Rob Schlaff's Website

Welcome to My Site!

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date July 26, 2020
Sticky post

About Me

I’m a devoted husband and father to an awesome family. For work, I’m a currently an Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase focusing on Product Tooling. I’m a Product Manager who looks at the goals of the business and uses technology to deliver those business and customer goals. In the past, I’ve driven transformational change at Citi, AIG, and Amazon Web Services. For more information about what I do at work, please visit my LinkedIn profile.

My Writing

If you’re new here, check out my blog highlights. Also, take a look at my library.

My Blog

I collect stories. There are so many amazing things happening every day. I need to spend some time writing them down before they slip away. Some of these ideas are so powerful that they hit me like a bolt of lightning. It’s my job to capture that lighting and put it in a bottle to share it with you. I want to capture that feeling that Archimedes had when he had an insight sitting in the bathtub screamed “Eureka!” and ran naked down the street. I know that I’ll rarely if ever make it there, but that won’t keep me from trying!

Here’s some of my latest posts:

And here are some of my posts about AI and ChatGPT:

My Virtual Library

I wanted a place to put all the stuff I think is awesome. Growing up, I always wanted to have a great library in my house. I remembered the excitement when I learned that I could buy the entire collection of The New Yorker in bound volumes and put them in my house. I’d imagined that I would collect great encyclopedias from the past to peruse whenever I pleased. They would live in mahogany bookcases that looked like they’d belonged to JP Morgan. Then I realized that a New York City apartment doesn’t have the space for a physical library. So I did the next best thing. I’ve created a virtual library that includes lots of the things I enjoy, like my favorite books, words, and humor. You can check it out on the menu at the top of the page.

Blog Highlights

Some Posts about Amazon

Nine Amazonian Secrets You Can Use. When I was at Amazon, I learned some open secrets about the company, like behind the scenes view into its culture, great discounts, and real world tours.
On Amazon – A Peculiar Company. Amazon is a self described peculiar company, doing things differently than your standard company.
When Millions of Eyes at Amazon Were Wrong. How I fixed the punctuation on Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles.

Human Behavior

Guest Post: Blake Schlaff on Fortnite Friendships. My 10-year-old son Blake is an avid Fortnite player who often plays with his friends. I thought it would be good for him (with my help) to tell everyone about the world of social gaming.
“Saving Money” by Paying More for Netflix. With subscription pricing, some people feel like they’re getting a deal when they are actually paying more.
What Do You Mean by “Film?” An interview with kids about film cameras from 2010. Spoiler alert: They’re confused.
Prospect Theory: Losing Feels Bad More than Winning Feels Good. An example of how our biases in interpreting gains and losses cause us to make bad decisions.

Things I’ve Built

How I Replaced the Ads on My Website with My To Do List. I figured out how to make an early version of Google Contributor replace my advertisements with my To Do list. Here’s a video of me presenting this at New York Tech Meetup. Unfortunately Google Contributor doesn’t work like this anymore.
How I (Re-)Built My Favorite T-Shirt. When I was in college I saw a T-shirt that was attractive, geeky and protested government policy. No one had produced it since 2000. So I recreated it.
When a Book Gets Caught Up in the Story. The Art of the Book in the Digital Age. I picked up a book at the New York Public Library with a big purple stamp that read, “The Author of This Book Committed Suicide.” I quickly discovered that this book doesn’t just tell a story, it’s part of a larger conversation.

My Adventures and Explorations

Taking the Red Pill of Art. Here’s my love letter to art. It’s a story about the red pill and the blue pill, opening your eyes, and what art means to me.
The Joy of the Hunt. While I haven’t been outside on any new adventures in the last few months, I wrote about some of my favorite adventures, from finding a hidden castle on top of a library to discovering an old historical text from one of Yale’s secret societies.
What a Wonderful Word. A story of untranslatable words from around the world.
Carpe Diem! How to Live Like an Emperor. I realized that no matter where I am or where I go, I can live like an Emperor by seizing every moment.
Capture Better Memories Without a Camera. How technology is preventing me from building great memories and some techniques I’ve come up with some ways to use my brain to capture special moments instead of my phone.

Life Lessons

My Ideal Retirement Plan. How I’ve realized that my goal in life shouldn’t be to retire early but to live well, now and through retirement.
Thank You for Being a Friend. Friendship is about being there for other people. Anyone can celebrate with you when it’s convenient. A true friend stands by you when things are tough and just be with you.
Fiction is the Lie That Tells the Truth. When dealing with really difficult problems in life, I’ve realized that fiction often has the best answers.
In Praise of Humility — The Forgotten Story of Edward S. Harkness. While we say we praise humility as a virtue, we rarely remember the people who practice it.
How to be Happy — Yale’s Most Popular Class. Yale’s most popular class ever is on how to be happier. Now it’s available online.

