Lead Prompt Podcast

The best way to get attention online is still to rage bait, and we are seeing this at an industrial scale now. Notes: Like me, you may have seen a video of the morning routine of a muscular man this week. That video is EVERYWHERE right now on social media right now. The online hive mind has been reacting to it all week, posting reactions that are annoyed with it, or simply mocking it. This is grea...

Rather than continue to fight the X algorithm, I have decided to finally abandon my account there. Notes: Rather than continue to fight the X algorithm, I have decided to finally abandon my account there. Let me explain why. Back in December of 2024, I wrote a blog entry explaining the reasons why I would not be renewing my Premium+ subscription on X. Ref: https://techleader.pro/a/672-I-will-not-b...

In a successful negotiation both parties should feel like they won something: the secret is to let your opposition win what does not hurt you. Notes: I am a bit late getting this episode out, as I was unwell last week. But I want to talk about the recent Whitehouse meeting between President Trump, Vice President Vance, and President Zelensky. It was a painful example of a negotiate going off the r...

Sometimes your team members can get stuck in waiting mode, perhaps for prolonged periods of time if you are not careful. Notes: On a daily basis, I ask my team members for status updates. Giving a status update is a specific skill-set: you want to give clear facts as concisely as possible. Dates, numbers, dollar amounts...these are clear facts. They are measurable. When the person starts to waffle...

Recently I have interviewed a lot of engineers, most of which are quitting their current jobs rather than returning to the office. Let me explain why. Notes: Presently in my team we are doing a lot of hiring, and as the senior guy I always do the first round interviews with our candidates. I do this for two reasons: I want to determine if the candidate will be a good cultural fit for my team. I pr...

There is a huge gap between the expectations senior manages have for AI replacing software engineers, and the reality on the ground. Notes: At a recent leadership workshop I attended for several days, the c-suite were excited about AI reducing our need to hire expensive software engineers. Our CTO was mentioning the fact that Salesforce was not planning to hire any engineers in 2025, and could we...

We are witnessing in real-time the birth of the new access media, and this time it is driven by who controls the social media algorithms. Notes: I was away on travel, hence missing a few episodes. In the recent inauguration of President Trump in the US, I was struck by a photograph of tech platform owners like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg enjoying front-row seats. I cannot get this p...

After over twenty years in the software industry, I feel like users and developers are far too tolerant of poor quality products. Notes: Today I want to explain why I believe all software is broken, based upon over twenty years of working in the software industry. Software is unique insofar as we are the only industry that will sell a broken product to a customer, on the promise that we will fix i...

AI is a force multiplier when applied correctly, it is the horizontal scaling of intelligence. Notes: In the military, a force multiplier is defined as the following: "In military science, force multiplication or a force multiplier is a factor or a combination of factors that gives personnel or weapons (or other hardware) the ability to accomplish greater feats than without it. The expected size i...

Wrapping up 2024 trends in technology, business, and the economy, and making 2025 predictions. Notes: Wrapping up 2024 trends in technology, business, and the economy, and making 2025 predictions. It is important to state that these predictions are not what I want to happen, but are instead what I think will happen. Therefore they are not my opinions. 2024 predictions revisited: e/acc versus decel...

The warning signs are there, I am burned out. Notes: It has been a few weeks now since my last podcast, and my topic today will explain why. Recently I have been feeling tired, grumpy, and sick with a cold. I have also been sleeping long hours, even falling asleep on the sofa after work. In the morning, I open my work cellphone with sense of dread for what new escalations I will have to face today...

It's that time of year again, when I need to conduct many annual performance reviews over the coming weeks. Notes: It's that time of year again, and sadly I don't mean Christmas! As a leader, I need to conduct many annual performance reviews over the coming weeks. It is always a busy and challenging time, because you have to thread the line between giving someone actionable feedback, while not bei...

The center ground of moderates is becoming a no man's zone, with the Left moving to Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, while the Right have taken over X. Notes: I find myself very amused this week about the reaction of some people to the recent election victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential campaign. As a European, I offer no opinion on the candidates as frankly it is none of my business. Bu...

This week, I want to explain to you why I believe DEI training is a waste of time, as bias is an innate part of being a human being. Notes: Last week I was totally overwhelmed, hence I missed an episode. As we coming to the end of the year, I am working hard to meet many project deadlines. This week, I want to explain to you why I believe DEI training is a waste of time. It comes off the back of m...

On why it is so important to tackle the riskiest topics at the beginning of your projects. Notes: As we near the end of the year, like many of you, I have a lot of project deadlines approaching. Q4 in a company tends to a be a very busy time, when we are closing projects while opening planning and budgeting for the following year. For one of my projects, some topics that contain risk are not close...

There are three main methods of communication commonly used in a business context. Notes: I was traveling last week so no episode. Three forms of communication: Terse Verbose Obfuscation Terse is the most optimised form: always use this when communicating with senior leaders. Senior people do not have time to parse long-form content, so keep it concise. Verbose is fine if you are writing an essay...

Cultural conflict is fine (how we do things), but conflict on strategic goals is not (what we are building). Notes: Senior leaders tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the culture of their organization. CEOs for example love to talk about their corporate values, which is often nothing more that a list of cultural talking points that are not enforced. In reality, an organization is made of of...

Last week I was totally overwhelmed, which resulted in me recording this episode one week late. Why does this happen? Notes: Last week I was totally overwhelmed, which resulted in me recording this episode one week late. It got me thinking again about why does this happen? My normal day looks like this: First thing in the morning, I review my emails and messages and then add actions to my task lis...

I think we need to normalise leaving meetings that are wasting your time. Notes: Last week, I attended a workshop that had many people in attendance. Like most such workshops, there was a minority of people contributing, while the majority was passively listening, at least I hoped they were listening. In the first hour one of the attendees, an engineer, quietly and without fuss left the meeting an...

For every promoter you will have several detractors so you must be ready to deal with them. Compliment your enemies to disarm or confuse them. Notes: As a leader, you should hopefully find yourself complimenting people all of the time. For example, when someone in your team does a great job, or indeed if the whole team pull together to deliver a great result. You must strike the balance however be...

Politicians want you to vote for them, sales and marketing folks want you to buy their products, while you manager wants you to deliver results. There are two main ways they achieve this. Notes: As we are in election years in many countries, we are hearing a lot of politicians making promises they will never keep in speeches. As sure as the Earth rotates around the Sun, politicians will make all k...

I feel like we're in the vertical scaling phase of language model design, I look forward to federated model architectures running on cheap commodity hardware. Notes: In my online conversations on X, I see a lot of technologists assuming that large language models like GPT will grow in size and power indefinitely. It often reminds me of Moore's law, which was coined by the late co-founder of Intel,...

In many traditional industries, you will find executives who really wish their companies were Silicon Valley companies. Why is this? Notes: For several years, I worked with a talented CEO from France. On a regular basis, I heard him refer to "Valley guys" and "doing it Valley style". He had a real fascination with Silicon Valley. As a European, there can be a strange inferiority complex when worki...

This week I used Grok to render a new logo for my web search engine greppr, and got great results! Notes: I missed last week due to a holiday. This week, I decided it was time to give greppr.org a fresh look. To recap, greppr is my web search engine that I have been building since last year. It is a generic search engine with about 6 million web pages indexed so far. The logo I was using was prett...

A great leader can make anything seem simple and clear, because they are great communicators. Notes: I missed last week due to a holiday. This week, I want to talk about why it is so important for a leader to cut through the noise. In an extremely noisy environment with lots of false signals, this is more important than ever. The world is a confusing place, and it is your job to make sense of it,...