1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,260 Well, I was telling my son with his homework, which either when I've got a daughter, when 2 00:00:06,260 --> 00:00:08,280 she gets to be homework, we'll see if my head explodes. 3 00:00:08,440 --> 00:00:13,040 But helping your kid with your homework, at least mine, is either the most wonderful thing 4 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:18,020 that could happen or it helps you remember all the tall bridges that you could go jump 5 00:00:18,020 --> 00:00:18,660 off of. 6 00:00:19,500 --> 00:00:21,820 Now, is that helping with your homework or her homework? 7 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:23,640 Touche. 8 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:24,860 This is a good question. 9 00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:27,580 It's actually helping with my son's homework. 10 00:00:28,420 --> 00:00:34,080 He's reading some, what's that service that writes summaries of business book, Blinkist? 11 00:00:34,220 --> 00:00:37,060 He's reading some Blinkist-like summaries of The Wizard of Oz. 12 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:39,300 And then he has to ask some questions afterward. 13 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:41,620 And here's the thing I taught him. 14 00:00:41,660 --> 00:00:45,520 And then I want to hear if y'all have any tips, any sort of like study or homework tips 15 00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:46,600 you would give people. 16 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:52,240 I told him that if you are given some reading material and you have some questions that you're 17 00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,560 going to have to answer, what you should do is read the questions first. 18 00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:59,620 So, when you're reading the material, you can like proactively answer the questions. 19 00:01:00,340 --> 00:01:05,540 And, you know, as always with things I tell my son, like, you know, he was trying to program 20 00:01:05,540 --> 00:01:07,980 some Minecraft stuff the other day and I was trying to give him advice. 21 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:10,360 And I was like, you realize I was a programmer for 10 years. 22 00:01:10,980 --> 00:01:12,340 He didn't care, right? 23 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:16,120 Anyways, I was a little nervous that the advice wouldn't pay off. 24 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:19,800 But sure enough, he just like, he answered the questions as he read it. 25 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:22,900 And I felt like I felt like I had taught him an important lesson. 26 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:29,380 But guest, I want to ask you, what are some studying, homework, test taking things like 27 00:01:29,380 --> 00:01:33,560 that tips you would give to the youngsters out there to help them out? 28 00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:37,760 I think my advice is always like start early and work hard, right? 29 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:40,540 If you wait till the last minute, you're like looking for trouble. 30 00:01:40,860 --> 00:01:42,540 Like, my, my... 31 00:01:42,540 --> 00:01:43,960 Now, that's not, that's not practical. 32 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:45,020 No, it's not. 33 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:51,080 My soon-to-be 18-year-old still waits till the last minute to like submit his college application. 34 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:55,260 And of course, there's a software defect that they didn't do the date math right. 35 00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:59,740 So, his app is unsubmittable when before the deadline, right? 36 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:00,840 Yeah, yeah. 37 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:05,360 Now, now, now, did he, did they teach enough economics in his school to allow him to tell 38 00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:07,700 you why that's great to maximize optionality? 39 00:02:07,980 --> 00:02:09,600 You want to wait till the last moment? 40 00:02:10,060 --> 00:02:10,580 Yeah, right. 41 00:02:10,980 --> 00:02:12,400 He actually brought up that argument. 42 00:02:12,580 --> 00:02:13,200 That was kind of funny. 43 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:19,860 He took, he actually took economics and buried me with all these like new, newly found ways 44 00:02:19,860 --> 00:02:21,220 to argue his point. 45 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:22,380 Yeah, yeah. 46 00:02:22,500 --> 00:02:26,320 You know, it's the cognitive bias of the fallacy of kids are just like this. 47 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:27,200 So, don't try. 48 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:32,640 Yeah, that's, that's what I try to keep telling, telling my son. 49 00:02:32,700 --> 00:02:37,040 And of course, I know he's not going to listen is like, oh man, I find myself giving out 50 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:41,000 so much of this dad advice that I shake, I'm shaking right now, but it's just like, you 51 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,360 know, the sooner you start, the sooner you'll finish. 52 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:50,040 And then, you know, I feel like I'm giving my dad like a, a metaphoric, like cheers, like 53 00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:51,440 a little, a clink of beer. 54 00:02:51,900 --> 00:02:53,940 But how about yourself, Richard? 55 00:02:54,140 --> 00:02:57,540 What, uh, what are some tips you would tell the youngsters to get through their, uh, their 56 00:02:57,540 --> 00:02:57,900 studying? 57 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:02,840 Yeah, I mean, I definitely read the, uh, no procrastination rule since I try not to do 58 00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:03,340 it myself. 59 00:03:03,340 --> 00:03:04,080 So, we try to do that. 60 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:06,680 I also try to, uh, and you probably know, both know this too. 61 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:10,440 Some of the education nowadays seems to be focused very much on the answer and not much 62 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:11,220 of the process. 63 00:03:11,220 --> 00:03:14,700 So, I try to encourage the, uh, kind of think outside the box stuff, especially with like 64 00:03:14,700 --> 00:03:15,400 physical items. 65 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,460 So, if it's like, you know, you get one of these random questions, like, I don't know 66 00:03:18,460 --> 00:03:19,060 how to solve this. 67 00:03:19,140 --> 00:03:23,140 I'm like, line a set of quarters or like use something physical to actually kind of visualize 68 00:03:23,140 --> 00:03:26,680 how this thing looks versus just staring at the sheet of paper for 10 straight minutes 69 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,920 and then looking at me with like these puppy dog eyes, like, just give me the answer to 70 00:03:29,920 --> 00:03:30,100 me. 71 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:31,780 Like, now, solve it. 72 00:03:31,820 --> 00:03:32,800 Like, post it, huh? 73 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:33,820 Yeah. 74 00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:37,900 So, just use something physical sometimes to jar your brain is usually, for me, uh, what 75 00:03:37,900 --> 00:03:38,860 I encourage him to do. 76 00:03:39,020 --> 00:03:43,380 And, you know, then I'll quiz him with like random stupid Microsoft-like interview questions, 77 00:03:43,380 --> 00:03:48,100 like how many oranges fit in the state of Utah, just to kind of make him work through stuff 78 00:03:48,100 --> 00:03:48,480 in his head. 79 00:03:48,500 --> 00:03:49,840 Like, how would you possibly solve? 80 00:03:50,180 --> 00:03:52,920 The answer will be wrong, but just tell me how you might solve it. 81 00:03:52,940 --> 00:03:53,980 It seems to kind of help. 82 00:03:54,540 --> 00:03:56,880 Do people still give those interview questions? 83 00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:01,780 I think people who read those books 20 years ago and those companies aren't doing it anymore, 84 00:04:01,780 --> 00:04:05,240 but now these other follow-on companies might be doing it, but I haven't seen them in a 85 00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:05,440 while. 86 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:07,460 How about yourself, John? 87 00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:10,020 Do you, when you're hiring people, do you give questions like that? 88 00:04:11,300 --> 00:04:13,940 Um, you know, I've actually learned not to do that. 89 00:04:14,280 --> 00:04:21,220 So, I'm more interested in like somebody's like desire to like learn than I am like what 90 00:04:21,220 --> 00:04:22,160 they know right now. 91 00:04:22,500 --> 00:04:22,760 Yeah. 92 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:23,460 Yeah. 93 00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:29,400 I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure I, uh, uh, I missed out on a job because I couldn't answer, I couldn't 94 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:35,180 explain how, if you're in a lake and you get into a boat, how would you calculate the water 95 00:04:35,180 --> 00:04:37,380 displacement or something like that? 96 00:04:37,380 --> 00:04:42,700 And like, I was, it was just a job to like QA bug tracking software. 97 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:47,420 So, I'm not sure how that was related, but, uh, anyhow, probably for the better. 98 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:48,980 Now I'm anyways. 99 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:50,920 So, why don't you introduce yourself guest? 100 00:04:51,900 --> 00:04:54,360 Oh, so, uh, this is John Osborne. 101 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:59,600 I'm, uh, the, uh, enterprise architect for, uh, great American insurance here in Cincinnati, 102 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:00,200 Ohio. 103 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:06,260 Now, now you've given, uh, I think a couple, I get podcasts and presentations mixed up, but 104 00:05:06,260 --> 00:05:11,640 anyways, we've talked over the years for a while about how, uh, you know, a greater American 105 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:12,880 insurance company. 