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Speaker 1: Lauren, what's going on?

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Speaker 2: You know, that's always a challenging question, right to answer,

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So maybe offlip it around. What's going on with you?

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, we're just it's early October in the

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northwest US, So I'm getting ready for my first winter

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in fifteen years, because I've been living down in Arizona

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for fifteen years, and so now I'm like, oh wow,

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there's this winter stuff I gotta do, and I'm trying.

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Speaker 2: To figure it out.

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Speaker 1: Hopefully before you know, it becomes a limiting factor in

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my personal life choices.

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Speaker 2: It's a whole set of lifestyle that you need to

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be able to adapt to it. Like, it's not just

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you have like one set of clothes that you can wear.

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Speaker 1: All the time.

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Speaker 2: You then need like fall clothes and spring clothes and

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winter clothes. Actually four sets of like your life that

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men adapt prepared. But actually, yesterday it was so warm

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here that I regretted not wearing shorts. Yes, you know,

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that's October seventh in Switzerland.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems a bit unusual.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean it was got really

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cold here already, but it was sort of this anomaly day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned the different clothes for each season.

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Just the other day, my wife commented, She's like, I

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never ever thought I would see you own so much flannel.

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I was like, wait, is that a good thing or

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a bad thing?

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Speaker 2: I mean, is it like red plaid like with blue lines,

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lumberjack flannel.

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Speaker 1: Or oh, you know it with the bib overalls underneath.

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I'm all in, man, I'm all in.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you got to pick your lifestyle here, and

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you know, maybe that's I sort of want to have

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us try something a little bit different for today's podcast.

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So I was I took longer than I probably should

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have looking at your LinkedIn profile recently, and I did

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notice that you've actually had quite a long career.

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Speaker 1: It has been this year. It has been thirty years

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that I've been in the tech industry.

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Speaker 2: I feel like if we had some sound effects, those

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would be going off right.

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Speaker 1: Now, right, because that's I don't know if many people

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who have been at it this long. I think it's

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a small group of people.

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Speaker 2: And that's to say that everyone should retire before they

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get to thirty years of experience.

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Speaker 1: No, absolutely not. I think I think there's a proven

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path to doing this, but a lot of people don't

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know what it is, and so that's kind of what

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we're going to talk about today. You know. I think

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first thing, because this conversation actually came up with someone

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I was talking with the other day. They're getting started

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in their tech career, and they said, I just want

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somebody to be honest with me, like what is it

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really like? And I said, not going to bullshit you.

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It's fucking hard. Like put aside, there's like great moments

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that keep you going. But it is hard work. But

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we have to like qualify hard work. Yes, it's hard work,

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but so is you know, laying asphalt on the highway

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in the desert in the middle of summer. Those are

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both hard work. They're just different types of hard work.

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So you kind of have to keep that in perspective.

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I think during the hard years over a thirty year career.

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Speaker 2: You know, I didn't think I would bring this up, actually,

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but I thought it was sort of a joke initially

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when I had started that people burn out at working

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knowledge work, which is fundamentally what we're doing. As you mentioned,

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it's somehow similar but still very different than the physical

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work you would put in to perform some sort of

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manual labor. It's yeah, for sure, is not a joke.

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And I used to think, oh, yeah, you know, I'm

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used to doing hard work at the high school, university level,

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whatever I invested my time in. It's not easy. I

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spent a lot of time studying, preparing for tests, et cetera.

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And I always like, I don't want to do that anymore.

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So I decided not to go to graduate school and

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try to actually start working. And yeah, I'm with you

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that I think just calling it hard work doesn't necessarily

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really clarify what you have to really put in to

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make even a short career.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. And I think that highlights So I've

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picked out like four common paths for tech careers, and

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so highlight those real quick. The first one is you

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start your tech career, you do it for few years,

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and then you kind of acknowledge it that point the

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level of effort that it's required to keep going at this,

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and so you move to something like a pre sales

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engineering or a solutions engineer type role where it's still technical,

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but you just kind of you know, you're familiar with

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the concepts and you have the fundamentals, but you're not

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required to you know, learn the you know, all the

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different subcommands of operating a Kubernetes cluster and use those

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on a daily basis. Right, So it's technical, but it's

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less technical.

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Speaker 2: Inspect I mean, it's sort of like the one where

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you take the skills that you've learned over the beginning

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part of your career from a theoretical standpoint or you know,

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trying to figure out your way, and you're actually putting

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them into practice by focusing on that part of the

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delivery and less on learning new things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Like you those fundamentals, like you know,

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you know, you know basic things, well maybe basics not

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the right word, but do you know things like you know,

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don't expose your database server with a public IP address.

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And so you use those lessons to help other people

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engineer good solutions, but you're not actually responsible for getting

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your hands on the keyboard and implementing them.

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Speaker 2: You have some tricks in your tool bag and mantras

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that you can repeat at maybe the right moment, and

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you're now someone that can actually share that advice after

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you know, I think like maybe even a.

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Speaker 1: Five year mark for sure.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's one. Yeah, the next one that I

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commonly see is people moving from a technical role into

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a management role. And I think this one we just

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see it in other industries, you know, like if you

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start out as a bank teller, then you become like

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the manager of the local bank branch, and then you know,

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you work your way up through a career in management,

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and that's like the defined career path for every other industry,

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and so people just naturally apply to ours. The one

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of the things that I learned from that, though, is

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that being a manager is a completely different career path.

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It has very little to do with your technical skills,

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because to be a good manager, you need people's skills.

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You need to understand what motivates your people and when

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they're struggling, and how to get them to turn it around,

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and how to communicate with them. You know, not some

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people respond to written communication, some respond to verbal communication,

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and you have to dissect and figure that out for

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each one of your employees, remember it for that employee,

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and then frame your conversations with them using that.

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Speaker 2: I feel like that bears repeating realistically, because it's sort

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of the area where I feel like in my career

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people kept on saying, oh, you need to have soft

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skills to make this happen and not really explain it

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in a way that resonated with an engineer or engineers

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I feel like aren't really explained to what that difference

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in role is. And I think you know you've done

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a good job hashing over that. It is quite the

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challenge and it for sure is nowhere close to the same.

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I think for me, the language that I have jumped

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on in the past that has been helpful is you

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have more resources at your control to help deliver something

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of much greater scale, Like you're not going to build

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a skyscraper by yourself. You know you can hire as

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many people as you want to help you do that.

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What exactly do you do to make that happen? And

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in knowledge work, I feel like it's very difficult to

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wrap your head around what extra people will help with

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It was a I'm sure it's happened to It's happened

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to me, I'm sure it's happened to you. In your career,

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you can ever get asked like, hey, will like, we're

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not going at this as fast, says we want to like,

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could you use some extra people?

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Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? Like And for me, most of the time,

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the answer is no, because then I've got to stop

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progress on it to get them into a productive state.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and also like splitting the work and

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just breaking out like you know I have in my

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head it's organized in some way, and so moving into

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the management position is all about doing that, you know,

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like no hands on really, like how do I organize

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people to automatically achieve what I want? Okay, yeah, I

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got it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things that helped me make that

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concrete in my head because I think the word soft

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skills is the wrong word. I think that's misleading in it.

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But for about five years I was a CrossFit coach

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out outside of outside of work, and to me, that

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taught me more about communication than anything I've ever done

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in my life, because, yeah, you're in this scenario where

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you have people of varying skills trying to complete strenuous

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work for their own personal benefits. But at the same time,

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if they do it wrong, they could injure themselves and

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that's the worst case scenario. But then you add in

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peer pressure on top of that because they may be

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standing next to someone doing the exact same movement with

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twice as much weight. So now they're feeling less confident

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because of that. And then let's up the pressure one

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more time and let's put a running clock on there.

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So now we're going to judge you based on the

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time it takes you to complete this work. And so

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as a coach, you're looking out across this group of

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people and you see someone making a mistake. So you've

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got to make it across the gym to this person.

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You've got to break their mental thought process because they're

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just focused on that clock. You've got to interrupt that cycle,

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get their attention, and then figure out how to communicate

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to them enough so that they don't injure themselves. So

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you're like, does this person respond to verbal cues? Do

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they respond to show and tell? Do they respond to

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feel where I can like touch the middle of their

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back and say don't don't bend this. If they do

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respond to feel and it's a person of the opposite sex,

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are they going to assume that I'm trying to hit

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on them and take it the wrong way? And You've

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got to process all of this stuff in a matter

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of seconds to prevent them from getting injured. And to me,

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that taught me a lot about soft skills and how

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to communicate, and I think those directly translate into a

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management career path.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I totally get that. I keep hearing that

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someone has an example that's somehow sport related. I know,

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a cross fit. I feel like is in a weird

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area here, right, it's not definitely, I mean it is

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sort of for you. I mean you're thinking of as

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a coach, like this is my group, this is my team.

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I need to get them to the finish line and

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helping them however that happens. And I was just starting

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to like develop these nightmare scenario where there's like a

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clock ticking down as a software developer and someone's wanting

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me to come and pat me on the back and say, hey,

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you know, you know, do this a little bit differently.

