Kim Mansour - Latest News and Information
Tech/startup leadership coach; org design, decision‑making, and founder mindset.
“Who knows what will happen in the future. I stay here in the now.” A surprising number of startup founders not only don’t have a clear idea of what success looks like - they actively resist thinking about it. Bias to action without a lighthouse is just moving fast in meandering circles.
If you are vibe-coding apps for the healthcare sector I beg you - pay a deeply experienced technologist to audit it before anyone uses it. hipaa laws are no joke. I’ve personally been through the compliance audits, defending our encryption...
The Peter Principle says people rise to their level of incompetence. What it doesn't say: as you rise, your decisions will look progressively worse to people on the outside - because the problems get fuzzier, context gets wider, all of your...
I just want to gut-check - when people are ai-coding apps for a paying customer (or their startup) - you guys are handing over the code, right? Not just standing it up on vercel/supabase/whatever and saying "look it's done you can...
There is the boss who swings from completely absent to micro-management and I don't think we talk enough about what that hybrid creates.
It was about 10-15 years ago I started hearing about managers needing to be coaches/mentors in tech. Outliers aside, this was a terrible expectation to set up. Managers rarely have the skillset/time for this and even if they do, there are too...
Some think that bc there are problems it means you must be doing it wrong. Maybe. Check in:
Early in my leadership years I was told the devops team was frustrated and felt disrespected by the dev team (I was director of dev at the time). I was blindsided and took it seriously, researching email/slack conversations, talking to...
Most people think they are doing ok in their leadership role bc no one is complaining. A few recent clients thought the same thing. When we went through an audit, what we actually found: - Stepping in to do the work of other...
There is a type of boss/coworker who wants “give me the bottom-line - then I’ll ask for context if I want it.” Another type who wants the context first - and if they want your solutions they’ll ask for them. And...
I’m hearing a theme lately from the tech startup crowd. They're doing lots of pitching, lots of applause and interest… that leads no where. VC firms either being super risk averse or using potential investment as a carrot to get...
Before you switch direction, take a hard look at the work you did. Did you learn something concrete that clearly requires changing strategy? Or did you push hard and now your mental system is tired and wondering where the dopamine payoff...
“Everybody knows what it’s like to be a beginner” - I disagree. I think some find the feeling of growth so deeply uncomfortable they do as little of it as possible. Their belief that success only ever looks like mastery...
Intense work push. Kids stressed about a competition project. House looked like a tornado hit it. Family obligations stacked on top. Everything actually went… pretty well. Once it was over I crashed - and weirdly, instead of feeling relieved, I caught myself wondering: What’s the point...
Ever felt org lock-in? Ime it’s pretty common in tech even if we rarely name it. You spend years mastering one company’s hyper-niche systems and edge cases. Then one day you look up, scan the market, and nothing seems to fit. Everything...
