Looking Back on Four Years at The Times - The Startup - Medium

Great retrospective front he outgoing CTO of The New York Times. I love how he defines success.

First, while intermediate metrics like productivity metrics or performance metrics can be useful diagnostics, in the end the business results — in our case, subscription growth — are what matter. And focusing on the core KPIs of the business forces you to think hard about how to tie those intermediate metrics, and the work itself, to real impact.

Second, alignment is gold, and non-alignment is poison. A Tech team performing masterfully against misaligned goals is, just, a terrible situation. Sacrificing alignment in the service of self-defined functional glory is never the answer — fighting through the often painful process of alignment almost always is.

There is a lot to chew on here. Highly recommended reading.