106 00:05:13,340 --> 00:05:13,560 Yep. 107 00:05:13,620 --> 00:05:14,860 Do you say the company part? 108 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:20,440 Do you just say, uh, it's technically it's great American insurance group group. 109 00:05:20,540 --> 00:05:24,580 We're like a conglomerate, but, but we own everything. 110 00:05:24,580 --> 00:05:26,040 So it's not really a conglomerate. 111 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:34,800 So, so we, we've talked over the years about how you and your team, uh, and folks there 112 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,960 have, have, uh, I mean, done digital transformation. 113 00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:43,380 That is in my way of explaining it, improve the way that y'all do software and therefore improve 114 00:05:43,380 --> 00:05:46,460 the way the, uh, the group as it were operates. 115 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:52,780 Um, and I remember, um, I guess this was the year before last, your sea of nose presentation. 116 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:53,660 Is that right? 117 00:05:54,020 --> 00:05:54,260 Yeah. 118 00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:54,600 Yeah. 119 00:05:54,700 --> 00:05:54,800 Yeah. 120 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:55,840 Yeah. 121 00:05:55,840 --> 00:06:02,820 That's always been one of my favorite presentations because, um, uh, in, in, in a good sort of like, 122 00:06:02,820 --> 00:06:08,400 you know, flashback to my time working in the executive suite and doing MNA, there was a lot 123 00:06:08,400 --> 00:06:15,880 of like tactics in there that were, uh, realistic and, and reminded me of both the good and the 124 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:16,580 bad times. 125 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:20,520 Um, and so, uh, you've always got some, some good takes on sort of like, what are these 126 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:26,380 realistic tactics, um, and, and some pragmatic experience of how people can fix up the way 127 00:06:26,380 --> 00:06:27,040 they do software. 128 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:30,940 But I think, I think the more interesting points, I mean, not to the exclusion of the other ones, 129 00:06:30,940 --> 00:06:35,860 but some of the things that are unique to the conversations we have are, so I'm, I'm going 130 00:06:35,860 --> 00:06:43,380 to the big meeting and, uh, should I use light blue or dark blue, but you know, I, stuff like 131 00:06:43,380 --> 00:06:50,580 that, like things that actually matter for, uh, spreading out change in a large organization. 132 00:06:50,580 --> 00:06:55,700 So all of that said, let's, let's first start with like, can you give us a brief overview 133 00:06:55,700 --> 00:07:01,160 of, uh, just kind of the story of when y'all started, I think maybe three years ago. 134 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:07,660 I mean, no, actually, uh, I was, um, I started about three years ago, maybe two and a half, 135 00:07:07,760 --> 00:07:13,220 but, um, I was just, um, joking around with one of our, my lead platform architects because 136 00:07:13,220 --> 00:07:18,740 our, we first installed Cloud Foundry, um, two years ago, I think next week or the week 137 00:07:18,740 --> 00:07:19,060 after. 138 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:24,180 So he, he was, um, he was, couldn't believe that it was two years ago that we started with 139 00:07:24,180 --> 00:07:24,760 Cloud Foundry. 140 00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:29,340 So, um, we, uh, uh, did that. 141 00:07:29,460 --> 00:07:34,260 We did an install dojo with Pivotal, um, which was great because we were able to train our 142 00:07:34,260 --> 00:07:36,960 platform people, um, really well. 143 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:39,120 And then we went to Denver, took a team to Denver. 144 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,580 That's the whole navigating the no discussion. 145 00:07:42,760 --> 00:07:47,540 How do you get, how do you get a team of people to Pivotal Labs in a way that's going to work 146 00:07:47,540 --> 00:07:48,220 out for you? 147 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:55,980 Um, then we brought them home, built out a lab space, and we're now at, um, close to 148 00:07:55,980 --> 00:07:59,100 36 people starting, um, with six. 149 00:08:00,020 --> 00:08:03,300 So it's a pretty, it's been a pretty amazing journey. 150 00:08:03,620 --> 00:08:03,740 So. 151 00:08:04,420 --> 00:08:09,240 And, and like what, what kind of like apps and services or like, what's the things they're 152 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:09,820 working on? 153 00:08:10,700 --> 00:08:12,440 Um, you know, you'd be surprised. 154 00:08:12,580 --> 00:08:16,240 Um, when we first started, people were like, Oh, we'll just do services or whatever. 155 00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:18,060 And of course we do microservices. 156 00:08:18,060 --> 00:08:25,900 Um, but we also have, it turns out, uh, a whole bunch of external facing apps, uh, either 157 00:08:25,900 --> 00:08:34,560 APIs or actual like mobile applications and websites and things that people previously valued, but 158 00:08:34,560 --> 00:08:37,880 didn't really consider as part of the tool set for some reason. 159 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:41,380 I think that's sort of a business perspective maybe. 160 00:08:42,220 --> 00:08:46,220 Um, so we have that, um, we have a ton of, uh, back office. 161 00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:48,860 It's a software, which isn't technically it's an app, right? 162 00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:52,340 It's not just a service cause you have humans that you have to like make happy. 163 00:08:53,220 --> 00:08:57,740 And then, um, but then now we're, uh, we're starting to expand into the data space too. 164 00:08:57,840 --> 00:09:04,960 So we're taking our learnings from the microservice app world and learning how to do test-driven 165 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:09,440 development and pairing and all that, all those activities, including the post-it notes with 166 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:10,300 the data space. 167 00:09:10,300 --> 00:09:14,620 And that's been an amazing journey also over the past months. 168 00:09:15,180 --> 00:09:15,580 Yeah. 169 00:09:15,660 --> 00:09:16,760 I mean, what's that look like? 170 00:09:16,900 --> 00:09:20,300 I mean, how do you, first of all, did you start that because you felt like we've got this 171 00:09:20,300 --> 00:09:21,160 apps thing down? 172 00:09:21,460 --> 00:09:25,000 Let's to data, or did you just recognize that was a different bottleneck that you now had 173 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:25,440 to tackle? 174 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:27,500 And, and Kyle, what was the first thing you went after? 175 00:09:28,140 --> 00:09:29,600 So, you know, that's really interesting. 176 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:34,460 Um, one of the things that happens when you grow up is sometimes you need to change leadership 177 00:09:34,460 --> 00:09:37,560 because you need to reapply skills other places. 178 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:43,200 So last June, um, I transitioned the formal lab. 179 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:48,720 We call it gas lab, great American software lab, uh, uh, to another manager at the time 180 00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:51,400 because we had this huge data problem. 181 00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:56,400 And of course, you know, my boss and his boss are like, and then CIO are like, well, of course 182 00:09:56,400 --> 00:09:57,360 John has to solve this. 183 00:09:57,420 --> 00:09:59,420 So we need to get them out of here so he can go solve data. 184 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:03,180 And, you know, to some extent that was fine with me. 185 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:06,880 Um, but then of course, when I get to data, I'm like, you know, why aren't we doing all 186 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:08,900 the good stuff we learned over there over here? 187 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:14,320 So, so I started another lab, we call it bacon lab because, you know, data is the new 188 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:15,080 bacon, right? 189 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:17,320 And, um, you're happy at bacon. 190 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:17,980 Yeah. 191 00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:18,240 Yeah. 192 00:10:18,460 --> 00:10:21,720 Funny enough that the, the, the programmers who work there, we call them baconators. 193 00:10:23,540 --> 00:10:26,420 I mean, you guys have pivots, so I, we need something, right? 194 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:27,040 That makes sense. 195 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:27,960 Totally fine. 196 00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:33,200 So, um, so I just sort of, uh, you know, gained some alignment with leadership. 197 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:35,280 I'm like, oh, look guys, this stuff works over here. 198 00:10:35,620 --> 00:10:39,640 I don't really see too many things that will have to change to reapply it to 199 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:39,960 data. 200 00:10:40,700 --> 00:10:45,440 Um, although there are a few things, of course, but, um, pretty much it works, you 201 00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:45,640 know? 202 00:10:45,700 --> 00:10:52,000 So we're going from like less than 4% test cases in data to like 90 something 203 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:53,480 percent test coverage. 204 00:10:53,600 --> 00:10:55,040 So it's amazing. 205 00:10:55,040 --> 00:11:01,040 I mean, the amount of, um, work we're getting done is like extraordinarily higher. 206 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:05,860 Like it's, it's not even, it's, it's hardly even measurable the difference. 207 00:11:06,420 --> 00:11:09,480 So now when you say data, do you mean like data, like a division? 208 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:13,240 Or data is like, you're doing this in the database, like a test to store proxy or things 209 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:13,720 like that? 210 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:21,840 Uh, data as in we're completely rewiring how we account for our policies and claims in the 211 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:22,800 corporate finance world. 