Work On The Wrong Things First
summary
Argues that starting with messy, low-status work reveals real problems faster: set up continuous integration / continuous delivery even if it feels boring, write the documentation that stops repeated outages, and run cheap experiments to reproduce and fix flaky builds. Shares concrete failures — deleted two of three sites, persistent broken pipelines — and practices that help: work on the wrong things first to map hidden dependencies, apply the campfire rule (leave places cleaner), and measure small, cumulative wins.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (23)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:48Talk starts
- 3:03Im an American
- 5:01Art
- 6:34Experimentation
- 7:43Container Landscape
- 8:42The World Is Expanded
- 9:25I Believe In Kindness
- 10:12I Use 18 Words
- 10:38Creating Space
- 11:30Words Have Meaning
- 12:39Campfire Rule
- 13:37Interview Your Past Self
- 14:46Make It Smaller
- 15:26Find Your Way Slowly
- 16:25Learn From The Things You Hate
- 17:19Be Dragons For Good
- 17:54Take The Lessons
- 18:05I Believe
- 19:14Engagement Matters
- 20:38Free and Open World
- 21:14Work On The Wrong Things First
- 22:47Questions








