
Prophets and Professionals
I wrote most of this with my colleague, Mallory in late 2018, when we were both at Wise (formerly TransferWise). That’s why it’s a bit more readable. -- How to think about the tensions scaling up a startup This is too simple, but hear me out. You can split start-up people into two camps. Some we’ll call Prophets. The others are Professionals. Organizations like Wise have both. Every company has both.Why do we care? Three reasons.The first is that when startups are fortunate enough to grow up ...

Pushing yourself to take big risks
I wrote this blog post early in 2017. Besides my day job leading the analysts at Wise (formerly TransferWise) I was also a part of the “planning guild”. There were four of us and our task was to coordinate the quarterly planning cycles for all 35+ internal teams. There was just one problem: planning was broken. -- START --Outgrowing “the way we’ve always done things”Every quarter — over the last 6 years of TransferWise’s existence — each product team has presented their plans to the rest of t...

An introduction to self leadership
I wrote this in November 2015 while I was at Wise (formerly TransferWise). I wrote it after being completely captured by a book I read called ‘Reinventing Organisations.’ It was such a good book, and it applied so closely to Wise that I couldn’t not write it. I was so inspired by the book an Wise that I wrote this long essay (6000+ words), hosted a long lunch interview on the topic with Wise co-founder Kristo, and got probably 100 Wisers (of 500 at the time) to read the book. Looking back, my...
Co-founder @ salv.com, formerly at Wise & Skype.

Prophets and Professionals
I wrote most of this with my colleague, Mallory in late 2018, when we were both at Wise (formerly TransferWise). That’s why it’s a bit more readable. -- How to think about the tensions scaling up a startup This is too simple, but hear me out. You can split start-up people into two camps. Some we’ll call Prophets. The others are Professionals. Organizations like Wise have both. Every company has both.Why do we care? Three reasons.The first is that when startups are fortunate enough to grow up ...

Pushing yourself to take big risks
I wrote this blog post early in 2017. Besides my day job leading the analysts at Wise (formerly TransferWise) I was also a part of the “planning guild”. There were four of us and our task was to coordinate the quarterly planning cycles for all 35+ internal teams. There was just one problem: planning was broken. -- START --Outgrowing “the way we’ve always done things”Every quarter — over the last 6 years of TransferWise’s existence — each product team has presented their plans to the rest of t...

