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Introduction
Alice and Bob sing.
Iris writes SQL and threatens the startup.
We meet a new anti-design pattern: Destroyed By Brilliance.
Have you met Miss Jones
Bob is back in the gym doing circuit training.
It’s Tuesdays with Alice.
Alice is working on a machine in front of him on the circuit.
They finish the circuit and take a water break.
Alice is leaning against a pillar in the gym. A red Mickey Mouse sweatshirt over her shorts and old trademark tennis shoes.
Alice went to the movies once a week to see old Hollywood films and told Bob, leaning back in a vaguely styled kind of way, that she just saw a movie with Alan Ladd. Bob asked her if that was her Veronica Lake pose from "The Blue Dahlia”.
Alice, “Yes, Veronica Lake is iconic, and the music, to die for”.
Bob came right back with - “That great song, Have you met Miss Jones is in the movie isn’t it?”
Alice, “It’s easy to remember”.
Bob, “It's "Have you met Miss Jones”, how much do you bet?”.
Alice, “I bet you can’t sing it”.
Bob, “Right now?”.
Alice, “Right now, and in tune, with the bridge”, throwing Bob a sly smile.
Bob, “You’re on”.
Bob sings, doing his best Frank Sinatra imitation, true to Sinatra’s phrasing:
Have you met Miss Jones?
Someone said as we shook hands
She was just Miss Jones to me
And then I said, "Miss Jones
You're a girl who understands
Alice jumps and changes a word -
I'm a girl who must be free"
They sing the bridge together -
And all at once I lost my breath
And all at once was scared to death
And all at once I owned the earth and sky
Alice and Bob take it home -
And now I've met Miss Jones
And we'll keep on meeting, till we die
Miss Jones and I.
By now, the entire gym is on their feet, applauding Bob and Alice, who take a bow.
Bob smiles and says “Alice, it seems you know how to swing”.
Alice, “I love that stuff. Basie, Sinatra, Veronica Lake. She’s perfect".
Bob, “And the bet?”
Alice smiles, “Not done yet, Bob. Let’s see if you can keep up with me, tough-guy”.
Alice: “Well, don't you even say 'Good night'?”
Bob: “It's "good-bye", and it's tough to say good-bye”.
Alice: “Why is it? You've never seen me before tonight”.
Bob: “Every guy's seen you before somewhere. The trick is to find you”
"The Blue Dahlia”. 1946
Giganet
The team is at the Venice studio apartment celebrating another win - this time with the city of San Jose.
Bob collars Barry, “I have to talk to you man, let’s go out and grab a coffee downstairs”.
Downstairs at the corner cafe, they order 2 espressos and soda.
Bob, “Let’s talk about Iris. Let’s talk about her lightning quick work and her terrible end. Three shadows block the path of my thoughts”.
Barry, “What are you talking about bro? You’re scaring the crap out of me”.
Bob, “She’s spending a lot of her time supporting HR admins with our customers. Setting up contracts herself. Writing SQL and creating customized queries and reports herself. Those are 3 big shadows - supporting users, writing code, and implementing the application herself”.
Barry, “Look, she’s a co-founder, she needs everything to be perfect”.
Bob, “This will not end well for the company. This is not scalable behavior. It’s terrible behavior”.
Barry, “I hadn’t really noticed. You and I are out pitching to prospects all the time. How do you know?”
Bob, “Yasmin, Lena and Justin came to me. They asked me to talk to you. Justin said that Iris is even doing QA herself now. Justin is really scared of Iris”.
Here, Bob paused, “The Queen”.
Destroy With Brilliance anti-design pattern
Destroy With Brilliance is a common anti-design pattern in startups.
The founder is doing everything. Sales, development, DevOps, HR, finance.
They forget that they are the leader
What does it look like?
A customer calls with an issue.
The support rep has no idea how to fix the problem, opens a ticket and assigns it to an engineer.
The rep tells the customer - “I’ve escalated it to engineering”. The customer says “THIS IS REALLY HIGH PRIORITY”, practically shouting at the rep over the phone.
24 hours go by and the engineer is not sure what the problem is.
The customer CEO calls the tech startup founder - “Do you know how much damage your bugs are causing us?”
The founder says “I’ll get it fixed for you”.
The founder checks out the code and sees the problem. He forks a branch with a hot bug fix and puts it into the CI/CD pipeline for deployment, proud of himself. He congratulates himself that he still has the technical chops to solve problems. He calls the customer CEO and tells him happily that the problem was fixed.
Why is this an anti-design pattern?
No good deed goes unpunished.
The customer will get used to the founder solving problems and make him/her their personal support representative. The customer CEO will now treat the startup founder like shit instead of as a peer.
The customer has now demoted the founder to the role of their personal customer support rep.
The support desk and programmers are out of the loop.
The problem solving knowledge is lost.
A learning opportunity is wasted.
This does not feel like a good idea to anyone in the team.
The team is demoralized.
Other tasks don’t get done.
The boss forgets he's the leader of the team.
Solving the “Destroy With Brilliance” anti-design pattern
When a problem escalates to the founder, be polite and notify the customer that the support/engineering team is on it.
Slack the support desk and ask what’s the story.
Don’t update the ticket yourself.
Talk to the programmer who is maintaining the code. Use the Socratic method - what do you think? Where is the problem manifesting itself? How would you reproduce the problem and troubleshoot it?
Follow up with the programmer the next day.
Use the incident as a learning opportunity.
Debrief and be better next time.
Be a leader, not a trouble-maker.
On a park bench in Venice CA
Mark was the one who began.
Mark, “Bob, tell me what’s happening at Giganet, and what’s new with Alice?”.
Mark remained silent as they sat on the park bench.
In front of them there was the green calm of the park.
A man hungry for an answer, must stock up on patience.
A man in possession of analytical skills needs to listen.
That is why Mark remained silent.
Mark listened carefully to Bob's story for about 15 minutes.
Bob, “I saw Alice this week at the gym. We jammed together. Turns out she loves Sinatra and Veronica Lake”.
Mark, “Tell me exactly what happened”.
Bob relates the story of how they sang “Have you met Miss Jones” together in the gym. How she changed the line to “I'm a girl who must be free".
Mark, “Well, that’s standard for female vocalists. Ella and Sarah Vaughn both sang I'm a girl who must be free. But, it’s a very good sign. She’s not afraid to tell you her thoughts, she just needed a way to do it without confronting you. She asked you to sing”.
Mark, “Don’t push. Don’t ask family questions. Just flow with the music. The things she loves”.
Bob, “And Giganet and Iris?”
Mark, “Tell Barry to cut the fluff and get to the point with Iris. They’re co-founders.
Tell Barry to solve the “Destroy With Brilliance” anti-design pattern before it destroys the company”.