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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome again back to another episode of Adventure

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in DevOps. Today, I'm joined by our guest Ben Johnson,

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and unfortunately Will, my fellow co host, would not be

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able to make it, but he sends his regards. Apparently

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they may have pushed something at the end of Friday

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last and well we probably know not to do that,

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but you know, maybe he's a little bit tired because

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we were last week, we were talking a lot about

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having really long careers, and so I'm really excited this

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week to talk with Ben, who actually joins us for

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the second time.

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Speaker 2: Who has just I mean, it seems like you've been

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in and.

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Speaker 1: Out a lot of different companies for a very long

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period of time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm the CEO of Particle forty one,

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and we have expertise in software development about engineering devopsn

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sipos sees term DevOps anymore, I guess. And then data science,

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which of course includes AI solution for clients.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, right, you know that's the newest trend

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of course.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we'll try not to talk about that too much.

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Speaker 2: Why not use the term develops anymore.

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Speaker 3: So it's been this debate DevOps versus platform engineering. I

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love these articles because they do really talk about the

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kind of the issue with DevOps as it was widely

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adopted as it became the new cloud it and so

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we love this internal discussion, especially since I'm selling these services.

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I want to be clear that our job is to

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actually engineer ourselves out of a job. And so we've

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started to use that term platform engineering and try to

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create that conversation where we're talking about the good and

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the bad of DevOps and what will we all believe

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it to be this kind of eternal definition definition thing

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that's in the community so prevalently.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I definitely was one of these warriors

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at the beginning to try to maintain the purity of

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what DevOps was, and I think for a lot of

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people that means different things. And over time I definitely

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lost that battle, and I sort of gave up because

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my vision is that it's a mindset change for organizations

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on how they approach things.

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Speaker 2: And I have.

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Speaker 1: Noticed now it's pretty much a replacement instead of calling

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team release engineering team.

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Speaker 2: Or actually a long time ago it.

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Speaker 1: Was called platform engineering teams, I think what we have

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now is something slightly different or sre are often known

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as DevOps team, and they spend a lot of time

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right now, I think working on Kubernetes more than anything.

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Speaker 3: Sure, yep, we're in that daily, daily battle, or not

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really a battle, but we love to help. So we

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just don't want to be like the what was it

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the episode of Lost where they had to push the

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red button every five minutes or something really bad happened.

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We of course want to work our way out out

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of out of that type of situation. The business shouldn't

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be in that kind of situation, so we want to

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take the magic red button out of the equation as

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much as possible.

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Speaker 1: Have you so you transition to using the term platform

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engineering because you found that like a lot of your

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clients had a wrong impression of.

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Speaker 2: It or was more progressive.

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Speaker 3: DevOps is still the right marketing term. So that's still

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what people understand. But we kind of have that conversation

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readily about Okay, you know cloud I T is what

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we're doing. If we automate some more things, then we're

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creating a platform that's resilient and working for you. You're

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not working for it, and so yeah, we try to

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do some of that.

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Speaker 1: Vocabulary makes sense A lot I do have a question

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here because a lot of our audience obviously focused in

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the devas space, like what sorts of problems do you

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see yourself and your company coming into helping clients with.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're really big on that app modernization at

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monetization part of it. So since we have a robust

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software development team, we're usually and some of my best partners,

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partners in crimeer MSPs MSPs are kind of hoarding the

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legacy tech and that's what we really want to do

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is replace the world's legacy tech with modern services of

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modern cloud services. And so we're kind of coming into

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some older things that were built as as pets and

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we're converting them to cattle. So what that usually looks

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like is containerizing. One thing we're working on as a

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payment solution that was provided and the original engineers use

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Seapanel as their means to virtualize. So we thought, well, okay,

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you provided Spanel, does that mean that you're in customers

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are logging. Nope, Nope, we are using Spanel as our virtualizer,

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and so we showed we're showing them and we've showed

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them how converting that to containers with the c c

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D pipeline eliminates the cost for c panel and it's

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actually way easier to use. You just interact with the

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repository and Bob's your uncle. Sounds overly simplified, but it's

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really not. It's like just you know, huge reduction in

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price to support the all that virtualization and then we've

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kind of converting it to cattle, so it's it's it's

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going to be a n PCI scope, so we don't

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want to have the pets to do all that security

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work with and so like, yeah, a lot of containerization

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and then we're not afraid to touch the applications like

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most managed service providers might be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

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So MSP is a managed service provider, and we're talking

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to like ones that had come in and delivered their

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own software as an application that your clients were running previously,

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or help them to build something, or gave them the technology.

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We're talking on prem or post a lift and shift

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into one of the cloud providers.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, all of that, those are the kinds of projects

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we're getting like readily involved in on prem to cloud,

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the cloud migration. And then what does the application, how

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does the application need to be refactored to support that movement.

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Speaker 1: Do you still see a lot of organizations on using

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on premise solutions when they don't need to be still

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or has that really died down a lot in the industry.

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Speaker 3: No, it's still there. It's still there, and it's surprisingly

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in really important, like really important industries like banking. Not like,

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so we all know Capital one super vocal in the community,

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a lot of we know a lot of Capital one

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people are friends and they were kind of the pioneers.

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But you think about all these little credit unions where

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the IT folks were a little bit scared of the cloud, right,

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like a little bit like, well, it's maybe not secure,

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and so they kind of never made that shift. So

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there's a lot of still fairly critical things that are

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on prem and then once they invested in those data centers,

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they they had to kind of stick with that investment.

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And so now we're seeing all of that tech age out.

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And then not to over beat up AI, but I

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think their desire to use AI is also driving them

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towards cloud services so that it's a little more available

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to them. Whereas you know, setting up all that in

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an age data center just doesn't is really not like, Okay,

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that's why we should have been part of this move.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we have the whole rest of the episode to

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beat up on AI if that route.

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting that we still see so

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many companies running on prem things, and I think you

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really hit it pretty on the nose there that the

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more secure, the more requirements regulations that companies have, the

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more likely to be on prem, and almost it almost

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seems more ridiculous, like I would those are the companies

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that I sort of want to be in the cloud

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more likely, because like those are more critical services in

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most cases.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we also see a weird kind of on prem

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which is more of like an instance model, so they

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were giving they were actually giving a box to their

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customers and say, hey, put it in your store. We

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see this in kind of retail type environments, restaurants where

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brick and mortar existed. There's this kind of distributed on

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prem and now you know the like now they want

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to centralize, so really go to the SaaS model rather

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than all these distributed nodes, and then you know, getting

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data out of all those nodes to do BI solutions

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was a challenge. There was a lot of interaction with

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those brick and mortar locations. Yeah, all the kind of

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like hang ups between being distributed I call it distributed

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on prem, you know, really starting to show and they

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really want to take the benefit of the cloud and

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centralizing and all the data things that they can do

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for customers, so that I wasn't really expecting.

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Speaker 2: No, I totally got it.

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Speaker 1: Would you say that it's being driven from the like

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software application providers who want to transition to the SaaS

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moll I mean, I'm sure they're going in some cases,

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but or the end users. The companies that have were

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responsible for running their own sort of IT department in

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order to build up a hack data center, which was

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a couple of machines sitting under their desk.

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Speaker 2: Where do you see the poll from?

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Speaker 3: It's both. It's both that the customer wants new features.

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Those new features are going to be deliverable from a

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centralized location. The barrier of entry is reduced using cloud services,

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so the cost of manage is lower. What ended up

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happening is that then the service provider ended up having

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access to those on prem servers to better support them.

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So certainly the IT departments that are trying to run

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like point of sales and do the things that they're

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supposed to do to run those environments. Are wanting a

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better solution. So yeah, I mean there are a few

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in restaurants we definitely see this on prem footprint that

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is required because when you're in a restaurant and you're

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looking at the like in the kitchen, there's this ticket

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management screen that shows the order. You know, some people

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have looked behind the counter and see see it your

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favorite fast food place that they're looking at the order,

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they're preparing the ingredients. It's super fast paced, and if

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that restaurant were to have glitchy Internet, that would disable

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the whole service. So there are practical applications, and then

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those practical applications we're looking at like little Kubernetes clusters

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with you know, surprisingly fault small footprint machines, but you know,

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taking three nooks and turn them into a Kubernetes cluster

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allows you to have some on prem presence for like

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super low latency and fault tolerance, but you still need

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to have everything backed up to the cloud for corporate analytics.

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And so you know, you're running a franchise of restaurants,

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of course you're not going to go talk to all

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those locations at once to understand revenue and things. So

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we are seeing these kind of hybrid environments and Kubernetes

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is making that, of course a lot easier to serve

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them to rent the ICD to then so they get

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updates and such. But there are a couple of applications

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where on prem makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 1: I'm sort of curious there on where the burden and

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responsibility for managing those physical machines that are on prem

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comes from.

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Speaker 2: Is it being managed by the.

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Speaker 1: Third party provider who's offering the service an application, who

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then like sends the knocks to the individual locations and

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manages maintenance, et cetera, patching, et cetera. Or is it

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sort of a shared responsibility model.

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Speaker 3: It's very similar to I mean, like an iPhone or

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something would be very similar automatic updates, but the shared

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responsibility is that, yeah, if you miss use the device,

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then you know, we'll have to give you a new one.

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And so yeah, it's I would say it's a shared

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responsibility model because the physical device is in the location,

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so somebody has to give it power, somebody has to

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plug it into internet access, you know, somebody has to

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do that and hopefully they don't put it right above

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the fryer. Hopefully that has.

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Speaker 2: Happened, you joke.

