Vlad Bogos

For my male audience

On Scott Adams. A man finds, to his astonishment, that he exists. After the elation of childhood wears off, he asks, who am I, why am I here, how does this work? These are hard questions, so after a brief struggle, he selects a readymade answer and goes about the motions of life. Scott Adams was not such a man. He was a live player, ever curious, intent on figuring out this simulation that he found himself in. From first principles, Scott unraveled, understood, and ultimately controlled his own reality. He hacked himself with affirmations, others with persuasion, the world with simultaneous sips. He explained people as moist robots, two movies happening on one screen, his world as Gods’ debris. He carved a personal mission to “be useful,” and made us all better writers, public speakers, and persuaders. He preached the footwear theory of motivation, the Adams Law of slow-moving disasters, the skill stack, systems over goals, and of course, the Dilbert Principle. Besides cartooning, philosophizing, and teaching, Scott rose to the occasion and displayed, “the one virtue that cannot be faked” - courage. Scott had the courage to speak honestly as he saw it - about Trump, about his nation, and about his time, even though it cost him friends, audience, money, and his ticket to polite society. Scott had true courage, the kind that makes you unpopular, the kind that is always and everywhere in short supply, At the end, as any hacker of reality, Scott covered all of his bases - he left as a Buddhist, a Christian, and a player in the Simulation. Scott, we didn’t get enough time with you, but you were a mentor and a marvel. You were useful and you were courageous. You were incompressible and indivisible. One of a kind, and generous with your drawing, writing, and speaking. Unlike your squealing critics in the chattering class, you will be read generations from now. On this earth there are many long-lived hells but no lasting heaven. Each heaven must be created and nurtured, ex-nihilo, from mind and from mud. Scott, you created a small heaven for us all, and to a larger heaven you go. A man finds, to his astonishment, that he no longer exists. He asks why, what it was for, and how will the new reality work? When the rest of us get there, we’ll find Scott, ever useful, ready to explain, having figured it all out. Notes: • First line paraphrasing Schopenhauer. • Courage quote via Taleb.

A Final Message From Scott Adams

Inject this into my veins. 😍😍

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my favourite quote from atomic habits by James clear; "It doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don't want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process, is to guarantee disappointment"

Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched this

Let me tell you a dirty secret about a lot of execs: They're extremely smart. And they haven't had to do their own work for years. Look inside any mid->large size company and you'll find VP+ executives that were promoted fast and furious in their early career because they're smart, hard working, make good decisions, have good taste, and can manage up down and sideways well. And as they become more senior, they start to earn the "you're too important to [X]" executive scaffold: - EAs for admin/scheduling/todos - Chief of Staff to keep their directs on track - Sr. leaders working under them eager for opportunity, so take on projects, presentations, meetings, etc. They're still smart, and they're still hard working, and they still make good decisions, so they tend to orchestrate and use these tools at their disposal quite well, choosing what gets done by whom. But - they show up to board meetings with decks made by their team - they show up to sales meetings with prep docs done by the sales person - they share insights generated by some data team - they +@[ea] to schedule every meeting - someone reads & responds to their emails And their job becomes - charm customers - charm candidates - charm the team - charm the board - charm the market - have good ideas (for someone else to do) And before someone shouts "this just optimizes for people who are highly political!" I must emphasize: these people are still usually wicked smart, they're usually extremely charming, and they work really hard (earliest on, latest off.) They hang in the forest, not a tree. Their experience saves your butt once or twice. They just don't have to put their hands on a keyboard and do the things. Sometimes they *can't* put their hands on a keyboard and do the things, because they're in endless meetings and on endless trips to do the charming/idea things. But after awhile of this, their "doing the things" muscle atrophies. Your CMO can't write compelling copy. Your CPO doesn't look at designs anymore. Your CRO can't login to demo. Your VPE doesn't have the latest local env setup. And over time, as an exec, your ability to be wicked smart degrades with your distance from the work, especially when things like AI come and smack your team in the face. This is all to say, I have two warnings for you if you've made it this far: EXECS: Do not stop doing the things. Take on projects, write your docs, do your own damn analysis, and don't stop touching the work. Fix your calendar so you're not just bopping meeting to meeting, and use that big brain of yours do actually build something. TEAMS: Consider yourself lucky if you have a leadership team that can still/wants to do the things. Trust: you'd rather have a micromanagey CEO who drops suggested edits in your doc than a manager-class exec team that doesn't even know your doc exists. Your company will be better for the work, the specificity, the care that comes with a doing-the-things leadership team, than a organizes-the-work leadership team. And for all of you: AI will generate a little microcosm of the dynamic above, but for IC work. I love AI, but still think it's important to exercise the muscle daily of writing, coding, reading, speaking, thinking. All unused skills will atrophy. Make sure you get stronger, not weaker, with these new tools. Ok back to doing things 😎