Speaker 1: For those of you tuning in, this is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a rough start, but it is the start
Speaker 1: of the Adventures in DevOps podcast episode number whatever. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what number were on anymore. But today's topic,
Speaker 1: it's a little DevOps therapy session. Joining me in the
Speaker 1: therapy room today, Warren Perrad to Born, Hey, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I h you say therapy as sort of a
Speaker 2: joke there, but I frequently not as a joke, say
Speaker 2: the tea and my executive title.
Speaker 3: It definitely stands for now.
Speaker 1: I mean it, it was kind of said with humor,
Speaker 1: but like it's valid, especially today's topic, because I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in getting perspective from you and Jillian welcome to show, Jillian,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm interested in getting feedback from y'all
Speaker 1: on this topic because it's it's a valid thing, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm the first person to ever face this,
Speaker 1: So I think that's the beauty of having platforms like
Speaker 1: this is to get perspective from people that you may
Speaker 1: not otherwise be able to get perspective from.
Speaker 2: So I'm not a therapist, so if you have medical
Speaker 2: needs there, I'm gonna have to definitely refer you to
Speaker 2: licens passion.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: I was kind of assuming here I was going to
Speaker 1: walk out of here with a prescription for something sweet.
Speaker 1: Are you telling me that that's not true?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there are a bunch of things that
Speaker 2: are now legal in your state, So you know, maybe
Speaker 2: just your look around your local city municipality and all
Speaker 2: your problems could be solved by a short, little walk.
Speaker 1: Dude, that is an understatement for where I live. They
Speaker 1: have totally embraced the new laws in this town.
Speaker 4: They haven't in New Hampshire. To drive a whole like,
Speaker 4: you know, thirty minutes to Massachusetts before I can make
Speaker 4: those dreams come true.
Speaker 1: That's horrible, Jillyan. A thirty minute drive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, something. It's not even more like, you know, one
Speaker 4: of my sisters and my mom's lives, so it's not
Speaker 4: like I'm not there all the time. Anyways, it's a struggle.
Speaker 1: When I lived in Arizona, they had an app called
Speaker 1: weed Maps that was basically Uber for weed delivery, and
Speaker 1: you would go and I never use it, but you
Speaker 1: could go into the app place your order and then
Speaker 1: some time later some drug dealers showed up at your
Speaker 1: house and dropped off what you ordered.
Speaker 3: I've never, I've never used it, but I have.
Speaker 1: No I actually advised a guy who was creating a
Speaker 1: competitor to that company. And yeah, anyway, on today today's topic,
Speaker 1: before we just get banned from the show for conversations, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so today's topic is is it possible to hire a
Speaker 1: candidate who is too good for your team? And so
Speaker 1: let me set the stage here a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: funny because a few episodes back, I was talking about
Speaker 1: how I think I'm just kind of tired of writing
Speaker 1: infrastructure code and looking for something different. And now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm the manager of the team here
Speaker 1: and I'm backfilling the position that I vacated on the team,
Speaker 1: and we're interviewing candidates. And one of the candidates we
Speaker 1: interviewed is just an absolute rock star. And I hate
Speaker 1: to put that term out, but he really is. He's
Speaker 1: very passionate about DevOps. He understands the concepts and the principles,
Speaker 1: and he knows how it relates to the business and
Speaker 1: the value that his trade brings to making the company
Speaker 1: a more successful company. And his skills are not to
Speaker 1: put my exist team down, but they're like top notch skills,
Speaker 1: and so one of the guys on my team who
Speaker 1: did a technical interview with him, came back to me
Speaker 1: and said, I'm concerned that this guy might be too
Speaker 1: good for our team, because if we bring him on,
Speaker 1: it's going to challenge everyone else on the team to
Speaker 1: bring up their own skill set, because the average skill
Speaker 1: set is going to be raised now. And I didn't
Speaker 1: really think that's a horrible thing. It's always good to
Speaker 1: have that kind of pressure, I think and it. But
Speaker 1: the other point he made I thought was really valid.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is the wrong company for that candidate, because
Speaker 1: we are an early stage startup and a lot of
Speaker 1: our processes aren't well defined, and sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: go forward with things that aren't processes because it's more
Speaker 1: important to ship the product and get feedback from our
Speaker 1: customers than it is to build a long term, scalable
Speaker 1: solution for it, you know, because in reality and startup world,
Speaker 1: you may launch your product and it may fail miserably.
Speaker 1: So you don't want to invest time and effort up
Speaker 1: front building this super robust pipeline for something that's never
Speaker 1: gonna see you know, long term, long term production use.
Speaker 1: And so that was the part of his feedback that
Speaker 1: really stood out to me, like, what if we brought
Speaker 1: this guy on and he was starting to regret his
Speaker 1: decision because we don't have enough opportunities to really take
Speaker 1: full advantage of his skills. And so that's what I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about today. Is it possible to hire
Speaker 1: someone who's too good for your team? And should you
Speaker 1: do it anyway or should you pass on that candidate.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that it's possible to hire somebody that's
Speaker 4: too good, because I know, I mean, I know for
Speaker 4: myself personally, I don't like to be the best person
Speaker 4: doing the things that I'm doing. I always like working
Speaker 4: with a variety of people, and other people are always
Speaker 4: going to be like there's always going to be somebody
Speaker 4: who knows more than I do. And maybe that's maybe
Speaker 4: that's a personal preference that I just really enjoy working
Speaker 4: on interdisciplinary teams. But I've worked on enough teams where
Speaker 4: everybody thinks like that to make me think it. Maybe
Speaker 4: it's a commonality among tech people that we all like
Speaker 4: to be learning new things all the time, and that's
Speaker 4: part of what brings us to tech. So I would
Speaker 4: say from there, probably not. And I feel like this
Speaker 4: is maybe a conversation that could be had with the team.
Speaker 4: You could ask them like, hey, you know, how would
Speaker 4: how would you feel about this? Like with your existing team.
Speaker 1: I mean, just go ask them, right, I see you
Speaker 1: thinking heavily over Warren, What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2: Oh, there's so many things here, and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: limit myself to whatever the most important aspects are. So
Speaker 2: what I heard I actually the first thing that you
Speaker 2: brought up of raising the sort of bar of expectation
Speaker 2: of what people's levels are. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 2: the most one of the biggest mistakes is incorrectly leveling someone.
Speaker 2: So if you have the spot, if you can afford
Speaker 2: hiring a principal engineer over a staff engineer, even though
Speaker 2: you thought you only needed a staff engineer, it's fine
Speaker 2: as long as they get that label and they get
Speaker 2: the commiserate compensation for it, whatever that is in the environment.