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Speaker 1: But there's a non truly number of times where I've

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seen an issue with the company on site not knowing

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how to manage the data center effectively and putting it

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in a place which is problematic, not just in the building,

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but choosing another building that's maybe close to an airport

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or difficult to get to in case there's an issue,

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or not well managed, like not like not following appropriate

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codes because they're using a building that wasn't scoped out

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to actually be a data center in some way, and

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then they're being a fire or a flood and having

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a real issue.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the on prem IT or in these franchise situations,

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there is a facilities management function that already exists. I

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mean even the point of sale machines that that you're ordering,

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or the devices that the service staff at the restaurant

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is carrying around to take the order, the things on

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the tables to because sometimes we're doing self ordering now

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where people are ordering their drinks directly from the table.

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So in these cases, there is an IT services company

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that can follow an sop you're sending them the device

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with everything embedded on it that you need, and you're

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giving them some instruction and you're hoping that they will

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follow those instructions so that then you can be responsible

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for keeping the software updated. So I think mobility is

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a great metaphor for what's happening there.

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Speaker 1: And it's your company. Particle forty one is facilitating making

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this happen.

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Speaker 3: We're writing the software and we're setting up the DevOps routines.

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But yeah, our client is the kind of the parent

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provider providing that software to all the restaurants, and then

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of course they're interacting with different franchisees in that particular

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use case. But we've also seen it in retail where

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there was inventory management solution that was on prem that's

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being centralized. So in retail, centralization is possible because the

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loss of Internet doesn't completely bring down the whole place.

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We can just cash up some things locally until Internet

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is restored and do some queuing on prem inside of

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the point of sale device. But we don't have to

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be so fault tolerant that we're shipping a whole Kubernetes

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cluster to the location.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I got it. If it's all right, I

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sort of.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of the really interesting things that you

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mentioned pre show and looking at your pro was the

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number of times that you've been in a position where

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you've had to stand up on your team, like I imagine,

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especially with multiple customers, it's not just one engineer.

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Speaker 2: You're not just body listening.

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Speaker 1: You're really the bining their whole process, potentially doing the

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shift for them. That's a lot of teams that I

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imagine you may have created from the ground up.

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Speaker 2: Is that accurate?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great So we use a special operations

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metaphor here, so we think of ourselves and this sounds grandiose,

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but it's really a great metaphor. The more you know

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about like Green Berets, so green Berets will go behind

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enemy lines and they will recruit from the local militia,

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so from the local people. So if you're a Green Beret,

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typically you know a language, like a specific language like

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Mandarin or something, and then you might also know explosives,

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or you might know you know some kind of offensive skill.

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It's very much similar to that where you are trained

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in training because you are going to be working shoulder

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to shoulder with other folks that maybe don't have the

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same skills as you and are looking to you for

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your expertise and your advice. So our selection us as

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super rigid. You know, sometimes you would even look at somebody,

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we might turn away and go like, well they look great,

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their backgrounds great, and you kind of have to trust

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our process because similar to the special operations, like if

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somebody didn't make it to selection, there's a reason and

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you just kind of trust that. You know, you don't

298
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judge a book by their cover, and so yeah, our

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selection process is really rigid because we know we're going

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to get into a situation where we need to be

301
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trained in training, we need to be ready to pass

302
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on you know, pass on those skills. And then we

303
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don't have any long term agreements. So we we love

304
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to come in and help and the way we earn,

305
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you know, more time with the client is to do

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do good work. And you know, a reward for a

307
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perfectly executed sprint is another perfectly executed sprint. So for us,

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like pressure is a gift. So that's something we kind

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of say across our teams. And each team member has

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two concentric circles that they're operating in so they're operating

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in a team engagement that has a clear mission, clear objectives.

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You know, it's an agile, multi multi disciplined team with

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developers QA, maybe a DevOps person or project manager, front end,

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back end engineers, whatever the particular objective that the client

315
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is trying to reach needs. And then they're also involved

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in a squad, and a squad is really for them

317
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and their professional development, and so squad leaders are helping

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people be what we call T shaped, so not only

319
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have good hard skills, but good soft skills. And then

320
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we reward heavily for self training, so like if you

321
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go get AWS certified, we incentivize you and we love

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to so we really use this kind of special operations

323
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before where training yourself being elite is is what how

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you move up and how you're rewarded. And you know,

325
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we really lean into, you know, how can we be

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the agent that helps a team fill in all those gaps?

327
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And when I say that, when I use team in

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that context, like the client's team, the broader mission team

329
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that we're engaged in. But people still have a place

330
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where they can go and say, man, I'm stressed, I'm

331
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my capacity is getting stretched, and we don't use the

332
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word capability. We use the word capacity. So a lot

333
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of times in our self talk, we're like, man, I

334
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don't know if I'm capable of this. Well, that's a

335
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good indication you just don't have capacity for it yet.

336
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Speaker 1: That's a good way of looking at it. I've come

337
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to a similar conclusion about using the word capability. It

338
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always felt off in some way.

339
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Speaker 2: I am.

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Speaker 1: I am sort of curious though, if there's something you're

341
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doing during the recruitment or hiring process that really stands

342
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out as really the most impactful part of the review

343
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or overall for identifying which candidates will be more successful

344
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in this trainers trainer role.

345
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it almost always involves looking at at code, looking

346
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at at work product, and handling some kind of problem

347
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together and seeing how the candidate performs in that. So

348
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whether they bring up portfolio of code that they've worked

349
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on before and you know, get into it and explain

350
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it and we are impressed by that, or we do

351
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have a series of take home projects we also use

352
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code or byte But what we're really trying to assert

353
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is is what does this person like to work with? Like,

354
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what will they be like when they're on our team?

355
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And then once you once you're in, then certifications are

356
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mandatory for advancement. And so between a combination of those things,

357
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we feel like we meet the selection criteria that would

358
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be successful behind enemy line, so to speak, and and

359
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:23,400
that you have the skills to help and train train

360
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the client's team in areas where they're where they haven't

361
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flushed in. If you've been working on a legacy system

362
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and now we're going to work on modern cloud service,

363
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there are probably gaps that we need to be prepared

364
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to fill, and we want to do that in a

365
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super open way so that there's always this like we

366
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can we can go work on something else at any time,

367
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Like we're constantly keeping you informed as to what we're

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working on and why so so that you don't feel

369
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like you're just moving all your expertise to an outside team.

370
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We want to feel like an inside an inside team.

371
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Speaker 1: No, I mean, that's a pretty healthy perspective to have.

372
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I've seen a lot of consultants come in and try

373
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to encourage after work follow ups a long period of

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time where they're engaged with a company, And at least

375
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from my own perspective, when I worked in a resulting model,

376
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I had a very similar expectation that realistically, I like

377
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:24,960
the day that you don't need me anymore is sort

378
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of a celebration, like we achieved something so that you

379
00:22:28,039 --> 00:22:29,880
know clearly you had a need and now you feel

380
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like you don't, like something must have changed.

381
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we celebrate that. We celebrate that we

382
00:22:37,519 --> 00:22:42,359
can get into a position where and a lot of

383
00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:44,400
our clients we work with them for a long time

384
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:47,640
because that partnership is there and they know exactly what's

385
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:53,079
going on, and so if that's the case, why stop.

386
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So yeah, I think I think it works to our

387
00:22:57,799 --> 00:23:02,759
benefit large percentage of the time. But yeah, you have

388
00:23:02,839 --> 00:23:05,279
to take that risk. I mean, relationships are about risk,

389
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,720
right If you don't if you don't risk yourself, you

390
00:23:07,759 --> 00:23:12,960
won't get to know anybody. And so there's there's always

391
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that inherent risk that Okay, I don't need you anymore,

392
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,119
but it just doesn't really play out in reality. Like

393
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if you're meeting somebody's needs and relationships and you've taken

394
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,680
that risk to show them that you're to be vulnerable

395
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with them and share yourself, then that's where magic happens.

396
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But if you never take that risk and you hold

397
00:23:33,759 --> 00:23:37,680
on to things you're not vulnerable, then then you won't

398
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have any powerful relationships.

399
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree, definitely right on

400
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:45,400
the money there. I do have a I do this

401
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:48,920
question obviously, if building up teams is a common thing

402
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:52,839
that you're doing, I have to ask how you see

403
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,000
whatever is happening in the market.

404
00:23:54,720 --> 00:24:00,279
Speaker 3: Today, Yes, this is this idea, this is that's an

405
00:24:00,319 --> 00:24:04,640
interesting question I have too, Like I, it has always been,

406
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,440
there's always been this catch twenty two of people who

407
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,519
are just starting their journey. I want to get a job. Okay,

408
00:24:11,559 --> 00:24:14,000
well you need experience. Well how do I get experience

409
00:24:14,079 --> 00:24:16,839
without the job? It's like this kind of circular logic.

410
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:20,480
I feel like AI is going to make that worse

411
00:24:21,039 --> 00:24:24,640
because the usually the entry level jobs are the ones

412
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that are heavy typing but low unknowns. So if AI

413
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:35,799
is helping us with those the kind of the typing work,

414
00:24:37,559 --> 00:24:43,160
then the demand for expertise should increase, but kind of

415
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,480
the number of people that it would take to run

416
00:24:45,519 --> 00:24:51,079
a successful project should decrease. I don't have it like

417
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,839
the magical answer for that person who's just starting their career,

418
00:24:55,519 --> 00:24:59,400
other than to take some time to think about the abstraction.

419
00:25:00,559 --> 00:25:03,720
So One of the things we interview for in DevOps

420
00:25:03,799 --> 00:25:08,640
is like network topography. Well, more often than not, most

421
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,440
of the folks have not ever configured a Cisco switch.

