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Rands Biography

Rands is the pen name and alter ego of Michael Lopp (born 1970 in California), a blogger, software engineering manager, and webcomic author. Lopp originally used the name "Rands" as his chat room handle, and it is his persona when writing about software management. In 2010, he began working at Palantir after more than eight years at Apple. In June 2014 after 4 years he left Palantir for Pinterest. He became Vice President of Engineering at Slack in May 2016.

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Rands Quotes

Managers tell you where you are, leaders tell you where you're going.

Leader, Leaders, Managers, Tell, Where You Are

I believe email-based status reports are the clearest and best signs of managerial incompetence and laziness.

Believe, Clearest, Email, Laziness, Managerial, Reports

If we're 15 minutes into a lifeless, redundant, status-based 1:1 and I don't have anything sitting in my back pocket, I'm going to turn it into a performance review.

Minutes, Pockets, Review, Sitting

Good design isn't about making decisions for your users, it's about making those decisions irrelevant.

Decision, Design, Good, Irrelevant, Making, Users

I am a firm believer that you need a well-defined leadership role to deal with unexpected and non-linear side effects of people working together. You need someone to keep the threads untangled and forming a high-functioning web rather than a big snarl of a Gordian knot.

Believer, Gordian, People, Sides, Together, Working

Watch with awe and amazement at how quickly an engineer will become totally annoyed by inefficiency.

Annoyed, Awe, Become, Quickly, Watches

Your work speaks for you.

Speak, Speaks, Work

Start with something messy, get to the point, get an editor, and make it good.

Editor, Editors, Make, Messy, Point

A toxic person kills, and by kills I mean totally destroys teamwork.

Destroys, Kills, Mean, Teamwork, Toxic

You have no idea if your idea matters until you share it.

Idea, Ideas, Matter, Matters, Share

When the Vent begins, you might confuse [it] for a conversation. It's not. It's a Vent. It's a mental release valve and your job is to listen for as long as it takes. Don't problem solve. Don't redirect. Don't comfort. Yet. Your employee is doing mental house cleaning and interrupting this cleaning is missing the point. They don't want a solution, they want to be heard.

Begins, Jobs, Long, Missing, Problem

Innovation is not born out out of a committee; innovation is a fight. It’s messy, people die, but when the battle is over, something unimaginably significant has been achieved.

Achieved, Fighting, Innovation, People, Significant

One of your many jobs as manager is information conduit, and the rules are deceptively simple: for each piece of information you see, you must correctly determine who on your team needs that piece of information to do their job.

Correctly, Job, Jobs, Simple, Team

Criticism is the best sign you're onto something.

Business, Criticism, Entrepreneurship, Onto, Sign

Snark from nerds is a leading indicator that I'm wasting their time and when I find it, I ask questions until I understand the inefficiency so I can change it or explain it.

Indicator, Indicators, Inefficiency, Nerd, Nerds, Understand

A milestone is less date and more definition.

Date, Definition, Definitions, Milestone