Out Of Scope - #6

The one question we should all be asking

Hi all! Hope you all had a good week.

This week I presented (in person and streamed!) at a big work event to give a team update. Recording here:

Emily Kager @EmilyKager

Exciting stuff 👏

Marathon training is going well and I think I’ve done my longest training run today at 18 miles! Only a few weeks left and I will be so relieved when this is one less thing on my plate. I may have (definitely) overextended myself with a 9-5, marathon training, wedding planning, content creation, and other projects I’m working on. 🥹

The One Question Everyone Should Ask For Any New Feature

How could someone abuse this?

A few years ago Strava, a social fitness app, came out with a new “flyby” feature, where you were connected with people’s profiles who you passed on your workouts. The intention behind the feature to find new neighbors, friends, or work out buddies to compete or train with. It was enabled by default.

Once people realized this new feature existed and showed strangers in public your name, photo, and exercise route, people on Twitter were quick to call out the very clear safety concerns, especially for female athletes. After the quick outrage, Strava changed the feature to opt-in.

I find it hard to believe that had a female athlete been on that team this feature would have made it to an opt-out release. Just another reason why diverse teams are better teams, but I believe everyone building user facing features should be asking “how could someone abuse this” at some point in the development process.

ICYMI

Of course the big Tech Twitter buzz this week was the shut down of Fast (and Elon Musk’s large Twitter purchase).

Catch up here:

Jack Raines (🤜🏼,🤛🏼) @Jack_Raines

1) 🚨A DECADE OF DECEPTION FROM FAST CEO: DOMM HOLLAND 🚨 Fast is closing down, largely because the company was burning an absurd $10M a month in 2021 while only generating $50k per month in sales. I checked out the history of their CEO, Domm Holland, and it is... interesting.

I love when I find subtweets early where people aren’t sure of the context. For example:

Jacob “יעקב” Aronoff @get_sw1fty

SO, I feel for the theranos team. I know several. Earnest, passionate people. I also think Elizabeth Holmes is creative and capable. I’d likely back her if he started a new company. The culprit: Walgreens pushing them to scale before they knew how.

Which came from:

Ryan Breslow @theryanking

SO, I feel for the Fast team. I know several. Earnest, passionate people. I also think @domm is creative and capable. I’d likely back him if he started a new company. The culprit: Stripe pushing them to scale before they knew how.

Surprising that a company known for secrecy isn’t a huge fan of transparency. 😮‍💨 This is exactly why sharing salaries with your peers is so important.

chefski @__chefski__

Apple doesn't care about pay transparency. My management literally can't tell me the top of my pay band because finance won't let them. 🤷

Don’t be this tech guy. You can afford the chips.

j @scheff61

Tech dudes will make 600k a year and still venmo request $2 for your share of the chips and salsa

That’s it folks! Stay safe + healthy and see ya’ll next week.