tag:wycats.svbtle.com,2014:/feedKatz Got Your Tongue2016-11-15T10:15:28-08:00Yehuda Katzhttps://wycats.svbtle.comSvbtle.comtag:wycats.svbtle.com,2014:Post/an-open-letter-to-my-followers2016-11-15T10:15:28-08:002016-11-15T10:15:28-08:00The Feeling of Existential Threat<p>Something I’d like any Trump followers to think about (if I have any): when the Nazi party is cheering someone on, it’s very hard not to experience that as an existential threat.</p>
<p>And existential threats make people panic into self defense mode. It’s very hard to turn back the clock on the election, but the existential threat is real.</p>
<p>If you think people are exagerating it, help make that true. If the KKK is cheering your reaction on, rethink. Talk. Listen. I’m happy to talk to anyone privately if you reach out.</p>
<p>But reflecting on my own thoughts, this is a big part of what happened this election.</p>
<p>Existential fear is a mofo.</p>
<p>Please please please let’s work together to marginalize the KKK and the nazi party as I know you believe they should be. </p>
<hr>
<p>A follow-up from Twitter (<a href="https://twitter.com/wycats/status/798592720394563584" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/wycats/status/798592720394563584</a>)</p>
<p>This sentiment is the result of a tremendous amount of personal soul searching. It is genuinely not intended as an attack.</p>
<p>I think people of good will and faith on both sides of this benefit from trying to understand how it felt to be on the other side.</p>
<p>And because I benefited from soul searching, I am trying to pay it forward. This is not a polished, perfect, fit-for-viral-meme message.</p>
<p>It’s a from-the-heart statement about how Trump’s candidacy (and now his appointment of Bannon) feels to people who have historically experienced existential threats, attacks or discrimination.</p>
tag:wycats.svbtle.com,2014:Post/make-the-impossible-possible2016-10-17T10:59:09-07:002016-10-17T10:59:09-07:00The Art of Making What Appears to Be Impossible Possible<p>(All emphasis mine)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn’t do us anything. We’ve had lots of empathy; we’ve had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. <strong>And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hillary Clinton, 1969, <a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/events/commencement/archives/1969commencement/studentspeech" rel="nofollow">Student Commencement Speech, Wellesley College</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>We passionately rejected the notion of limitations on our abilities to make the world a better place. We saw a gap between our expectations and realities, and we were inspired, in large part by our Wellesley education, to bridge that gap. On behalf of the class of 1969, I said, “The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.” <strong>That is still the challenge of politics</strong>, especially in today’s far more cynical climate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hillary Clinton, 1992, <a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/events/commencement/archives/1992commencement/commencementaddress" rel="nofollow">Commencement Address to the Wellesley College Class</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now, the journey ahead will not be easy. Some will say we can’t do it, that it’s too hard, we’re just not up to the task. But for as long as America has existed, it has been the American way to reject can’t-do claims and to choose instead to <strong>stretch the boundaries of the possible</strong> through hard work, determination, and a pioneering spirit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hillary Clinton, 2008, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/07/hillaryclinton.uselections20081" rel="nofollow">Concession Speech</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every generation of Americans has come together to make our country freer, fairer, and stronger.</p>
<p>None of us can do it alone.</p>
<p>I know that at a time when so much seems to be pulling us apart, it can be hard to imagine how we’ll ever pull together again.</p>
<p><strong>But I’m here to tell you tonight – progress is possible.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hillary Clinton, 2016, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-text-hillary-clintons-dnc-speech-226410" rel="nofollow">Acceptance Speech</a></p>
tag:wycats.svbtle.com,2014:Post/lets-go-do-it2016-09-06T11:39:06-07:002016-09-06T11:39:06-07:00Let's go do it!<p>Another favorite Steve Jobs quote is from his 1997 WWDC fireside chat with developers, which happens right after everyone knows “Steve is back” but before he’s been announced as CEO (or even iCEO, the cutesy shorthand they gave him for Interim CEO).</p>
<p>Like many people, Steve struggles to understand how it is that better solutions don’t get the adoption they deserve.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And so, it’s amazing to me that something as obvious as email is so broken out there. Netscape’s is awful. I mean, everybody’s is awful. And if something so obvious as email is so broken…</p>
<p>And the other one I mentioned before: spreadsheets.</p>
<p>If you use Improv or Quantrix for a week, you would go, “How come this hasn’t completely replaced Excel?” for 75% of the people out there.</p>
<p>25% will still want Excel, for good reason.</p>
<p>But for 75% of the people, why hasn’t this replaced it?</p>
<p><strong>And there are no answers to these questions except – “let’s go do it!”</strong> </p>
<p>And that’s my attitude about this thing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The thing that’s striking to me here is that Steve isn’t thinking “There are all these better solutions out there, but nobody adopts them. Let’s give up.”</p>
<p>Instead, despite having no good answers for why the better solutions aren’t adopted yet, his attitude is <strong>“let’s go do it”</strong>. Let’s figure out why the better solution hasn’t been adopted yet, and let’s tear down adoption barriers until it can be. </p>
tag:wycats.svbtle.com,2014:Post/theres-a-tremendous-amount-of-craftsmanship-between-a-great-idea-and-a-great-product2016-08-16T18:04:05-07:002016-08-16T18:04:05-07:00There’s a Tremendous Amount of Craftsmanship Between a Great Idea and a Great Product<p>One of my favorite quotes about building great products (or indeed, great open source projects) comes from Robert Cringely’s 1995 <a href="http://fortune.com/2011/11/11/steve-jobs-the-parable-of-the-stones/" rel="nofollow">Lost Interview</a> with Steve Jobs:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease.</p>
<p>It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.</p>
<p>And the problem with that is that <strong>there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product.</strong></p>
<p>And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it.</p>
<p>And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. </p>
<p>There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do.</p>
<p>There are certain things you can’t make plastic do.</p>
<p>Or glass do.</p>
<p>Or factories do.</p>
<p>Or robots do.</p>
<p><strong>Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want.</strong></p>
<p>And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.</p>
<p><strong>And it’s that process that is the magic.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, neither pure ideas nor pure execution make amazing products. The magic of great products comes from synthesizing great ideas with great execution through craftsmanship.</p>