422
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,799
It's just you don't do that anymore because you're not

423
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,720
running on prem So to understand like why is an

424
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,960
IP address numbered the way it is? What are internal

425
00:25:20,079 --> 00:25:25,079
ranges versus external ranges? You know, why do you use

426
00:25:25,079 --> 00:25:30,119
a slash eight versus a slash twenty four? And just

427
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,400
asking some of those questions to see what is their

428
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:37,200
networking expertise. So the people who still know the context

429
00:25:37,279 --> 00:25:40,079
of why things are the way they are and think

430
00:25:40,079 --> 00:25:44,279
about the abstraction of how should we work. I call

431
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,759
it working on the business versus in the business. And

432
00:25:47,839 --> 00:25:51,440
as you move up the like up the corporate ladder,

433
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:55,839
you probably work more on than in. And I think

434
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,880
there's just going to be a greater demand for thinking

435
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:03,400
strategically about what we do, not just the details of

436
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,160
what we do right and and kind of getting all

437
00:26:06,319 --> 00:26:10,519
into the details of the syntax, and so I think

438
00:26:10,559 --> 00:26:13,960
it's going to become easier for sure, But the demand

439
00:26:14,039 --> 00:26:17,799
on the higher level knowledge I think will be, uh,

440
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,839
you know, be a lot higher. It's totally opposite of

441
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,759
like when when I started, probably when you started, you know,

442
00:26:24,759 --> 00:26:27,599
knowing how to do memory collection and C plus plus

443
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,480
was just like like that's solid. But if that is

444
00:26:31,559 --> 00:26:35,559
kind of obfuscated now, like who's going to know things

445
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,240
like that? Right? So knowing kind of some of the weeds,

446
00:26:38,279 --> 00:26:42,079
but just really knowing like how to run a successful

447
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:46,559
project and what is good architecture that's going to be

448
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:47,559
that's going to be key.

449
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:48,839
Speaker 2: Yeah.

450
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: I mean I'm sort of with you where I took

451
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,440
a moment and really reevaluated the advice that I was

452
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:59,799
giving to early engineers or ones that haven't even started

453
00:26:59,799 --> 00:27:02,839
their career yet, because what I have been saying historically

454
00:27:03,039 --> 00:27:04,640
may have been, you know, we have this idea of

455
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:06,799
being T shaped that means sort of understanding a lot

456
00:27:06,839 --> 00:27:09,400
of things, but being deep in one area. And I

457
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,400
do feel like the sides of the tea are sort

458
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:14,160
of crumbling a little bit because the barrier for being

459
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,079
able to deliver on them is now much lower.

460
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,079
Speaker 2: But I don't think the as.

461
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: You put it, the expertise is still needed and so

462
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,119
still figuring out where to go deep is super important

463
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:27,519
and figuring out like I hear a lot of people say

464
00:27:27,519 --> 00:27:29,480
oh yeah, I want to go into like cloud security,

465
00:27:29,519 --> 00:27:32,480
and I you know, think to myself like, well, I

466
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:34,880
feel like I'm in cloud security and there's like six

467
00:27:35,079 --> 00:27:40,200
different fundamental areas, like whether you're red teaming or blue teaming,

468
00:27:40,279 --> 00:27:43,000
and there's you know, purple teaming, green teaming, yellow team.

469
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,359
I think there's a lot in there with a whole

470
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,200
bunch of different things. And do you want to prefer

471
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,720
attacking networks or trying to defend them? Are just an

472
00:27:50,759 --> 00:27:53,440
easy way of breaking it apart, and a lot of

473
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,279
people don't have answers to that. They're just like, you know,

474
00:27:55,319 --> 00:27:58,039
they hear some words or see some job titles and say,

475
00:27:58,079 --> 00:28:00,599
oh that's cool. But I feel like trying to figure

476
00:28:00,599 --> 00:28:02,440
out where your expertise is going to be as you

477
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,880
put it, understanding, you know, dive into the networks, understand

478
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,119
what's going on there, or how to set up these tools.

479
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:10,599
Someone has to do that. You mentioned the C plus

480
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:12,880
plus memory management. Yeah, no one has to do that anymore,

481
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:17,359
but someone is building. Someone is building Rust compilers, and

482
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:21,279
so understanding how what important aspects are for memory management

483
00:28:21,319 --> 00:28:23,880
still is absolutely a thing and just being like oh, yeah,

484
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:25,799
I'm going to learn some programming language, like that's no

485
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,440
longer a barrier for entry, an obstacle or a benefit.

486
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:31,960
You need to find something that actually you care about

487
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:33,000
and want to dive into.

488
00:28:33,799 --> 00:28:39,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the debate there is generalism versus speciality,

489
00:28:40,279 --> 00:28:42,759
and I don't know if this settles the debate at all.

490
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:48,920
Like generalism will absolutely be of higher reward than it

491
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:54,720
was before, but so will speciality. Like you know, here's this,

492
00:28:55,119 --> 00:28:58,799
you know, ten thousand lines of AI generated code that's

493
00:28:58,839 --> 00:29:02,640
been probably you know, several user queries into a chat,

494
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,759
GPT or a copilot or whatever, and now it's all

495
00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:09,880
come together. But if the architecture was wrong to start with,

496
00:29:10,759 --> 00:29:14,000
then did we really do did we really accomplish anything?

497
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,079
And then let's say the architecture was okay to start with,

498
00:29:17,559 --> 00:29:21,400
but there's issues. Who now digs into that? I mean

499
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,839
certainly not the person who kind of clumbed it together

500
00:29:24,559 --> 00:29:27,680
asking copilot a bunch of questions. So there's going to

501
00:29:27,759 --> 00:29:31,440
be this reward for being able to go deep and

502
00:29:31,519 --> 00:29:35,359
this reward for knowing multiple things. And I don't know

503
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:36,400
if it's in either.

504
00:29:36,279 --> 00:29:39,319
Speaker 2: Or Yeah, no, I'm totally with you.

505
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: One of my favorite interviews ever has been really asking

506
00:29:43,599 --> 00:29:46,200
to get someone to design a system, and I still

507
00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:51,039
feel like the code is bad for lms that are

508
00:29:51,079 --> 00:29:54,039
generating stuff, let alone trying to describe what the appropriate

509
00:29:54,079 --> 00:29:57,759
components are that makes sense for the business problem, not

510
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,680
just like oh yeah, I hook up the like these

511
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:04,720
network devices with these block stores and I have a

512
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,000
solution like no, actually understanding what the domain components are

513
00:30:08,319 --> 00:30:11,400
that are relevant and asking about how you would design

514
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,319
that system, because I feel like that's the sort of

515
00:30:13,359 --> 00:30:17,119
thing where you still really aren't able to get any

516
00:30:17,119 --> 00:30:21,000
sort of automated created solution that matches perfectly what your

517
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:22,720
business is and then be able like okay, well why

518
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,640
would you do it that way? You know, what are

519
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,359
the trade off there? And then trying to understand that

520
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,480
even the code being generated, well, we were always generating

521
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,000
code in some way, you know, we were generating binary

522
00:30:33,119 --> 00:30:36,559
or then assembly, some sort of machine language, and then

523
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,440
some still higher level abstractions.

524
00:30:40,519 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 2: But this is another one on top.

525
00:30:43,559 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, A couple of things come up there. One is

526
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:49,680
we have a team that I'm super proud of. They've

527
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,519
won multiple awards in their ability to create VR experiences

528
00:30:54,559 --> 00:30:58,440
for a client who's in the safety space, and so

529
00:31:00,519 --> 00:31:03,680
they can't use any form of AI for code generation

530
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:08,440
because the physics engine is all proprietary to our client.

531
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:14,519
So we really need to fully understand that the environmental

532
00:31:14,559 --> 00:31:19,000
engine that we're working with, because the company's value increases

533
00:31:19,079 --> 00:31:22,400
as we increase the capabilities of that core engine. And

534
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,519
then the experiences are just kind of the assembly of

535
00:31:25,559 --> 00:31:31,440
it all into the relevant experience, you know, safe gun handling, safe,

536
00:31:31,599 --> 00:31:37,559
safe forklift operation, these kind of like high risk training environments,

537
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,960
and and so there are going to be cases where

538
00:31:42,599 --> 00:31:44,759
you don't even you don't even want to put a

539
00:31:44,839 --> 00:31:47,880
line of that code into a GPT because that is

540
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:52,799
proprietary and that is irrelevant to the public. And so yeah,

541
00:31:52,839 --> 00:31:55,079
you still have to know what you're doing, so that

542
00:31:55,079 --> 00:31:56,559
that definitely comes up there that there will be a

543
00:31:56,599 --> 00:32:01,799
lot of use cases where the button is is not

544
00:32:01,799 --> 00:32:06,240
not applicable. What we are seeing though, is the evolution

545
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:12,240
of id E integrated with you know, with the and

546
00:32:12,319 --> 00:32:16,480
that is just speeding up typing like phenomenally. Well, so hey,

547
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,240
rite the controller for this right the and it's kind

548
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:24,160
of adhering to the framework, it's adhering to best practices

549
00:32:24,279 --> 00:32:26,079
as best it can. So yeah, you still need to

550
00:32:26,119 --> 00:32:29,720
be asking it the right questions. We're just excited about

551
00:32:29,759 --> 00:32:33,839
the reduction in typing the and so then the reduction

552
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:39,079
in possible errors, and that feels very cybernetic and feels

553
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:42,680
like really cool, right, That feels like a hood or

554
00:32:42,799 --> 00:32:46,759
something that's giving you intel in real time. So we're

555
00:32:46,799 --> 00:32:49,960
excited about that, but cautiously optimistic as well.

556
00:32:50,519 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: It's not super critical to understanding how to do the

557
00:32:54,799 --> 00:32:57,200
job more as just a tool that you can bring

558
00:32:58,160 --> 00:32:59,920
to execute effectively.

