Earn the Right to Teach
Build real depth and pedigree first — then your writing has something worth reading
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 88%
Orosz argues the durable foundation of a successful newsletter or channel isn't the writing itself but the real, hard-won expertise behind it. Deliberately work your way into high-regard teams doing genuinely interesting work; the depth and the pedigree together make you credible and give you stories no outside reporter can match.
Origin
Gergely Orosz's reflection on his own path (consulting → JP Morgan → Skype → Skyscanner → Uber) plus his admiration for practitioners like Kent Beck, who repeatedly embedded in industry rather than resting on reputation.
Core principles
- 01Credibility comes from having done the real thing, not from being able to interview people who did
- 02Pedigree is a real signal — working at highly-regarded companies buys you attention you otherwise wouldn't get
- 03Depth is built deliberately by pushing into teams doing interesting work
- 04Do the sharing as a side project first; the day job builds the substance
How to run it
- 1
Deliberately climb toward high-regard work
Make conscious moves toward companies and teams doing interesting, respected work — Orosz was 'pretty picky' about where he went after JP Morgan, choosing Skype then Uber partly for their pedigree.
Pro tip Pedigree materially changes how much attention your later writing gets; factor it into career choices.
Watch out Working at an unknown company means far fewer people will pay attention to what you later write.
- 2
Accumulate genuine depth and stories
Do real, demanding work and gather firsthand learnings (Orosz wrote about distributed systems and internal learnings from Uber). Depth is the raw material of credible content.
Pro tip Study practitioners you trust — Orosz cites Kent Beck, who took a title cut to be a hands-on engineer at Facebook because he's a lifelong learner staying 'in the middle of it'.
- 3
Start sharing on the side while you build
Teach and share in whatever format fits — newsletter, YouTube, meetups — as a side project alongside the job that's building your expertise.
Pro tip Side projects are where 'pre-entrepreneurial' muscles are built; make time even if the day job doesn't reward it.
Watch out Don't expect your employer to value the side sharing — it's for you, not them.
In the wild
Coming from a small country and a good-but-unknown university, Orosz made a subconscious point of working his way up — JP Morgan in London, then Skype, then Uber in 2016 when candidates were turning down Facebook and Google to join it. He blogged and spoke at conferences the whole time as a side project.
→ By the time he launched the newsletter he had years of respected work and firsthand stories, giving him credibility and material that outside reporters lack.
Beck, a creator of TDD/extreme programming who 'could have had people kneel down to him anywhere,' took a title cut to be a software engineer at Facebook — a company that did no testing — because he's a lifelong learner who wanted to stay hands-on in industry.
→ Orosz holds him up as the model: continued real practice, not resting on reputation, is what makes someone worth listening to.
Common mistakes
Starting to teach with no real experience
Orosz notes there's 'no shortage of reporters and journalists who don't know about stuff but can interview people, and that doesn't give anything extra' — audiences feel the missing depth. Sharing without substance produces generic, low-credibility content.
Ignoring pedigree in career moves
He observes that 'a lot of people would not pay nearly as much attention to me if I worked at a small company.' Treating where you work as irrelevant to future influence forfeits attention you could have earned.
Is it for you?
Best for
Practitioners early in their career who want to build authority and an audience the durable way
Not ideal for
People seeking a fast content shortcut, or fields where credentialed depth matters less than raw output
From the transcript
“one is have enough depth in the field whatever field you do”
“become an expert somewhere somehow before you start because you'll be a lot more credible”
“there's no shortage of of reporters and journalists who don't know about stuff but they can interview people but that doesn't give anything extra”
“a lot people would not pay nearly as much attention to me if I if I worked at you know small parts limited”
From the episode
Leaving big tech to build the #1 technology newsletter
Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer)