What did the Chief Data Scientist of the US teach me? - #2
There's plenty of advice out there for how to lead your career but this one piece has immensely helped me in my career. This is my interpretation of the bullets shared in the picture and their significance in the professional world. I originally wrote this as a thread on Twitter but since improved it to share here.
There's plenty of advice out there for how to lead your career but this one piece has immensely helped me in my career. This is my interpretation of the bullets shared in the picture and their significance in the professional world. I originally wrote this as a thread on Twitter but since improved it to share here. Credits and thanks to DJ Patil - @DJ44 for this picture.
DJ Patilis an American mathematician and computer scientist who served as the Chief Data Scientist of the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2015 to 2017.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s!xKVT!,fauto,qauto:good,flprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc718121e-78d3-4afe-b993-3e4180decfd3640x853.jpeg
No matter what field/profession you choose - "Ship Daily" would be one of the most important tenets.
It signifies having a bias for action which coincidentally is also one of the Amazon leadership principles (which I love and use) by @JeffBezos.
Bias for action would be key as you operate in fast-paced, highly competitive, and ambiguous environments. This will be the thing which will set you apart from the people who are all talk and no action.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s!AVcy!,fauto,qauto:good,flprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2e7bc2a4-ff3d-4c39-82b6-fe8e3a643666480x480.gif
Getting things done never goes unnoticed. You will see a lot of people in your career who would be smart, have good intentions but who do not have a bias for action. These people fail to execute and even if they do, they fail to execute on a competitive timeline.
Build that muscle early on. A small experiment is worth twice the discussions.
Evaluating in weeks would be key as you train your model to listen to customer feedback. Remember you don't have to be in some specific type of B2C/B2B company shipping a specific type of product to be able to do that, you are always shipping something to customers.
I am currently shipping to my followers and I carefully evaluate what works and what doesn't, and change approach accordingly.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s!OeHK!,fauto,qauto:good,flprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe83de5c1-3da0-48bd-8de1-e6e2573ecbf2480x276.gif
You will also need to plan in months. The world is really moving fast, by the time I finish this thread several new companies would have been incorporated.
Remember, even when you are in the right lane, you will get run over if you are not moving.
Dreaming in years is the best thing you can do for yourself.
"Begin with the end in mind"
Don't be rigid, be informed but never lose sight of the goal.
@JeffBezos says "Stubborn on vision, flexible on details."
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s!nro7!,fauto,qauto:good,flprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4337ca42-29f5-452f-ad15-3d8082d6ec831024x512.jpeg
Prototype for 1X signifies to me that build low fidelity models to get feedback and really listen to customer feedback.
Understand how your customers feel with the product, how they react to it. Learn.
Build for 10X - yes, build your product keeping in mind what could it look like if it were to succeed.
Build for success and scalability. Thus, always engineer for 100X.
Next, ask the right questions and you will start realizing that 80:20 rule really makes a lot of appearances in the world of building things. Meaning that a lot of times 20% of the work takes 80% of the time. Think about what you can do about it.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s!xbBs!,fauto,qauto:good,flprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb2c69e86-8b39-4f20-a497-629ad3817a57945x895.jpeg
In many cases, the last 20% of work would be needed and there would be no way around it.
In other cases, you will save time, you will channel your resourcefulness and make decisions that will cut the timeline.
And then, there's the toughest of them all.
"What needs to be done to double the impact?"
This one is like a workout - you might not like it when in the process but every time you will be glad that you did it and almost every time, end up improving something in the system.
~The End~ ✌️
Bonus: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator (video) - you will be glad you watched this!
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I love you all, keep going!
- Aakash
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Originally published on substack.