A Better Tech #6

I have been to a lot of things since I wrote the #5 issue of "A Better Tech" newsletter.

I am grateful to 2207 people who have subscribed to the newsletter and now receive it. A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL??

The best ways to use AI tools?

How to use and not use AI: Harvard Business School’s Technology & Operations Management Unit recently released a working paper involving 758 consultants from Boston Consulting Group on how to best use AI tools in the workplace. The study found that AI tools like ChatGPT can help consultants produce higher-quality work in less time. However, consultants sometimes leaned too hard on the AI, leading some to rely on inaccurate recommendations the tool gave instead of their own intellect. Read the article and research paper to learn to use AI for better.

Original Research paper:

Well summarised article to help you quickly find the key lessons:

X celebrates 60% savings from cloud exit

X of Elon Musk took bold step to move their servers from cloud to on-premise, and cut 60 % of monthly cloud costs. The company was spending $100 million per year with AWS, so if we take that as a base, they’re on track to save $60m/year from the cloud exit achievements so far.

The engineering team celebrated their accomplishments from this last year: “Optimized our usage of cloud service providers and began doing much more on-prem. This shift has reduced our monthly cloud costs by 60%. Among the changes we made was a shift of all media/blob artifacts out of the cloud, which reduced our overall cloud data storage size by 60%, and separately, we succeeded in reducing cloud data processing costs by 75%.”

Product/Market Fit: Experience & Data

Product/Market Fit is a word used to define the point at which a product has obtained market acceptability that allows it to be viable. Product/Market Fit companies have the same prototypical metrics curves and subjective experiences. The essay goes into great length about what Product/Market Fit is, how to measure it, and how to accomplish it. It also examines the significance of Product/Market Fit for startups and how to use it to promote growth.

Video: Solving the Engineering Strategy Crisis

Watching this video reminded me of Leo Tolstoy conversation with his wife: "What if my whole life is wrong!" The premise of this video is set on the book "Good Strategy Bad Strategy" to examine how you can solve the engineering strategy crisis. It suggests that a good engineering strategy involves an honest diagnosis, practical approach, increasing development velocity and reducing friction. The methodology to drive engineering strategy while operating as an individual contributor will certainly leave you with ideas to fix your engineering crisis.

40 Things Rockefeller Wrote to His Son (X/Thread)

I have been a big fan of Rockefeller life and writing for the way he aims to highlight the essential driving forces of success as unshakeable self confidence, total commitment and enthusiasm. He argues the success comes from determined action, not luck, and that victory is a habitual pursuit while failure arises out of lack of commitment. These list of 40 things Rockfeller wrote to his son will soar your imagination to rethink life, career, success, etc

Habits of great software engineers

Great software engineers are not just coders, but multifaceted professionals who collaborate effectively with others to deliver value. The true essence of a software developer’s role is to solve problems with meaningful lines of code. A decent software developer constantly grapples with questions like how will the code interact with other components, how will it scale, and how maintainable is it. The difference between a developer and a great developer is the breadth and depth of their approach.

Thats the wrap for this week!

I would be grateful, if you help me with your feedback on how useful you found the newsletter!

It will help me improve my craft, read better and keep sharing useful content with you as I spot them..

Best always,

Ishwar Jha/Appetals