vanlife Inc. Magazine #Vanlife When we passed through NYC on our summer work+play roadtrip [https://drodio.com/finding-dispersed-campsites/], one of Armory's clients put me in touch with an editor at Inc. Magazine, which turned into this story [https://www.inc.com/eric-hagerman/drodio-daniel-r-odio-armory-van.
Storytell Why I Sign Emails with #Velocity I sign off in my emails with #velocity instead of Regards Here's why: 🏎️ Speed is a Skill As Patrick Collins of Stripe points out, Speed is a Skill. It can be improved with focused effort over time. Velocity permeates everything we do at Chief, where I'm
Welcoming Armory's Next CEO I'd like to welcome Jim Douglas as Armory's next CEO as I transition to Chairman of the Board on September 1st. When we started Armory in my garage and went through Y Combinator almost exactly five years ago, I knew we were building a very special
Create Your Own WFH Workspace for Under $5k There's something absolutely magical about walking out of your house, across your lawn, and into a dedicated workspace. I've written in the past about doing the best work of your career in remote locations [https://drodio.com/working-remote-first-do-the-best-work-of-your-
vanlife Finding Dispersed Campsites To Work (and Play!) From I just had someone named Robert email me: I've followed your blog for a while and got inspired to start incorporating elements of van life into my day to day. Haven't took the full plunge yet, but I bought a portable power station/solar panel/hotspot
Do an Energy Audit One thing Anu taught me in the Y Combinator growth program is the importance of doing an "energy audit" on oneself. Founders and CEOs are pulled in many directions and often need to focus in areas that may reduce vs. increase their energy. Much of this analysis lies
Using Technology to Support a Small Town Fire Department > TL;DR: We set up a Patreon page for the Squires Volunteer Fire Department. Donate to it if you can – even just $10/month goes a long way to serve this poor, rural community in Missouri. http://www.Patreon.com/SquiresVFD [ http://www.Patreon.com/SquiresVFD] My family and
photography Creating an "Instagram Life" Living Picture Frame I've taken 105,038 photos in the past decade or so, and they're all tucked away in my Photos app. I wanted to find ways to liberate them from the archives to actually enjoy them, so over the past year I've been experimenting with
vanlife Adapting to Extreme Climate Events If someone had told me a decade ago that it would be a smart idea to figure out how to create and maintain my own power grid, I would've thought that was nuts. But as the wildfires in California and the freezing weather in Texas have shown us,
Culture Distributed Work: Do the best work of your career I'm working this week from the side of a volcano in Arenal, Costa Rica, as an experiment to push the boundaries of distributed work. I'll be working from various spots in Costa Rica for several weeks. This is the future of work, and here's
founders Is Y Combinator worth it? Back in late 2016, I started Armory [Http://www.armory.io]in my garage (pictured above) with my two co-founders. We also applied to Y Combinator. I often have founders ask me if YC is worth it right around now, during YC application season. The short answer is Yes,
founders How I prioritize my time > One of our Armory crew just asked me: At some point, I’d LOVE to hear how you prioritize your tasks and manage your time. I’ve tried a lot of different methods, but nothing has completely stuck… I've tried many approaches: Zero Inbox. GTD. Workflowy. Sublime/
founders Tech CEOs: Become a DEIB Accomplice, Not Just an Ally The term "DEIB" (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging) has become a hot phrase in Silicon Valley, as companies strive to create a workforce that's a better reflection of our communities. However, I find that Diversity and Inclusion tend to get lumped together as one thing, when
founders My INROADS story I've recently become an advisor to INROADS, a program I went through twenty years ago, to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed in the business world. Here's my INROADS story – if you're also an alum, I'd love for you to post a
founders Understanding and Living Empathy For the past 15 years, I've been really focused on deepening my personal toolbelt when it comes to understanding and de-escalating highly charged personal interactions, and generally how to improve my own personal ability to understand and live with empathy for the incredible people in my life.
Calculating COVID-19’s Possible Impact in The SF Bay Area (and Your Region) There's a great NYTimes interactive graphic w/ a slider [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html] you can use to model out various assumptions around when social distancing measures are put into place, and how strong they are. That interactive graphic goes
founders Still Betting on Elon Back in 2012, when TSLA was $32/share, I wrote this blog [https://drodio.com/im-betting-on-elon/] titled “I’m Betting on Elon,” and I considered TSLA to be a $1,000/share stock within a decade. Now, just 8 years later, it’s trading above $900 a
Hyper Efficiency Rip through books in 8 mins Product Market Fit is a really funny thing. Products with great PMF seem obvious in hindsight, and yet even once I experience strong PMF, if I were to imagine it not existing, it's still not obvious to me that I would be feeling this way. A great example
founders It's Not All About You: Truly Empowering Your People The deeper Armory goes on our journey to help the world innovate faster by creating an Open Source Culture [https://drodio.com/creating-an-open-source-culture/] that empowers our tribe with Roundabouts, not Stoplights [https://drodio.com/roundabouts-not-traffic-lights/] so we can productize our cultural values intoArmory&
founders What is Your Leadership Brand? Armory [http://www.Armory.io] has more than tripled in size over the past year, and as we've grown, I and my executive team and managers – and indeed the entire company– have been doing a lot of thinking and evolving on what it means to be a leader
DevOps and Big Data are Flipsides of The Same Coin Tesla today became more valuable than Ford and GM combined [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/01/teslas-stock-just-blew-past-500-for-a-new-record/] , which as ArsTechnica writes is "remarkable because GM sold around 20 times as many cars as Tesla in 2019, while Ford sold more
founders How Much Do Relationships, Trust, & Fulfillment Matter in the Workplace? Evolving relationship norms and expectations around trust and fulfillment are the underlying forces motivating us to create an Open Source Culture [https://drodio.com/creating-an-open-source-culture/] at Armory. I was reminded of this slide when I saw Esther Perel's Summit talk. She is a psychotherapist
founders Creating an Open Source Culture Armory [http://www.Armory.io] is commercializing the open source project Spinnaker [http://www.Spinnaker.io], making it a "COSS" company. As Joseph Jacks puts it: > COSS companies are fundamentally different from all other kinds of companies. Why? They create value differently. They capture value differently. COSS
founders Counteracting the HiPPO problem with a Roundabout culture. There's a really interesting comment thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21350146] happening over in Hacker News right now, about a decision Gitlab made (and then reversed [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/2113]) to require users to accept telemetry in their offering without any option
founders Creating Magical Human Experiences, with Magic I was recently introduced to Magic [http://getmagic.com/s/X8NZHPRRFL], a virtual personal assistant, by Mike Chen, the CEO at a recent founder retreat. I'd signed up for Magic a month before on the recommendation of a friend, but I wasn't really sure what it