Oversimplified: Volume 143
Strengths vs. weaknesses, bags of worries, and timely career advice
Hey there 👋
Oversimplified is a digest of the best links I stumble upon each week, alongside the humble inclusion of any new posts from me.
📚 Your Strengths Are Your Weaknesses
I enjoyed this reminder from Matheus Lima that the qualities we celebrate in our team members are usually the same ones causing our biggest headaches. The goal isn’t perfection, but rather the self-awareness to adjust your tendencies based for what the situation demands.
📚 Good Writing
Another thought-provoking meditation on writing from Paul Graham. One quote that stood out to me was: “Trying to make writing sound good makes you fix mistakes unconsciously, and also helps you fix them consciously; it shakes the bin of ideas, and also makes mistakes easier to see.”
📚 A Bag of Worries
This experiment from James Stanier is worth trying if you find yourself drowning in tasks from your todo list. LLMs are great in particular at taking a lot of information and trimming it down to a useful kernel, this leans on that exact strength.
🔗 Career Advice in 2025
Marc Andreessen shares his take on career advice in this fast-moving world we live in. A lot of evergreen advice in here, layered on with the reality that there’s not too much stability out there. Stay curious, and look for opportunities in the sweet spot of growth.
🔗 Mock Product Sense Interview
I’ve been getting back into the interview prep flow lately, and I found this mock interview particularly helpful. Everyone’s got a take out there on their favorite structure / way to approach these chats. This one seems the most concrete to me.
Food for Thought
"For me, success is not a public thing. It's a private thing. It's when you have fewer and fewer regrets." — Toni Morrison
Wrapping up
As always, if you're enjoying Oversimplified, I'd love it if you shared it with a friend or two. If anything stood out, whether good or bad, I would love to hear about it. Just reply to this email and let’s chat.
Until next time,
Conor