WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 When I work on my own thing, it's inseparable from my life, that is my life. But the work career 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:21.519 for some reason for me is associated with working for somebody. For me, it's associated with like levels and promotions, which is all a framework laid out by somebody smart to make 00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:30.000 it work for them. Yeah, at some point we will have to lay out this as well if we are successful, and we will be the smart ones laying out. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:56.000 Hello and welcome to the Metacast Podcast episode 24 Part 2. In Part 1, Arnavonai talked about our decisions to leave our corporate jobs, why we made the decisions, how we finished our planning, how we managed risks, how we prepared our families, etc. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:08.000 In Part 2, we talked about our nap story, and we also talked about the corporate cultures in Google and Amazon and how they differ, and which culture works better, what kind of business. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:15.000 We also discussed what kind of culture we want to build in our company, and what we would borrow 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.000 from our past experiences. Enjoy! 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:32.000 So when you were living, I mean you first took it like a live of absence now, so maybe let's talk about living nicely, because I think both of us left nicely on good terms and all that. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:42.000 Also it's one thing that Tony Fadell mentioned in his book Build, he talks a lot about not burning bridges, and that's what generally has been a philosophy for me as well. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.000 So how did you plan your exit? And actually let's take a step back. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:02:02.000 What actually inspired you to leave Amazon, because you were with Amazon for 12 years, you were a principal engineer, it's a big deal, I know you will not say it yourself, it's a very big deal, very high level, like highest level, pretty much, I guess highest level for most engineers in the company. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:08.000 I would say it's unreachable for most engineers at Amazon, and yeah, somehow you decide to leave. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:14.000 So what was your motivation, what was your inspiration, why did you decide to, why did you even start thinking about this? 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000 In the first five minutes you said something, but I didn't want to interrupt you. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:27.000 What I was going to say is, am I you? Because what you said is exactly what happened with me to backtracking. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:30.000 So 12 years at Amazon, but not in one state, right? 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:40.000 I started as the junior most level of engineer in Amazon SD1, and I spent about five years I think in Amazon, in that role. 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:43.000 And I always wanted to go do startups and all. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:53.000 You always want to bring your, yes, I was a wonderful, pretty much my whole life, but we didn't know exactly what to do and all that. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:03:00.000 And we just had our daughter, we decided for family, as well as for this, that let's go try this out. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:08.000 So we both moved to India and our daughter, she was six months old at that time, both of us worked in like really small startups. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.000 But you were in the founder, you were an employee of a startup. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:15.000 I was not the founder. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't thinking about founding and all that at that time. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:18.000 I just wanted to work in a really small, like early company. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.000 And to be fair, my wife really worked it like a four person company, right? 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:27.000 So that was really small. I worked in more like a 50% company. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.000 So it was already a couple of years old and all that. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000 But it was still a pretty big difference compared to like a big tech company. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:42.000 And then I'll fast forward two, three years there, kind of figured out that she had a few pretty bad experiences, right? 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.000 Working there in a very small company. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:49.000 And my daughter was not happy with like preschool and all that already. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:55.000 And we could see like all the stress of academics and all that, that's very normal in India. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:01.000 In a way, maybe it's good that you're so academically focused, but we were not ready for that. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:08.000 So we decided to come back. And that's when I had a few offers, but then I decided I really like the manager. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:12.000 So actually Craig was going to be my manager's manager at that time. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 And I really liked it, right? Like Tim. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And I said, okay, this org will be a good fit. Let me go there. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:20.000 So Craig, if you listen to this, we love you. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:27.000 Yeah. Craig and his manager, Kennexner. Kennexner was at some point my manager previously too. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:31.000 And I really like, oh, you're kidding me. Kennexner hired me into this role. 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:36.000 So I really liked working with their org. So I came back. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:42.000 But that burning desire to like go do something, the startup thing was always there. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.000 But now I think I did get to work on really interesting projects. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:50.000 You especially working with you for those five years was awesome. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:56.000 I think that experience that you and I had and our team had is very rare at a big company. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:03.000 Which is like start something from scratch with one or two people, grow it over four or five years. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:09.000 Almost like a startup kind of experience, but without the worries of finance and all that. