WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.960 --> 00:00:04.400 All right, what's going on, Let's do another episode of 2 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:06.440 Adventures in DevOps Born. How's it going. 3 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:10.880 Uh, it's a pretty good and Uh. I actually have 4 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:13.960 a fact we're all prepared this week. Uh, and that 5 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:16.879 is we've gotten upgrade to our website, adventures in DevOps 6 00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:20.160 dot com. So if you're listening to the podcast via 7 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:22.480 a different source and you probably don't never see it, 8 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:24.800 you know, here's an opportunity. Uh, you know, don't pay 9 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:26.440 too much attention to it. But I think it's much 10 00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:28.120 better than where we were at before. 11 00:00:29.079 --> 00:00:30.320 Awesome, that's cool. 12 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:33.399 And do you make the new website. I had a 13 00:00:33.719 --> 00:00:34.359 part of the. 14 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:41.600 Dev chat, had a hand in it. Hi, Jillian, welcome back. 15 00:00:42.039 --> 00:00:44.079 Hello, thank you for having me back. 16 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:45.640 Yeah, how's it been going. 17 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:47.479 It's good. It's good. 18 00:00:47.479 --> 00:00:50.439 We had like the snow apocalypse here last week, but 19 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:54.359 this week we're good. We're back to just snow right on. 20 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:55.240 Yeah. 21 00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:00.479 This is my first year living up north and I've 22 00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:03.079 been so happy with the fact that I bought a snowblower. 23 00:01:03.399 --> 00:01:07.159 That's been so much fun. But I don't think. 24 00:01:07.079 --> 00:01:09.120 About getting one for the driveway. But I haven't. 25 00:01:09.439 --> 00:01:11.480 I haven't quite done it yet because there's guys that 26 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:12.560 come to plow so. 27 00:01:12.799 --> 00:01:13.840 I don't know, I don't know. 28 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:19.200 Yeah, highly recommended. It's just a great feeling, just chugging 29 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:25.719 along behind it, blasting the snow. So, Matt Gowie, welcome. 30 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:27.040 Happy to have you on a show. 31 00:01:27.680 --> 00:01:31.120 Yeah, thanks for having me. Nice to meet y'all be here. 32 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:38.079 Yeah. So, Matt, you are you own master Point consulting company, right, 33 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.599 so give us a little bit of the background on that. 34 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:47.879 Yeah, I've run Masterpoints since the end of twenty sixteen. 35 00:01:48.680 --> 00:01:51.680 For a long time it was me as a solo consultant, 36 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:55.400 and then around very beginning of twenty twenty two, I 37 00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:58.439 kind of started to build a team. So we're a 38 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:03.599 boutique consulting shop. We're entirely focused on infrastructure as code nowadays. 39 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:06.239 What that means is particularly terror form and open TOFU 40 00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:10.159 because those are the market winners in infrastructure as code today. 41 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:13.039 And then we do a little bit of work with 42 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:18.680 Polumi and yeah, we help our clients automate, migrate, implement 43 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:21.919 best practices, and really help them build the right workflows 44 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:24.360 on infrastructure so that they don't have that as a 45 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:28.680 bottleneck and they can help their application engineers move fast. 46 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:32.879 Yeah, I mean that's like almost a decade, right, it's close. 47 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:34.599 You must have seen some. 48 00:02:34.919 --> 00:02:38.240 Wild changes that have occurred in the space over that time. 49 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:39.879 Yeah, it's been fun. 50 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:44.319 I got into you know, I always had a background 51 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:48.840 in DevOps. I started in startups where you just a 52 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.960 you wear fifteen different hats and you do whatever you 53 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:57.000 can to help the team move forward. But I didn't 54 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:00.000 get into infrastructure as code specifically. I was really big 55 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.479 an answerable until like twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen maybe, 56 00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:06.639 and then I around zero goot eleven is when I 57 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:10.240 got into terrorforms specifically, and I was like light bulb, 58 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:13.240 got got to get into this more. 59 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.520 This is the way to do things for sure. 60 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:22.719 So I know that, like consultant is like one of 61 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:27.199 the common career paths for people in our industry, and 62 00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:31.680 the big challenge there is always how do you find clients? 63 00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:34.159 You know? And is this a consulting arrangement where I'm 64 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:36.639 technically a full time employee but I don't get any 65 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:41.599 of the benefits. So how how does it look from 66 00:03:41.599 --> 00:03:44.560 your perspective, like what do you look for in a client? 67 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:47.319 How do you approach this whole problem? 