Equational

In summer 1996, I met Mattias Jansson and Lukas Lüthy (left and Luki middle above, I am at the right), as well as Adrian Lucas (left below) and in what seemed to be less than 15m, they were inviting me to join them set up a software company to develop a non-proprietary derivative market making system. Another key partner in this story is Stig Hubertsson (not shown). Therefore, we found ourselves co-founding QT Software, which later was renamed Actant . I bring up this past in this blog to cheer excellent individuals and a great team, and give you insights into how QT and Actant led me to co-found Elevence and develop a unique smart contract language (then acquired by Digital Asset). First the cheering: Still now Actant software is known to be the fastest non-proprietary derivative trading software. And while I don't have the numbers, I could well believe that they compete well with proprietary derivative trading software on classical hardware (meaning CPUs and not FPGAs)...

# Skunk Works Rule Agile Interpretation 1 The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher. Control is delegated to teams. Direction is owned by business/product team leads who report at the business stream level. 2 Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry. Leaders are strong and few. 3 The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems). Keep teams small. 4 A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided. A very simple process to integrate, validate and release the full deliverable must be provided. 5 There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly. Process...

My favorite leadership approach is servant leadership! While leadership is needed for different reasons and is expressed in different ways, it is clear that certain styles of leadership are better suited for specific situations, characters of teams, groups and organisations.  Therefore: this blog entry about servant leadership... because it works for me! Note that this blog entry talks of teams... Teams which could be organizations, be hierarchical, etc... Servant leadership is not about structure but about method. Let's start by expressing a complementary view: what is not servant leadership. At the extreme we could mention dictatorship, but that would not help us much, and is in fact not complementary. Instead, it is better to bring up followership in which team members follow their leader. Let's now start with three defining aspects of followership: Leader with followership: Team leader communicates expectations, team members follow with goal to meet expectations ...