Why a Roblox engineering exec sends a weekly recap email to the CEO
A weekly email keeps leadership aligned and cuts down on meetings, said a Roblox engineering exec.
Sebastian Barrios uses the email to free up one-on-ones with his CEO for strategic conversations.
He also shares it with his team to keep everyone focused on priorities.
In an age where meetings multiply and inboxes overflow, a weekly recap email can help save time and keep leadership aligned. A senior engineering exec at Roblox swears by it.
Sebastian Barrios, a senior vice president of engineering at the gaming platform, said he sends his CEO a weekly email outlining his accomplishments, what's next on his plate, and where he needs help.
"It helps me keep track of what's working, what's not working," Barrios said on an episode of "Lenny's Podcast" published Sunday. "I don't actually have an expectation that people are going to send that to me — it's something I do myself," he added.
He said it's a simple habit that has freed up one-on-one meetings for higher-level strategy instead of routine check-ins.
Barrios also said he sends this weekly email to his broader team to keep everyone aligned on priorities.
"I usually also get feedback on those emails or help, or saying like, 'Well, let's talk about this and that,'" he said. It can help the team solve problems together, he added.
"It's strange that I haven't heard a lot of people doing it," he said.
Barrios did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Barrios might be onto something.
Many one-on-one meetings are being done wrong, an organizational psychologist told Business Insider last year.
Too often, one-on-one meetings become status updates dominated by the manager, missing the point entirely, said Steven G. Rogelberg, who's also a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
"That's not the goal of these things. Because that serves the manager's needs," he said.
Rogelberg said one-on-one meetings were designed to meet workers' tactical and personal needs. Digging into personal needs means saying things such as "Tell me more," so a boss could understand what a worker might need help with beyond a to-do list.
But bosses were often skipping past the personal because that would take more work, he said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
College Dropout Entrepreneur Boasts That Peter Thiel's Book Is "Probably the Best Book I've Read, and I've Only Read a Few Pages"
Ever since college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak began pedaling the romantic tale of founding Apple in Jobs' parents' Los Altos garage, college-age tech bros have longed to follow in their footsteps. But there's just one tiny thorn: the "founder's story" of late-night struggles and coffee-fueled breadboarding is mostly a capitalist fairy tale. Still, it's a mythos tech billionaire overlord Peter Thiel is all too eager to stoke. His empire is built on image — even the stereotypical "evil mastermind" vibe is a carefully groomed persona — which he disseminates across Silicon Valley hopefuls via the almighty Thiel Fellowship. Each year, Thiel selects up to 20 "Thiel fellows" to each receive $200,000 and drop out of college in order to pursuit a tech startup. Though some come straight out of high school, many Thiel fellows historically come from Ivy league schools, which isn't exactly the kind of background that screams "all or nothing." Thanks to Thiel's massive profile and political influence, a number of Thiel fellows have watched their startups soar to billion dollar valuations. Though tech hopefuls are said to have just .01 percent of a chance to snag a Thiel Fellowship, that isn't stopping scores of wannabe founders from dropping out of college anyway. In a profile of the growing anti-college movement festering in Silicon Valley, Business Insider's Julia Hornstein sat down with a number of young dropouts to figure out just what the hell is going on. Sebastian Tan, one of over 500 students who applied for an internship at Thiel's surveillance and spying company Palantir, dreamed of being an entrepreneur. The billionaire's book, "Zero to One," is basically a tech monopolists' manifesto, and "probably the best book I've read," according to Tan, along with a laughable addendum that underscores exactly how undercooked his worldview is: "And I've only read a few pages." In April, Hornstein writes, Tan got the offer from Palantir, which he accepted, deferring his undergraduate degree until 2026. "In college, you don't learn the building skills that you need for a startup," he confidently declared. Tan's is an interesting story, especially for his early success — but he's far from alone. In 2022, there were 2.1 million college dropouts in the US. According to a World Economic Forum survey in that same year, 28 percent of dropouts did so to start a business. That's a lot of startups. But while the country's tech bros might be agog at the idea of dropping out, the reality is that very few startups succeed without advanced degree holders, let alone people who've completed undergraduate programs. Recent research found that 56 percent of startup executives hold a graduate degree, while the average age of a successful startup founder is 45. The trouble here isn't necessarily that it's "college or nothing," but rather the values, methods, and myths that startups engender — like that regulation stifles innovation, or that Silicon Valley startups exist separate of the massive economic inequality we see in the world today (on the contrary, startups have been key players in building that world.) With the kind of failure rate startups engender, there'll inevitably be a flood of unskilled, untrained labor trickling back into the economy — the kind of people who've been trained to think of themselves as "high agency individuals." That's something Arbaaz Mahmood, a would-be physicist who skipped college to do a startup developing an "AI tool for car dealerships," seems to at least acknowledge. "Honestly, nobody goes to college thinking they're going to change the world," he tells BI. "That's a vacuous lie we tell VCs to get their money. Nobody builds startups to change the world. It's just bullshit." When it comes to startups, Benjamin Shestakofsky, author of "Behind the Startup," summarizes it well: "Our relationship with technology is socially constructed. Yes, we do make choices as individuals, but our choices are embedded in broader structures that create different sorts of opportunities and constraints for us." More on startups: Columbia Student Kicked Out for Creating AI to Cheat, Raises Millions to Turn It Into a Startup
