2020 week 49
You might or might not have noticed that I skipped a newsletter last week, I had some personal downtime, got some really bad news on the weekend, and just didn’t feel like posting anything.
That said, the newsletter is back with more than usual content to make up for last week ✨
The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, by Charlie Munger
You can either listen to this legend or read the transcript about incentives, cognitive dissonance, and cognitive biases affecting our judgment.
Escaping the Modern Rat Race: How to Handle the Game of Competitive Signaling
An opinionated and thought-provoking piece. I find it hard to disagree with its statements.
Your Brain Is Not for Thinking
In stressful times, this surprising lesson from neuroscience may help to lessen your anxieties.
7 harmful biases in performance reviews
The end of year performance review cycle is happening now in most companies and we are prone to biases which can ruin it. I’ve listed the 7 most common ones in my post
A system design primer
Learn how to design large-scale systems. Prep for the system design interview. Includes Anki flashcards. A neat collection of system design concepts.
We’re Optimizing Ourselves to Death
Another not-so-bright lookout on our lifestyle, culture, and work - but again, so hard to disagree :/ The way I see these ‘doom’ articles is that they are good food for thought and can yield a few areas we can be more conscious about.
Kindness is a hidden software engineering superpower
In which I argue that kindness helps your peers feel safe, and if they feel safe people take the risks that enable efficient, honest communication and thus real collaboration.
Games People Play
A really nice iteration on Eric Berne’s topic. It’s a must-read for everyone, I think, the original book was one of the most revealing writings for me back when I became interested in psychology. These ‘hidden’ but scripted games are happening in our everyday interactions, so it’s really important to understand - and change them.