Rob Schlaff's Website

My Eulogy for My Bubbie

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date January 20, 2019

Below is my eulogy for my Bubbie, Connie Schlaff, who died on January 9th, 2019 (1/9/19):

There’s a video of the great physicist Richard Feynman. In the video, his friend Danny Hillis said, “I’m sad because I realize you’re about to die.”

And Feynman said, “Yeah, that bugs me sometimes too. But not as bad as you think. By the time you get to be my age a lot of what is good about you has rubbed off on the people and so … although I will be dead, I won’t be completely gone.”

And that’s the way I like to think about Bubbie and all the little things she left us. Like some of her favorite things. I remember the last things that Blake and Ari did with Bubbie. These might have been Bubbie’s two favorite things. Ari did a crossword puzzle with her and Blake asked Bubbie if she would watch his new favorite show, Jeopardy, with him.

Product Management Technology

On Amazon – A Peculiar Company

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date November 11, 2018

Disclaimer: I worked as the Head of Banking for Amazon Web Services. This writing does not represent Amazon in any way. Opinions written here are strictly my own.

Amazon has a very strong culture. At other places I’ve worked, culture is an aspiration at the senior level but took a back seat to more pressing concerns like making as much money as possible. Amazon’s culture is embedded in its 14 Leadership Principles that are a common language and framework that form the basis of everything the company does, from interviews to everyday decisions. You can get a good feeling of the Amazon culture by watching videos of Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. A few good ones are from the Economic Club of Washington, an interview by his brother Mark, the Axel Springer Award, and a 60 Minutes Story about Amazon from 1999.

Life Lessons People

In Praise of Humility — The Forgotten Story of Edward S. Harkness

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date October 12, 2018

The Residential Colleges were created 85 years ago. Though they have the names of many famous Yalies, the donor of these colleges is nowhere to be seen. Why?

What is a Yalie? When I think of the archetypical Yalie, I think of two things. First, a Yalie is someone who will do great things and change the world. Second, a Yalie has great human qualities of humility, philanthropy and caring for others. While Yalies are always reminded of our great alumni and donors plastered across campus we rarely see the humbler and more human side. That’s why it’s important to remember Edward S. Harkness.

Tags Virtues, Wisdom, Yale

Uncategorized

Design Challenge: Makeup Kits for Female Astronauts

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date September 21, 2018

It’s always hard to design products that you are never going to use yourself. One of the most interesting design challenges in history was the equipment for the first astronauts. And once the women went up in space, the problem for the (mostly) male engineers only got worse. Take the example of the makeup kit.

Sally Ride: "The engineers at NASA, in their infinite wisdom, decided that women astronauts would want makeup – so they designed a makeup kit… You can just imagine the discussions amongst the predominantly male engineers about what should go in a makeup kit." #RideOn #Classof78 pic.twitter.com/dNZ51cWELH

— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) January 16, 2018

Product Management Technology

The Future of Payments

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date August 29, 2018

Disclaimer: I work at Amazon but this writing does not represent Amazon in any way. Opinions written here are strictly my own.

When I was working at Citi Cards, I was under the impression that people were spending a lot of time figuring out what credit cards they should have. Were they going to get points or miles? Weren’t they going to be so excited that they could redeem their points with Amazon? Of course, working in a credit card company I was thinking about this all day and I lost sight of the fact that my customers had far better things to do with their time.

Tags Amazon, Artificial Intelligence, Technology

Kids Technology

Growing Up Alexa

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date August 12, 2018

A few months ago, I wrote about how Alexa and Google Home are used in our house. In my experience, these devices are a better way for kids to use the internet than a mobile phone. A phone becomes an extension of a person, isolating her from the group. Interacting with Alexa is more of a family activity with Alexa acting like another person in the room.

Some people think it’s odd to treat Alexa humanely. As a machine, she doesn’t have any feelings. But think about the way we refer to Alexa. It feels more natural to refer to Alexa as a “her” than an “it” because that’s the way we interface with her. And if we interface with her as a person, we should be polite and say please and thank you.

Tags Design, Personal Tech, Technology

Ideas Life Lessons

How to be Happy — Yale’s Most Popular Class

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date July 27, 2018

This year Professor Laurie Santos created Yale’s most popular class of all time. The class is titled Psychology and the Good Life but it’s really a course on how to be happy both in the short and long term. I was excited to hear that Yale was offering the course but even more excited to see that the class is available online. She expanded on the class with her Happiness Lab Podcast. While there’s little I hadn’t heard before, it did a great job of focusing me on what’s important and helped me get into the practice of being happier.

Tags Happiness, Yale

Fun Stuff Kids

As You Wish — Watching the Princess Bride With Kids

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date July 23, 2018

I keep trying to find great movies to watch with my 8 and 5-year-old sons that are fun for all of us. The Princess Bride is one of the best. It’s a great movie for adults and it even has Peter Falk as the narrator grandfather to keep the kids engaged.

Tags Kids, Movies, Videos

Fun Stuff

These are a Few of My Favorite Words

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date July 21, 2018

To start with I found an amazing etymological podcast called The Allusionist by Helen Zaltzman. She has some great episodes on cursing [NSFW], Mountweazels (fictional words used in dictionaries for copyright purposes), portmanteaus (combination words like “brunch”) and eponyms (words named after people). She also had a great TED talk on how the letter i got a dot on top of it.

Tags Podcast, Words

Ideas Technology

Why Do People Think That Wearing a Hoodie to Work is a Status Symbol?

Post author By Robert Schlaff
Post date July 13, 2018

I spotted a technology executive walking down the street. He used to wear expensive tailored suits. Now he’s coming to work in high-end jeans and a polo shirt. Then it hit me. Jeans and a turtleneck or jeans and a polo shirt (or really jeans and anything) is the new innovation wardrobe. On one level, it makes sense because everyone wants to dress like Steve Jobs. But when you dig a little bit deeper, using Silicon Valley clothes as a status symbol doesn’t make any sense at all.

Tags Technology, Technology History