Managing remote working, strategy & people

Episode 185 · 35:19 · SRT · archive.org · all Tanzu Talk

Well, once again, I've got something that started as one of the week daily videos that I do called Tanzu Talk. You can see all of them at TanzuTalk.com. Find the archives on YouTube, whatever. Or you can watch them live if you go to twitch.com slash VMware Tanzu. Anyhow, this is a nice interview that Rick and I did with Sophie about. I think it's fun. It's kind of this discussion of like, how do you manage people when you're doing remote working, and especially make sure that trickle down things work as I characterize it. But like I said, if you're interested in seeing about five or so of these little videos a week, I do them week daily. Just go check it out at TanzuTalk.com. And with that, enjoy the episode. Hi, welcome to Tanzu Talks. I'm Rick Clark here with Coté, who has kindly let me introduce us. And we have a special guest with us, Sophie, who is from Mercedesbins.io, who I will let introduce herself in a second. We're going to talk about some of the ways that the pandemic has affected the way we operate as companies and the way we communicate with each other. And I've mostly focused so far, my thinking on how it affects how we communicate with our customers. So this is a kind of a new way of looking at it for me. And I think actually Sophie is going to probably do most of the talking and have most of the ideas. Maybe Coté will have some. I certainly will have none. But Sophie, will you tell us a little bit about yourself? Absolutely. Yes. So I'm Sophie. I'm the CEO and Managing Director of Mercedesbins.io. And so just talking about me. So I'm 37 years old and coming from Austria, but living in Stuttgart, living all over the world, including the US and Singapore, also have been dealing a lot with China in my career. But essentially, what we are doing at MBIO, I would abbreviate that, is we are building

the website of Mercedes. And we have roughly 30 to 40 teams that are building features, building functionality that is visible on our website globally. So wherever you are in the world and you are keying in Mercedes-Benz.de, for example, then you will see the result of our work. Exactly. And so till date, so we've been in home office since March, and I'm not really seeing an end of it coming in the near future. But we have roughly 400 people across three locations. That's Stuttgart, Berlin, and Lisbon. And we have round about, I would say, 60 to 70% of our workforce are engineers from front-end devs, back-end devs, mobile devs, solution architects, data engineers, stuff like this. So we have quite a large number of engineers, and we are building products, right? So we have been used to work in teams in itself, and they've been split across the locations wherever we had the right skill. But then, to be honest, like how we were steering the company and how we were driving change change or driving strategy, that was always very, I'd say, on-site. Like, we've been doing town halls. We don't call it town halls. It's a little bit too old school. But we run a lot of, you know, sessions where we are actually delivering our message on what we're expecting from the teams, how they operate, how they work with each other. But now, since we don't have that anymore, yet, I'd say there are lots of challenges and how we, as a company, actually operate with each other. And how also new joiners, who just joined the company, are feeling the spirit of MBIO. So there have been a lot of changes, but were you already embracing work from home with a portion of your workforce? So that part's not completely new, the work from home, right?

No, exactly. So we've been quite casual with work from home. But nevertheless, so we always make it up to the team. The team needs to decide how they want to operate with each other. So for example, if they run sprint changes, sprint reviews, if they, you know, they commonly decide to meet in person, then everyone has to be there, right? But ultimately, if you, you know, want to do a day of coding, you want to work from home, no one would say no. It's a matter of communication, but we've been very casual with that. So we are, basically, when we moved into remote work, for us, technically, and just from a, let's say, thinking perspective, thought process, it was, it was quite normal. I was like, okay, we're gonna reach that time. But you know, now, it's like, eight months. It's already like, oh, I have to go to the office. Oh, need to plan half a half an hour to go there, then be there, then go back. How do I fit this into my whole day? And so, so what, I mean, one of the things you mentioned, and that we've, we've talked about before is, I mean, the way you put it is each team can decide what they want to do, right, if they want to be in, in person or not. And I mean, can you, can you speak a little bit about the general, I don't, I don't know what you would call it, approach you have towards managing that, that, that, that falls out from? Like, what's the way the organization is running such that the teams kind of control most of, of, of what they do and the way they operate? Well, essentially, we're running OKRs. So that's our steering methodology, if you can call it like this. So we are setting top level OKRs, and we're breaking them down based on different areas of the website. So we have an area that's called more or less like explore the vehicle, that one is buying the vehicle, and stuff like this. And then we try to basically talk together with the teams, nail down what they're supposed to do in order to achieve certain, let's say, conversion rates or target KPIs, of course. So that has been a process that we've always

