I worked on this for a couple years (have been much less active lately), surprised to see it on the front page of HN but happy to answer questions about it.
You're wrong I'm so many ways it's hard to know where to start, but one obvious one is that the teenager who was run over was not an anti-war protestor, he was protesting a potential change to exemption from military conscription for the ultra-Orthodox. Not a peacenik. Haredi conscription is a contentious issue but framing it as anti-war is disingenuous.
They're actually not doing that, they're doing the opposite of that, calling to bring back the secular shah to replace their current Islamic theocracy.
I always did weekly 1:1s with everyone I was TLing, even when we were all in the office together 5 days a week. I never felt it was a waste of time. I'd let them set the agenda, and if they didn't have anything on their minds (rare), we'd just chat about whatever was going on in the broader team, their lives, whatever.
Figuring out people's strengths, interests, and where they need to grow is key. You want to give people projects that are going to help them grow by pushing them a little bit out of their comfort zone, but not too much, because you also want them to succeed. Someone on the team needs to work on presentation skills? Giving a presentation to 10 people is a good opportunity to learn from mistakes. But if the audience is 100, maybe don't set them up for that kind of failure. Someone wants to grow into a TL role? Encourage them to host an intern. Etc.
You also need to understand people's career goals. You might be an (in Google terms) L5 TL with two other L5s on the team and a couple L3-4s. Who wants to get promoted on which timeline? Should the high-impact, interesting L5 project go to the L4 who wants to get promoted, or to the L5 who doesn't care about getting promoted but just wants the most interesting project?
A lot of that sounds like manager stuff, I know. When you're a TL, your manager is your partner as well as your boss, because the two of you are working together to keep the team happy, productive, and successful. And you'll both have information and perspective the other doesn't.
Google has a great viral slide deck about how to take credit for things as a TL. It works better visually but I'll try anyway. Basically, if the project is to deliver a big square, the TL's job is to cut differently shaped pieces out for teammates to do based on their skill, interest, what will be a good growth challenge for them, etc. Then, as a TL, you do whatever scraps are left over (imagine cutting a big circle, a rectangle, and a smaller square out of a square). So the IC work you do might seem like weird odds and ends, but if you get the whole thing done and everyone on the team was happy and productive, you succeeded as a TL.
Being a "tech lead" at Google is nothing like commanding a spaceship. It's more like being partially responsible for a team of 3-5 mid-20s engineers building the dashboard and reporting for space shuttle wind tunnel test results (or whatever they do with space shuttles).
Personally, I was a tech lead at Google pretty consistently from the ages of 26-35. I got better at it, and responsible for more, over time. It was a good learning experience for me and even when I was inexperienced at it, I was saving someone else some time.
An electric guitar, about a year ago. I've always loved rock music, but never really thought of playing an instrument as accessible, for whatever reason. I taught myself (probably not well, but well enough to enjoy it) during the pandemic and it's been a great outlet. I also keep it next to my desk, and play for 5-10 minutes between meetings throughout the day.