Speaker 2: If you're not doing that, then there's going to be
Speaker 2: sort of a mismatch of expectations between what the individual
Speaker 2: wants and what they could potentially get elsewhere. I think
Speaker 2: one of the mistakes we tell ourselves is that, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, maybe in a couple of years they
Speaker 2: would leave but I mean in the tech industry, they're
Speaker 2: going to Whoever you're going to hire is likely going
Speaker 2: to leave in a couple years anyway, So I often
Speaker 2: like to throw that out. Also, I think one of
Speaker 2: the worst things to hear, ever, is you're too qualified
Speaker 2: for the role we want, And like, I don't think.
Speaker 3: That's great feedback for the candidate.
Speaker 2: I mean, especially in whatever market they're in or whatever
Speaker 2: their circumstances is, they may be willing to take a
Speaker 2: pay cut for some period of time because of their
Speaker 2: own personal situation. And I think it would just like
Speaker 2: if I was in that situation and that scenario, it
Speaker 2: would just really suck for me to be told that
Speaker 2: over and over again by lots of companies. Think literally,
Speaker 2: I will like clean toilets, but no one will hire
Speaker 2: me because they think I'm overqualified. It's like, please, like
Speaker 2: I just I just want to do something else, and
Speaker 2: I don't think that's a good reason. So I do
Speaker 2: want to be careful about the bringing the level up
Speaker 2: of the team. While it is good to push the
Speaker 2: team members, you have to look at the culture of
Speaker 2: the individual team members and what their values are, because
Speaker 2: it can be a real struggle for them if they
Speaker 2: don't feel like they're prepared or the kind of person
Speaker 2: that wants to be pushed there, like you could be
Speaker 2: driving a wedge within your team, and I have seen
Speaker 2: that where there is a lot of pressure that people
Speaker 2: may put on themselves because they now feel like they're
Speaker 2: in a higher quality team in some way and they
Speaker 2: have to meet that expectation, and maybe you start changing
Speaker 2: your guidelines on what performance looks like because of that.
Speaker 2: So I think being cognizant of those changes that will
Speaker 2: happen because of that person is important as well, so
Speaker 2: that for me starts to fall into fit right, you know,
Speaker 2: what changes are they going to impact in the team.
Speaker 2: If they're really too good, then of course they're good enough,
Speaker 2: so that's never the problem. But you did say something
Speaker 2: that I did catch on, which is that maybe you're
Speaker 2: looking for a pioneer and they're more of a town planner,
Speaker 2: which means they're not necessarily a fit for the type
Speaker 2: of work that you want to do. They're actually not
Speaker 2: qualified in that way because what they care about is
Speaker 2: different for what you need. Now there is a question
Speaker 2: of whether or not they want to work in that
Speaker 2: mode or they are able to work in that mode.
Speaker 2: But it's like, let's say you're hiring for a JavaScript
Speaker 2: or Python, those are the languages you use, and someone
Speaker 2: comes in with C Sharp and Java experience and they're like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm super excited to you see.
Speaker 3: Sharp in Java.
Speaker 2: If you're going to go in the direction of changing
Speaker 2: your language, that's fine, But if you expect them to change,
Speaker 2: they have to sort of want to change. And so
Speaker 2: I do wonder whether or not the criteria you have
Speaker 2: in your job description is matches their expectations, or whether
Speaker 2: or not there's an area to dive down there.
Speaker 3: So I think there's a.
Speaker 2: Couple of different angles that are all worth spending more
Speaker 2: time thinking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. Like our job description is
Speaker 1: it's kind of your average, run of the mill infrastructure
Speaker 1: DevOps type job description. It doesn't really elaborate a whole
Speaker 1: lot on where they would fit into the team and
Speaker 1: where they fit into the company. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a really good distinction there.
Speaker 3: That makes it.
Speaker 1: Makes it a bit easier to say whether or not
Speaker 1: this person is a good candidate because now you're not
Speaker 1: talking Now you're not focusing on their devop skills, You're
Speaker 1: focusing on their role within the team and within the company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean skills there are five out of five,
Speaker 2: and maybe there are six out of five for what
Speaker 2: you're evaluating, great like, you know, pay a lot more
Speaker 2: attention to those other areas, and maybe you want someone
Speaker 2: Maybe the question you're asking yourself is would it be
Speaker 2: better to have someone that's four out of five or
Speaker 2: three out of five? But are aligned better with those
Speaker 2: other requirements that we have for the culture or the
Speaker 2: personal values or the area that they'll be working on,
Speaker 2: or the processes that we have in place, and that
Speaker 2: person may not be a match there. So I think
Speaker 2: we're very quick, especially in the technology or engineering areas,
Speaker 2: to believe that the skills level is the driving factor
Speaker 2: for our performance and whether or not we should hire.
Speaker 2: But often when I do interviews, we break it up
Speaker 2: into a bunch of different areas that are like the
Speaker 2: short term coding expertise, systems designed, whether or not it's
Speaker 2: a cultural fit, and how they deal with certain individual
Speaker 2: problems what we usually call a behavioral interview, and so
Speaker 2: they can absolutely pass some of those and fail other ones,
Speaker 2: and then it's about comparing along those each individual access,
Speaker 2: but together across each of the candidates so.
Speaker 1: How do you decide or how like, when you're creating
Speaker 1: a new role, how do you what your thought process
Speaker 1: look like for determining what the non technical requirements are
Speaker 1: for that role.
Speaker 2: So a lot of it comes from expectations of the
Speaker 2: company and the culture that you have. For instance, it
Speaker 2: could be super detail oriented, is really important for you,
Speaker 2: I mean me personally at our company, myself, the executive
Speaker 2: team we are, we really do care about getting things
Speaker 2: done to say correctly in our regards. So high quality
Speaker 2: is really really critical, especially with the product, the expectations
Speaker 2: of our customers engaging with them, and so we look
Speaker 2: to see people are going to achieve that. And often
Speaker 2: that means for us generalists that have death in one
Speaker 2: particular area that is important to round out the team.
Speaker 2: So maybe we have someone that is deep in understanding
Speaker 2: infrastructure in aws. Maybe we have someone that's deep in
Speaker 2: specifically the security knowledge around on device management, credentials, et cetera.
Speaker 3: There's someone with quality. You know, there's a lot of different.