559
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 3: Yes, and and that we like, like the idea of

560
00:33:04,799 --> 00:33:09,920
less keystrokes. I think as programmers we've always liked those ideas, right, like,

561
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:14,279
helped me bang on the keyboard less cool? But when

562
00:33:14,319 --> 00:33:17,599
it's telling you how that seems problematic.

563
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:18,319
Speaker 2: Yeah.

564
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:20,559
Speaker 1: I mean for me, it's always there was always a

565
00:33:20,599 --> 00:33:25,160
struggle where the bottleneck was never the speed at which

566
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,039
I could type. And maybe that's just because I'm a

567
00:33:27,119 --> 00:33:31,200
terrible hands on engineer and that I like thinking through problems.

568
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 3: Now, you're right, the actual business problem or the you know,

569
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:39,039
what should it do totally is more more important because yeah,

570
00:33:39,519 --> 00:33:42,880
you can create it. You can create a mess or

571
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:47,039
a bad user experience faster. That doesn't really kind of

572
00:33:47,319 --> 00:33:48,480
cancels each other out.

573
00:33:49,039 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's not like a thing getting to the wrong

574
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:54,680
answer faster is somehow better here because you don't necessarily

575
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,480
know that it's wrong without really diving into and evaluating it.

576
00:33:58,559 --> 00:34:01,680
So there is this trade off. For sure, you almost

577
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:03,559
need to be an expert to know that it's bad,

578
00:34:03,759 --> 00:34:06,920
and at that point it sort of reduces its viability

579
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,960
and it's not even the right answer in some circumstances.

580
00:34:10,119 --> 00:34:12,920
So I do want to ask if.

581
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:14,639
Speaker 2: You know, since you're building so many of these teams,

582
00:34:14,639 --> 00:34:15,400
both on your.

583
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: Side and also on the client side, I assume you're

584
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,679
pulling from the market a lot, you're pulling from recent graduates.

585
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,360
Maybe you can settle the age old debate like how

586
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:30,360
critical are having cloud certificates to prove you've learned something

587
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,119
from one of the cloud writers before having a job, or.

588
00:34:33,079 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 3: The experience matter for hiring them. So Special Operations is

589
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:45,199
all about selection criteria, so if you had the ability

590
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:47,599
to go, get it. So I use that metaphor as

591
00:34:47,639 --> 00:34:53,400
a guiding almost like adding principle. So it's not that

592
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,440
the certifications are really this must have good to have it.

593
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,440
It's more around why not have it? So in a

594
00:35:00,519 --> 00:35:03,800
competitive market space, in a market space where we want

595
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:09,360
to give objective measure to our expertise. I think certifications

596
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:13,440
serve an amazingly good purpose. And in the AFS world,

597
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,280
the professional certifications, like the higher up certifications are really difficult.

598
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:22,920
They require a lot of so a lot of understanding

599
00:35:23,039 --> 00:35:26,960
of the different things and the different vocabulary, and so

600
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,719
we love that we give significant rewards to people as

601
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:35,639
they get certified and move up, our partnership with AWS

602
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,519
is increased and leverage. So there's a lot of business reasons,

603
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,039
and that's why we do incentivize certification because it is

604
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:47,800
my aim is for me and for them. But I

605
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:51,239
want to be honest about that. You know, anytime somebody's

606
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,719
aim is for you and for them, but you don't

607
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:57,840
talk about what you get out of it, you feel

608
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:00,000
like it always feels like a sale or a space

609
00:36:00,079 --> 00:36:03,280
in And so we're really clear, like it does help

610
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,400
us as a company for you to spend the time,

611
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,239
and so we want to reward you for that. But

612
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,440
that's how I feel about it, like why not get

613
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,320
them for an objective measure of something that you've learned.

614
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:21,239
I don't totally like secondary education around computer science really

615
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,920
needs to improve, really needs to improve, because a lot

616
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,239
of people are coming out of school not understanding some

617
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:33,639
of the fundamental things, and so that's where I think.

618
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:39,639
I don't necessarily think a degree over experience is the

619
00:36:39,679 --> 00:36:44,880
same as a certification. Of course, it's experience. The way

620
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,360
I would see it as its experienced certifications degree in

621
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,280
that order is how I feel.

622
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 2: I think I will like maybe fight you a little

623
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:54,159
bit on this.

624
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of the education system in humanity today.

625
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:02,320
I almost want to go push for like a full

626
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:06,119
apprenticeship sort of strategy, although I see there's a lot

627
00:37:06,159 --> 00:37:09,480
of downsides there as well. The one thing I'll say,

628
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,639
having hired a lot of engineers from different backgrounds, is

629
00:37:14,159 --> 00:37:18,039
the lack of understanding data structures and algorithms that come

630
00:37:18,119 --> 00:37:21,199
out of let's say boot camps or have only gone

631
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,480
through the certification route. That's like the one thing I

632
00:37:23,559 --> 00:37:26,840
think was super valuable. Everyone who goes through some sort

633
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:32,039
of education based higher academic career does sort of force

634
00:37:32,079 --> 00:37:34,159
to learn about Like I don't care if you know

635
00:37:34,199 --> 00:37:36,280
how to write a function to do a binary search,

636
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,199
or what a red black tree or a nested spanning

637
00:37:40,199 --> 00:37:43,320
tree or basically graph like whatever.

638
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 2: But you've heard what those words are and if.

639
00:37:45,159 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: I say, like linked lists, you'd be like, oh, oh no,

640
00:37:47,599 --> 00:37:50,360
not one of those, but you would know that it's

641
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,679
a thing that you could go look up. And without that,

642
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,079
I do feel like there is a missing sort of

643
00:37:56,119 --> 00:38:00,559
foundation that makes some conversations difficult because you'll see, oh,

644
00:38:00,599 --> 00:38:02,639
you know, why is my program so slow? And I'd be like, well,

645
00:38:02,639 --> 00:38:04,480
you know, test it. It's like, well, I'm not sure

646
00:38:04,519 --> 00:38:06,559
how like I'm not sure how to actually validate that

647
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:08,880
or why it's so slow, Like how do I dig

648
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:10,840
into that? And I feel like understanding that there are

649
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,360
some tools out there and asymptotic complexity and I just

650
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,000
said a lot of words here, and you know, I

651
00:38:16,039 --> 00:38:17,519
think that's the sort of thing that you get.

652
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:18,599
Speaker 2: More accustomed to those.

653
00:38:18,679 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I over agree overall there that

654
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,119
there's like the certifications are not a replacement for experience,

655
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,679
but the professional ones they do carry this sort of

656
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,960
you had to learn those important concepts in order to

657
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:34,400
pass those sorts, not like the associate ones. So like,

658
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:36,320
you know, forget about the associate ones form aws. The

659
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,000
ones that make the difference are for sure the professional.

660
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I agree with your like, I agree with

661
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,280
what you're saying those fundamental courses are yeah, those are big.

662
00:38:47,599 --> 00:38:48,199
Those are big.

663
00:38:51,119 --> 00:38:54,039
Speaker 1: So I wish I wish I could have a better

664
00:38:54,119 --> 00:38:58,039
understanding of macroeconomics here, because I don't understand why there

665
00:38:58,039 --> 00:39:01,280
have been so many layoffs recently. And I think my

666
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,719
theory is a lot of companies messed up in the

667
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,039
last few years and over hiring, not having a clear

668
00:39:08,079 --> 00:39:11,199
business model or a business strategy, or understanding how money

669
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:13,199
is going to come in, and went down the path

670
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,320
up hiring and proving that you could somehow turn around

671
00:39:16,639 --> 00:39:20,559
have high revenue and also high expense and that's you know,

672
00:39:20,599 --> 00:39:22,880
maybe a little negative whatever someone will pay for it.

673
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,760
And now the money's not coming in and they have

674
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:26,320
to let.

675
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,519
Speaker 2: Lots of people go. I don't know that. They're like,

676
00:39:29,559 --> 00:39:31,400
I don't think AI has really anything to do with that.

677
00:39:33,599 --> 00:39:36,159
Speaker 3: There are something I would agree with that, I don't

678
00:39:36,199 --> 00:39:38,599
think it has anything to do with it either, But

679
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:43,239
the power of the raised interest rate, I feel like

680
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:48,280
it's collapsed VC almost altogether. And so now startups are

681
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,840
you don't like, the startup community is super criticled right now,

682
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,000
and so where that would take some really, that would

683
00:39:57,039 --> 00:40:00,880
take on some innovative folks that maybe had a lot

684
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,440
of experience, We're willing to take a risk for equity.

685
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:06,639
I just think that part of the market is really

686
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:12,039
missing and languishing right now. And then that tail, the

687
00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:15,440
startup becoming a medium sized company or becoming like that

688
00:40:15,599 --> 00:40:21,280
tail is now injured for quite some time. So yeah,

689
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:23,719
I think we just we had it really good for

690
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:26,920
a long time with with money being available and a

691
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:29,079
lot of people willing to take risk because the cost

692
00:40:29,119 --> 00:40:33,280
of money was so low, and yeah, the tail here

693
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,360
is going to be an interesting tale to live with.

694
00:40:36,519 --> 00:40:41,679
And then what is the additional impact from AI? So

695
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,239
I mean, we're I don't like to operate out of fear,

696
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,639
and so I'm not I'm not afraid. I think what

697
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:54,119
we're using this opportunity to do is is just improve

698
00:40:54,159 --> 00:40:57,000
our expertise, improve how we work as a team, to

699
00:40:57,119 --> 00:41:02,760
be as elite as we POSSI can be, and and

700
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,119
then see just really hone in on the kind of

701
00:41:06,119 --> 00:41:09,840
customers we want to work with and just really doing

702
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:12,000
our absolute best on every engagement.

