Running an organisation when every option is bad, and keeping it from decline when every option is good.
Judge a chief executive by what they do with the cash, not by how well they run what produces it.
Private equity interviews, assessing a management team, and any question about buybacks, dividends or acquisitions.
From The Outsiders · William N. Thorndike
Check whether the metric is still the goal or has become the goal, and reserve the heavy process for decisions that cannot be undone.
Product and leadership questions, assessing a large company's culture, and deciding how much process a decision deserves.
From Amazon's 2016 letter to shareholders (Day 1) · Jeff Bezos
Cost discipline has a limit, and the cost of crossing it arrives years after the reward for approaching it.
Any capital allocation discussion where the case for cuts and buybacks seems unanswerable, and any post-mortem on an engineering or safety failure.
From Downfall: The Case Against Boeing · 2022
A firm that did what the rules allowed and lost has not been excused by the rules; management chose the position.
Banking interviews, risk culture questions, and any post-mortem that reaches for the regulator as the explanation.
From JPMorgan Chase letter to shareholders, 2008 · Jamie Dimon
Measure what changed for the customer, not what was shipped; a team given an outcome behaves differently from one given a list.
Product interviews at large companies, metrics questions, and any discussion of how a team should be judged.
From Escaping the Build Trap · Melissa Perri
The practices that make shipping frequent are the ones that make it safe, so do not trade one for the other.
Engineering management questions, system design discussions about release process, and any debate that assumes speed costs reliability.
From Accelerate · Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim
In a post-mortem, separate the direction from the pace and the explanation, and say which one failed.
Subscription pricing, crisis communication, and the behavioural question about a mistake you made.
From Netflix's third-quarter 2011 letter to shareholders · Reed Hastings and David Wells
Being distinctive is not a state but a cost paid continuously; stop paying it and the drift to typical begins.
Questions about culture, moats that depend on behaviour rather than assets, and personal career choices.
From Amazon's 2020 letter to shareowners, Jeff Bezos's last as chief executive · Jeff Bezos
When every option is bad, the cost is in the delay; choose the least bad one and move.
Assessing a management team under stress, and any interview question about a difficult decision you made.
From The Hard Thing About Hard Things · Ben Horowitz
In a disagreement, weight each view by that person's track record on the question, not by their rank or confidence.
Investment committees, group cases, and any time you are deciding whose forecast to trust.
From Principles · Ray Dalio