Blogs
The Part of Your Job AI Can't Do (And Why It Matters More Now)
There's a lot of anxiety about AI making engineering skills obsolete. But the most valuable part of what you do was never the typing. The judgment, the …
When Two Frameworks Point the Same Direction
LangChain published Agent Engineering on December 9. I'd been developing Synthesis Engineering since early November. We arrived at remarkably similar …
RAG Architecture Lessons from Practice
Building a retrieval-augmented generation system revealed patterns the tutorials don't cover. Contractions break search. Not everything needs an LLM. Full …
Data Format Contracts for AI Pipelines
When tools interact, implicit assumptions break silently. Explicit data format contracts prevent the debugging sessions you don't have time for.
Context Loss and How to Prevent It
Why AI assistants forget what you told them, and practical strategies to prevent it. The difference between context that survives and context that gets lost.
From Tool to Team: Managing AI as Distributed Engineering
When you're running multiple AI sessions in parallel, you're not using a tool anymore — you're managing a team. The skills that matter shift accordingly.
The Foundation-First Pattern
Why the most effective AI-assisted projects start with humans writing code by hand. The counterintuitive pattern that makes everything else work.
Synthesis Project Management
Project management redesigned for AI capabilities. A craft that complements traditional PM tools by creating documentation AI can query, synthesize, and act on.
What is Synthesis Engineering?
Synthesis engineering is a professional discipline for human-AI collaboration on complex work. Not just better prompting — a systematic approach with princ...
How Claude's Memory Actually Works (And Why CLAUDE.md Matters)
Understanding Claude's context architecture changes how you work with it. The tradeoffs between automatic continuity and on-demand depth explain why persistent …
Cracking a 25-Year-Old Password with Claude Code
While cleaning up old files, I found a password-protected Word document from 1999. I had no memory of the password. Claude Code and I cracked it together.
What OpenAI's Sora Build Teaches Us About Synthesis Coding
Four engineers shipped a #1 Play Store app in 28 days using AI agents. Their approach validates the patterns I've been writing about — and adds new ones worth …
Scaling Synthesis Coding in Your Organization
A practical guide for CTOs and engineering leaders: cost analysis, team rollout strategy, training curriculum, and metrics for adopting synthesis coding at s...
Building ownwords: A Synthesis Coding Case Study
What separates synthesis coding from vibe coding isn''t the tools — it''s the decisions. This technical case study walks through the architectural choices,...
A Stranger's Words
A theater reviewer wrote about my son's performance. She didn't know she was writing about my kid.
Why Synthesis Coding Still Writes Code in the Age of LLMs
The answer is not "just let the model do it" — and code matters more, not less, as AI gets dramatically better Last spring, my son Fitz and I had an aftern...
Vibe Coding and Synthesis Coding: Two Complementary Approaches
Why the conversation isn''t about which approach is better — it''s about knowing when to use each This blog post is for software engineers, engineering lea...
Polyrepo Synthesis: Synthesis Coding Across Multiple Repositories with Claude Code in Visual Studio Code
I wrote this blog post for software engineers, architects, and technical leads. It is code-heavy and implementation-focused. This weekend I was working acr...
Seventeen years ago, I built a tool for the open Web. This weekend, I modernized it using Synthesis Coding with Claude Code AI
In 2008, I released a WordPress plugin called Blogroll Links. The plugin displayed lists of links on WordPress pages using a shortcode. But the idea behind...
Synthesis Coding with Claude Code: Technical Implementation and Workflows
A hands-on guide to practicing synthesis coding (a.k.a. synthesis engineering) with concrete examples, real workflows, and lessons from production systems ...
The Synthesis Engineering Framework: How Organizations Build Production Software with AI
From individual practice to organizational capability: a systematic approach to human-AI collaboration in professional software development This blog post ...
Synthesis Engineering: The Professional Practice Emerging in AI-Assisted Development
Why the most effective engineering organizations are developing systematic approaches that go beyond vibe coding — and why this practice needs a name This ...
The Iron Man Suit for Your Brain: Why AI’s Real Threat Isn’t What You Think
Yesterday evening, I was walking through Midtown Manhattan catching up with my friend Mark Vlasic who happened to be in town. The streets were crowded with...
The Economics of Starting Fresh in the Age of Generative AI
The CFO leans back in her chair, reviewing the latest AI transformation proposal. "Why are we spending millions on AI when we already have systems that wo...
The Future of Engineering Services: Building and Measuring Human-AI Teams
The client's request seemed impossible: "We need to modernize our entire legacy system, build two new products, and cut our engineering spend by 20%—all w...
The Media Industry’s AI Transformation: From Newsrooms to AI-Powered Experience Engines
The newsroom was eerily quiet. Where once the cacophony of ringing phones, clacking keyboards, and urgent conversations filled the air, now only the soft h...
The CTO and chief product officer in the Age of Generative AI: A New Playbook for Technology Leadership
Last week, I watched an AI agent debug a production issue, write a fix, create comprehensive tests, and deploy the solution—all while the product and tech ...
Collective Intelligence: Making AI Work for Everyone
Insights from Cooper Union's panel on AI, inclusivity, and the future of human-machine collaboration Last week, I joined a diverse group of thinkers and pr...
The Power Playbook: Decoding Leadership Dynamics in OpenAI’s Executive Announcement
The Meta-Strategy: Controlling the Narrative In the high-stakes world of AI leadership, those who control the narrative control reality itself. A recent pr...
Memory Mosaics: How AI Networks Learn to Remember – The Executive Code Podcast
I'm sharing the first episode of The Executive Code podcast, a new project where my colleague Kirim and I explore the intersection of AI, engineering, and ...
RAPTOR: Recursive Thinking for Smarter AI Retrieval – The Executive Code Podcast
I'm excited (and a bit nervous) to share the second episode of The Executive Code podcast, where my colleague Kirim and I explore the intersection of AI, e...
Why Prompt Engineering Is Legitimate Engineering: A Case for the Skeptics
As a CTO who has spent decades working with software engineers across organizations like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and now as President ...
The New Pre-Nuclear Steel: Why Pre-AI Content Could Become Media’s Most Valuable Asset
Introduction: A Watershed Moment for Content and Knowledge Today marks a significant career evolution for Cloudflare as John Graham-Cumming transitions fro...
The Path to Superintelligent AI: Key Insights from Tim Urban’s Groundbreaking Analysis
As artificial intelligence continues to advance at a breathtaking pace, many of us find ourselves wondering about its ultimate trajectory and implications....
Just the Good Stuff: No-BS Secrets to Success (No Matter What Life Throws at You)” by Jim VandeHei (Book Review)
A Critical Analysis Through the Lens of Evidence-Based Leadership from a Media Innovation Leader In my ongoing exploration of leadership literature, I appr...
The Frontier of AI: Reflections on my friend Richard Socher's Vision — The Man Who Invented Prompt Engineering on AI, AGI & Humanoids
Richard Socher, founder of you.com and the man who invented prompt engineering, discusses AI, AGI, and humanoid robots with Peter Diamandis and Salim Ismai...
The Culinary Code of AI: Understanding Language Models
By Rajiv Pant and Devesh Raj(Originally published: February 10, 2025 – Updated: February 16, 2025) ChatGPT's arrival in late 2022 marked a turning point in...
The Evolution of AI Reasoning: A Follow-up Analysis: OpenAI o1 vs. DeepSeek’s DeepThink R1
In my previous post from September 2024, I shared how three leading AI models — OpenAI's ChatGPT GPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google's Gemini...
Speaking Through AI: The Next Evolution of Human Communication
In my recent article about AI replacing traditional APIs titled The Future of Software: From API to AI as the Communication Interface, I explored how artif...
Beyond Human Intelligence: Reflections on Consciousness, AI, and the Nature of Mind
Last night, I had a fascinating conversation that started me thinking deeply about the nature of intelligence and consciousness. A close friend shared a st...
Recommendation from Bryan McCann, co-founder & CTO of You.com
Rajiv was my mentor and advisor from the very start of my first-time founder journey as the CTO of you.com. He provided invaluable perspectives as my role ...
How to Do a Serious Workout on a 19-Hour Flight Without Getting Arrested
Flying for 19 hours between Singapore and New York City sounds like a test of endurance—especially in economy seating. But as someone who has an unbroken s...
