I’ve now had a chance to play with GPT-4 over these last two weeks.
The tech is amazing but I’m concerned that their pricing structure is going to be unsustainable and could stifle innovation.
Let me explain 🧵
If you are using GPT-3, you are familiar with pricing per token.
1 token = approx .75 words
That means that a company using the GPT-3 AI to generate 10k words can expect to use roughly 13.3k tokens.
13.3k is ~$.05. Manageable. Plus, you can be smart about it.
Oct 20, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The most powerful productivity hacks I’ve found:
Clearing my mornings
I find I’m happiest and most productive when I have a morning free to knock off important tasks first or get a good chunk of interruptions done.
Try blocking off some mornings next week.
Oct 3, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact of remote work on office space. Millions of square feet of office space is now sitting empty, with very few new tenants to fill it.
As more people move out of cities to work remote, here’s what I think happens:
1/ New buildings with nice amenities will continue to get leased out by companies who want to get the best space at a discount
They’ll use this space to attract talent who are comparing it to the comfort of working from home
Sep 7, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Many people claim remote work kills company culture.
I disagree completely.
Here’s what’s actually killing your culture and ways you can build a thriving culture with a global team:
What’s actually killing your culture? 1) Not setting your core mission and values 2) Not hiring people who 100% believe in your core mission and values
Aug 11, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I'm a huge fan of remote work. I've now started two venture backed companies that have been fully remote.
But, I’ve also seen my fair share of good and bad remote managers.
If you’re joining a remote company, here are 8 red flags to look out for with your new manager 🚩🚩🚩
1/ They drop the ball on onboarding and leave you to fend for yourself
If you start your new role and feel on your own and at a loss of where to start — it’s not on you.
Your manager should give you a clear onboarding plan and set expectations on what they expect with the role
Aug 4, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
One of the biggest challenges with remote work is isolation and loneliness.
As a leader, here’s how you can build a transparent culture that helps your team feel less lonely and more certain about the company, their job performance, or the economy:
1/ Build a culture of predictable communication
Virtual leadership requires A LOT of team communication — both synchronous (e.g. all-hands meetings) and async (Slack updates, emails).
At @VowelHQ, we keep a regular schedule of updates so our team knows what to expect and when
Jul 28, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Met with the CFO of a multi-billion dollar tech startup this weekend.
He told me every smart CFO he knows is cutting office space to reduce burn instead of firing employees.
Pretty simple choice IMO:
1/ In 2022, office space seems like a particularly terrible use of funds, especially in expensive cities. Cost per square foot in big cities like San Francisco can be upwards of $87.
Jul 19, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Team offsites are the key to facilitate bonding and collaboration for remote teams, but you’re probably doing your retreats all wrong.
We’ve now hosted 7 offsites at @vowelhq. Here’s how we make them amazing 1-2x per year:
1/ We start with a clear goal for each offsite
Goals are crucial to bringing everyone to one place for an offsite and making sure we all know what we’re working towards with each.
Without it, we end up disorganized and not feeling like we accomplished much during the retreat
Jul 13, 2022 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
Most companies are taking advantage of the benefits of working remotely, but few are building great remote cultures.
Here are 10 things I've seen great companies do to build best in class remote cultures:
👍Great remote companies pair employees up with onboarding buddies. This buddy helps demystify the organization and process for new hires.
👎Bad remote companies give employees an onboarding document and force them to fend for themselves.
Jun 7, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Remote work is not just young, privileged tech workers.
Here are the real faces that benefit from the remote work revolution:
1/ Parents of young children
The pandemic made life extremely hard for parents – especially working women who quit when schools and child care became unreliable.
Remote work enables parents to move closer to their support systems while not giving up career growth
May 24, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
We just hooked the @VowelHQ team up with Opal Cameras.
TLDR: kicks ass! (This is coming from someone who started a camera company, Nanit.)
Time for a product review v.s. my $3k Sony A7C setup
Let’s start with the design
- Beautiful, sleek design
- Looks great on top of my monitor
- Feels stable
In a nutshell, looks extremely professional and complements my home office well
May 17, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Throughout my career I’ve held and been in thousands of meetings. Most are bad, some are great, very few are excellent.
Here’s 6 things you’re probably doing wrong in your remote meetings and how you can consistently have excellent meetings:
1/ You always have your camera off!
No one wants to stare at a black box. If you host a virtual meeting and go cameras off, your team will lose track of the convo because you literally can’t. stay. awake.
A guide to leveling up with remote work, a thread 🧵
Last week, I tweeted about the challenges of remote work, one being career advancement.
With remote work, you have less time with senior leaders, less visibility due to async comms, and limited in-person team building.
Apr 19, 2022 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Last week I tweeted about in-person work being dead – and it is.
With remote teams, you get to hire the best people across the world, eliminate commutes, and build/operate 24/7. It’s 💯 the future.
But it’s also really hard – here's all the challenges remote teams will face:
1/ Career development
Remote teams are going to struggle with leveling up junior employees who don’t get access to the same learning experiences in-person provides. Because of this they’ll lose at hiring v.s. in-person teams.
Expect to hire senior folks & invest in development
Apr 18, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A lot of folks are tweeting about poison pills, @elonmusk and how terrrible the twitter board is, but what I want to know is what is Silver Lake and @egon_durban doing?
Egon (Co-CEO of Silver Lake) is already on the board. They own $1b of stock at roughly $34 and more at $44, and in the biggest bull market for tech they’ve made a nothing return.
After the last two years of working remotely, I decided to try working in person again. Here are some observations from a week of returning to work:
Spoiler alert: In-person work is dead 🧵
1/ I spent half my days in a phone booth. Most of our team couldn't make it in on the same day, so I spent half my time looking for a quiet space ☎️
Days turned into endless blurs of calls in the office versus at home. A good read on this dynamic here:
Let’s start with the design
