Learning from competition

Learning from competition
10 minutes by Steven Sinofsky

Studying competitors is essential for everyone on a product team, not just managers or analysts. Steven suggests to use their products deeply and as intended, not just for a quick look. Avoid static thinking, since competitors know their own weaknesses and will fix them. Tools like feature lists, scenario tests, and writing mock reviews from a competitor's perspective all help build real understanding.

New Survey: AI in Design and Development Workflows 2025
sponsored by Progress Telerik

84% of teams use AI—but many still struggle with consistency, quality, and collaboration. Explore real adoption data, key challenges, and what it takes to move from experimentation to scalable workflows—plus what to watch next in 2026.

Why isn't everything different yet?
9 minutes by Dave Griffith

AI is transforming the economy, just not as fast as people expect. Like electricity, the real productivity gains came decades after the technology arrived, once workflows, infrastructure, and business models caught up. Every domain needs real people to figure out what changes and how. We are moving 5 to 10 times faster than past technology shifts, which still feels slow because we are impatient.

How can I as a leader build hope in my team?
8 minutes by Andi Roberts

Hope is a practical leadership tool, not a soft sentiment. Gallup research across 52 countries shows it is the top psychological need employees have from their leaders, outweighing trust or stability. Leaders build hope by giving teams clear goals, multiple paths forward, and real ownership over their work. Making small wins visible and being honest about uncertainty keeps people believing their effort matters.

Blessed with constraints
9 minutes by Maarten Dalmijn

Too many choices overwhelm people just as much as too few. Companies often pile on internal rules, approvals, and processes that drain employee agency and create "railroading," where everyone just keeps the machine running instead of solving real problems. The fix is not removing all constraints but replacing limiting ones with enabling ones like clear vision and strategy. Maarten argues that when done right, this creates a sandbox where teams can do their best work.

Why your best employee becomes your worst manager
5 minutes by Yaniv Preiss

Putting the wrong person in a management role hurts everyone: the team disengages, the manager suffers, and trust in leadership breaks down. The core mistake is treating management as a reward for technical skill, when it is actually a new profession requiring emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and strong communication.

Scale Your AI, Not Your Tech Debt: Vector Search Powered by Redis
sponsored by Redis

Eliminate infrastructure sprawl by leveraging Redis as your vector database. RedisVL lets your team deploy production-ready RAG and semantic search on your existing footprint. No new security reviews, no additional vendor contracts, just faster time-to-market and lower TCO. Have your team run pip install redisvl to turn your existing data into your next AI breakthrough.

industry

• Cal.com Goes Closed Source
• Sometimes powerful people just do dumb things
• Stanford report highlights growing disconnect between AI insiders and everyone else
• Protected quantum gates using qubit doublons in dynamical optical lattices

security

• Organizational Politics & The Security Program
• Cybersecurity Looks Like Proof of Work Now
• We May Be Living Through the Most Consequential Hundred Days in Cyber History
• Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

• Dropping sprints: A year with shape up