others to meetings. If not a 1-on-1.

🔧 Train people around you.

🎓 Identify and train your replacement.

🔑 Give power to the people. Trust them to do the right thing.

📧 Do not make yourself the point of contact. Establish mailing lists.

💼 Delegate.

🏫 Always be learning.

Thankfully, you can learn most of the required Tech Lead responsibilities and skills from books, blogs, or talks and start practicing them right away.

The are only two questions you should ask yourself:

• Which Tech Lead skills should I focus on?

• What are the best resources for each skill?

This guide is the answer to both. It’s a collection of the most effective resources on the various aspects of tech leadership, which, combined with mindful practice, will help you to become a successful Tech Lead!

2. A curated and opinionated list of resources for Chief Technology Officers and VP R&D, with the emphasis on startups and hyper-growth companies.

3. A curated list for software developers to transition to an engineering management role.

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.

2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

Each of us has two types of intelligence, known as fluid and crystallized. Fluid intelligence is our capacity to reason and solve novel problems, independent of knowledge from the past, and it peaks earlier in life. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use skills, knowledge and experience; it shows rising levels of performance well into middle age and beyond. According to Georgia Tech psychology professor Phillip Ackerman, the best way for older adults to compensate for declines in youthful “fluid” intelligence is to select jobs and goals that optimize their “crystallized” knowledge and skills.

For instance, while the field of software coding favors the young and fluid, managing projects and the business can shift the needed skills to an older profile.Consider the career of Diane Greene, who spent her 20s and early 30s organizing windsurfing races and working for Coleman, the camping equipment company. At 33, she earned a master’s degree in computer science and pronounced herself ready for a “grown-up’s job.” In 1998, at age 43—late by Silicon Valley’s youth-centric standards—Ms. Greene cofounded the software company VMware and then led it for a decade. In 2015, Google acquired another company she started and, at age 60, put her in charge of one of its most important businesses, Google Cloud (a position from which she stepped down in January).

What about creativity and innovation? That realm must belong to the young, with their exuberance and fresh ideas, right? Not necessarily. For instance, the average age of scientists when they are doing work that eventually leads to a Nobel Prize is 39, according to a 2008 Northwestern University study. The average age of U.S. patent applicants is 47.

Take Ken Fisher, who today runs Fisher Investments, a stock fund with $100 billion under management and 50,000 customers. After graduating from high school, he flunked out of a junior college. “I had no particular direction,” he said. He went back to school to study forestry, hoping for a career outdoors, but switched to economics and got his degree in 1972. In his early 20s, he hung out his shingle as a financial adviser, following his father’s career. To bring in extra money, he took construction jobs, and he played slide guitar in a bar. But he also read and read: “Books about management and business—and maybe thirty trade magazines a month for years,” he says. By the time he reached his 30s, an idea had gelled that would make him his fortune. As he puts it, during that period of reflection, “I developed a theory about valuing companies that was a bit unconventional.”

Tales of late bloomers are found in every walk of life and often feature an under-appreciated talent that emerged more slowly than the standard expectations. As a high school athlete in San Mateo, Calif., the New England Patriots’ legendary quarterback Tom Brady, winner of six Super Bowls, wasn’t on the radar of most college recruiters. Though he made the team at highly rated Michigan, he had to compete to become the starting quarterback in both his junior and senior years. He was only the 199th player selected in the NFL draft in 2000. A year later, when the Patriots’ starting quarterback was sidelined by injury, Mr. Brady, by then 24, finally got his big chance—and emerged over the course of that season as the spectacular success that he’s been ever since.

How many of us were overlooked in our school years, or dismissed early in our careers, or are dismissed even now? What gifts and passions might we possess that haven’t yet been discovered but that could give us wings to fly? Record-setting astronaut Scott Kelly, who has spent more than five hundred days in space, the most of any American, said he was so bored in high school that “I finished in the half of the class that made the top half possible.” Billionaire Diane Hendricks, daughter of dairy farmers, sold houses in Wisconsin, married, divorced, then 10 years later met her next husband, Ken, a roofer. The two maxed out their credit cards to start ABC Supply, a source for windows, gutters, and roofing material. Today Ms. Hendricks presides over a company worth $5 billion.