been doing, but also, especially the target setting, and it's aligning. It was always a very intense face to face activity. You know, I think talking about strategy, and trying to make people understand about what this is about, it's, it has a lot to do also with, you know, how you interact and you explain something on a, on a whiteboard, you know, there are more people, you create kind of a buzz, right? And you do not, you cannot even, you see if people, you know, haven't understood it, or they ask counter question. But in this remote setup, and sometimes even you see people like turning off the video, did you just, you know, did you just get yourself a coffee? Or did you, you know, you think the discussion is not the appropriate one? Or, you know, you have five other things to do. And it's a, it's for me, it's really tough to get a feeling how things have been transported to the teams. So, so there's, there's two things I want to, I want to ask about there. First of all, I mean, maybe this is obvious, like, OKR thing, but I hadn't, I hadn't thought about the way you kind of clearly put it that like, so if you, if you have self-directed teams, right, autonomous teams figuring out what they'll be doing, like, you can arrange the way you do OKRs such that it's that kind of bridge between strategy and like, hey, you can go figure it out. Right? Like, like, we, we would like to achieve these results. And you can figure out how to do it however you want. I mean, that's kind of like the basic function of an OKR. But like, tell me if I was understanding wrong. But you said something that was interesting is almost, you can almost look at your OKRs. And that suggests almost kind of like an architecture or a portfolio of applications and team, which is, I don't, I mean, is that, am I understanding that right? Because that's a really

interesting way of figuring out what teams you have and what areas of responsibilities those. Yeah. Yeah. But just setting OKRs, writing them down, does not replace good communication together with the teams. You need to deliver a message. So you don't just do OKRs. You don't just set targets. Because, you know, because you were sitting down with your, your peers and, you know, we as the company leadership team, we think we should do this, right? It's about a lot about the why. And then you don't even know, like, you can see if people are tuning out or not, at least when you are in a room, to be quite honest. If you are in your room and you deliver a message, this is a different feel than if they have, like, say, the Eiffel Tower recording studio, where I'm usually in, in a sense. And, you know, Sophie is delivering the message, but there's not, you don't get, you don't even get response. Yeah. You don't even know if people are like, like, looking critical, or they're like, I didn't get that, or, oh, that's great. And then we've experienced that, like, two weeks ago, we've been introducing a new strategic, let's say, a framework that we want to work on. And till date, I'm not sure if that thing even arrived, you know, because people are like in between, you know, using, you know, WhatsAppping, checking the internet. Not that I think that people don't take the job serious, but it's about, you know, a personal engagement. And especially, let's say, for a strategic topics, I think it's really hard. And you need to really, really rethink your communication part, you know, it's not done with a video conference, even though it's recorded, we basically, in the meantime, I've been recorded 1000 times, like, I don't care anymore, right? Right. How I look or how I speak, but it's like, we really need to think, okay, how do we get this to the teams? And how do we make sure, let's say that, you know, that the most junior person that has stepped into

this company, is able to, you know, follow through on everything that is happening. And that's, I think, one of the biggest challenges that we are all going to face, because, you know, there is, let's say, like, eight months, yeah, it's okay. But think about it in 12 months, or in 16 months, how does this develop, and it will be get even more difficult, and losing touch, let's say, from a management perspective, losing touch to the individual who is there, you know, he or she hasn't understood anything. And in between, that usually has, you know, it always starts from the top, that you didn't do your communication, right, that you didn't do your job, right, that you didn't deliver the message, right. And it's your problem on a management, but it's not the problem of the poor guy sitting at the very end of the food chain. Yeah, I'd like to dig into that management. So that's something that's that has struck me is that all communications now are formal, right? Almost everything is a meeting, like when I used to manage large teams of people, if there was someone new, or the team was working on something, I could just walk over to their desk and say, how are things going? Are you are you adjusting, that there are these casual communication that I could use to get the health of the team to figure out if people and now, you mentioned, you know, if you, if you call someone in this environment, it actually might be a stressful thing to them, where it's, it's, it's not the, you know, everyone is, is anxious and on edge, and, and the economies in the world are, are sort of teetering. How do we, how do we make sure that we have these informal communications that I think are very, very important for our relationships and for people as managers to make sure that their team is, is healthy and doing well. So I guess it's, to me, it's, it's a little bit about understanding, but it's also about knowing the health of your team and, and being able to make them feel comfortable enough to work. Have you found anything that lets