The Future of Software: From API to AI as the Communication Interface
As we look ahead to the evolution of how people and machines communicate with software, it's clear that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a key role. ...
The Tech Coup: A Crucial Wake-Up Call for the Digital Age
In her groundbreaking book, "The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley," Marietje Schaake delivers a powerful and urgent message that reso...
Three AI Language Models, Three Contradictory Answers. Who Got it Correct and Why?
Last night, my 12-year-old son and I were engrossed in solving math puzzles on TED Ed via YouTube, sometimes collaboratively and sometimes competing with e...
How to Recognize an Email Written by an AI Language Model (August 2024)
AI-generated emails are pouring into our inboxes. Language models like Meta Llama, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI ChatGPT, and Google Gemini are becoming increas...
Why I Stopped Chasing ‘High Risk, High Reward’ and You Should Too
As someone who's spent years in the trenches of entrepreneurship and corporate leadership, I've had my fair share of encounters with the age-old mantra: "...
Travel Checklist for Personal & Business Trips (2024 Edition)
Pre-Trip Preparations Carry in Person (Personal Items) Clothes Worn While Traveling Choose appropriate items based on the following tags: Tags Items Packin...
The Power of Being Present: Why Working 24/7 Reduces Your Productivity & Innovation
As a longtime CTO and Chief Product Officer, I've seen firsthand the toll that constant work can take on individuals and teams. Many of us in the tech indu...
ScalePost.AI Emerges as Key Player in AI-Publisher Partnerships
In a recent AdWeek article, ScalePost.AI has been highlighted as a pivotal player in facilitating partnerships between AI companies and publishers. The sta...
Facilitating Team Communication by AI Prompting Humans! Introducing Daily Team Sync
In the ever-evolving landscape of remote work, maintaining team cohesion and productivity can be a challenge. As someone who's led distributed teams across...
Prompt Engineering to Generate Code to Solve A Math Problem
This weekend, my 12-year-old son and I visited our friends for a family BBQ. During our time there, we engaged in a series of math puzzles, competing again...
Beyond Outcomes: Why Great Leaders Prioritize Inputs
Introduction Mediocre leaders focus on outputs, good leaders focus on outcomes, but great leaders, the truly transformative visionaries, prioritize inputs....
The Evolution of the 50/25 Meeting Format: Why Starting Late is the New On-Time
Introduction: An Updated Perspective on Time Management In a continuous quest to boost workplace effectiveness, it's useful to revisit our approaches. Ten ...
A Reflection on Accomplishments and Aspirations
Life has a way of leading us to moments of reflection, where we pause to evaluate our journey, our achievements (( Biography of Rajiv Pant )), and the path...
An Executive’s Daily Routine for Productivity and Balance (Summer 2023)
My friends occasionally ask how I keep a mostly even keel despite the pressures of an industry that needs to do more with less, and how I’ve managed to com...
The Evolution of Generative AI Platforms: How Large Language Models will Disrupt Business and Society
Large language model (LLM) powered platforms OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and You.com have captured the public's imagination recently with their abilit...
Understanding the Role of Product in Media Companies and Tech Companies
I enumerated the role of product management in my earlier article titled The Many Hats of Product Managers: Their Indispensable Hands-On Roles as Individua...
Yale CEO Summit June 2023: The Intersection of AI and Leadership
I've admired Jeff Sonnenfeld for more than a decade since I studied his book Firing Back and wrote a review. Having attended Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's...
From Vision & Concept in 2017 to Reality in 2023: The Evolution of AI in Journalism
How AI can help with news storytelling In 2017, I shared my vision of how AI could evolve journalism by empowering journalists to create personalized story...
The Poetic Power Play: A Lesson from Indian Poetry and Professor Jeff Pfeffer
In this post, my first venture into bilingual blogging, I extend my thoughts primarily towards my English-speaking readers, while also preserving the rich ...
On this Father’s Day, may your life be as marvelous as your social media presence
On Social Media, Many of Us Are Happy Heroes In the age of social media, it''s easy to get caught up in the carefully cultivated personas that people prese...
Why Vector Databases & Embeddings Used for Prompt Context are Limited for Personalized AI Assistants
As an artificial intelligence enthusiast who has been working in the technology and media industries all my career, I have seen the rise of personal AI ass...
Reinventing How We Will Consume Information: LLM-Powered Agents as Superhuman Guides with Immense Knowledge and Teachers with Infinite Patience
I write this blog post to explore an emerging frontier in the way we consume information – one that will have profound implications for the way we read, le...
Roles and Responsibilities for Digital Product Development Teams
I'm writing this article to share some insights on a topic that's been crucial throughout my professional journey – Roles and Responsibilities in Digital P...
Introduction to Generative AI and Large Language Models for Media Business People
It has been more than 7 years since I wrote a blog post titled Information for Technologists Interested in Learning about Artificial Intelligence. Througho...
Power, for All by Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro (Book Review)
I've been a keen student of power dynamics throughout my career, and my friend, Professor Jeff Pfeffer's works on power have provided valuable insights in ...
The Neural Network Revolution: Why AI Will Make Traditional Databases Obsolete
The evolution of data storage and management has seen a significant shift in recent years. Traditional databases like relational and NoSQL have long been t...
Introducing Ragbot.AI: A Personalized AI Assistant, Written by Ragbot.AI
By Ragbot.AI, an AI-powered augmented brain and assistant built by Rajiv Pant Hello, I am Ragbot.AI, formerly known as rbot, a personalized AI augmented br...
Project Estimation with T-Shirt Sizing & Evidence Based Scheduling Models for Scrum Teams
Introduction "How long will this project take?" and "How much will it cost?" — two questions that can strike fear into the hearts of even the most se...
The Many Hats of Product Managers: Their Indispensable Hands-On Roles as Individual Contributors
Introduction Throughout my career at large companies and startups, I've worked closely with many talented product managers and leaders. Their dedication an...
What I am learning from working out daily for 1,001+ consecutive days
Happy New Year 2023! Some of my friends have been asking me to share what I learned in my journey of exercising daily for the past one thousand consecutive...
Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change by Marc Benioff (Book Review)
As a fellow alumni of the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Young Global Leaders (YGL) community alongside Marc Benioff, I have had the privilege of witnessing ...
Tips for Visiting Walt Disney World Orlando with Children
My son and I have been frequent visitors to Walt Disney World Resort (WDW) in Orlando, Florida since he was 2 years old. The four theme parks we visit at W...
Take Back Your Power by Deb Liu (Book Review)
As I wrote in my review of Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer's book Leadership B.S., leadership advice that is actually effective is in short-supply among the tens...
You Are What You Risk by Michele Wucker (Book Review)
Michele Wucker's book "You Are What You Risk: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World" offers a deep dive into the world of personal ris...
Cloudflare TV: The CTO Show
Cloudflare‘s CTO, John Graham-Cumming, interviewed Rajiv for the The CTO Show on CloudFlare TV. The CTO role varies enormously from company to company. In ...
My new job at Hearst
Hearst Press Release Rajiv Pant Named General Manager of Technology Platforms and Chief Technology and Product Officer of Hearst Magazines, Hearst Autos, a...
you.com: A Game-Changing AI-powered Search Engine
I'm thrilled to finally to share with you a project that I have been associated with and excited about since its inception. My friends Richard Socher (Link...
My Personal and Professional Values: Keys to Collaborative Success
Shared values and principles are the driving force behind any successful team. I hold certain values dear, not only in my professional life but also in my ...
Why I Recommend Using Spike for Email, Instant Messaging, and Video Chat (Review)
Background I care deeply about the people in my life. I value my relationships with them. I cherish in-person, face-to-face conversations. In my personal a...
Humor, Seriously by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas (Book Review)
Since I also wrote my review of Arianna Huffington's The Sleep Revolution while pulling an all-nighter, it is only appropriate that I write my review of a ...
Cloudflare TV: Builders and Innovators: Interview
Cloudflare's President of Field Operations, Chris Merritt, interviewed Tech luminary and entrepreneur Rajiv Pant for the Builders and Innovators segment on...
