June’s weekly Twitter threads, in one handy e-mail
Hello there,
You’re looking good. Yeah you.
It’s nice to see people again. It’s nice to do some work again in person
I’m deep in the muddy waters of execution, aka the “actually doing” part after you make a plan, so a lot of the past month’s threads are practical little guides: questions to ask, balls to juggle, reminders to jot down.
Without further adieu…
Good Execution vs. Bad Execution
What does it mean, really, to be excellent at “executing”?
Common Design Mistakes I Am Extremely Guilty Of
… and am therefore terribly sensitive about.
All Kinds of Conflicting Advice about Product Development
The punchline is that everything depends on context, so don’t get too attached to anyone’s field…
May’s weekly Twitter threads, in one handy e-mail
Hi there!
Here in California, the cherries are crimson sweet, Disneyland is making magic for families once more, and I’ve gotten to reunite with a few friends and tell them in person how much I’ve missed them.
Over the past month, our team has been growing in size, which has me thinking about recruiting, early product development, and why we do what we do.
What should be next in my topic queue? I’d love to hear from you.
The Designer’s Underrated Superpower
Comfort with ambiguity + trust in the process = critical for innovation
My Favorite Interview Questions
45 minutes is never going to make you an…
April’s weekly Twitter threads, in one handy e-mail
Hello dear readers,
I hope you are well, and healthy, and that the sound of spring rains give you pleasure. Over the past few months on my tweet thread journey, I meandered through embarrassing personal stories, company lore, and a metaphor or two.
What should be next in my topic queue? Write me your suggestions.
The Right Feature > More Features
How to win in product development with fewer resources.
Getting Through the Cringe of Asking for Favors
How asking more often leads to greater generosity all around.
Pick a Company like You’d Pick a Friend
No company is without flaws. A guide for picking the next one you’d want to join.
That Time I Got Feedback That Stung
How I rationalized away a perfectly good feedback lesson.
Warmly,
Julie
The past month of essays-as-Twitter-threads, including: how do you delay a product launch? Why should managers learn other functions? And top 7 unintuitive things about growing your career.
Hello friends!
I hope the sun rays feel like smiles on your skin. I hope the spring air fills you with optimism. I hope you can hug your loved ones soon. Here’s the last month of essays-in-the-form-of-twitter-threads.
“My Identity = My Job”
Who tends to think this way? Why is it unhealthy? What are the actual regrets of the dying?
https://twitter.com/joulee/status/1377645723118792707
If I had seven tweets to send to a younger version of myself, this would be it.
https://twitter.com/joulee/status/1370412225513418753
How to think about quality, deadlines, and the art of bringing up news your boss does not want to hear.
https://twitter.com/joulee/status/1372942377724252162
And…
Five fun threads for the price of one newsletter email!
Welcome to the second edition of Weekly Essays in the Form of Twitter Threads.
As Shreyas Doshi, Grandmaster of Wise Product Tweets once told me, Twitter is a great medium for learning! Easy on the eyeballs, quick on the reshareability. And like some kind of chemist, you’re forced to distill what you know into its simplest essence. How to make it not fortune-cookie obvious, but not so complex that you repeatedly slam into the cold stone wall of the 280-character limit while trying to coax out a nuanced discussion until you give up to look at NFT art instead? …
In which we move to little thoughts in little chunks of words
It’s 2021! And I had every intention of writing an ode to the New Year, something warm and comforting with a touch of spice, like a good gumbo.
But then my toddler decided that his favorite thing to do now is open every drawer in the house and bulldoze the contents. Then, there was the insurrection to process, and the sea shanties, and the gamestonks, and what do you know the month is over. Oh, and interspersed in there somewhere is a tale of company building. People used to tell me that company building was all-consuming. They’re absolutely right.
Occasionally…
My first full-length novel, The Shadow Gods, was a story about a modern-day goddess of love who becomes a pawn in a high-stakes political game.
My second, The Chances, was about a cat-mouse-game between a pair of identical high school twins, one a detective and the other a thief.
My third, Neath, was about a forsaken underground kingdom plotting its revenge in the last days of civilization.
And lastly, Game of Chances was a combo concept: a pair of identical high school twins, one a detective and the other a thief, discover they are modern-day gods in a high-stakes political…
What happens when you acknowledge all aspects of yourself — even the flaws
Over the years, I’ve encountered my fair share of trolling, and what I’ve learned is that it’s an art. What the finest trolls know is that in order to really get under someone’s skin, the attack must fulfill two conditions: 1) some tiny part of the person believes the message is true; and 2) they’re ashamed of it.
Suppose you tell me you’d rather eat dirt than my cooking. That’s rude, but I’m not going to get defensive. This is because I’m not ashamed of my cooking: I know the insides of my pots are scorched from many a kitchen…
Ask the right questions to unearth a wealth of insights
👋 Hi! I’m Julie Zhuo. I help companies scale and build people-centric products informed by data. I’m the author of a popular management book. I used to lead design for the Facebook app. The Looking Glass is my once-a-month-ish musings on products, teams, and our journey as builders.
One glorious thing about having an almost six-year-old is that we’ve started to read some of my favorite childhood books together.
Recently, we read Matilda by Roald Dahl. When I first encountered this story as a wide-eyed immigrant kid, I loved the idea that a smart, resourceful little girl could one-up the…
Is Tiktok good or bad? Should Rick be fired? Should designers wear top hats? Also: How can social media systems better incentivize informedness?
👋 Hi! I’m Julie Zhuo. I help companies scale and build people-centric products informed by data. I’m the author of a popular management book. I used to lead design for the Facebook app. The Looking Glass is my once-a-month-ish musings on products, teams, and our journey as builders.
One of the great gifts of social media is the way it expands our understanding of the world.
It used to be that our exposure to facts and opinions came from the dozens of people we see regularly in real life — besties, those colleagues we do Taco Tuesdays with, our parents and Uncle Paul and Cousin Maria, those high-school bandmates that we see once a year — along with…
Julie Zhuo
Currently: Inspirit. Former Product Design VP @ FB. Author of The Making of a Manager https://amzn.to/2PRwCyW. Find me @joulee. I love people, words, and food.
