pragmatic optimist • growth & product marketing • jersey diners, urbanism, cartoons, springsteen

Red Bank, NJ
Joined April 2008
greg fitz retweeted
we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company. #### today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone. first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay. we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly. i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures. a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers. we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold. to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward. to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow. jack
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greg fitz retweeted
The kids are joining running clubs, buying “dumb” phones, woodworking, rocking Walkmans, joining supper clubs, etc because their lives have been swallowed by digital black boxes, and in this moment of uncertainty (tension re: war, AI, climate), they crave tangibility. It’s simple
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Skip the WeWork. Stay home. Just your laptop. No monitors. No mouse. Make your own coffee. Drink it black. Leave notifications on full volume. Take a long lunch. Don’t say anything on the Zoom call until the end. Scroll Twitter the entire time. Leave a bunch of things until tomorrow. Enjoy the ride.
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The Serrated Knife. 1/3
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greg fitz retweeted
Crime at near 50-year lows. Unemployment near record lows. Stock market at record highs. Wage growth strong for low earners. Seems like “go woke” actually means “build a successful country that includes everyone”
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if you don’t like drops of jupiter you are not pure of heart and lack a sense of wonder
Had to google the lyrics because they were playing this at the grocery store but I think this is a solid contender for worst song of all time
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greg fitz retweeted
• @JonHaidt’s proposed reforms (1) No smartphones before high school → Parents should delay children’s entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14) (2) No social media before age 16 → Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehouse of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers (3) Phone-free schools → Elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers (4) Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence → This is the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults. For ex: older generations were given a sense of real/physical world autonomy often by age 8 or 9, but today’s parents don’t consider it for their kids until years later ——— His aim is for these reforms to become national norms among parents, not put into law Vote if you agree or disagree in-thread. Also would love elaboration of your POV in the replies
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many years ago as an exercise i got the largest notebook i could find and tried to record everything i remembered about my life until i left high school, all the way through, start to finish, in a few sittings one huge issue i encountered here was impossible event sequences ..
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Westfield, NJ, is redeveloping 7.3 acres of an abandoned department store and parking lot to build retail, offices, 138 senior, 21 affordable, and 29 market-rate housing units next to a NJT train station. This should be what every NY/NJ/CT station area looks like at minimum.
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it's incredibly bad for the whole world if Trump gets reelected; we could lose almost a century of civil rights; the world will be more unstable, women, immigrants, LGBT people, and democracy itself will be in immediate danger; the entire left-of-center must unite to prevent it
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Using only food, where are you from?
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greg fitz retweeted
Hop in bitches. We’re re-urbanizing America.
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whoever’s behind these ad creatives please stop
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men you need to be yakko-maxxing. baloney in our slacks-pilled. when dropping an anvil on dr. scratchnsniff is the vibe, you and your bros (and sis) need to be lowkey goated
Ryan Gosling: “When I was 16 and moved to Los Angeles and was auditioning at Warner Bros., they wouldn’t have let me climb the water tower. Ten years ago, when I shot ‘La La Land’ here, they wouldn’t have let me climb the tower. For whatever reason, right now, at this stage in my life and career, they’re letting me climb the water tower. So climb it while you can, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to climb it tomorrow.” wp.me/pc8uak-1lDHIO
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The scripts are written, the songs are written — someone at some other network or streamer, please pick this up. Season 1 of Schmigadoon was amazing, Season 2 (Schmicago) was even better, and Season 3... needs to happen. If not Apple, then somewhere!
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greg fitz retweeted
Let’s get back to building.
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Millennials: this is your time. Boomers are wealthy/retired or about to & f*ck off to AZ dry sauna or Fla beach life. Zoomer brain is fully borked by TikTok and being put on dopamine treadmills at 11. Gen X laughs & watches. Stay sober, lift, get off adderall -the world is yours
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What could have happened in 2014 🤔
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