MatheMagic Card Trick
Introduction MatheMagic Card Trick is a fun and simple number revealing magic trick using math. Use the page generate-cards.html to generate your cards to ...
Starting the New Year with Service: Another Day Volunteering with New York Cares
Today, I started the New Year on with another volunteer project with New York Cares. This time, the task was to unload food deliveries with the West Side C...
Lifting More Than Just Weights: Another Day Volunteering with New York Cares
On December 23, 2020, I continued my volunteer work with New York Cares. This time, the project involved packing food bags for distribution with the West S...
A Rewarding Evening Volunteering with New York Cares
This evening, I participated in a volunteer project with New York Cares. The task at hand was to deliver food from Breads Bakery to a local homeless shelte...
William Lewis, Former CEO of Dow Jones & Publisher of The Wall Street Journal
William Lewis shared this recommendation for Rajiv on June 04, 2020. Rajiv is an inspirational digital leader, who combines technical expertise with strate...
Make Exercise Your Daily Habit
Introduction If you're like me and spend most of your time working in front of a screen, you know how easy it is to neglect your physical health. But it's ...
Matthew Murray, Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal
Matthew MurrayEditor in Chief Tuesday, May 26, 2020 To Whom It May Concern: When Rajiv Pant arrived at The Wall Street Journal, our technology was in a mes...
Kindness of Strangers: This Time From a Fitness Expert
Kindness, generosity, and helping others selflessly are human virtues. Some of you have commented on my previous posts about the examples of kindness from ...
Personal Fitness During Quarantine Times
In a 24 hour worldwide live streamed event titled #FindingBeauty in Quarantine Times organized by Drue Kataoka and fellow members of the Young Global Leade...
Reflecting on Compliments in a Multicultural World
When I receive a compliment for speaking English well, I graciously respond with, “Thank you. Your command over English is equally impressive.” Living in N...
Kathryn Friedrich, EVP, GM of Operations at Conde Nast Entertainment
Kathryn Friedrich shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 25, 2019 via LinkedIn: I started at Thrive Global at the same time as Rajiv. We were bot...
Jason Patterson, Software Engineer at Instagram at Facebook
Jason Patterson shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 25, 2019 via LinkedIn: I worked with Rajiv as Director of Mobile Technology at The Wall St...
Katharine Bailey, SVP, Product at The Wall Street Journal
Katharine Bailey shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 21, 2019. This is the full version of what she wrote and also shared via LinkedIn: I work...
Jordan Sudy, VP, Goldman Sachs
Jordan Sudy shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 20, 2019 via LinkedIn: I’ve had the honor of working under Rajiv at both the NYT and the WSJ. ...
Roben Kleene, Former iOS Engineering Manager at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones
Roben Kleene shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 17, 2019 via LinkedIn: Rajiv has a rare gift for leadership that energizes an organization. T...
Che Douglas, VP of Design at Booking.com
Che Douglas shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 17, 2019 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a professional, dedicated, smart and inspiring leader — his ac...
Andy Nichol, Deputy CTO, Dow Jones and Company
Andy Nichol, Deputy CTO Dow Jones wrote this recommendation for Rajiv on November 17, 2019: I have worked with Rajiv for three years. During that time we h...
Importance of Mentorship Article by Yujin Kim, CTO of WorkMarket
In his recent article about the importance of mentorship, Yujin Kim, Chief Technology Officer at WorkMarket (an ADP company) talks about what he learned fr...
The Creator’s Code by Amy Wilkinson (book review)
Having played key roles in driving innovation and success in digital businesses at The Wall Street Journal as their chief product & technology officer and ...
My Personal Fitness Objectives and Key Results
When I mentioned that I use the Objectives & Key Results (OKR) system to achieve my personal fitness goals, some of my friends asked if I'd share my person...
My New Job at News Corp (Parent Company of The Wall Street Journal)
Dear Family and Friends, I'm moving into an exciting new job at News Corp, the parent company of my current employer, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones...
Harvard NiemanLab article: Acing the Algorithmic Beat, Journalism’s Next Frontier
Read the article I co-authored, Acing the Algorithmic Beat, Journalism's Next Frontier at Harvard University's NiemanLab. In a world where key decisions ar...
Activities, Outputs, and Outcomes — A framework for your job
This is a framework for understanding, describing, and actually performing your job in a way that creates real value. After years of watching talented peop...
How news organizations combat fake news generated and spread using artificial intelligence
In this age of fake news spreading virally over social media, the recent Harvard Neiman Lab article (link below) is an excellent read. As I am quoted in th...
An Example of Respectfully Declining a Meeting at Work That is Already in Your Calendar
Here is an example of how to respectfully decline a meeting to make time to work on a higher priority. We occasionally find ourselves in meetings when our ...
Talk at Applause: Fighting Fake News with AI and Crowdsourcing at The Wall Street Journal
(30 minute video at YouTube) Earlier this week, I spoke at the Applause conference about a problem that I deeply care about: deepfakes. Not the garden-vari...
The Leadership Fairy Tale Problem: Why Most Leadership Advice Will Sabotage Your Career
Walk into any airport bookstore and you'll find an entire wall devoted to leadership books. Browse LinkedIn and you'll see countless posts sharing "leader...
The Future of Journalism: How AI Can Assist Journalists and Create Compelling Storytelling Experiences
The future of journalism is approaching, and it will be powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Throughout my career in news media, I've explored how AI c...
Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks (v3)
In follow-up to earlier work on a) versions one and two of these technical and related career tracks, b) pathways for career development in product enginee...
How do you launch a suite of Mobile, Web, and Voice products from ideation to go live in 12 weeks?
Check out the blog post by Very, the product development partner I worked with in my previous job at Thrive Global to design, build and launch multiple Mob...
My next chapter
This isn’t something I thought I’d be writing – if you read my recent piece on Thrive Journal, you’d know how excited I was to join Thrive Global. I’d long...
Why I Joined Thrive Global
Sometimes in life, we reach a new starting line where we sense that everything we have experienced and done so far has been preparing us for this next step...
Reflections on the Yale CEO Summit 2016: Disruption and Leadership in Focus
Yesterday, I attended the Yale CEO Summit for the second time. The summit, held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, brought together some of the world...
Luke Vnenchak, VP of Engineering at BuzzFeed
Luke Vnenchak shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 26, 2016 via LinkedIn: One thing that stood out in working with Rajiv was his ability to mento...
Fastly’s Altitude Summit
Rajiv spoke at Fastly's Altitude 2016 Summit in San Francisco. #Altitude2016 was a full day conference featuring technical content and idea sharing about t...
Denise Warren, Executive Vice President, The New York Times
Denise Warren shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Aug 5, 2016 via LinkedIn: It is with strong conviction that I recommend Rajiv Pant. During our work t...
How to be an effective CTO
A CTO's job combines Culture, Technology, and Operations. Each of the three is necessary; a field of knowledge, experimentation, and learning in itself; an...
Malu Menezes, Executive Director of Technology, The New York Times
Malu Menezes shared this recommendation for Rajiv on June 24, 2016 via LinkedIn: I worked with Rajiv at the New York Times while he was VP of Engineering a...
Joe Adamo, VP, Digital Technology at Tribune Publishing Company
Joe Adamo shared this recommendation for Rajiv on June 23, 2016 via LinkedIn: I was fortunate enough to work with Rajiv for the past year. He's a highly in...
Megan Garvey, Deputy Managing Editor at Los Angeles Times
Megan Garvey shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Jun 15, 2016 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a sharp manager who does his homework before making decisions. He ...
Paul Smurl, COO & President at Some Spider LLC
Paul Smurl shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 31, 2016 via LinkedIn: I worked with Rajiv at The New York Times for five years and then recruited h...
Joe Simon, Chief Operating Officer at Encompass Digital Media, Inc.
Joe Simon shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Apr 23, 2016 via LinkedIn: Rajiv has deep technical expertise and has continued to build his skills and r...
90 Day Plan for a CTO in a New Job
Starting as a CTO in a new organization is like conducting an orchestra you've never heard before. You need to understand the musicians, learn the repertoi...
Rajit Gulati, Vice President, Enterprise Products Engineering at BlackBerry
Rajit Gulati shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Apr 15, 2016 via LinkedIn: I was reporting to Rajiv at COXnet and developed deep admiration for him ev...
