Alex Maestretti

Detection and Response @ Netflix.

Architect of devious yet principaled security solutions.

Pilot.

Leadership (10)

Intelligence (4)

performance (8)

Recommend Series

Threat-Intelligence (4)

A series on Threat Intelligence in the context of SaaS, public cloud, and modern deployments.

Fooled By Randomness

Jun 22, 2019
2 minutes read

While focused on investment banking there are many generally applicable concepts from Fooled by Random. The basic idea is that far more of our lives, our successes and failures, are dominated by chance than we care to admit, or are even able to perceive. Survivorship bias plays an outsized role in how society celebrates success. The hero worship around the rich and famous incorrectly ascribes the majority of their success to skill or intelligence or hard work or other traits that we claim to hold worthy; while the reality is they likely have some of those traits but no more so than the many others who did not get that pivotal first role, or whose company did not time their product market fit as fortuitously. While the societal implications of this survivor bias are interesting, especially in the age of social media and widespread feelings of inadequacy, more relevant to security is the trading strategy he proposes, wherein one seeks to make small gains during normal events while protecting yourself from going bust on unexpected events, or better yet capitalize on ‘impossible’ events to make large returns. He is highly critical of the value of historical data in predicting future performance.......

Jun 25, 2019
4 minutes read

Who was given to me by a friend of mine who is a partner at a venture firm. They have been using this to grow their practice, and giving it to all their CEOs. The text lays out a solid strategy for hiring ‘A players’ into your organization. It provides a set of steps that address many of the shortcomings in hiring that I have witnessed in organizations, in terms of lack of investment and rigor in the hiring process. Too often hiring managers just dust off the last job description they used, wait for HR to send some resumes, and then make a hiring decision based on gut. The authors lay out a much better approach, and break it into Sourcing, Selecting, and Selling, which are the same basic phases that I have written about for my hiring approach. It is a quick read with some good details, but there are of course summaries available that capture the broad outline well. Sourcing starts with a rigorous evaluation of your needs for that particular role, all too often folks just start hiring without understanding the specific needs of the role. Hire specialists, not generalists. Sourcing includes all your personnel’s resources for networking.......

Jun 22, 2019
3 minutes read

This title is extremely popular with Netflix leadership. The first hit on Google for a good summary delivers. The overall argument of the book is that the best advantage you can give your business is organizational health, a concept that, to me, resonated as consistency. Consistency between the values your organization espouses and those that it lives, as well as consistency in the understanding of what your organization’s purpose and priorities are - particularly across your leaders. Inconsistency in any of these leads to politics, dysfunction, confusion, and bureaucracy. The meat of the text provides a framework for achieving consistency (or clarity) with six questions, and explores each to some depth, providing pointers to the author’s other work to flesh out those areas. There is also a lead in with some thoughts on the importance and suggested structure of a leadership team, and text wraps up with suggested cadence for meetings to maintain momentum and clarity once established. The six questions are: Why do we exist? What motivated the creation of the organization? How do we behave? This establishes the values of the organization, and includes a good discussion of core vs aspirational and minimum values. What do we do?......

Jun 17, 2019
2 minutes read

I already agreed strongly with the thesis going in. There is also a Netflix original on Minimalists worth watching. Everything you say yes to is a de facto no to something else, possibly something you are already doing. Pareto Principle from 1896. 20% of our efforts create 80% of our results. Most things we do are superfluous and should be deprioritized in favor of high impact activities. The trick is in identifying which are the 20%, which takes time and space to consider. It helps to have a concrete and inspirational goal to refer to. Anything not advancing that goal you gracefully say no to. If it is not advancing the goal you halt activities - zero based budgeting, don’t be trapped by sunk costs or ownership biases (we value things we own more than we would pay to acquire them). If you are not 90% sure you should take on a task, or hire someone, then that is a no. It is important to protect your health and not over extend. It is important to prioritize your family and relationships - set boundaries. Build buffer and slack into your schedule, but keep a queue of things to work when you find extra time.......

High Output Management

Jun 10, 2019
2 minutes read

The book opens with an introduction to manufacturing (managing a breakfast factory) and suggests a framework for managing knowledge work based on the same principals. The correlations are imperfect, but it is a useful optic. Part II focuses on how to manage by looking for the best leverage in improving your team and adjacent team’s output. Some tips on meetings and a good taxonomy of types of meetings and how to best utilize them. An interesting overview of hybrid (matrixed) organizations, some of the pitfalls but ultimately the necessity of them and how to maneuver in them for best impact. He uses a sports analogy which resonated with me, given Netflix similar approach for high performance teams. A great section on modes of control and when to employ different management styles based on a concept of Task-Relevant Maturity. “Put them on a racetrack” the power of competitive spirit. References Parkinson’s Law which is one of my favorites. Has elements of Essentialism, finding the highest leverage activities and deprioritizing the rest. A bit dated in the performance and promotion sections, defends the Peter Principle as inevitable. In the technology sector at least we are beginning to unwind the societal pressures to move high performing technical people into management as the only outlet for career progression.......