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12 articlesWhere Does the Energy of a Good Strategy Come From?
The key to an effective strategy lies in channeling limited energy into the points that can generate the most impact. Common sources include: leverage; proximate objectives; chain-link systems; design; focus strategy; growth; advantage; external change; inertia.
The Core of a Good Strategy: Coherent Actions
Coherent and complementary actions refer to actions that directly support each other to create synergy; strategic collaboration can be designed and is centrally imposed on the system; centralization has its pros and cons, as the interests of various sub-organizations differ; organizational collaboration is time-consuming and labor-intensive, aiming for maximum efficiency and just the right coordination as the outcome.
The Core of a Good Strategy
The three fundamental elements of a good strategy: Diagnosis - simplifying the problem and identifying challenges; Guiding Policies - how to respond to challenges; Coherent Actions - a series of actions that mutually reinforce each other under the guidance of principles.
Why Are There So Many Bad Strategies?
Three reasons for bad strategies: making choices is painful; people dislike thinking and prefer templates; people often believe that human will can overcome all, thinking that attitude determines everything.
Designing very large (JavaScript) applications
Very Large JS App = a lot of developers + large codebase. How to deal with a lot of developers? Empathy and good programming model. How to deal with a large codebase? Code Removability/Delete-ability. Be careful with abstractions.
A Bad Strategy is Superficial
A bad strategy is formalism, characterized by four fundamental traits: empty rhetoric, obfuscation, strategy should not be a mere accumulation of grandiose terms; failure to confront challenges, mistaking goals for strategy; sub-goals that are irrelevant or unrealistic.
CORS vs CSP
CORS allows a site (data provider) to give permission to another site to read the data using the visitor’s browser and credentials. CSP allows a site to prevent itself (data consumer) from loading content from unexpected sources as a defense against XSS.
The Advantages and Disadvantages Change with Perspective
Things themselves are neither good nor bad; it all depends on people's thoughts. Just like the legend of David and Goliath, the story of Walmart defeating Kmart, and Andy Marshall's strategy against the Soviet Union during the Cold War arms race, advantages and disadvantages can be transformed. When we discover our shortcomings, instead of feeling frustrated, we should change our perspective and approach.
A Good Strategy is Unexpected
A good strategy is both surprising and reasonable. For example, in 1997, Steve Jobs' turnaround strategy upon returning to Apple involved drastically reducing the product line and focusing on a few profitable products. Trying to do everything and believing everything is important is equivalent to believing that nothing is important. Good leaders need to know not only what to do but also what not to do.
Why Amazon made Kindle?
In 1997, Eberhard asked Amazon’s investment for an eBook prototype. Amazon learned from iTunes and iPad and created Kindle. The reason why amazon succeeds lies in huge negotiating leverage, user acquisition channel and great user experiences.
Golang Library Development
Guiding principles for developing Go libraries: code quality, documentation, testing, API design, and what it takes to build high-quality open-source packages.
How Can Knowledge Workers Rest Effectively?
Stress and rest equal growth; a reasonable allocation of stress and rest can lead to efficient and sustained growth. The rest of knowledge workers is used to restore willpower and attention. Short-term rest methods: timely outdoor walks; returning to nature; gathering with friends; taking short naps. Long-term rest: learning to meditate; ensuring sufficient sleep. Eliminate distractions that consume attention.
About Tian Pan
I'm Tian Pan, an engineer-founder focused on agentic engineering — building autonomous AI systems and scaling engineering teams. I write practical guides on system design, technical leadership, and shipping with AI agents. Previously an early engineer at Uber, Brex, and IoTeX.