you have those communications without them thinking that you're calling them to fire them? Actually, yeah, we have one very nice initiative, which I really like, and which I've been asked to to join. And we call it a random coffee. So we have like this, you know, random, random bot running that pairs you up with people. And then once a week, you do like a 30 minute chat with a person that you have never met before. I really liked that thing, because it's really casual and informal. But also there I see, you know, it's usually a very limited time, right? But if you, you know, start calling up people and say, Hey, I just wanted to check in, you know, what's going on? Let me see, you know, anything you want to talk about is like, you know, what happened. And then to be honest, I think it's also a matter of like, as I said, like, I'm in our company or the highest rank, right. But also to encourage, you know, the levels below to, to, to do this dialogue, right? It's a matter of trust, also for myself, but sometimes, you know, of course, I also want to know what's going on, right. But to encourage these leader, leadership principles of, let's say, fearless communication on all levels, right. And that goes down over various steps. And I think because the lower you get in a hierarchy, the more operational it gets, the more you talk about topics and not about feelings and say, or it's a, maybe like about leadership, it's more about, you know, how is the project status, how it's Lola. Maybe you need to really actively think about this human aspect of leadership. And, you know, really try to engage with your workforce also about non, as a non essential business topics, as stupid as it sounds. Yeah, because we are all just human beings, and we are all in the same situation, right. And none of us from, from the presidents to say, I don't know,

don't want to put anyone on the, on the spot, but everyone out there, we are all facing the same thing. And, uh, yeah, but to encourage that and to really engage in the dialogue and not just talk about, you know, how's the project status, how efficient are you? Why is it delayed? Because that's the usual chat you have right in your day-to-day operations. It's just like, I'm only getting calls if something's going horribly wrong, right? No one's calling me to tell me how great the world is. But you need to maybe change this around. Yeah, I, I feel, I feel like it, whether, whether my work or personal life, it would be great if conversation started with, uh, the, if, if everything was casual, it was just like, you're not in trouble. And then the conversation could proceed just so, you know, because the worst of course is like, you know, uh, I'd like to talk to you. Let's schedule a time. And you're like about what, but yeah, so I, I wanted to mention. So one of the things we've used on at, um, at, at VMware on some of the teams is there is a Slack add-on called donut that, that will, that, that, that will arrange for you to have these little meetings with people you don't know. And it sort of manages it for you. There might be other things as well, but I, I found that to be useful. The same thing you were mentioning. So I think that's very useful. Yeah. I really love it. And I've met so many great people. I probably would have never engaged with before with such great also, uh, life, but what they experienced in their life, it's completely diverse. And, uh, I'm like, wow, you know, how amazing, um, this, uh, CV or this, uh, life experience has been, and we just share about that and not about, okay, which topic are you working on? And is it in time? Do you have any problems? Can I help you? Um, that's really a good thing. Yeah. But, um, I said, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes, you know, I need to, like, you know, you try to call it. That's also very interesting. Like, you know, you're calling people because, uh, like, I don't know what you're doing, but I'm constantly on the phone these days. And sometimes I'm so annoyed by phone calls, like that in the evening, I don't even want to call,

I don't know, someone to like, I don't know, my mom, because I just don't want to have a phone call anymore. Right. Yeah. You're exhausted from it. Exactly. So I asked for arranging meetings, like do a 15 minute call with this person and this person, because then I have it out of my head. Right. But those people immediately, you know, right. Is there something going on that I should be aware of for this call? I'm like, no, I just, you know, I need, I need to have a small topic. And before I call you five times and we call each other back and forth, you know, we just make a 15 minute call, please. Yeah. It's nothing bad. Don't worry. In the meantime, I even write it down and then in the meeting note, nothing bad. Don't worry. Whether people work from home a lot or not, like, uh, it took me a long time in my career to realize that, uh, like I should schedule regular calls with people, like, you know, like people, like I, I do this with Rick, Rick and several other people where like, we don't have anything scheduled. We just talk every three weeks. And, you know, it's, it's a good way. I've always more or less been a remote worker, so I need to do that, but it's a good way one to like, just, as you say, schedule 15 minutes to casually catch up with people. But then also it's nice because both parties in that call know they're not in trouble. Right. Like there's no, uh, it's a lot easier to go into that. And then, you know, you can always just cancel it. If something comes up, it's not, uh, it's, it's not that big of a deal, but yeah, I mean, that is, yeah, I mean, I can see that would totally be a, uh, a problem. Man, the thing of talking with someone randomly that Slack has assigned to me, I got to think about that for a while, if that would be comfortable, but it probably is, uh, as with all these things, it's probably, you know, I actually think it's a little uncomfortable, but, but, um, because I rarely leave my home and I have no interactions with anyone. Yeah. You know, it's, it is, it is an important uncomfortableness. Yeah. Something that, that, that in order to, uh, one day I hope this will be over this pandemic and I'm going to have to be able to operate in the world like a

