Sarthak GargDirection
Converting uncertainty into a direction the team can commit to.
Problem selection
Choosing what's worth a quarter, and what to refuse.
- Reading the market and the orgSoon
Build an always-on signal of where the business, competitors, and internal politics are heading. Notice early, not loudly.
- Finding the problem worth your team's yearSoon
Surface the problem whose solution compounds, not the ten that look urgent.
- Saying no, the most leveraged actSoon
Every yes is an allocation. Saying no well is what separates leaders from order-takers.
Bet structuring
Shaping work so failure teaches and success compounds.
- Framing bets so they can fail cheaplySoon
Design bets where failure is legible, survivable, and a source of learning.
- Time-boxing and kill criteriaSoon
Kill criteria written in advance are worth more than any retro.
- Portfolio thinking across a team's quarterSoon
Mix safe-delivery work with uncertain-upside work so the quarter is neither boring nor existential.
Allocation
Where the team's scarcest hours actually go.
- Where the best people goSoon
The most consequential call an EM makes each quarter.
- What gets starved on purposeSoon
Explicit starvation beats implicit neglect.
- Reserving capacity for the unknown
Teams at 100% planned capacity cannot absorb a single surprise.
7 min read
- Compute economics: cost as a design inputSoon
Inference cost and latency are design constraints, not finance problems.
Narrative
The story that makes direction portable beyond the leader's head.
- Making direction legible to the teamSoon
Strategy in the leader's head is strategy the team can't execute.
- Making it legible to leadership and peersSoon
A version leadership will remember and peers won't undermine.
- Re-narrating when direction changesSoon
Trust survives only if the re-narration is honest about what changed and why.