Robert A. Sauerberg Jr., President & Chief Executive Officer, Conde Nast
Bob Sauerberg shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Apr 14, 2016 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a visionary and a great tech leader. He has all the skills necess...
Mark Thompson, President & Chief Executive Officer, The New York Times Company
Mark Thompson wrote this recommendation for Rajiv on April 13, 2016: Rajiv is a very strong digital executive with rock solid credentials in both engineeri...
Matthew Bischoff, Mobile Product and Engineering Lead
Matthew Bischoff shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Apr 10, 2016 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is an incredible leader of technical organizations. His ability a...
Leon Shklar, Managing Director at BNY Mellon
Leon Shklar shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Apr 10, 2016 via LinkedIn: Rajiv played an important role in transforming the technology organization a...
Hackathon: Impact Journalism in New York
On April 8-9 2016, the Global Editors Network (GEN), The Huffington Post and Change.org will gather the best media innovators in New York for a two-day Edi...
Robert Larson, Core News Product Manager at Bloomberg
Robert Larson shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Apr 9, 2016 via LinkedIn: I had the pleasure of working with Rajiv at The New York Times for many yea...
My Interview in TheMarker Magazine
During my recent visit to Tel Aviv, I was interviewed by the well-respected Israeli business and technology journalist Inbal Orpaz for TheMarker Magazine. ...
Information for Technologists Interested in Learning about Artificial Intelligence
This article is primarily for people with a background in technology and software engineering wanting to learn about AI. Topics include artificial intellig...
Womensphere Summit 2016
At the Womensphere Summit 2016 in New York City, Rajiv spoke on Supporting and Championing Women in Tech Leadership. (March 6, 2016)
Kindness is Powerful
Last night in New York City I was walking home, getting soaked in the pouring rain. Along the way I noticed other people's umbrellas wishing I had brought ...
Esfand Pourmand, Program Director, The New York Times
Esfand Pourmand shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 17, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv and I started around the same time at NYTimes and during this...
Joy Goldberg, Director, Portfolio Management at The New York Times
Joy Goldberg shared this recommendation for Rajiv on October 22, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is unique. He's intensely interested in every person regardless o...
Erin Grau, Program Director, Web Products, The New York Times
Erin Grau shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Oct 21, 2015 via LinkedIn: Some of Rajiv's contributions to a technical organization are obvious and shar...
Womensphere Summit 2014 – NYC
At the 2014 Womensphere Summit, in addition to opening remarks with Analisa Balares – CEO & Founder of Womensphere and fellow YGL, Rajiv spoke in theCareer...
Rohn Jay Miller, Senior Vice President of Product and Technology at Knight Ridder Digital
Rohn Jay Miller shared this recommendation for Rajiv on September 11, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv Pant was leading the online technology organization at Phill...
Atif Azam, Product Designer, at MongoDB
Atif Azam shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Aug 26, 2015 via LinkedIn: Working with Rajiv is an absolute pleasure. He is a great leader with a knack ...
Morgante Pell, Technical Entrepreneur
Morgante Pell shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 14, 2015 via LinkedIn: It was a great pleasure to work with Rajiv at Some Spider. He is a high...
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. Chairman & Publisher, The New York Times
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. CHAIRMAN The New York Times Company PUBLISHER The New York Times 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 [phone and email redacted] ...
Leon Levitt, Vice President of Strategy, Cox Media Group
Leon Levitt shared this recommendation for Rajiv on Jul 24, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv excelled in a difficult job of building IT infrastructure support for ...
Brian Murphy, VP of Engineering at The New York Times
Brian Murphy shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 24, 2015 via LinkedIn: When Rajiv called me to join him at his new job at The New York Times, I j...
Brad Kagawa, Vice President of Technology, Content Management Systems at The New York Times
Brad Kagawa shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 23, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a different kind of CTO. While he always has valuable input on arc...
Greg Felice, Director of EIT Strategy and Business Agility at Cablevision
Greg Felice shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 23, 2015 via LinkedIn: Maybe once or twice in a career, you get the opportunity to work with someo...
Ross Settles, Vice President of Marketing, Knight Ridder Digital
Ross Settles shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 22, 2015 via LinkedIn: During my time at Knight Ridder Digital, I worked regularly with Rajiv on ...
Chris Ladd, Senior Software Engineer at The New York Times
Chris Ladd shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 22, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv truly believes in the importance of people and of culture — from the f...
Bobby Chowdhury, Senior Director of Technology, Conde Nast
Bobby Chowdhury shared this recommendation for Rajiv on June 12, 2015 via LinkedIn: I am lucky to have worked for and with Rajiv Pant at Conde Nast and to ...
Why I left being CTO of The New York Times, joined a startup, and am pledging 20% of my equity to charity
As The New York Times’ chief technology officer, I had a crucial role in guiding the company’s successful transition to digital, and an opportunity to work...
A career is like a garden (farewell memo to nytimes colleagues)
The following is the farewell memo I wrote to my colleagues at The New York Times. Subject: A career is like a garden Dear Colleagues, As you may know, I h...
Al Ming, Senior Director of Product Architecture at The New York Times
Al Ming shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 21, 2015 via LinkedIn: If you're looking to speak to a CTO who has an incredibly strong commitment to e...
7 minus 1 reasons why technology/engineering teams should work on projects
Here are 6 reasons that should be used to justify, prioritize and classify projects engineering teams work on. The 7th item is not a valid reason to be use...
Why Data Breaches Don’t Hurt Stock Prices (Harvard Business Review)
If you are a CEO, CFO, corporate board member or investor, the article Why Data Breaches Don’t Hurt Stock Prices published on Harvard Business Review by El...
Womensphere Summit 2015
At the 2015 Womensphere Summit in New York City – Rajiv spoke on Advancing Women's Leadership & Innovation. (February 25th, 2015)
Brent Baisley, Technology Manager, Conde Nast
Brent Baisley shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 16, 2015 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is one of the best leaders of his kind. He is knowledgeable, am...
CTO Mind Map: Culture, Technology, Operations
In the role of chief technology officer, you have to be concerned with many topics. Some relate to functions you have direct supervisory responsibility for...
Cyber Resilience Towards the Quantification of Cyber Security Threats
The World Economic Forum and its partners have developed and shared a way for organizations to calculate the impact of cyber security threats. The framewor...
Reflecting on the Yale CEO Summit 2014: A Confluence of Global Leadership and Local Sensitivities
I recently attended the Yale CEO Summit, a gathering of some of the world's most influential leaders across various sectors. The summit, held at the Waldor...
9 Reasons Why News Media Web Sites Should Consider Moving to HTTPS in 2015
If you work in news media and are interested in technology, you may enjoy my article listing 9 Reasons Why News Media Web Sites Should Consider Moving to H...
Why investors should care about cyber security breaches
If you are interested in business, technology, and cyber security, you may enjoy my article about why investors should care about cyber security breaches. ...
Dear Makers, On Fridays My Office is Yours — An Experiment
Some senior leaders choose to work alongside their teams in cubicles, eschewing private office rooms. New York City’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg is an ...
Smithsonian Digitization Fair – Keynote Speaker
As keynote speaker, Rajiv opened this conference with a talk about digital strategy and innovation at the NYT. (October 29, 2014)
IESE Business School Executive Education Course
Rajiv was invited to be a Guest Speaker in the Executive Education course at the IESE Business School. He spoke about leadership, management and organization...
AppSec USA: Security & Journalism Panel
At the AppSec USA conference Rajiv and his fellow panelists, reporters and IT pros, discussed how security issues have affected them and leading-edge softw...
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2014
At the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2014 ("Summer Davos") hosted in Tianjin, China – Rajiv spoke at the sessions “The Cha...
Tony Landa, Associate Director of Technology, The Studio at Conde Nast
Tony Landa shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 25, 2014 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is one of the most trustworthy individuals that I've met in my profe...
Tanya Steel, Editor-in-Chief of Epicurious and Gourmet.com, Conde Nast
Tanya Steel shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 6, 2014 via LinkedIn: I found Rajiv to be a technology visionary, understanding how to translate...
