Team warning signs of a Slack-sized outage

Plus what Steve Jobs said about management the day before he died

March 10, 2025

This week’s bytes:

  • The warning signs of a global outage

  • Steve Jobs’ dying words on management

  • What the hell is vibe knowledge work?

Worth reading

5-minute read by Daniel Llach

Learn the warning signs of leadership dependencies. Team members waiting for approval, stalled technical discussions, escalated decisions, and piled up code reviews are all early warning signs of a bottleneck at risk of becoming an outage.

4-minute read by Ben Linders

Security often slows development, but it doesn’t have to. Ben Linders explores the BLISS framework—bulkheads, levels, impact, simplicity, and ‘pit of success’—to embed security into engineering culture without sacrificing productivity.

3-minute read by Jason Aten

The day before he died, Steve Jobs told Tim Cook and Jony Ive not to ask themselves, “What would Steve do?” Instead, he wanted them to rely on themselves and do what’s right. If that’s not empowering, we don’t know what is.

2-minute read by Mary Ann Azevedo

In 2024, the top 100 AI companies took 24 months to achieve $5 million ARR. In 2018, it took the top 100 SaaS companies 37 months to achieve the same. Vertical AI startups are growing at record speed. These tools evolving beyond basic API calls to provide industry-specific solutions, incorporating proprietary data, workflows, and integrations.

5-minute read by Meg Adams

Performance reviews should drive growth, not usher in confusion. Meg Adams highlights common manager mistakes—vague feedback, forced positivity, and one-sided conversations—and offers practical tips for delivering effective reviews (that aren’t awkward).

Best quick bytes

#1. 🏆

The vibes are good.

#2. 🏆

The manic excitement keeps us up all night, but everyone else is sleeping.

#3. 🏆

True. Also, beware of the technical debt.

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