Speaker 2: Avenues that you go down here, people that want to
Speaker 2: reach out to customers and handle support there. And so
Speaker 2: it's very obvious for us when we're missing some area
Speaker 2: and we want to find someone whose depth is in
Speaker 2: that category, and that's how we sort of define the
Speaker 2: job description, and then we play the game. We release
Speaker 2: the same job description three or four times with different
Speaker 2: titles because they may have had different titles at other companies.
Speaker 1: So you ab test your job descriptions and your job ads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, Fresh Line, we're still going to go.
Speaker 4: Back to I think some of these issues could be
Speaker 4: a conversation, maybe these ones with the candidate. I do
Speaker 4: kind of agree that the you know, if we're going
Speaker 4: to say there's a spectrum between startups and enterprise between
Speaker 4: how like I suppose wild West the processes are, whether
Speaker 4: they exist, how fluid they are, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I would still say a lot of that is a
Speaker 4: personality fit. Like it just seems like some personalities lend
Speaker 4: themselves better to one type or the other. But I
Speaker 4: have trouble believing that like a season tech professional, which
Speaker 4: this person clearly is right, that he wouldn't know that
Speaker 4: already and be aware of the fact that your company
Speaker 4: is a startup and that maybe it's more on the
Speaker 4: wild West side of the spectrum versus the enterprise E side,
Speaker 4: and probably wouldn't have applied if that wasn't something that
Speaker 4: he was interested in, right, Like, presumably this is somebody
Speaker 4: with some choices in life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, I think one thing I've already learned from this
Speaker 1: conversation with you is I do need to go have
Speaker 1: another conversation with this person and make sure that I've
Speaker 1: clearly explained to the best of my ability the environment
Speaker 1: that they're coming into and where we're doing well and
Speaker 1: where we may not be at the level of some
Speaker 1: of the things they've done in the past, just to
Speaker 1: make sure that that doesn't come as a surprise to them,
Speaker 1: and if they were to accept an offer, that they're
Speaker 1: accepting it with all the knowledge that I can share.
Speaker 1: Up friend, Yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 3: Feel like I want to disagree with Jillian.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, yeah, Yeah, I mean I don't know much
Speaker 2: angle to take care honestly. I mean, I think realistically,
Speaker 2: when you turn down the candidate, you want to have
Speaker 2: a better answer than you're too qualified for sure, So
Speaker 2: how you get there is sort of up to you.
Speaker 2: The journey you want to figure out. I think you
Speaker 2: can definitely turn down a candidate because oh, they really
Speaker 2: want the job, but we say we don't think it's
Speaker 2: a fit for you and it's not a fit for
Speaker 2: you because even though you don't know, or subconsciously consciously
Speaker 2: you don't know, but subconsciously you need something different.
Speaker 3: You may be looking for a job.
Speaker 2: It may seem great to you, but looking at your
Speaker 2: experience or what you actually care about, we know that
Speaker 2: you're not going to be happy in I want.
Speaker 4: To find that response to patronizing. Like, I mean, I
Speaker 4: get it, like it's your's you know, you're the hiring person.
Speaker 4: You can hire or not based on whatever reasons you want.
Speaker 4: But I personally would find that response to be very patronizing.
Speaker 3: I mean, the truth is a lot of people.
Speaker 4: It's the response. It's the response doesn't really.
Speaker 2: Matter well, I mean it's difficult to articulate in a
Speaker 2: way which is clear and gives them comfort that they
Speaker 2: aren't the right person for that role and to be
Speaker 2: also happy about it. So yeah, I mean, there are
Speaker 2: lots of things you can say, but I don't think
Speaker 2: they're like saying that.
Speaker 3: You're there, you're overqualified. You know that that for me
Speaker 3: is at the very low bar, uh, you know, end
Speaker 3: of the spectrum.
Speaker 2: I definitely try to try to avoid saying that you're
Speaker 2: not a fit for us here because what we need
Speaker 2: don't doesn't match what you're currently giving us. You know,
Speaker 2: these are the areas that we think that you're not
Speaker 2: a match for. I would share that before the end
Speaker 2: of the interview process, like give them the opportunity to
Speaker 2: either justify or come around. And one way that I
Speaker 2: do that is say, hey, like, we're happy to get
Speaker 2: you on board if you think that our evaluation is
Speaker 2: wrong here, but we're going to be looking at this
Speaker 2: aspect and hoping that we're you know, we're wrong, that
Speaker 2: you're correct, and we get through this and you know,
Speaker 2: right now we're super hopeful, but we can take that step.
Speaker 2: We can do the experiment, get you on board, and
Speaker 2: then see how it plays out and maybe everything will
Speaker 2: be fine. You know, it's a risk both ways. And
Speaker 2: the thing I say a lot is we collectively are
Speaker 2: really bad at interviewing people, like not just not my company,
Speaker 2: but you know, like every company. And because we can't
Speaker 2: really know someone in four to ten hours of an
Speaker 2: interview process whether or not they're going to be effective
Speaker 2: long term, actual evidence is going to tell us that.
Speaker 2: So we're just trying to reduce the damage the wrong
Speaker 2: decision will make on on our team on other individuals
Speaker 2: on our company, and you don't, like you don't need
Speaker 2: to necessarily do that upfront, you know, three three month
Speaker 2: probation period, being explicit about that. Then you know, constant
Speaker 2: feedback on what's going on so that they know what
Speaker 2: where their areas are that they're missing, and like you said,
Speaker 2: will like potentially self select out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one thing I agree with you completely on
Speaker 1: is like the risk sponsor you're overqualified is not adequate.
Speaker 1: Like this person they've invested time into this process too,
Speaker 1: and so I owe them like a clear set of
Speaker 1: reasons why we would think that they're not the right person.
Speaker 1: And if I can't articulate that to them, then I
Speaker 1: have to really I haven't done my job well.
Speaker 4: I think it's nice to you do that. By the way,
Speaker 4: Like I've been applying for jobs lately, and a couple
Speaker 4: of them were just like, now, which what with somebody else?
Speaker 4: Which I mean, I guess it's something. It's a response anyways,
Speaker 4: but it would be nice to get some more details.
Speaker 1: I think that's of the industry, Like the state of
Speaker 1: the industry is, like you feel fortunate if you get
Speaker 1: a rejection email. So many of them just you never
Speaker 1: hear anything at all.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so I think that's definitely the first step.