3 Dimensions of a Technology Team
Organizing Software Engineering Teams to Balance Products, Partners & Professions This organizational design for a technology department aims to optimally ...
3 Roles of a CTO: Culture. Technology. Operations.
This is a guide for CTOs, VPs of Software Engineering and other technology managers responsible for a software engineering organization. The purpose of thi...
Landmark CIO Summit 2014
At the Landmark CTO Summit 2014, Rajiv spoke with Rhonda Vetere, Chief Technology Officer – Estee Lauder and Abe Cytryn, Chief Technology Officer – Time In...
3-5-7 Meeting Format for Weekly Staff Meetings
If you are the manager of a team of people at your job, here is a format we suggest for running your staff meetings. We call it the 3-5-7 format because of...
Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business – Guest Speaker on Organizational Behavior
At Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, Rajiv was a guest speaker / panelist and spoke about organizational behavior at two sessions to MBA s...
Mandela’s Way: Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage (Book Review)
I find many books on leadership to be fairy tales: Inspiring to read, but misleading about leadership that is actually effective in our real world. Real le...
Posted Signs for Productive Meetings
You can post these slides as signs in your meeting rooms and offices or include them at the start of your presentations. You can also open the original Goo...
Template For Requesting an Outcome-Focused Meeting
Most meetings are wasteful because they're organized around what people will discuss rather than what they will accomplish. "Let's meet to talk about the ...
Templates for Replying to Meeting Requests & Polite Ways to Decline Meetings
By default, we should only attend meetings where we are active participants, not passive attendees with not much to contribute to the desired outcome of th...
When to have and when not to schedule meetings
Companies should, by default, avoid scheduling meetings that start before 10am or end after 5pm. If an employee comes to the office at 8am on some days, it...
50/25 Meeting Format
Update (2023 September 17): I published an update to this system based on data, experience, and the advice of colleagues. If you manage a team, value your ...
Using Laptops or Smartphones in Meetings
Using smartphones — or worse, laptops — during in-person meetings diminishes productivity, is disrespectful to others and decreases your brainpower. Yes, s...
Digital Diversity Network Cloud Gathering Conference
Hosted at the New York Times Conference center, Rajiv spoke to making diversity a mission to be embraced by everyone from CEO to the mail person at the 2nd...
What I Learned During the Hacking Attacks of August 28, 2013
One of the most important lessons that was reinforced to me during the Aug 28th hacking attacks on Melbourne IT, the domain registrar for the Web sites of ...
SHA-3 Hash Generator
http://crypto-js.googlecode.com/svn/tags/3.1.2/build/rollups/sha3.js SHA-3, originally known as Keccak is a cryptographic hash function. Learn more on Wiki...
QCon New York
At QCon New York, Rajiv was a keynote speaker along with Marc Frons and spoke about Technology Innovation at The New York Times. Photos from the event on Fli...
Ray Dalio, Randall Munroe and I Think Alike – Culture of Courage & Candor
On the matter of bad behavior of complaining against others behind their backs, Ray Dalio, Randall Munroe and I share the same viewpoint. This article star...
Maker’s Schedule (For Managers Too)
The following memo from a department head to staff is an example of how to implement a productive maker's schedule at your workplace. This approach recomme...
Three Pillars of a Media/Publishing Company
Questions: Where should product be depicted? Is product an extension of the journalism (newsroom)? In this way of thinking, all products including Web, mob...
Matt Stowe, Director of Technology, Conde Nast
Matt Stowe shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 21, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a compassionate leader who strives to help each individual in his or...
Columbia University’s Journalism School’s Spring Journalism and Technology Breakfast Event
At Columbia University's Journalism School's Spring Journalism and Technology Breakfast event, Rajiv Pant, CTO at The New York Times and Sam Curry, CTO, Id...
HR Classification and Discretionary/Business Job Titles for Makers, Managers and Leaders in Technology
This article presents an organization system and policy for job titles of maker, manager and leader roles in technology staffs. Separate job titles for HR ...
5 Productivity Tips for Executives in Leadership & Management Roles
Here are 5 productivity tips for executives in leadership & management roles. Each tip involves the number 5. Every morning (or the night before), make a p...
Ladell Fuqua, Director of Consumer Marketing, Conde Nast
Ladell Fuqua shared this recommendation for Rajiv on April 3, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is one of the most talented individuals I know. He has proven his le...
Paul Robbins, Senior Product Manager, The New York Times
Paul Robbins shared this recommendation for Rajiv on April 2, 2013 via LinkedIn: One of the things that really stands out about Rajiv is his passion for pe...
Eliot Pierce, Vice President of Strategy, Business Development and Ad Operations, The New York Times
Eliot Pierce shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 6, 2013 via LinkedIn: I only worked with Rajiv for a quick year, but I thoroughly enjoyed my tim...
Terry Schwadron, Editor of Information and Technology, The New York Times
Terry Schwadron shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 5, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a highly knowledgeable technology manager who can also serve a...
Jonathan Landman, Deputy Managing Editor, The New York Times
Jonathan Landman shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 5, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv brings together two excellent qualities that don't commonly coex...
Ashwin Singh, Quality Assurance Manager, The New York Times
Ashwin Singh shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 5, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is an insightful, thoughtful leader who guides his teams to results....
Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters by Jeff Sonnenfeld (Book Review)
I read Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's book, "Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters" in preparation for my being a guest speaker a...
Omar Rios, Program Director, Savvis
Omar Rios shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 20, 2013 via LinkedIn: There are many different types of leaders. While most good leaders are in...
Ken Fisher, Editor-in-Chief and Founder, Ars Technica
Ken Fisher shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 18, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv had the difficult task of managing and upgrading many disparate sy...
Land du Pont, Executive Director, Product Management, Conde Nast
Land du Pont shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 17, 2013 via LinkedIn: During the three years we worked together, I learned so much from Raji...
Richard Ullrich, Program Director at Savvis
Richard Ullrich shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 17, 2013 via LinkedIn: While supporting Rajiv’s initiatives, his open door policy and calm...
Bane Hunter, Executive Director, Project Management, Conde Nast
Bane Hunter shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 16, 2013 via LinkedIn: I had the pleasure of working with Rajiv during his tenure as an execut...
John Kulhawik, Consumer Marketing, Conde Nast
John Kulhawik shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 15, 2013 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is an extremely capable technologist and a strategic leader. He...
Your Brain At Work (Book Review)
Let me tell you a story about my friends Emily and Paul. Emily and Paul were struggling in their demanding jobs and in managing their busy family life rais...
Case for a Consistent, Comprehensible & Cost-Effective Vacation Policy
This article makes a case for having a vacation policy that is simple, sane and standard across the organization. Some organizations have unnecessarily com...
Product Maintenance vs. New Development on Web Sites, Mobile Apps and Other Digital Products
Maintenance of a digital business product (e.g. a Web site, mobile app, or software) refers to the work that includes modifications made after delivery to ...
Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks (v2)
This second version of the diagram illustrating technical career tracks reflects the following updates since version one: A product management track is now...
Genwi Conference on The Future of Content and Monetization
Rajiv was a speaker at Genwi's conference on The Future of Content and Monetization in New York. (September 27, 2012)
Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Stanford University Graduate School of Business
Jeffrey Pfeffer shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 21, 2012 via LinkedIn: Rajiv was one of the most insightful, self-reflective, and self-aware...
Productive Business Meetings
Here are some suggestions for making business meetings more productive, efficient and effective. Based on readers' feedback, I have split this article into...
A Memo on Leadership by a Colleague
I regularly ask other people for their advice, insights and knowledge about leadership and management. The following is a memo a colleague recently wrote f...
Proposal for Linking To Users Across Social Networks @username@service
We present here a convention for linking to users across social networks. Social networks have evolved into a category of their own. They are not like most...
Organizing a Digital Technology Department in a Media Company By Functional Areas
This article presents a system to organize your digital technology department in a media company. It is written for a CTO, CIO or EVP Technology looking fo...
Confidence in Leaders & Managers and Their Performance: Reinforcing Loop
When stakeholders, executives and team members have confidence in the abilities of a leader/manager, it results in their lending greater support to that le...
Some Pathways for Career Development in a Product Engineering Organization
The diagram below illustrates some pathways for career development in an engineering-focussed product development organization. It shows an organization wh...