703
00:41:12,679 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: That's a really good perspective, I think because historically you

704
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,360
could maybe like maybe you've had less debt coming out

705
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,400
of university and so you could maybe sit in the

706
00:41:23,519 --> 00:41:25,800
you know, right into a startup job and then it

707
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,000
was funded for a while, so you had enough to

708
00:41:28,039 --> 00:41:30,360
pay off debts and then get some equity and then

709
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:32,719
you could make it. But without the equity coming in

710
00:41:33,039 --> 00:41:35,519
or the funding coming into the companies, the equity doesn't

711
00:41:35,519 --> 00:41:36,559
work with anything anymore.

712
00:41:36,599 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 2: I think we see a lot of startup companies.

713
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 1: Realizing they can't sell people on getting equity. I think

714
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:45,280
I think a solution here could be just less like

715
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:50,599
lower software engineering job, pay over time to put it

716
00:41:50,639 --> 00:41:52,239
in nine and then it would be much easier to

717
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,599
hire people and it wouldn't be the glamorous role everyone

718
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:57,639
saw it to be in the past, but I think

719
00:41:57,639 --> 00:41:58,880
would be way more sustainable.

720
00:41:59,039 --> 00:42:03,760
Speaker 3: And I think you saw a very similar trend in legal,

721
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,440
Like there were a ton of lawyers and so now

722
00:42:06,639 --> 00:42:10,880
lawyers have had to provide a service they you know,

723
00:42:11,159 --> 00:42:16,559
like that the market was flooded with all these folks

724
00:42:16,599 --> 00:42:21,159
thinking that they could that that a law degree ensured success,

725
00:42:21,199 --> 00:42:23,159
and now they've all had to figure out, well, Okay,

726
00:42:23,199 --> 00:42:24,960
what what is it that I really want to do

727
00:42:25,079 --> 00:42:28,119
to add value? Like being just being a lawyer isn't enough.

728
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,320
I need to figure out my my niche, and I

729
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:34,679
think that's the same for technologists, like you got to

730
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,880
kind of figure out like what your what your value

731
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:44,360
prop is. Passionate Programmer, like Chad was written in a time,

732
00:42:46,559 --> 00:42:48,840
was written in a time where it was kind of

733
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,280
pre this VC craze, and so I think Passionate Programmer

734
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,400
is still a really great book. And then I think

735
00:42:55,440 --> 00:43:01,800
we'll see bootstrapping resurgence in bootstrapping where startups really need

736
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,719
to validate their idea. But I do think that since

737
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:10,360
the barrier is reducing, as salaries come down a little bit,

738
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:13,079
as as things kind of scale back, we'll see that

739
00:43:13,159 --> 00:43:18,960
scrappiness research. I just I have this optimism in in

740
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:22,760
innovation and ingenuity that we'll probably see more of the

741
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,639
Hey if I if I built a thing that was

742
00:43:26,679 --> 00:43:28,679
so much like this other thing, but it had this

743
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:33,400
extra feature. I think we're seeing that with the the

744
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:38,559
AI enabled you know, little video products or little uh

745
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,079
writing products, We're seeing just like, Okay, well I can

746
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:46,000
be as good as that thing with an extra feature.

747
00:43:46,679 --> 00:43:49,880
The getting to as good as is really reduced, Like

748
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,599
I can be as good as some other service really quickly.

749
00:43:53,039 --> 00:43:56,679
It's then happen by differentiate and steal market share. And

750
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:58,559
I think we'll see a lot of startups get super

751
00:43:58,559 --> 00:44:02,960
scrappy about about that. So the fear of the startup

752
00:44:03,039 --> 00:44:05,800
was always that, hey, with no encumbrance of trying to

753
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,960
maintain revenue and maintain overhead, could you come up with

754
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,559
a better idea. I think that'll still be there. It'll

755
00:44:12,599 --> 00:44:17,199
just be from people who know how to really evaluate

756
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:24,079
their core audience and just target exactly what that small

757
00:44:24,079 --> 00:44:29,440
group of people need. Music very much the same way.

758
00:44:29,599 --> 00:44:32,639
Now you don't really see the big, huge monster band

759
00:44:32,679 --> 00:44:36,480
that everybody loves. You see these folks that are probably

760
00:44:36,519 --> 00:44:39,880
making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year as a

761
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,559
solo artist or as a scrap but they're marketing themselves

762
00:44:43,559 --> 00:44:47,559
on social media and they're getting known and they're accumulating

763
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:51,079
enough of an audience to have concerts at big venues

764
00:44:51,119 --> 00:44:55,119
and make a living. Music's been benefiting that for a

765
00:44:55,159 --> 00:45:00,360
long time. Where now there's a bunch of smaller, just

766
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:05,280
smaller artists that feed our eclectic nature for differences. And

767
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:07,960
I think that's really cool.

768
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:11,559
Speaker 1: No, I mean that's a really great perspective actually, because

769
00:45:11,599 --> 00:45:15,119
it really makes me think that there is no giant

770
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:20,000
corporate job that you're a musician of a large you

771
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,039
know business. I mean orchestra may be the one that

772
00:45:22,079 --> 00:45:24,119
comes to mind, or some sort of marching band, or

773
00:45:24,119 --> 00:45:26,599
if you work for a sports team, right, you know,

774
00:45:26,639 --> 00:45:30,199
they usually have large sections, but it's not that big

775
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,280
compared to tech organizations.

776
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:34,039
Speaker 2: And it may mean that.

777
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:38,079
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen the limit and personal brand identification

778
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,559
and then also really pushing that brand forward, like what

779
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,960
is your thing? Being a person on LinkedIn or Facebook

780
00:45:45,079 --> 00:45:46,960
or wherever you want to post and having a blog

781
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:49,840
that explains what you're doing, Like it seems like a

782
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:55,480
personal entrepreneurship change that it really will be the innovation

783
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:57,519
in the tech space going forward.

784
00:45:58,639 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean if you could make us small software

785
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:05,199
that served a particular niche of people, like you know,

786
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:09,840
you made something for physical therapists that just really made

787
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:16,239
their lives easier. Sure, you might not get rich, you

788
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:18,760
might not go Ipo would be my example of that,

789
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:23,239
but if you had a stable base. I think thirty

790
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,159
seven Signals in a way has kind of been this

791
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,159
where you know, they have their their base camp subscribers

792
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,119
and there you know, their kind of area that they've covered.

793
00:46:33,119 --> 00:46:39,679
People who love their software, and they've never taken a

794
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,039
ton of money, they've never gone into a ton of debt.

795
00:46:42,079 --> 00:46:46,440
They just kind of, hey, we're we're fine operating in

796
00:46:46,639 --> 00:46:50,639
the amount of subscribers that we have and seeing what

797
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,320
else they need, right and kind of building into that demand.

798
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,599
So the bootstrapping model, I think is going to come back.

799
00:46:57,639 --> 00:47:01,199
And then the importance of listening to customers and being

800
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,920
willing to take ris for your your million subscribers rather

801
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,400
than trying to go super big. I think that's going

802
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,440
to be really really interesting.

803
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 1: It may not even be that big, honestly, Like I

804
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:15,760
was thinking about this recently, Like think about where you

805
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,800
are a physical location that you have access to that

806
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,079
no one else has access to because it's where you

807
00:47:21,119 --> 00:47:24,480
are at. And so there's some small area and there's

808
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:28,360
some number of software engineers or entrepreneurs technical entrepreneurs per

809
00:47:28,559 --> 00:47:32,119
per capita that are distributed amongst the world in some way,

810
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:35,800
like there are like not every physical therapist office of

811
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:39,119
physical therapy office needs your software, maybe just the ones

812
00:47:39,159 --> 00:47:41,519
in your city or some part of your city, and

813
00:47:41,559 --> 00:47:45,679
that could be your specific niche And like really it's

814
00:47:45,679 --> 00:47:47,159
like who do you know, Like, like what do your

815
00:47:47,199 --> 00:47:49,760
parents do, What do your friends' parents do, what do

816
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:50,400
your friends do?

817
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 2: Et cetera, et cetera in your network?

818
00:47:52,519 --> 00:47:55,320
Speaker 1: Just of those people you know, and I for sure

819
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:58,360
there's someone there who already has some need and that

820
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:02,239
could be your your job to build and maintain that

821
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:03,719
piece of software.

822
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I saw. I think it is one

823
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:10,800
of the thirty seven signals. Guys. He absolutely hated his

824
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:16,920
HOA software because they would they had parking reservations, so

825
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:21,639
there was some kind of app for managing parking, and

826
00:48:22,079 --> 00:48:23,840
like every time he had to use it, he just

827
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,840
like died inside a little bit. And so he rewrote

828
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:30,000
that and sold it to his HOA to replace that

829
00:48:30,559 --> 00:48:32,840
help them get it at a much like what he built.

