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Work with the garage door up (2024)

notes.andymatuschak.org

11–20 of 139 posts

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#11
post #2

How do you learn to share what you do, when you're not used to sharing at all? Should one accept that noone will read 99% of what one shares and just use sharing as a way to record and reflect on own process?

> Should one accept that noone will read 99% of what one shares and just use sharing as a way to record and reflect on own process?

Yes, 100%. Almost no one has found either my public code or my writing useful, but the process of writing and documenting has been tremendously useful to help me clarify what I _actually believe_ at that point in time. This is the primary benefit.

That said, a few projects have taken off unexpectedly and clearly helped some folks, and I've received a few cold emails from folks who somehow ended up on my blog, and all have been pleasant conversations!

One thing I recommend is trying to lower the threshold of what is acceptable to publish. Publish scraps, publish "today I learned", publish "look at this stupid thing I discovered" stuff. Gradually your threshold will rise, but one mistake I see people making is the belief that they have to publish finished projects and novel-quality writing in order for it to be worth it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#13

I very much agree with this author, and the sort of open source ethos it embodies. However, as a corporate stooge I have a hard time balancing my natural desire to work with the garage door up and my "neighbors" (legitimate) need for me to turn my terrible garage band music down and only show up after practice is over (when I have a nice deliverable). Does anyone have any tips for finding the right balance? What is t…

I was also a corporate stooge (at both Apple and Microsoft). One of the biggest differences in culture was exactly this point. At Apple, it was encouraged to share your successes and failures in real time across teams. At Microsoft, there was so much infighting and competition that you tended to share nothing until you were ready to release. For example, someone on the Windows team wouldn't want to give away a cool solution that could be "stolen" by the dev tools team. This resulted in walled gardens that were protected at all costs.

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#14
I enjoyed the sentiment, thank you for sharing.

Came to post about the site. My first reaction to the layout was "Oh, must be optimized for mobile." Then I clicked a link in one of the articles and it opened alongside it. Very slick. I enjoy this! It enables that "wiki deep dive" style of browsing. I suddenly want to read all your notes.

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#15

I very much agree with this author, and the sort of open source ethos it embodies. However, as a corporate stooge I have a hard time balancing my natural desire to work with the garage door up and my "neighbors" (legitimate) need for me to turn my terrible garage band music down and only show up after practice is over (when I have a nice deliverable). Does anyone have any tips for finding the right balance? What is t…

Seems related to the explore/exploit problem, where the standard answer is related to the answer to the Secretary Problem[0], with the important caveat that it depends on whether "passing" on an opportunity legitimately makes it unavailable in future.

But another good answer is to open the door and trust the audience. The people who show up to the garage practice are perhaps not people who show up to buy tickets.

Adopting a scarcity mindset, generally, is a bad idea.

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#16
Could someone from california explain "garage door up" reference? Is it like pretending to be early apple or HP, and starting chip factory on backyard reference? Or some sort of open door policy?

I just do not get it. If you own a house, you have $1m capital to deploy towards business. You do not have to invite random people and dogs from street, to steal or pee on your expensive equipment.

If you actually have serious workshop like restoring cars or building something, rent a warehouse. HOAs have strict rules about chemicals, noise and vans parked on drive way!

And if your goal is to reach people, there is much better way to do that!

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#17
I don't know if I trust this as much as I did in the past. There's lots of competition out there. Lots of AI companies that want to slurp up data. It's a nice warm and fuzzy thing to say but I don't think it helps you, it just helps competitors get the jump on you.

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#18

Could someone from california explain "garage door up" reference? Is it like pretending to be early apple or HP, and starting chip factory on backyard reference? Or some sort of open door policy? I just do not get it. If you own a house, you have $1m capital to deploy towards business. You do not have to invite random people and dogs from street, to steal or pee on your expensive equipment. If you actually have serio…

I think "garage door up" means "in the open".

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#19

Could someone from california explain "garage door up" reference? Is it like pretending to be early apple or HP, and starting chip factory on backyard reference? Or some sort of open door policy? I just do not get it. If you own a house, you have $1m capital to deploy towards business. You do not have to invite random people and dogs from street, to steal or pee on your expensive equipment. If you actually have serio…

I believe you may be overthinking it a tad. I take it just to mean "work in the open".

As an example - at my home unless the weather is poor I always leave my garage door up when working on something, whether vehicles or other projects.

This is mainly for sunlight and fresh air but the end result is the same. Any neighbor or passerby can see what I'm doing, and in rare cases may actually be able to help or offer advice.

Re: Work with the garage door up (2024)

#20

I very much agree with this author, and the sort of open source ethos it embodies. However, as a corporate stooge I have a hard time balancing my natural desire to work with the garage door up and my "neighbors" (legitimate) need for me to turn my terrible garage band music down and only show up after practice is over (when I have a nice deliverable). Does anyone have any tips for finding the right balance? What is t…

So long as this is about sharing on the Internet, the fun part is that no one is forced to be your neighbour. The question becomes whether you want to create the opportunity for kindred spirits to find you or not.

In a corporate setting it's a bit different, since you need to create non-critical sharing spaces where it's okay to share that sort of progress.

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