Four Years at Condé Nast and Reddit: Building Digital Products for Iconic Brands
Reflections on four years at Condé Nast, leading digital technology for Wired, Vogue, The New Yorker, Reddit, and dozens of other properties.
Melanie Colton, Senior Manager, Technology Conde Nast
Melanie Colton shared this recommendation for Rajiv on April 16, 2011 via LinkedIn: Rajiv Pant combines his years of executive level management with techni...
Sarah Chubb Sauvayre, President, Conde Nast Digital
Sarah Chubb Sauvayre shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 28, 2011 via LinkedIn: I was extremely fortunate to work with Rajiv for just over 3 1/2 ...
Janet Kasdan, Director of Technology, Conde Nast Digital
Janet Kasdan shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 28, 2011 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is an excellent leader. He demonstrates true respect for everyone h...
Online Publishers Association (OPA) Technology Conference
At the Online Publishers Association (OPA) technology conference, co-presented HTML5 with the CTO of New York Times Digital (March 23, 2011). As a regular ...
Jessica Perry, Vice President, Product Planning/Management, Conde Nast Digital
Jessica Perry shared this recommendation for Rajiv on December 19, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a terrific business partner who can skillfully translate tec...
Susan Kaplow, Executive Editor, Syndication and Web Development, Conde Nast
Susan Kaplow shared this recommendation for Rajiv on December 16, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is both an accomplished technologist and a skilled executive. I ...
Trinity Method of Technology Management
In the Trinity Method of Technology Management, tasks and responsibilities are categorized under three types of roles: Creator, Guardian and Recycler. If y...
Akamai and Brightcove Online Video Technology and Strategy Seminar
Rajiv spoke about online video technology and strategy at a seminar and networking event in New York City hosted by Akamai and Brightcove. Other presenters...
CAREER-CLEAR: An Employee Evaluation and Career Development System
CAREER-CLEAR is a system for doing fair, consistent and constructive employee performance evaluations and determining employee rank, title and compensation...
Joe Danyliw, Tech Manager, Conde Nast Publications
Joe Danyliw shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 7, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is an executive who can make tough decisions that are right for the co...
Spencer Portee, Software Architect/Tech Lead, Conde Nast
Spencer Portee shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 19, 2010 via LinkedIn: To say that working with Rajiv was a pleasure would be a disservice to hi...
Oscar Sumano, Associate Director, Technology Operations, Conde Nast
Oscar Sumano shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 12, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is very open-minded when it comes to technology. He looks for the rig...
John Reetz, General Manager of COXnet, Cox Newspapers
John Reetz shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 11, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is not only a skilled technologist, but also a creative thinker who is ...
Kiran Patel, Web Application Developer, Conde Nast
Kiran Patel shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 4, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv and I worked together for almost 2 years at Conde Nast. I was directly ...
Mark Cox, Head of Technology Operations at COXnet
Mark Cox shared this recommendation for Rajiv on May 4, 2010 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a passionate and driven leader. He thinks on a very large scale and cha...
Tip: Use regular bars of soap to save money, time and help conserve the environment
This article makes a case for using regular solid bars of soap and detergent powders instead of liquid soaps. Soap bars are available all over the world at...
Hosting Large-Scale Web Sites: Contract Review Guide for the CTO
Introduction: Why Web Hosting Contracts Matter In today's digital economy, your website isn't just a marketing channel—it's the backbone of your business. ...
Understanding SLA Uptime Percentages: What They Really Mean for Your Business
Introduction: Why SLA Uptime Matters When negotiating hosting contracts for large-scale websites, few metrics are as critical yet as widely misunderstood a...
How to Avoid Duplicate Search Results when using Apple Mail.app with Gmail
I use Gmail's IMAP feature with my Apple Mac OS's built in Mail.app program. Mail.app keeps local copies (on all my personal Macs) of all my email messages...
Bavarian International School in Germany
Rajiv gave a lecture on Cloud Computing & Social Networks at the Bavarian International School in Germany. (February 5, 2010)
Checklist for Migration of Web Application from Traditional Hosting to Cloud
In 2010, Cloud Computing is likely to see increasing adoption. Migrating Web applications from one data center to another is a complex project. To assist y...
Please help the people in Haiti affected by the earthquake
If you haven't heard the news about the earthquake tragedy in Haiti, you can learn about it at: http://www.reddit.com/r/Haiti The Reddit team at Conde Nast...
Benefits of Using IRC or Group Chat & Video Conference During Incident Management
When a team of engineers is dealing with a real-time incident, such as a system outage, troubleshooting a problem or dealing with a malicious hacking attac...
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (Book Review)
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall is one of the most inspiring books I've read in a long time. It is a book about adventures, travels, cultures, customs...
Amazon.com’s AWS Event
Rajiv gave a presentation on Cloud Computing at Amazon.com's AWS Event in NYC. Other presenters included Dr. Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com. (October 19, 2...
Video Technology: Eye on the Future hosted by The Center for Communication
Rajiv spoke at the seminar titled Video Technology: Eye on the Future hosted by The Center for Communication (cencom.org). The Center for Communication is ...
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance (Book Review)
I've been reading the book SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Like its predecessor, Freakonomics by the same authors, SuperFreakonomics...
Vivo Barefoot Shoes by Terra Plana (Product Review)
We spend most of our waking hours outside home wearing shoes. So it is important that the shoes be comfortable and promote good health of our feet and legs...
Ted Nadeau, SVP, General Manager, CondeNet, Conde Nast
Ted Nadeau shared this recommendation for Rajiv on September 10, 2009 via LinkedIn: Rajiv and I worked together for two years at Conde Nast Digital. Rajiv ...
Save Money On Hosting & CDN By Optimizing Your Architecture & Applications
If you manage technology for a company that has a large Web presence, it is likely that a large percentage of your total technology costs is spent on the W...
Hyde Post, Vice President, Internet, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (a Cox company)
Hyde Post shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 26, 2009 via LinkedIn: After surveying the landscape at Coxnet, Rajiv made a number of key changes i...
Save Your Company Money In Monthly Bills Using Browser Caching
Companies that operate heavily trafficked Web sites can save thousands of dollars every month by maximizing their use of browser-side caching. Large Web si...
Nathan Tableman, Senior Manager of Web Hosting and Infrastructure, Conde Nast Digital
Nathan Tableman shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 22, 2009 via LinkedIn: Rajiv's deep understanding of technology combined with his leadership a...
Supriya Saha, Software Engineering Team Lead, Cox Newspapers
Supriya Saha shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 22, 2009 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is the best technical leader, I have so far seen so far. He always k...
Wayne Weber, Senior Software Engineer, McClatchy Interactive
Wayne Weber shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 21, 2009 via LinkedIn: Rajiv always has his antenna out into the ether of the latest technical tec...
Benjamin Sun, Chief Engineering Architect, Knight Ridder Digital
Benjamin Sun shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 21, 2009 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is one of the best managers I have ever had. As the VP of engineerin...
Vibram Five Fingers Shoes For Hiking and Water Sports (Product Review)
Sometimes simplicity and minimalism provide wonderful experiences. The Vibram Five Fingers shoes are excellent for outdoor activities and for working out a...
Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team
For an executive, having a management team of people who are good at their jobs and work well with each other is one of the most important factors that lea...
Using Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) with an EC2 Instance
One of the differences between Amazon EC2 server instances and normal servers is that the server's local disk storage state (i.e. changes to data) on EC2 i...
Organizing a Digital Technology Department of Medium Size in a Media Company
There are many good ways to organize your technology department. This article presents some of them. It is written for a CTO or VP Technology leading a med...
Management Tip: Thank Your Employees For Jobs Well Done
If you supervise employees or are in a senior position relative to some others, make it a habit to thank employees when they do a good job. Here are some t...
Gym Memberships: Tips for Getting a Good Deal
My fiancee and I joined a Bally's gym and swimming pool near our apartment in Manhattan recently. I recommend joining a gym to everyone who is able to. A g...
I now use a device called Drobo for storing data at my home network (Product Review)
I now use a device called Drobo (2nd generation), manufactured by Data Robotics, Inc. as the primary data storage and backup medium at my home location. I ...