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:13.000 You know that you're budgeted for at least the next year. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:19.000 You don't know what will happen after the next year, but worst case, you will go on and ask to work on some other projects. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:25.000 Now in the second stint, I had a lot of fun working and we built really awesome things, right? 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:31.000 And because of all that, the team grew, we got more and more exciting people joining in. 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:35.000 And the products we launched out on the interrupt you and ask you a question. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:43.000 So before I left three years ago, we were just starting to work on one thing that launched when? 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.000 Like a few weeks ago. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.000 A few weeks ago. Yes. That's a reality of a company. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:53.000 That's the reality, right? Like you're launching a major new thing for AWS. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:58.000 It has so many things that you need to think of, right? 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:04.000 Because there are customers of all sizes and shapes for AWS and it needs to satisfy all of them. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:11.000 We won't go into the nitty gritty details feature wise when I had left last year in like August. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Features were not pretty much they were done, but there are big things that still needed to be done. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:22.000 And I don't want to get into all the details. So it does take more time. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:29.000 So a relatively big company, you have a product that works perfectly in your six months to tighten it up. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:34.000 Like operationally and like process and approvals and what have you, right? 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:44.000 Yeah. Anyway, so and I think a year or so before I left, I got promoted also to the principal position, just like you. 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:49.000 And there's this saying, right? 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:55.000 You will tell me who said it, but you in an organization, you grow to your level of incompetence. 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.000 That's a Peter's principle. Peter's principle. Yes. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.000 I think it says everybody is promoted to their level of incompetence. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:08.000 And the premise there is that you can't be promoted further because you're already competent at what you do. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.000 It's like basically you stop at that level where you actually no longer are competent. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 Right. I feel like I reached that level. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:29.000 I don't know if it was actually incompetence or more like unwillingness to do what that role required on a day to day basis nature of your day to day work changes so much. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:35.000 Yeah. But by the way, that principal role at Amazon and there's always levels and levels, right? 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:43.000 There's like senior principal and all that. But like you said, it is a pretty prestigious role in a big tech company. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.000 And it was fun being recognized for it and all that. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:55.000 But it took me very far away from what I like doing, which is working on the product typing on keyboards. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:00.000 Yeah. Tiping on keyboard and not being on meetings too much, I think. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:06.000 It took me far away from actually building things into the strategy. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:16.000 And I wasn't a manager so there was no people management, but still in that kind of role when you're working with like 60 to 80 people, 60 to 80 engineers. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:17.000 I don't remember. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:21.000 Maybe 45 to 60 engineers in our organ that time when I left. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:25.000 That's a lot of people and you're expected to know about everybody and all that. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:30.000 So all of these things was taking time away from what I like doing, which is building the thing. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:39.000 And which is where I and you we had a lot of fun in our time at Amazon working on actually building the things. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:44.000 So that's what kind of made me feel like, okay, I this is not going to work out. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:51.000 But like you said, I didn't know what I was what I wanted to work on yet or where I wanted to go. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:55.000 So I took a three month leave of absence. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:03.000 I was an organ, everybody was very supportive, right? They were like, yeah, go figure it out, right? If you want to come back, yeah, this is what will work on together. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:07.000 If not, you figure out what you want to work on and that was cool. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.000 Yeah, what are they expecting you to come back? 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:15.000 It depends on different people. I think some people knew that I'm not going to come back. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:20.000 Some people hope that I would come back. Some people felt that I would come back. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:32.000 And I think there was a lot, not a lot, but there was a fair bit of like showing the future part too so that I would come back between me and my manager and a few other managers. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:39.000 There was even a chat about like, let's figure out what your ideal role is. You come back and you do that. Stop doing what you're doing now. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:58.000 If you've earned your right to have a custom role designed for you, that's just how good you were. It's not going to be like a custom role. It's still going to be the principal engineer role, but the kind of things you want to do and the kind of teams you want to work with rather than what you're doing right now. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:11.000 But I think those things, like you said, if I had done that within a few weeks, I think I would like you said after joining Google within a few weeks, you realize it's just different branding the same things. 