68 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:53.240 Yeah, I think being solo is very different than running 69 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:53.840 an agency. 70 00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:58.639 But I think one truism, one you know. 71 00:03:59.080 --> 00:04:02.719 Fact of life that I've found is that you know, 72 00:04:02.759 --> 00:04:05.759 people do business with who they know and who they trust. 73 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:10.599 So referrals are always king within consulting. 74 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:14.120 You know, you'll get a referral from a previous client 75 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:16.240 or a colleague who knows you well and can speak 76 00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:18.800 to Hey, Matt and his team do really good work, 77 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:25.120 and that client that referral, that prospect is ninety percent 78 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:28.519 more likely to you know, sign on the dotted line 79 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:30.240 and trust that, hey, we're going to do a great 80 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:33.879 job for them, then somebody who finds us through SEO 81 00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:38.240 or I've never done outbound email marketing because I don't 82 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:41.839 believe in that as a viable business. But you know, 83 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:44.399 that type of stuff is not the approach that I take. 84 00:04:44.439 --> 00:04:46.839 I take a very like human approach to it, where 85 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:48.519 I go out and network a bunch. 86 00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:49.360 I try and. 87 00:04:50.839 --> 00:04:54.839 Be a good person within my community, and that is 88 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:58.079 the means by which I like really work to try 89 00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:02.079 and bring in business for my coany. For some people, Hey, 90 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:04.360 if you're just getting into consulting, maybe that sounds awful 91 00:05:04.360 --> 00:05:06.199 to you. Maybe you just want to be heads down 92 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:09.000 writing code. You can go and join a consulting shop. 93 00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:11.519 We're hiring every once in a while, so reach out. 94 00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:16.639 For sure. I think that's one of the big surprises 95 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:20.680 for people who take on the consulting route is understanding 96 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:25.079 that you are leaving your one job to take on 97 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:28.839 three jobs, because now you have Job number one is 98 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:33.000 a consultant where you're generating the billable hours. But then 99 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:35.959 job number two is you're an accountant because now you 100 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:38.639 have to do all the taxes and the legal paperwork 101 00:05:38.680 --> 00:05:41.759 and the bookkeeping. And job number three is you are 102 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:45.040 in marketing because you always have to be recruiting and 103 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:48.879 finding your next job once this one wraps up. 104 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:49.879 Yeah. 105 00:05:49.879 --> 00:05:52.920 I mean, I'm with Matt that I don't believe in 106 00:05:52.959 --> 00:05:55.920 the code calling. I don't think those emails work, and 107 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.120 yet I still see I probably get five to six 108 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:02.839 a day from random people on LinkedIn saying, hey, you know, 109 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.800 can we sell you our services whatever it is. They 110 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:07.800 don't even know what my company is doing, and yet 111 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:11.000 they're already like, oh, we know, we can help you. 112 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:16.319 It's just constant. I think if you have any C suite. 113 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:18.560 Level title in your name, I think we all get 114 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:25.639 a insane amount of of both spam email and you know, 115 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:32.360 the the LinkedIn messages and it's just it's just piles up. 116 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:33.319 It's kind of insane. 117 00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:36.199 And I still don't understand how people do it because 118 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:40.439 I can't think of a worse Like I, you know, 119 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:44.319 get ten thousand emails here, you know, maybe that's high, 120 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:47.439 but like I've never responded to one, So. 121 00:06:47.759 --> 00:06:50.680 Yeah, you're you're missing out your opportunity here. I respond 122 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:53.639 to every single one of them with a vengeance, like 123 00:06:54.279 --> 00:06:56.079 like I'm curious, like I really want to know, like 124 00:06:56.279 --> 00:06:59.800 is this person, you know, do they have a competency, 125 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.120 you know, are they looking for something special? I really 126 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:05.480 care about my like LinkedIn network, so I'm always looking 127 00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:07.519 to see, you know, making a connection with an initial 128 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:10.439 person is it worthwhile for them and for me? And 129 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:12.680 so like I'll try to dive into that. And some 130 00:07:12.759 --> 00:07:14.920 of them, you know, actually do turn it around and 131 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:18.600 you know, are able to talk about the subject or 132 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:21.279 the topic. But a lot of times they're just the 133 00:07:23.519 --> 00:07:27.199 partner portal expert or marketing manager or account manager and 134 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:29.120 they have no idea of the thing that they're even 135 