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But the team thing keeps coming up for me a

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lot like I feel like I didn't. I wasn't exposed

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to sports teams enough as a in a leadership capacity

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or understanding how to work with leaders in that. You know,

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it's still very especially where I came from my you know,

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my culture American initially, and so it definitely task oriented,

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you know, head down, focus on whatever the thing is

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that you need to do it relevant to the sport,

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even if there are other players that are on your

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team that are happening at the same moment. But over

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my career, having focused on that a lot, I definitely

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got a better understanding of what it means to make

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a team and to lead that team in knowledge based work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, sure I can relate to that. I

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grew up in Texas in the seventies and eighties, so

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you either played football, basketball, or baseball, preferably all three,

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and I was one of those and still am one

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of those uncoordinated people where if you want pure hilarity,

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just throw me a ball and expect me to catch it.

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But anyway, right now, I'm over it now. I just

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like own it now, Like, yeah, that's never gonna happen.

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I'm fine with that.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So we got the management position future, you know, yeah,

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change your role long term, right right, And.

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Speaker 1: I think it's important to acknowledgement, acknowledge that you are

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specifically changing your expertise.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting because there actually has been this mancho like

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don't put engineers in like, don't force engineers into management position,

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And that's like one side of the spectrum and there's

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side of the spectrum is oh, yes, management positions come

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after uh, you know, being an individual contributor. So right,

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I hope there's like some sort of magic middle ground

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here where like there is some portion of the population

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who this is this is probably the path that you

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belong on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think the other common path that

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I've seen, and I think the motivating factor behind all

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of these is like you mentioned earlier, you know, the

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continuous education thing. You know, tech is continuously changing, You're

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always behind. And so the third one that I've seen

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people pursue is just finding a nice comfy hole to

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hide in. So you get your job and then you

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figure out how this legacy component works and you just

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become the expert in that, and now you're kind of

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like indispensable because no one else wants to touch this thing,

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but it's critical to the business operations, and so you

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can just kind of carve out your defined work and

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you're just going to ride that out to retirement. And

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I'm not saying and I'm not like saying that is

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a bad thing at all. This is a valid option.

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Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, do you think there's like some secret

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that actually making that career happen like something that you

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should go and do to if that, if that feels

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more comfortable to you, because I mean, I know there's

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people out there that are like, I don't want to

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be a manager and I don't want to go into

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sales or even working with other teams and having to

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communicate across them as a.

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Speaker 1: Challenge for me. Yeah, for sure, learn coboll.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, hands on, hard technical work is not

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the norm, even like in my career, I have very

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rarely seen those people. I mean, I think it's less

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and less the case over time, with new strategies having

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been discovered and then replicated across companies and then turned

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into tools that can be utilized the complicated subsystem person

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who's that foremost expert in that thing. Number of roles

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I feel like has been decreasing over time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, for sure. And I think that highlights

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the common denominator to all three of those strategies that

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causes people frustration in their career because all three of

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them force you out of that continuous education mode and

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more than likely at some point that job is going

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to end. So now you're re entering the workforce, but

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you've let your technical skills lapse, and so now you're

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not interviewing at the level that you previously had because

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you don't have up to date tech skills.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean those three are either I changed my role,

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I did something with my skills. I'm not focusing on

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learning over and over again. So there must be other

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career paths out there that don't focus on switching out

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but maybe focus on learning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is kind of the path that I've taken

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over the last thirty years, just kind of having the mantra.

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And it hasn't been this mind from the beginning. It's

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evolved over time, but it's just waking up and when

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I get out of bed in the morning acknowledging I'm

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the dumbest fucker in tech right now because since I

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quit work yesterday afternoon and got up this morning, technology

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has progressed, but here I was sleeping in bed. So

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now my job for today is to deliver value from

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my employer, do the thing that they're paying me to do,

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and level up my skills so that I'm going to

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be valuable to them tomorrow. And the focus is not

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so much on the employer of oh I've got to

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be a good employee so that they put a gold

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star on my forehead or whatever. The goal to all

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of this is, I've got to provide for my family.

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You know. My job is to make sure that everyone

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in my family has a roof over the head, food

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on the table, and money to meet their needs. And

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this is the path that I've chosen to do that.

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And so continuous education is just one of two primary

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tools I use to do that. The first tool is

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active employment employment, and then the second tool is a

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continuous education so that I can have active employment tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: So there was a previous episode where I grilled you

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on mastermind groups and people who can sort of challenge

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you on as I quote your bullshit. I feel like,

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you know, that's a source of learning at least feedback

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from the outside. But like, how have you managed to

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actually hold in new information and kept growing over the

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last thirty years. Was it like a conscious effort of like,

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I need to learn something this week, this is the

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thing I'm learning. Was it you were involved in some

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companies that maybe made it easier like any Was there

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a concerted effort? Was it just who you are as

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a person?

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Speaker 1: Probably a combination of all those I think one of

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the driving factors has has been most of my career

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has been building early stage tech startups, you know, and

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so all the early stage tech startups, you're not limited

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by previous technical decisions, and so software engineers tend to

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be aware of like, oh, hey, there's this new thing

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called Heroku or this new thing called Versell, and so

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then they use that and I'm like, ah, damn, all right,

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I got to learn that. And then you start to

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if the company is successful, you start to hit the

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limits of that. So now it's like, Okay, we're going

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to have to get off of this. What are they doing?

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Why is that the limiting factor? And what can I

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build that will work better than that which leads you

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into you know, cloud computing or Kubernetes or something like that.

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So it was kind of like just taking a step

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back to read the lands gate and figure out where

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we're going and what was going to be the limiting

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factor in that path. You know.

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Speaker 2: That's a really interesting perspective because I feel like I

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started my career on the opposite side, and when I

355
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was working at one of these companies, the thought I

356
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kept having to myself is I feel like I'm learning

357
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dead frameworks, like things that are not going to afford

358
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my career in any way. And it wasn't like, let

359
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me force this company to introduce something that they definitely

360
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don't need, like Kubernetes, in order to put it on

361
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my resume. It was let me find other companies that

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are doing something in a field that I care about

363
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that I could push forward. And so like switching your

364
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career every couple of years, I mean, I feel like

365
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has been this recent mantra of how people get promoted.

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But if you look at the reason why, I feel

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like the continuous learning is a good justification of that.

368
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with that, And I would have

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to say I probably have followed that almost subconsciously. You know,

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in thirty years, I've never been with the same employer

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for more than three years.

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Speaker 2: You know, this is going to be like recorded, and

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then people may hear that and how many years are

374
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you coming up on your current.

375
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Speaker 1: Joone will I've got eleven months to go there.

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Speaker 2: I think there's a wisdom there that. And I ask

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people like, how long like you plan on working at

378
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this company until you retire? And the answer is almost

379
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always no, And I'm like, okay, great, and right now

380
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you're like the way you're acting or the path that

381
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:29,799
you're taking or what you're focusing on is aligned with

382
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I'm going to work there forever. So like how many

383
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years out you know, you start playing this game of

384
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like where is your career going? When is that point

385
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:37,920
in which you know which you think you will no

386
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,039
longer work at that company? And I'm not asking you to,

387
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:43,119
you know, answer this for that point, but I think

388
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the interesting thing is you mentioned you focus in the

389
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startup world where there is a rapid turnover or introduction

390
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of new tools, and things change when you get to

391
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,440
the scale phase and be like, Okay, our product now works,

392
00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:56,039
we need to make some significant changes there or the

393
00:21:56,079 --> 00:21:58,720
tools we're using run out. Have you ever heard of

394
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the cont the pioneer, settler and town planner. No, So

395
00:22:07,039 --> 00:22:09,720
it's sort of this mentality that someone takes on and

396
00:22:09,759 --> 00:22:12,960
not that you are only one of these. There is

397
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,680
this idea of you're doing some green field work, you

398
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are a pioneer in the wild West in a previously

399
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,559
mapped out region of technology or whatever you're doing, and

400
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then there's this stage in the middle, which is the settler.

401
00:22:27,799 --> 00:22:29,920
You can imagine there are some things that are built,

402
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,480
you're coming in and making some changes there to improve it,

403
00:22:32,519 --> 00:22:34,720
and then there's a town planner, which is like over

404
00:22:34,759 --> 00:22:37,920
optimization of everything we have to in order to scale

405
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:40,920
to millions of users or millions of requests per second, etc.

406
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I can imagine that the pioneer is sort of stuck

407
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on the learn new tools, but not necessarily learn new

408
00:22:49,839 --> 00:22:52,279
things for your own benefit. And obviously the optimizer is

409
00:22:52,319 --> 00:22:54,480
working in very fixed framework. So it does sound like

410
00:22:54,519 --> 00:22:57,160
maybe you fall into the middle of this where you're

411
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coming in, you have some experiences and you're really helping

412
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out the organizations, but you're pulling out all that information

413
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and knowledge that you can and being as effective as

414
00:23:05,559 --> 00:23:07,599
you as you are would be in that role.

415
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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And I think that's part of the

416
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:13,640
reason why the three year mark has worked out so

417
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:19,240
well for me, because in the life cycle of a startup,

418
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:23,240
it's kind of a that's kind of like a three

419
00:23:23,319 --> 00:23:26,119
year max thing, you know. And that's funny because I

420
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:31,079
actually gave a talk several years ago at DevOps Europe

421
00:23:31,559 --> 00:23:34,480
that talked about this life cycle that sounds very similar

422
00:23:34,519 --> 00:23:37,599
to what you're describing, but I used it as like building.