An introduction to self leadership
I wrote this in November 2015 while I was at Wise (formerly TransferWise). I wrote it after being completely captured by a book I read called ‘Reinventing Organisations.’ It was such a good book, and it applied so closely to Wise that I couldn’t not write it. I was so inspired by the book an Wise that I wrote this long essay (6000+ words), hosted a long lunch interview on the topic with Wise co-founder Kristo, and got probably 100 Wisers (of 500 at the time) to read the book. Looking back, my...
Co-founder @ salv.com, formerly at Wise & Skype.
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I’ve written quite a bit over the years, but hardly published anything. I decided it’s worth sharing with whomever is interested. I imagine it’s mostly useful for:
People considering joining our mission at Salv. My co-founder Taavi has a tons of his thoughts online but I’m harder to find. This is a start.
Salvers who are thinking about how to scale up Salv. A lot of what I captured here I learned helping Wise to scale.
$10/hr or $10,000? - thoughts on how to value your time, maximise your impact and have a great life. [4 min read]
Pushing yourself to take big risks - reflections on when I took 600 people down a radically different path that ended up creating a key ritual in Wise’s success. [4 min read]
How to land your dream job - An unconventional approach to get a more interesting role, at a cooler company, with nicer people, with a lot less stress. [16 min read]
The most important 0.13% of my month - We each have 730 hours in a month. I transform how much I focus on what’s important to me by making Personal Commitments using just one hour a month. [8 min read]
Self-leadership & Wise - A careful reading of Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations and applied to Wise (TransferWise) circa 2015. 3 part series [8+5+15 min reads]
Prophets & Professionals - A simple model that describes why the culture in startups change as they grow. A useful framework for how to think about the tensions scaling up a startup [6 min read]
Autonomous teams at scale - how Wise learned how to scale autonomous teams and avoid creeping bureaucracy. [10 min read]
Scooters are fun. But… - On why you should choose a company with a mission where you're convinced you're making the world a better place. And on how we work at Salv. [11 min read]
The definitive guide to cross-team guilds - What they are, how to set them up and why a group of cross-team volunteers, working part time, can help an organization achieve far more than traditional teams. [14 min read]
Why we don’t have a BI team at TransferWise - How I set up the analytics team at Wise (circa 2015), and how it helped Wise scale faster. [6 min read]
So you think you’re data driven - Every team has data but many either don’t know how to use it or misuse it for planning and setting KPIs/targets/OKRs. This guide can help. Circa 2017. [7 min read]
Investing like it’s 1939 - How we’re returning to an old paradigm of investing similar to 80 years ago [10 min read]
Beyond the Beach: Seychelles in the Era of Global Sovereignty - how this enchanting beach paradise could transform into a global powerhouse. [10 min read]
The Art of AI T-Shirts: Your Way to One-of-a-Kind T-Shirts - A step-by-step guide to creating affordable, custom tees with the latest print-on-demand tech. [6 min read]
VC-Backed Careers - Making the case for investing serious cash into people’s careers, VC style [6 min read]
YSAC - You Suck At Coding - There’s a huge opportunity to accelerate how people learn to code [6 min read]
A tech alternative to commission sales - How a small app and process could align incentives better to achieve higher sales team output. [5 min read]
Lean in to learning - an idea to make education more useful. I envisioned it during the first weeks of Covid but looking back it seems increasingly relevant, as remote learning becomes default. [2 min read]
Teachers of tomorrow’s leaders - an comprehensive plan for a conference that pairs up top teachers and leaders from the tech sector. [5 min read]
Why we couldn’t ignore AML - Why, of all the problems in the world, we at Salv decided to focus on AML. And why it’s such an interesting problem to work on. [6 min read]
Criminals are fast. Your AML must be faster - why speed and fast feedback loops are the critical missing ingredients that are missing in most AML teams. [5 min read]
Can Machine Learning save AML? - About the challenges of applying machine learning techniques in the real world [16 min read]. Shorter version [6 mins]
I’ve written quite a bit over the years, but hardly published anything. I decided it’s worth sharing with whomever is interested. I imagine it’s mostly useful for:
People considering joining our mission at Salv. My co-founder Taavi has a tons of his thoughts online but I’m harder to find. This is a start.
Salvers who are thinking about how to scale up Salv. A lot of what I captured here I learned helping Wise to scale.
$10/hr or $10,000? - thoughts on how to value your time, maximise your impact and have a great life. [4 min read]
Pushing yourself to take big risks - reflections on when I took 600 people down a radically different path that ended up creating a key ritual in Wise’s success. [4 min read]
How to land your dream job - An unconventional approach to get a more interesting role, at a cooler company, with nicer people, with a lot less stress. [16 min read]
The most important 0.13% of my month - We each have 730 hours in a month. I transform how much I focus on what’s important to me by making Personal Commitments using just one hour a month. [8 min read]
Self-leadership & Wise - A careful reading of Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations and applied to Wise (TransferWise) circa 2015. 3 part series [8+5+15 min reads]
Prophets & Professionals - A simple model that describes why the culture in startups change as they grow. A useful framework for how to think about the tensions scaling up a startup [6 min read]
Autonomous teams at scale - how Wise learned how to scale autonomous teams and avoid creeping bureaucracy. [10 min read]
Scooters are fun. But… - On why you should choose a company with a mission where you're convinced you're making the world a better place. And on how we work at Salv. [11 min read]
The definitive guide to cross-team guilds - What they are, how to set them up and why a group of cross-team volunteers, working part time, can help an organization achieve far more than traditional teams. [14 min read]
Why we don’t have a BI team at TransferWise - How I set up the analytics team at Wise (circa 2015), and how it helped Wise scale faster. [6 min read]
So you think you’re data driven - Every team has data but many either don’t know how to use it or misuse it for planning and setting KPIs/targets/OKRs. This guide can help. Circa 2017. [7 min read]
Investing like it’s 1939 - How we’re returning to an old paradigm of investing similar to 80 years ago [10 min read]
Beyond the Beach: Seychelles in the Era of Global Sovereignty - how this enchanting beach paradise could transform into a global powerhouse. [10 min read]
The Art of AI T-Shirts: Your Way to One-of-a-Kind T-Shirts - A step-by-step guide to creating affordable, custom tees with the latest print-on-demand tech. [6 min read]
VC-Backed Careers - Making the case for investing serious cash into people’s careers, VC style [6 min read]
YSAC - You Suck At Coding - There’s a huge opportunity to accelerate how people learn to code [6 min read]
A tech alternative to commission sales - How a small app and process could align incentives better to achieve higher sales team output. [5 min read]
Lean in to learning - an idea to make education more useful. I envisioned it during the first weeks of Covid but looking back it seems increasingly relevant, as remote learning becomes default. [2 min read]
Teachers of tomorrow’s leaders - an comprehensive plan for a conference that pairs up top teachers and leaders from the tech sector. [5 min read]
Why we couldn’t ignore AML - Why, of all the problems in the world, we at Salv decided to focus on AML. And why it’s such an interesting problem to work on. [6 min read]
Criminals are fast. Your AML must be faster - why speed and fast feedback loops are the critical missing ingredients that are missing in most AML teams. [5 min read]
Can Machine Learning save AML? - About the challenges of applying machine learning techniques in the real world [16 min read]. Shorter version [6 mins]
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