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Several teams in Apple don't have an open floor plan. They pair two individuals in an office.

100%, I find it hard to take a marathon approach and keep chipping away. Keeping the immediate goals in mind with an overall path to follow keeps me motivated more!

I view life in 1 year increments. For this year, I aim to become fitter and healthier.

On the professional front, I would like to switch to a different team and seek new challenges!

Unfortunately, there's no way to do it currently. How do you like using your homePod ? What are somethings that you like / dislike about it ?

This is a great thread! I am in a similar position currently - I am working as a software engineer in a domain that I like, but I am really into product design, strategy in general. This lead me down an exploratory path and I got lucky with an offer from a tiny startup to join them as the first PM. The experience seems to be promising and I think I'll learn a lot.

However, I have some concerns such as the loss of pay (no more RSUs), the nasty commute (1 hour each way minimum as opposed to 20 minutes currently), the work life harmony going for a toss. Anyone out here (who made a switch to the PM space in smaller companies) willing to share their experiences ? Would love to know!

Congrats, Harj!

Any love ?

Courage by Osho.

Software Engineer @ a big tech firm : I like the fact that the work engages me to a reasonable degree. I am okay @ coding and I like it to an extent - it keeps me engaged, which is a massive plus. My co-workers are fantastic, which makes the job better. Needless to say, the money helps a lot, which lets me enjoy my weekends and other times.

Ofcourse, I yearn for a life where I am free and completely in control, doing something I like, but I really appreciate the fact that I have a job that keeps me going as well.

Been trying to ship an Alexa skill over this last couple of weeks - so far, the progress has been few and far. But hoping to get there.

It's been a great learning experience just to see what AWS has to offer and the alexa SDK is very well thought out.

That's interesting - will check it out in 2017. I got rid off a lot as well, but now that the dust has settled down, I am finding it increasingly hard to remember to not accumulate. It's a constant battle in this on-your-face advertising and consumption oriented constructs prevalent in society.

Currently Reading : Goldfinch!

Best Book I read this year : Deep Work by Cal Newport and One World Education by Sal Khan.

Best fiction : Laughter in the Dark by Nabokov.

## Deep Work by Cal Newport

## The life changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo

## So good they can’t ignore you by Cal Newport

## Serious men by Manu Joseph

## Strangers on a train

## One world education by Sal Khan (Highly recommend it)

There are several wonderful takeaways from the book which I will try to list :

- The current model of education is broken. The Prussian system was designed to isolate workers from thinkers and factory laborers from office bearers. In an era where we need lots of original and creative minds to solve problems, it just doesn’t work.

- Conventional education system leads to a lot of gaps in learning, which are not addressed. For example, in spite of scoring 90% in math, you might have missed out on a key concept which will come back to haunt you later on.

- The system of homework is broken. It prioritizes quantity over quality and is meaningless.

- The testing system is just a snapshot of the student’s learning and does not says nothing about a student’s potential to learn a subject.

Sal goes on to propose a futuristic schooling system where students would use Khan Academy or an equivalent medium to progress at their own pace and use their classrooms for pursuing creative activities and enhancing his/her learning. Another interesting idea which he proposes is to dismantle age-wise segregation and group them based on the levels they are at in terms of progress made.

I think Sal Khan is a fantastic role model for kids and adults alike. A former hedge fund analyst turned educator is shaking up the fundamentals of our education system and tackling problems which are deeply rooted and slowly turning political as well. Here’s to a bright Sal-led future for education!

Overall, I would give the book 4.5/5. Visionary. Excellent. Ambitious!

## The Invisible Hand

## Disgraced by Ayad Akthar

## Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

## Laugher in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov

Fiction :

* Lolita by Vladmir Nabakov ; an absolute master class.

* The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling ; one for the memories!

Non Fiction :

* Letters of Note by Shawn Usher; a compendium of wonderful letters from the past. Highly recommended. https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Note-Collection-Correspondenc...

* Deep work by Cal Newport ; very applicable to the modern day distracted soul.