830
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,480
He sold to them at a much lower price, and

831
00:48:35,559 --> 00:48:38,599
wherever they were getting that software from they could discontinue

832
00:48:38,639 --> 00:48:41,559
that and then he could continue to add the features

833
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,679
for them. And then that grew to a couple other

834
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:52,079
Hoas and it became a kind of a positive investment

835
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,400
right for him. So I agree with you. I think

836
00:48:55,639 --> 00:49:01,039
like maybe that that micro niche We built dock works

837
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:04,880
a few years ago. We built the software called dockworks,

838
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:08,159
and it was you could if you were worked on

839
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:13,159
marine you're in the marine service industry, you really couldn't

840
00:49:13,159 --> 00:49:15,719
find a CRM that allowed you to model the boats

841
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:17,880
or the boat inventory. You could go use like shop

842
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:24,039
Monkey or some of the other workflow management softwares, but

843
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:27,920
in shop Monkey it was a car, so you couldn't

844
00:49:28,119 --> 00:49:30,800
you can put like some boats have four engines, you know,

845
00:49:31,559 --> 00:49:34,079
like tons of engines, so that the modeling was all

846
00:49:34,119 --> 00:49:36,760
wrong and you were like kind of shoehning it. So

847
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:41,039
we started talking to these marine service companies about like,

848
00:49:41,079 --> 00:49:44,320
what do you need that's unique to marine services, And

849
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:47,239
so the core of it was still workflow management, invoiceeing,

850
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:52,159
work orders, that kind of stuff, payment, but to make

851
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:55,559
it tailored for their business. And we ended up selling

852
00:49:55,599 --> 00:49:59,239
that to dock Master, who is a really great home

853
00:49:59,519 --> 00:50:04,599
for that because they helped marinas manage the the slots

854
00:50:05,039 --> 00:50:07,039
for the for the boats. So it had a great

855
00:50:07,079 --> 00:50:12,199
time learning all about marine language because boating is a

856
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:16,440
boating and sailing is a whole other vocabulary. But it

857
00:50:16,519 --> 00:50:19,599
was a really fun, you know, little adventure to build

858
00:50:19,599 --> 00:50:22,840
a SaaS tool and find a really good home for it,

859
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:24,800
and I think overall it was a success.

860
00:50:25,079 --> 00:50:27,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think anyone looked at their ERP system

861
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:32,239
was like I love this, right, I mean, I know

862
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:35,559
a lot of people are using something, and I think

863
00:50:37,639 --> 00:50:40,519
SAP is the you know, the enterprise, big one out there,

864
00:50:40,559 --> 00:50:44,760
but there's it had been an explosion of micro ERP

865
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:48,639
is usually built by the company itself, like we need

866
00:50:48,639 --> 00:50:51,360
something probably from Excel sheets or even a word document

867
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:56,599
or what's the worse emails often and yeah, I mean

868
00:50:56,599 --> 00:50:58,920
that's a really good example of just even managing that

869
00:50:59,039 --> 00:51:02,960
automatically and using your network to find and then build that.

870
00:51:03,159 --> 00:51:06,400
And you didn't even have to be an expert to start, right,

871
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,079
you know. It's like, hey, you know you're suffering in

872
00:51:08,119 --> 00:51:10,920
some way. How do we how do we turn that around?

873
00:51:11,559 --> 00:51:11,760
Speaker 3: Yeah?

874
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 2: Great story.

875
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:14,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. And I think at the at

876
00:51:14,639 --> 00:51:17,280
the core of this, it's like, what is your mindset?

877
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,639
If your mindset is like based on a scarcity, like

878
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,079
oh no, there's you know, there's very few clients in

879
00:51:24,119 --> 00:51:26,679
my space to work with, then of course you will

880
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:32,039
operate as if like it's scarce, right, But and it

881
00:51:32,119 --> 00:51:35,320
may seem cliche to certain folks, but this abundance mindset

882
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,519
of like there is plenty of opportunity. I just have

883
00:51:38,599 --> 00:51:42,360
to apply myself to the opportunity that I find. I

884
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:45,960
think it's just an all around healthier mindset and and

885
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:50,639
I would argue more true, there's tons of opportunity. But

886
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,119
if I hear this a lot from CEOs, well, my

887
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,760
particular group of users is super hard to market to. Like, Okay, well,

888
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,400
if you believe that, then that will of course be true.

889
00:52:01,599 --> 00:52:04,199
Your your audience will be super hard to market to.

890
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:08,800
But re asking the question, well, where are where is

891
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:11,599
my audience? What are they looking at? How can I

892
00:52:11,679 --> 00:52:16,360
be there when they're when they're thinking and consuming content

893
00:52:17,079 --> 00:52:21,000
is opening folks up to a whole new kind of

894
00:52:21,039 --> 00:52:25,159
marketing that usually involves some form of content creation or

895
00:52:25,199 --> 00:52:29,440
like you said, founder branding. But but it just takes

896
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:33,159
that like that belief that they are there. My product

897
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:35,840
is meeting a need. That's why I built it, that's

898
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:38,679
why I love it, and I just need to find

899
00:52:38,679 --> 00:52:41,800
the right way to share this with them. And being

900
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,960
understood is my responsibility. It's not their responsibility to understand.

901
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,800
It's my responsibility to get in front of them and

902
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:53,280
share my product or service as many times as it

903
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,800
is needed for them to for them to see the value.

904
00:52:57,039 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think it's a really great piece of motivation,

905
00:53:00,079 --> 00:53:03,039
motivational wisdom. Mine the one, the one that stuck with

906
00:53:03,119 --> 00:53:08,119
me for a while is like, it wasn't always Google

907
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:11,079
that was the you know, best known search engine in

908
00:53:11,159 --> 00:53:13,719
the world. And I hear way too often that, oh,

909
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:16,079
you know, I can't compete with this company who does

910
00:53:16,119 --> 00:53:19,079
it way better than what I have right now. And

911
00:53:19,199 --> 00:53:21,679
I'm telling you, the company you're competing with isn't Google.

912
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:25,199
So like, you know, you could be the one, like

913
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:26,960
that could be your thing. You know, you weren't the

914
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:29,320
leader and then you became the leader, and understanding what

915
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,559
that difference is, uh, and what it has to be

916
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,760
is really what makes the product successful. And if you

917
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,199
believe that you can't beat them, then for sure, then

918
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:39,639
you're you're not going to do.

919
00:53:39,639 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 3: That, right right, Yeah, I mean yeah, And there's so

920
00:53:43,039 --> 00:53:46,239
many levers for you to be to be different. I mean,

921
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,480
for us, we're in a super competitive space, but I

922
00:53:50,599 --> 00:53:55,880
understand that our relationship with a particular person, a particular

923
00:53:55,920 --> 00:54:00,360
client is what really matters, because then we'll we'll get

924
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,920
the referral, the warm referral, We'll so we're not going

925
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:08,400
to worry about what would other people are in the space.

926
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:10,400
We're going to worry about what we do and do

927
00:54:10,519 --> 00:54:15,239
well and like really double down on our culture and

928
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:17,000
make sure that we work with people who are the

929
00:54:17,079 --> 00:54:20,559
right culture fit for us. And I think in that way,

930
00:54:20,599 --> 00:54:25,280
the world is really big and we'll we'll we'll find

931
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,239
those we will find those people that we can treat

932
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:27,960
really special.

933
00:54:30,599 --> 00:54:31,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear you're.

934
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: Talking about all these different topics that you putting words

935
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,079
to a lot of the thoughts that that I've had.

936
00:54:37,159 --> 00:54:39,920
I wish I had an excuse being someone on prem

937
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:43,880
or using Kupernetes that we can go it by Particle forty.

938
00:54:43,639 --> 00:54:44,320
Speaker 2: One's help here.

939
00:54:45,199 --> 00:54:47,079
Speaker 1: But you know, that's a good good reminder that really

940
00:54:47,079 --> 00:54:49,679
you don't even have to be a fundamentally tech company

941
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:53,920
focused in order to find opportunities for pulling in technology

942
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,760
or changing something that you're doing to reduce costs or

943
00:54:56,840 --> 00:54:58,559
stay ahead of the game, et cetera.

944
00:54:59,119 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 3: Well, that's why I add I did fractional CTO Services

945
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:04,280
or CTO Advisory, And I don't mean for that to

946
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:07,079
be a plug. I just mean that, like I love

947
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:13,880
working on the mindset around entrepreneurialism and the mindset around

948
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:20,960
business growth and the process for that. As I meet entrepreneurs,

949
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:25,639
so many of them are hustling. So things like having

950
00:55:25,639 --> 00:55:28,320
a plan on the page, understanding your mission and values,

951
00:55:28,519 --> 00:55:30,599
what are your ninety day goals? How are you applying

952
00:55:30,599 --> 00:55:34,440
those nineties Just even some time compression from the annual

953
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:37,360
planning cycle to a quarterly planning cycle can be such

954
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:41,599
a game changer, not only for the leader but for

955
00:55:41,679 --> 00:55:44,920
the team too, like, hey, what are we trying to Like, yeah,

956
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:48,920
we set those annual goals, but so time compression. There's

957
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,039
just a lot of things that I'm really passionate about

958
00:55:51,079 --> 00:55:56,800
that I get to expose in that fractional CTO area.

959
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,519
Whether the end result is to many of my fractional

960
00:56:00,519 --> 00:56:03,199
CTO clients, they already have vendors that they're quite happy with,

961
00:56:03,679 --> 00:56:06,800
but they need help with the language. So they want

962
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,760
to speak in results language. The vendor wants to speak

963
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:13,280
in solutions language. We need to have good currency for

964
00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:16,639
how to bridge that gap, and so like, yeah, I

965
00:56:16,679 --> 00:56:22,199
just love working with folks on really the strategy and

966
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:25,079
the business at large, and then how technology accelerates that.

967
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:29,119
Speaker 1: Has there been one particular vertical that seems like it's

968
00:56:29,159 --> 00:56:32,199
been coming up more and more, And say the last

969
00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:35,360
year than historically that you've focused then.

970
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:40,119
Speaker 3: So by design, I love legal services. I built a

971
00:56:40,159 --> 00:56:44,239
company and sold it to Legal Zoom. I love industries

972
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:46,840
that are a little more on the aniquated side because

973
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:51,159
there's just more opportunity for things like robotic process automation

974
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:56,119
or just things that folks feel is going to be

975
00:56:56,679 --> 00:56:59,840
not possible, and so I love that. My first business

976
00:57:00,199 --> 00:57:02,639
in travel, you know, travel was all on a green

977
00:57:02,679 --> 00:57:06,679
screen and so to you know, to do automate automate

978
00:57:06,719 --> 00:57:10,239
travel ticketing, and that just Snowbay thought you could do that,

979
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,519
you'd had to punch into the green screen. So yeah,

980
00:57:13,519 --> 00:57:16,920
I love some of those more antiquated industries that still

981
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:20,360
need still need love and can get to the next level.