International star Andrea Bocelli began singing opera when he was 34. Martha Stewart was 35 when she started her catering business in a friend’s basement, and 42 when her first book of recipes was published. Toni Morrison published her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” at 39 and won a Pulitzer Prize for “Beloved” at 56 and the Nobel Prize in Literature five years later. J.K. Rowling was a divorced mother on public assistance before she created Harry Potter at age 35. Tom Siebel founded his first big tech company, Siebel Systems, at 41, and his second, C3, at 57. Famous movie villain Alan Rickman owned a graphic design studio for years before he got his first taste of fame at 42 for his role as Hans Gruber in “Die Hard.”

“There are no second acts in American lives,” wrongly observed “The Great Gatsby” author F. Scott Fitzgerald. But Fitzgerald was an early blooming snob: He attended Princeton and was already a famous literary success in his mid-20s. But that was his peak. By his 30s, Fitzgerald was spiraling downward. He must have met all kinds of late bloomers and second acts who were on their way up. He died a bitter man at 44, the same age that Raymond Chandler began to write detective stories. Chandler was 51 in 1939, the year his first book, “The Big Sleep,” was published.

I also thought I’d be good at certain things. Competing a 100 hours a week won’t be one of them, because there’ll always be someone else that can do a 110 hours. But being recognized for what the things I can bring to the table are, in terms a certain investment perspective, a certain discipline, a certain risk aversion that maybe other people didn’t have would be a good thing. All I would say is try to hold out. If you have to work for a couple of years to get the next offer or to get int business school, fine. But remember, your goal’s not to be working a 100 hours a week, your goal is to get into a situation that recognizes you for who you are. If you ever are going to work that hard, try and have it be on your nickel, try to be an entrepreneur, and at least you’re doing it for you, not for somebody else who … You can hold you a better accountable than you can hold a boss accountable. And if you do work that hard at least the rewards will also go to you, so if you can, be an entrepreneur, especially if you’re gonna work that hard.

1. Keep coding.
2. Focusing only on the work, not the people.
3. Measuring your value by your output
4. Expecting without expressing.
5. Leaving the team out of commitments
6. Mistaking directing for leading
7. Avoiding hard conversations
8. Stop learning your craft

Reflections On Reaching Fifty

I was born in April of 1966, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Soon after, my parents and grandparents all lost personal freedom simply for being intellectuals. So I spent most of my childhood rotating between adopted families of peasants and coalminers. From that “promising” start, looking back, I’m amazed as to the long journey that I have taken to bring me here today in America.

I could never image that life would turn out this way. It takes countless bridges, roads, means of transportation, and years of effort to travel this far. The countless people in my life — kind-hearted strangers, well-wishers, mentors, partners, friends — are my bridges, roads, transportations for getting here. Without your help, friendship, and constant encouragement, I simply couldn’t travel this far. So on my fiftieth birthday, my heart is filled with gratitude to all of you, all of my friends, here and elsewhere. From the bottom of my heart — thank you thank you and thank you!!!

If I have anything to do with that journey, it is simply that I took it. Woody Allen is right, 90% of success is to show up. At various stages in my life, I could have stopped, or took the long rest. For some reason, my heart told me otherwise. I just kept going. Half of the time, I wasn’t sure where I was heading. The other half I was probably taking the wrong turns. No matter.

