Articles I keep coming back to

Timeless pieces of writing on a variety of topics that have stayed with me for various reasons. I keep coming back to these and read them again and again.

There are articles you read, articles you enjoy reading, articles you bookmark but never read, and then there are articles you read multiple times. Over and again. You keep coming back to them because they had an impact on you, they are still relevant, they have multiple layers, and so on. Reasons are many, but these kinds of articles are few and rare. Here is my precious list. All links in the comments below.

Nine Lies About Work by Buckingham and Goodall — a review by Ian Welsh

A counter-intuitive and deeply insightful book about work, work culture, and people. This review, in particular, is a crisp representation of each insight. The author rightly points out that most business books are “slop”: they repeat the same advice over and over again, only to go on to demonstrate why this book doesn’t fall into that category. Excellent article about an excellent book.

10 principles for growth as an engineer — Dan Heller

This piece of writing has stayed with me for a long time. It’s still relevant; AI hasn’t eclipsed it. But more importantly, I lived those principles, which led to strong growth in an otherwise lackluster career. It later became mandatory reading at all the teams I built, managed, and ran. If you’re an engineer, this is a must-read.

27 Insights From Three Years of Bismarck Brief — Samo Burja

Samo Burja peels layer after layer of the macro picture, revealing the workings of the world through data, evidence, and an intelligent lens. This is an article even Nassim Taleb would approve, even if grudgingly. Some samples from the 27:

• “Mission-driven” is a lie; orgs only exist to generate profit for shareholders

• Wealth redistribution *can* work, as long as you keep funding it (e.g., Saudi Arabia)

• One of the most underrated paths to political power is intellectual work. Yup. Surprise!

Solving every Sudoku Puzzle — Peter Norvig

I am a fanboy, and I cannot lie. I aspire to write with as much clarity as Peter Norvig. I don’t want to say much more, but if you’ve ever been interested in problem-solving, you need to read, study, and absorb this piece.

Time to upgrade your monitor — Nikita Prokopov

Breaking pattern here to dive deep into the world of monitors, sharp and high-quality displays, and the reasonable impact they have on our heavily online lives. Nikita goes into great detail about what makes a display good, common mistakes, how to fix them, what to buy, and so on. Never buy a monitor without reading this article.

How to make video calls almost as good as face-to-face — Ben Kuhn

Written during the peak pandemic, when video calls were the difference between working and not working. But it has stood the test of time. You’re not ready to admit that your video calls are low-quality and are affecting your ability to do your best work. You’re bogged down in “You’re on mute”, “I can’t hear you”, “Is your video on yet?” and so on. Read Ben’s piece and implement. Thank me later.

Strategy Letter V — by Joel Spolsky

Joel is one of the foremost thinkers of our generation. It’s not a stretch to say that his work and writing have shaped the software world as we know it today (Microsoft Excel, VBA, Trello, StackOverflow, to name a few). But anyway, in all his writing, I keep coming back to this piece about corporate strategy around your product and its complements and substitutes. Even in hindsight, I could not have come up with a framework such as the one he presents. Perhaps it’s commonplace in B-schools, but to my programmer brain, it was eye-opening.

Not a complete list by any means, but this is where I will stop today. Tell me yours, please! I love collecting these.