212 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:32,680 So we're basically shifting the entire, um, internal guts, um, uh, over to a new, a new way of doing 213 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:33,180 business. 214 00:11:33,180 --> 00:11:37,680 Uh, and, and part of that's because for the same reasons on the front end space, you know, 215 00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:44,260 where you're slow with low quality and underserving your customer, um, data is arguably worse. 216 00:11:44,260 --> 00:11:46,020 Even it's ground to a halt. 217 00:11:46,020 --> 00:11:47,300 It's hard to make changes. 218 00:11:47,540 --> 00:11:48,780 It takes too many people. 219 00:11:48,780 --> 00:11:50,260 There's too many skills involved. 220 00:11:50,260 --> 00:11:55,480 The, like all the reasons that you know, you want to change something and we've sort of 221 00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:56,360 found a way to do it. 222 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:57,460 Um, yeah. 223 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:02,960 And I would imagine in insurance, like, I don't know the value stream of any given task, 224 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:09,420 like, uh, slow data is probably a big problem if, if, if it picks it up. 225 00:12:09,420 --> 00:12:12,380 Cause there's a lot, like you said, there's a lot of stuff involved, right? 226 00:12:12,380 --> 00:12:17,240 Like whether it's policies or, uh, someone applying for things or whatever, but it's not, 227 00:12:17,340 --> 00:12:18,260 uh, I don't know. 228 00:12:18,260 --> 00:12:20,520 It's not just like an ATM transaction or something. 229 00:12:20,900 --> 00:12:23,000 No, it's very much not like that. 230 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:30,340 Um, uh, it is absolutely complicated and, you know, we're, uh, uh, we do specialty insurance 231 00:12:30,340 --> 00:12:34,980 so we have 34 different business units all with their own stuff. 232 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,480 So how do you, how do you rationalize that and turn it into a corporate PNL? 233 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:42,520 I mean, that, that is an extremely complicated task. 234 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:48,920 Um, so we found ways to measure, um, success, like how, you know, you're going to make it 235 00:12:48,920 --> 00:12:49,780 and how do you know it's better. 236 00:12:50,300 --> 00:12:55,740 And, uh, we're getting through the implementation part and it's, it's, it's, it looks like it's 237 00:12:55,740 --> 00:12:58,460 playing out, um, great for us. 238 00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:01,720 So how are you, how are you measuring success then? 239 00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:05,260 Like, what is that thing that you would stick up in some, uh, executive dashboard that says 240 00:13:05,260 --> 00:13:08,240 like data team gets it now or they're getting it or we're improving? 241 00:13:08,780 --> 00:13:10,500 Yeah, there's a, there's a couple of things. 242 00:13:10,500 --> 00:13:17,340 So, um, in our old system, um, if you were to like, let's say add a checkbox, um, to the 243 00:13:17,340 --> 00:13:22,720 policy administration system, uh, a policy system is basically like the point of sale for 244 00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:23,500 insurance, right? 245 00:13:23,500 --> 00:13:29,320 So you type in all your stuff and then outcomes, this policy that you can sell to somebody. 246 00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:29,600 Right. 247 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:35,300 Um, so if you were to add a checkbox in there that says like, oh, my car, you know, is four 248 00:13:35,300 --> 00:13:43,000 wheel drive, for example, um, getting that checkbox onto a report, um, took like 14 different 249 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:46,700 skill sets and nine people to be involved in that effort. 250 00:13:46,700 --> 00:13:51,980 So, so, so you look, kind of look at that, look at that and you're like, okay, well, what 251 00:13:51,980 --> 00:13:52,740 are we going to measure here? 252 00:13:52,820 --> 00:13:56,000 It's like one, well, let's, let's see if fewer people can do it. 253 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:59,660 So let's see if we can get down to two or three people maybe. 254 00:14:00,100 --> 00:14:05,080 And let's see if we can cut down on a number of skills that you have to know for that to 255 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:05,380 happen. 256 00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:06,080 Right. 257 00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:11,420 But then we have other measures like the number of ETL jobs should be less, like the amount 258 00:14:11,420 --> 00:14:13,600 of data we copy should be less. 259 00:14:14,100 --> 00:14:18,400 And, and so you kind of go through it and you, if you, if you take an honest sort of approach 260 00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:22,080 toward it, you can sort of see, um, what you should measure. 261 00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:25,760 And then, and then you have to go through the, oh my God, it's impossible. 262 00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:27,700 There's no way this, this can happen. 263 00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:28,120 Right. 264 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:32,700 And then, and then you start getting creative about like, and getting real about what problems 265 00:14:32,700 --> 00:14:37,700 you're actually trying to solve versus like, you know, 20 years of history in your system 266 00:14:37,700 --> 00:14:43,260 and sort of setting aside some long held beliefs that of course are true and finding out that 267 00:14:43,260 --> 00:14:44,020 they're not true. 268 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:48,960 Um, again, it's, it's, you know, navigating the nose with data, right? 269 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:55,180 So you just have to, um, you know, imagine a better world and then turn it into, turn it 270 00:14:55,180 --> 00:14:59,180 into the right thing, but you know, measuring the right stuff's important because otherwise 271 00:14:59,180 --> 00:15:01,380 you, you could just squeeze the balloon, right? 272 00:15:01,920 --> 00:15:03,800 But you really want the balloon to be smaller. 273 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:09,860 You want it to be simpler, less complex, less costly, um, and operate with fewer people. 274 00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:10,480 Yeah. 275 00:15:10,580 --> 00:15:14,040 You don't, you don't want to do what I do when I clean my kid's room and I just get a big 276 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:18,820 Ikea bag and I stuff into the Ikea bag and then another part of the balloon grows. 277 00:15:19,780 --> 00:15:21,040 You seem like a good dad. 278 00:15:21,660 --> 00:15:21,880 Yeah. 279 00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:29,920 And of course, like the complexity is like, you know, breaking some back office app for 280 00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:33,360 a week or something, you know, it's a big deal, but it's not going to end the world. 281 00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:36,760 But like, you know, messing up the corporate P and L is probably not something you want to 282 00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:37,160 do, right? 283 00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:37,400 Yeah. 284 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:43,420 So, so in the, in this, in this second round, I think I, well, I would assume you have at 285 00:15:43,420 --> 00:15:48,060 least if only with yourself, the benefit of having gone through something like this that 286 00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:48,700 works before. 287 00:15:48,780 --> 00:15:53,240 And so, like you were saying, you know, you could kind of say, Hey, we should maybe do 288 00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:54,460 that thing we did over there. 289 00:15:54,860 --> 00:15:59,560 But, um, you know, the first time you're going through this, uh, you didn't have that. 290 00:15:59,980 --> 00:16:04,360 And so one of the, one of the things that's, that's always interesting to ask people is, 291 00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:10,780 um, so how did you like bootstrap into like, we're going to do things in this new and different 292 00:16:10,780 --> 00:16:13,940 way instead of, as you were saying, the way we've been doing things forever. 293 00:16:13,940 --> 00:16:19,820 Like, how do you, how do you prove that something is a new, better way of doing something when 294 00:16:19,820 --> 00:16:22,280 there's no firsthand proof of it? 295 00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:22,960 Yeah. 296 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:24,180 So that's really interesting. 297 00:16:24,540 --> 00:16:33,260 Um, uh, one is like, um, uh, just speaking about data, I, I cheat a little bit, right? 298 00:16:33,260 --> 00:16:39,040 So I get a little head and like come up with some proof of concept work that like is real. 299 00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:43,680 So people have something to touch and feel versus, you know, believing that, Oh, John's 300 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:44,760 doing a crazy thing again. 301 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:45,120 Right. 302 00:16:45,140 --> 00:16:46,540 And we should challenge everything. 303 00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:52,540 So a lot of times, if you make it a little more real early on, um, that, that can help 304 00:16:52,540 --> 00:16:55,040 a lot because it'll bring people along for the ride. 305 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:55,320 Right. 306 00:16:56,320 --> 00:17:01,260 If you're doing it for the very first time though, you might not really have that benefit 307 00:17:01,260 --> 00:17:06,860 and you really need to, to get real about, um, challenging some long held beliefs that 308 00:17:06,860 --> 00:17:13,760 your company might have and then write it down, like write down the reasons why something is 309 00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:16,960 or isn't, um, isn't right. 