423
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,519
I actually use the analogy of the Right Brothers in

424
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,920
aviation industry on it. But like a startup, you know,

425
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:49,240
you have your first phase of the startup where you

426
00:23:49,319 --> 00:23:53,359
have this idea, and so your job there is to

427
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:58,079
launch that idea as fast as possible, because there's always

428
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a difference between the product that you built and the

429
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:05,319
product that your customers wanted, and so your job in

430
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,240
phase one is to launch something so you can figure

431
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,359
out what that gap is and then close that gap.

432
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And then now that you're building the product that your

433
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customers want, phase two is actually building a factory that

434
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:21,559
their job is to create that product. So you're building

435
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,240
assembly lines, you know, and putting in teams and figuring

436
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,480
out how to make this thing scalable and redundant and profitable.

437
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And then once you figure that out, you move into

438
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phase three, where you have you just operate the factory,

439
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,759
you know, you just operate the money making machine until

440
00:24:39,759 --> 00:24:42,119
the end of the company. And each of those phases

441
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:46,359
requires a completely different type of person, and someone who's

442
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,039
really good at phase one is probably going to struggle

443
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,839
in phases two and three and vice versa and all

444
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,200
those things. So I think at that point, you kind

445
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,559
of put yourself in a position where you're there to

446
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:02,599
achieve a certain thing, and then once that's achieved, you

447
00:25:02,759 --> 00:25:05,279
have to go for two reasons, one because you're not

448
00:25:05,319 --> 00:25:08,160
good at what comes next, and two, if you are

449
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good at that, you probably enjoy doing it and wouldn't

450
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,640
enjoy doing the subsequent phase.

451
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Speaker 2: What I heard was I have some great wisdom and

452
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,000
a talk that I prepared, and now I want to

453
00:25:19,039 --> 00:25:21,559
go and watch that. You've got like a website where

454
00:25:21,559 --> 00:25:23,359
you've got your talks listed or something.

455
00:25:23,839 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: No, I probably should, but I can find I can

456
00:25:29,519 --> 00:25:31,359
find a link to that talk because I thought it

457
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:32,680
was pretty cool. Yeah.

458
00:25:32,799 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 2: No, I mean it sounds pretty spot on because I

459
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:37,799
feel like a self identification here, Like I see a pattern, right,

460
00:25:37,839 --> 00:25:41,720
you know, I care about learning, I care about learning

461
00:25:41,759 --> 00:25:44,079
new things, and also who am I? You know, what

462
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,200
kind of person am I? What kind of career do

463
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:47,680
I want to have? And so now I got to

464
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:49,880
ask you, did you ever think that you'd have such

465
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:51,880
a long career? Was it something that you had planned

466
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:52,759
for in some way?

467
00:25:53,519 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: No, definitely was not planned. Definitely wasn't planned. And I

468
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,799
think that's really really important to highlight for people who

469
00:26:01,839 --> 00:26:04,000
are just starting their careers. You don't have to have

470
00:26:04,039 --> 00:26:06,960
the next thirty years mapped. You probably shouldn't have the

471
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:11,279
next thirty years map because you're going to learn things

472
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:15,200
in the first five years of your career that will

473
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,799
influence how you want those remaining years to go. So

474
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:22,519
you don't have to know everything. You just have to

475
00:26:22,599 --> 00:26:23,519
keep moving forward.

476
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 2: When you started, what was the picture like for you?

477
00:26:28,759 --> 00:26:31,880
Did you have some sort of foggy vision of what

478
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:33,920
sort of work you would be doing even in five

479
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,720
years or longer term.

480
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: No, not a clue. Like my first my first job

481
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:49,880
in technology computing technology. Prior to that, I installed in

482
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:57,079
program telephone systems, but I had a hobbyist interest in computers,

483
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:03,960
so I set up the novel network for the company

484
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,240
I worked for. And for those of you who don't know,

485
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:13,799
Novelle was a computer server networking platform in the early

486
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:20,559
nineties that was ultimately beat out by Microsoft. But yeah,

487
00:27:20,559 --> 00:27:23,240
I started installing that, and then there was sort of

488
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:25,279
a natural progression there. You know, we were installing the

489
00:27:25,319 --> 00:27:31,440
telephone cables and the desktop computing became popular, so we

490
00:27:31,519 --> 00:27:37,519
started installing networking cables, and then the customers were like, well, hey,

491
00:27:37,519 --> 00:27:40,640
you put in the networking cables, can you install the

492
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,440
routers and switches and like, oh sure, well actually our

493
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,279
sales guy said sure, and we're like damn, okay, I

494
00:27:48,279 --> 00:27:51,240
guess we'll go figure that out. And then, you know,

495
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,720
then they would bring in the computer guys and the

496
00:27:55,759 --> 00:27:58,839
conservers wouldn't work, and they would instantly blame the network.

497
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,519
And so I had to learn enough about how servers

498
00:28:02,599 --> 00:28:06,119
worked so that I could prove that it wasn't the

499
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:11,359
network issue at all. Funny how some stories never changed, right, Yeah.

500
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:13,279
Speaker 2: What you're doing today?

501
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, official description pretty much. Yeah, just the just the

502
00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:24,680
actual commands I run is different. Yeah. And then we

503
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:29,839
had a company that they had a Microsoft SEQL database

504
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,680
server and they couldn't figure out how to work at

505
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,480
The people that were supposed to be working on it

506
00:28:35,519 --> 00:28:40,039
for more unresponsive, And so I just happened to be

507
00:28:40,079 --> 00:28:42,559
there working on the computer network one day and they're like, hey,

508
00:28:42,599 --> 00:28:45,079
can you take a look at it? Like, yeah, I

509
00:28:45,079 --> 00:28:47,160
can take a look at it. And this was back

510
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:51,279
whenever they shipped physical manuals with the software. So I

511
00:28:51,319 --> 00:28:54,720
took the Microsoft Sequel Server six point five book home

512
00:28:54,799 --> 00:28:57,880
with me that weekend and read it to cover to

513
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:01,240
cover and then finallyigured out their problem and then they

514
00:29:01,279 --> 00:29:03,799
offered me a full time job as a database administrator

515
00:29:03,839 --> 00:29:06,640
and things have just gone on from there. So no,

516
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:09,720
this was not planned by any mean, this was like

517
00:29:09,759 --> 00:29:12,359
the Forest Gump path to career growth.

518
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 2: I mean I saw some fear there. Like if I

519
00:29:16,079 --> 00:29:19,359
had ever been in a similar certain circumstance like having

520
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:21,759
opened the DBA book, I feel like I would have

521
00:29:21,799 --> 00:29:22,920
closed it very quickly.

522
00:29:23,519 --> 00:29:26,839
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I was probably preconditioned to that because

523
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,079
my original job out of high school was as a

524
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,880
nuclear engineer in the Navy, and so it's very much

525
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:38,759
lots of books to read and very high stakes for penalties,

526
00:29:40,319 --> 00:29:43,000
you know, because it's a nuclear power plan, you know,

527
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:47,720
so they're kind of kind of finicky and so but

528
00:29:47,839 --> 00:29:53,079
after doing that, like my risk tolerance was pretty high,

529
00:29:53,319 --> 00:29:55,400
you know, like, oh, hey, I'm not going to kill

530
00:29:55,440 --> 00:30:02,119
every living creature into twenty five mile radius. Cool, we're golden, yeah, crazy, right,

531
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:03,880
yeah exactly exactly.

532
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: It just just release the software, I mean whatever.

533
00:30:08,079 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: Right, just release it. No one's gonna die.

534
00:30:12,279 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, one actually may find out, and you're not

535
00:30:15,079 --> 00:30:19,839
planning on saying there very long anyway. So I mean

536
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:24,039
there is, for sure this problem in tech where people

537
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:28,599
are often more rewarded but for switching companies, Oh for sure.

538
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,319
And so you work on a project, it's challenging, you

539
00:30:32,359 --> 00:30:36,240
don't it doesn't go well, it gets completed, you learn something,

540
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,279
then you leave and you're celebrated for that work. You

541
00:30:40,319 --> 00:30:42,200
can talk about it, what you did, et cetera, et cetera,

542
00:30:42,359 --> 00:30:44,400
and new place loves it. And then ten years later,

543
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,400
whatever you built like causes the first company to crash

544
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,680
and burn, right, and like, there's no one to be

545
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,880
held accountable for that. And I mean, for sure the

546
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:54,920
engineer should not be the one held accountable for that.

547
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,440
If one person could be responsible for taking down the company,

548
00:30:57,559 --> 00:31:00,559
there's a problem with the process. I hope it turned

549
00:31:00,559 --> 00:31:04,039
into some sort of insurance policy that engineers have to

550
00:31:04,079 --> 00:31:06,319
take out in order for them to start working.

551
00:31:06,799 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: I know the attorneys have the SoundBite, that's all they needed.

552
00:31:11,839 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like Shavalla up, I am not

553
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,279
an expert, right, I have no idea what I'm saying.

