#97: Energy Budget & GitHub Scale
September 14, 2025 – DevTools Brew #97
I’m Morgan Perry, co-founder of Qovery. Every week, I share the raw, often uncomfortable lessons from building and scaling a tech startup from 0 to 1 and beyond.
In today's edition:
Energy Budget
→ Why your most valuable founder asset is energy, and how learning to protect it changed everything.
GitHub Scale
→ How Jason Warner (ex-CTO GitHub) scaled one of the most iconic engineering orgs with 12 lessons that every tech leaders should steal.
Let’s dive in.
Energy Budget
“Growth doesn’t happen in the effort. It happens in the recovery.”
This is the lesson I learned too late.
And one I wish someone had told me earlier.
When you start a company, energy is your unfair advantage.
You’re in everything: ie, sales, product, support, hiring, fundraising.
You say yes to everything.
Because you have to. Because it works.
At the start, being everywhere is the game.
Speed > stamina.
But what makes you win early can make you stall later.
A while ago, I hit a wall.
Not burnout. Not exhaustion.
Just… flat.
The drive was still there. But the spark was gone.
I kept pushing. Gave more. Took on more.
But it didn’t come back.
That’s when it hit me:
I wasn’t out of time. I was out of energy.
And it’s not the same thing.
I’ve trained like an athlete most of my life.
Every day. No excuses.
But even in training, I learned the hard way:
→ Muscles don’t grow when you push. But grow when you recover.
→ Clarity doesn’t come when you overthink. But comes when you pause.
→ Progress doesn’t happen in the grind. But happens with space around it.
Same thing in startups.
At Qovery, our (founder) edge came from how fast, and everywhere, we were.
We outshipped. Outreacted. Outworked.
But you can’t stay in that mode forever.
It doesn’t scale.
Not for the company.
Not for the human.
As a founder, your energy is your most valuable asset.
You pour it into every deal.
You transfer it into the team.
You broadcast it in every (VC) pitch, hire, and product review.
When that energy is sharp → everything lifts.
When it’s scattered → everything drags.
I used to think the game was about doing more. Again and again.
Now I know it’s about protecting where you burn, and where you don’t.
These days, I ask myself just two things:
→ Will this give me energy or take it?
→ Is this the highest return on my energy this week?
If the answer’s no, then I drop it.
No matter how “urgent” it feels.
Because your team won’t slow down.
Your market won’t wait.
And the world won’t pause just because you’re running on empty.
That’s why energy management isn’t just personal but so strategic.
Time is renewable.
Energy isn’t.
Protect it like you protect your runway.
Because when it’s gone… nothing moves.
And when you use it right… everything compounds.
This one’s personal. Took me years to learn. Sharing it with brutal honesty and quiet hope it helps someone earlier.
GitHub Scale
I usually use this second part to share peer-to-peer founder stories; ie- lessons from builders in tech, devtool and AI.
But this one’s a little different.
It’s not from a founder.
It’s from Jason Warner, former CTO of GitHub (and ex-VP Engineering at Heroku).
A builder-turned-scaler who helped architect one of the most iconic engineering orgs of the last decade.
Now that I’m living the scaling phase at Qovery, I’ve been studying how other technical leaders made the jump; from early chaos to team clarity.
Those insights from Jason left a mark.
Here are 12 lessons I took from it 👇
1. Culture ≠ perks.
Culture is what you tolerate. It’s behavior and standards. Not snacks or swag.
2. Don’t get trapped by your own tech.
If your codebase prevents you from reorganizing your team, you’re setting yourself up for pain.
3. Mission first.
If your team can’t clearly articulate the mission, you don’t have one.
4. Write down your principles.
No clarity = no standards. Principles are what you value. Practices are how you execute them.
5. Apply context, not dogma.
Don’t blindly copy what worked for others. Copy with context.
6. Set clear expectations.
Expectations are where culture and execution meet. Be explicit about the tradeoffs.
7. Measure everything.
You can’t improve what you don’t track. No metrics = no feedback loop.
8. Lead with vulnerability.
Pretending to be unbreakable breaks trust. Be real with your team.
9. Know which mode you’re in.
Sometimes you’re the sociologist (org-level). Sometimes the psychologist (1:1). Switch deliberately.
10. Hire proactively.
Adding people dilutes clarity. Hire only when the upside is clear.
11. Org structures are temporary.
There’s no perfect setup. Optimize for the next 6–12 months, not forever.
12. Trust your gut.
Great leadership is part data, part instinct. Use both.
What stuck with me the most:
You can’t scale a great product without scaling a great team.
And you can’t scale a great team without clarity, of mission, principles, and expectations.
Even if you’re technical, scaling isn’t just architecture.
It’s organizational architecture.
That’s what I’m trying to get better at right now.
That’s it for me today! :)
Thanks for reading and Happy Sunday!
— Morgan
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Do you like personal lessons like this? More insights/stories from other devtool founders? Let me know, I’m always open to feedback.
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.