Speaker 2: I mean, what I hear a lot in some of
Speaker 2: the communities I'm in is people are worried about potential
Speaker 2: legal repercussion, or they have specific requirements or guidance from
Speaker 2: their HR department or head of people to not explain
Speaker 2: what the issues are because kendidate can I don't know, hypothetically, sue,
Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't really happen though, it's you know,
Speaker 2: you're protecting yourself from something that is almost for sure
Speaker 2: not the case. So I think just trying to actually
Speaker 2: be a human being and be clear about what the
Speaker 2: problem is and potentially give someone the opportunity to explain
Speaker 2: themselves is what I definitely would recommend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, because a lot of this, a lot
Speaker 1: of our current decision in this particular instance, is based
Speaker 1: on some assumptions from previous conversations, and so it's worth
Speaker 1: going back and saying, hey, here's what we're thinking and
Speaker 1: then maybe learning something different, something that didn't come out
Speaker 1: in the original set of interviews.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean i'd even take it further, like how
Speaker 2: confident are you in your own interview process and in
Speaker 2: your interviewers that are running that process to be gauging
Speaker 2: the information you get back as qualified signals on those
Speaker 2: different avenues. I mean, I know there are certain things
Speaker 2: that I don't I'm not great at picking up on,
Speaker 2: and so I need my other interviewers to help me
Speaker 2: out there some things that maybe the question was phrased
Speaker 2: in a way that the candidate wasn't expecting and or
Speaker 2: wasn't prepared on a certain avenue, and then you maybe
Speaker 2: double down on whatever they said there which doesn't match
Speaker 2: their reality or how they actually think in that moment,
Speaker 2: you know, misunderstanding that wasn't qualified. And I think those
Speaker 2: are the sorts of things where you just end up
Speaker 2: getting yourself into a bad situation where you're making a
Speaker 2: decision based off of in perfect data both in volume
Speaker 2: but also in your collection process. And so you know,
Speaker 2: if you err on the side of well, no, actually,
Speaker 2: we've been doing this for a very long time. We're
Speaker 2: very comfortable in who the interviewers are and the collect
Speaker 2: and the questions are asking and how they evaluate those.
Speaker 3: Then you know you can be comfortable and the answers
Speaker 3: you get back.
Speaker 2: But if it's I've see it the biggest problem that
Speaker 2: I usually see in the interviewing is that the interviewers
Speaker 2: are usually just thrown together. They don't have a lot
Speaker 2: of experience interviewing. They may be technical and we're talking
Speaker 2: about culture behavioral interviews here, whether or not they're a
Speaker 2: good fit long term for the company, they don't have
Speaker 2: that experience, and sometimes the interviews come down to like
Speaker 2: a panel interview where you have two plus people interviewing
Speaker 2: the candidate, which is just like the.
Speaker 3: Numbers are not in the candidate's favor right.
Speaker 2: It can be a sort of viewed as the hostile environment,
Speaker 2: and they're getting interrogated, and the questions don't often even
Speaker 2: give you a good signal there of what's happening, and
Speaker 2: so like all those things can contribute to getting a
Speaker 2: confusing response, of which then you really just need to
Speaker 2: keep diving down into further to qualify that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that describes our situation completely when you think
Speaker 1: about it, like in reality. Yeah, because I'm the new
Speaker 1: manager to the team, and I've made a lot of
Speaker 1: changes to the team since I've taken over, So there's
Speaker 1: you know, there's some uncertainty across the team there, and
Speaker 1: then the we don't interview many people period at this company,
Speaker 1: so we don't really have a strong historical past or
Speaker 1: historical record of how we've done and interviews in the past.
Speaker 1: And then let's add one more plot twist to it.
Speaker 1: We're an early stage startup that's still trying to find
Speaker 1: out what we do for a living. So there's it's,
Speaker 1: you know, shifting sands.
Speaker 3: For sure. It's never too late to try to figure
Speaker 3: out what you want to do with your life.
Speaker 1: Right I'm fifty four and still trying to answer that question.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling some pressure, though, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 4: I think one of these days we should have a
Speaker 4: show on making the switch from a purely technical role
Speaker 4: to not Is that something I keep hearing about, maybe
Speaker 4: because it's my own personal struggle, But anyways, next Jef,
Speaker 4: next shop.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I think that's an interesting topic. I
Speaker 2: actually have found that now for the current state of
Speaker 2: the tech economy, it's going to be less of a
Speaker 2: question because companies are cutting out what they call middle
Speaker 2: management team leads and are having and going to a
Speaker 2: quote unquote flat organization, which is just a made up nonsense,
Speaker 2: and they're less concerned about having canonical responsibilities that match
Speaker 2: what we would have historically called career people management.
Speaker 4: That's the pendulum that's going to swing back, though maybe
Speaker 4: not like fully to the extent that it was maybe
Speaker 4: let's say, like before COVID. Maybe it was too bloaded
Speaker 4: before COVID.
Speaker 3: But I just.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I've worked with too many engineering teams.
Speaker 4: I feel like there needs to be like some level
Speaker 4: of adult supervision there.
Speaker 1: So the approach I've been taking with my team and
Speaker 1: to change changes I've made is putting more responsible and
Speaker 1: authority on the senior engineers, saying I don't need to
Speaker 1: be in a meeting as a manager. I don't need
Speaker 1: to be in a meeting unless there's a problem. You
Speaker 1: own this product, go meet with the team that builds
Speaker 1: it and figure out how to get it done, and
Speaker 1: make the decisions that you know how to make. You've
Speaker 1: been doing this a long time. You know what to do,
Speaker 1: you know what not to do, and just go do it,
Speaker 1: and if you're wrong, we'll fix it. Nobody's going to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I really like the mentality of turning
Speaker 2: the ship around and pushing the delegating down to where
Speaker 2: the decision should be, which is the information that the
Speaker 2: people have, so how you select who should be making
Speaker 2: a decision along with them having the competence the capability
Speaker 2: to actually do that. And I think those two are
Speaker 2: the pillars that David Marque actually talks about there. And
Speaker 2: you know, not everyone is at that point, but trying
Speaker 2: to get them, like as a leader, trying to get
Speaker 2: them to that point is like the stepping stone to
Speaker 2: be thought of. And a lot of people are too
Speaker 2: short term focused. So like in the perspective of we
Speaker 2: need to hire someone, consumably there's some short term, some midterm,
Speaker 2: and some long term problems that you're looking out for
Speaker 2: that you think someone needs to come in and support
Speaker 2: that because your current team can't handle it in some way.
