Here are some interesting platforms :

• Statsig – ⁠ The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. Stop switching between different tools, and have them all in one place. http://statsig.com/pragmatic

• Sonar – The makers of SonarQube, the industry standard for automated code review. Sonar helps reduce outages, improve security, and lower risks associated with AI and agentic coding. See how Sonar is empowering the Agent Centric Development Cycle with new products and capabilities that strengthen the guide, verify, and solve phases of development.

• WorkOS – Everything you need to make your app enterprise ready. Skip the rebuild for enterprise features. Keep shipping. Visit WorkOS.com.

How did a tiny team of 30 engineers build the world-famous messaging app more than a decade ago, and what can dev teams learn from that feat today ? Jean Lee was engineer #19 at WhatsApp, joining when the company was still small, with almost no formal processes. She helped it scale to hundreds of millions of users, went through the $19B acquisition by Facebook, and later worked at Meta.

The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter talk with Jean about what it was like building WhatsApp. When Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, only around 30 engineers supported hundreds of millions of users across eight platforms.

They discuss how the founders kept things simple, saying “no” to most feature requests for years. Jean explains why WhatsApp chose Erlang for the backend, why the team avoided cross-platform abstractions, and how charging users $1 per year paid everyone’s salaries, while keeping growth intentionally slow.

Jean also shares what the Facebook acquisition was like on the inside, how she dealt with sudden personal wealth, and what it was like transitioning from an IC to a manager at Facebook – including the reality of calibration meetings and performance reviews.

They also discuss how AI enables smaller engineering teams, and why WhatsApp’s experience suggests ownership and trust might matter more than tools.

Key observation from Jean

Ten takeaways from Jean that the Pragmatic Engineer newsletter find the most interesting :

1. WhatsApp built a billion-dollar business with a tiny team, and no AI tools. WhatsApp served 450 million users with only 30 engineers, long before AI tools existed. Jean says : “I wonder if being able to move fast is independent from AI. When you’re small, you’re just more efficient.”

2. WhatsApp had no code reviews after in-place. WhatsApp cofounder, Brian Acton, reviewed the very first pull request of each new hire, and after that, there were no more code reviews. Jean recounts how Brian reviewed her debut PR in extreme detail. This first (and only !) review set the bar high, and she wrote code to that standard from then on.

3. WhatsApp had close to zero formal processes. WhatsApp had no Scrum, no Agile, no TDD (test driven development), and no formal code reviews beyond the first commit. In contrast, Skype had 1,000 engineers and mandatory Scrum training, but WhatsApp still outcompeted it and won. Jean’s response to hearing of all the formal processes Skype used in order to execute faster : “I’m surprised to hear they thought they were shipping faster because of it.” Perhaps process is often a substitute for trust, not quality ?”

4. WhatsApp’s office had a countdown display showing days since the last outage. When an outage happened, no emails were sent around, and no meetings were called. The number simply reset to zero. Avoiding outages was on everyone’s mind as a result. This is an example of how visible metrics can create accountability without bureaucracy.

5. WhatsApp delayed video calling for years, until it was extremely polished. Contrary to the “launch early, then iterate” mantra, WhatsApp held features like video calling back. They also tested features extensively with family members before releasing anything publicly, as part of their refusal to launch something of less than top-notch quality.

6. Saying “no” to features was a competitive advantage. WhatsApp’s CEO, Jan Koum, rejected 99% of feature requests from the team. While competitors shipped dozens of shiny, new features, WhatsApp ruthlessly prioritized reliability and simplicity. Jan repeatedly told the team what the mission was. “I want a grandma living in the countryside to be able to use our app”, he said.

7. WhatsApp’s team was older and more experienced than most startups at the time. In 2014 when Facebook acquired WhatsApp, only four out of the 30 engineers were less than 30 years old. Perhaps part of the reason for WhatsApp’s stunning success was having an unusually experienced team from the start.

8. AI won’t replace the human touch in engineering management. Jean sees areas such as OKR management, documentation, and performance data gathering as domains in which AI can take on most of the work. But she believes that understanding and unblocking engineers is best done person-to-person, not by AI.

9. Posting about your work on Meta’s “internal Facebook” site affects career growth there. Jean noted that engineers at the social media giant who regularly posted about their launches and learnings enjoyed a sizable advantage in performance calibration reviews.

10. Jean’s advice to new grads : invest in the fundamentals. “Tools come and go, languages come and go, but foundations don’t go anywhere,” she says.

Stock Market Update

The Fed Faces Growing Inflation Headaches.

A big problem is brewing for the Federal Reserve. The same day that the Fed concluded its latest rate-setting meeting and voted to keep rates steady, the Producer Price Index (PPI) for the month of February gained more than expected. The headline PPI jumped by 3.4% compared to last year while the core figure that excludes food and energy prices increased by 3.9%. PPI inflation will often lead changes in consumer inflation measures, with inflation reports not yet reflecting the breakout of war in the Middle East and ensuing impact on energy prices.

During his post-meeting press conference, Fed chair Jerome Powell acknowledged the economic impact of the war on Iran is uncertain while also reiterating the Fed’s long-term inflation target is 2%. But the Fed’s preferred measure of consumer inflation (the PCE price index) hasn’t been below that level since February 2021 (chart below) while the central bank’s updated economic projections shows the median forecast for PCE inflation rising to 2.7% in 2026 versus 2.4% in the prior estimate. As I’ve outlined frequently, leading indicators of inflation and inflation-sensitive sectors are warning of higher price levels ahead, and that was before the jump in energy prices.

Not surprisingly, the S&P 500 has moved into a regime of strong negative correlation to oil prices. The longer the conflict in the Middle East drags on, the more upside pressure on oil prices and impact on the outlook for monetary policy. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains at a standstill (chart below), which is impacting energy and fertilizer supplies. While stocks could still rally in the near-term from an oversold condition, the longer-term outlook is facing serious challenges from inflation and the interest rate outlook.