I'm a routine guy, so I'm biased, but I find myself agreeing with the values in this post, while feeling that a routing enables those values. For example,
> This is why I’m so positive on sending outbound emails to interesting people, hosting dinners and events that bring together smart folks...
I find that I'm much better at this kind of proactive outreach when I have routines that push me towards this.
The non-routine approach tends to break down when you need to collaborate IME (though many companies are successfully asynchronous).
Wow, this is a treasure trove. The thing that stands out to me is the idea that testing is the essential ingredient:
> The single most important factor leading to the high degree of reliability of the Apollo spacecraft was the tremendous depth and breadth of the test activity.
And the most valuable reason for testing:
> Most important of all, the tests gave us a tremendous amount of time and experience on the spacecraft and their systems.
I'm not sure client's time wasted is the right way to measure. For example, I would prioritize a high-risk security related bug (regardless of its effect on my systems performance) over a memory leak.
Shameless plug: I'm also interested in assigning cost and prioritization to things when it's difficult to do so mathematically or trivially. I'm building a system to do so using Relative comparison. It's in the VERY early stages but: https://www.makepriorities.com
> These are big enough companies that they should be able to afford the time and resources to design easy-to-use UI that also allows the features power users are looking for
This is a really compelling sentiment. Do you have any companies you think do this well?
> Next up is disputing definitions, also known as an argument about semantics. Debates that reach this point can languish and falter because they immediately become about philosophical semantics, rather than the argument itself.
This is a good point that I find very difficult to follow. Often at work for example, I find myself in a debate over the next 'right' thing to do, but this is hard when there is not universal agreement on what is 'right'.
I think "Publish Often" is also an important part of OP's success. Had they not practiced making custom icons since 2013, they probably would not have been ready to capitalize on the one time they got buzz.
> This is why I’m so positive on sending outbound emails to interesting people, hosting dinners and events that bring together smart folks...
I find that I'm much better at this kind of proactive outreach when I have routines that push me towards this.
The non-routine approach tends to break down when you need to collaborate IME (though many companies are successfully asynchronous).