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Drone overload: Too many people want to sell drones to the US military
A lot of US defense companies are building similar small aerial drones, saturating the market. The Ukraine war and demand signals from the Pentagon have incited the competitive environment. But there are concerns the products are too alike and the military won't buy enough, industry insiders said. Drones are in high demand at the Petagon, but insiders say the market is already jammed with too many lookalike quadcopters and startups chasing the same investments and military dollars. "We're seeing a lot of companies in the space," one defense industry investor, who requested anonymity to speak freely on the topic, told Business Insider, noting that in many cases, there may not be significant differences in capability between the products that these companies are delivering. The relatively niche small uncrewed aerial vehicle market has seen a boom in competition in recent years, with many companies developing the actual uncrewed aircraft, as well as software programs and modular payloads. The Department of Defense has long used large drones like the MQ-9 Reaper built for reconnaissance and combat strike missions, but there is a growing recognition as a result of the Ukraine war and engagements in the Middle East that low-cost, attritable first-person-view (FPV) drones have a place in modern warfare. Heightened interest in these capabilities is, in turn, fueling the drone market and creating new research and development pathways even without programs of record. The yearslong war in Ukraine has driven significant advancements in aerial drones but also uncrewed ground and surface vehicles, sensors, electronic warfare, reconnaissance and intelligence systems, and more. "In the last five years, new technologies that are on display in Ukraine, they have a pretty big impact on warfare," Michael Brown, a partner with venture capital firm Shield Capital, told BI. Within the US market, a lot of new drones are in technology demonstration programs. DoD is effectively putting out information on the types of systems and capabilities it wants. Various industry partners are applying with their solutions. Eventually, these will evolve into programs of record, and the competition will thin down dramatically when awards are granted to specific companies. Melissa Johnson, US Special Operations Command's acquisition executive, said the acquisitions, technology, and logistics team was "transparent with industry when issuing solicitations to communicate the needs of Special Operations Forces." She said that this process involves looking at a variety of factors, including "performance, manufacturability, operational considerations, and affordability." As the market becomes oversaturated with drone makers producing similar products, companies are increasingly trying to distinguish themselves in capability, as well as adaptability to countermeasures, such as electronic warfare. Not all of the companies rushing in are going to be competitive in the long run. Some won't be able to create a great product; others may not be able to scale up production to meet military demand. One drone maker, who requested anonymity to speak openly on the topic, said the current situation is comparable to the early automobile industry. "100 years ago, you had a bunch of companies trying to produce cars, and at the end of the day, the strong survived. I think that's what you're starting to see now." Drones are not exactly a new focus for American defense companies. In the mid- to late-2010s, a small but still substantial number of businesses were developing drones like small UAVs amid the growth of commercial drone development. Costs, mass production, and capabilities weren't clear, though, and many of these companies were unsuccessful or shifted focus. That could be shaping how investors think about where to put — or not put — money into the market even if there are many more companies to work with. "I think investors are a little scared about investing into an industry that historically, for small drones, has not been very profitable," the drone maker said. The nuance there, he said, is that Ukraine's use of drones and its sprawling defense industry have demonstrated a different look at the modern battlefield and the industries needed to sustain a war. Kyiv's drone makers are pumping hundreds of thousands of them, many with Chinese drone parts, out each month at relatively low costs. The US situation is a one-for-one, though. Chinese parts are a definite no-go, increasing the need for domestic supply chains. That said, there isn't a wartime demand for millions of combat drones the way there is in Ukraine. One of the biggest questions is whether the Defense Department will buy enough small drones to make these business endeavors profitable in the near term. Looking at small drones, "if the US continues to only purchase 12- to 15,000 drones a year, having 300 vendors is probably not going to satisfy market dynamics of returning the majority to those vendors," Sarah Pearson, deputy director for commercial operations at DIU, told BI. DIU's perspective is that competition in the market can push vendors to build better capabilities and ultimately lead to the best possible product. Concerns, however, remain over whether DoD would continually buy enough drones to keep businesses going. "If we buy, call it 10,000 drones, unless we're in high-intensity conflict," the industry investor said, "I don't necessarily know that I see a world where we're replacing 10,000 drones every year." And if that's not the case, it is an issue for the drone business. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
