Putting This Out Into the World

My career journey has bore witness to innovation and disruption unimaginable by a 21-year old me, yet those leaps and bounds occurred primarily in technology, and less around the way that companies were built and run. The catalyst for that only came when the very same innovative and disruptive technologies we pioneered allowed us to confront—in real-time and unfiltered—the crises we face as a species. Am I being hyperbolic? Maybe. Maybe not.

Around us, we witnessed unscrupulous, self-absorbed men assume the highest levels of leadership in our governments. We watched, horrified, the violence inflicted on Black people and people of color by so-called protectors and members of our communities. We isolated ourselves as best we could from an infectious and little-understood disease that has swept across the world many times over. The environment as we know it may no longer be salvageable. Dictators are committing genocide. Human rights are being paraded around for political gain and clout.

To say that the last handful of years have been a lot would be an understatement. Though some of these problems have existed for decades or centuries, our breakthroughs in communication and data exchange have given us visibility and access to learn about them. Whether we sought the information out, or if we consumed it because it crossed our feed, the democratization of information has made it so that more of us in tech—in our privileged bubbles—are finally pausing to examine the role of work in our lives, and how there may be far more important things to worry about than sprint velocities and release trains.

This is where I've found myself for the last six years, and that's what this newsletter is about.

Hello readers, my name is Amy Chantasirivisal, and I am a 17+ year veteran of the Silicon Valley start-up scene. I have cut my teeth as a self-taught frontend engineer, a project manager, a product manager, an engineering manager and leader, and even as a people operations and DEI practitioner. I've worked on a gamut of consumer and enterprise SaaS products, some of which that have seen commercial success, and others that have unceremoniously faded into the background.

Somewhere in my many years and many companies of experience, I finally came to the realization that the way we build organizations is incompatible with the way many of us wished work would work—where everyone feels empowered and supported, where our intellectual and financial needs are fulfilled. Having found myself in positions of influence and power, I committed myself to using that power to challenge and redesign the business systems that actively prevent us from creating those kinds of organizations.

I don't claim to have all the answers. My perspectives are limited to the experiences I've lived, along with the biases and assumptions that come from my upbringing, so don't expect to find one-size-fits-all guides and solutions here. What you will find is an examination of things I've learned, experimented with, and want to do in the future, all with the mindset of not being content to settle for the status quo that got us to where we are today. Sometimes that means "saying the quiet part out loud," and confronting uncomfortable truths about the tech industry. Sometimes it means tearing down what isn't working and rebuilding from the ground up.

It feels like we're at an inflection point where some leaders are going to pave the path towards a new way of working that is more human and more caring. If any of my writings end up sparking inspiration for others to take up this mantle, then perhaps work can finally have its disruptive moment too. Glad to have you here, and thanks for reading. ❤️