Praveen Puri

Monday, October 19, 2026

Software Engineers Shouldn't Worry About Users Vibe-Coding Dashboards

If you're a home builder, why would you feel threatened if someone builds a DIY shed in their backyard? It's a different scope.

In The Age of AI, Should You Keep Your Coding Skills Fresh With Hand-Coded Side Projects?

Food for thought: If you were the buggy driver for a baron in 1900's London, and he now bought a car, and he transitioned your job to be his chauffeur, would you have been better off spending your free time keeping your skills hitching up horses, etc. fresh, or better off learning more about being a chauffeur, keeping the car working, and learning which routes near you can handle a car, so you can get your employer (or future employers) to their destinations without getting stuck in a rut, or having the car break down?

Friday, October 16, 2026

ASI and Human Careers

ASI doesn't mean the end of human careers. I think an intelligent AI would recognize the value in brainstorming with others. As an analogy, if you are a teacher with a masters degree, with a class of 3rd graders, and you asked them to help you think of creative ideas, they would probably come up with ideas you wouldn't think of, some that could be useful.

Human Economic value: Have fun and play make believe

Someone on Reddit posted a quote purportedly from someone at Anthropic: "There is simply no future where humans continue to do economically useful work for much longer.

Your choice is at best between various flavors of 'ASI let's humans have fun and play make believe'."

I disagree. Ironically, he states the answer in his quote.

Q: "Is there a future where humans continue to do economically useful work for much longer?"

A: "Humans have fun and play make believe."

Our most economically useful value is the ability to dream up new ideas, uses, and concepts. It fits together with super AI. We're Aladdin and ASI will be the genie.

Human vs. AI Creativity

AI won't take 100% of all the jobs. Even if AI is super intelligent, there is more value in having humans co-brainstorm with them, rather than have them try to design/strategize everything. Humans are really good at daydreaming, thinking outside the box, and lateral thinking: seeing connections between fields, and making analogies to borrow process and principles from one field to apply them to another.

Friday, October 9, 2026

Executive Delegation

If you're a time-strapped leader, tell your reports not to simply bring you an issue and say "What should we do?" Instead, they should also propose a couple of solutions. This does several things:

1. It develops their skills.

2. One of the solutions may be the right one, so you can simply tell them to do it.

3. Stating proposed solutions helps you understand the issue quicker, and gets you a head start on working out the solution.

Monday, August 3, 2026

Be An Active Seeker of Information

Don't be a passive consumer of information.

Background: I read a Yahoo News article on Troy Aikman, and why he sold his stake in the Padres. He was part of a minority ownership group that tried to buy a majority stake. In the article, the reason he sold was because the head of his group wasn't approved by the other owners to take control.

Then, I went to the comments, and many people were complaining that they wanted to know why the guy wasn't approved, and they were criticizing the article for not providing the information.

Here's the thing: 1. That's not the main point of the article. 2. (Most importantly) Don't be a passive consumer of an article. If the article has whetted your appetite for related info, or a deeper dive then, instead of complaining that the article was insufficient, do your own search. Google your questions, and find out.

Monday, July 6, 2026

The Zen of Soccer

Watching today's World Cup match between Spain and Portugal reinforced how soccer (football) is a metaphor for life and zen.

There's no need to force things, rush, or panic. Simply pass the ball, keep things flowing, and have an alert and empty mind, so you spot opportunity.

For 99% of the match, neither Spain nor Portugal could score, but they kept the ball flowing. Finally, in the 91st minute (start of stoppage time), a direct lane to the goal opened up, and Spain scored to win.

No brute force, just elegance.

Thursday, June 25, 2026

The Boom and Bust Cycles of Software Employment

Today, it may be hard for many people to get jobs in the software field. But this isn't new. Software employment has had boom and bust cycles for decades.

My mother, who was an administrative assistant at Digital Equipment Corporation back in the early '80's, took some programming classes, and tried to move into a programming role, but they wouldn't promote her. They said you needed a degree and needed experience with at least 3 languages. They were picky back then, because there were no shortages.

When I graduated with a CS degree in 1990, hiring was slow because of the recession. I got lucky, and a job based on my project at U of I'd Engineering Open House event. It was specifically on using computers to control lasers, and that's exactly what the company was looking for,

At other times, such as the late 1990's, and the 2010's (until a few years ago), it was boom! If you had a pulse and did a 3 month boot camp, they'd take you. I know many people in the software field who all had degrees in physics, astronomy, biology, English, civil and mechanical engineering, etc. They started in one of the boom times.

The reason software goes through these cycles is because, most of the time, IT is treated as an expense, like HR or accounting. They want to save money and do as little as possible. This is when it's tough to get hired.

Every once in a while, something new appears (like the internet, mobile, AI, etc). Then, leaders have FOMO and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. Suddenly, technology is strategic, and they overhire like crazy.

Then, it wears off and they lay people off during the hangover.

Thursday, June 18, 2026

The Most Difficult Thing

"The most difficult thing to learn is something you think you already know."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #50

Strategic Simplicity® is not about making things simplistic. It’s about exposing what actually drives results.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #49

The right question at the right moment can eliminate months of unnecessary work.

Monday, June 8, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #48

Many organizations confuse activity with traction because both create the illusion of progress.

Friday, June 5, 2026

The Real Thing

Strategic Simplicity® #47

The fastest way to accelerate a stalled initiative is often subtraction, not addition.

Thursday, June 4, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #46

When a project becomes politically untouchable, it usually stops becoming strategically useful.

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #45

A roadmap should create clarity and movement — not become a museum of competing priorities.

Monday, June 1, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #44

Good operators manage complexity. Great leaders remove it.

Friday, May 29, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #43

If every initiative depends on every other initiative, the strategy is probably unfinished.

Thursday, May 28, 2026

Strategic Simplicity® #42

Most organizations don’t have a capacity problem. They have a decision-allocation problem.