Speaker 2: Not this like made up we need to scale, but
Speaker 2: realistically we are going to fail in this particular way,
Speaker 2: and that's where we need someone to save us. And
Speaker 2: obviously the short term mindset not the best one. But
Speaker 2: we can hire someone for three to six months to
Speaker 2: handle the short term problem. How are we going to
Speaker 2: hire someone, you know, six months, three year, a couple
Speaker 2: of years to handle the medium term problem. So I
Speaker 2: mean you keep swapping up people, for sure, but I
Speaker 2: think that's sort of how I personally engage interviews when
Speaker 2: creating a job description and trying to find that person.
Speaker 2: So maybe the person you've got, like you said, maybe
Speaker 2: they're the perfect person six six years down the road,
Speaker 2: or you know what they're going to set up for
Speaker 2: six years down the road, maybe they're not really the
Speaker 2: startup person. I know when people start companies started moving
Speaker 2: to the room situation. One of the problems that we
Speaker 2: had initially is a large pool of our potential candidates
Speaker 2: had never worked in a remote environment, and we had
Speaker 2: been remote even before the pandemic, And realistically a big
Speaker 2: problem is a lot of people are like, oh, remote,
Speaker 2: that sounds great, and I'm like, okay, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's different working in a starufference. It's different in some
Speaker 2: meaningful way. And people say, oh, yeah, whatever, startup, that's fine.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe it's less certainty. I'm like, okay, but
Speaker 2: you don't really understand what less certainty means in a
Speaker 2: day to day environment, Like you may subconsciously understand that, oh.
Speaker 3: The job may not be here in two years, but
Speaker 3: that actually means.
Speaker 2: How you work on things is fundamentally different than working
Speaker 2: in a different stage of a company with different particular problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the example I used for that is, like, let's
Speaker 1: define uncertainty. Uncertainty means you get a call in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day from your wife who wasn't able
Speaker 1: to buy grocery store groceries at the store and had
Speaker 1: to put them all back because your paycheck bounced because
Speaker 1: your employer was out of money and didn't feel that
Speaker 1: it was needed to be shared across everyone who thought
Speaker 1: they just got paid. That's that's the level of uncertainty
Speaker 1: at startups, just for odd, random examples out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Alex, your groceries are not other people's top priorities.
Speaker 4: They are your top priority, though, so kind to balance
Speaker 4: those things. I mean it before made an interesting point
Speaker 4: earlier that, like, you know, you can't hire people short term.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 4: I've worked for a few companies that almost everybody starts
Speaker 4: off as a contractor, and that's kind of their way
Speaker 4: of making sure that you're like a cultural fit, and
Speaker 4: then you know, if they like you, they hire you
Speaker 4: full time. I've also been places where contracts were yearly
Speaker 4: and so they just never they never fired like anybody,
Speaker 4: like people did like truly bananas, things right just off
Speaker 4: the wall. Bizarro behavior. Nobody ever got fired because of
Speaker 4: the year the contract would expire and then occument and
Speaker 4: then they just wouldn't rehire you. So there's like, there's
Speaker 4: plenty of ways around that, although of course that's not
Speaker 4: what you want to happen, right. You want to hire
Speaker 4: the right fit and they're there for a couple of
Speaker 4: years with the duration of the project or that kind
Speaker 4: of thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you brought up a really interesting sort of
Speaker 2: parallel here with the how does the employment contract look like? Uh,
Speaker 2: how what is the payment schedule?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Uh, what is the legal aspect behind the engagement? And
Speaker 2: unfortunately these seem like they're more coupled than I would
Speaker 2: like just from a you know, individual mindset perspective. If
Speaker 2: I'm on a contract, oh that will likely end. Companies
Speaker 2: should not just not renew the contract. There are so
Speaker 2: many contractors that I know that get to the end
Speaker 2: of their you know, six month or year contract, like
Speaker 2: I have no idea if I'm going to have a
Speaker 2: job in two months, like, and I'm not going to
Speaker 2: find out until the year rolls over, and then I'm
Speaker 2: going to be told whether or not I have any
Speaker 2: Like that's just a terrible situation to be in, and
Speaker 2: I think that way.
Speaker 4: There's people who don't feel that way.
Speaker 2: Like really well, I mean, for instance, when we hire
Speaker 2: people out of say some Eastern European countries, it's more
Speaker 2: common for us to use a employment contract that is
Speaker 2: between businesses, just because of how local employment laws work
Speaker 2: and how they're actually better for everyone for the individually
Speaker 2: set up as a company. So we use individual like
Speaker 2: corporate contracts there, but we don't treat them as contractors.
Speaker 2: So like, how the legal setup is is completely different
Speaker 2: than the expectations on how they communicate or engage with
Speaker 2: the team, how the culture works, and like I think
Speaker 2: that there is a tendency to couple those together, but
Speaker 2: they absolutely don't need to be that way. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're scared because you know every contract
Speaker 2: you have is going to potentially end, like I feel
Speaker 2: like your employer can be doing a much better job
Speaker 2: letting you know way ahead of time. Like I would say,
Speaker 2: if you're on a contract and you're in one of
Speaker 2: these situations and you don't have the personal expectation that
Speaker 2: at the end of the contract going to be over,
Speaker 2: I'd add into the contract like will automatically renew less
Speaker 2: in the three months leading up to, like to the
Speaker 2: end of the contract.
Speaker 3: It is is explicitly you know, canceled.
Speaker 2: And then you sort of bake in a little bit
Speaker 2: of safety like mental safety psychology there for yourself so
Speaker 2: that you don't end up in a situation where you're
Speaker 2: basically in limbo as far as what your future job.
Speaker 4: Is going to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's great advice for anyone who does contract work.
Speaker 1: Add that clause in there, because that's it's a recurring
Speaker 1: thing that I've heard over the years. You know, hey,
Speaker 1: my contract's going to expire, and no one's really saying
Speaker 1: anything or answering questions. So your role, like Gillian said,
Speaker 1: your responsibility is to put groceries on the table. That's
Speaker 1: not your employer or contract partner's responsibility. So you're just
Speaker 1: looking out for yourself when you add that clause to
Speaker 1: your contract.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, I mean I've been doing the contracting thing
Speaker 4: pretty much full time. I mean, presumably I have an escort,
Speaker 4: but like basically I just have like a bunch of
Speaker 4: like little jobs that are that are that are all
Speaker 4: very flexible, right, and I have added those kind of
Speaker 4: things to contracts. It depends on, like the company that
Speaker 4: I'm working with, how much of the contract is sort
Speaker 4: of boiler plate that I'm not going to like. I
Speaker 4: don't know. I'm not going to go hire a lawyer
Speaker 4: just just to deal with this stuff, right Like, it's
Speaker 4: it's just me and I don't even really work full
Speaker 4: time most of the time. But I'm also concerned by
Speaker 4: how I would ever enforce something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can never come up.
