Angel Buzany

✍️ Writing is essential to how @Mercury communicates as a 1300 person remote-first company. I wrote on Writing At Mercury (inspired by @vxanand's post). Principles of Writing at Mercury 1. Writing is thinking: Spending time on writing is not wasting time, it helps you process ideas, analyze problems, and explore solutions. 2. Less writing is better: Good writing is concise, which makes it easier to understand. 3. Reading should be easy: If >2 people will read your writing you should spend extra time making your writing good + digestible + clear etc. It is not fair for people reading to do work that the writer could have done for them. 4. Writing is expression: Your writing will be taken as an expression of your identity, so give it the care it deserves and be authentic. 5. Writing is important: Writing is the main way we communicate internally at Mercury, as a remote-first firm. We frame important discussions, and document thought processes and ultimate decisions, with our writing. On Using AI for Writing It is very easy to use AI to write a lot of content. If you do so, then by default you have: 1. Outsourced your thinking 2. Created a verbose/long doc 3. Made it hard to read 4. Have a doc that is not expressive and very bland 5. Watered down our discussions and decision making In other words, heavy AI use for writing is diametrically opposed to the principles of writing laid out above. Some effective ways that AI could be used instead: 1. Critiquing your writing 2. Condensing your writing 3. Shaping initial drafts 4. Summarizing complex information On Using AI to Respond on Slack/Comments Slack threads and comments are a particularly bad use of AI writing. 1. Slack responses and doc comments should always be short. Large blocks of AI text don’t belong. 2. AI used here is often thoughtless and the other party could have just used the AI tool themself. It inherently shows a disrespect for the reader’s time. 3. Given our remote culture, one of the main ways we connect with each other is via Slack. Using AI often would obscure your authentic perspective. 4. It would be better to share the prompt you gave to the AI directly to the other person and they can just prompt their own AI tool. How to do Great Writing at Mercury We aren’t going to police whether someone is using AI or not to help them write. We will just have a high standard for your writing output. Here are some high-level rules that should help: 1. Always read and stand by 100% of your written output. 2. When it is important, spend time on your writing. You might spend time on the narrative arc, the tone, the structure, whether it clearly articulates an issue, explores solutions, and drives toward an outcome. 3. Think hard about how you can use fewer words and be more concise. 4. Be authentic. You don’t need to dress up your writing in corporate jargon to make it sound professional. Simple, plain writing is often more effective. 5. Never copy-paste AI responses to someone in Slack or to comment on a doc. 6. Sometimes it's better to write nothing at all. Don’t make a comment in a doc/slack because you want to be part of the convo, say it if it materially moves things forward.