Diary of Julie & Rajiv’s India Trip
Background The following is a diary of some events from our recent trip to India. I created it using Twitter and Yahoo Pipes. We posted regular status upda...
The Kindness of Taxi Drivers
It happened to me yet again! Another taxi driver refused to take money from me. I don't fully understand why, but it happens to me every couple of months. ...
Consumers, Confidence & the Economy: What You Can Do to Help
We individual consumers should, as a community, take steps to support and strengthen the U.S. and global economy. People's confidence and our actions resul...
It is all about Balance
To be effective at anything in life, balance is required Be it personal life, leadership, management, technical work: balance is essential. You need to be ...
Ars Technica Interview: IT consumerization in the enterprise
My colleague Jon Stokes who is Senior Editor and co-founder at Ars Technica interviewed me on the topic of IT consumerization, and about the shifting bound...
Shantanu Muni, Account Manager, Datamatics Consultants
Shantanu Muni shared this recommendation for Rajiv on July 10, 2008 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is Man of Solutions. No matter what the issue or the problem is, no...
Viv Neti, Vice President of Operations at Bamboo Ad Network
Viv Neti shared this recommendation for Rajiv on April 11, 2008 via LinkedIn: One of the best managers I have had. Rajiv is intelligent and thinks out of t...
Future of Content Management for News Media for Web sites
Content on Web sites should be managed using systems that were designed from the ground up for the Web. Traditional content management systems with a legac...
Opinion on the Amazon S3 Outage; Checklist for Dealing with Outages
My journalist colleagues at Wired.com published some of my comments related to Amazon S3. ((Silicon Alley Insider and ValleyWag have amusing spins on it. 🙂...
Social Graphs API: WordPress Plugin: Blogroll Links
If you already know what the Social Graph API and XFN are, you can skip the background information and go directly to the Blogroll Links plugin for WordPre...
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Book Review)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was as enjoyable to read on the Amazon Kindle as it would have been in a printed book. I started reading it on the plane...
American City Business Journals’ Digital Fast Forward Conference
At the American City Business Journals' Digital Fast Forward conference in Charlotte, Rajiv spoke about digital technology & organization in media & publis...
This Web Site is Now Hosted on Amazon EC2 & S3
This web site, http://www.rajiv.com is now hosted on Amazon.com's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) services. They are part of Am...
Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks
Described here is one way to enable technologists to grow their careers in your organization while still allowing them to focus on the type of work they ar...
Amazon NowNow Gave Me This Answer on Where To Learn Spanish
The Amazon Kindle mobile reading device comes with their NowNow service included, where you can ask any question you like and you get a response from a pai...
The Amazon Kindle is a Practical & Excellent Reading Device (Product Review)
The Amazon Kindle is an excellent reading device. It is a good example of a product that serves its purpose well. Like a paper book, it you can use it in b...
Why I’m not a fan of fingerprint scanners for computer security
These days many notebook computers and portable devices like USB drives are featuring fingerprint scanners which they advertise as biometric security. I've...
iGo Universal Charging Adapters for Multiple Devices (Product Review)
I use an iGo adapter to power and charge my electronic devices when I'm traveling. The concept behind these is that you can use one adapter/charger for mul...
Donate to a good cause and get a useful laptop computer
The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-ag...
Reddit Alien Mascot Bobblehead Returned
The Reddit Alien mascot bobblehead (photos), which had recently been kidnapped at the Reddit Bar Party in New York City (photos) is now back, safe and soun...
Valerie Nozick, Product Development Director, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cox
Valerie Nozick shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 29, 2007 via LinkedIn: Rajiv came into CoxNet and turned around an IT group that had been dis...
I Love New York City
I've now been living in Manhattan for two weeks and I love NYC. New York is a wonderful city. I've wanted to live here since I was little. My new job is at...
Moving to New York City
I'm moving to NYC for an exciting new job as VP of Technology at an awesome publishing company. I look forward with excitement to the job at the company an...
Interviewing By Putting To Work: Evidence-Based Hiring for Superior Results
Originally published April 17, 2007 – Updated and expanded March 17, 2025 Hiring decisions are among the most consequential choices leaders make. A single ...
The Evolution of Web Sites
Over the past 15 years, as the Web has evolved, the web sites have gone through these generations. What's likely to be next in the future of what the Web w...
Software Products: Own vs. Rent & Create vs. Get (Incorrectly Called Build vs. Buy)
Understanding the issue Technology executives are often asked about their preferences on build vs. buy. This question would be better articulated as two se...
7 Tips for Effective Email
Some tips for making better use of email at work and in personal life Realize that busy people may skim your email instead of reading it thoroughly, especi...
I now use WordPress publishing software for this site (Product Review)
Managing blogs and news content with WordPress is a Zen-like experience. The inner-beauty of a product is felt when it becomes almost unnoticed, allowing t...
Karl Martino, Senior Software Engineer, Philly.com and Knight Ridder Digital
Karl Martino shared this recommendation for Rajiv on March 20, 2007 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is an on going example of what I look for in leadership. He’s smart...
Happy New Year 2007! Highlights from December/January
The closing of 2006 and beginning of 2007 has been exciting. I'd like to share some highlights from December/January: In Paris: I celebrated New Years'; sp...
Terry Chan, Principal Consultant, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Terry Chan shared this recommendation for Rajiv on December 2, 2006 via LinkedIn: I had the pleasure to work with Rajiv on a major technology consolidation...
Shannon Brown, Director of Product Management, Knight Ridder Digital
Shannon Brown shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 30, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a visionary technologist with the ability to communicate and...
Mark Sun, Senior Director of Engineering, McClatchy Interactive
Mark Sun shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 27, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a very resourceful manager. He always able to find supports from ...
List of Open Source or Free Software for Home and Business Use
Here is a list of some open source or free desktop software that you can use for personal use at home or at your business. Using open source software can s...
Ben Mappen, Software Engineer, Knight Ridder Digital
Ben Mappen shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 22, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a remarkable individual and I have long admired his savvy, char...
Tom Mohr, President, Knight Ridder Digital
Tom Mohr shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 22, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is bright, extremely creative and entrepreneurial. This combines wit...
Chris Jennewein, COO, Knight Ridder Digital
Chris Jennewein shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 22, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a creative and visionary technologist. He was responsible ...
Jennifer Musser-Metz, Senior Producer, Philly.com and Knight Ridder Digital
Jennifer Musser-Metz shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 21, 2006 via LinkedIn: I worked with Rajiv from his Atex-to-HTML wizardy days as a pr...
Sometimes extra steps in workflows are good
When implementing a content management system or other product, customers often ask for workflows that require the least number of steps required to any gi...
Integrating Legacy Technologies With Web Systems at Newspapers
The topic of integrating print technology systems with web technology systems often comes up in the newspaper, magazine and book publishing industries. The...
Jodi Leese Glusco, Sports Editor, Philly.com and Knight Ridder Digital
Jodi Leese Glusco shared this recommendation for Rajiv on August 16, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is a brilliant programmer, a tireless worker and a gentleman....
Google Web Toolkit: Develop and Test in Java, Deploy as AJAX
I'm building a pull-down-menu navigation for the rajiv.com site using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and I'm impressed by this Google product. It allows you ...
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Book Review)
I just completed Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner and found it an interesting book. (I listened to the unabridged audio book edition.) This...
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Book Review)
I enjoyed the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. (I listened to the unabridged audio book edition.) The book is insigh...
Congratulatory letter from Cox on being featured in the 2005 Annual Report
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Fred Mann; former VP, National Programming and Regional VP, Knight Ridder Digital; GM, Philly.com
April 25, 2006 To Whom It May Concern: In my long career as a journalist, and digital media manager, I have learned that hiring the right people is probabl...
The Art and Science of Project Management: Beyond Tools and Techniques
Originally published April 1, 2006 – Revised and expanded March 23, 2025 Starting Early, Not Driving Recklessly Fast In my original 2006 article, I shared ...
Patrick Burke, Senior Manager of Product, Cox Media Group
Patrick Burke shared this recommendation for Rajiv on February 22, 2006 via LinkedIn: Rajiv works well in a rapidly evolving, high-demand environment. He h...
