Empathy at Scale
summary
Three paid maintainers run the npm CLI while downloads grow exponentially to billions a month and roughly 200 million downloads per employee, leaving the team facing about 2400 open issues on GitHub. The work proves mostly emotional labor: using triage to prioritize urgent bugs and security fixes keeps the project afloat but reaches limits once nothing else can be dropped, so pragmatic moves matter — hire paid maintainers, codify processes, add bots and clear roadmaps, pick one communication channel, use triage state honestly, and invest in nonviolent communication and counseling.
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chapters (21)
- 0:00Intro
- 3:24apm & Open Source & Feelings
- 7:20popularity scales geometrically, teams don't
- 8:36escaping delusion
- 11:14PROBLEM: offered skills # needed skills
- 12:34PROBLEM: keeping values in sync
- 13:19build a transparent process
- 14:03PROBLEM: process has its limits
- 14:34PROBLEM: technology can't solve people problems
- 15:08PROBLEM: very easy to overload the road map
- 16:05PROBLEM: transparency means nothing without distribution
- 18:14a note on triage
- 19:51PROBLEM: hard, ongoing emotional labor
- 23:32project goals
- 23:57know your values
- 24:52focus on what you're good at
- 28:01support your team
- 29:26take care of yourself first
- 32:24non-violent communication
- 35:05therapy?
- 36:18conclusions
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