982
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:24,039
Speaker 2: I absolutely think that's great.

983
00:57:24,079 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: I remember working at some regulated industries and when it

984
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:30,360
came to software processes, hearing so many times we can't

985
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:30,639
do that.

986
00:57:30,719 --> 00:57:31,679
Speaker 2: We have some regulation.

987
00:57:32,039 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: I like I having known the regulation, I'd like point

988
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:37,760
me to the line that says that we can't as

989
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:42,079
an aerospace or healthcare, because for sure there is nothing

990
00:57:42,159 --> 00:57:45,000
like that there. We can build the process which matches

991
00:57:45,039 --> 00:57:47,599
the regulation, but you do need someone to come in

992
00:57:47,639 --> 00:57:51,320
from the outside that has that mindset has worked either

993
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:54,440
in and around it, or really had the fundamental knowledge

994
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:57,079
about what the regulations are, what works in the industry

995
00:57:57,079 --> 00:57:59,960
as a whole, to apply it to that specific business

996
00:58:00,079 --> 00:58:01,679
to help them over the hurdle.

997
00:58:02,239 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, online advertising has been a really key space for

998
00:58:05,519 --> 00:58:09,880
this because as the privacy is the desire for privacy

999
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:16,239
has increased, the ability to target dynamically has decreased. So

1000
00:58:16,719 --> 00:58:19,800
then there's a lot of like privacy people who can

1001
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:24,079
help you anonymize, like understand that you're anonymizing the information

1002
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:28,639
you're you're still making reasonable decisions on where to where

1003
00:58:28,679 --> 00:58:31,840
to show, what ads, how to make the match, but

1004
00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:33,679
you're just having to be a little safer with it.

1005
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:35,679
So there were a lot of dark arts going on

1006
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:38,639
in online advertising for a long time, and it's cool

1007
00:58:38,679 --> 00:58:43,119
to see folks kind of clean that up. I still

1008
00:58:43,119 --> 00:58:48,159
want email to get fully disrupted, you know, something at

1009
00:58:48,159 --> 00:58:52,519
the intersection of like calendly and spam email and like

1010
00:58:52,559 --> 00:58:56,119
what products and services am I open to hearing about

1011
00:58:58,119 --> 00:59:00,440
and some kind of you know, match make there. I

1012
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:02,039
think email is super broken.

1013
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 1: Do you mean for the getting emails between like in

1014
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:12,320
your personal network or from businesses like transactional.

1015
00:59:11,639 --> 00:59:12,679
Speaker 2: Stuff like orders.

1016
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:16,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just for advertisements, yeah, all all of the above.

1017
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:21,199
Like what I'm experiencing is that I hand out my

1018
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:24,280
calendar link to anybody who I want to speak with,

1019
00:59:25,159 --> 00:59:30,440
and I would love to exchange value, like exchange value,

1020
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:34,199
not even a transaction, but just exchange value. But to

1021
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:39,400
have to meet new people through email is just like

1022
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:41,880
everybody's trying to meet everybody through email and it's just

1023
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:46,119
a big cluster. So some kind of some kind of

1024
00:59:46,199 --> 00:59:48,639
mediary there where I can say, hey, I'm open to

1025
00:59:48,719 --> 00:59:53,440
this type of conversation. You know, LinkedIn has probably taken

1026
00:59:53,519 --> 00:59:57,039
some of that where everybody's now spamming LinkedIn, But it

1027
00:59:57,079 --> 01:00:01,239
seems like some kind of pay at play, like hey,

1028
01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:07,880
I am open to talking to the cloud providers if

1029
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:10,599
you would, you know, if you'll pay a small hourly rate,

1030
01:00:10,679 --> 01:00:14,559
then you can come pitch me. You know, something like this.

1031
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:16,719
Speaker 2: I just read this. I don't remember what it is.

1032
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:20,559
Speaker 1: There is for sure this product that is like subject

1033
01:00:20,599 --> 01:00:24,400
Matter Experts for sale where people can actually search for that.

1034
01:00:24,519 --> 01:00:28,599
I don't recall what the product was that was doing it.

1035
01:00:28,599 --> 01:00:32,000
It's one of the fractional spaces that I'm in. Suggested

1036
01:00:32,039 --> 01:00:34,199
that as an option. I haven't really checked it out,

1037
01:00:34,239 --> 01:00:37,800
but that's what that sort of reminds me of my company. Actually,

1038
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,760
we've gone down the whole part like middle area, like

1039
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:44,920
not quite the advertisement, but giving out personal like individualized

1040
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:48,719
email addresses to people per product they log in with,

1041
01:00:48,840 --> 01:00:52,840
so like we're a login provider and also everything else

1042
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:55,280
for in the B to B space and for the

1043
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:58,639
end users, individual email addresses for them, so that only

1044
01:00:58,679 --> 01:01:02,159
that particular target can email them with the things that

1045
01:01:02,199 --> 01:01:05,320
they are expecting from there, and that I think really

1046
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:06,599
cuts down on some of the noise.

1047
01:01:06,639 --> 01:01:09,199
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously we're not their only email provider.

1048
01:01:09,599 --> 01:01:12,519
Speaker 1: In that regard, but it does help eliminate when that

1049
01:01:12,679 --> 01:01:15,760
email provider gets popped or you know, our customer who

1050
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:19,119
is set up somewhere and they s build their whole

1051
01:01:19,199 --> 01:01:22,280
database of email addresses. Well, like we can just shut

1052
01:01:22,280 --> 01:01:24,559
that off because of a unique idea in.

1053
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:25,480
Speaker 2: Each one of those.

1054
01:01:25,519 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's they're for sure a bunch of different

1055
01:01:27,519 --> 01:01:31,159
levels here that just don't have good solutions for Yeah.

1056
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of noise.

1057
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:36,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think that's probably a good leaving off

1058
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:39,880
point rather than opening that can of worms to go

1059
01:01:40,079 --> 01:01:40,599
further in.

1060
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:43,159
Speaker 2: And I'll say, should we do some picks?

1061
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:46,960
Speaker 3: Sure? Sure, yeah, I think my pick for today is

1062
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:50,960
a book. The author's name as Byron Katie and the

1063
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:55,480
book is called Loving. What is the kind of the

1064
01:01:55,559 --> 01:01:59,360
gist of it is? We all have thoughts that are

1065
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:05,199
kind of stories we tell ourselves, you know. Maybe the

1066
01:02:05,199 --> 01:02:08,719
little edgy metaphor is like when my wife pulls the

1067
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:12,079
pillow up in front of her in between us at night, like, well,

1068
01:02:12,119 --> 01:02:14,400
my life, my wife doesn't like me, so that may

1069
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:18,119
be a thought that I have at that particular moment,

1070
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:23,079
and so she goes through a somewhat of a meditative diagno,

1071
01:02:23,239 --> 01:02:26,480
like a meditative process of asking like what is the thought?

1072
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:29,519
Is that thought true? Like can you know for sure

1073
01:02:29,559 --> 01:02:32,639
that that thought is true? And then what would your

1074
01:02:32,679 --> 01:02:36,320
life be like without the thought? And then a turnaround,

1075
01:02:36,360 --> 01:02:39,599
which is you kind of say the thought, well maybe

1076
01:02:39,679 --> 01:02:42,519
I don't really like me or you, you know you

1077
01:02:42,519 --> 01:02:48,360
you try different possibilities around around that thought, and what

1078
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:54,400
you're trying to arrive at is like a more to

1079
01:02:54,519 --> 01:02:57,880
observe reality, being a lover of reality, rather than these

1080
01:02:57,880 --> 01:03:00,760
stories that we tell ourselves. If you can't take a

1081
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:04,800
picture of it, it's not actually true. It's this meaning

1082
01:03:04,840 --> 01:03:07,960
that I'm interpreting from the events around me, the story

1083
01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:10,880
that I tell myself about that. And I find that,

1084
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:15,000
like our problems, our problems become problems because of the

1085
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:17,760
way we think about them. And so I'm just really

1086
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:20,559
enjoying this book. I'm kind of savoring it because it's

1087
01:03:20,599 --> 01:03:23,840
this uh you know, it's really helping with like negative

1088
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:28,760
self talk and just like, well, is that really true

1089
01:03:30,559 --> 01:03:33,760
that you know I have horribly critical I think in

1090
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:37,079
the past I've had a horribly critical self talk, and

1091
01:03:37,119 --> 01:03:40,119
so kind of grabbing those thoughts, those negative self talk

1092
01:03:40,199 --> 01:03:43,760
and then going through this four question process has really

1093
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:48,760
helped to transform my self talk into something more true

1094
01:03:49,519 --> 01:03:51,800
than the meanings that I was, you know, more an

1095
01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:56,360
appreciator of reality rather than than the man, you're such

1096
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:59,440
an idiot, you know you were you missed that meeting

1097
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:02,760
again or or whatever, like so like is that true?

1098
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:06,400
And I know for sure that that is true? And yeah,

1099
01:04:06,480 --> 01:04:09,840
so Loving What Is by Byron Katie.

1100
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:13,719
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like definitely on the road to enlightenment there,

1101
01:04:16,039 --> 01:04:19,159
it's a good book. Yeah, I mean the things that

1102
01:04:19,159 --> 01:04:22,639
come to mind for me on that are people project

1103
01:04:22,639 --> 01:04:25,039
a lot like you don't know how it is, and

1104
01:04:25,079 --> 01:04:28,440
you often substitute what you own, what you think you

1105
01:04:28,440 --> 01:04:30,880
would do in a circumstance for what is actually happening.