00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:31.120 selling in the first place. And I'm like why, like 136 00:07:31.399 --> 00:07:33.680 why did you think this was going to go like like, 137 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:37.240 just walk me through your process here. Step one, connect 138 00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:39.959 with me on LinkedIn, h step two dot do dot 139 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:42.639 step three profit like like, I don't know how as 140 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:43.000 it is. 141 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:44.120 That's pretty good. 142 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:46.279 I would like to invite you to have a conversation 143 00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:50.040 with like some teenagers. It goes, it goes exactly the same, 144 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:51.279 exactly the same. 145 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:57.439 So do you find that a lot of your you know, 146 00:07:57.480 --> 00:08:01.240 you talked about your your network and everything's coming to 147 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:06.199 you or your your most likely sources through referrals. Is 148 00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:09.680 that within your community or is that online? Does that 149 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:11.920 include digital connections? 150 00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:15.199 Yeah, so yes it does. 151 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:17.439 I mean, of course I think that you know, we're 152 00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:21.519 myself and a number of members on my team are 153 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:26.279 big contributors maintainers of our own open source as well 154 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:29.240 as like one of the larger open source infrastructure is 155 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:33.279 code terrorform libraries. Uh, so we have a bunch of 156 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:40.000 connections in that world. I have CTO online communities I'm 157 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:44.159 involved in. I have a bunch of like volunteer with 158 00:08:44.360 --> 00:08:47.840 other extrajournal organizations that I'm involved in, and I think 159 00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:51.799 we try and pretty be pretty involved in like different slacks, 160 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:55.159 and I think that things come from those all the time. 161 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:57.919 So Yeah, it's not just you have to be going 162 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:01.080 out and shaking hands and kissing babies. It's also some 163 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:06.320 level of online Uh, you know, presence is really important. 164 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:09.159 I personally am posting on LinkedIn three times a week. 165 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:12.840 I have a lot of really good, uh colleagues, people 166 00:09:12.879 --> 00:09:15.799 that are I like a lot and highly respect their opinion. 167 00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:20.519 They are, you know, people I've met through LinkedIn and 168 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:24.039 just like posting content. So I think that there's a 169 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:27.240 lot of different avenues how that networking happens, but. 170 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:29.799 It all, you know, kind of leads to a similar 171 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:31.639 uh and result. 172 00:09:32.559 --> 00:09:36.080 Let's let's plug your your terror form open source library. 173 00:09:36.279 --> 00:09:36.840 Like what is that? 174 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:41.480 So we are maintainers of cloud posse. Uh have you 175 00:09:41.559 --> 00:09:42.919 folks ever heard of them? 176 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:45.639 I have, So you're that person I steal your code 177 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:46.480 like all the time. 178 00:09:47.080 --> 00:09:49.159 See, they're the best. 179 00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:52.279 When I originally got it on the show before I 180 00:09:52.279 --> 00:09:54.759 didn't know this, this is like the best super event 181 00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:55.720 for a Tuesday morning. 182 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:55.960 Ever. 183 00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:58.679 Yeah, they're they're not my company. 184 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:02.000 Eric's a good and I really respect the hell out 185 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:04.279 of what that guy's doing. But when I initially got 186 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:08.399 into Infrastructure's code, they were the community that I found personally, 187 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.759 and I was just like, Hey, these folks are doing 188 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:16.679 this sensibly, like this is one infrastructure is not Infrastructure 189 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:19.159 is a commodity, right, Like, we're all shipping the same 190 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:23.360 load balancer, we're shipping the same certificate, we're shipping the 191 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:31.000 same postgress instance. Why do we need to re Yeah. 192 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:32.639 I have no idea what. 193 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:36.360 You're talking about. 194 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:40.559 Anyway, they they do it right. And when I found 195 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:44.679 their modules, I was really excited. I was contributing a 196 00:10:44.679 --> 00:10:46.960 bunch and then as part of that, I ended up 197 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.480 on their like maintainer teams. So we're helping them get 198 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:53.279 prs tested and merged and complying with all the best 199 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:57.039 practices that those folks have set out. And I have 200 00:10:57.159 --> 00:11:00.440 multiple my team have now joined that that we're organization, 201 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:05.240 And yeah, that's the I really believe in open source 202 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.240 infrastructure's code. I think there's like interesting discussions there. Some 203 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:11.080 people do not Some people think that we should be 204 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.080 copy and pasting and writing little snowflakes all over the place. 