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:15.000 Yeah. In your case, it would also be the same company. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.000 Say people, at least you know, part of a subset of them. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:38.000 Yeah, because ultimately I was happy with the people I was happy with the company. It's what I want to work on is building things and you just can't be expected to do that amount of hands on work and not do a lot of the other things that the role requires of you at that high level of role. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:56.000 Yeah, actually, I think it really is really strongly with me because when we were doing our chat board thing, when it was a very small team, like five engineers, I was basically doing all the other functions that needed to be done very, very scrappy, right? 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:08.000 I remember I did things like, oh, I need some analytics, but I don't want to distract engineers. So I'll just write my own script to get the data actually had the time because I didn't have so many meetings. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:19.000 I could just spend three or four or five days in the row, deep work building something for fun, not for fun, because I needed it. It was like poor quality code, but it did get the job done. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:30.000 And I think when I got to principle, product manager role, I didn't have time for this. I'm like, yeah, read this talk about things you don't care about and provide your opinion on it. 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:44.000 I don't want to have an opinion of this. One of those things, right? If people talk about politics, I don't care about politics. I don't have an opinion. And it's okay, but it's not okay if you're a principle at Amazon, because you're expected to. 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:58.000 And I think when I left to Google, when I joined Google, that's what surprised me actually a lot is just how hands off you become there, because Google has different levels, but I think I joined kind of an equivalent level at Google. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:08.000 And yeah, like you want to get some data. There is a business intelligence team and just given the requirements like five months later, you get your dashboard. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:19.000 It depends on teams, of course. But yeah, like some things I can get for you very quickly, but some things like you have to build all of the pipelines, all the data, all of those privacy approvals. 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:27.000 One thing that I want to say to Google's credit, Google has a very, very stringent internal processes about privacy of data. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:44.000 So it's like even the simplest thing that's anonymized and there is no personal but interval information, it's still very hard. You have to jump so many hopes to get access to the data that are very much respect from an internal perspective, which as a customer, we really appreciate that. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.000 And as a general human being, I think who doesn't use something from Google today? 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:59.000 So like I have full confidence that actually my data is protected within Google. So yeah, that was very eye-opening for me because I didn't realize how strictly it worked. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:05.000 But when you work internally there, it's very annoying because you got the jump all of those whoops, right? 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:12.000 Yeah, like things I did at Amazon like six, seven years ago would be unthinkable at they probably unthinkable at Amazon at this point. 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:21.000 At now, yeah, yeah, especially in AWS, especially AWS, yeah. And also one thing that really surprised me at Google is, you know, Amazon has this writing culture. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:29.000 You write the document with the requirements or vision or whatever technical vision, technical architecture. It's always very crisp. 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:38.000 Writing is important, like writing gets to the perfection. And many people who don't survive within Amazon, they can't write. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:45.000 Because they can't write and cultures just pushes them out. They always feel like an outlier and eventually they leave where they get fired. 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.000 I mean, it's like it's more senior levels. 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:54.000 I think many of our listeners may know this already, but there is no PowerPoint presentations or any presentations at Amazon. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.000 Yeah, except it's a position to a customer or like a training. 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:05.000 Yes. You got to write it out either as a one page idea or a six page like more like a narrative, but it's a document. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:12.000 Yeah. And you spell everything out. I think that's the habit that I learned at Amazon. You know, I guess I've always been good at writing. 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:18.000 I just didn't have to use it as much, but when I came to Amazon, like, oh my god, this is like my environment. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:25.000 I like kind of writing and rewriting, which was really good. When I came to Google, Google is also a document culture has lots and lots of documents. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:35.000 I think it's like 80% done is good enough in most cases. So basically like you write something and you feel like you figured it out while writing. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:40.000 You show that if you people, people give you thumbs up. Okay, move on. So go build it. Right. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:52.000 So the quality of writing is much, much lower at Google. And that kind of took away some of that enjoyment of the actual like individual contributor role for me. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:58.000 Because at Amazon, sometimes I would clear my day and spend the entire day just like writing a document in a coffee shop. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:04.000 And then I would come out and people would pat me on the back and like, I didn't do it for the past and the back. I enjoyed the process of writing. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:13.000 On top of that, it was valued. It was appreciated, right? It made me better at my job when I could write well at Google wasn't so much. 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:19.000 So basically like, yeah, I came into the environment where I can't do much with my hands because nothing I really like doing is analytics. