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← People and their mental models

Gergely Orosz's mental models

5 claims Gergely Orosz made fit 5 mental models. Most often: Feedback loops, Incentives, Less, but better. Everything they said here.

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Feedback loops

Shorten the loop between doing and finding out; whatever a loop rewards is what you become.

Used by 60 others

Some engineering teams celebrating velocity gains are flying blind to product quality degradations that power users immediately notice but cannot easily report.

  1. Gergely Orosz Writes The Pragmatic Engineer All of these are things that power users IMMEDIATELY notice and get annoyed. But there's no good way to report them, and the eng teams clearly are flying blind, patting themselves on the back how everything is up velocity-wise... but product quality got degraded! And they don't even know @GergelyOrosz on Xx.com · 11 Sept 2026
    Their wordsAll of these are things that power users IMMEDIATELY notice and get annoyed. But there's no good way to report them, and the eng teams clearly are flying blind, patting themselves on the back how everything is up velocity-wise... but product quality got degraded! And they don't even know

    ↗@GergelyOrosz on Xx.com

    11 Sept 2026

Incentives

Look at what people are rewarded for; it explains more behaviour than what they say, your own included.

Used by 84 others

One reason startups in the 2010s adopted and blogged about new technologies was to hire strong developers more easily, especially those barred from new tech at their current company.

  1. Gergely Orosz Writes The Pragmatic Engineer Unironically one reason startups in the 2010s would start using "hip" technologies + blog about them (eg Clijure, Go, React etc when these were 'new' and still rare) was to hire much easier, especially solid devs who were not allowed to introduce new tech at their current co!! @GergelyOrosz on Xx.com · 2 Oct 2026
    Their wordsUnironically one reason startups in the 2010s would start using "hip" technologies + blog about them (eg Clijure, Go, React etc when these were 'new' and still rare) was to hire much easier, especially solid devs who were not allowed to introduce new tech at their current co!!

    ↗@GergelyOrosz on Xx.com

    2 Oct 2026

Less, but better

Find the essence and cut the rest; simplicity is hard work, not the absence of effort.

Used by 59 others

Writing is thinking, so an LLM inflating a one-sentence observation into three paragraphs destroys the thing that made it worth reading.

  1. Gergely Orosz Writes The Pragmatic Engineer Writing is thinking, and we are interested in your own thoughts and observations, not a sharp, one-sentence observation turned into three paragraphs of blob text by an LLM. How software engineering is changing: an essay challengeblog.pragmaticengineer.com · 1 Sept 2026
    Their wordsWriting is thinking, and we are interested in your own thoughts and observations, not a sharp, one-sentence observation turned into three paragraphs of blob text by an LLM.

    ↗How software engineering is changing: an essay challengeblog.pragmaticengineer.com

    1 Sept 2026

Leverage

Tools, code, capital and debt multiply what one person can do, in both directions.

Used by 29 others

Probabilistic thinking

Think in odds, not certainties, and bet heavily only when the odds are clearly yours.

Used by 25 others