Blog Spotlight - Choose Boring Technology
Companies have limited capacity to do something creative, weird, or hard. The article argues that the creative effort should be directed toward solving product problems, rather than sweating over tool and technology choices.
You can’t worry about the big picture and ask intelligent questions about the direction of the product if you’re busy arguing about which database or alerting system to use.
-Dan McKinley
And even if a new technology looks like the best tool for the (immediate) job, it carries a long tail of maintenance and added complexity. New technologies should not be adopted without thorough consideration of their impact on the entire company and should ideally solve a problem that current technologies aren’t able to solve.
Choosing stable and well-understood technologies allows you to focus on shipping meaningful work. And isn’t that where happiness comes from?
News Highlights
1. Introducing GPTs
OpenAI announced that they are releasing a ChatGPT store. You will be able to create new versions of ChatGPT in minutes - no coding required - and then share that creation with others. You’ll also be able to earn money based on how many people are using your GPT.
This presents a similar opportunity as Apple's App Store launch in 2009 - definitely worth keeping an eye on.
2. NASA Launches a Streaming Service
A new and unexpected streaming service is on the horizon. NASA is launching an ad-free, no-cost, family-friendly streaming service that puts the universe at your fingertips.
3. Only The Dogged Thrive: More Good News in Startupland
DataDog announced its earnings, exceeding its plan for the quarter & raising the plan for the next one. DataDog leads the cloud monitoring & security space and is set to generate about $2b in revenue this year.
The trend of increased spending on third-party software suggests an end to the cost-cutting period earlier this year. This might lead to a slowdown in layoffs within the tech industry, but it's still too early to say for sure.
4. Legend of Zelda: Nintendo & Sony making a live-action film
Nintendo and Sony Pictures are making a live-action film of the beloved video game series The Legend of Zelda.
Nintendo continues its venture into films after their star-studded Super Mario Bros Movie, which was released earlier this year, became one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, earning more than $1bn at the box office.
Sustainable Engineering Series: #4 Your Engineering Team Is Too Big
The first three articles in the series focussed on technologies and dev teams. Closing the series is an article with some tips from the product’s perspective.
When your team is lean, the communication is clear, and the tech stack is simple and ready to scale, this is how you continue your sustainable growth:
Make small bets - you will be wrong before you’ll be right. Limit the risk and increase your chances by making multiple small bets. Instead of spending half a year on a feature, find an experiment that would either prove or discard the hypothesis in a couple of weeks or less.
Make intentional changes - to know if something works, or how to improve it, you need to know how to measure it. When planning on building something, write down why you need it, what investment is required, and how are you going to measure success. Be sure to check back after the feature has been launched and again after it gets some time in the wild. Make sure you’re not just a feature machine.
When it’s safe to grow?
The purpose of the series is not to discourage growth, but rather to emphasize that having a large team is not a necessary requirement for achieving success. You should definitely aim to grow your business, but before doing so, it's important to determine if it's actually necessary and to have a clear plan for how you will turn your investment of time and money into returns for both you and your customers.
Previously in the series: