Today’s careers aren’t ladders, they’re paths you have to chart yourself. A resume is designed to be scanned quickly, skimming over all of your grit, elbow grease, and rizz to pick out a few generic key words. 

That's what leadership looks like: Putting aside your own experiences and recognizing when it isn't about you. Because, as we explained in that meeting, bias has no place in the workplace.

For my whole career I’ve been surrounded by brilliant people with access to capital who know how to turn ideas into money. I always thought there was some magic to it. That they knew something I didn’t. But these days, I’m discovering something. If I don’t tell these brilliant people that I’m not their peer, they don’t notice.

When it comes to hiring and promotion, we tend to think admin skills are intuitive. So we devalue them. But admin skills are not universal.

People and companies who never admit fault or ignorance don’t inspire confidence. In this situation, the right support response would have been, “I don’t know, but let’s figure it out together.”

What all of these point solutions are missing: Human Resources and People Operations are complex jobs that require a nuanced understanding of a variety of different subjects. The AI opportunities aren’t in replacing the humans in Human Resources. They’re enhancing human judgement. 

Truth: Working at a startup is different from working at a BigCo Inc. Myth: There’s some magical secret to it.

Letters from government agencies can be real scary sometimes. Especially when they contain words like "Warrant" and penalties with commas in them. By all means, take these letters seriously. But don't let them scare you.

If more people could see the data, maybe they’d want to renegotiate. But they might also have a better understanding of how their value is measured, and therefore find ways to bring more value to the company.