Leverage

Sahil just put up a great post about leverage. Go read it.

(FWIW, I actually do think that “making” is quite important, but a different type of toipic.)

For me, here’s the money quote:

It’s all about leverage to him. He could write code, or he could help ten people write code. Or, he could help ten people manage ten people that write code. Or, he could help companies with ten engineering departments with ten people each that help ten people write code.

That’s almost exactly the way that I describe my career progression to people, although mine goes a little bit more like this: At Stanford, I knew I could code pretty well, but not as well as many of my classmates. When I got to Trilogy, I learned that I could be a good designer, but probably not one of the world’s best designers. But I knew that I could hire the world’s best designers and make them better. And when I started Reactivity, I knew that I could help lots of incredible people become even better at starting companies. And I thought I could be world class in terms of running an organization — that’s what drove me at Reactivity and then at Mozilla.

For me, it was a combination of wanting to have as large an impact as I could have mixed with a desire to find the thing that I could be among the best in the world at.

Leverage plus being really good at something gives you impact in the world. Great post and idea from Sahil. (Who is himself a world class thinker and doer. One to watch, that guy.)

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