Speaker 4: I just go get another contract.
Speaker 2: I mean those of us that are in a fortunate
Speaker 2: position that you know, that's what we can do in
Speaker 2: those circumstances. Often the best advice I would give here
Speaker 2: is make it so that you don't like If you're
Speaker 2: in that situation, it's not the end of the world.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if that means charging more, that
Speaker 2: means start charging at the beginning of the cycle, using
Speaker 2: a retainer based So when I do consulting, I usually
Speaker 2: do a retainer at the beginning of the month, which
Speaker 2: I don't care what happens at the end of the month.
Speaker 3: It's I've already been.
Speaker 2: Paid for whatever happens there, and I know whether or
Speaker 2: not to start working or whatnot. And then maybe increase
Speaker 2: that even more, uh, based off to let yourself have
Speaker 2: the freedom to deal with those anomalous events where you're
Speaker 2: not you don't have the transparency with that particular client.
Speaker 2: So yeah, for sure, like you're not gonna get into
Speaker 2: a legal battle at all there, Like you're not going
Speaker 2: to go through that process in most cases.
Speaker 3: So I'm totally with you.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. A little bit
Speaker 1: changing topics here, but totally worth doing. Because of the
Speaker 1: number of people in our industry who do contract work,
Speaker 1: and that comes down to setting the proper hourly rate
Speaker 1: for your services. A lot of people jump to the conclusion, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to make one hundred thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to charge fifty bucks an hour, right,
Speaker 1: And that's true. That half works, but that doesn't really
Speaker 1: take into account everything that you are doing as a contractor.
Speaker 1: Because as a contractor, for every hour that you spend
Speaker 1: working on the problem you are hired to solve, you're
Speaker 1: going to spend another hour doing the financial aspects, the accounting,
Speaker 1: the book keeping, the taxes and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then there's another hour spent on top of that
Speaker 1: spent marketing looking for your next client. So for every
Speaker 1: hour that you work, there's two unpaid hours in there
Speaker 1: of just running your own business, because that's what you
Speaker 1: are as a contractor. And so when you set your
Speaker 1: hourly rate, you want to get paid for that time too.
Speaker 1: So your hourly rate needs to reflect all the work
Speaker 1: that is not hands on the keyboard, building Docker files
Speaker 1: or writing terraform infrastructure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, you really don't bill as many hours
Speaker 4: as maybe you think you will, like, Oh, it's going
Speaker 4: to be great, I'm going to bill all these hours
Speaker 4: and make all this money, and then you realize everything
Speaker 4: else you have to do to actually keep the ball rolling.
Speaker 4: So if you're starting off whatever you think your hourly
Speaker 4: rate should be, probably just double it. I'm just just
Speaker 4: gonna go with just double it right away.
Speaker 3: Yeah already. Then.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you feel like you have a good plan
Speaker 4: of attack? Well, what are you gonna what are you
Speaker 4: gonna do? When you Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I'd be scared shitless if I felt like
Speaker 1: I had a good plan.
Speaker 4: Like, surely there's something I'm missing.
Speaker 3: No, I do.
Speaker 1: I think A couple of key takeaways I got from
Speaker 1: here is I need to really take a step back
Speaker 1: and think about what role this person has in my
Speaker 1: team and define that so that everyone on my team
Speaker 1: who's interviewing them and the candidate themselves has a clear
Speaker 1: set of expectations of what this job entails outside of
Speaker 1: writing terrorform code.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 1: Have another put another step in the process, or maybe
Speaker 1: just do this when one off or whatever, But I
Speaker 1: need to have another conversation with this candidate and really
Speaker 1: let them know what we're thinking, why we have those concerns,
Speaker 1: and give them an opportunity to address those specifically.
Speaker 2: You also have an opportunity for a sort of risk
Speaker 2: evaluation for your business, like how bad would it be
Speaker 2: if you hired the candidate even knowing Like let's assume
Speaker 2: all those things were true regarding the candidate and the
Speaker 2: potential problems, Like what is the actual impact for the business,
Speaker 2: Like if you how bad would it be like in
Speaker 2: three months, six months, I'll till you had to fire them, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, is it likely that they would cause the
Speaker 2: startup to actually fold?
Speaker 3: You know in that way?
Speaker 2: Because like I feel like we don't do a great
Speaker 2: job sort of evaluating what the risk is when we talk,
Speaker 2: you know, with anything honestly interviews, buying SaaS, software.
Speaker 3: Pulling in libraries, et cetera. You know, we don't really
Speaker 3: do a great job doing that.
Speaker 2: We usually have a lot of fear up front about
Speaker 2: making the right decision, but then we don't really think
Speaker 2: about our recourse as much if it is the wrong one.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. That's one that we don't
Speaker 1: talk about near often enough, like the risk of it.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad to hear you say like SaaS evaluation,
Speaker 1: because that's a pet peeve of mine and I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm the only person who has that pet peeve,
Speaker 1: you know, Like you use a SaaS provider and you
Speaker 1: send them a bunch of your data and then they
Speaker 1: get a security breach and now all of your customer's
Speaker 1: data is out in the wild because of something they did.
Speaker 1: And like, the absolute best case scenario you can hope
Speaker 1: for in that situation is that you get an at
Speaker 1: mentioned in the tweet from their CTO when they say
Speaker 1: how sorry there are, and what steps they're going to
Speaker 1: do to make sure it ever ever, ever happens again. Like,
Speaker 1: that's the best case scenario.
Speaker 2: So we put eslays in our contracts to handle repayment
Speaker 2: to customers if we there is like a serious problem.
Speaker 2: Usually it's around up time specifically. But you know, honestly,
Speaker 2: I see a lot of people on the opposite side
Speaker 2: of the spectrum that are so heavily evaluating which SaaS
Speaker 2: provider to go with. They spend months and months trying
Speaker 2: to pick one, And honestly, the answer is like, forget,
Speaker 2: You're never gonna know what the impact is going to
Speaker 2: be until after it happens. You're not going to be
Speaker 2: able to predict that. Forget it, Like, just you're better
Speaker 2: off just those two months that you wasted like tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars doing that evaluation. It didn't doesn't
Speaker 2: amend to anything. Just pick one, go forward, see what happens,
Speaker 2: and then pivot if you need to, because you're not
Speaker 2: gonna be able to figure out what the risk is.
