# 144: First Week as VP > [!question] Lingering Questions > - At what backlog/dashboard size does a tracking tool tip from "useful" to "actively distrusted" for a given team size? > - Does the "memo bucket + AI retrieval" model actually outperform structured wikis at scale, or does it just defer the organization problem to search quality? > - Is the "employee owns the one-on-one" model equally effective for early-career employees who may not yet know what to bring to it? > [!tip] Article Ideas > - Compare Notion's block/database model against plain-markdown + AI-agent workflows for reorganization tasks — worth a hands-on test in this vault, since Ian's stated reason for moving to Obsidian (AI can reorganize plain files but fights block/database structures) is directly testable against my own setup. > - Look up Ronin Ber / Pages CMS (markdown-first, multiplayer, agent-friendly Notion alternative) as a potential tool worth evaluating. > [!link] Cross Reference > - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] — direct PKM-tooling relevance (Notion vs. Obsidian, dashboard decay) > - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Product & Startup Instincts MOC]] — new-manager first-week practice > [!quote] Vocabulary > - **"Kool-Aid Man" framing** — Aaron's term for a new leader bursting in and overhauling everything on day one, which he explicitly tried to avoid and self-rates as "100% failure" at avoiding > - **manifesto culture** — Aaron's practice of publishing short, durable internal memos instead of holding meetings to communicate decisions ## Bib capsule Mostly Technical podcast episode 144. Aaron Francis (new VP of Marketing at Laravel) and Ian mark the show's three-year anniversary, retire their AI-focused spinoff Token Town, and Aaron debriefs his first week in a new leadership role: archiving a decayed Notion workspace, publishing a run of internal manifestos, and laying out his doctrines on AI-assisted writing and one-on-ones. ## Author's thesis A tracking or reference system stays useful only as long as everyone can trust that what's in it is current — so a new leader inheriting someone else's tooling mess gets more traction from an early, transparent, reversible archive sweep than from cautious incrementalism, and the same "serve the person, not the process" principle should govern both AI-assisted writing and recurring one-on-ones. ## Key arguments (≤3) 1. **The system doesn't work if you can't trust the system.** Aaron's central operating thesis: a Notion workspace layered with "abandoned civilizations" from three generations of past hires taught the team not to trust any of it — the fix is archiving aggressively (reversible, not destructive), not adding more structure. 2. **Never let AI conquer the blank page for you.** Aaron's AI-writing rule: the struggle of figuring out what to say *is* the work of writing, not a problem to automate away — his workflow constrains the model to reorganize dictated thoughts only, never expand or change tone. 3. **The one-on-one belongs to the employee, not the manager.** Status is already visible via the tracking system, so the human meeting time should be reserved for whatever the employee actually wants to raise — credited explicitly to Rands in Repose's "The Update, the Vent, and the Disaster." ## Claim atoms ### The system only works if people trust it > [!quote] ID:rw_mostlytech144_trustsystem > "The system doesn't work if you can't trust the system." Where/why: framing the first manifesto Aaron wrote on day one at Laravel — the central operating thesis every other tooling decision in the episode is downstream of. ### Archive don't delete when inheriting someone else's mess > [!quote] ID:rw_mostlytech144_archivenotdelete > "I'm not going to delete anything. I'm going to archive stuff. I may go too far. Please feel free to restore it." Where/why: the concrete first-week action Aaron took in the marketing Notion workspace — reversible-by-default is what earned team buy-in without negotiating every artifact individually. ### Never let AI conquer the blank page for you > [!quote] ID:rw_mostlytech144_blankpage > "Never let AI conquer the blank page for you... that is not a problem of writing. That is the whole goal of writing is to figure out what you're trying to say." Where/why: from Aaron's "Using AI in Your Writing" manifesto, explained live on the show — directly reusable as a personal writing principle outside the podcast/work context. ## Permanent candidates - **A tool earns trust by staying small enough to be true** — strong, generalizable candidate connecting directly to existing vault thinking on knowledge-tool environments. Promoted below. - **Never let AI conquer the blank page** — aphoristic, personally actionable; promoted as a second, distinct claim below. ## Processing checklist - [ ] Compare Notion's block/database model against plain-markdown + AI-agent workflows for reorganization tasks, hands-on in this vault - [x] Connect into the relevant MOC — [[3. Resources/MOCs/Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] ## Metadata - Source: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/144 First Week as VP]] - NAR-related: No ## Links - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] — dashboard/tracking-system decay and the archive-don't-delete pattern - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Product & Startup Instincts MOC]] — new-leader first-week onboarding practice