554
00:31:18,359 --> 00:31:21,359
Please do not take my words at eddy official capacity.

555
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to pin one of the drug commercial

556
00:31:24,319 --> 00:31:26,799
disclaimers at the end of this episode, where the guy's

557
00:31:26,839 --> 00:31:30,880
reading it like auctioneer speed. About all the legal disclaimers

558
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:32,200
about this episode.

559
00:31:32,559 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I will say, if someone wants to pull

560
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,279
me into a court case as a subject matter expert,

561
00:31:37,319 --> 00:31:40,920
I'm happy to repeat those things. But you can find

562
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:46,920
my fees on my web page for for sure.

563
00:31:47,599 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: No, but that is a that is a good point,

564
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,039
an important point. An important point to acknowledge is that

565
00:31:55,279 --> 00:31:59,680
switching jobs is your best path forward to increasing your

566
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,920
south with the caveat if you don't want to burn

567
00:32:04,039 --> 00:32:08,240
any bridges along the way, which is pretty easy to do.

568
00:32:08,359 --> 00:32:11,680
I mean, just be just be like a stand up person,

569
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,799
you know. I think that's fairly low bar.

570
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say that you may be it may

571
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:23,400
be challenging to get invested in whatever architecture or platform

572
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,680
you're building enough to understand or deal with challenging problems.

573
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,279
If you keep switching too soon, like, you may be

574
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,000
eliminating some of the most challenging pieces of technology that

575
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,400
you would be able to invest in or learn about

576
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:39,559
because it requires understanding so many different moving pieces at

577
00:32:39,599 --> 00:32:43,319
a company. So I think it's something to keep be

578
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,559
aware of, and honestly, I tend to think of it

579
00:32:46,599 --> 00:32:50,799
as it's a negotiation tool that you can use if

580
00:32:50,839 --> 00:32:53,519
you're struggling in your current job to say, hey, you know,

581
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:55,960
I think I should change something while I'm still working there,

582
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,920
rather than believing I have to leave to have everything

583
00:32:58,960 --> 00:32:59,480
be different.

584
00:33:00,279 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And I think when we had Kelsey

585
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,920
high Tower on the show a couple months ago, he

586
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,359
did a really great job of highlighting that you know

587
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,559
that your first few years of your career should be

588
00:33:12,599 --> 00:33:15,680
broad and touch many things, but then at some point

589
00:33:15,759 --> 00:33:20,559
you find something that you're really going to focus in on,

590
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,440
and so at that point you go deep into that vertical.

591
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:29,079
Speaker 2: Here's a maybe a spicy take. If you never get

592
00:33:29,119 --> 00:33:31,119
fired in the first five years of your.

593
00:33:31,039 --> 00:33:38,559
Speaker 1: Career, if you never get fired for the right reasons,

594
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,039
I think that's important to call it laid off.

595
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 2: And fired for the wrong reasons. And there's not a

596
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,680
lot that you can do about that, unfortunately. Yeah, but yeah,

597
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:48,079
for sure.

598
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,039
Speaker 1: I was just thinking, if you get fired for bearing

599
00:33:51,039 --> 00:33:54,440
your ass to the HR person, that's that's probably not

600
00:33:54,599 --> 00:33:56,079
what we're referencing here.

601
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,839
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm talking about like accountability in your job

602
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:04,839
and your official job responsibility and role. Yeah, for sure,

603
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,320
because you know, we don't know everything, and I feel

604
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,079
like pushing that and disagreeing with other people as natural.

605
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,599
And I think that some people, some companies see disagreement

606
00:34:16,639 --> 00:34:19,000
as not a positive and that everyone should be happy

607
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,280
and work together all the time. And I feel like

608
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:26,239
disagreement actually does breed some interesting conclusions, interesting technology, good

609
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,440
decisions to come out of that. So just being agreeable

610
00:34:29,519 --> 00:34:32,880
isn't necessarily the path forward for learning new things in

611
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:38,239
your career. Don't be scared to be the odd black

612
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:38,800
sheep out.

613
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:45,679
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, absolutely, because either either you're right or

614
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:51,159
you learn something, So there's really no downside to that.

615
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You started as with the cable

616
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,840
lines and got to DBA and now you've to I

617
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,519
don't actually know what your official role is now. I

618
00:35:03,559 --> 00:35:06,920
saw it to a like T DevOps lead. I imagine

619
00:35:07,039 --> 00:35:10,119
you're responsible for more things than you're comfortable with, but

620
00:35:10,159 --> 00:35:13,159
maybe you could just give me a good summary of what.

621
00:35:13,039 --> 00:35:19,079
Speaker 1: That looks like. Yeah. From my perspective, I'm responsible for

622
00:35:19,159 --> 00:35:23,719
building the infrastructure that allows the software engineers at our

623
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:29,719
company to ship their code reliably and safely, with fault

624
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:33,559
tolerance and scalability, even when they don't know what those

625
00:35:33,599 --> 00:35:37,039
things mean. And that's kind of how I view it, which,

626
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:41,519
you know, it's still vague in itself, but technically it means,

627
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:46,079
you know, building out infrastructure in AWS or GCP or

628
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:53,000
something like that and using CICD so that they can

629
00:35:53,039 --> 00:35:56,199
focus on the things that they do well and produce

630
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,480
a product that I know will run well.

631
00:35:59,079 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 2: Are you like on some sort of autonomous team that

632
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,079
focuses on this area. Is there like a team lead

633
00:36:04,519 --> 00:36:05,519
of that team?

634
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the team lead of the team.

635
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 2: So there's like people that sudo report to you that

636
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,079
you're responsible for their future careers there.

637
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a bit of a transition for me,

638
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,880
you know, because it's less hands on the keyboard, more

639
00:36:23,039 --> 00:36:27,639
focused on, you know, some of those softer skills that

640
00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:29,440
we were talking about earlier.

641
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,760
Speaker 2: And like as having had the thirty year career, like

642
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:37,760
helpful for giving wisdom to your fellow team members, I hope.

643
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:42,440
So I don't know, because you know, sometimes in this

644
00:36:42,519 --> 00:36:45,599
position and I worry, like, are my experience is even relevant?

645
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,079
One of the ones I really struggle with is I've

646
00:36:48,119 --> 00:36:51,320
experienced this problem and it was a failure in some

647
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,239
regard and I learned from it. Yeah, And like should

648
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,719
I help someone else through that same experience, or give

649
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,480
them advice so that they can avoid it and never

650
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,320
feel the repercussions of their action.

651
00:37:03,639 --> 00:37:05,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think a key component to that

652
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:11,159
is being aware of the back in my day syndrome,

653
00:37:11,679 --> 00:37:15,320
you know, because as you get older, you it's got

654
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,719
to be genetic or something, because you'll find yourself standing

655
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:21,440
on the front porch yelling at the kids about back

656
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,639
in my day, you know, and it's just not relevant.

657
00:37:25,679 --> 00:37:27,360
So I think one of the key aspects to that

658
00:37:27,519 --> 00:37:31,480
is to make sure that your own skills are relevant

659
00:37:31,519 --> 00:37:35,840
with today's current technology, and then guide your use of

660
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:38,119
that based on things that you've learned in the past.

661
00:37:38,199 --> 00:37:40,599
So you have to have like a foot in both camps.

662
00:37:40,639 --> 00:37:42,719
You've got to have a foot in the past and

663
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:47,840
a foot in the future to have a somewhat relevant perspective.

664
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,800
Speaker 2: I like that you you jumped into the puddle here

665
00:37:52,679 --> 00:37:56,960
we'll say quicksand mud pig about the future, because I'm

666
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,119
going to ask you there's been a lot of flux

667
00:37:59,119 --> 00:38:02,000
I feel like in the technology industry today, especially in

668
00:38:02,039 --> 00:38:04,360
the last year. I don't want to say that the

669
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:06,920
layoffs have anything to do with it, or that AI

670
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,119
specifically related to it in general, or whether or not

671
00:38:10,159 --> 00:38:13,079
that will change, Like, are you ignoring this It's like

672
00:38:13,199 --> 00:38:15,199
you've seen this happen so many times in your career,

673
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:19,519
it's just another time. Or is it like a fundamental

674
00:38:19,599 --> 00:38:22,000
change here that people need to be aware of that

675
00:38:22,079 --> 00:38:25,719
could affect how their careers are evolving And maybe the

676
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,159
second fall up here is like or you're just hoping

677
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:30,960
that you'll retire before you have to worry about it.

678
00:38:31,199 --> 00:38:35,760
Speaker 1: No, I'm currently treating it as just one of many

679
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:39,199
cycles I've seen in the past, and for me, the

680
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:44,199
key to navigating these cycles is to not pan your

681
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:50,559
identity to a specific thing, like you know, like I'm

682
00:38:50,599 --> 00:38:56,360
not identified as the expert in Kubernetes because no business

683
00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:01,159
cares about Kubernetes. What the care about is solve their problems.