functional human. And, and it's one of those things that kind of helps me keep that the ability to talk to someone I don't know, um, about things that I don't plan to talk about. I mean, I, I, that's really important to me because I'm losing my ability to, to, to do that. I feel very isolated. Right. Yeah. Um, but it is, it is uncomfortable. It is, it is uncomfortable. There's, there's no question, but sometimes we have to do things that are uncomfortable. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But also think about yourself. I mean, I, even, I received sometimes, uh, an invite where I'm like at the first plan and you're sitting all alone here, you know, for like days and then you receive an invite and you say like, you know, so what's that going to be about? Hmm. And you have like five different things going on. But usually if you're in the office and you're like, it's just meeting either one of the assistants or, you know, one of your bosses, just like, Hey, have you seen this invite? Can you just, you know, tell me what this is about? So now you start and again to call people and they call you back or are you chatting? Very, I think that's, uh, the most, uh, uh, the worst thing about it and the social interaction really it's, uh, I miss it. Yeah. As you're saying, like, you know, back, back a few topics, like when, when you're trying to sort of like trickle down, here's our strategy, the things that we want and therefore, you know, kind of, kind of allowing teams to know what the principles are and operate on their own to, to deliver on them. Like you're saying, it's important if you're managing that way to make sure people understand all of that. Right. Like, I mean, in, in, in, uh, in contrast to that, whether or not this is a good idea or not, right. If you have a command and control thing, it's just sort of like, I give you the things to do and you do them. Right. But, and, and so, you know, when you're not in person, I mean, you have to use, when you're in person, you have to use a lot of body language to see if people are understanding. Cause that's, that's a lot of the job that a manager needs to do is not so much tell you to do something, but

it's the manager's responsibility to make sure you understand, to put it. And so like, how are you, since people aren't in a room and people are turning their video off, like, what are you, uh, what are you doing there to like, make sure people understand things? Yeah. Well, so for a second, when we did the strategy part, I basically what I did, like the, say the 80% of the people I called again. Right. And, and I said like, you know, are we, you know, are we on the right path? Because I said, if you're sitting in a room together and you're presenting at least, let's say to 20 people, like your, let's say your extended reports. Right. And you see people either, you know, they're nodding their head or you're like, you know, critical or whatever, but you cannot see this on 20, uh, 20 screens. Right. So what I would, yeah. But if it's important, uh, I would call them up. That's the only way. Yeah. And I said, this is the most important thing. Like the things that you would have usually thought, you know, this is all clear. Um, I then suddenly not clear anymore. And we've had this, like with, especially with the strategy thing, it was for me, such a lessons learned because like, you know, we worked on the strategy framework and we had like lots of thoughts and then we introduced it to the next, basically the next level. Right. But, and they were completely somewhere else. Like, and then we started to discussing the one said, Hey, the other one said, uh, uh, X, what's going on here. Right. And it taught me really a lesson that, uh, you know, you, you need to bring people on the way and you need to really think about how to bring this and which messages to bring to the, to the team and how you communicate and do it again. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, the, the, the, the act of calling people up, like it's making me think that, you know, if there is a, normally if you're in person, you can rely on like all this other nonverbal stuff to understand what's going on. And so therefore