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:27.000 So I couldn't do much there because of all the privacy stuff. Yeah, you know, writing no one really cared much about like high quality writing. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:33.000 And it's always freaking PowerPoint. When I listen, I know I'm missing a lot of content that's being said. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:41.000 So therefore when I say something, I know that people will not hear the things that I want them to hear, at least some of those things. 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:44.000 So it's this kind of broken communication channel. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:57.000 There are probably lots of stuff written about this, but I'll just say that the document writing process forces the writer to actually think a lot deeper than the presentation. 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:08.000 The presentation, there are two problems. One is you could intentionally not talk about a lot of things because it's in a concise bullet kind of format. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:22.000 Or you could unintentionally not about think about a lot of things, whereas when you write it and it's not just like writing in any kind of writing, there's a specific kind of like format about how to write about idea in Amazon. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:31.000 That format forces you to figure out each and every detail about the thing that you're writing about. 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:36.000 And it brings everybody who's reading it to the same page like immediately. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:44.000 Yes, and actually in the culture that like for the first half an hour of the meeting, you actually sit down and read like nobody presents anything to you. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:47.000 You're expected to read and ask questions. 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:51.000 So like if you haven't read, well, it's kind of obvious to everyone that you haven't. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:57.000 So it also forces kind of good reading habits reading and taking notes and asking good questions. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:03.000 That's another good thing about Amazon culture because by the way, first year at Google, I was like, should I just go back to Amazon? 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000 It's just not working. Let's have a think about my time at Google. 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:11.000 There are also different factors that hold like presentation culture. I never liked it. 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.000 Let's have a couple of compare the cultures of Amazon and Google. 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:20.000 So Amazon deliberates about a problem for a long time. 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:26.000 Sometimes too long. Sometimes too long. Yes, that's kind of negative of it. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:36.000 But like you write a dog, you know, you go through all of those levels of hierarchy to review that. So like our chatbot, we met with Andy just four times to launch it. 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:41.000 So you go all of the way up to the CEO of AWS and all of the levels in between. 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:50.000 And you get lots of questions that you learn from because like when you sit in the room with Andy or like previous couple of levels, people ask you questions. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.000 It's like nobody else who you reviewed it with before thought about it. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:59.000 From that perspective. Yeah, because like those people are more seniorly, they know a lot more than you. 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:04.000 They have much more experience. So you learn from that because like you know that next time you should think about that. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.000 I remember that first meeting with Andy and he reads the dog and he's like, how about X? 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:18.000 You know, I can disclose what was asked there. But everybody in the room, like all of the the CNRS president, like a few VPs, all of the directors, everybody just dumbfounded because like nobody thought about that. 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:24.000 We've been talking about that for months. Nobody thought about that. That's just what you get out of this. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:28.000 It's not something simple or obvious. Otherwise somebody would have thought about it already. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:34.000 Yes, it's something like very far from being obvious. It's so nuanced, right? 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:40.000 But it's very important to that product. But when the question gets asked, it's so obvious. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:46.000 It's like, why did they think about it? But you didn't. That's why you have these people in high-high-pay jobs. 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:54.000 Sorry, quick interruption. The last six months of my stay at Amazon, there was a similar, like something that we were trying to build. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:01.000 It goes against a lot of foundational principles that is held very strongly at AWS. 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:08.000 But we were strongly of the belief that we need to do this for the user experience that we are trying to provide. 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000 And again, I won't go into any of the details. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:16.000 And we had a similar, like, kind of write it up and go through layers and layers of reviews. 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:24.000 And ultimately, I think one of the last few was from the Eric Brandwine, a distinguished engineer at Amazon. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.000 And pretty much, it's like a VP level engineer. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:33.000 VP level engineer is basically the AWS and security. If you take those two worlds, he is the person. 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:44.000 And he reviewed it. He worked with us quite a lot, actually, to refine this idea, because he saw that, okay, this makes sense, but not in the way how you're thinking about implementing it. 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:53.000 And I had a similar kind of experience going through that too. And that's actually one of the things that took that last year to build out after I left. 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:58.000 Okay. Yeah. So to finish my thought, like, you deliberate a lot. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:03.000 And then docs really make it more obvious, more crisp, every iteration. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:09.000 And once it's approved, then you almost like assemble your troops and you marched over it. 