Category: leadership

Controlling What You Can Control: Reflections on the AWS Layoff and Beyond

Controlling What You Can Control: Reflections on the AWS Layoff and Beyond

The recent news of AWS laying off 14,000 employees shook many across the industry. Even in a company as vast and disciplined as Amazon, moments like this remind us that no one is immune to the cycles of change. For those directly affected, it’s painful. For those who remain, it’s unsettling. But it’s in these moments that our mindset determines everything.

Over my 20 years in tech, I’ve lived through more downturns than I can count — the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, the 2021 COVID-19 pandemic, and the post-COVID correction in 2023 that reshaped nearly every industry. I’ve seen good engineers lose their jobs not because they weren’t talented, but because the tides shifted. I’ve been through those sleepless nights of uncertainty myself.

And through all of it, one principle has guided me:

Focus on what you can control.

You cannot control market sentiment, executive decisions, or macroeconomic events. But you can control how you respond. You can control your growth, your learning, your attitude, and how you show up every day — even in hard times. The world rewards resilience more than perfection. When chaos hits, the ones who stay calm, assess, learn, and move forward always find a way to rise again.

Your Skills & Attitude Are Your True Job Security

Every crisis I’ve witnessed had one consistent outcome: people with transferable, marketable skills always landed on their feet. And today, in the era of AI, that truth is amplified.

AI may change how we work, but it cannot replace why we work — the human ability to connect ideas, think critically, and build meaningful products. The future belongs to those who can combine deep thinking with intelligent tools.

If you want to future-proof your career, focus on these core skills:

  • Critical Thinking: The ability to analyze, reason, and see patterns where others see noise. AI can assist, but it cannot decide what truly matters.

  • Product Mindset: Think beyond code — understand user value, impact, and trade-offs. Be the engineer who thinks like a product owner.

  • Domain Knowledge: Deep expertise in an industry (cloud, fintech, healthcare, etc.) gives your skills context — something no general-purpose model can replicate.

  • Articulative Communication: Learn to explain complex systems simply. Great communicators multiply their influence.

  • Orchestration & System-Level Thinking: As systems become more intelligent and distributed, the ability to see the big picture — how components interact — becomes gold.

Combine these with AI literacy — prompt engineering, model reasoning, workflow automation — and you won’t just survive; you’ll thrive. You’ll become the 10x or even 100x engineer — not because you type faster, but because you think smarter and lead with purpose.

A Final Word

Layoffs hurt. They always do. But they don’t define you — how you respond does. The best engineers, leaders, and innovators I’ve known all share one thing in common: when faced with uncertainty, they invest back in themselves.

So if you’re going through this moment, take a breath. Take stock. Then take action. Learn something new. Rebuild your momentum. Surround yourself with positive people. The future still needs builders — and the best of them never stop learning.

Because no matter how many layoffs happen, the world will always need great minds who can think, create, and lead.

Leading Through Uncertainty Time

Leading Through Uncertainty Time

This came in my mailbox from Harvard Business Review. It resonated greatly with my current context: dealing with new scopes, zooming in on net new focuses, and tackling greater challenges.

Sharing it here as a way to remind my future self. You can read the whole article on HBR here.

Facing Uncertainty – It’s All About Mindset
Uncertainty is unavoidable. As a manager, you need to be prepared to lead your team through murky waters, but doing so requires getting in the right mindset yourself. Here are six tips to help you shift your perspective:

1. Embrace the discomfort of not knowing. Move from a know-it-all to a learn-it-all mindset. You don’t need to have all the answers.

2. Distinguish between “complicated” and “complex” issues. They require different solutions.

3. Let go of perfectionism. Instead, aim for progress, expect mistakes, and recognize that you have the ability to continually course correct as needed.

4. Resist the urge to oversimplify and come to quick conclusions. Take a disciplined approach to understand both the complexity of the situation and your own biases.

5. Don’t go it alone. Connect with your peers who have their own set of experiences and perspectives to draw from.

6. Zoom out. Taking a broad, systemic view of the issues at hand can reveal unexamined assumptions that would otherwise be invisible

Stanford LEAD, an amazing journey

Stanford GSB, 2021

Over, but not done

Yes, it is here: this week I received my Stanford LEAD graduation certificate in my mailbox after a year-long journey.

After 1 year, 9 courses, 10 teams, 83 submissions, and hundreds of self-research hours, I can proudly wrap up another chapter in my life-long learning journey.

How it started

It was in August 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for over a year, I decided to turn this challenging time into a memorable time. At work, I was leading my teams with a net new initiative, a critical mission to help my company grow 5X over the next 3 years. At home, I was expecting a new baby and at the same time, my 2-year-old son was ready to go to preschool. We’re also moving to a new home.

One might say there was never a busier time.

But I did it. I chose to go to Stanford. One month after submitting my essays, references, and video presentation, I received the Stanford welcome letter.

Reflection on the course

Throughout the year, I had the opportunity to meet Stanford GSB’s world-class faculty. From renowned professors, inspiring course facilitators to amazing fellow LEADers – leaders of their own organizations, all have been very welcoming. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to learn, share, and practice all aspects of leadership.

The contents were excellent, with each course being designed to be very interactive. The case studies were fantastic with relevant industry examples and many were from Harvard (yes, HBR articles are weekly must-read). I must say I loved the readings and case study, but not so much for written submissions 🙂

The course structure was pretty flexible with offline readings and 1-hour Zoom call every week with professors and course facilitators (CF). Our CFs were wonderful partners and many of them were in fact LEAD alumni. I was truly humbled to have my coaching sessions with many of them.

Fun fact: each Stanford LEAD cohort is given a unique name representing the GSB spirit. In the past, we have had names such as Vanguards, Explorers, Pathfinders – mine is Navigators. It meant so much when the whole world was navigating uncharted water with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Final thoughts

Being a life-long learner, I’d wholeheartedly recommend Stanford LEAD to anyone who aspires to be a leader in your organization and considering. To help with the course selection, I will share the courses I took, together with my experience in another blog post.

Here are some excerpts for a preview:

  • Principled and Purposeful Leadership
    Rank: A
    Leadership lessons through self-reflection, looking inward, looking outward, defining your own values, mission, then defining an execution plan for your mission within the organization. Executive coaching sessions available.
  • Critical Analytical Thinking
    Rank: A+
    Frameworks for thinking logically, realizing biases and deriving reasonable conclusions, plenty of practicing with team and debates, excellent reading materials & examples on how some legendary leaders in the industry made their decisions.
  • Financing Innovation: The Creation of Value
    Rank: A-
    Corporate finance, financial statements (P & L, cash flow, annual reports), method to calculate WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital), understanding startup funding series (pre-money, post-money value).
  • Strategic Leadership
    Rank: B+
    General leadership strategies, defining a firm’s core strengths and advantages.
  • Communicating with Impact
    Rank: A+
    Solid techniques and strategies, applicable frameworks for effective communication.
  • Decision Making
    Rank: A
    Frameworks and tools for well-rounded, sound decision making process with imperative and data-driven approaches.
  • Customer Experience Design – A Neuroscience Perspective
    Rank: A-
    Put customers first, see through their lens, leverage the X framework to convert customers from low → high-energy engagement.
  • Persuasion: Principles and Practice
    Rank: A+
    Superb psychological insights & comm strategies. Simple yet effective examples through leadership stories.
  • The Innovation Playbook
    Rank: A
    Imagine you’re a startup founder with a problem & an idea: these are the steps to take your product from concept to POC to launch.