Speaker 2: There are companies out there with tens of thousands, hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of engineers who have all the certifications in
Speaker 2: the world trying to prove that they're secure, and they're
Speaker 2: the ones that are the one are posting oops, we
Speaker 2: had another security breach yet again. So I mean, you're
Speaker 2: not going to be able to evaluate that upfront, do you?
Speaker 1: This is way off tangent, but I'm curious, do you
Speaker 1: accept negotiations in contracts regarding your slas, Like you say, hey,
Speaker 1: we promised this with our SLA. This is our commitment
Speaker 1: to you. If a potential customer comes back and says,
Speaker 1: that's all cool, but we want this SLA instead, do
Speaker 1: you entertain those negotiations.
Speaker 2: The answer is no, but for two reasons. One, our
Speaker 2: default SLA is like incredibly high. We are four and
Speaker 2: a half nine's by default is what we put everywhere.
Speaker 2: There's no like super enterprise plan where we promise on
Speaker 2: even higher SLA, so people can't really request that, nor
Speaker 2: would they need to. And the truth is that just
Speaker 2: promising a higher SLA like you can't even really deliver
Speaker 2: on that. The SLA is a made up number.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: We can use our slis and are whatever our internal
Speaker 2: objectives are to decide how much we want to be up.
Speaker 2: But realistically you'd have to have a fundamentally different product
Speaker 2: in order to reach the next level of SLA. It
Speaker 2: doesn't really make sense to promise some customers a low
Speaker 2: SLA and other customers a high SLA. The ones who
Speaker 2: want to high SLA are the ones that are paying
Speaker 2: you lots of money. So you're gonna end up paying
Speaker 2: out a lot of money if you have a problem,
Speaker 2: even a little problem. So the ones that don't pay
Speaker 2: you anything don't really care what your ESLA is. You're
Speaker 2: not gonna end up paying them out a lot anyway,
Speaker 2: even if you gave them a higher SLA. So it
Speaker 2: doesn't really make any sense for us to have that
Speaker 2: disparity and make some companies who are building critical products
Speaker 2: but don't pay us a lot of money feel like
Speaker 2: they're second class customers for us.
Speaker 3: So we don't offer different scales like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, if someone wanted us to have a higher SLA,
Speaker 2: I do the never split the difference perspective. This increases
Speaker 2: the risk for us, so you will pay us more
Speaker 2: money upfront for that SLA.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: I have no problem increasing that SOLE with a higher
Speaker 2: upfront cost, and we for sure will make those trade offs.
Speaker 3: Usually it's like, do you actually really need that? No, No,
Speaker 3: you don't.
Speaker 2: I mean your own software isn't even that high realistically,
Speaker 2: so I don't know why you expect some vendor to
Speaker 2: be even higher than that.
Speaker 1: Dude, I love your insights. I love throwing questions like
Speaker 1: that at you, because like your like the ven diagram
Speaker 1: thing of your business skills and your technical skills is
Speaker 1: pretty cool.
Speaker 3: I'm bad at both, That's what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1: But maybe you're bad at both, but the overlap is great.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because like I was a very technical person.
Speaker 2: I studied engineering, and then the jobs that I got
Speaker 2: put into were very customer focused technical support, not so
Speaker 2: hard software development or working with the people on the
Speaker 2: shop floor and manufacturing and building software for them. So
Speaker 2: I was always uniquely in a situation where or I
Speaker 2: had to fully understand what my customers actually cared about,
Speaker 2: my users actually cared about, and less about the technology.
Speaker 2: And I told myself that lie that every engineer that
Speaker 2: didn't really have a job tells themselves, which is I
Speaker 2: just want difficult technical problems to solve, Like, no, you don't.
Speaker 2: What you want is problems that you think are technically difficult,
Speaker 2: but you feel like you were able to solve them
Speaker 2: pretty easily and then patch yourself on the back. I
Speaker 2: mean that's what everyone wants, like perceive that it's difficult,
Speaker 2: but then able to actually solve it, and after a
Speaker 2: while you're like, I actually don't want complex, difficult problems
Speaker 2: to solve, because if I have those, that means something
Speaker 2: is fundamentally broken with what we're.
Speaker 1: Doing for sure. I think that was one of the
Speaker 1: big insights that helped me on my career, is that
Speaker 1: no one gives a shit about the terraform code I write.
Speaker 1: What they care about is that the terraform code I
Speaker 1: write allows them to ten x their customer base without
Speaker 1: increasing operating costs.
Speaker 4: That's why I like working with scientists, because like, it's
Speaker 4: a nice public experience and that I know, Oh, I
Speaker 4: know for a fact, if they could get rid of
Speaker 4: me and do this and like excel on their laptops,
Speaker 4: they would, they absolutely would. They would push me out
Speaker 4: the door, like and if I'm really lucky, I might
Speaker 4: get like a fruit basket or something. As I'm being
Speaker 4: pushed out. I would be on so fast that it
Speaker 4: would just be remarkable. So it's good. It's good to
Speaker 4: always know that that, if you know, if people could
Speaker 4: solve the problems without technology, they would nobody cares about
Speaker 4: your elegantly abstracted uh Python classes or something. Good.
Speaker 3: Good to know.
Speaker 1: All right, should we do some picks?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sure, all right, what'd you bring?
Speaker 3: Jillian?
Speaker 4: I forgot again. I had one. I was thinking about
Speaker 4: one during the week and I was like, this is
Speaker 4: going to be a great, a great pick for the show.
Speaker 3: One.
Speaker 4: I have a futon mattress that I bought from Amazon,
Speaker 4: and that thing is great for yard naps. So I've
Speaker 4: just been like throwing my tark outside and then putting
Speaker 4: the Futon matt and then I just like lay around
Speaker 4: on that thing all day. And it's great because it
Speaker 4: is unseasonably warm for November in New Hampshire and it's
Speaker 4: just it's like the best thing ever. I was dog
Speaker 4: sitting one day and the dog really appreciated it too.
Speaker 4: It was lots of fun, had friends over, They've taken
Speaker 4: yard naps. It's been a good time.
Speaker 1: Amazon Futon mattress for yard naps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, that's it.
Speaker 4: That's the pick. It was great I ever spent.
Speaker 1: We have snow on the ground, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: exercise that pick right now, but I'll check back the
Speaker 1: spring after things start.
Speaker 4: Warming up, and you know, springtime, you'll be there.
Speaker 1: All right, Warren, what'd you bring?
