Notes from a CTO #11: 4 Piller of Team Happiness, Feynman Lecture, Your Happiness
I have written a lot about happiness in previous blogs, here I want to focus on the four pillars of team happiness that I often share with people when they ask me about the culture at Docsumo.
1. Thought of the Month
This week, let's discuss team/employee happiness.
I have written a lot about happiness in previous blogs; here I want to focus on the four pillars of team happiness that I often share with people when they ask me about the culture at Docsumo. My philosophy is that people need the following four things to be happy in their job, and we try our best to provide them. It's not always possible for everyone to have all four at all times, but as a company and personally, we do our best.
Know What Difference You Are Making to the World: My theory (perhaps something I read somewhere, but I can't recall) is that the only reason we became the most dominant species on Earth is that, deep down, we all want to make a difference. As human beings, the urge to make a difference is what makes us truly human. Everyone desires to make a difference. At Docsumo, the moments of greatest happiness for me occur when customers send emails or during calls to express how much of a difference we've made in their processes. I can proudly say that we've built something that is making people's lives better. Even if we were to cease to exist tomorrow, some would still feel the impact. This is something I want everyone at Docsumo to experience. It's not just about the code you write or the products you sell; it's about knowing how people use it and how their lives are improved. I'm not saying we're changing the world; we're changing the world for a few people.
Work-Life Balance: Every time I see someone working late, I tell them, "Please don't get divorced because of Docsumo." Family is important, and we must ensure that we don't become consumed by our work. While there may be times when you need to put in 14-hour days, work-life balance doesn't necessarily mean sticking to an 8-hour, 5-day workweek. It's about knowing when to put in those extra hours and when to take time off and call it a day at 7 PM without feeling guilty.
Do What You Love: This is easier said than done because many people aren't sure what they truly love. Rushabh and I often have heated discussions, and it might seem like we're fighting, but the reason we can do this is that we argue until a decision is reached. Once a decision is made, we give it our all, even if we initially disagreed. The same principle applies to your life; either give 100% or find something else that you're passionate about giving 100% to. We expect the same dedication from our team. Even in your job, we do our best to encourage people to talk to us if things aren't going well, whether it's about work-related issues or personal problems. Talk to us, and we'll help you find a solution. Can I provide the most exciting job to everyone? Probably not, but I can make it more challenging and ensure that when new projects come up, I consider each team member. I don't just say it; I have plenty of examples at Docsumo.
Get the Salary You Believe You Deserve: Will I be able to increase your salary to the label you want in review? Perhaps, perhaps not. If I see a return on investment, it's possible. But if you genuinely believe that you deserve more and we're not compensating you enough, despite other benefits like ESOPs and our positive work culture, and you don't feel like you're making the impact you could remember for decades, then maybe it's time to seek your happiness elsewhere. If your current salary is decent and you don't have significant financial needs (Some people have EMIs and responsibilities, and I don't judge people. Everyone has their own priorities), then stick with the company until you feel you've made a significant impact and are happy. The way I see it is, on your deathbed, would you be proud of the time you spent at Docsumo? I've worked for two companies, and there are memories and impacts I've made that I will cherish for the rest of my life. At Kaymu, the logistics system I built worked flawlessly for five years until the Alibaba system replaced it. And Cockpit reports (daily or weekly reporting), I developed that provided everything to everyone, from sales to the CEO to make informed decisions. At Everjobs, the recommendation system consistently increased job application rates by 30%.
All of these things sound cool on paper, but implementing them is the next big challenge. Now and then, I fail to provide these things to people, and sometimes people don't value them much. At the end of the day, it's my job to make sure I've tried my best. I might fail a few times, and many times, people will not even communicate and leave without much warning or talking. Not everyone appreciates it, but there are a few people in the company who do and give their best. I try to focus on these people and gauge my success based on the growth they have been able to achieve. At the end of the day, we are all individuals with our own unique needs.
Some are destined to be part of the journey, some remain steadfast companions throughout, some may have taken the wrong bus, and some we might have invited to the wrong bus. For those who cannot be with us or have to get out before the journey is completed, I hope you find the right bus.
2. Podcasts/Essays
Richard Feynman is always great to listen too. This was before machines beat humans in chess.
I have been thinking along the same lines. The way to build a machine faster than a lion is not to make strong legs, but to create something with wheels or that can fly. A faster "lion" is a jeep or a plane. The same goes for LLM, and everyone trying to make AGI. Is there a better example to look forward than us as a model? It takes us 15 years just to learn the basics of how the world functions.
There are more, and also thought-provoking lectures from him, or just lectures that help you understand the world better. Here is one playlist. But the best approach is to go to YouTube and search.
3. Interesting links
Repos:
Headscale: I am a big fan of the zero-trust VPN maze. Tailsacle was one of the products that really made things very easy. Here is the open-source version of the same.
LLAMA Dataset: We were discussing how someone collected data to train a GPT-3 kind of model, and I remember that this was open-source. Sometimes, I feel like it's too complex, and there are so many things that my mind can't fully grasp. How did someone build the computer architecture required for it? It's not something my mind can easily comprehend.
replit-code-v1-3b : Small models are something that excites me, from Mistral 7B to Replit 3B, which is better than the 30B coding model for many languages.
Espanso: My favorite text expander, and I finally added cgpt to it. Here is an Espanso YAML snippet.
For more, follow me on Github: bkrmdahal
Articles:
Fine tune your own LLama-2: I was finally able to fine-tune Llama-2-7B on Colab, thanks to this article. I still have my doubts about LLM capacity and AGI. Like from the first day ChatGPT came out, these models are going to excel in certain market segments, but there are certain issues that might hold them back.
Death by Thousand Microservices: An interesting article on how everything is just a tool; there is no right or wrong answer. Microservices have their advantages but also limitations. Always see everything as a tool; use it because it's the best fit, not because it's shiny.
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company: I never dreamed of building a unicorn. Yes, I want to build Docsumo into a $100 million ARR company. Will that make Docsumo a unicorn? Maybe, maybe not. But I always come back to this article time and again. In the end, it's about making your customers and employees happy (hopefully makes us rich as a byproduct ;-).
How To Engineer Kindness: Empathy and kindness can take you a long way. Be kind to everyone and treat them the way you want to be treated. It's easier said than done, but we can try our best, and most of the time, we can.
Nearly half of CEOs believe AI could replace their own jobs: CTO job might be even easier.
4. Quotes/ Books
Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.
- Meditation by Marcus Aurelius
One thing that has helped me the most in life is realizing that if you can't be happy now with what you have, you will never be happy when you have more. This is something I always say to my circle every time they mention the need to be happy by doing this or that. Many people in Nepal think that going abroad is the solution (you want to go abroad to see the world, do it 100%, but not to be happy), but that is far from the truth. You will only be happy if you are already happy where you are. I can guarantee that if you were unhappy in Nepal, you would never be happy anywhere else. I never planned to come to the USA. When I got married, I told my girlfriend (now wife) that we might never settle outside Nepal (at that point, the USA was not in plan) if she didn't believe she would be happy with that. Let's rethink our priorities. The sooner you realize this, the easier your life will be.
Our Slack channels have a great collection of memes.
We have a bonus meme from our meme Friday.
That’s it for this edition. I hope you find it useful.
Best,
Bikram Dahal
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