6 hours ago
- Business Insider
Drone overload: Too many people want to sell drones to the US military
Drones are in high demand at the Petagon, but insiders say the market is already jammed with too many lookalike quadcopters and startups chasing the same investments and military dollars. "We're seeing a lot of companies in the space," one defense industry investor, who requested anonymity to speak freely on the topic, told Business Insider, noting that in many cases, there may not be significant differences in capability between the products that these companies are delivering. The relatively niche small uncrewed aerial vehicle market has seen a boom in competition in recent years, with many companies developing the actual uncrewed aircraft, as well as software programs and modular payloads. Lessons from new fights The Department of Defense has long used large drones like the MQ-9 Reaper built for reconnaissance and combat strike missions, but there is a growing recognition as a result of the Ukraine war and engagements in the Middle East that low-cost, attritable first-person-view (FPV) drones have a place in modern warfare. Heightened interest in these capabilities is, in turn, fueling the drone market and creating new research and development pathways even without programs of record. The yearslong war in Ukraine has driven significant advancements in aerial drones but also uncrewed ground and surface vehicles, sensors, electronic warfare, reconnaissance and intelligence systems, and more. "In the last five years, new technologies that are on display in Ukraine, they have a pretty big impact on warfare," Michael Brown, a partner with venture capital firm Shield Capital, told BI. Only the strong are likely to survive Within the US market, a lot of new drones are in technology demonstration programs. DoD is effectively putting out information on the types of systems and capabilities it wants. Various industry partners are applying with their solutions. Eventually, these will evolve into programs of record, and the competition will thin down dramatically when awards are granted to specific companies. Melissa Johnson, US Special Operations Command's acquisition executive, said the acquisitions, technology, and logistics team was "transparent with industry when issuing solicitations to communicate the needs of Special Operations Forces." She said that this process involves looking at a variety of factors, including "performance, manufacturability, operational considerations, and affordability." As the market becomes oversaturated with drone makers producing similar products, companies are increasingly trying to distinguish themselves in capability, as well as adaptability to countermeasures, such as electronic warfare. Not all of the companies rushing in are going to be competitive in the long run. Some won't be able to create a great product; others may not be able to scale up production to meet military demand. One drone maker, who requested anonymity to speak openly on the topic, said the current situation is comparable to the early automobile industry. "100 years ago, you had a bunch of companies trying to produce cars, and at the end of the day, the strong survived. I think that's what you're starting to see now." Cautious investing Drones are not exactly a new focus for American defense companies. In the mid- to late-2010s, a small but still substantial number of businesses were developing drones like small UAVs amid the growth of commercial drone development. Costs, mass production, and capabilities weren't clear, though, and many of these companies were unsuccessful or shifted focus. That could be shaping how investors think about where to put — or not put — money into the market even if there are many more companies to work with. "I think investors are a little scared about investing into an industry that historically, for small drones, has not been very profitable," the drone maker said. The nuance there, he said, is that Ukraine's use of drones and its sprawling defense industry have demonstrated a different look at the modern battlefield and the industries needed to sustain a war. Kyiv's drone makers are pumping hundreds of thousands of them, many with Chinese drone parts, out each month at relatively low costs. The US situation is a one-for-one, though. Chinese parts are a definite no-go, increasing the need for domestic supply chains. That said, there isn't a wartime demand for millions of combat drones the way there is in Ukraine. One of the biggest questions is whether the Defense Department will buy enough small drones to make these business endeavors profitable in the near term. Looking at small drones, "if the US continues to only purchase 12- to 15,000 drones a year, having 300 vendors is probably not going to satisfy market dynamics of returning the majority to those vendors," Sarah Pearson, deputy director for commercial operations at DIU, told BI. DIU's perspective is that competition in the market can push vendors to build better capabilities and ultimately lead to the best possible product. Concerns, however, remain over whether DoD would continually buy enough drones to keep businesses going. "If we buy, call it 10,000 drones, unless we're in high-intensity conflict," the industry investor said, "I don't necessarily know that I see a world where we're replacing 10,000 drones every year." And if that's not the case, it is an issue for the drone business.