310 00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:22,080 And then, then you can have a debate about it and you can have, um, hopefully some air cover 311 00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:27,380 to go off and try some stuff that might not be normally, um, approachable. 312 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:30,100 I want to ask you about that, the air cover thing. 313 00:17:30,140 --> 00:17:33,840 Cause I've been thinking about that lately as you give, I don't know, sometimes the personal 314 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:36,680 risk you even take trying to sponsor these sort of bigger changes. 315 00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:40,120 I mean, obviously if it blows up in your face, you're probably marked for, marked for 316 00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:42,400 something and that might actually impact your career. 317 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:46,120 So is there some sort of underlying conviction you felt like you had, like this is fundamentally 318 00:17:46,120 --> 00:17:46,540 broken. 319 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:50,040 Let me, let me lead this through, even though this is going to be hard, there's going to be 320 00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:50,700 naysayers. 321 00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:54,440 And then what kind of air cover did you require to make sure you felt like this wasn't going 322 00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:55,560 to be a complete disaster? 323 00:17:57,020 --> 00:17:57,380 Yeah. 324 00:17:57,540 --> 00:18:00,060 You know, the air cover, uh, discussion is really interesting. 325 00:18:00,300 --> 00:18:04,960 Um, I was fortunate in that I had, um, uh, you know, not free reign to do everything, 326 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:11,160 but at least my CIO would, um, you know, ignore complaints that John's doing stuff he shouldn't 327 00:18:11,160 --> 00:18:11,600 be doing. 328 00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:11,900 Right. 329 00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:21,160 Um, and, and so I think the more air cover you have, the better, uh, the change can be 330 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:25,160 because you can explore those areas that you wouldn't normally be able to explore unless 331 00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:28,540 you're willing to like, you know, go find another job. 332 00:18:29,220 --> 00:18:35,000 But, but even in, even in that case, you can only push so hard if people know you're not, 333 00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:36,720 you're, you're not safe. 334 00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:37,520 You know what I mean? 335 00:18:38,180 --> 00:18:40,000 Um, it's, it's easy to say no. 336 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:40,320 Right. 337 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:45,600 Uh, because it's like, well, well, you know, in six months, you know, he or she will be 338 00:18:45,600 --> 00:18:47,280 gone and I can just go back to normal. 339 00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:47,640 Right. 340 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:52,840 Um, so, so getting sort of that, that buy-in at the right level is important. 341 00:18:53,300 --> 00:18:57,460 Um, but just recognize that like, you know, if your CIO is the one giving you the air cover, 342 00:18:57,460 --> 00:18:58,720 they can't really do any of the work. 343 00:18:58,720 --> 00:19:00,560 So somebody still has to work, right. 344 00:19:00,620 --> 00:19:05,560 And somebody has to prove the points and somebody has to like do the presentation and do the 345 00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:08,800 math on the finance and, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. 346 00:19:08,980 --> 00:19:15,840 So, um, you know, I, I think looking back, if I didn't have air cover, I think it would 347 00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:21,360 have been a smaller win and it, it may have taken a lot longer for it to happen. 348 00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:26,900 And I would have had to have grown like so much grassroots that it will became inevitable. 349 00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:27,600 Right. 350 00:19:28,100 --> 00:19:34,860 But, um, but I think that if you can get the air cover, the acceleration then becomes real. 351 00:19:34,860 --> 00:19:40,580 Like you don't have to like go through all of that, um, um, drawn out sort of behavior. 352 00:19:40,580 --> 00:19:43,220 You can, you can sort of get to it if you know what I mean. 353 00:19:44,180 --> 00:19:44,540 Yeah. 354 00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:48,600 I mean, did that person who sponsored you, I mean, this is his CIO, did they get your vision 355 00:19:48,600 --> 00:19:49,580 or did they get John? 356 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,860 Were you cashing in chips you had or were you, did they buy what you wanted to do? 357 00:19:53,900 --> 00:19:56,680 And they said like, look, you are going to have to do the work cause I don't code. 358 00:19:56,780 --> 00:19:57,880 I can't build a demo app. 359 00:19:57,940 --> 00:19:59,360 I don't, I don't have the business case. 360 00:20:00,120 --> 00:20:03,240 Again, was this just like, I trust you don't make me look like an idiot. 361 00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:06,060 Well, yeah, I mean, to some extent that's true. 362 00:20:06,120 --> 00:20:10,900 I mean, in our case it was like, um, you know, the, the challenge was go faster and it really 363 00:20:10,900 --> 00:20:12,540 wasn't any specific directive. 364 00:20:12,540 --> 00:20:13,740 It was like, go faster. 365 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:17,140 Um, so that's like, okay, what does that really mean? 366 00:20:17,140 --> 00:20:17,460 Right. 367 00:20:17,940 --> 00:20:21,560 And so I divided our organization up into a couple, couple things. 368 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:26,420 One is the app space and one is the data space and the data space is too hard. 369 00:20:26,420 --> 00:20:32,520 So I couldn't start there because it, it, it has all these challenges that I knew I didn't 370 00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:33,760 know how to deal with. 371 00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:39,240 And I knew, um, we needed experience in the app space cause that was a lot clearer road 372 00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:40,060 to success. 373 00:20:40,820 --> 00:20:47,280 Um, so, so we start in the app space then and, and start moving and learning really is 374 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:48,320 the most important thing. 375 00:20:48,380 --> 00:20:50,440 And the rest of the organization is learning too. 376 00:20:50,540 --> 00:20:54,560 They're going, they're learning, oh, test driven development is a good thing. 377 00:20:54,560 --> 00:20:58,580 And pairing actually makes you go faster, not slower, et cetera, et cetera. 378 00:20:58,580 --> 00:21:04,300 And then, so, um, once you start to get that buy-in and you want, you get to see other 379 00:21:04,300 --> 00:21:09,700 people doing it and have more people experience it, then, um, then you start to win. 380 00:21:10,020 --> 00:21:10,460 Right. 381 00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:11,520 Got it. 382 00:21:12,300 --> 00:21:16,680 So, so you, you are, you are alluding to something that one of those things that, uh, was reminding 383 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:18,920 me of my, uh, corporate experience. 384 00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:24,140 And, and one of those was, uh, it's, I had to learn this lesson several times the hard 385 00:21:24,140 --> 00:21:30,180 way, which is, um, uh, the corporation let's, let's, uh, take the people out of it. 386 00:21:30,180 --> 00:21:32,520 We'll tell you, we want to do this exciting new thing. 387 00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:35,740 And, uh, and, and then you're, you're all revved up to do it. 388 00:21:36,060 --> 00:21:40,080 And then, uh, you sort of go in to kind of like check out your library book of awesomeness 389 00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:40,540 to do it. 390 00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:41,740 And they're like, whoa, hold on. 391 00:21:42,020 --> 00:21:44,720 You still got to tell us why we're going to do this new thing. 392 00:21:45,140 --> 00:21:47,820 And like, you need to like prove out the planning for it. 393 00:21:47,820 --> 00:21:51,720 And like you were saying, uh, you know, come up with a business case and kind of run through 394 00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:54,200 the traps as we used to say of doing that. 395 00:21:54,420 --> 00:22:01,780 And so, uh, like, like what, how, how did you initially figure out like doing that sort 396 00:22:01,780 --> 00:22:05,680 of, I always think of it as like the meeting you go to, but like, what's like the business 397 00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:09,920 case you start with and the way you kind of show that this new thing, no one's heard 398 00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:12,380 of or done is worth trying out. 399 00:22:12,620 --> 00:22:17,000 Like, like what do you put together in, in the, uh, the nice slides and the charts and 400 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:17,920 everything that you have? 401 00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:18,580 Right. 402 00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:18,920 Yeah. 403 00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:21,960 Um, that's, that's really, uh, that's, that's really good question. 404 00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:27,060 And I think, um, you know, in a, in a generic sense, it obviously it varies company by company. 405 00:22:27,060 --> 00:22:27,400 Right. 406 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:32,880 Um, but I would divide those, the, the sort of opportunities into two, two camps. 407 00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:33,260 Right. 408 00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:36,560 So sometimes you're trying to do cost savings. 409 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:38,900 Um, that's one camp. 410 00:22:38,900 --> 00:22:44,120 And sometimes you're trying to grow your top line or your, make your business bigger. 411 00:22:44,120 --> 00:22:44,600 Right. 