Embodying company values

A lot of companies have vision statements and say their cultures are based on values. They might even hang those vision statements in the office. Many of these values are so generic that they can be used by any company. Even companies with very specific mission statements and principles might have trouble articulating these values, let alone living them every day.

Amazon, however, comes across differently. They’re known for their leadership principles. When candidates apply, they’re tested on how well they adhere to these principles. I coached a candidate to get into Amazon, so I know how rigorous the hiring process is in validating leadership experience. I’ve often wondered if these principles just exist on paper or if they’re actually part of the culture. I got my answer recently.

As a CTO, I come across sales leaders and sales-support leaders from numerous organizations, both large and small. Compared to others, my partnership with Amazon stands out. Two people I interacted with from Amazon Web Services (AWS) exemplified customer obsession, a core Amazon leadership principle — Anisha and Sanjeev.

Let me give you couple of examples.

Few months back I got an email from Anisha, introducing herself as an account manager, my initial instinct was to dismiss it. I often receive similar messages from various partners, and more often than not, their goal is simply to sell more services rather than genuinely helping me. Typically, when I inquire about specific services, I’m directed towards documentation that I’ve already read. Despite this, I decided to reply back to Anisha due to our substantial dealings with AWS.

I replied with two requests:
• Information on AWS’s new ML services
• How these services can help our developers as well as our customers

To my surprise, within 15 minutes Anisha responded with an offer to call me or set up a demo session with her technical team. Impressed by her helpful and immediate response, I provided her with my phone number, and she promptly called me to discuss how her team could assist us. Note that this was without any sales pitch.

Eager to explore two issues—how our employees could use ML models and what we could do for our customers using ML—she scheduled a meeting with a technical architect, Sanjeev. He agreed to conduct a session on enhancing developer productivity through ML and addressed the questions of my tech team for nearly an hour. I have never seen my team members so enthusiastic in any training sessions. That would’ve been the perfect moment to sell us Code Whisperer licences, but Anisha generously offered free licenses for three months so we could test the service ourselves.

Curious about their other offerings, I inquired about additional services we could utilize. Both Sanjeev and Anisha explained different services that we could use for solving a problem we were trying to solve for one of our customer. Once the problem and scope was clear, without hesitation, Sanjeev offered to build a proof of concept (POC) for us. However, I insisted that as a services company, we should be the ones to build it and asked for his assistance instead. For the next four weeks, Sanjeev dedicated himself to weekly calls, discussing the intricacies of the problem we aimed to solve, our approach, and the services required.

By the end of that POC period, we had successfully completed it and presented it to our customer – who was delighted with the outcome. Throughout the entire four-week process, there was never a sales pitch; their focus was solely on helping us build what we needed for our client.

Sometimes it felt like we were their only customers, even though I know that is not true. Whenever I expressed my gratitude, Anisha replied, “customer obsession is ingrained into us.” Both of them manifested customer obsession – a key leadership principle at Amazon. Anisha even nominated our solution for an AWS award. We won.

It’s refreshing to see employees embody and live by company values. After nearly half a year working with them, I’m still amazed by their unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction. I’m curious how Amazon instills leadership principles.

December 17, 2023

Only honest feedback fuels growth

You must get feedback to grow in your career. But we Indians often avoid giving honest feedback. I was lucky to have a mentor who gave me brutally honest feedback. Once, I joked about how scary it was to hear his feedback. Something he said really stuck with me: If I care about your growth, I’ll give you feedback. If I don’t, I’ll stay quiet.

If you want your team or mentees to grow, give them honest, specific feedback on what they’re doing right and what needs improvement. If you don’t, you’ll limit their growth because they’ll keep making the same mistakes. They might never see these mistakes unless they discover them through self-reflection, which can take a long time.

Give someone honest, timely feedback if you care about their growth. That’s the only way you can fuel their growth.

December 16, 2023

Two AI trends for 2024

There are two emerging AI trends that will impact our careers. These trends will also affect how products are built, especially how they’re billed. It’s about AI managers and AI workers, which are interconnected but need to be discussed separately.

Food delivery apps like Zomato and ride-sharing apps like Uber and Ola already employ AI managers. In these cases, AI algorithms do a good job allocating work. In the future, we’ll see more AI management tools, like routing and management algorithms. AI managers won’t just be used in offices; Bangalore airport uses DigiYatra, which uses facial recognition for check-in. Eventually, AI managers will become seamlessly integrated into our daily routines, assigning and evaluating tasks without us even noticing.

The second trend is hiring AI workers. It’s already starting to take shape. Instead of hiring human video or audio editors, you can use an app like Descript to remove background noise and edit recordings. With tools like Audiopen, you can dictate, transcribe, and write. These are just two examples of how AI workers will become more common.

Why call them AI workers instead of apps? Because they are like virtual assistants. People have been hiring virtual assistants around the world to do things like email management and calendar organizing. Typically, these assistants communicate using text-based platforms like WhatsApp.