684
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,159
And to give you a specific example from my startup history,

685
00:39:05,159 --> 00:39:07,599
you know, I'll start working with a startup and they've

686
00:39:07,639 --> 00:39:14,079
got ten thousand monthly active users on their app. I'm

687
00:39:14,079 --> 00:39:16,039
not there to talk to them about how you can

688
00:39:16,159 --> 00:39:22,360
use kurinetes or you know, Docker container based images or

689
00:39:23,159 --> 00:39:26,079
monitoring your slas and your response times. I'm there to

690
00:39:26,119 --> 00:39:28,000
talk to them about how do I get you from

691
00:39:28,079 --> 00:39:32,119
ten thousand monthly active users to one hundred thousand monthly

692
00:39:32,159 --> 00:39:36,079
active users, because then they can do the math and say, oh, well,

693
00:39:36,119 --> 00:39:40,599
at ten dollars a user, if they can increase that,

694
00:39:40,599 --> 00:39:44,199
that generates this much additional revenue. And so now you're

695
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,119
solving a specific problem that they do care about, and

696
00:39:47,159 --> 00:39:49,400
they don't really care about the technology you used to

697
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:49,719
do that.

698
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 2: There's something very special about that advice. So you're not

699
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:58,360
just the DevOps lead pulling on. You also advise startups,

700
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,000
and as you mentioned, they care about getting to market

701
00:40:01,199 --> 00:40:04,840
and increasing their revenue, validating their idea, but then also

702
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,159
scaling up. And so you're basically saying it like, I

703
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,679
know technology, And the right answer in any of those

704
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,360
conversations is not like use use this technology, like use

705
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:19,960
this thing. It's understanding where they're at and saying this

706
00:40:20,079 --> 00:40:21,960
is the thing that you need to change to make

707
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:22,519
that happen.

708
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:26,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Like if you hire a carpenter, the

709
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:30,000
carpenter doesn't show up saying hey you got to hire me,

710
00:40:30,079 --> 00:40:32,840
I have a sixteen ounce clawhammer. You're like, I don't

711
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,679
give a shit. I'm trying to build a house. And

712
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:38,760
so they're going to talk to you about building a house.

713
00:40:39,199 --> 00:40:41,639
They may in fact have a sixteen ounce claw hammer,

714
00:40:41,639 --> 00:40:44,440
but that's just a tool that they use, and I

715
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:46,920
try to apply the same thing. You know, I may

716
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:51,800
have Kubernety skills or DBA skills, but that's just a

717
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,119
tool that I use to solve the problem that your

718
00:40:54,159 --> 00:40:54,800
business has.

719
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 2: No that really resonates with me. Actually, I remember seeing

720
00:40:58,639 --> 00:41:04,840
pretty good conference talk video about selling toilets at departments,

721
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,559
you know, home DEEPO or Lows whatever, And you go

722
00:41:08,599 --> 00:41:10,440
in there, like I need a toilet from my house

723
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,079
and there's like twenty toilets that are sitting there. It's

724
00:41:13,119 --> 00:41:14,320
like which one do I buy?

725
00:41:14,519 --> 00:41:18,679
Speaker 1: And you got to test them?

726
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:22,079
Speaker 2: Sorry, I feel like I'm unfamiliar with this concept. You

727
00:41:22,079 --> 00:41:23,199
you test them in the store?

728
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 1: Well, why else would they have them sitting out? I

729
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:32,639
mean a little privacy curtain would be nice, but hey, whatever.

730
00:41:31,679 --> 00:41:35,559
Speaker 2: They seem worse. Apparently that's that's not for everyone. It

731
00:41:35,599 --> 00:41:38,000
takes a special kind of skill to be able to

732
00:41:38,039 --> 00:41:41,480
pull that off. So the point the point is is

733
00:41:41,519 --> 00:41:43,960
like you don't you're not the foremost expert in whatever

734
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,480
those things are. You have some problem and how the

735
00:41:46,519 --> 00:41:50,440
toilet works isn't necessarily your what you care about or

736
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,400
you know, as the carpenter that you're hiring, like what

737
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,760
the code is for how thick you're two bike? Well

738
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,079
your walls need to be or the support beams, how

739
00:41:59,119 --> 00:42:01,400
the electrical wiring needs to be done? You don't really

740
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,960
care about, right, Yeah, And so I think that's a

741
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,800
good analogy there that the person the expert in that

742
00:42:08,599 --> 00:42:10,039
is there to ask.

743
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 1: You the things that you do know about and guide

744
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,480
you to the right solution. You know, like how much

745
00:42:16,559 --> 00:42:20,760
room do you have? Oh, you've only got sixteen inches

746
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:25,840
with so the twenty four inch model gets ruled out immediately,

747
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,599
you know. So focus on the parts of the problem

748
00:42:29,639 --> 00:42:32,719
that they do understand and then use your expertise of

749
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,880
the product to help them make the right selection.

750
00:42:36,679 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: So I feel like what we're talking about is becoming

751
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,679
that expert over time by focusing on learning and so

752
00:42:44,079 --> 00:42:46,800
irrelevant of how the market shifts or what new tools

753
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:48,800
are available, it could be just figuring out how do

754
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:51,719
I apply that to what I already know. It's not

755
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,280
like a different field. It's not something you have to

756
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,199
switch like I'm going to change my role now, but

757
00:42:56,519 --> 00:42:59,880
how do I use these things to help me deliver

758
00:43:00,159 --> 00:43:02,800
more more effectively or is there something I can learn

759
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:04,960
about that? But you do a lot of things at

760
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,519
the same time. It's like, you know, you do the advising,

761
00:43:07,639 --> 00:43:11,559
your podcast post. How do you find time for all

762
00:43:11,559 --> 00:43:11,760
of that?

763
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:16,079
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of time, and I think that's

764
00:43:16,119 --> 00:43:21,400
something that has to be accounted for, you know, like

765
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:24,519
a tech a career, a long thirty year career in

766
00:43:24,599 --> 00:43:29,360
tech is not a forty hour a week commitment, you know.

767
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,400
It's it's forty usually forty plus hours at the job

768
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,679
that pays your salary. But then you have to dedicate

769
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:42,239
time above and beyond that to update your skill set

770
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:44,199
so that you're relevant for tomorrow. And I think that's

771
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:51,639
one of the big the big misunderstood lessons from college

772
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:56,280
is it's not about the education as much as it

773
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:00,000
is about building good learning habits that you can use

774
00:44:00,079 --> 00:44:01,039
for the rest of your life.

775
00:44:02,159 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 2: Okay, I only have bad learning habits, so lay one

776
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:08,440
on me here.

777
00:44:09,159 --> 00:44:13,519
Speaker 1: I probably do too. I just put in the time

778
00:44:13,599 --> 00:44:17,519
to compensate for that. You know, like whenever I was

779
00:44:17,559 --> 00:44:21,639
in nuclear engineering school, you spent forty hours a week

780
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:27,199
in class, and then you spent another thirty to forty

781
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:31,199
hours a week after class studying, and so I just

782
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:35,960
built those you know, bulldog skills where you just keep

783
00:44:36,039 --> 00:44:39,519
chewing and chewing and chewing without regard for anything else,

784
00:44:39,559 --> 00:44:42,559
and it's cost stuff along the way. You know, like

785
00:44:42,599 --> 00:44:46,599
I used to love playing I still probably love playing

786
00:44:46,679 --> 00:44:49,519
computer games, but I don't know because I don't do

787
00:44:49,599 --> 00:44:52,719
that a lot anymore. Same thing with you know, like

788
00:44:53,119 --> 00:44:56,960
playing guitar. It's just not something I have time for

789
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:02,960
very frequently, and so there are trade offs. But according

790
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:07,760
to my life goals, which is to build a life

791
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,320
where I've provided for my family the best that I

792
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:16,280
could and help set them up for success, it was

793
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,559
a fair trade off. Yeah.

794
00:45:18,559 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a good thing to keep coming back

795
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:24,920
to because it's your personal identity is not like where

796
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,079
you're working or the tool that you're working with. You

797
00:45:27,119 --> 00:45:29,719
have some other life goal that you're trying to achieve,

798
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:33,639
and not getting too attached to your current situation is

799
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,159
the only way that you can move forward. I mean,

800
00:45:36,159 --> 00:45:39,159
there was no even in the four examples of the

801
00:45:39,199 --> 00:45:42,800
different progression paths you can have as an engineer, being

802
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,280
the foremost expert requires a very specific niche and there's

803
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,280
just not that many of them, all of them require

804
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,320
fundamentally changing something as time goes on.

805
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one good way to keep this in

806
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:02,039
perspective is you're going to card in a career in tech,

807
00:46:03,519 --> 00:46:08,039
but it comes with rewards, and those rewards I think

808
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:16,000
are the the way that you finance your true goals

809
00:46:16,039 --> 00:46:20,000
in life, because when you die, you're gonna meet your

810
00:46:20,079 --> 00:46:23,639
creator and they're going to say, hey, we gave you

811
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:28,599
the most state of the art vehicle in the known universe,

812
00:46:28,599 --> 00:46:30,519
we gave you a human body, what did you do

813
00:46:30,639 --> 00:46:34,920
with it? And saying I was a team lead for Microsoft,

814
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,119
I think is probably not going to cut it as

815
00:46:37,159 --> 00:46:37,719
the answer.

