To grow your career, think like an owner

🌈 It’s Pride Month in the U.S., a celebration that began with a series of riots in response to a police raid at a gay bar in NYC, the Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969. A few years ago on Medium, journalist Barry Yeoman interviewed queer Americans born pre-1969, and thus before LGBTQIA+ rights as we know them today. A memorable quote: “The day of my retirement, I realized I’m free to be myself.”
Issue #89: the creator of CAPTCHA, the foundation of empathy, and writing for your fans
By Harris Sockel

Here at Medium, we’re in the midst of performance reviews — meaning we’re each taking an hour or so out of our day to tell each other what we’re doing well and what we could be doing better. Reviewing your coworkers is an imperfect process, but it’s necessary. (Along those lines, if you have feedback on this newsletter you’re always welcome to reply! I read everything that comes in.)

Reviews are also a time to talk about the G word. Growth.

On Medium, product designer Yutong Xue tells the story of how, as a junior designer at Google, she worked diligently, thinking that doing so would lead to a promotion. Instead, she remembers getting “stuck in repetitive small projects” and pining away for her manager to tap her on the shoulder and hand her a shiny new opportunity. Eventually, she got frustrated and quit.

Later, Xue realized: “Growth must be initiated.” No one’s going to hand it to you. One tactic for initiating it: Think like an owner instead of simply a diligent worker bee.

People mostly concerned with completing assigned tasks ask questions like:

• What are the requirements for this project?
• What does my boss mean when they say XYZ?
• What’s expected of me?

But owners? They ask:

• What are the goals of this project? How do they connect with the company’s ultimate goals? Are these even good goals?
• Is this project the most impactful thing for the team to work on now? Are there other more impactful projects?
• How can I and everyone else in the team contribute the most?

Illustration by Yutong Xue, “How to become a Senior Designer — from an ex-Google, Meta Designer”

What else we’re reading

• Today I Learned: CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Developer Luis von Ahn — also the cofounder of DuoLingo — coined the term in 2003. If you’ve ever wondered why robots can’t click the “I’m not a robot” box, it’s because they’re just too efficient and fast, and thus too unlike humans.
• “Mannerisms, aesthetics, and vibes do not determine sexuality,” writes filmmaker James Patrick Nelson in this investigation into why some gay people aren’t fans of Pete Buttigieg’s demeanor. The essay is about much more than Pete Buttigieg. It’s about the false binary between trauma and joy, revolution and assimilation, in film and TV depictions of queer people (and underrepresented people writ large). A quote that stuck with me: “This is the foundation of empathy, one of the most important attributes in a politician, an artist, or a human being. I’m not you…and…I’m just like you.”

Your daily dose of practical wisdom: about self-expression

Don’t write — or speak — to please everyone, explains author Grace Loh Prasad. Write for people who get you. “It’s not your job to make yourself acceptable to those who don’t want to learn.”

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

Questions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.com