Glenn Stovall's Public Notebook

Career Strategy

Hypergrowth Startup Strategy

  • reliability is paramount.

    • be the person everyone wants to ask to fix something
    • never drop the ball.

  • think in problems & skills, not roles. Everyone switches role.

    • You are hired to fix problems, not point them out. Most problems are not hard but there are a lot of them.
    • A half-fixed problem is worse than no fix at all. You can't resue or build on a 20% solution.

  • Everyone's job is to fix/create/setup/improve.

    • all roles are interim. Hire better people to replace you.

  • avoid stress by maintaining control.

  • Things going wrong is normal. Have risk mitigation strategies.

  • Don't work a lot, work quickly and effectively.

    • Don't wait, don't get stuck. switch between issues if you get stuck.
    • If you are waiting on someone else, see if you can do a good enough version yourself.
    • Acknowledge quickly, solve async.

  • Scale yourself by automating, hiring, empowering

  • never load your stress or frustration on others.

    • if you share a problem share a default solution to avoid 'passing the burden.'

Career Advancement Strategy

  • Get ahead by working hard for yourself (keeping an indie mindset), such as:
    • building and maintaining a network
    • getting certifications
    • freelancing and consulting
    • creating your own products
  • exhibit loyalty to people, not organizations
  • have a clear definition of what success means to you.
  • find positions of higher leverage, get yourself in better bargaining positions.
  • Don't worry about "advanced" tech title bumps like "lead" or "architect."
  • If possible, spend less time with programmers and more with project managers, etc. #above the code
  • volunteer to do non-programming work like:
    • audit processes
    • research projects
    • learn about a domain, bring others up to speed on it.
  • survival is about strength at your own level, confidence is about the illusion of strength above your level. #playing up
    • Always accept more responsibility, authority, and organizational power. Bite off more than you can chew.
    • Every transfer, promotion, or company switch is a plausible point for narrative enhancement. #narrative rationality
  • look for mutual wins.
  • avoid "carnival cash" compensation. (anything that has value within a company but does not have value outside of it.)
  • learn how to say no

Further Reading