Manasee

How are you paying it forward?

This deserves distribution beyond our slack. 🐐 @katarinabatina

1/ For years, I thought I was driving innovation — helping shape early versions of Google Maps, Search, and YouTube. Then an MIT professor asked me: “Can you name a time you designed a truly new behavior?” Not a better version. Something genuinely novel. I couldn’t. 🧵

The @duolingo team just published their internal handbook sharing how they build product, hire, experiment, and build a brand around "wholesome and unhinged" 🤣👏👌 Lots of good ideas to borrow/steal for your own team. Check it out: blog.duolingo.com/handbook/

Ex Apple design leader Colin Burns talks about how Apple comes up with 100 ideas, creates 10 prototypes and land on one product/feature. Most companies do the opposite. Come up with one idea, ship it and move on.

“More engineers” will usually *not* solve your problems. Because the real problem is often a strategy problem, culture problem, interpersonal problem, trust problem, creativity problem, or market problem. More engineers *will* solve your “I don’t have enough engineers” problem.

Creating good user interactions with technology is not a design problem. It’s a power struggle. 1

Corporate emails, explained

It wasn't until I'd *taught* algorithms a few times that I finally understood why sorting is in the CS curriculum. Unfortunately, most curricula don't explain this! It is NOT because sorting is an important algorithm to learn to implement...

History being made

I wish to learn how to obsess less. I wish to be more curious, open to enjoying learning for no reason, and calm tf down.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss...

Boomers ARE made different. Dad just casually broke his Duolingo streak of 804 days (!) Coz he went on a holiday like it was no big deal. I don't know anyone my age that wouldn't make every single life decision around keeping it going.

Just me, or does November feel like a never-ending Monday?

[Hey Yishan, you used to run Reddit, ] How do you solve the content moderation problems on Twitter? (Repeated 5x in two days) Okay, here are my thoughts: (1/nnn)

Oh, so Youtube Sans wasn't just for halloween??? 😏

Please unblock this route so people don't feel like hostages!

Train no. 09067 is late by 8 hrs. No water supply in the washroom no attendant on the train. My elderly parents missed a wedding due to this delay. They have run out of water to drink, and no other recourse! @RailMinIndia @IRCTCofficial @AshwiniVaishnaw @RailwaySeva @WesternRly

The world is full of middle managers who are sufficiently far away from doing things that they forget how hard it is, but have an eye for detail and will happily pick you up on the smallest thing.

Expertise, and the magnanimity to share it does not come pre-packaged in age or experience. Every relationship dyad has two way knowledge flows that keep morphing provided each party has a growth mindset. That easy. Mentees, do share the tea 😛

A decade-ish ago, I had bookish notions of hierarchy, expertise and what constitutes a successful mentor-mentee relationship. After 6+ years in academia and 6+ years in the industry, I now know better.