Marlin from Finding Nemo:
I just can’t afford any more delays and you’re one of those fish that cause delays. And sometimes it’s a good thing. There’s a whole group of fish. They’re delay fish.
I think about this when I’m trying to get something done and not making progress. What is slowing everything down, making simple tasks more complicated than they need to be? Or is it my fault, overthinking something that should be simple?
Not everyone has the same priorities. That doesn’t mean everyone else is necessary wrong, but they don’t have the same urgency. Meetings might have people with good intentions. Emails might have good counter-points to consider. But they are delay fish, getting in the way of accomplishing anything.
After the OpenAI fallout this weekend, I’m pretty confident that Satya Nadella gets this. Friday afternoon he was probably looking forward to the weekend without a clue of the crisis unfolding at OpenAI. Then by Sunday night he had announced that Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and other folks from OpenAI were joining Microsoft to lead a new AI research team, while preserving Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI. Lemons to lemonade.
You can be sure there were meetings in those 48 hours. I bet there were delay fish, urging for a pause, time to reflect on what Microsoft should do. There was chaos and so also a moment to act and Satya took it.
Sometimes you need Dory. You need to be innocent, joyful, thoughtful, creative, brainstorming, slowing down. But sometimes you just need to get shit done and move on.