412 00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:46,040 And that's sort of the other case. 413 00:22:46,740 --> 00:22:50,760 And the reason I divide those up is, um, you know, on the cost savings side, I think 414 00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:54,700 the bar is pretty high to get started to make, to build that business case. 415 00:22:54,880 --> 00:23:00,400 And, uh, because when you bring in a tool like Cloud Foundry, for example, um, you have 416 00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,160 to retire enough old stuff to kind of pay for it. 417 00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,120 Or otherwise the business case is upside down. 418 00:23:05,120 --> 00:23:05,420 Right. 419 00:23:05,940 --> 00:23:10,420 Or you have to consolidate enough things or you have to like, you have to do, you have 420 00:23:10,420 --> 00:23:12,460 to have a lot of stuff to make that work. 421 00:23:12,540 --> 00:23:12,800 Right. 422 00:23:13,300 --> 00:23:15,460 And, and a lot of companies do have a ton of stuff. 423 00:23:15,460 --> 00:23:17,240 So that works out for them a lot. 424 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:23,160 Um, but what you're not focused on in the cost savings business case is, is, you know, 425 00:23:23,660 --> 00:23:25,620 actually making the customer happy. 426 00:23:25,620 --> 00:23:29,620 Maybe you're kind of making it happy because the costs are lower, right? 427 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:30,180 Yeah. 428 00:23:30,180 --> 00:23:35,540 I've, I've been reading this book, uh, this textbook on a lean accounting and, and it's 429 00:23:35,540 --> 00:23:36,260 in manufacturing. 430 00:23:36,260 --> 00:23:42,020 So you've got to like imagine, man, it also makes you realize, I'm glad I'm in software 431 00:23:42,020 --> 00:23:47,840 and not making, uh, but, but what, one of the points that they brought up that was interesting 432 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:53,360 is oftentimes you put, um, uh, you put a lean initiative in place and the whole point of 433 00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:55,000 lean is, is flow basically. 434 00:23:55,100 --> 00:24:01,400 And so when managers end up looking at the short, medium term returns, it's like more expensive 435 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,100 like sometimes. 436 00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:07,900 And so of course they kill the lean initiative because you know, who's got time to be wrong 437 00:24:07,900 --> 00:24:08,520 basically. 438 00:24:08,740 --> 00:24:08,980 Yeah. 439 00:24:08,980 --> 00:24:09,180 Right. 440 00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:10,260 Wait for it to play out. 441 00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:10,480 Right. 442 00:24:10,540 --> 00:24:10,800 Yeah. 443 00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:11,120 Yeah. 444 00:24:11,120 --> 00:24:14,860 And, and, and one of the points that they make, which, which I'd be interested in hearing 445 00:24:14,860 --> 00:24:19,620 how this is applied to you and you were kind of alluding to it is it's one thing to like 446 00:24:19,620 --> 00:24:20,920 save money per unit. 447 00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:23,240 I mean, we can all agree on cheese, right? 448 00:24:23,260 --> 00:24:23,740 That's great. 449 00:24:23,740 --> 00:24:31,020 Uh, but what's too easy to lose sight of, um, I think in software, especially is like growth 450 00:24:31,020 --> 00:24:34,200 or like opportunity or how these new things were created. 451 00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:39,080 And, and I'm curious, like if, and how you like capture that. 452 00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:43,700 Cause at some point it can't just all be savings as tasty as those are. 453 00:24:44,660 --> 00:24:45,140 Yeah. 454 00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:49,080 You know, I think, um, I think that if you start with that cost savings business case, you 455 00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,420 do have to have a longer term view onto, okay. 456 00:24:52,420 --> 00:24:57,640 Hey, when I'm done saving and I get to my new baseline, what am I going to do now? 457 00:24:57,860 --> 00:25:01,980 Like, am I going to be able to affect the growth side? 458 00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:03,940 What type of apps am I doing? 459 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,360 Am I going to be multi-cloud? 460 00:25:06,540 --> 00:25:11,420 Am I like going to get out of my own data center into a, into a cloud data center? 461 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,760 Like, like what's the longer term sort of goal there? 462 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:20,840 Because I agree the savings one kind of has a definitive end and it might, it might feel 463 00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,780 good right now that I'm retiring all this stuff, but like when I'm done, I'm going to 464 00:25:23,780 --> 00:25:25,860 be like, like, okay, what, what next? 465 00:25:26,060 --> 00:25:26,280 Right. 466 00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:31,280 And, and now I've learned a bunch of stuff about how to operate differently, but now I 467 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,640 want to turn that to sort of the business side. 468 00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:33,980 Right. 469 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:40,420 Or I have a somewhat expensive PCF environment that now looks like the thing I have to actually 470 00:25:40,420 --> 00:25:44,520 save money on, because now I have consolidated everything and like, crap, now I have to get 471 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:48,260 the AI costs down or, so it seems like, yeah, you're always in cost savings mode. 472 00:25:48,460 --> 00:25:52,200 The next platform becomes the next thing you have to save money on just in this endless loop. 473 00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:53,040 Yeah. 474 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,940 You get in this loop and then, and then you, you, it's hard to go over and to the, to the 475 00:25:57,940 --> 00:26:01,080 boardroom and say, Hey, look, like we actually affected the business. 476 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:01,400 Right. 477 00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:03,540 Um, with that. 478 00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:10,320 Um, so personally I prefer the growth side business cases, uh, much, uh, much better at 479 00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:16,120 the same time though, um, you know, you have to include a little bit of, uh, savings that 480 00:26:16,120 --> 00:26:18,280 becomes, uh, a choice, right? 481 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,200 It's like, okay, I'm going to grow and I'm going to spend some money, but if you want to, 482 00:26:22,340 --> 00:26:26,940 here's the areas where you can save budget dollars if, if that's what you want to do. 483 00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:27,560 Right. 484 00:26:27,580 --> 00:26:29,980 And then it becomes a business, a business choice. 485 00:26:29,980 --> 00:26:30,340 Right. 486 00:26:30,500 --> 00:26:32,280 So I'm going to write all these apps for you. 487 00:26:32,380 --> 00:26:37,060 We're going to watch the, you know, the revenue go up or whatever the customer base get 488 00:26:37,060 --> 00:26:38,720 bigger or whatever your goal is. 489 00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:44,440 But, but at the same time, it, um, should save money, but let's not base the business 490 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,920 case on that, but let's present the options for that. 491 00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:53,200 So let's, let's make sure that like, as we're on the growth side that we're paying attention 492 00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:57,340 to the cost side, because it's going to be more expensive for a little while. 493 00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:02,800 So how do I know when I get to the end, I can correct my baseline later. 494 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,580 So my costs will in fact drop. 495 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:06,120 Yeah. 496 00:27:06,220 --> 00:27:10,800 That reminds me of, uh, uh, of one of my own, my old bosses who was a manager of a large 497 00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:11,040 group. 498 00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:16,540 And he basically, uh, he was trying to encourage his team to be a little more, um, I don't 499 00:27:16,540 --> 00:27:20,300 know, on the ball to match his management style. 500 00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:25,140 And like you're saying, you know, you're providing options, uh, to, you know, the people above 501 00:27:25,140 --> 00:27:26,200 you, whoever that may be. 502 00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:30,160 And he was always telling them, like, I want you to bring like decisions to me, right? 503 00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:34,200 Like, like things that I should choose to allocate the resources that I have. 504 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:39,680 And like, my, my job is to decide things, uh, essentially, um, which, which I think, I think 505 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:44,240 is for the type of like bootstrapping and then ongoing work is, is, uh, from what you're 506 00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:49,060 saying is probably as valuable as any, any environment is like, we can do these two things 507 00:27:49,060 --> 00:27:50,400 now or these four things. 508 00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:54,520 And, you know, I think we should do this one thing, but let's explore all the options that 509 00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:56,080 we have explores the wrong word. 510 00:27:56,180 --> 00:28:01,220 Let's decide amongst these options that we have, uh, hopefully not submitting your college 511 00:28:01,220 --> 00:28:02,840 application at the last minute. 512 00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:14,200 But, uh, now, now that, that, that said like you, you, the, on the, how we're growing the 513 00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:20,720 business, uh, side, like how, am I overthinking this or is it hard to show like a cause and 514 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,520 effect between like software and like revenue growth? 