Right now, there’s a real person answering these chats. However, as AI workers become more sophisticated and integrated into our lives, we may be able to communicate with them like human virtual assistants – blurring the lines between apps and workers. Imagine chatting with an AI chatbot, asking for research on specific topics like food allergies or flight schedules between Chandigarh and Bangalore. It might even book a flight for you and deduct the payment from your account.

We hire Ola and Uber for a specific trip. We don’t pay a monthly subscription. These “workers” will be billed like Ola and Uber. Instead of paying a monthly subscription, we’ll hire them for a specific task. So product builders will have to rethink how they bill and slice their products.

December 15, 2023

Errors of commission and omission are joined at the hip

If you try to minimize Errors of Commission, you will end up with Errors of Omission. And if you try to minimize Errors of Omission, you will end up with Errors of Commission

Vikas gives three examples of how these two errors are interlinked.

If you attend all phone calls, it’s an error of commission and you will end up wasting your time attending spam calls. If you avoid all calls from unknown numbers you might miss an important call – probably a family member or friend calling from an unknown number or from the passport office informing you of status of your passport application (happened to me).

Both errors have a cost and it is impossible to avoid them. So what could be a strategy?

Vikas provides Jeff Bezos as an example. Amazon committed an error of commission to develop Fire Phone which flopped. It had a cost.

But that mindset of better to make errors of commission than errors of omission is the same mindset that led Amazon to launch Kindle, AWS, Prime and so many other services.

Avoiding errors of omission is safe. Just don’t do stupid things. But as Ken Robinson shared in his TED Talk:

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original

Jeff Bezos himself writes:

As a company grows, everything needs to scale, including the size of your failed experiments.

Another reason not to avoid errors of omission. You can’t analyse those mistakes. Your errors of omission are invisible. As Buffet wrote in his “Letters to shareholders” in 1992,

Typically, our most egregious mistakes fall in the omission, rather than the commission, category. That may spare Charlie and me some embarrassment, since you don’t see these errors

Do we have to live with this conundrum? Can we resolve it? As Vikas asks,

How can you want the upside of innovation but not the downside?

Vikas goes on to decipher a framework from Amazon’s play book.

cut down on projects that are not working out and double down on those that are working. Those that work out tend to payoff exponentially!

I follow this in stock market investing. I have a framework to analyse companies. Since I have fixed amount of money to invest, I have to allocate capital correctly. I have no crystal ball to look into the future.

I buy all the stocks that fit the framework. After that, I wait a year. I validate my hypothesis. If a stock is working, I double down and accumulate as much as I can. I get rid of stocks that don’t perform according to my hypothesis.

So I commit both errors of omission and commission with significant stress on commission.

I’ve done the same with my career. It’s been a long path for me being a people manager, consultant, startup founder, and software architect. I’ve taken as many chances as I can. Afterward, I pushed and doubled down on whatever worked and I loved, which led to a fulfilling career.

In summary:

  • Both errors of commission and omission has costs
  • Choose to commit errors of commission within a framework of hypothesis and validation
  • Double down on what works

December 14, 2023

Three ingredients of happiness

Three ingredients of happiness

Happiness and its feelings are associated with three tangible phenomena in our lives that we can actually understand and manage: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. – Arthur Brooks, Professor & Columnist

The first is satisfaction. True satisfaction comes from achieving something after a struggle. Cheating to get an A on an exam may get you the grade, but not the satisfaction. The challenge with satisfaction isn’t getting it, but keeping it. One achievement doesn’t guarantee lifelong contentment; one must always aim higher. Therefore, the path to genuine satisfaction lies not in having more, but in wanting less. Otherwise, you’ll be on a hedonistic treadmill, striving for more but never being happy.

Enjoyment is the second ingredient. It’s important to distinguish between pleasures and enjoyments. Pleasures are solitary activities – like watching movies or a cricket game – that don’t make you happy. You can turn enjoyment into happiness by combining it with social interaction and memories. Engaging in challenging activities with others makes lasting memories that contribute to happiness over time. Trying to find pleasure through solitary activities can lead to addiction and the endless pursuit of fleeting pleasures.

Lastly, there’s meaning. Think about why you’re doing what you’re doing and why it’s important. Understanding the purpose of your pursuits will help you achieve true happiness through satisfaction, enjoyment, and a sense of purpose. It’s hard to find meaning in life without asking lots of questions. There are many theories and schools of thought for discovering your essence, from atheism to theism.

In his seminal book “The seven habits of highly effective people,” Steven Covey suggests writing your obituary to find meaning. I wrote my obituary following that advice, and it really helped me find meaning.

These three ingredients must be present in abundance and balance: meaning, memory, and enjoyment. When these three elements are abundant and balanced, happiness naturally follows.

December 13, 2023