How to Build a Mechanical Duck | Weekly CEO Statement | April 14th, 2020

Continuing on last week's format, I’m sharing this week's CEO message to all AppJobs Staff publicly. Reason is that in the developing COVID-19 pandemic, we want to increase transparency towards AppJobs stakeholders.

“Why did we continue to grow last quarter? How is it that in the midst of the most turbulent time of our generation, on aggregate, our growth remains steady? 

Is it because the corona crisis is evenly propelling the need for our services? No it’s not, because in the last month, we have both lost, and gained, more partners than ever before.  

So actually, it’s quite the opposite. The smooth surface of our aggregate performance indicators are a result of a steady stream of continuous automatic adjustments that occur “below the surface” in our platform - in every moment of every day.

It’s like we are building a mechanical duck. Ducks have this ability to look calm on the surface while down below they are paddling like hell to constantly adjust for shifting streams of water. 

Similarly, we are building a system that is designed to instantly adapt with shifting needs and changing circumstances. When the needs of our members and partners change on a micro level, our algorithms re-shuffle exposure to restore maximum Economic Utility for any given point in time. This happens every month, every day, every second. 

The development of our revenue makeup is a good example of this innate ability that we are evolving to power our system. Because even when the need for our services decrease in some parts of the system, the possible loss is offset from the automatic system-response that hones in on those corners where Economic Opportunity still resides. This creates a steady development of the aggregate top-line even when significant shifts occur below the surface - as is evident from the corona crisis.   

And as time goes by, our system gets more data to work with, more options to choose from and a stronger ability to match needs with solutions. 

This is where we, as a team, come in. Our role is to strengthen and develop the system to serve the next million workers that use it, in a better way than the one we have served so far. 

To this end, I want to remind you of a few of our best-practices at AppJobs

1. Always start with clarifying the purpose with which you are taking on a task. Then illustrate the end-result you’d like to achieve, and only after this start working on the task. And even then, work yourself backwards from the end-result you envision. This will ensure that the solutions we build are based on coherent logic and with strong structural integrity all the way through
2. If you think something is off and should change, don’t wait for someone else to change it. Draft the change, ask for permission and then execute. Or why not execute without permission? If you have the self confidence for it, asking for forgiveness is usually a quicker route to getting your way than asking for permission.  
3. If you ever find yourself doing the same task more than once, document your solution for others to benefit from it. If you ever find yourself doing the same task more than twice, automate it. 

If we remember the above, we will maximize the speed with which we evolve our system, and we will advance our success in harnessing our systems ability to automatically adapt to change.”