515 00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:30,600 Like how that seems real, it seems like I'm doing that, but how do you do causation? 516 00:28:31,660 --> 00:28:32,100 Yeah. 517 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:37,340 I mean, um, so it's really interesting and, um, uh, I've spent a lot of time thinking 518 00:28:37,340 --> 00:28:42,880 about that and, and sort of the bridge that, that I've had to cross in my mind is like 519 00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:47,900 things like cloud foundry that support your speed, like, so that you can put a culture 520 00:28:47,900 --> 00:28:49,180 on top of it and go faster. 521 00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,700 Those are like platform concerns, right? 522 00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:58,140 So if you, if you try and justify the platform or the business case on this one business thing, 523 00:28:58,140 --> 00:29:02,020 and then this, you have this big platform that you have to grow and train a bunch of 524 00:29:02,020 --> 00:29:04,740 people on, like, it doesn't really, it doesn't really play out. 525 00:29:04,740 --> 00:29:05,020 Right. 526 00:29:05,020 --> 00:29:11,700 Because, because now I have, you know, 600 AIs, but I have like, you know, 12 for this 527 00:29:11,700 --> 00:29:13,540 one project that's growing the business. 528 00:29:13,540 --> 00:29:13,800 Right. 529 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:16,240 So how do you, so how do you cross that bridge? 530 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:16,540 Right. 531 00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:23,420 And I think, um, the way, the way I got there, um, for, for our organization is we talk in 532 00:29:23,420 --> 00:29:28,220 terms of, um, um, staffing flexibility now because we're cutting down on the number of 533 00:29:28,220 --> 00:29:28,720 skill sets. 534 00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:34,180 So if you remember that part of the conversation, and so I have less things to train and the 535 00:29:34,180 --> 00:29:35,840 things I'm training are more approachable. 536 00:29:36,460 --> 00:29:42,140 Um, so that means that I can rotate people between teams and I can, I can gain, um, a lot 537 00:29:42,140 --> 00:29:45,380 more organizational knowledge, uh, on these teams. 538 00:29:45,540 --> 00:29:50,520 And, and that seems to resonate with, um, the executives because one of the sort of the, 539 00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:56,060 the sticks in the mud that you get stuck in, that you literally get stuck in is I, like, 540 00:29:56,060 --> 00:29:58,680 I have this one team that can do this one thing. 541 00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:04,100 And now my schedule all of a sudden got serialized because that one team has to do this thing. 542 00:30:04,100 --> 00:30:06,520 And then they're going to move and do this thing and this other thing. 543 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:13,040 And, and so the way we've kind of played it out is in order for us to look faster to the 544 00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,880 outside world, we need to be able to do more things at the same time. 545 00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:17,620 I can't, it can't be one team anymore. 546 00:30:17,740 --> 00:30:18,100 Right. 547 00:30:18,660 --> 00:30:24,280 So, so when you look at your business cases, um, you, you're more apt to be able to say, 548 00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,280 well, I want to do three of them this quarter instead of just one this quarter. 549 00:30:28,860 --> 00:30:35,760 And that, that's where, um, sort of, I went to with, with how to get the organization on 550 00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:40,740 top of this platform, doing more stuff and actually watching things happen more often. 551 00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,940 It's not that any one project is getting delivered more quickly. 552 00:30:44,940 --> 00:30:48,380 It's that now I'm doing like three or four and where I used to be able to do one. 553 00:30:49,100 --> 00:30:49,580 Yeah. 554 00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:50,520 Yeah. 555 00:30:50,580 --> 00:30:53,520 You know, you're, you're, you're, you're making me think there's like, like a theory 556 00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:59,540 of, uh, uh, this, this is like the Coté confessional podcast where I tell you how I think of things 557 00:30:59,540 --> 00:31:05,640 in my memories, but like, I, I get all torqued up about trying to prove things that should 558 00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,360 be intuitively believed. 559 00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:07,820 Right. 560 00:31:07,900 --> 00:31:15,860 For example, uh, if we had software that users that was more efficient and productive, 561 00:31:15,860 --> 00:31:22,080 so users spent less time using it to accomplish their jobs, things would be better, right? 562 00:31:22,100 --> 00:31:24,340 Like, like intuitively that just makes sense. 563 00:31:24,780 --> 00:31:29,620 Uh, and, and, you know, you're making me think there's a theory of when it comes to improving 564 00:31:29,620 --> 00:31:34,860 the way you're doing software and it, there are a lot of arguments you would want to make 565 00:31:34,860 --> 00:31:35,400 intuitively. 566 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:42,420 Like if we reduced down our release cycle time and our ability to patch things and allowed 567 00:31:42,420 --> 00:31:46,120 people to self-manage their stuff in a DevOps way, then we're going to reduce our time to 568 00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:49,740 market and up the quality of our software and people using it. 569 00:31:49,740 --> 00:31:54,240 And intuitively, well, hopefully to anyone who would be listening to this podcast, that 570 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:54,800 makes sense. 571 00:31:55,280 --> 00:32:01,640 Uh, but you know, my theory would be the reputation of it is so terrible that no one 572 00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,520 believes an intuitive argument from them. 573 00:32:04,460 --> 00:32:05,580 That's absolutely true. 574 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:06,620 That is absolutely true. 575 00:32:06,620 --> 00:32:11,840 And so you've got to like win that trust back and then you can start relying on intuitive arguments, 576 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:16,360 uh, you know, backed up by some spreadsheets and, and not, not to be dismissive of that work, 577 00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:22,540 but you get a lot more understanding and benefit of the doubt for what should be easy, intuitive 578 00:32:22,540 --> 00:32:24,440 arguments to make for process improvement. 579 00:32:25,900 --> 00:32:27,120 Oh yeah, absolutely. 580 00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:27,820 Absolutely. 581 00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:34,180 And you know, um, it shouldn't be lost that sometimes just doing two things at once, uh, 582 00:32:34,180 --> 00:32:38,220 but at the same pace is, is twice as fast as doing one thing at a time. 583 00:32:38,700 --> 00:32:43,900 Um, but, but you're really not working faster, but the outward perception is, is that you're 584 00:32:43,900 --> 00:32:45,600 doing more, which is, which is true. 585 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:45,960 Right. 586 00:32:46,660 --> 00:32:51,020 Um, um, I like that parallelizations of argument. 587 00:32:51,020 --> 00:32:54,040 Cause in your business case, you're not asking for 50 new heads, right? 588 00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,320 I mean, you may be asking for some technology investment, but you're saying, look, making 589 00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:02,440 this move, you will actually see higher throughput, even though we're not asking for a major organizational 590 00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:03,160 staffing change. 591 00:33:03,220 --> 00:33:06,120 I think that's probably a pretty powerful part of that business case to not have to include 592 00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:06,360 that. 593 00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:07,120 Yeah. 594 00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,240 I mean, back to Coté's manufacturing thing. 595 00:33:10,300 --> 00:33:12,820 I mean, really, really it's about throughput, right? 596 00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:18,800 So, um, if I can do, do twice as much stuff with the same number of people, that's a good 597 00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:19,340 thing, right? 598 00:33:19,580 --> 00:33:20,020 Exactly. 599 00:33:20,580 --> 00:33:26,140 So the trick is the trick is you oftentimes get stuck where I don't have teams that can 600 00:33:26,140 --> 00:33:26,840 do that. 601 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:27,160 Right. 602 00:33:27,380 --> 00:33:33,820 So that's where the simplification and, and selecting a single platform instead of trying 603 00:33:33,820 --> 00:33:37,940 to use, you know, AWS for this project and GCP for that project. 604 00:33:38,060 --> 00:33:42,580 Now I have two teams that can't talk to each other, you know, get on one, get on one platform 605 00:33:42,580 --> 00:33:48,040 and then share the knowledge and, and, um, that, that, that strategy seems to be playing 606 00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:48,940 out for us. 607 00:33:49,220 --> 00:33:54,580 So, yeah, I mean, when you, I mean, you've, you've touched on kind of finance and funding 608 00:33:54,580 --> 00:33:55,240 a couple of times. 609 00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:59,360 Did you actually have to change anything within the company on, you know, projects for projects 610 00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:03,560 always funded annually or projects funded as they went along, were there things like 611 00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:07,780 that that you had to deal with, or is this just like, Hey, has this helped foster any change 612 00:34:07,780 --> 00:34:11,260 in how you think of funding products versus projects, that kind of argument? 613 00:34:12,140 --> 00:34:17,000 No, I mean, um, that change, um, needs it, it's coming. 614 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:17,400 Right. 615 00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,860 So we're, well, like I said earlier, like two years in, right. 