The Work That Matters Most Doesn’t Scale

One of my intellectual heroes Clayton Christensen once said "if you want to help other people, be a manager. If done well, management is among the most noble of professions."

He was right.

And god, what a beautiful thing that is.

Silicon Valley is obsessed with the “better” forms of leverage. 

Code that scales infinitely.

Content that goes viral. 

Capital that compounds exponentially. 

They want their growth clean, predictable, mechanical.

I get it (hell, it’s the subject of most of my newsletters… I can’t get enough!)

We all need more of it (myself included).

That said, and despite knowing the “right” answer, I find myself returning like a moth to an old flame… to... people.

Yea.. the “worst” form of leverage.

I love people.

Messy people.

Beautiful people.

Frustrating people.

GLORIOUS people.

I've, dare I admit, fallen in love with the messiness?

The way someone's eyes light up when they finally grasp a concept they've been struggling with for weeks. 

The nervous energy before someone leads their first meeting. 

The pride in someone's voice when they tell you about a problem they solved on their own.

You can't put these moments on a dashboard. 

You can't optimize them with an algorithm. 

You can't accelerate them with more capital.

They happen in their own time, in their own way.

People get divorced. 

They have kids. 

They lose confidence. 

They find it again. 

They make the same mistake three times before it clicks. 

They surprise you with breakthroughs when you least expect it.

And that's exactly what makes it magical.

Because when it works – when you actually help someone grow and develop – you witness something profound. 

Something that matters more than any exit multiple or Youtube subscriber count.

You see someone become more fully themselves:

The shy contributor who finds their voice and starts mentoring others. 

The account manager who transforms from someone who follows scripts to someone who writes them. 

The team lead who discovers they can be both kind and candid, both strong and vulnerable.

Each of these transformations ripples out in ways we can never fully track. 

That contributor will mentor hundreds throughout their career. 

That account rep will help hundreds feel truly heard. 

That team lead will push countless teams to do better work.

I've never wanted my legacy to be a code base or a follower count. 

I want it to be the people – the beautifully messy, wonderfully unpredictable people – who worked with me and grew into fuller versions of themselves (and I, a fuller version of myself).

These are the moments that make the work worth doing. 

They are an end, in and of themselves!

Humans, in all their maddening, unscalable glory, are the most fascinating technology I’ll ever work with.

When Christensen talked about management being noble, he wasn't talking about org charts or performance reviews.

He was talking about this: The daily choice to work with humans, not despite their messiness, but because of it.

That's not just management.

That's the whole damn point.

Yallah Habibi,

Jon

Passage of the Week

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

 You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Khalil Gibran