Mental Models
Frameworks for thinking, not implementation details.
What This Is About
This section is about how to think about problems, not how to solve them.
I don't claim these are the "right" ways to think. They're tools that have worked for me. Take what's useful, ignore the rest.
The goal: give you frameworks that help you make better decisions, approach problems differently, and see opportunities others miss.
Three Domains
General
How to approach life and work.
Key concepts:
- Begin with the end in mind - Paint the picture before you build
- Compound yourself - Seek exponential growth
- Focus - One thing that matters
- Build leverage - Skills + relationships + ownership
When to use: Daily decisions, career choices, life direction.
Product
How to build products customers love.
Key concepts:
- Jobs to be done - What progress do customers want?
- Working backwards - Start with the press release
- MVP - Ship smallest valuable thing
- Customer development - Talk to users constantly
When to use: Product planning, feature prioritization, customer discovery.
Engineering
How to think about building systems that scale.
Key concepts:
- Separate deploy from release - Ship code != change user experience
- Dual write migrations - Change systems without breaking them
- Make things reversible - Fast forward, instant rollback
- Optimize for iteration speed - Perfect later, working now
When to use: System design, architecture decisions, deployment planning.
How to Use This
- Skim the TL;DR at the top of each page
- Dive deep on concepts that resonate
- Apply to your current problem
- Update your thinking based on results
These are thinking tools, not rules. Use them when they help. Ignore them when they don't.
Inspired by Untools, Sam Altman, Charity Majors, and leaders I've learned from.
Building on this over time.