Pablo’s Blog
Buying tools
I have a few maxims when it comes to buying tools. One I heard from Adam Savage and I think he heard it from someone else. When buying a tool you haven't used before: When buying a tool you haven't used before, buy the cheapest possible working version. Not the toy...
I’m very proud of what I achieved at Wifinity
Disclaimer: I'm blatantly tooting my own horn here because I'm proud of what I achieved, and very proud of what my team achieved. This is a personal story and a shout out to some awesome people. Today Jordan Bundy, someone I hired when I was at Wifinity sent all of us...
Good bye LastPass
I've been using LastPass for 7 years or more and I have converted various business and people to use LastPass but that ended today. I'm a security minded person so I'm not abandoning passwords managers, just LastPass. A few days ago I woke up and my LastPass vault...
Banks prefer bad debt, why is that?
First some definitions: Bad debt is debt that was incurred for a liability, for example, buying cars, throwing a party, buying a boat, going on a trip. Good debt is debt that is used to buy a producing asset. Debt used to start a business that is producing profit, buy...
How I started documenting at a new company
I once got a job at a company that was acquiring a massive piece of intellectual property from another and it was my task to build a team to maintain and transition the knowledge as well as running assets (servers, databases, etc). The company that hired me had no...
A manager should multiply, not add
If you are managing a team of people that are transporting rocks from A to B and you spend one hour picking ups rock from A and dropping them on B, you added one hour of work. If you spend that one hour procuring wheeled carts so that people don't have to carry rocks...
Standups should be asynchronous
Quick definition: A standup is a type of meeting commonly done in software development teams and now expanding to other knowledge working teams. During the standup meeting you say what you've done, what you are planning to do, and whether you need help or are blocked....
Your first tool for distributed work: the headset
This is an essential tool that every worker on a distributed team or company should have, no exceptions: a headset. Let's explore why. When working distributed you are going to be having a lot of calls and the quality of audio is important. All meetings are tiring the...
Distributed companies vs time zones
Time zones is the arch rival of distributed companies (or rather, the earth being round, but I digress into the meaning of time zones). When you run a distributed company and you hire people, you might be tempted to hire from all over the world but there's a problem....
Be distributed because it’s cooler, not cheaper
There are two motivations that drive the creation of distributed teams or companies: it's cheaperthere just isn't any available people locally There's nothing wrong with these motivations as starting point, but if they become your sole driver for being distributed the...
My biggest hiring secret: text interviews
I built a kick-ass team of 6 developers in little over 6 weeks, by myself, doing all the hiring and without using any recruiters. When I tell people how I did it there's one aspect of my hiring process that raises the most eyebrows: text interviews. When someones...
From bank to Google, what’s your staff onboarding like?
I remember two onboarding experiences the most. Joining Google was an amazing experience, I felt like a hero in a hero's parade. Joining a Swiss Investment Bank made me question my life choices. Google At Google, I had clear instructions sent to me well in advance...
I’m writing a book…
Building and Managing Distributed Teams
In this book I distill the techniques and methods that I’ve been using and advising others to use to successfully run distributed teams and whole companies. This book will be short, to the point, tactical, and have tool recommendations.
If you are interested in the book, please let me know: