Ben Mann Monthly Aug 2023
Cookies, The Bear, Chip War, allergy testing, management skills
Purpose
An index for my memory
A menu of topics for my next conversation with you
A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it
A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable
Experiments and experiences
Cal Academy of Sciences
We took Euda to Cal Academy. Although it wasn't clear how much she appreciated the exhibits, we definitely did! There were some cheetah and leopard pelts to touch (less soft than I expected), a live presentation of some South African penguins (they pair bond, but not for life! Penguin drama), a live construction of a meteor using sand, rocks, dirt, ammonia, dry ice, and corn syrup, and some great tank exhibits including my personal favorite, jellyfish. A membership breaks even on the second annual visit, so we grabbed one. Glad to support our local cultural institutions!
Fancy sushi
Similar to Andy, we also went for a fancy sushi meal and, while it was excellent, I agree it's not that much better in absolute terms than the cheapo stuff. Maybe we're too lowbrow to appreciate it 😅.
Allergy test x2
I had some allergic reactions to what I theorized were peaches, since stone fruit season was especially good this year and I thought there was some correlation. I emailed my doctor to ask for an allergy test. Instead, he recommended either trying an elimination diet or taking a 2x dose of cetirizine until the problem went away. When I was eight years old or so, I got a RAST test and this revealed, to my surprise, that I was allergic to milk. Eliminating it and all milk products from my diet made a massive improvement to my quality of life. I'd tried elimination diets but it was hard to account for all the products that contain milk powder or butter. It also revealed a much more intense allergy to white oak, which luckily does not grow in California! When I went to the allergist for my test, he suggested doing a skin test, and asked what foods I'd like to test for. I was very surprised, since the RAST test checked for >20 allergens, both food and environmental, and I don't remember picking which to try. I chose a couple that I thought might be affecting me, including milk and peaches. The allergist told me 90% of people who come in for a test end up with an inconclusive diagnosis. To my surprise, cherries and hazelnuts triggered a response. To double check, we also ran cherries, hazelnuts, and milk through a blood test, and both of those that triggered a skin reaction came up positive in the blood test, while milk did not. I guess I grew out of the milk allergy! And since steering clear of cherries and peaches, I haven't had any further reactions. Always good to test!
Leveling up management skills
A few months ago I transitioned to managing managers. This turns out to require a rather different skill set from managing individual contributors. I've struggled to fly at the right altitude, shifting my focus from the day to day of sprint planning and IC allocation towards longer-range project prioritization, building out new functions like design, and being a good information conduit up from my engineering managers and down from the exec team. While it was definitely rough going in the beginning, I feel like I'm starting to get traction. Reading books like An Elegant Puzzle and Good Strategy Bad Strategy and hiring a coach through Elevate have been helpful. I've never had a coach before, so I'm also still learning how to make the most of that new relationship. It's not so different from a psychotherapy relationship in that my coach often asks questions to lead me to answers I already know; and just like in therapy, even when I know the game being played, I play it because it works. Except unlike therapy my coach is an expert in tech management and can suggest specific resources, speak about her experience, and offer a lens on the industry. I have homework to do. Work in progress!
Life updates
📖 Started reading An Elegant Puzzle
💸 Launched Claude Pro
📣 Panel chat at SaaStr with Sandhya Hegde, Douwe Kiela, and Arvind Jain
👦 Bro visiting from Finland for 3w
Content
5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted
Levain Bakery-Style Super-Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe 5/5
New favorite recipe! A/B tested the overnight rest and it does seem to make a difference in chewiness. Used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips, and bumped up the ratio of brown to white sugar. Also tried putting a blob of peanut butter inside one of the cookies, but while it tasted good, it distracted from the cookie matrix; would go pure next time. Used an egg beater instead of a paddle mixer so only had to cream butter/sugar for 1 minute instead of 8, and didn't add the egg gradually, just put it all in at once. I also A/B tested conventional against our Panasonic toaster oven. While the toaster oven is extremely convenient, it didn't yield as good a result since the temperature bounces around a lot more due to lack of insulation.
The Bear S1 & S2 4/5
Wow!! So good. I loved the way the show conveyed the pressure and trauma of both the family and kitchen environments, as well as the characters' attempts to rebel against their family and kitchen upbringings.
The characters are all relatable and human; season 2 especially takes its time profiling each one.
Not as feel-good as Ted Lasso, but also not that far from the same set of messages. How do you build a strong team with psychological safety, where people can be themselves, make mistakes, and still be their best every day?
Chip War 4/5
Audible narration 2/5, content 4/5
History of the chip industry. Suprising bits:
Chip industry might not have kicked off in the US without defense subsidies? First crop of companies were all making semiconductors to replace vacuum tubes in missile guidance systems. WWII bomb accuracy was basically useless.
The story I heard over and over was "company becomes the best, then slowly dies because they became unfocused, hired low performers, and didn't evolve with the industry." Aligns with horror stories I've heard about how dysfunctional Intel is now at every level.
Semiconductors have been a political tool for a long time, starting with giving away IP to Japan to help it recover from WWII, and ~ending with US putting strict controls on China to avoid it getting too much of an independent and unified supply chain.
Elemental 3/5
Yep, pretty standard Pixar film. I kept wanting to figure out what elements (fire, water, air, earth) mapped to what races/cultures, but the filmmakers were careful to make it inconsistent enough to avoid any direct mapping.
While it was well made, I suggest reading Deep instead.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 3/5
Another standard Guardian's/Marvel film, got what we asked for. Can't even tell the difference between the bad guys in this one and latest Dr. Strange. What's with these purple-suit dudes trying to make things perfect?
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 2/5
Good, but didn't have the originality of the first; felt like they could've gone further with spider HQ; Oscar Isaac's character was too flat.