Mark Porter

Tribes in the Amazon jungle, Roman legions, divisions within companies, and his research is fascinating. And then what he found out and he published this just a couple of years ago, is that there's Dunbar layers. So there's 10 people who I will trust with my life. There's 30 people who I will go out to dinner with on a regular basis and trust and I'll share secrets with them.

There's this 150 group of people who I work with and trust. And once you go past that, now you're in the wild level, the people who you might not trust. So, God, why am I talking about psychology here?

There's this 150 group of people who I work with and trust. And once you go past that, now you're in the wild level, the people who you might not trust. So, God, why am I talking about psychology here?

There's this 150 group of people who I work with and trust. And once you go past that, now you're in the wild level, the people who you might not trust. So, God, why am I talking about psychology here?

Because if you build teams where the degree of trust you have to work with someone efficiently is larger than your Dunbar numbers, you'll get approval processes, you'll get distrust, you'll get escalations, you'll get politics. And what I've found over the last 10 years as I've focused on this

Because if you build teams where the degree of trust you have to work with someone efficiently is larger than your Dunbar numbers, you'll get approval processes, you'll get distrust, you'll get escalations, you'll get politics. And what I've found over the last 10 years as I've focused on this

Because if you build teams where the degree of trust you have to work with someone efficiently is larger than your Dunbar numbers, you'll get approval processes, you'll get distrust, you'll get escalations, you'll get politics. And what I've found over the last 10 years as I've focused on this

at AWS and Grab and now here at MongoDB is if I build small teams where the degree of trust matches the team size, things are just easy. And then at the individual dynamics level, Dan Pink said it best with mastery, autonomy, and purpose. People want to be great at something, they want to be left alone to be great at something, and they want to feel that's important.

at AWS and Grab and now here at MongoDB is if I build small teams where the degree of trust matches the team size, things are just easy. And then at the individual dynamics level, Dan Pink said it best with mastery, autonomy, and purpose. People want to be great at something, they want to be left alone to be great at something, and they want to feel that's important.

at AWS and Grab and now here at MongoDB is if I build small teams where the degree of trust matches the team size, things are just easy. And then at the individual dynamics level, Dan Pink said it best with mastery, autonomy, and purpose. People want to be great at something, they want to be left alone to be great at something, and they want to feel that's important.

So rather than thinking about scaling my organization, I think about getting the micro elements, the nano elements of my organization right in terms of people having mastery, autonomy, and purpose, and in terms of groups being organized, according to their Dunbar number and Conway's law. And I find that if you do that, everything is just easier. And so you asked me what I was proud of.

So rather than thinking about scaling my organization, I think about getting the micro elements, the nano elements of my organization right in terms of people having mastery, autonomy, and purpose, and in terms of groups being organized, according to their Dunbar number and Conway's law. And I find that if you do that, everything is just easier. And so you asked me what I was proud of.

So rather than thinking about scaling my organization, I think about getting the micro elements, the nano elements of my organization right in terms of people having mastery, autonomy, and purpose, and in terms of groups being organized, according to their Dunbar number and Conway's law. And I find that if you do that, everything is just easier. And so you asked me what I was proud of.

And frankly, it's these insights that I am most proud of as CTO.

And frankly, it's these insights that I am most proud of as CTO.

And frankly, it's these insights that I am most proud of as CTO.

There's a lot of mistakes to choose from. Some of them were avoidable, some weren't. So I love to embrace experimentation and figure out what's going to happen as a result of it. I don't view those as mistakes. Some people call that embracing failure. I call it embracing experimentation. A mistake is something where you could have predicted bad stuff was going to happen.

There's a lot of mistakes to choose from. Some of them were avoidable, some weren't. So I love to embrace experimentation and figure out what's going to happen as a result of it. I don't view those as mistakes. Some people call that embracing failure. I call it embracing experimentation. A mistake is something where you could have predicted bad stuff was going to happen.

There's a lot of mistakes to choose from. Some of them were avoidable, some weren't. So I love to embrace experimentation and figure out what's going to happen as a result of it. I don't view those as mistakes. Some people call that embracing failure. I call it embracing experimentation. A mistake is something where you could have predicted bad stuff was going to happen.

So a huge mistake I made is when I joined Amazon, the relational database service, the operational excellence of the team was just not great. And we kept delivering feature after feature after feature. And yet our databases didn't stay up.