205 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:19.039 But that's, you know the difference in opinion that happens. 206 00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:21.159 I actually want to get into that because one of 207 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:22.799 my questions that I had thought of that I really 208 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:26.000 wanted to ask you is what is the real impact 209 00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:28.159 of And I know someone's going to be kicking me 210 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:30.720 for bringing this topic up at only whatever like the 211 00:11:30.759 --> 00:11:34.240 ten minute point, and that's realistically any sort of LLM 212 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:38.120 integration here, because like I really do feel like that, Okay, 213 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:43.080 well laugh it out that there's a lot like this 214 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:44.879 is exactly the sort of thing that I think LMS 215 00:11:44.879 --> 00:11:47.440 are very good at generating. But at the same time 216 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:51.639 it's the worst place to have those little mistakes that 217 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:55.320 will cost you, you know, huge production incidents. 218 00:11:56.879 --> 00:12:00.399 Yeah, so I will say that we don't typically a 219 00:12:00.440 --> 00:12:02.600 ton of infrastructure as code. You know, we'll do it 220 00:12:02.679 --> 00:12:06.639 for new resources that we haven't seen maybe sometimes, but 221 00:12:06.679 --> 00:12:08.679 for the most part, you know, I'm I have a 222 00:12:08.799 --> 00:12:10.600 very serious talk with my team that like, hey, you 223 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:13.000 need to understand how all these things come together. This 224 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:18.919 can't be l generate, you know, get commit and ship it, 225 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:22.919 because yeah, there's a lot of nuances in that one 226 00:12:23.080 --> 00:12:26.759 flag that might be a security loophole that might cause 227 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:30.159 you to over provision something along those lines. 228 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:30.759 And. 229 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:34.799 I don't know, we see it a lot where people 230 00:12:34.879 --> 00:12:37.039 are generating a ton of code and then they don't 231 00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:40.080 really have a good handle on Hey, what all this 232 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:40.679 is doing. 233 00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:43.679 And I think that's that's usually where i'm. 234 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:45.960 You know, a proponent of open source, because hey, you 235 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.799 could probably get that same use case that you are 236 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:49.360 looking for. 237 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:51.519 You know, you're trying. 238 00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:55.559 To deploy a bunch of data dog monitors, and instead 239 00:12:55.559 --> 00:12:59.720 of generating code around them and creating a you know, yeah, 240 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:03.519 get the job done for today, but for day two operations, 241 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:07.679 is it better to have a small open source module 242 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:11.639 that provides that same monitor, that provides a spec, provides 243 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:13.759 you something that you can upgrade in the future, provide 244 00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:17.799 something that's already tested and already secure. There's a lot 245 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:20.120 of benefits to at least doing. 246 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:21.080 The search beforehand. 247 00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:24.559 To go for open source, I think then just saying hey, 248 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:26.639 we can generate the hell out of this code. 249 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:30.639 Yeah, are the open source modules showing up in the 250 00:13:30.879 --> 00:13:34.879 LM results or is it pure like underlying HCl. 251 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:38.000 Not that I've seen, And you know, we haven't done 252 00:13:38.039 --> 00:13:40.960 a good test of Hey, let's use an LM that 253 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:43.639 we've given like a lot of really good instructions to 254 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.639 read through the three hundred open source modules that we 255 00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:52.320 typically use. But I think that that's a good question. 256 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:56.360 I haven't seen anybody who's like using a trained model 257 00:13:56.360 --> 00:13:58.960 to say, hey, these are our approved module libraries. 258 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:00.720 I mean, it wasn't even just that, but because I 259 00:14:00.759 --> 00:14:03.200 remember there was like a pretty huge scandal with Pulumi 260 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:05.919 where they tried to do something similar to this and 261 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:08.600 the LM that they were featuring on their website just 262 00:14:08.679 --> 00:14:13.399 like could not provide more wrong information. Uh So that's 263 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:15.759 totally a data point there. 264 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:20.240 Yeah, that's interesting, always trying to do some something new 265 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:24.240 and I applaud them for innovation. 266 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:28.200 You're gonna get it wrong sometimes, right, you gotta try. 267 00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:34.639 It's good for sure, fell Fast. So whenever you start 268 00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:36.759 working with a new client, do you have like a 269 00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:41.480 particular vertical or size of company that you work really 270 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:44.360 well with and have isolated on that intentionally? 