816
00:46:38,639 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 2: I think it's self reflection, so you know, you have

817
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,199
to decide for yourself that if that cuts it or not.

818
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:46,760
I think you know at the point that we're our

819
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:47,960
own judges there.

820
00:46:48,079 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least I like to.

821
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 2: Believe that, because otherwise I think I'm going to be

822
00:46:51,599 --> 00:46:56,000
in trouble because your your version of how you studied

823
00:46:56,840 --> 00:47:02,119
for nuclear engineering is not how I approach my university time.

824
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:04,920
I had a very different approach there, So that we're.

825
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:10,119
Speaker 1: Not I can take a guess.

826
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: I mean it was still you know, with as much struggle.

827
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:17,800
You know, I used to think that getting burned out

828
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,199
in the job was some sort of joke. And I'll

829
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:23,079
be the first one to admit this, that it was

830
00:47:23,639 --> 00:47:27,400
not something that I thought actually would happen. And then

831
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,920
it happens to you, and you struggle with it a

832
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:34,119
lot because of whatever you were doing, the strategy you had,

833
00:47:34,199 --> 00:47:37,960
and it really has this psychological and physiological impact on

834
00:47:38,599 --> 00:47:42,599
how you deal with things. And so really being mindful

835
00:47:42,639 --> 00:47:45,480
of that that there is it is hard work, for sure.

836
00:47:45,519 --> 00:47:48,360
There is no like this is an easy job. You

837
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,960
mentioned rewards. And I feel like I was asking very

838
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,960
many times in my in my pre career and career,

839
00:47:56,039 --> 00:47:58,320
are you going to make a lot of money? And

840
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,519
I always thought, yeah, probab to make some money, right, Like,

841
00:48:01,559 --> 00:48:04,079
it's probably not as much as like a lawyer or

842
00:48:04,159 --> 00:48:08,280
a doctor or whatever else I came to mind with.

843
00:48:08,519 --> 00:48:12,519
But after working in tech for not as long as

844
00:48:12,519 --> 00:48:15,599
you will, I have actually the belief that you can

845
00:48:15,639 --> 00:48:20,599
make quite a lot of money in this industry. I

846
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,360
feel like I've seen some people say they have total

847
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:25,320
compensation is over a million dollars.

848
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:27,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard that as well.

849
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:33,679
Speaker 2: Yeah it's not the norm, no, Yeah, there's a lot

850
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:36,920
out there, for sure, and so I like your framing

851
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,840
that it's not just easily achievable. If you want to

852
00:48:40,039 --> 00:48:42,960
get to the next level and change really your compensation,

853
00:48:43,159 --> 00:48:45,880
it requires putting in a lot more effort, and maybe

854
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:48,960
the company you're working for can support you. Hopefully you

855
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:50,679
don't have to put in a lot of more hours

856
00:48:50,679 --> 00:48:53,719
to make that happen. But your hobby, if you're a

857
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:55,920
person that likes to learn, seems like you know you

858
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:58,519
really well fit for that, right you know, I can

859
00:48:58,599 --> 00:49:01,119
learn what I care about outside of the job and

860
00:49:01,159 --> 00:49:03,159
focus on that and then bring that back and use

861
00:49:03,199 --> 00:49:04,039
that in my career.

862
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. And I think that's important is to

863
00:49:08,039 --> 00:49:13,519
have a reason to learn, you know, because like saying,

864
00:49:13,599 --> 00:49:17,840
oh I have to learn this for this particular paycheck

865
00:49:18,199 --> 00:49:21,679
is going to lead to burnout, guaranteed. You know, you've

866
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,320
got to tie it back to some other reason in

867
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:25,920
your life.

868
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:29,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I think one of the things I

869
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:34,039
often struggle with giving good advice over is when early

870
00:49:34,519 --> 00:49:36,400
career engineers come to me and say, Hey, what should

871
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:40,639
I learn? And I'm just like, there are too many things,

872
00:49:40,679 --> 00:49:43,199
too possibly that you could be learning, Like which one

873
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:45,440
do you care the most about. Which one is well

874
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:47,920
aligned with who you want to be or who you

875
00:49:48,039 --> 00:49:50,400
are or how you think about problems. That's the thing

876
00:49:50,639 --> 00:49:52,800
that you should go after. Don't ask me should I

877
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,920
learn AWS or GCP or I mean, I'm going to

878
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:57,519
tell you to learn AWS, but that's sort of a

879
00:49:57,519 --> 00:50:01,119
different a different bucket. Realistically, it may not help you

880
00:50:01,119 --> 00:50:03,000
get a job, right, You know, what I think is

881
00:50:03,039 --> 00:50:06,039
important isn't necessarily what is important for you. So really

882
00:50:06,039 --> 00:50:10,159
focusing on what you actually cared about, you cared about learning,

883
00:50:11,079 --> 00:50:13,440
You took what you were currently doing and said, you know,

884
00:50:13,559 --> 00:50:15,199
it was always a yes. It sounds like, you know,

885
00:50:15,559 --> 00:50:17,920
oh we're doing this thing, can we do this other

886
00:50:18,039 --> 00:50:20,280
thing as well? Yeah? Sure, why not? Let's jump into that.

887
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: Uh that's scary, not really, what's the worst it could happen?

888
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 2: No one, no one, No one's dying, right for sure?

889
00:50:30,159 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 1: Right?

890
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

891
00:50:31,559 --> 00:50:34,519
Speaker 1: One of the ways I like to guide people when

892
00:50:34,519 --> 00:50:41,000
that question comes up is just tell them go get

893
00:50:41,199 --> 00:50:46,559
a junk PC, build a web server, put it online,

894
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:50,960
build a website and make it public, you know, and

895
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:52,599
then you're just going to take them. You're going to

896
00:50:52,639 --> 00:50:58,079
take them all the way through the entire software delivery

897
00:50:58,119 --> 00:51:01,320
life cycle end to end and tell them at some

898
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:03,960
point in there, you're going to enjoy part of that

899
00:51:04,079 --> 00:51:07,360
process and you're going to hate other parts of that process.

900
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:09,519
Focus on the parts that you enjoyed.

901
00:51:10,199 --> 00:51:12,800
Speaker 2: There is actually, if people are looking for something specific,

902
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:18,000
there's some documentation out there around what's called the Cloud

903
00:51:18,039 --> 00:51:22,679
Resume Challenge. It's basically a will described It helps guide

904
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:24,840
you through the different technologies that you can potentially be

905
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:27,199
using and say, here, solve this problem. Then solve this problem.

906
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:30,039
Then solve this problem very specifically, and through that you

907
00:51:30,079 --> 00:51:33,199
can take like take lots of time understanding what you're

908
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,400
actually doing and why. Like, it's not about getting through

909
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,079
it as soon as possible, No one's no one's going

910
00:51:38,119 --> 00:51:39,960
to be reviewing your work. But it is a great

911
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,559
thing because the outcome is a hey, look, I built

912
00:51:42,599 --> 00:51:45,480
all these things to automatically update my resume, and it's

913
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,679
on a public website. And you can even show that

914
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:51,480
as a project that had some value. Whereas someone who

915
00:51:51,559 --> 00:51:54,079
tells me, oh, yeah, I build like a recommendation engine

916
00:51:54,119 --> 00:51:56,599
that shows like movies or whatever on a web page,

917
00:51:56,639 --> 00:51:58,840
I'm going to be like, why why did you build?

918
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,079
My first question in an interview, like, tell me about

919
00:52:02,079 --> 00:52:04,559
something you really enjoyed doing and then why you did it.

920
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:08,199
And the answer can't be oh, I just needed to

921
00:52:08,199 --> 00:52:11,199
do something right. I want to understand your thought process

922
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:15,239
on understanding business value or driving forward. I had a

923
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:17,239
problem I need to solve, and here's the solution.

924
00:52:17,599 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I think that's it right there. You had

925
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:26,000
a problem to solve. You know, why was that a problem?

926
00:52:26,079 --> 00:52:29,360
Why was this the solution that you chose? Because that's

927
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:32,599
what all businesses are doing, is they're trying to solve problems.

928
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:36,800
Speaker 2: I think there's another thing here, and it's the nuances involved.

929
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:38,840
Like if it's a concrete thing that actually happened to

930
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,199
you and there was a lot of discussions behind it,

931
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:44,119
those are interesting conversations. Those are interesting stories how you

932
00:52:44,159 --> 00:52:47,519
were engaged in that, what you learned about doing that.

933
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,760
And if it's sort of a made up hypothetical problem,

934
00:52:51,079 --> 00:52:53,679
then you don't really understand the trade offs. There aren't

935
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:55,559
any trade offs to make. It's whatever you want at

936
00:52:55,599 --> 00:52:57,800
every bend. You can't really say, well, we had one

937
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:00,440
hundred thousand users, so we had to do things this way,

938
00:53:00,559 --> 00:53:02,679
or we only had ten users and so we could

939
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:04,760
do things differently, if you just have a made up

940
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:06,719
number of users in your head, I have no idea

941
00:53:07,119 --> 00:53:12,119
how resilient and reliable the project that you did had.