616 00:34:21,900 --> 00:34:27,820 So last budget cycle, uh, we were unable to commit to doing the estimates a different way 617 00:34:27,820 --> 00:34:29,120 for 2019. 618 00:34:29,660 --> 00:34:30,100 Nice. 619 00:34:30,260 --> 00:34:35,140 Um, but for 2020 it's, you know, we're, we're going to have real discussions around, Hey, 620 00:34:35,140 --> 00:34:36,320 this is the old estimate. 621 00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,780 So shouldn't it be, you know, some percent smaller if we're going to do the work the new 622 00:34:40,780 --> 00:34:41,840 way that we know is better. 623 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:49,780 Um, or should we go even further and do some sort of, you know, value stream financing and 624 00:34:49,780 --> 00:34:52,580 start to treat certain things as products. 625 00:34:52,940 --> 00:34:53,380 Right. 626 00:34:53,980 --> 00:34:59,880 So, I mean, out of the 500 projects we have, you know, not all of them are going to be software 627 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:03,900 products because some of them are just maintenance activities or, you know, that kind of stuff. 628 00:35:04,380 --> 00:35:09,880 Um, but for the ones that are, you know, which ones do we want to try and fund differently? 629 00:35:10,540 --> 00:35:12,180 And, and how's that going to work? 630 00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:18,920 So those are really, uh, sort of topics that matter right now because the scale is starting 631 00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,260 to have an impact on, on that. 632 00:35:21,260 --> 00:35:21,660 Right. 633 00:35:21,660 --> 00:35:24,680 So when you do your first project, it doesn't really matter. 634 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:28,360 Like, in fact, if you, if you bring all that stuff up, you're just going to get bogged down 635 00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:30,800 in like these rabbit holes that aren't helping you. 636 00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:36,180 Um, but as you, as you get to scale, it becomes a real problem of, well, how are we going to 637 00:35:36,180 --> 00:35:37,000 fund this thing? 638 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,020 And, and what happens if we have all this money left over, what are you going to do with 639 00:35:41,020 --> 00:35:41,320 that? 640 00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:45,680 Or what happens if, if you discover that the product is more valuable and you want to spend 641 00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:46,300 more on it? 642 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:47,920 Like, how does that work? 643 00:35:48,300 --> 00:35:48,440 So. 644 00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:49,780 Yeah. 645 00:35:49,820 --> 00:35:53,520 You, you, you get into that, that, that exciting category of good problems to have. 646 00:35:53,740 --> 00:35:54,140 Right. 647 00:35:55,220 --> 00:36:00,220 Which there's still problems, you know, the words right in there, but, uh, so, so they need 648 00:36:00,220 --> 00:36:00,720 to be solved. 649 00:36:00,720 --> 00:36:04,840 Well, the, the, uh, uh, you know, you, you and I have been talking about like doing some 650 00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,840 more, uh, writing up a finance stuff, which, which I think would be fun, especially as, 651 00:36:09,020 --> 00:36:13,560 um, uh, as you sort of bush wet, you and your, your team sort of bushwhack through how to 652 00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:13,880 do that. 653 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,820 Cause I think there is kind of like, like Richard was asking about, like, I don't know. 654 00:36:17,860 --> 00:36:22,460 I, I, I don't know accounting that well, but like, I'm always very unsatisfied with how 655 00:36:22,460 --> 00:36:25,120 like the numbers stuff work around software. 656 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:26,600 Like it's weird. 657 00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:30,760 So there's gotta be some better way, but on, on a, on a slightly different topic, kind of, 658 00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,800 you've kind of alluded to this with, uh, with, with people and staffing, um, 659 00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,760 one, one of the things, and I think this is when we were recording a podcast somewhere, 660 00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:44,240 but one of the things I tell people a lot to repeat your advice is like, uh, the kind 661 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:46,820 of skillset of the initial teams that you form. 662 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:52,660 And again, with that long-term view, why it's important to not have all, I don't know, level 663 00:36:52,660 --> 00:36:54,460 20 wizards, so to speak. 664 00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:59,900 And, and it's good to have people who are like experts, uh, I'm making air quotes here, but 665 00:36:59,900 --> 00:37:02,480 you also want to have, and maybe, you know, a good phrase for this. 666 00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:07,640 Uh, I w I was, I was recently chastised by my book editor for using this term, but you 667 00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:09,960 want to have some normals, right? 668 00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:15,860 Just, just like people, like if I went to go back to programming, I would definitely be 669 00:37:15,860 --> 00:37:17,780 like normal minus five, right? 670 00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:24,220 Like, um, I mean the theory there being, and then I'll, I'll stop talking is that if you 671 00:37:24,220 --> 00:37:29,160 had, let's say a team of 12 experts, uh, and you would see it wonderfully at your project, 672 00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:33,760 you would go to your peers or whoever and say like, Oh, look how great this, uh, this 673 00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:35,700 new process is this agile stuff. 674 00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,140 And they would in, in the most cynical version of this scenario, they would say, well, of course 675 00:37:40,140 --> 00:37:40,880 you are successful. 676 00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,940 You took all of our best people from us. 677 00:37:42,940 --> 00:37:46,000 And if we had all the best people, we would be successful as well. 678 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:51,380 So, which kind of leads to like, you know, don't do that with your initial team, right? 679 00:37:51,380 --> 00:37:59,140 Like make sure that they are proactively build up your team as a marketing bullet point on 680 00:37:59,140 --> 00:37:59,800 your slide. 681 00:38:01,700 --> 00:38:07,160 And so I wonder if over, over the time of doing that, has that, um, like how, how has that 682 00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:07,560 worked out? 683 00:38:07,580 --> 00:38:09,220 Has that kind of proven itself out? 684 00:38:09,220 --> 00:38:12,820 And like, what are the benefits or drawbacks of that kind of staffing approach? 685 00:38:13,340 --> 00:38:21,060 Um, so I think in the beginning, um, you know, I used a volunteer model to build the first 686 00:38:21,060 --> 00:38:27,200 team and then sort of very selectively put that team together, uh, having the whole spectrum 687 00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:31,780 of, of career, um, um, age, right. 688 00:38:31,780 --> 00:38:35,820 So some young career people, mid career, late career, and then different skills. 689 00:38:35,820 --> 00:38:39,180 So took a .NET guy to a Java project, for example. 690 00:38:39,180 --> 00:38:39,620 Right. 691 00:38:40,060 --> 00:38:43,720 Um, I think that played out, um, sort of masterfully well. 692 00:38:44,180 --> 00:38:50,120 And so what's happening at scale then is, you know, we started to have stories, uh, that, 693 00:38:50,220 --> 00:38:54,960 you know, almost every week and certainly every month, we have a story about somebody who's 694 00:38:54,960 --> 00:39:00,760 starting on, on the team and they don't want a pair cause they don't know what it is and 695 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:01,800 they don't know how to do TDD. 696 00:39:02,100 --> 00:39:05,320 And then after, you know, three, four weeks, they're, they're all in. 697 00:39:05,380 --> 00:39:05,560 Right. 698 00:39:05,580 --> 00:39:08,560 And they're like, oh my gosh, I'll never write software a different way again. 699 00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,500 And it just keeps, continues to play out at time and time again. 700 00:39:11,500 --> 00:39:15,300 Um, and I think that's just because it's the right thing to do. 701 00:39:15,820 --> 00:39:23,720 And, and so what's happening, um, to us, interestingly is our level 20 wizards, for example, um, we're 702 00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:30,460 sort of accumulating them into a center of excellence where these people can, um, go join a 703 00:39:30,460 --> 00:39:36,320 team like early on for, you know, the first couple of weeks of a project just to make sure 704 00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,640 they get on the rails and they're, and everything's going well. 705 00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:43,520 And everybody's like the veil's been pulled back and like all this mystery about this awesome 706 00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,340 stuff kind of goes away because it becomes real for them. 707 00:39:46,720 --> 00:39:51,420 And we're, so we're starting to deploy those people, um, differently and we really don't 708 00:39:51,420 --> 00:39:59,440 depend on sort of any masterful people, um, to drive, uh, like sort of an everyday project 709 00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:00,280 anymore. 710 00:40:00,540 --> 00:40:09,080 Um, uh, I think, and I think part of that is, um, people are just, uh, they, they become so 711 00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,780 much more productive that we don't need them to be a superstar anymore. 712 00:40:12,780 --> 00:40:16,440 We just need them to be normal and that's fine and good and sustainable. 713 00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:17,120 Right. 714 00:40:17,340 --> 00:40:22,160 And then for the people who actually are extraordinary, we have a role for them too, which is make 715 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:23,900 everybody else become normal. 716 00:40:23,900 --> 00:40:24,340 Right. 