Looks interesting - does it cover minimalistic ideas for living or is it more on the lines of information consumption ?

20 minutes by public transport each way + 10 minutes walk each way.

What motivated your transition from Dev to Product manager? I am looking to make a similar switch, would it be okay to reach out to you for guidance? Advice on the transition would be incredibly useful!

Cheers!

Quip. Love using it - simple and effective!

Best, in terms of what?

In terms of volume of jobs - definitely and as @lazyant mentioned, there's a great support network that comes with it.

If you measure 'best' by quality of jobs, I would agree as well.

Other cities which you may want to check out are Seattle, Austin, Dallas which have a chunk of 'good' jobs as well!

Mild digression, but my 2 cents would be to document as much as you can. Some people say, Good code should be self explanatory. Building something on top of existing code, debugging can be a real pain in the butt with that attitude.

- The #Opportunities is staggering.

People are quite comfortable living in places (yes, rent is shit) where there are multiple opportunities so that when one doesn't work out, they can move to the next without uprooting their family/social system. Silicon Valley allows for that in a 30-40 mile radius.

- Number of likeminded folks as @dhogan pointed out. The sheer volume of meet ups, etc. is incredible.

So many startups, so many cutting edge tech companies and a lot of driven folks. You can bounce around as much as you like in the valley. Companies tend to home themselves here, since there is an easier talent pool to tap into. I am not saying other places don't have that, but the volume of such folks + opportunities is very high!

Can you clarify what aspect of the relationship you intend on tracking ?

If it is going to be a "how frequently do I stay in touch with X", I might consider it since it will be nice to get an automated reminder to text/call this person.

My 2 cents on this(opinion) and how I am struggling to cope with tech usage in my life.

I noticed that I spend a disproportionately high volume of time "consuming" than "creating". Recently I have been making efforts to create more. writing, drawing, painting. Something, anything so that the brain can spend some time coming up with new things instead of just reading/passively participating.

Technology has empowered a lot of us to create more, but it has also played a huge part in 'consumption', since it is so easy to swipe up and get the next article and the next and the next. Not to forget passive reading where I just skim through without actually paying any kind of attention to detail.

Competition in this space is welcome! Can't wait to see what their difference / what sets them apart from Echo. Given Google's propensity to sell Ads, it will be interesting to see if customers are willing to put a device like this in their house.

Reminded me of a humidifier for some reason - http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-co...

Good riddance. He's this noise box who keeps clamoring all the time.

I try to use Lyft as often as I can, they seem to genuinely care for their employees(drivers). Uber is quite ruthless when it comes to pricing. Simple features such as tipping is not present.

It is my part-time hobby of sorts to interview drivers who drive for both and inevitably (27 - 1) they prefer driving for Lyft. The one case where the driver said she prefers Uber was that the #rides were more (Bay area).

I think voting with your wallet is a powerful concept and in some cases, it is the only thing we can do.

Used to watch my dad come back from work and stay glued to the television tracking the tickers. I used to help him keep track of a few stocks as well. Slowly got interested and picked up some random book that explains the stock market terminologies.

The #1 takeaway from the book is "Before you buy the stock, give an elevator speech with facts(data-driven) and reasons as to why this stock is going to be a good buy."

Turns out a lot of my investments don't stand this test!

I've taken a couple of courses and paid for one. The reason I paid it was simple - I loved the course, wanted to make a clear commitment that I was going to finish this one (I am poor with finishing projects :/).

The $49 for most courses was something which I could afford and it helped in serving as additional motivation. The reward at the end of it all felt good as well!

1. The environment is generally positive, love my co-workers and I do a reasonable job as a platform engineer.

2. Would love to have more input in the direction of certain aspects of the product.

3. My #1 priority is work-life balance. It is taken care of here.

4. If work starts becoming tedious (monotony?) and starts eating into my free time / weekends, I would leave right away.

Subscribed to : - Snap Judgement (Story telling, with a beat. It's awesome!) - Criminal - Tim Ferris Show - Planet Money

What is your take on WealthFront so far as a product ? How has the investment experience been?