942
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:16,039
Speaker 1: To be, yeah, for sure. And another thing you can

943
00:53:16,079 --> 00:53:19,559
do is if you don't have a problem that seems

944
00:53:19,599 --> 00:53:25,840
particularly interesting to you, is talk to people that you know.

945
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:30,320
A specific example is a buddy of mine just recently

946
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:38,000
has been taking Mui Thai lessons. But the software that

947
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:43,239
the company uses for like building membership and tracking classes

948
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:46,440
and all that kind of stuff was just really frustrating

949
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:48,239
for him to use. So he went to the owner

950
00:53:48,599 --> 00:53:51,880
and said, hey, can I just build you a platform

951
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,679
that's specific to the classes you teach, because like he

952
00:53:55,800 --> 00:54:01,239
was using some generic gym membership websites SaaS that was,

953
00:54:02,159 --> 00:54:06,199
you know, for anything from like Planet Fitness to you know,

954
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:10,280
your local CrossFit thing, and so it wasn't really working

955
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,480
for their specific needs. So he's currently working on building

956
00:54:13,519 --> 00:54:15,920
one specific to w we Tai gyms.

957
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,039
Speaker 2: He really took that opportunity that he found and did

958
00:54:19,079 --> 00:54:21,880
something with it. I think being open outside of your

959
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:23,880
nine to five or whatever you want to call it.

960
00:54:24,119 --> 00:54:27,000
In the remote world or hybrid world, the hours during

961
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,360
the day aren't fixed. You know, whatever you're doing in

962
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,480
those in the downtime, I think are great opportunities to

963
00:54:32,519 --> 00:54:34,880
invest more in. They're the things that maybe you already.

964
00:54:34,599 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: Care about, yeah for sure. Yeah, And so it's multifaceted

965
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,639
win for him. You know, he gets a better experience

966
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:46,440
as a customer of this gym, but he's also getting

967
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,199
more skills at solving problems for a business and at

968
00:54:50,199 --> 00:54:53,760
the same time working on advancing or keeping his own

969
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:56,400
technical skills up to date as well, all from the

970
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:57,159
same project.

971
00:54:57,599 --> 00:55:00,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot there go on, Like you can

972
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:03,000
keep investing in that more and more, and you can

973
00:55:03,039 --> 00:55:04,599
turn it into a business and sell it to the

974
00:55:04,639 --> 00:55:06,760
next next gym and the next.

975
00:55:06,679 --> 00:55:09,079
Speaker 1: Jim in the next gym, right for sure. Yeah.

976
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 2: So since you've got up there in years now, are

977
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:14,519
you starting to think about like, I'm going to retire

978
00:55:14,519 --> 00:55:15,800
at some point or is this like I'm going to

979
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:17,400
be doing this till like I'm going to be on

980
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:19,920
the podcast host until the day I die.

981
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:24,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's been coming up more and more frequently

982
00:55:24,599 --> 00:55:28,360
in my thought process recently. I might I might be

983
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:29,599
close to the end of my career.

984
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:34,639
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, anything that's weighing to help make that decision, Like,

985
00:55:35,199 --> 00:55:37,480
was it a direction, like you you like what you've achieved,

986
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:39,440
You're getting out early. Is it a you know, you

987
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:41,679
said you had a main goal in your in your

988
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:44,840
why you're working, and if you don't need the money,

989
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,800
then you won't necessarily do that. Is it about I

990
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:48,880
want to play games more?

991
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:49,119
Speaker 1: Right?

992
00:55:49,159 --> 00:55:50,320
Speaker 2: You know you said get back to it.

993
00:55:50,679 --> 00:55:54,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely not I want to play games more

994
00:55:54,760 --> 00:56:01,960
because I am about gosh what it's been seven, eight,

995
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:09,119
maybe years ago. I hit this point where I just

996
00:56:10,639 --> 00:56:14,079
I don't need to work for the money anymore, and

997
00:56:14,119 --> 00:56:17,719
so I kind of retired at that point. And after

998
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:22,400
about thirty days, my wife was like, look, we got

999
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:28,880
to talk. You can get a job, you can go

1000
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:31,760
away forever, you can get a mistress. I don't care

1001
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:34,199
what you do, but you cannot sit around the house anymore.

1002
00:56:36,119 --> 00:56:39,440
And she had a valid point, because I just I'm

1003
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:42,440
not the type of person who can have nothing to do. Like,

1004
00:56:43,079 --> 00:56:46,599
worst case scenario for me would be retire and the

1005
00:56:46,639 --> 00:56:49,000
only thing I have to look forward to would be

1006
00:56:49,079 --> 00:56:56,800
like a daily round of golf. So I think it'll

1007
00:56:56,800 --> 00:57:01,599
probably change for me in the near future, but I

1008
00:57:01,679 --> 00:57:03,920
just don't know what that is going to look like.

1009
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:07,679
Speaker 2: So, I know that you've said a lot of things here,

1010
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:09,960
there's a lot of secret nuggets of wisdom that have

1011
00:57:10,039 --> 00:57:11,159
been added, and.

1012
00:57:11,480 --> 00:57:12,199
Speaker 1: Well, I hope so.

1013
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, anyone that's been doing something as

1014
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:22,480
long as you have collects those and picking your brain

1015
00:57:22,599 --> 00:57:24,199
is always always a good time.

1016
00:57:24,239 --> 00:57:28,400
Speaker 1: Well yeah, there's some Yeah, hopefully. I think that's one

1017
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:31,719
of my goals, you know, because I mentioned my original

1018
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:36,239
goal starting this three decades ago was to provide from

1019
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:41,239
my family. And I've done well at that. I mean,

1020
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,599
given where I started, I've done really really well at that.

1021
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:49,039
And now I'm like, well, what's what's the next goal?

1022
00:57:49,039 --> 00:57:52,639
And I think part of that is, hey, I did

1023
00:57:52,679 --> 00:57:57,719
okay at this for three decades. What can I share

1024
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:01,320
and how can I share it with people who or

1025
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:03,760
earlier in their journey, Like what can I do or

1026
00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:07,000
say to help them build on top of the mistakes

1027
00:58:07,039 --> 00:58:09,920
that I made so that they don't have to repeat

1028
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:10,599
those mistakes.

1029
00:58:11,239 --> 00:58:17,440
Speaker 2: I hear a book coming, maybe.

1030
00:58:17,159 --> 00:58:21,079
Speaker 1: I don't know, get a make it a New York

1031
00:58:21,079 --> 00:58:23,639
Times bestseller, because seemingly every book.

1032
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:29,639
Speaker 2: Is it's just a statistically significant like you write a

1033
00:58:29,639 --> 00:58:31,199
book and then the only way you know about the

1034
00:58:31,199 --> 00:58:33,440
book is that if it's a New York Times bestseller,

1035
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:36,159
all the other books like you never even hear about.

1036
00:58:36,199 --> 00:58:37,960
So there are no books that are not New York

1037
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:40,519
Times bestseller. They secretly get deleted from the internet.

1038
00:58:41,039 --> 00:58:45,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, how demoralizing is that for an author like God,

1039
00:58:45,119 --> 00:58:47,239
I can't even write a best selling book according to

1040
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:48,239
New York Times.

1041
00:58:49,239 --> 00:58:52,159
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know that's something really interested in.

1042
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:58,039
You can ask the actors and directors that make video

1043
00:58:58,159 --> 00:59:00,719
content that shows up on streaming platforms, because the stream

1044
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:04,159
platforms remove everything from there that don't do well. And

1045
00:59:04,239 --> 00:59:07,360
so I can imagine as a content creator getting your

1046
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:11,599
stuff just terminated like that is that's a special kind

1047
00:59:11,639 --> 00:59:20,960
of new foul with the current world order, right, no doubt. Well,

1048
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:23,280
then maybe we should move over to pics.

1049
00:59:23,679 --> 00:59:26,599
Speaker 1: Let's do some pics. You're starting at me to start,

1050
00:59:26,639 --> 00:59:29,119
I feel like you interviewed me this time, so I

1051
00:59:29,119 --> 00:59:30,239
feel like I should go first.

1052
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:32,039
Speaker 2: You should definitely go first, all right.

1053
00:59:32,119 --> 00:59:35,159
Speaker 1: I have been reading The Way of the Superior Man

1054
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:40,199
by David Dta Data. I think it's data DEI d A.

1055
00:59:41,519 --> 00:59:44,320
It's a cool book. It's probably going to be controversial

1056
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:49,760
for most or for some people. But even if it is,

1057
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,559
I think it's worth a read because it does a

1058
00:59:52,599 --> 00:59:56,639
really good job of like highlighting some of the things

1059
00:59:56,639 --> 00:59:59,519
we talked about here today, like what's your goal in

1060
00:59:59,599 --> 01:00:05,480
life and what's your role in achieving that goal? And

1061
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:08,840
I think one of the common themes through it is

1062
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:14,960
whenever you have challenges in the relationships of your life,

1063
01:00:15,719 --> 01:00:18,960
it's your fault. It's not anyone else's fault. It's either

1064
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:22,639
your fault because you screwed up, or your fault because

1065
01:00:22,639 --> 01:00:27,639
you didn't set expectations correctly, or your fault because you

1066
01:00:27,679 --> 01:00:35,239
didn't guide the scenario at the right time. But it's

1067
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:40,920
really good at reflecting on that and removing blaming from

1068
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:46,039
your vocabulary, Like instead of blaming someone else, you're like, huh, yeah,

1069
01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:48,079
it's my fault. I should have done this instead, and

1070
01:00:48,079 --> 01:00:49,440
we would have never been in that situation.

