Aviv Ben-Yosef
@avivby.bsky.social
Because life's too short to waste them running *average* product-engineering teams.
https://avivbenyosef.com
https://avivbenyosef.com
Italian progress: actually made people laugh this week, including a pun in Italian! Love it when I'm able to use a bit of my humor. Also, always glad when I find the right word/idiom and people are positively surprised. Piano piano!
December 20, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Italian progress: actually made people laugh this week, including a pun in Italian! Love it when I'm able to use a bit of my humor. Also, always glad when I find the right word/idiom and people are positively surprised. Piano piano!
Working with tech executives, one thing becomes obvious very quickly: the CEO relationship is the most important one you have, second only to Product. And yet, it’s often fragile, strained, or quietly dysfunctional. Even among co‑founders. It doesn’t have to be that way.
December 18, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Working with tech executives, one thing becomes obvious very quickly: the CEO relationship is the most important one you have, second only to Product. And yet, it’s often fragile, strained, or quietly dysfunctional. Even among co‑founders. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Lighting the first candle, last night at Piazza Barberini, Rome. One day, we'll be able to do this without dozens of police officers locking us behind barricades for protection, my daughter repeatedly asking if it's safe, and people discussing where it's less risky to stand. 🕎🇮🇱
December 15, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Lighting the first candle, last night at Piazza Barberini, Rome. One day, we'll be able to do this without dozens of police officers locking us behind barricades for protection, my daughter repeatedly asking if it's safe, and people discussing where it's less risky to stand. 🕎🇮🇱
5 months into this Rome move, I still get stuck in front of an aisle at the supermarket trying to make sense of a shelf of a type of sausage, cheese, snack, etc. I've never heard of. I need Hello Fresh but just with a weekly interesting local recipe to try at home myself.
December 12, 2025 at 8:04 AM
5 months into this Rome move, I still get stuck in front of an aisle at the supermarket trying to make sense of a shelf of a type of sausage, cheese, snack, etc. I've never heard of. I need Hello Fresh but just with a weekly interesting local recipe to try at home myself.
Your team’s running along and getting work done. You’re busy supporting all of that, which is great. But don’t lose sight of the longer-term leadership work of shaping the org, or you’ll waste the current momentum.
December 11, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Your team’s running along and getting work done. You’re busy supporting all of that, which is great. But don’t lose sight of the longer-term leadership work of shaping the org, or you’ll waste the current momentum.
Little Italian progress: I find myself in my writing reaching out to an Italian word and having to reverse lookup it to English/Hebrew to find the right word with the right sfumature.
December 11, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Little Italian progress: I find myself in my writing reaching out to an Italian word and having to reverse lookup it to English/Hebrew to find the right word with the right sfumature.
Random thing we noticed: many of the canned goods we get here in Rome supermarkets don't… stack? Like, you get a pack of tuna cans and they wobble when you try to put them one atop the other. Just… odd?
December 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Random thing we noticed: many of the canned goods we get here in Rome supermarkets don't… stack? Like, you get a pack of tuna cans and they wobble when you try to put them one atop the other. Just… odd?
I think xmas raffles are kinda a thing here in Rome? One of our fav gelato places has one, and the nice employee there asked my son to write not just in Italian but also in "Israelish" (Hebrew…). Che carino!
December 6, 2025 at 8:58 AM
I think xmas raffles are kinda a thing here in Rome? One of our fav gelato places has one, and the nice employee there asked my son to write not just in Italian but also in "Israelish" (Hebrew…). Che carino!
Took the kids for a stroll over the weekend. On a whim, they wanted to explore Circo Massimo. We snap a photo and later realize other than this millennia-old spot, one can also see the Jewish ghetto and the Vatican in the background. Rome is still mind-boggling.
December 5, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Took the kids for a stroll over the weekend. On a whim, they wanted to explore Circo Massimo. We snap a photo and later realize other than this millennia-old spot, one can also see the Jewish ghetto and the Vatican in the background. Rome is still mind-boggling.
Most leaders I meet are shallow. Not because they lack care. They’re shallow because they’ve stopped treating their role with the same urgency, curiosity, and responsibility they had as engineers.
December 4, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Most leaders I meet are shallow. Not because they lack care. They’re shallow because they’ve stopped treating their role with the same urgency, curiosity, and responsibility they had as engineers.
Today in memos-everyone-in-Rome-got-except-us: Like magic, natale (xmas) decorations appeared on half the apartments in our building. I like these traditions!
December 3, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Today in memos-everyone-in-Rome-got-except-us: Like magic, natale (xmas) decorations appeared on half the apartments in our building. I like these traditions!
Special and limited-time offer alert!
I got envious of my kids getting Advent calendars for the first time (Rome has these everywhere). I decided to offer the same for you all!
But some things are limited, and so you can only sign up in the next 24 hours! Hurry up!
I got envious of my kids getting Advent calendars for the first time (Rome has these everywhere). I decided to offer the same for you all!
But some things are limited, and so you can only sign up in the next 24 hours! Hurry up!
December 1, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Special and limited-time offer alert!