Web site hosting provider and technologies change
http://www.rajiv.com now has a new hosting provider: Kattare Internet Services. The web site is now powered by Java and related technologies. My previous I...
Shannon Kinney, Senior Director, Product Development, Knight Ridder Digital
Shannon Kinney shared this recommendation for Rajiv on November 18, 2005 via LinkedIn: I managed Product Development at KRD and looked to Rajiv to help me ...
Kim Marcille Romaner, General Manager of Miami.com, Knight Ridder Digital
Kim Marcille Romaner shared this recommendation for Rajiv on September 16, 2005 via LinkedIn: Rajiv and I worked together at Knight Ridder Digital. The pla...
More photography
Friends and family: I have been doing a lot of photography recently and regularly posting it on photos.rajiv.com. It includes pictures of many of my travels.
Technology, Innovation and Business Decisions
Nowadays, it is becoming fashionable to belittle technology. I hear people say things like "technologies should not drive business decisions", "define ...
Consistency in Labeling Ads as “advertisements” on Content Sites
Some newspaper and magazine web sites visibly label some ads on their web pages as "advertisements" but don't mark other ads including their own in-house...
Daniel Finnigan, President and CEO, Knight Ridder Digital
Dan Finnigan shared this recommendation for Rajiv on April 24, 2005 via LinkedIn: Rajiv is very bright, hard-working, creative and passionate about his eng...
Snow and Ice in Atlanta
When I moved to Atlanta, GA, I didn't realize I'd get photo opportunities featuring snow and ice in the city known as Hotlanta. It only snows on one or two...
Suggestions to Nikon for future DSLR cameras
[amazon-product align="right"]B001ENOZY4[/amazon-product]At present, Canon is dominating the digital SLR-type (DSLR) camera market. We need strong compet...
Please Help the Tsunami Disaster Relief Efforts in South Asia
If you are able, please help the tsunami disaster relief efforts in South Asia: http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html Good companies like Apple, Amazon...
Ches Wajda, Design Director, Philly.com and Knight Ridder Digital
Ches Wajda shared this recommendation for Rajiv on September 27, 2004 via LinkedIn: Rajiv already was at legendary status when I arrived at Philly.com (whi...
On content sites requiring user registration
I wish I didn't have to register at and maintain my profile for each web site that I use that requires me to log in. A shared (not necessarily centralized)...
Searching Instead Of Browsing: Organizing Information Using Labels as Meta-Data
Being able to assign labels to content to organize information for searching is superior to placing content in folders for manual browsing. The folder conc...
Preserving URLs of Evergreen Content
Changing the URLs of pages containing narrative content like articles has several disadvantages, especially for a content site: The idea of permanent links...
Craigslist & eBay: Community sites founded by programmers
Great businesses are often started by people without a formal business background but with passion, vision and the ability to execute. Neither Craigslist n...
Java Progammer? Use BeanShell
BeanShell is a fully Java compatible scripting language, capable of interpreting ordinary Java source files. You can also use it for working with Java inte...
Other Web Search Engines
Can't find what you are looking for using Google? There are other search engines too. For specific searches, some of these may have their own unique advant...
Moving to Atlanta
I look forward to living in Atlanta, a major city in the southeastern state of Georgia. I will, however, miss being around my friends in the the Philadelph...
Ads by Google on some of my pages
I signed up with Google Adsense to put relevant ads on some of my pages, mainly the Humor and India pages. If you'd like your ads to appear on rajiv.com, ple...
Currently in the Philadelphia area
I'm currently based in the Philadelphia area, working on my company. It is good to spend time at home with my brother and friends. (Just an FYI for my family...
Robin Palley, Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
March. 8, 2004 To whom it may concern: It is a pleasure to talk about Rajiv Pant. It is rare to meet someone who combines the breadth of engineering skills...
Content Management: Content & Search Technologies
Search, when effectively integrated with content, creates a combination that is greater than the sum of the two separately. Let us consider an example. A p...
What is Leadership?
Victory is not defeating others. Victory is winning others. The three skills that people in an organization have are leading, managing, and working. Every ...
Ken Doctor, VP/Content Services, Knight Ridder Digital
Feb. 22, 2004 Letter of Reference Re: Rajiv Pant From: Ken Doctor, VP/Content Services, Knight Ridder Digital Few people elicit great enthusiasm from refer...
Steve Rossi, President, Newspaper Division, Knight Ridder
December 16, 2003 To Whom It May Concern: I have personally known Rajiv Pant to be an outstanding professional since 1995 when he started working at Philad...
Can you hear me now? Good
November 24th was the day I got the freedom to switch my phone service from AT&T Wireless back to Verizon Wireless and this time without changing my number...
Citizen Rajiv
After almost a decade of living in this wonderful country, I am proud to be a U.S. Citizen on November 19, 2003. For this important day, I would like to th...
New Company, Effectuation
Earlier this year, I founded a product development & consulting company called Effectuation (www.effectuation.net) with some associates. We are involved in...
Respect and the American Way
Respect must be earned and maintained not expected and demanded. Unlike in some other cultures, I believe the American way is to give respect to those and ...
With land and air covered, now for the water
Hang gliding over beautiful mountains and the beach was great fun, so with land and air covered, I needed to learn to swim. I'm one of those few adults who...
Eight Years at Knight Ridder: Building the Digital Newsroom
Reflections on nearly eight years at Knight Ridder, from solving publishing problems at 20 to VP Engineering leading Cofax development for 31 newspapers.
Visit to Philly for Vik’s Graduation
My younger brother Vik graduated from Villanova University with a double major in Management Information Systems and Finance. Here are some photos from my we...
An All-Nighter at Work Followed by a Terrorism Threat Scare
We had too much excitement at work pulling an all-nighter. Then when we thought we could go home and sleep, there was a terrorism threat at our building. A...
As a Change from Corporate Travel and Expensive Personal Vacations, Consider Backpacking
I love to experience contrasts during my travels. Traveling first-class and staying in luxurious hotels is a pleasure indeed, but tourism on a shoestring c...
Hang gliding, Hiking and Sightseeing near San Francisco
I went hang gliding, hiking and sightseeing on weekends recently. Some of the photographs of the scenery around San Francisco look beautiful.
Medill School of Journalism and the Computer Science Department at Northwestern University
In 2003 & 2002, Rajiv was invited by the Medill School of Journalism and the Computer Science Department at Northwestern University. He gave lectures on ne...
Newspaper Association of America (NAA)’s Conferences
Rajiv spoke on CTO panels at the Newspaper Association of America (NAA)'s conferences. In NEXPO 2002 and 2003, he spoke about technology and business topics ...
Tony Ridder, Chairman and CEO, Knight Ridder
Congratulatory letter from Tony Ridder, Chairman & CEO, Knight Ridder P. ANTHONY RIDDERCHAIRMAN ANDCHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER KNIGHT RIDDER50W. SAN FERNANDO S...
Personal & Business Travel Checklist
This checklist, that I have been using for many years since I was a teenager has now been replaced by my 2024 Personal & Business Travel Checklist. Related...
Lessons from martial arts that apply to life
Interacting with and helping other people Some encounters are not worth the experience. If you spar with Mike Tyson, you will get hurt and have a headache ...
Can multiple contradicting religions all be true? An imaginary discussion between two people
Cast: Rex, a philosopher. Fanatic, a religious fanatic who believes all other religions are false. Rex: Do you believe in God? Fanatic: Yes. Rex: Do you be...
On Relationships, Romance & Love
Q. How long does it take to build a lasting relationship? 6 months? 1 Year? 2 Years? 5 Years? 10 years? A. None of the above. It takes a lifetime of commit...
Is There God? A discussion between two people
Cast: A. Atheist / Agnostic B. Philosopher A: Can you logically prove that god exists? B: Yes. Proof in any system requires Axioms. For example in Euclidea...
Do not celebrate until after your success – Life lessons from a chess tournament
The Sanskrit verse still echoes in my mind: "vinaash kaalae vipreet buddhi" (विनाश काले विपरीत बुद्धि). In my childhood years, I heard these words during...
Love should be a Decision, not an Emotion
Love should be a decision, not an emotion. People should not fall in love, they should make a conscious decision about it. Falling in love is not bad in it...