Judaism

Yom Kippur Meditation: The Beauty of Forgiveness

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 12, 2024

Summary: Today was Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. The holiday focuses on acknowledging sins over the past year and seeking forgiveness. Initially, I felt guilt for my mistakes, but I realized that guilt is heavily shaped by Western Christian culture, where mistakes often carry a sense of finality and require divine salvation. In contrast, Judaism views mistakes as part of the human experience and emphasizes teshuva—the process of repentance, repair, and moving forward. This approach is more freeing, encouraging growth and improvement without being trapped by guilt, offering a healthier path toward personal renewal.

Science and Math

What is Normal” Body Temperature?

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 6, 2024

“Never express yourself more clearly than you can think.” — Niels Bohr

I’ve been reading Ben Orlin’s new book, Math for English Majors. Ben always has a brilliantly philosophical way of looking at numbers and math, and it got me thinking about how we often misunderstand precision.

I’ve always been fascinated by the way we handle precision—how we assume that if we know one number exactly and another is only “about right,” the overall result is still only “about right.” It’s a reminder that even when we want precision, the world often delivers something a little fuzzier.

Adventures

Watching a Baseball Game on TV with 10,002 Friends

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 5, 2024

Watching the Game with the 2 Friends I Came With

Watching the Game at a Watch Party in an Empty Citi Field

I just went to the first Mets game in their playoff series against the Phillies. The game was in Philly, but I stayed local and joined thousands of fans at the Citi Field watch party. Even though we were just watching a broadcast on the Jumbotron, the energy was unreal. You’d think you’d need to be at the actual game to feel that intensity, but trust me, that’s not the case. The cheers, the chants, the boos—they all created this shared moment that made it feel like we were actually part of the action. It was one of those experiences where you realize the power of the crowd, not just as spectators, but as an integral part of the game.

Human Behavior Life Lessons

Why We Buy Overpriced Things and “Like” Things We Don’t Really Like

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 5, 2024

In economics we learn that as prices rise, demand falls. This happens because we assume that rational customers are looking to buy things that provide the most value for the least expense. But there’s a class of goods that don’t behave this way: Velben goods.

Veblen goods defy classical economics. Named after Thorstein Veblen, an American economist, these products become more desirable as they become more expensive. These goods are more desired not from the needs they fulfill but from their ability to signal status, exclusivity, and wealth.

Life Lessons

Being a Better Person is Easier Than You Think

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 4, 2024

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. In many ways, Rosh Hashanah is like the day after the secular New Year—when we think about the previous year and make resolutions for how to be better. Making resolutions can feel overwhelming. It’s exhausting to examine an entire year and think about how to live a better life, but our Rabbi reminded us that growth doesn’t have to happen all at once—it can be a gradual, steady process.

Uncategorized

Is Great Design Hiding in Your Living Room?

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 4, 2024

Walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we pass the Temple of Dendur, rescued by Jackie Kennedy before Lake Nasser was flooded after the Aswan Dam was built. Then it’s off to European art to see Picassos and Renoirs. Then we go downstairs to the Design Collection to see… my dining room chair?

That’s the funny thing about design collections. Iconic designs from the past have blended so seamlessly into modern life that we forget their origins. It’s like realizing the guy in the hoodie at the coffee shop is a tech CEO. What was once groundbreaking has become… ordinary.

Human Behavior Ideas

Hacking Evolution: Fitness Faking

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date September 29, 2024

Animals can fake their evolutionary fitness in a number of ways. Humans do it too. While this may seem like we’re corrupting our gene pool it might not be so bad.

ChatGPT Product Management

10 Commandments of Product Management

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date September 28, 2024

It’s also a good time to point out something we emphasize in each of our books: Nothing you will read in this book was invented by us.

Marty Cagan. Transformed. Silicon Valley Product Group.

I enjoy Marty Cagan’s books on Product Management. The ideas are simple and straigtfoward. As he says in the quote above, he didn’t invent any of these ideas.

I was curious about how old these ideas really were so I asked ChatGPT if it could find some references to these Product Management principles in the Bible. Here’s what it found.

ChatGPT

Why Did OpenAI Nickname its Latest Model “Strawberry”?

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date September 28, 2024

The nickname “Strawberry” for OpenAI’s new model is an inside joke, but no one told ChatGPT. Here’s the punchline: “Finally, ChatGPT knows how many R’s are in the word Strawberry.”

Adventures Life Lessons

How a Conversation is Like a Rainbow

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date September 17, 2024

I used to think that conversations were about what two people say to each other. Recently I’ve come to think of them as an improv game where each person adds something unique to the mix. One person might introduce a surprising idea, while another runs with it in an unexpected direction. After it’s over, we can try to untangle where an idea came from but often we can’t do it because the conversation has taken on a life of its own. It grows, shifts, and moves in ways that even the participants might not anticipate. It’s like a river that follows its own course taking everyone along with it.