Welcome to The Steady Beat, a weekly-ish round-up of hand-picked articles and resources for people who make software products: designers, engineers, product managers, and organizational leaders.
By the Numbers - Deep Dive
- 214 — The current world record for the deepest free dive, set by Herbert Nitsch in 2007, is 214 meters, equivalent to the height of a 70-story building.
- 0.45 — At a depth of 214 meters, a freediver’s lungs are compressed to just 0.45 liters, roughly the volume of two glasses of water.
- 22.3 — At 214 meters, the pressure on a freediver reaches 22.3 ATA, over 22 times the normal atmospheric pressure experienced at sea level.
- 320 — Advanced techniques predict a theoretical maximum diving depth of 320 meters, though survival beyond that point remains uncertain.
- 4 — At a depth of just 30 meters, a freediver already experiences 4 times the atmospheric pressure found at sea level, highlighting the extreme conditions of the sport.
Daniela Padres, 5m
Meeting Madness: Why We Can’t Quit the Worst Habit in Work
We all know meetings are productivity killers, yet we still fill our calendars with them. Why? It’s the psychology at play—fear of missing out, selfish urgency, and the misguided belief that meetings equal commitment. We schedule, attend, and endure these sessions not because they’re necessary, but because deep-rooted human biases push us to. But there’s hope. By recognizing these pitfalls, from “meeting FOMO” to “pluralistic ignorance,” we can start breaking free from the cycle and reclaim our time for what really matters.
Harvard Business Review, 10m #management #leadership
The Real Culprit: Google’s Bureaucracy, Not Remote Work
Jordan Thibodeau, a former Google HR manager, calls out Eric Schmidt for blaming remote work for Google’s struggles. Thibodeau, who spent nearly a decade at the tech giant, argues that Google’s real issue is its overwhelming bureaucracy, not where employees work. He reflects on the company’s shift from a fast-moving tech innovator to a sluggish, red-tape-bound organization, dismissing Schmidt’s comments as out of touch and potentially harmful. For Thibodeau, it’s the layers of approval and internal gridlock, not hybrid work, that are holding Google back.
Business Insider, 3m #productmanagement #leadership
Beware the Magic-8-Ball: Trusting AI at Your Own Risk
Generative AI (genAI) tools are revolutionizing UX work, automating tasks from research planning to transcription. But a lingering question remains: Can we trust these tools? The short answer—only as far as you can throw them. GenAI is notorious for “hallucinations,” or confidently providing inaccurate information. This isn’t just a quirky bug; it’s baked into how AI predicts what comes next in a sentence. The result? Potentially disastrous errors, like recommending glue for pizza or disordered eating habits. UX professionals must guard against “magic-8-ball thinking”—blindly trusting AI outputs without verification. The bottom line: AI can be a helpful assistant, but only if you’re ready to fact-check its every move.
Nielsen Norman Group, 8m #design #ux
Stripe’s Devbox Secret Sauce
Imagine a world where your dev environment just works—no more endless hours wasted debugging setups. Stripe nailed this with their monorepo developer environment, centered around cloud-based “devboxes” that took the headache out of development. Engineers can seamlessly sync code between their laptops and cloud instances, collaborate easily, and avoid the usual configuration nightmares. By investing heavily in a dedicated “devprod” team, Stripe built an infrastructure that scaled with their rapid growth, proving that developer productivity is as much about solid tooling as it is about good code.
Made of Bugs, 17m #development #engineering
Less Meetings, More Context
Have you tried Steady? It’s an AI-powered coordination layer that eliminates 83% of meetings for software teams.
Steady runs in the background, distilling plans and progress from tools, teams, & people into tailored summaries, giving everyone the clarity they need to build outstanding products together. With Steady, everyone has continuous context at their fingertips, eliminating the need for burdensome shoulder taps, interruptions, and endless meetings.
Learn more at steady.space.
