Good culture is the biggest productivity hack, not AI

Good culture is the biggest productivity hack, not AI
11 minutes by Gregor Ojstersek

Good culture matters more than AI tools. AI amplifies what already exists, so poor communication and bad processes just get worse faster. Leaders should frame AI as another useful tool rather than a replacement for people, and let adoption grow from the bottom up. The real goal is building an environment where great people do their best work, then use AI to multiply that.

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No one innovates their way out of a delivery problem
4 minutes by Aviv Ben-Yosef

Aviv argues that engineering teams often struggle because they try to innovate before mastering the basics. There is a clear order of priorities: first deliver reliably, then achieve stability, then become cost-efficient, and only then focus on innovation. Skipping ahead guarantees failure. He suggests finding where your team actually stands, fixing that layer completely, and only then moving up.

Are you getting your money’s worth from AI?
7 minutes by James Shore

James says that AI tools can double software output, but the costs are real and the benefits are often exaggerated or poorly measured. Token spending can run thousands of dollars per engineer monthly, and productivity self-assessments are notoriously unreliable. Simple metrics like lines of code or pull requests are easy to game and mean little. Good decisions require honest measurement of speed, side effects, and actual business value.

Landing the plane
13 minutes by James Stanier

Starting a project feels exciting, but finishing it is where most fail. The last 10% brings edge cases, scope creep, and fading energy, often leaving projects stuck at "almost done" indefinitely. To land well, James suggests leaders need tighter check-ins, ruthless scope protection, and clear stakeholder communication. Marking the ending with reflection and celebration matters too, since how a project finishes shapes how the team approaches the next one.

Bring a product manager mindset to your next engineering job
5 minutes by Brian Jenney

Product engineer roles are growing fast, but companies can't fill them. The gap isn't technical skills. It's the ability to think beyond assigned tasks, spot real problems, and care about outcomes. Engineers who form opinions, learn their users, run safe experiments, and measure results will stand out far more than those who simply write clean code.

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industry

• They really do think AI might kill everyone
• Tailwind Labs is joining Shopify
• Hands-on with the iPhone Duo
• Why are you still here?

security

• I asked 100 agents to hack me
• We have a year to fix security everywhere
• Hackers had a live feed of every ID this verification company scanned

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

• Maybe we shouldn't be reviewing all this code