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:14.000 You don't look back unless you face some things that you haven't anticipated, but implementing. 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:22.000 But the probability of hitting those things is reduced by the upfront deliberation, not fully eliminated, but it's reduced. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.000 So on the other hand, the Google's culture is more like, oh, let's do something and then figure out the details later. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:35.000 Would you say it's more pragmatic or I think it was more pragmatic when Google was maybe 5,000 people. 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.000 It needed to be in the market. And also when it was only serving consumers. 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:46.000 I worked only in the enterprise space. And what happens there is, you know, I won't be mentioning specific details. 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:59.000 Like if you made a wrong decision or like you postponed the decision on some technical aspect of the thing earlier on, when you come to things like compliance and other stuff or like some big customer is asking for something, 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:04.000 it's much harder to change if you haven't built kind of the right framework for this. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:09.000 Or if you haven't even built it right away. And so that culture creates a lot of charm. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:13.000 So it's almost like easier to build a new thing that replaces the whole thing than to change the whole thing. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:18.000 So that's actually Google created whatever like 50,000 different child applications. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:26.000 I think the cost of releasing something wrong grows almost exponentially with the number of customers you have 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:32.000 because people get used to that wrong thing. And they figure out their own use cases that works with that thing. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.000 That doesn't work with your next version anymore. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:41.000 Oh, boy. Yeah, you fix a bug and then you realize there are like tens of thousands of customers who actually use this as a feature. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:53.000 So I think that level of deliberation is required in that kind of enterprise atmosphere, especially in AWS or Google Cloud where there are like people building their whole businesses around it. 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:54.000 And huge businesses. 00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:05.000 Again, the Google's created I think things are changing. And I think GCP has hired a lot of people from Amazon, from you know, Oracle and Microsoft, from the companies who know how to enterprise. 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:12.000 But there was always a stark contrast when let's say you work with somebody who only works in consumer products before, 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:15.000 they just don't understand it. The first time they faced your problems. 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:24.000 They're like, why can't you just run the experiment? Well, you can't run the experiment on an API because predictability is expected. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:30.000 And in consumer world, especially when you use products for free, it's okay to break some customers. 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:35.000 It's okay, you know, if things change a little bit and people have to get used to it. 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:41.000 As Google expands into the enterprise use cases, I think it goes a bit against the company's DNA. 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:46.000 And maybe that's why they hired Thomas Kurian as to be the CEO of Google Cloud. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:52.000 He was I think a big shot at Oracle. All his life was enterprise. All his career was enterprise. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:55.000 I think GCP culture is slightly different from the rest of Google. 00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:04.000 So we both, I think, really appreciate the document culture and the deep thinking process at Amazon. 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:09.000 You talked a little bit about the other side of that on Google and how it's changing. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:18.000 If I were to ask you, what's the one thing you would take away from your experience at Amazon into this new company? 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:25.000 I think you and I would probably both say like the document kind of thing, even though it's not operated at that level 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:30.000 because it's just a very small company and we are way more pragmatic. We need to be way more pragmatic. 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:36.000 But let me flip that question and say what would you take from Google into this new company? 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:39.000 And you can name just one thing. 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:43.000 I'll say something very contradictory right now to what I said previously. 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:49.000 So one thing that I think we've already taken into our new company is just structure. 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:54.000 So when you do things, you have to have some structure around it. 00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:01.000 Like we set up all of the Kanban boards and we have CI, CD, we built ourselves on serverless infrastructure. 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:08.000 We've made all of the red decisions upfront that initial deliberation I think will pay us off in the long run. 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:14.000 What I'll take from Google though is that half done is good enough. Approach scrappy. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:19.000 Scrappy, even though it doesn't work for the company of Google size anymore, at least in the pockets that I've seen. 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:22.000 It's perfect. I was going to say this sounds awesome. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:26.000 It's perfect for startups. It was perfect when Google was just launching at WARS or Gmail or whatever. 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:31.000 It may actually still be perfect for Google's new products, consumer products. 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:37.000 So yeah, I want to take that. Like a couple of days ago I was writing something for our company and I'm like, this is good enough. 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:47.000 Just abandoned the doc. We had a quick chat. We made the decision. We just put the decision in a GitHub issue so that we actually remember how we took the decision. 