Newsletter
Last full month of summer ahead
I'm looking forward to Some travel, Some hiking, My toes in the sand, and You finding some sand of your own. In the meantime, expect a weekly delivery from the vault. I'll see you in September!
Newsletter
Essays
The Free Man
It’s the World Cup and I couldn’t help myself. Football, the one where you actually hit the ball with your foot, is the only truly global game. Go anywhere in the world. Anywhere. And people are either playing it or talking about it. Dale Carnegie wrote a book
Essays
Managing from Ignorance
A Sonata in Three Movements
Essays
The universe is not dying to hear from you — not while someone else is finding the courage to speak
What actually happens inside you when you say you’re listening? When I’m waiting for my turn to speak, I’m not listening. When I’m filtering what you’re saying as you’re saying it, I’m not listening. When I’m debating whether I want to agree
Essays
The Blur
I had cataract surgery on one eye last week. The world has been a matter of contours and shadows rather than resolved edges and precise detail. I couldn’t drive. I have been reading signs at distance, and signs at distance had become impressionist gestures. But for most of what
Essays
You’re only as smart as how dumb you are
Not dumb as in lacking intelligence. Dumb as in aware of your ignorance. Most people treat knowledge as accumulation. You learn things. The pile grows. You become more capable as the pile gets bigger. This is true. It is not sufficient. What the accumulation model misses is the edge. Every
Newsletter
April 2026 - Prussia, a wine bottle, a cartel, and the fine print
The premise - Brendan McCord | Cosmos Institute Prussia, 1809. Napoleon has just walked through it. The nation wants officers and engineers. The diplomat handed the education file gives them something else. McCord traces what happened to that idea across two centuries and closes with the observation that the people using AI
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March 2026: Speak, Compete, Organize, Think
Here’s how language works Edwin L. Battistella | Oxford University Press Blog Veni, vidi, vici. Friends, Romans, countrymen. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. You already know the rule of three. Battistella draws on S. Jay Keyser’s study of repetition in the verbal arts to
Newsletter
February 2026 — What the Layoff Needed, What the Slide Did, What the Prophet Forgot, What the Berries Required
Something has been bothering me this month and I haven’t been able to name it cleanly. The closest I can get is this: we are living through a moment in which the future is being used to make decisions about people in the present. Not the actual future of
Essays
My Success, Your Failure
When the project succeeds, it’s because of the leader’s clear direction. When it failed, the team didn’t execute properly. When retention improves, the leader has created the right culture. When people leave, they weren’t a good fit. When the product shipped on time, the leader kept
Newsletter
January 2026 - Coordination is the Tax, Silence is a Choice, Culture is Behavior, Efficiency is the Enemy
Welcome to the usual mix of the month: a handful of pieces that caught my eye over the past few weeks. Some overlap in theme, which I’ll let you draw your own lines on. 1. The reason your organization moves slowly, works in silos, and has too many meetings
Essays
A note
This week I’m setting aside the regular essay to say something simple. A lot of people around you (family members, neighbors, colleagues) are affected by what’s happening in our country at the moment. Many of you are too. I am. If you manage people, you already know this.