271 00:14:45.159 --> 00:14:49.000 Yeah, we still love startups, and you know, it's sad 272 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:50.720 that the VC market is. 273 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:54.000 No good, but I still still love startups. 274 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.039 We just have moved further up funnel in terms of 275 00:14:56.080 --> 00:15:00.200 we usually talked to the series C and above, you know, 276 00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:02.679 the folks who are well established and they're trying to scale, 277 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:05.399 because that's really where a lot of our expertise comes 278 00:15:05.399 --> 00:15:11.320 in Handy is hey, you have an organization that has 279 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:14.000 grown organically you've been trying to grow fast and you've 280 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:15.919 made some mistakes and we can kind of come in 281 00:15:15.960 --> 00:15:19.799 and dig you out of your hole. So yeah, that 282 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:23.440 realm is where we really like to engage is the 283 00:15:23.480 --> 00:15:29.399 mid market to like late stage series of funding startups. 284 00:15:30.039 --> 00:15:32.039 We have an anchor client who's a large enterprise. 285 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:38.960 They're you know, a Fortune five hundred car manufacturer. But 286 00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:43.159 really I love those those later stage startup clients because 287 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:46.399 they have the most fun problems. They usually have great 288 00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:49.200 engineers that are just like, we need to be pointed 289 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:51.559 in the right direction, and hey, we can do that, 290 00:15:51.720 --> 00:15:52.279 so it's fun. 291 00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:55.919 Are you seeing the same holes at each of your 292 00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:58.279 clients or is it like everyone have their own special 293 00:15:58.279 --> 00:15:59.120 set of problems. 294 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:02.960 I think that there's a you know, uh, there's always 295 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:08.559 some combination of similar problems, you know. There there's a 296 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:11.120 really common problem that we've written a bunch about on 297 00:16:11.159 --> 00:16:13.679 our blog, and we we have another blog post coming 298 00:16:13.720 --> 00:16:14.919 out really soon. 299 00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:18.559 That's you know, the terroorlyth problem. Have y'all ever heard 300 00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:21.440 of that term? This one's new for me. Okay. 301 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:24.960 It's basically, when you build a infrastructure as code root 302 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:28.919 module that's too big, so it's storing too many resources 303 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:32.279 in state and then it becomes slow topply, it has 304 00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:36.879 blast radius issues, and you you know, can't really do 305 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:40.600 role based access control in your team because hey, you're 306 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:43.879 managing your network alongside your database, alongside your application cluster. 307 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:46.919 So we've seen that a ton and you know that 308 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:50.159 comes in all different shapes and sizes. It's very unique 309 00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:54.360 to the organization. We we know how to break those 310 00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:57.279 up really well. So that's that's an easy one. We'll 311 00:16:57.320 --> 00:16:59.600 have a post on that on the blog very soon 312 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:02.639 that talks about how teams can break it up themselves 313 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:06.799 give it away for free. You know. The other thing 314 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:08.759 I think is there's still a lot of organizations who 315 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:12.200 are applying locally and they don't they haven't figured out automation. 316 00:17:12.599 --> 00:17:14.640 And then on the opposite side of the coin, there's 317 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.319 a bunch of organizations who have built their own automation 318 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:21.000 around infrastructure as code and they've found out the hard 319 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:23.559 way that that's not a good route, and they, you know, 320 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.799 are really you know, continuing to toil in the details 321 00:17:27.799 --> 00:17:29.920 of like, hey, how do we you know, make this 322 00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:31.960 scalable for our organization. 323 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:34.519 And it's it's kind of a bad rabbit hole. 324 00:17:34.519 --> 00:17:37.559 We always suggest, hey, either go again open source or 325 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:39.880 pick one of the really awesome vendors in the space. 326 00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:43.000 But yeah, those are those are some of the like 327 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:47.000 high level problems. There's a lot of like nuanced, like 328 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:49.599 code level details that I think we see a lot 329 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:52.519 that we have strong opinions on. But yeah, those are 330 00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:54.680 the ten thousand foot ones. 331 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:57.359 See I saw will laughing here sort of like the 332 00:17:57.440 --> 00:17:59.480 villain at the end of a movie that is having 333 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:02.200 some sort of s like logical breakdown, and I just 334 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:03.880 I have to I have to wonder what was going 335 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:05.240 through his head at that moment. 