if that gets removed, I guess you just have to amplify the use of the tools you have. Right. So like a lot more talking and a lot more checking in than if you were just visually looking at people recalibrate on, on that, which means, uh, you know, more phone calls, but probably work. I mean, you got to make it work. Yeah, you are definitely. Yeah. I mean, that's very interesting. You know, you, uh, most likely the pandemic has taught us to trust the people more to get the job done, but focus our leadership skills on, you know, getting the message, right. Um, talk with people and to understand where they are right now, but like, I don't know. I don't, I almost have no conversation about it. Say, you know, deliveries that have not been met. Like, you know, you need to deliver that functionality by then. And that, um, didn't happen. Right. But you talk much more about it. Say this, uh, you know, let's say either emotions or, you know, working model or, you know, different messages that have been communicated by different people because, you know, it's even hard if you have like, um, let's say, uh, one escalation with involving four to five people, you need to call all of them. And then probably you need to call them all together and bring them into one conference to get this all sorted out. Right. But until you're there, you're like, you know, you you've spent three hours only calling. Yeah. The amount of time it takes to deal with something has just grown. Right. So, so much. Another thing that I used to manage entirely remote teams back when I was at Canonical working, uh, working on Ubuntu server. Um, one of the things that I found when I hired people onto these remote teams is that about one in five just had difficulty working remotely. Either it was psychologically difficult for them. It was, and, and at that time where there were, it wasn't mandatory, you know, they usually moved on, um, in, in these, in, in these days, you know, how, how do you, when you, if you have

someone that has never worked remotely and they're not adjusting to it well, you know, what do you do? How do you help them? Have you come up with anything? To be honest. No. We, we've been, we, what we are doing right now, uh, as well. I mean, that's, but it has nothing. Yeah. We, we are actually talking more about mental health, to be quite honest, in our company, because we've been experiencing people having issues being alone and their motivations. And then, and I'm, I'm also very transparent on that in the company. Like I have also had, you know, issues, um, you know, being alone all the time, because one of my, my, my job is to interact with people and making sure that they are like, you know, there, right. It, this is, I think my key job to know the people connecting the dots, bring the people together. And, and, uh, you know, I always said, I sometimes had to really go to the office and meet at least two or three other people because like I hear the ceiling was, you know, crashing basically above me. And so we've been, uh, driving or we're currently one of our HR, um, people is driving, topping on mental health a lot, but also like, you know, best practices on how to cope with, uh, a remote office right now. But you know, the thing is, and I, it's, I know, um, also for me, a complete remote setup is difficult to do. Um, but we, we all need to somehow get used to it, um, I believe. And a lot of company companies will probably move into a remote first approach, right. Um, which is fine. I mean, I'm like, I'm not just because I personally like to interact with people in a, let's say, um, uh, closer situation, let's say an onsite situation. I don't speak for, uh, uh, the whole population. And, uh, in our company, a lot of engineers, especially asking for this remote, uh, first opportunity, uh, which is very interesting, but, uh, you're right. These are things that we need to, to, to talk about. So mental health is on our record, but then to our routines, there've been incredibly many people, which I love in our company that have been driving

initiatives to connect. Like they have, let's say, this random coffees, you know, then they have, we have a move together challenge where you are, you know, going for a run and then it's like a challenge who runs the most. And then we donate stuff. So there's lots of activities going on to bring people together at least virtually, but it's, yeah, it's, uh, it's difficult, right? So, so, so going through that and I don't know, maybe, maybe Ricky, you've had experience with this too, but like, well, I mean, it's different nowadays, but how much, I mean, how much time do you think you budget and in general people should budget for that kind of stuff? Just like, you know, employee happiness and mental stability, right? Cause that is kind of a new set of things to, to worry about. And it seems like, or to work on. And it seems like, I mean, uh, if, if, if, uh, if our employer VMware is anything, they're spending a lot of time thinking about that. We get, we get a lot of emails, which is nice and comforting, but there's a lot of stuff going on, but I imagine there's an uptick in that. So like, I don't know how much, how much of your time do you think you're, you spend on that and we'll spend on it now as an employee and the question is for your working time or in general. Yeah. Just from like, kind of like, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm curious, like if, if a manager's thinking like, here's how I'm going to decide to spend my time, right? Like I'm going to have to spend more time on, on this, this mental stuff. Like, I don't know. I mean, what's a rough estimate of how much time. It depends how good the manager is. If you're leading people, if you're in a leadership position, I say you should roughly spend around 60 to 70% of your time, making sure, you know, your people are engaged and, and be there for them and talk to them. And it's just about checking in, you know, you can also check in about other things, but to not ignore the fact. Right. And that's your job as a, let's say, as a leader of a company and, or of a team.