I got envious of my kids getting Advent calendars for the first time (Rome has these everywhere). I decided to offer the same for you all!
But some things are limited, and so you can only sign up in the next 24 hours! Hurry up!
I got envious of my kids getting Advent calendars for the first time (Rome has these everywhere). I decided to offer the same for you all!
But some things are limited, and so you can only sign up in the next 24 hours! Hurry up!
About two months into the school year, my children have already filled notebooks! Italian schools do a lot of writing, which I think is good. Back home, a notebook would take two years to be filled…
November 29, 2025 at 6:56 AM
About two months into the school year, my children have already filled notebooks! Italian schools do a lot of writing, which I think is good. Back home, a notebook would take two years to be filled…
Something changed this week, as if everyone in Rome got a memo. All of a sudden, everyone's wearing down jackets (piumini). We never needed those in the past. Time to do some shopping!
November 28, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Something changed this week, as if everyone in Rome got a memo. All of a sudden, everyone's wearing down jackets (piumini). We never needed those in the past. Time to do some shopping!
Working with many tech leaders, I've come to realize that while each one of you is a unique and special snowflake, if you squint, you can notice certain archetypes of behavior.
November 27, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Working with many tech leaders, I've come to realize that while each one of you is a unique and special snowflake, if you squint, you can notice certain archetypes of behavior.
Random thing I noticed this week, ~4 months into our move to Rome: Kids have started gesticulating more… 🤌
November 27, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Random thing I noticed this week, ~4 months into our move to Rome: Kids have started gesticulating more… 🤌
I was talking to someone here that it's surprising the amount of dubbing done in Italy. Most local cinemas here don't usually show movies in their original language (Wicked and similar not included). I believe this difference from other places affects proficiency in English.
November 22, 2025 at 9:58 AM
I was talking to someone here that it's surprising the amount of dubbing done in Italy. Most local cinemas here don't usually show movies in their original language (Wicked and similar not included). I believe this difference from other places affects proficiency in English.
The Notes.app on my Mac and iPad has lost highlights and markups on PDFs at least 5 times in the past week. Are people using something else that actually works?
November 21, 2025 at 8:58 AM
The Notes.app on my Mac and iPad has lost highlights and markups on PDFs at least 5 times in the past week. Are people using something else that actually works?
There's a great local restaurant we've gone to ~once a month since moving to Rome. It's nice seeing the progress the kids are making every time: the blank stares slowly turning into short answers, recognizing the different salami and asking for their favs, etc. Steady progress 💪
November 21, 2025 at 7:03 AM
There's a great local restaurant we've gone to ~once a month since moving to Rome. It's nice seeing the progress the kids are making every time: the blank stares slowly turning into short answers, recognizing the different salami and asking for their favs, etc. Steady progress 💪
Complexity is lazy. Coders spin up microservices on day one, and then spend years maintaining a distributed Rube Goldberg machine. Leaders fall for the same trap. It’s shockingly easy to grind a company to a halt not by being incompetent, but by being smart in all the wrong ways.
November 20, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Complexity is lazy. Coders spin up microservices on day one, and then spend years maintaining a distributed Rube Goldberg machine. Leaders fall for the same trap. It’s shockingly easy to grind a company to a halt not by being incompetent, but by being smart in all the wrong ways.
It’s funny how we sometimes feel like we’re the odd ones out in Rome, not just because we’re foreigners, but because we have 3 kids—that’s uncommon here. For instance, most children’s attractions have a “pack” that’s at most 2+2, while back home, we were an average-sized family.
November 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
It’s funny how we sometimes feel like we’re the odd ones out in Rome, not just because we’re foreigners, but because we have 3 kids—that’s uncommon here. For instance, most children’s attractions have a “pack” that’s at most 2+2, while back home, we were an average-sized family.
We had to go to the Comune for some healthy bureaucracy. Knowing my Italian is lacking, I go in a jacket and tie, telling myself it helps me seem less stupid when I make mistakes speaking. (and I like excuses to use my ties…)
November 15, 2025 at 7:00 AM
We had to go to the Comune for some healthy bureaucracy. Knowing my Italian is lacking, I go in a jacket and tie, telling myself it helps me seem less stupid when I make mistakes speaking. (and I like excuses to use my ties…)
Still getting used to the fact that Rome has seasons. My kids have found out what scarves are.
November 14, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Still getting used to the fact that Rome has seasons. My kids have found out what scarves are.
Everyone talks about how “change is hard” in software. But let’s be honest: software is built to change. That’s literally in the name. What’s brittle isn’t the code, it’s the people and the structures around it.
November 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Everyone talks about how “change is hard” in software. But let’s be honest: software is built to change. That’s literally in the name. What’s brittle isn’t the code, it’s the people and the structures around it.
People who aren't honest with themselves about what they want to achieve and what their problems are? A waste of time and money if I've ever seen one. If you cannot throw yourself completely into the process, probably better off not starting a coaching engagement.
November 13, 2025 at 10:03 AM
People who aren't honest with themselves about what they want to achieve and what their problems are? A waste of time and money if I've ever seen one. If you cannot throw yourself completely into the process, probably better off not starting a coaching engagement.