1071
01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:54,039
Speaker 2: So, I mean, I see this both being more healthy

1072
01:00:54,519 --> 01:00:57,760
and also potentially less healthy, depending on how you you know,

1073
01:00:57,880 --> 01:00:59,559
approach the situation. I mean, there's a lot to be

1074
01:00:59,559 --> 01:01:03,679
said up not like playing the victim right that, right, Yeah,

1075
01:01:04,039 --> 01:01:06,239
you could have impacted that, Like if you don't get promoted,

1076
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:08,519
you know, you could have done more to make that happen.

1077
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know, Like one thing to keep

1078
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:16,599
in mind as you read it is, if you've ever

1079
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:21,239
read Victor Frankel's Search for Meaning? Is that the right title?

1080
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:24,880
He was He was a Jewish doctor who was sent

1081
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:28,239
to a Nazi concentration camp in World War Two, and

1082
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:34,079
then later he wrote this book about the positive aspects

1083
01:01:34,119 --> 01:01:36,880
of that, not that there were positive aspects of that,

1084
01:01:37,039 --> 01:01:39,760
but the fact that he's like, you know, we're in

1085
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:46,440
this brutal nightmares situation seemingly out of our control, but

1086
01:01:46,559 --> 01:01:50,079
you know what I can control. I can control my thoughts.

1087
01:01:50,679 --> 01:01:54,559
And yeah, yeah, So if you haven't read Victor frankel

1088
01:01:55,519 --> 01:01:58,960
Search for Meaning, I think is the title. That's a great, great,

1089
01:01:59,039 --> 01:02:03,360
great book, like must read for every person on the

1090
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:04,719
planet type book.

1091
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:08,360
Speaker 2: Okay, so he's got maybe there's two.

1092
01:02:08,159 --> 01:02:09,840
Speaker 1: Picks there, maybe, yeah, two picks.

1093
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:13,480
Speaker 2: So mine's also a book. Because I'm laying but I am,

1094
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:16,800
I will. I will share this that I've almost run

1095
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:19,440
out of books that I feel like I'm okay recommending

1096
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:21,599
for people to read, so very soon I'm going to

1097
01:02:21,679 --> 01:02:26,000
have to u over to a completely different genre content.

1098
01:02:26,119 --> 01:02:28,199
I'm not sure what that's going to be. Yeah. My

1099
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:31,639
book pick is one it's called One Up on Wall

1100
01:02:31,639 --> 01:02:34,320
Street by Peter Lynch, and it's an old book. I

1101
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:36,559
think it's like nineteen sixty two or something like that,

1102
01:02:37,159 --> 01:02:39,480
and it has nothing to do with software engineering or

1103
01:02:39,519 --> 01:02:42,079
knowledge work. It has to do about how to invest

1104
01:02:42,119 --> 01:02:45,760
in the market to get better returns. And you should

1105
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:47,719
not take the advice in the book as far as

1106
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:50,400
investing in the market, because it's so old that everyone's

1107
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:53,920
already done this, everyone's already found and knows how to

1108
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:57,880
apply it effectively. But the advice is value based investments.

1109
01:02:57,960 --> 01:03:02,159
That's understanding what the core value is with something that

1110
01:03:02,159 --> 01:03:04,039
you would invest in, how much value you would get

1111
01:03:04,079 --> 01:03:06,119
out of it, and what the return could be. So

1112
01:03:06,639 --> 01:03:10,719
not speculating on what would happen. And I find that

1113
01:03:11,159 --> 01:03:13,079
I get a lot of inspiration on how I can

1114
01:03:13,159 --> 01:03:17,239
change my mindset when I'm learning things from nonfiction or

1115
01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:22,599
even sometimes fiction outside of the tech industry, outside of leadership.

1116
01:03:22,679 --> 01:03:24,440
And so I found a lot in this because it

1117
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:26,480
made me realize, Okay, you know what am I doing?

1118
01:03:26,519 --> 01:03:29,280
What do I want to invest in in myself that

1119
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:32,639
can give me returns? You know, what do I care

1120
01:03:32,679 --> 01:03:34,920
about fundamentally as a person or what am I good

1121
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:38,760
at and then leading into that more and so I

1122
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:42,639
think it's a great book. It's also was super.

1123
01:03:42,360 --> 01:03:46,719
Speaker 1: Helpful for me right on, and I'm going to highlight

1124
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:49,559
something you said, like talking about books like there is

1125
01:03:49,679 --> 01:03:52,079
the I mean, we're both old enough, you know, where

1126
01:03:52,440 --> 01:03:55,000
there was the stigma of people who read. You know,

1127
01:03:55,559 --> 01:03:58,639
the high school football team was going to come running

1128
01:03:58,639 --> 01:04:04,480
around nerd and beat your ass. But there's nothing wrong

1129
01:04:04,519 --> 01:04:08,079
with reading, Like it's probably the most important thing you

1130
01:04:08,079 --> 01:04:10,480
can do with your life. Because every problem you will

1131
01:04:10,559 --> 01:04:13,480
ever face in your life, We've got books going back

1132
01:04:13,599 --> 01:04:18,480
thousands of years someone somewhere has written about a very

1133
01:04:18,519 --> 01:04:20,800
similar problem and how they solved it.

1134
01:04:21,599 --> 01:04:23,840
Speaker 2: If we're going to go there that I'll share my

1135
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:28,800
wisdom here. I always hated reading books. I thought it

1136
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:32,280
was the worst. And that was because the books that

1137
01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:35,199
you've access to or are forced to read, at least

1138
01:04:35,199 --> 01:04:37,480
from my perspective, were not good books. So you know

1139
01:04:37,519 --> 01:04:40,639
what you pick up in through your academic career. I

1140
01:04:40,639 --> 01:04:42,480
didn't like it all, and so it gave me the

1141
01:04:42,559 --> 01:04:45,480
view that all books were bad. But as Weill said,

1142
01:04:45,519 --> 01:04:49,119
there's definitely inspiration that can come from things that you

1143
01:04:49,159 --> 01:04:51,280
didn't know were out there. So if you do have

1144
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:54,280
that mindset, you know, try doing something you don't like

1145
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:57,519
at least ten percent of the time and maybe you'll

1146
01:04:59,079 --> 01:05:00,199
maybe it'll change your mind.

1147
01:05:00,719 --> 01:05:03,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And if you're struggling with where to start,

1148
01:05:03,360 --> 01:05:07,400
I think starting with older books is better because the

1149
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:12,679
barrier to publishing was much higher ten years ago. Nowadays,

1150
01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:15,599
anyone with a PDF can release a book, and so

1151
01:05:15,679 --> 01:05:20,320
the barrier to entry leads to potentially lower quality books.

1152
01:05:20,440 --> 01:05:24,320
But if you go back, you know, like two thousand's

1153
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:27,599
and before, the barrier to getting a book published was

1154
01:05:27,760 --> 01:05:31,000
pretty tough, and so the quality I think tends to

1155
01:05:31,039 --> 01:05:32,159
reflect that. No.

1156
01:05:32,239 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 2: I think it's a really good point. There's just because

1157
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:36,800
there's a book published doesn't mean it's good. Like, you

1158
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:38,719
can disagree with the book. It can be bad. You

1159
01:05:38,719 --> 01:05:40,639
can you know, not something that you want to read,

1160
01:05:40,679 --> 01:05:42,440
and it's okay to get rid of that and put

1161
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:45,800
it down. But not all books are the same, I

1162
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:49,199
guess as the wisdom.

1163
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:57,639
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure for sure. All right, therapy session over.

1164
01:06:00,079 --> 01:06:02,159
Speaker 2: For just one hour there.

1165
01:06:02,440 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll just uh, we'll just get a transcript of

1166
01:06:05,039 --> 01:06:07,400
this submitted to my insurance company and bill it as

1167
01:06:07,440 --> 01:06:13,679
a therapy session. You're getting paid for this episode, Warren, Well,

1168
01:06:13,719 --> 01:06:14,320
I only do.

1169
01:06:14,320 --> 01:06:17,679
Speaker 2: Things for free or for my my actual rate, so

1170
01:06:17,760 --> 01:06:18,960
this probably wouldn't cover it.

1171
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,440
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna have it fair enough.

1172
01:06:23,159 --> 01:06:25,400
Speaker 2: But if you want, you want the actual invoice claim,

1173
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:27,280
I'm happy to send that over to you.

1174
01:06:27,679 --> 01:06:32,880
Speaker 1: Oh for sure, tax deduction, all right. Thank you for

1175
01:06:33,039 --> 01:06:36,280
this episode. I really enjoyed it. Appreciate your time and

1176
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:41,039
your questions. Thank you to everyone listening for listening, and

1177
01:06:41,119 --> 01:06:47,320
if you have thoughts, comments, ideas, further questions, you know

1178
01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:47,920
how to find me