It's a responsibility as people actually, and you should hire people that are able to do the job for you, that you don't have to worry that they, you know, that they don't get the job done. And I think it was one of the things I've mentioned many times in my, in my talks. It's like, you know, why is there a lot of hierarchy? Because there is always the fear that the people on the bottom don't get the job done in a proper way. Right. And I think that needs to change. You need to hire people that do the job. And they are the experts in doing that and give them the liberty to also sometimes make a mistake, because that's where you learn. And, and you as a leader can focus on business, what leadership is about to take care about the people, right? And make sure you have the right people on the right job. But usually we are focusing a lot about controlling the outcome of a delivery of, of, of an objective that needs to be done. Right. Because it's easier, easier than to talk about feelings and emotions and not being present and stuff like this. Are there any things that have kind of like surprised you as far as like benefits or good things that, that you weren't expecting since, uh, that, that you, y'all have encountered since March? Um, related to work. Yeah. Cause I'm a much better baker. That's much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I think in Amsterdam, people have been surprised by how much stuff in their house they no longer want judging by the piles of trash. Every, I've been selling everything on eBay, uh, like, uh, classified. Um, so no, I actually, one thing, uh, that's from, and I'm talking now on pure, um, management perspective, let's say from a company perspective, that might not be 100% the same opinion I would have as a, as an employee or as a person, but our productivity has been improved a lot, at least on paper. So people are more focused on, on actual

work and spend less time on other things. So as I'm saying now, of course, from a product productivity perspective, I'm happy, you know, as a company CEO can say, great, our people work more and do less other stuff. Right. As said, as an employee or as a person, on my personal opinion, I still believe, you know, we have like this 80, 20 rule, you can do 20% of other stuff during your work time and that's fine. Yeah. You don't have to only work. Right. Um, so that improved a lot. And what I also really like, I think the things that have been very much, um, organized by the company. So we are doing lots of cultural things like, you know, we have a weekly with the whole company, we have different after work activities that, like I said, have been organized by the company. And where I always thought, okay, you know, if we do not pay for say the beer or the pizza, no one will show up. And I have to say like lots of people have taken the initiative to drive things throughout the organization, um, independently. So as I said, this, uh, move together challenge, I didn't have to order it. Um, somebody came up with the idea and just put it out there or the, you know, random coffee talks or because if people are taking the initiative to organize something and then the whole company participates. And I think, uh, that's, uh, even greater than to everything, you know, it's done them by the culture and communication team in the company. They, they do also a lot, but most of the things are actually driven by the employees themselves. And that's what I really, really like. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm, I'm trying to, I'm trying to think of the experience we've had, Rick. And I think, I think, I think there is a lot more, let's call it bottoms up, taking care of that 20% stuff that I would have expected that people, people are pretty better than I would think it's sort of self-managing, making sure they have a good working environment. It's a weird way of putting it, but

that is, that is, that is nice. Hmm. Yeah, no, I, I, I think so too. And, and I think down at the team level, people are making sure they have virtual happy hours where people just sit on zoom and drink a beer together. Right. There are, yeah, there are lots of ways that, that people are trying to cope, which is expected, right? I think that, I think that it's very, very important as we see some people trying to cope. As I start to go through my head now of, of, of peers and colleagues, I think we have to keep in mind that some people, some of our introverted colleagues might be disappearing a little bit. They might feel less comfortable with that. And, and, and we might have to work extra, extra hard. They might feel more isolated. I'm, I'm, I think I've, I've become more cognizant that I need to work hard to reach out to people that are struggling. Yeah. We, we had a team event where we got a yakitori chef all online. Yeah. It was nice. We learned how to cut up chicken and make a sauce and, and then you get to eat something. It's a, it's, it's good. It's good to like, be busy with your hands when you're, when you're hanging out and everything. So, so Sophie, are you still hiring? Yes, we are hiring. Yeah. Yeah. You should, you should do a little ad for yourself. If anyone's interested. So, so if you want to join, I'm not, I'm always saying that my job is to build the greatest company on earth, especially for people working in tech and in creative jobs. And we are still looking for people that are driving with us the digital transformation of Mercedes. Of course, we have our ups and downs with this big mothership, but ultimately this is the unique opportunity to shape the future of one of the biggest car brands in the world. And, you know, all of the strategies are going through words, digital and online channels, and it's a great opportunity

to be part of it. And I said, we have everything under mercedes-benz.io. All of our jobs are listed there. Actually one of the killer job ads that we currently have is we're looking for a CTO. And that's a once in a lifetime opportunity, I would say. So please feel free to apply. I'm looking forward to it. That's good. Well, thanks so much for making the time it was as I was joking before we were recording, you know, you, you and I have been trying to find an excuse to record something for a while. So this was a topic to have really good. Yeah. Yeah. And, and with, uh, with that, we'll, we'll see everyone next time. Thanks. Bye. Great. Great day, wherever you are. Right.

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