Speaker 2: I feel like you can put the tarp on top
Speaker 2: of the snow if it's not melting.
Speaker 1: I was thinking the temperature is probably more the limiting
Speaker 1: factor than the snow, to be honest.
Speaker 4: Well, if you have the futon, then you don't get cold,
Speaker 4: so presumably I bought it.
Speaker 1: It's cold everywhere out there, it's cold everywhere, not just
Speaker 1: on the ground.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's true, but that's what really makes you cold
Speaker 4: if you go camping, is like when you're laying on
Speaker 4: the ground that it's the ground that's cold. So if
Speaker 4: you have the mattress, then you have like a buffer
Speaker 4: between you and the cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I'm not quite climatized from Arizona for
Speaker 1: that yet.
Speaker 4: Okay, you still need some time, huh yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh oh.
Speaker 4: Then the other pick is that I got a heated
Speaker 4: mattress pad. And this thing is great, This is like
Speaker 4: quite this might be better than the than the yard
Speaker 4: mattress futon thing, it's very nice.
Speaker 2: I feel like the secret pick is both of those together.
Speaker 2: First the tarp, then the mattress, then the heated mattress pad,
Speaker 2: then then the futon, and then your goal.
Speaker 4: Then yeah, that's it. That's like the perfect combination. That's
Speaker 4: what I need.
Speaker 1: So you can bundle it and create an Amazon affiliate
Speaker 1: link and then just post that in the show notes,
Speaker 1: I could.
Speaker 4: You know, forget all these technical skills that I presumably have.
Speaker 4: This could be the money making scheme of my.
Speaker 1: Dreams, right, all right, what'd you bring? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, first statistic, which is just really shocking for me,
Speaker 2: some research that had been completed recently shows us that
Speaker 2: about zero point five percent of our brain matter is
Speaker 2: now composed completely of plastics. Zero point five percent. I
Speaker 2: mean that's that's like a ridiculously high number.
Speaker 3: Like this is just so high.
Speaker 2: I can't believe I think the study the scientist was saying,
Speaker 2: I even can't believe these words are coming out of
Speaker 2: my mouth right now, Like it's so shocking to have.
Speaker 3: Read like what we actually discovered here that is just
Speaker 3: so high.
Speaker 2: So like I don't have any I don't have any
Speaker 2: real solutions for that other than, like, you know, stop
Speaker 2: using plastic in every way, like everything you buy, just
Speaker 2: like cancel. But my pick is going to be something
Speaker 2: that I started only recently a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: which is to help combat the forever chemicals that we
Speaker 2: may consume from the baking papers and pans and whatever
Speaker 2: plastics are in the air that get into our lungs
Speaker 2: and end up in our and our brain, and that's
Speaker 2: a blood donation for sure. Like the medieval times they
Speaker 2: had something, you know, blood letting. You'd go and get yourself,
Speaker 2: drop some quarts of blood on the floor, some leaders
Speaker 2: and uh you know anything that's in there that needs
Speaker 2: to get out for sure. Well though, you know, you
Speaker 2: can donate your blood to a hospital or clinic that
Speaker 2: absolutely needs it, uh, in case of some sort of emergency.
Speaker 3: So it's a double win.
Speaker 2: You get to remove some forever chemicals from your body
Speaker 2: that are likely going to be responsible for some part
Speaker 2: of your eventual death, and and.
Speaker 3: Also help the community out at the same time. Right on,
Speaker 3: I like that?
Speaker 4: Is that like a thing that works though, because your
Speaker 4: body is making new cells and new tissue and new
Speaker 4: everything all the time. Like the meat sack that is
Speaker 4: you is not the meat sack that was you ten
Speaker 4: years ago, right, So does it actually get rid of
Speaker 4: the plastics or the forever chemicals if you're they're in
Speaker 4: your bloodstream like releasing blood but really blood?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Well, some of us, about fifty percent of the population,
Speaker 2: have a built in genetic strategy for constantly getting rid
Speaker 2: of blood, which includes whatever permanent chemicals.
Speaker 3: May be built up there.
Speaker 2: But for sure, anything in your bloodstream that is there
Speaker 2: is going to get removed. I mean, not a huge amount,
Speaker 2: like one liter out of a small number, a small
Speaker 2: amount that actually exists in your body. But it's not
Speaker 2: like your bone marrow is producing plastic based blood cells there.
Speaker 2: So you are removing a volume of liquid which does
Speaker 2: contain in it forever chemicals that have no other way
Speaker 2: out of your body because your body isn't filtering them out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I gave blood the other day and there was like
Speaker 1: a Hershey's wrapper that came out.
Speaker 4: That's probably a lot of time blood streams as well.
Speaker 4: It's like just chocolate and candy and jump the shock amount.
Speaker 1: All right, So my pick, I'm picking a book by
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary and it's The Psychedelic Experience, a manual based
Speaker 1: on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and it's been
Speaker 1: really entertaining. I'm only about halfway through it, but it's
Speaker 1: been super entertaining. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is
Speaker 1: a book I think about three thousand years old that
Speaker 1: was used even though it's called the Tibetan Book of
Speaker 1: the Dead. It's a book about releasing the ego and
Speaker 1: learning how to live. But then Timothy Leary, who was
Speaker 1: famous in the sixties for the being one of the
Speaker 1: prominent figures of the psychedelic movement, he read that book
Speaker 1: and then associated a lot of the things described in
Speaker 1: that book with psychedelic trips, and so then he wrote
Speaker 1: this book that ties the different stages of a psychedelic
Speaker 1: trip to the different different stages that are described in
Speaker 1: the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And so I just
Speaker 1: find it really fascinating. It was a cool read.
Speaker 4: Did you read the book by the guy that went
Speaker 4: to South America and like had lots of trips for
Speaker 4: DNA and was like all the psychedelic people knew about
Speaker 4: DNA long before you know, Rosslyn Franklin or the people
Speaker 4: who went along and imaged it. No is that I
Speaker 4: don't I don't remember the title now, but I'll try
Speaker 4: to get it for you because it's it's a very
Speaker 4: it is a very entertaining read. It's a good time
Speaker 4: right on cool in Las Vegas, but with DNA it's
Speaker 4: great a right on.
Speaker 1: All right, that's an episode. Thank you both for your input,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on this show, and thank
Speaker 1: you listeners for listening. Be sure and let us know
Speaker 1: on all the different socials if you have comments, thoughts, input,
Speaker 1: topic ideas, or want to be a guest. And with
Speaker 1: all of that out of the way, i'll see y'all
Speaker 1: next week.