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:54.000 But doc screwed it. Throw it out. At Amazon, we would have organized over it another few weeks. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:00.000 And by the way, it was decision about your name. 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:08.000 And I think so actually so listeners should when you get your hands on our app during alpha be prepared for something scrappy. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:14.000 Because what we want to validate first is the our core hypothesis. We'll talk about it in the next episode. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.000 I showed it to my son and he was like, oh my god, this is so cool. And like he was like doing things enough. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.000 And he's like, yeah, but it's buggy because there was some UI. 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:31.000 So we learned and grew from there, I think, yeah, but the core thing is what we need to validate. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:36.000 And if you want to be part of the alpha, if you listen to podcasts and if you want to be part of the alpha. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:43.000 And we know you because I think that was important prerequisite for the first alpha. 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:48.000 Yeah, for the kind of closed alpha, the private alpha where we only give access to people we know. 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:50.000 Yeah, reach out to me or not. 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:57.000 Right. The next few ones are going to be a bit silly, but I want to end on a bit silly note. 00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:02.000 Okay, there are a few more serious questions, but I'll try to like, interleave it. 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:08.000 If the new thing that we are working on was a Google product, what would it be called? 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:13.000 And when will it be shut down? 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:22.000 I feel like by using a name of a Google product that might be disclosing what we're working on too much. 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:24.000 Next question please. 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:28.000 Okay. Okay, you can still answer when will it be shut down though? 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:32.000 Well, I believe it will be a very large and successful product. 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:37.000 And it might have just become part of the Google portfolio eventually. 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:43.000 I mean, I will not be surprised if down the line Google might be in a choir. 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.000 That's hope for something like that. That will be cool. 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:50.000 Yeah. So we shouldn't say bad things about Google. 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.000 We never say bad things about anything. 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:56.000 Yeah, we just been honest and a bit nice guys. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:00.000 I forgot to work for this, but yeah, we like to make fun of things. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:07.000 Yeah. If you could have one person as a mentor from Google continuing on, who would that be? 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:08.000 And why? 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:12.000 You don't have to name the person if you don't want to name them, but why? 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:13.000 There is one person at Google. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:14.000 I'll name him. 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:16.000 It's okay. His name is Amit. Hello, Amit. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:17.000 Now I have to list this. 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:19.000 Sounds a little too. 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:23.000 He's a director in the same organization where I was in. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:25.000 He's from Israel. 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:28.000 Maybe that's what makes him a perfect mentor. 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:31.000 He doesn't hold back really good, critical questions. 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.000 So he would always be like, hold on, hold on a second. 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:41.000 And then he would ask questions that just pierces through the issue and makes me think. 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:44.000 That's what I really appreciate in people, right? 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:53.000 Amit is very nice, but he can ask those questions where some people would hold back because they would be afraid of being perceived as maybe like not nice. 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:54.000 And I'm saying it in good way. 00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.000 You know what I mean? 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:56.000 Like some people might have their guard on. 00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:00.000 I don't know if he does it to everybody or he does it just to me because he knows that I will take it really well, right? 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.000 But that habit of his, I think it's also partially culture. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:08.000 It's I mentioned Israel because some other Israeli I know they are the same way. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:09.000 Shani hi. 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:12.000 But yeah. 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:16.000 And also he has experience in both consumer and enterprise. 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:18.000 And I think he thinks in the right way. 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:20.000 So yeah, Amit it is. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:21.000 All right. 00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:27.000 I don't know how much time you got to spend in Google in office because you joined during the pandemic, right? 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:29.000 And then you moved to Florida. 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:32.000 Yeah. So I joined in June 2020. 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.000 I got my offer in April 2020, I think. 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:36.000 And I joined it June or something. 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:39.000 Did you work from Google offices a little or? 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:41.000 I never worked full time from the Google office. 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:45.000 I visited the Google office like for three or four days in two trips. 