The Looking Glass: What Incentives Good Work?

Humbling stories, market dynamics, right playbooks at the wrong times, and other threads.

Julie Zhuo
2 min readNov 16, 2021

Dear friends,

The month slipped away from me like red leaves from trees. It’s been an eventful one! I have stared into the dark recesses of a Twitter mob and lived to tell the tale. I have celebrated 2000+ Amazon reviews on my book. I have participated in an Angry Birds Halloween skit (what? That was big 10 years ago? Tell that to my kids.) I hope you’re making nice with cozy knit blankets this autumnal season.

The theme of the past few weeks in these threads? What incentivizes good work?

Enjoy.

Our superpower for cognitive dissonance.

Some examples of the contradictions that race through our minds daily.

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Julie Zhuo @joulee

November 15th 2021

63 Retweets614 Likes

The Right Playbook at the Wrong Time is still Wrong

4 steps to avoiding the pitfalls of misapplying “playbooks.”

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Julie Zhuo @joulee

https://twitter.com/joulee/status/1457755662922829829

November 8th 2021

30 Retweets264 Likes

Everyone, no matter how high they’ve climbed, has humbling stories to share

Why don’t we all tell ours?

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Julie Zhuo @joulee

October 14th 2021

11 Retweets142 Likes

Market Dynamics and Careers

And why I really really admire video game designers.

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Julie Zhuo @joulee

October 28th 2021

98 Retweets691 Likes

3 Ingredients for Creative Work (and how to get them)

Note: there are no mention of muses or candles in this thread.

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Julie Zhuo @joulee

https://twitter.com/joulee/status/1456281686073692162

November 4th 2021

25 Retweets178 Likes

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Julie Zhuo
Julie Zhuo

Written by Julie Zhuo

Building Sundial (sundial.so). Former Product Design VP @ FB. Author of The Making of a Manager. Find me @joulee. I love people, nuance, and systems.

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