I shared this message with my team on Thursday morning:
Hi all, you may have heard the news about Russia invading Ukraine. I recognize that the last couple of years have been difficult and this invasion makes it worse. If you need time to clear your heads or to learn more about the crisis, please take the needed time off. If you’d rather focus on deep work, do go ahead and cancel meetings.
In crises like this, it is paramount to care for ourselves. At the same time, we have to consider our civic duty to one another. I am currently thinking about the “banality of evil” and how silent complicity enables opportunists who seek to take advantage of the people.
This kind of intro probably isn’t why you subscribe to my newsletter, but I didn’t have mental space for a different one.
Software Engineering ⚙️
Typescript Type Assignability Matrix
I wish I had something like this when I first started learning Typescript. The matrix may be confusing. But when you read each cell carefully and consider why they behave like that, you will understand it.
People ❤️
Support open-source that you use by paying the maintainers to talk to your team
Speaking engagements sound more beneficial for engineers than direct sponsorships (though direct sponsorships are essential, too!). I wonder what the reasonable rate for the speakers is.
Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?
I can’t imagine a world where technology gets less critical in businesses. We have barely digitized our messy real world. I predict that the story will differ based on the engineers’ skillsets—while machine learning engineers are on-demand, Fortran or Cobol programmers are not. Individual engineers need to continuously learn and adapt to stay relevant.
Business 💰
Shopify’s Evolution
Shopify is moving from an integration hub to a full-stack service provider for eCommerce. It now has its payment system, a fulfillment network, and more. However, its evolution is creating a platform risk to its partners:
Announcing our $100M Series C funding
Hasura, a major contributor to the GraphQL ecosystem in both content and OSS, got a new round of funding to invest in its cloud services. I am happy for the team, and I hope that they keep the current effort in pushing the ecosystem further.
10 Lessons Learned after $5B of M&A
The most surprising lesson was the second one:
Startups are sold to individuals, not to companies. The champion – often a product leader, the CEO, or a general manager – risks their career by buying a startup.
youngk.im 