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:48.000 Actually, both of them happened in the last six months. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:49.000 Right. 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:52.000 I was going to ask what will you miss the most from Google offices? 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.000 Now that we want anything. 00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:56.000 Here's the thing, right? 00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:02.000 So I'm sitting in this very nice spacious, sunny, well lit room in my house. 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:03.000 Right. 00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:06.000 So my home team was based in Seattle, both of my teams. 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:13.000 So when I was visiting Seattle, which I spent seven years at, I was visiting back from Florida, I think it was in November. 00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:18.000 And I remember like I would walk up at seven or so and I went to the office, it was dark. 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:21.000 And then it was like four or 15 or so. 00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:23.000 And I picked out of the window and it's dark. 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:26.000 And I spent most of my day in the meeting room. 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.000 And the meeting room in that pre-month office was, all of the meeting rooms were like, they don't have windows, you know. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:33.000 They're like inside the building. 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:39.000 So that day, the only time I saw daylight was when I maybe was like going to the restrooms between meetings. 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:40.000 And also during lunchtime. 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:42.000 I don't miss that at all. 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:45.000 And also like, being in the office made me so tired. 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:48.000 I don't think I ever want to work from an office again. 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:51.000 I do like visiting the office, like meeting people and all that. 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:54.000 It's a very different vibe. 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:57.000 But I don't want to do this more than a few times a year. 00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:00.000 But three snacks, I think, that was cool. 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:02.000 They make you fast though. 00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:04.000 I heard amazing snacks too. 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:13.000 But surprisingly, actually, like half of the snacks were, you know, like nice healthy snacks, which you would expect from the company, but Google it, like cares about everything. 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:16.000 But the other half was actually junk, junk chips and all. 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.000 And yeah, I was surprised. 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:22.000 I thought it would be only like poles and like kind of bars and all that. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:24.000 But yeah, they have junk too. 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:25.000 Right. 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:28.000 Okay. Last two more questions, then we'll wrap it up. 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:32.000 What was the biggest risk you have taken previously in your life? 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:35.000 And how does it compare with this one? 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:36.000 I'll tell you this. 00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:42.000 When I wanted to go to do an MBA, I was still working with DHL in Germany. 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:45.000 DHL was going through rounds of layoffs. 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.000 And by that time, I applied to Harvard and Stanford. 00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:51.000 I got rejected from both of them. 00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.000 And I was scrambling to apply to a few more business schools. 00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:56.000 Wharton was one of them, which I eventually got into. 00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:00.000 But I was still in the process of applying to like already got rejections from my top choices. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:02.000 I was applying to my third choice. 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:04.000 I didn't know if I was going to get accepted or not. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:07.000 But then DHL is doing these rounds of playoffs. 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:09.000 And I'm like, I just can't do this job anymore. 00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:18.000 If I get to the business school and I get laid off from DHL, I can use this money to pay off some of that expense. 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:21.000 Because it's expensive to do an MBA, it's expensive to live in the States. 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:23.000 We have a child already. 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:29.000 So when people announced layoffs, because in Germany, they have to tell layoffs are coming. 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.000 And then people are in the limbo for a few months. 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:33.000 I raised my hand. 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:34.000 I'm like, can I be laid off? 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:35.000 And I actually don't remember. 00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:36.000 Maybe I was just so scared. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:41.000 I actually don't remember that, but a friend of mine, he told me that's exactly what I did. 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:44.000 Because for some reason I had this recollection that I talked to my manager privately. 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.000 But maybe I talked to my manager privately afterwards. 00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:49.000 But yeah, basically I raised my hand, like I said, can I be laid off? 00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:52.000 I think they deferred answer that question. 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:54.000 I don't talk to my manager. 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:57.000 I was very fortunate to have Mo, his name is Mo, is my manager. 00:31:57.000 --> 00:31:58.000 Very supportive. 00:31:58.000 --> 00:31:59.000 He did a lot for my career. 00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:01.000 But he was also vice president at DHL. 