But I was on high alert to correct mistakes along the way. I was careful not to be influenced by emotions that I know are poisonous and counter-productive to the journey I want to take; things like envy, resentment, hatred, jealousy, greed and self-pity. I certainly wasn’t born with immunity to this side of human nature. In fact, my early life experiences may require me to work even harder than others to guard against these human vulnerabilities. And when I did fall for their prey, or when I took a wrong turn, I was fortunate to be able to correct them quickly. Socrates was right, unexamined life is not worth living, certainly not living well. Every once in a while, I would sit down alone to figure out where I might be wrong. Sometimes, what is wrong today is what was right in the past. As circumstances change, so should we. In my experience, every five to ten years or so, I had to change so much of myself that at times it felt like almost a reinvention. I’ve been blessed with the faculties of rationality that help me to form the habit of self-examination. And when I fail in self-examination, I’m even more blessed to have some strong friends who can point out my blind spots. I would have been lost in life’s various mazes if I had not gotten that help.

So through the tumbling and zig-zags, I kept going while at all time insisting on sitting in the driver’s seat. It is my life and my journey after all.

And now that I have made it through the first half, it is time to examine again for the second half.

According to Confucius, at fifty, one should know his purpose in life mandated by Heaven above. In other words, what your life was meant to be. Having been very close to fatality a few times in my life, forgive me if I say I actually believe in Confucius’s dictate. Having done relatively well in additions in life, I’m slowly learning the art of subtraction and focus.

I will fail in a lot of professions. For example, I won’t be good at ballet or basketball for that matter. My temperament and experiences prepared me well for a career in investment. I was extremely lucky to be introduced into the field by the greatest investor who ever lived when I accidentally stepped into a lecture by Warren Buffett at Columbia nearly 25 years ago. And it was even more magical 13 years ago when Charlie Munger became my investment partner, mentor and life-long friend. To this day, I don’t know to what I would attribute this extreme fortune. It is something even the wildest imagination or the best fiction could not conjure.

Now that I have compiled a record of my own for over twenty years, still enjoy the game even better than when I started, I think I will simply continue. I’m curious to see how long I can follow the great record set by my teachers, Warren and Charlie, that is by now well over fifty years. Not for the size of asset under management, not for the fees, just keep a score card the way a golfer would after each round and after a life-long career. So value investing is likely a life-long pursuit for me.

Having lived my life so far nearly evenly divided between the US and China, I’ve come to learn something unique about the two countries, cultures and myself. For years, I struggled to fit my own identity into both, often with poor results. It is as if the two cultures ran in different parts of my body — constantly fighting each other for supremacy. But I have learned tremendously in the process. In my 40’s, the two cultures finally came to peace with one other inside me, and I have come to identify myself as both 100% Chinese and 100% American simultaneously. And better still 1+1 is greater than 2. Through the culture lenses of both, I now see a few things neither Chinese nor Americans can see easily. That gives me a unique perspective of looking at both countries, and therefore able to tell one’s story better to the other, and then some more. Indeed, I think 1+1=11 in this case. Therefore, I feel it is both a duty and a pleasure to do so for the country and people that I love most. So this will be another thing I will focus on the second half of my life.

I have three lovely children. They are beautiful, talented and kind-hearted. I’m most proud of them. I love them so much that I will never want to burden them with a large amount of inherited wealth. Instead, I’d love to have my girls join Eva and me in giving responsibly to make the world a better place. In particularly, we want to focus on things I have some knowledge of and care deeply about — to make US and China understand each other better and to make quality education more available to deserved young people.

Lastly, reaching 50 probably makes me closer to the end than to the beginning. Regarding age, my favorite quote comes from Norman Lear. At 94 he is still active in so many different things, collecting fans who are in their 80’s, 60’s and all the way down to the 20’s. I once ask him how old does he think of himself. Without missing a beat, he said, “I’m always the same age as the people I talk to.” Now, that is a cool answer! Ever since, I’ve been paying close attention to who I am talking to ;-)  Now that I’ve officially crossed the half time line, I really need to make more young friends as my new teachers so that I can stay fresh.

So my friends, may we all grow wiser with age and younger at heart always.

[source:valuewalk]