1106
01:04:31,559 --> 01:04:32,519
Speaker 2: So it comes from internal.

1107
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:34,800
Speaker 1: The other one, I think the life lesson that I

1108
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:37,639
learned a long time ago was it's probably not about you.

1109
01:04:39,320 --> 01:04:41,920
And that's sort of a hard one to get through because

1110
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:44,559
you know, it's my life, like everything's about me, and

1111
01:04:44,679 --> 01:04:48,000
realizing that, like, whatever is happening, especially like people responding

1112
01:04:48,039 --> 01:04:51,599
to emails or messages, like it probably literally.

1113
01:04:51,199 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 2: Has nothing to do with you, of why someone's not responding.

1114
01:04:55,519 --> 01:04:58,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a calendly link. I give it to

1115
01:04:58,039 --> 01:05:00,840
all my clients like hey, but you know, really inviting

1116
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:03,000
them to any of my free time if they want

1117
01:05:03,039 --> 01:05:07,400
to discuss something. And I love that. But one particular client,

1118
01:05:07,480 --> 01:05:09,679
I just like I was dreading the meeting that was

1119
01:05:09,719 --> 01:05:12,400
coming up that they had kind of spontaneously booked, and

1120
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:15,599
so I a journal to kind of work through these

1121
01:05:15,679 --> 01:05:19,960
these thoughts like why am I dreading this meeting? What

1122
01:05:20,039 --> 01:05:22,840
is it that? What is the thought? First off, like oh,

1123
01:05:22,880 --> 01:05:27,159
they're they're probably going to complain, and like, well is

1124
01:05:27,199 --> 01:05:30,639
that really true? And is there is there anything about

1125
01:05:30,639 --> 01:05:34,760
our performance. That's really sure, there could be, but I

1126
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,400
don't see it. And what I came to was that

1127
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:42,239
they probably just need help. So for me, I went from, oh,

1128
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:45,079
my goodness, I'm dreading this meeting because they're probably going

1129
01:05:45,159 --> 01:05:47,800
to complain. I was already getting ready to be defensive.

1130
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:51,119
I was even processing what they might complain about and

1131
01:05:51,119 --> 01:05:52,880
how I was going to defend that. And I was

1132
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:57,480
in the super defensive cycle and the meeting hadn't even

1133
01:05:57,519 --> 01:06:01,639
happened yet. So then by kind of processing through it

1134
01:06:01,679 --> 01:06:04,480
and going through those four questions, I was like, you know,

1135
01:06:04,559 --> 01:06:07,960
what's what's actually true is that they need help. They've

1136
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:11,679
they've scheduled this meeting with me because they need help.

1137
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:14,480
They're investing in technology, they want to make sure that

1138
01:06:14,519 --> 01:06:18,159
there's ROI they need help to make sure. Wait, that's

1139
01:06:18,159 --> 01:06:21,000
what I'm here for. That's actually my purpose, that's that's

1140
01:06:21,000 --> 01:06:24,639
my mission. And so then I got really excited to

1141
01:06:24,639 --> 01:06:27,639
tend like a complete turnaround to like, Wow, I get

1142
01:06:27,639 --> 01:06:29,880
to go to this meeting because I get to help

1143
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:35,079
this client figure out, you know, their concerns. And you know,

1144
01:06:35,239 --> 01:06:38,639
maybe two percent of that meeting was constructive criticism. The

1145
01:06:38,679 --> 01:06:43,159
rest of it was just helping them move just strategically

1146
01:06:43,239 --> 01:06:47,480
through what they were what they were doing. And yeah,

1147
01:06:47,559 --> 01:06:49,559
so to be able to turn that feeling of dread

1148
01:06:49,559 --> 01:06:53,719
into feeling of excitement was was kind of what I picked.

1149
01:06:53,519 --> 01:06:56,159
Speaker 2: Up from this pick amazing.

1150
01:06:57,599 --> 01:07:01,320
Speaker 1: Okay, so I actually have two picks for today. The

1151
01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:05,119
first one is, I think as a show, we're thinking

1152
01:07:05,119 --> 01:07:10,719
about adding sponsorships for anyone that's interested in having their

1153
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:12,519
little blurb be something that we.

1154
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:14,239
Speaker 2: Say and share with our audience.

1155
01:07:14,280 --> 01:07:16,159
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone's actually interested in that, but

1156
01:07:16,239 --> 01:07:19,239
I'll drop that there. Something will And I decided and

1157
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:21,639
the official pick for today will be a book by

1158
01:07:21,679 --> 01:07:23,559
Adam Grant called Give and Take.

1159
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:26,239
Speaker 2: It's about how the world is made.

1160
01:07:26,079 --> 01:07:30,239
Speaker 1: Up of potentially different kinds of personas that fall into givers,

1161
01:07:30,320 --> 01:07:34,639
takers and matchers, and who is most successful in different

1162
01:07:34,719 --> 01:07:38,199
sorts of engagements and environments and what that means and

1163
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:41,800
how you can recognize who is which one and what

1164
01:07:41,960 --> 01:07:45,039
kind you are and what that means for your relationships

1165
01:07:45,079 --> 01:07:46,639
and how you can work efficiently.

1166
01:07:49,079 --> 01:07:52,599
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that. Given. Yeah, I was

1167
01:07:52,639 --> 01:07:55,840
once in a group exercise. It was about thirty people

1168
01:07:55,880 --> 01:07:58,400
in the group, and we had been in the group

1169
01:07:58,480 --> 01:08:01,119
for it was like a multi day event. We've been

1170
01:08:01,159 --> 01:08:03,639
in the group for a couple of hours, right, had

1171
01:08:03,639 --> 01:08:07,760
the opportunity to and to introduce ourselves. And the exercise

1172
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:11,440
at the end of the first day was to go

1173
01:08:11,480 --> 01:08:15,360
around the circle and as you went around the circle,

1174
01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:17,960
you would either call the person a giver or a taker,

1175
01:08:18,760 --> 01:08:21,479
and then the number, the number of givers that you

1176
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:25,199
got was tallied versus the you know, so you didn't

1177
01:08:25,199 --> 01:08:27,520
get any points for the takers with the number of givers.

1178
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:30,680
And then we stack ranked ourselves and I was I

1179
01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:35,159
was like at the end of the list. So the

1180
01:08:35,199 --> 01:08:38,399
way I had shown up at that particular event within

1181
01:08:38,479 --> 01:08:42,840
the first you know, hours of the event was more

1182
01:08:43,199 --> 01:08:45,359
like a taker than a giver. And it was this

1183
01:08:45,560 --> 01:08:50,239
really interesting objective measure. The people who were towards the

1184
01:08:50,279 --> 01:08:53,960
top of the list were the folks that arrived early.

1185
01:08:54,239 --> 01:08:57,399
They talked to everyone, they made sure that they you know,

1186
01:08:58,239 --> 01:09:01,600
introduced each other, and it was really like a pathway

1187
01:09:01,640 --> 01:09:05,279
to understanding that introversion is more of a mask that

1188
01:09:05,319 --> 01:09:08,760
we wear, you know, that there's this choice to engage

1189
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:12,079
that they had taken more seriously, maybe because of their

1190
01:09:12,159 --> 01:09:15,479
natural personality, maybe that was comfortable for them or more

1191
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:20,000
natural for them, but that my reserved posture did give

1192
01:09:20,039 --> 01:09:24,399
an impression and then when pushed into a binary decision

1193
01:09:24,600 --> 01:09:27,479
that I I didn't rank, well, I love that. I mean,

1194
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:29,119
I didn't love it at the time. It was kind of,

1195
01:09:29,279 --> 01:09:32,000
you know, like, but it was great to get this

1196
01:09:32,119 --> 01:09:34,760
subjective measure of like how I show up in the

1197
01:09:34,800 --> 01:09:36,680
first moments, so that group activity.

1198
01:09:36,800 --> 01:09:40,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's actually sort of a good conclusion there.

1199
01:09:40,039 --> 01:09:42,560
I mean, my realization was a little bit similar. I

1200
01:09:43,439 --> 01:09:46,399
tried to own mine, which is I consider myself a

1201
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:50,279
disagreeable giver and that's you know, I will fight you

1202
01:09:50,319 --> 01:09:53,039
on whatever and the opposite. And I feel like that's

1203
01:09:53,039 --> 01:09:55,279
a much better place for me to be in because

1204
01:09:55,479 --> 01:09:57,199
it also is really difficult for people to see the

1205
01:09:57,199 --> 01:10:03,079
difference between an agreeable taker and a giver. And I

1206
01:10:03,079 --> 01:10:06,880
feel like that's where the book really helps to dive

1207
01:10:06,920 --> 01:10:10,279
into understanding what those patterns are. Because we often associate

1208
01:10:10,279 --> 01:10:12,840
people who will help us, who want to help us,

1209
01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:15,359
who will want to collaborate with us, based off how

1210
01:10:15,399 --> 01:10:18,840
agreeable they are, rather than what they actually care about

1211
01:10:19,119 --> 01:10:21,279
and how they go about the process, what the end

1212
01:10:21,359 --> 01:10:24,239
goal is. And so I highly recommend the book for

1213
01:10:24,319 --> 01:10:27,560
anyone who works on any team or cares about personal relationships.

1214
01:10:28,399 --> 01:10:30,279
Speaker 2: I think it's hugely helpful though cool.

1215
01:10:30,600 --> 01:10:33,279
Speaker 1: So that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much

1216
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:36,640
Ben Jonson for joining us and talking about teams and

1217
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:40,119
automation and going to the cloud and all the challenges there.

1218
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:43,239
It was really a great show to have you on today.

1219
01:10:43,439 --> 01:10:44,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. Thanks, Warren appreciate it.