336 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:09.559 Just reliving some past trauma. I think. 337 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:17.839 Those Yeah, this whole show is just like PTSD induced. 338 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:22.039 You know, no, I can totally relate to that, especially 339 00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:24.359 in the stage of company that you're you're focused on, 340 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:29.559 you know, the late late stage series startup, because early 341 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:32.559 on I've been guilty of this many times. You know, 342 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:36.839 early in the startup stage, you think about your past 343 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.640 experiences and you're like, I'm not going to do that again. 344 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:43.240 We're going with I see from the very beginning, and 345 00:18:43.279 --> 00:18:47.160 so you start building all of these processes and controls, 346 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:50.240 and the flaw with that is you don't actually have 347 00:18:50.279 --> 00:18:52.359 a product for your company. Yet, you know, because for 348 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:58.079 every startup there's always the there's the product that you launched, 349 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:01.440 and then there's the product that you're customers actually wanted. 350 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:04.839 And never in the history of startups have those two 351 00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:07.519 been the same thing. So you make all of these 352 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:12.920 process and design and architectural decisions around this product that 353 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:18.160 now no longer exists. And it takes someone like yourself, Matt, 354 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:23.720 from an outside perspective to come in and say, you know, 355 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:28.960 you're holding on to these little nuggets here hoping that 356 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:31.880 their gold, and they're not. Just let them go. 357 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:34.920 Sound advice. 358 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:37.839 I think it's a huge problem there though, which is 359 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:41.240 that those processes are sort of coupled to the culture 360 00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:44.000 of your organization, so like you almost need to like 361 00:19:44.279 --> 00:19:47.480 actually start a new company to get rid like actually 362 00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:51.200 eliminate all of that tech deat In some ways, you've 363 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:54.279 built it up, You've built up expectations on how that works. 364 00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:58.400 Like maybe you are career ladder is somehow hooked to 365 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:01.119 the types of task and responsible. I mean, no one's 366 00:20:01.160 --> 00:20:04.000 got it that bad, but there's a lot that needs 367 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:05.759 to be thought about other than just like you can't 368 00:20:05.799 --> 00:20:07.799 just click a couple of buttons and delete their code. 369 00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:11.720 I call it the polished turd syndrome, because you start 370 00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:13.680 with this turd and you just keep polishing it and 371 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:16.880 polishing it, and then eventually it starts to get some 372 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:20.160 shine to it, and so now you're really emotionally invested 373 00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:22.720 in making this turd nice and shiny, and you need 374 00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:26.240 someone to come in and say, dude, it's it's just 375 00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:26.680 a turd. 376 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:27.200 It go. 377 00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:29.440 They have to want to listen, though, And I think 378 00:20:29.480 --> 00:20:32.680 that's part of the problem is that often you see 379 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:37.480 like the maybe operations division or sales or marketing, or like, 380 00:20:37.559 --> 00:20:39.319 we're actually making a lot of money from that thing. 381 00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:41.680 It's not like as much money as we should be making, 382 00:20:41.880 --> 00:20:44.079 but we're making, you know, a million ten million a year, 383 00:20:44.599 --> 00:20:46.880 and we just need to keep the lights on, and 384 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.079 they don't understand how much toil and complexity is actually 385 00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:53.799 involved to just keeping the lights on for that. And 386 00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:56.160 so I actually think I've seen this way more often 387 00:20:56.160 --> 00:20:58.200 than the other side, where an engineering team doesn't want 388 00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.119 to own it, they don't want to do anything with it, 389 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:02.359 except someone keeps on telling them, oh, yeah, you know, 390 00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:04.160 you have to keep it working, but you're not allowed 391 00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:05.200 to spend any time doing that. 392 00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:09.160 I've seen that, and I think that, you know, a 393 00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:11.160 part of what you folks are talking about. 394 00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:15.920 I mean, yeah, at the level, at the stage of 395 00:21:15.960 --> 00:21:18.759 company that we usually engage with, there's always some level 396 00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:21.640 of like some cost fallacy, right, there's some group within 397 00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:25.720 the organization who's wrapped up in the idea that, hey, 398 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:29.240 we've invested so much in this tooling, why why would 399 00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:29.960 we get rid of it? 400 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:32.519 What do you mean? And yeah, it does. 401 00:21:32.599 --> 00:21:37.640