717 00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,700 Like, yeah, no, no, exactly. 718 00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:32,480 That's, that's like in the, uh, four or so years I've been, uh, talking with and observing 719 00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:35,640 like the organizations like yourself and other pivotal customers. 720 00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,860 Like that's one of the more humanistic things I've come out of it is, um, the notion of 721 00:40:40,860 --> 00:40:45,900 like leveling the skill level in your team sounds bad at first because you're basically 722 00:40:45,900 --> 00:40:48,540 like going to the least common denominator. 723 00:40:48,780 --> 00:40:51,600 But I, but I think, I think it's, it's more of what you're saying. 724 00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:56,360 And in the DevOps world, there's this notion of like hero culture is bad for various reasons. 725 00:40:56,520 --> 00:41:01,600 And it's, I think it's more of, I don't know, to kind of make up a rephrasing is there 726 00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:08,660 is more widely shared responsibility and contribution from all team members than like these one or 727 00:41:08,660 --> 00:41:12,220 few tent poles that are a very fragile way of doing things. 728 00:41:12,220 --> 00:41:16,860 And so, you know, I don't know, it's almost the wrong perspective to say like people are 729 00:41:16,860 --> 00:41:19,020 raised up and others are lowered down. 730 00:41:19,540 --> 00:41:23,420 I think, I think it's more that people are basically raised to the same level and they 731 00:41:23,420 --> 00:41:27,020 all sort of, not that they're interchangeable, but, but they all become better. 732 00:41:27,020 --> 00:41:31,640 The team becomes better for sure than if there was just like a little spike of improvement. 733 00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:32,540 Yeah. 734 00:41:32,660 --> 00:41:38,280 And, uh, you know, we're, I personally like to focus on the sustainability of, of it, right? 735 00:41:38,340 --> 00:41:38,840 Of it all. 736 00:41:38,860 --> 00:41:39,060 Right. 737 00:41:39,100 --> 00:41:44,660 So if you wanted everybody to be superstars, then you'd be constantly, you know, training 738 00:41:44,660 --> 00:41:48,740 new people because the normal people, maybe they, maybe they don't want to do that. 739 00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:50,140 Maybe they just want to be normal. 740 00:41:50,140 --> 00:41:50,500 Right. 741 00:41:50,720 --> 00:41:57,160 Um, and that's, that needs to be okay that because, you know, organizations and marketplaces 742 00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:02,360 where you hire from and all of those that there just aren't like the expectation that everybody's 743 00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:04,840 a superstar just isn't, it's not, it's not real. 744 00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:06,760 It's a, it's an illusion, right? 745 00:42:07,140 --> 00:42:11,840 The practical reality of it is that I, you know, I have a bunch of people that I hired and 746 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,980 now it's my job to train them and give them meaningful work to do. 747 00:42:14,980 --> 00:42:20,360 And the good part about what we're doing is they're so close to the value delivery that 748 00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:23,980 they get really excited when they hit that production button for the first couple of months. 749 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:25,120 And then it's boring after that. 750 00:42:25,900 --> 00:42:33,040 Like, you know, I, I actually, I paired with them, um, um, for whatever reason I got on this 751 00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:38,600 project and I paired with, um, uh, a young junior programmer, um, who had never done it before. 752 00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:43,460 And in three weeks we delivered, you know, uh, like $2 million of business value. 753 00:42:43,460 --> 00:42:46,980 And, and she was like, wait a minute, that was crazy. 754 00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:48,220 Like, are you kidding me? 755 00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:50,580 And I'm like, yeah, I mean, it was kind of cool. 756 00:42:50,580 --> 00:42:50,900 Right. 757 00:42:51,020 --> 00:42:57,700 And, and so she, um, um, actually changed her whole outlook on her career and what she's 758 00:42:57,700 --> 00:42:57,940 doing. 759 00:42:58,000 --> 00:42:59,260 It was a really excellent outcome. 760 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:04,400 So yeah, that is not, not only for, from your corporate overlords is it good to show 761 00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:07,060 cause and effect, but from the people actually doing the work. 762 00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:07,880 Yeah. 763 00:43:08,020 --> 00:43:11,880 Well, you know, we push, uh, we, we try to push this decision-making down to the team. 764 00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,540 And at first they don't really realize what that means, but then when they, they see that 765 00:43:15,540 --> 00:43:19,920 they have a pathway to production and they have a business partner sitting next to them 766 00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:24,580 and they can go together, like that is like, that's where the sustainability comes from. 767 00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,700 It doesn't come from my type places, my lines of software as you do. 768 00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,860 It comes from, you know, partnering and, and growing something together as a team. 769 00:43:31,860 --> 00:43:33,420 Like that's, that's really where it is. 770 00:43:33,420 --> 00:43:35,280 And I just don't really care how fast you type. 771 00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,280 Like, it's not my, I don't even hire people for that anymore. 772 00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:41,720 Like, yeah, they don't need to figure out a water displacement. 773 00:43:42,180 --> 00:43:44,980 No, I mean, it doesn't matter. 774 00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:49,000 Like, well, you know, you need to be reasonably, you know, analytical to write software, but 775 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,020 you know, after that I can train the rest. 776 00:43:51,020 --> 00:43:55,820 But what I, what I can't do is, you know, make you be happy with toiling in your cube. 777 00:43:55,940 --> 00:43:56,180 Right. 778 00:43:56,300 --> 00:43:56,680 Totally. 779 00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:57,120 Totally. 780 00:43:57,300 --> 00:43:57,840 Well, great. 781 00:43:57,940 --> 00:43:59,800 Well, well, uh, well, thanks for being on. 782 00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:02,860 I think, I think it was, it's always good to catch up, see how things are going. 783 00:44:02,860 --> 00:44:08,700 And, uh, man, we, we ended in perhaps one of the more positive notes of our podcast series 784 00:44:08,700 --> 00:44:09,080 here. 785 00:44:09,140 --> 00:44:10,160 It feels like it. 786 00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:13,400 It's only Monday. 787 00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:18,180 So we'll see how long I can coast off of that until, until we get to Sunday night when I have 788 00:44:18,180 --> 00:44:23,260 to help my son with his homework, but, uh, thank you. 789 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:23,720 Thank you. 790 00:44:23,720 --> 00:44:28,380 So if, if people were interested in, uh, seeing what you're up to or, uh, or anything like 791 00:44:28,380 --> 00:44:31,560 that, you got, you got like a Twitter account or anything to tell them about. 792 00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:32,200 Yeah. 793 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:37,500 Um, at, uh, J O N N I O 20 Johnny O 20 is my, uh, my Twitter feed. 794 00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:43,720 Um, that's, that's a good place to, uh, to interact or, you know, follow me and we'll 795 00:44:43,720 --> 00:44:45,260 have a online conversation. 796 00:44:45,340 --> 00:44:50,100 And then, uh, of course, if you're, uh, in Cincinnati and you're successful hitting me 797 00:44:50,100 --> 00:44:52,460 up on Twitter, maybe we can have a lunch or do something like that. 798 00:44:52,660 --> 00:44:53,380 So that'd be fine too. 799 00:44:53,700 --> 00:44:54,060 Yeah. 800 00:44:54,140 --> 00:44:54,340 Yeah. 801 00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:57,540 Y'all are in a, I haven't been able to see it, but you've described it to me and you're 802 00:44:57,540 --> 00:44:59,040 in a very, very beautiful building. 803 00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:00,080 Go check that out. 804 00:45:00,460 --> 00:45:00,720 Yeah. 805 00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:06,920 It's a hundred year old, um, um, bus terminal building and, and, uh, there's been several 806 00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,080 movies filmed in there at one just this past year by Netflix. 807 00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:11,620 So it's pretty, it's pretty interesting. 808 00:45:11,820 --> 00:45:12,000 Yeah. 809 00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:12,700 Nice. 810 00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:13,180 Nice. 811 00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:14,020 Well, thanks again. 812 00:45:14,020 --> 00:45:15,660 And, uh, thanks for listening. 813 00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:16,500 Thanks for your time. 814 00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:17,100 Yeah. 815 00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:17,840 Thanks for listening. 816 00:45:17,900 --> 00:45:19,780 This is always has been Pivotal Conversations. 817 00:45:19,780 --> 00:45:25,920 If you want to find all of our old episodes, it's at soundcloud.com slash Pivotal Conversations. 818 00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:31,060 And we post show notes for this, uh, every Thursday, if I'm doing my job correctly and 819 00:45:31,060 --> 00:45:36,080 we'll put links to, uh, to that sea of nose, uh, conversation or presentation. 820 00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,440 And there's a couple of podcast episodes we've done and, uh, John's Twitter thing. 821 00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:43,080 So as always, thanks for listening, and we'll see you all next time. 822 00:45:43,340 --> 00:45:43,680 Bye-bye.