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:03.000 He was very high ranked. 00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:04.000 And he's like, I don't know. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:08.000 I'm like, listen, if I get accepted to the NBA, I'm gone. 00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:09.000 But guess what? 00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:13.000 You have to fire someone now anyway, because of the layoffs. 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:15.000 And if you fire someone now, because everybody is good on a team. 00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:17.000 It's not like you can just get rid of someone. 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:19.000 You have to get rid of somebody good. 00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:21.000 And I'm also gone. 00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:24.000 You lose at that time, probably like 20% of your team. 00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:26.000 And you can't hire a backfill. 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:28.000 And he's like, yeah, my ex-sense. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.000 Send me an email. 00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:34.000 And he talked to the CAO and all that. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:36.000 And they're like, yeah, we'll do this. 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:40.000 But stay for a few more months, finish this stuff, that you work on, et cetera. 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:47.000 I took that payout, voluntary layoff, for a few months, without knowing what I'm going to do next. 00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:52.000 And I had these crazy ideas about doing an e-commerce company selling diapers in Germany. 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:56.000 Japanese diapers in Germany, because I really liked those Japanese diapers. 00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:57.000 I had to order them from overseas. 00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:59.000 It was a very difficult process. 00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:02.000 So I'm like, OK, so I'm going to use those tens of thousands of dollars to do that. 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:05.000 Eventually, so that happened like in December of time, I think. 00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:08.000 By April, I learned that I got into the business school. 00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:11.000 From that point on, it was all kind of laid out. 00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:15.000 It was a similar kind of risk where I didn't know about my future. 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:21.000 I think in some ways, it's also even more unknowns, because you were coming to a new country. 00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:23.000 You were coming to a study. 00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:25.000 You didn't have like immediately in the next two years. 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:27.000 You're definitely not going to make any money. 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:35.000 You're going to be fully absorbed in basically your academics and your wife and your kid are coming with you. 00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.000 Two way, completely new country and culture. 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:44.000 I didn't feel about this as a risk though, because I thought that if you get into one of those top programs, I think Wharton was top three. 00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.000 I mean, however, Sanford Wharton, they always used to be. 00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:50.000 After two years, you're recouped. 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:53.000 Yeah, after two or three years, you recouped. 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:58.000 I mean, it's not guaranteed, but the probability of that is that the probability of that is very high. 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:05.000 I think where I took a risk is like, if I didn't get into the business school, then yeah, I would have left this kind of pile of cash. 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:12.000 In the country where I don't speak the language, where my status is based on my job, and with the young child. 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:17.000 But the thing is, I thought I would use this money to start sucking up. 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:19.000 Start a business, yeah. 00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:23.000 So this time when you left Google, did you try to get laid off? 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:25.000 Because Google did have a few rounds of layoffs. 00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:27.000 I wish I was hoping I would get laid off. 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:30.000 I was hoping there would be like a second round and all that. 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:36.000 And Google's layoff was like, it's still bad for the people who are getting laid off. 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:42.000 But it is, I think, one of the best severance packages that we have seen in the tech industry. 00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:44.000 I saw the meta-spackage before that. 00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:48.000 And I'm like, Google's probably going to do the same thing if not better. 00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:52.000 So I'm like, please, but there was no forum to raise my hand at. 00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:56.000 So when this happened, it was a surprise to everybody. 00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:00.000 I mean, the timing was surprising, but the fact wasn't surprising to me. 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.000 And I'm like, OK, so I guess I'm still keeping the list for a while. 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:06.000 Yeah, and then I was hoping for a second round. 00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:13.000 I was really hoping they would do something before the second, whatever the audience call that they had in March or April. 00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.000 But they haven't announced anything, then I'm like, OK, so I have to resign. 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:23.000 As you speak about living, I put my notice in mid-April, and I left at a month and a half later. 00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:27.000 I could have just left and dropped things on the floor, because nothing prevents me from doing that. 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:32.000 But that's not the right way to end the relationship with the company that... 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:34.000 They can't do anything bad for me. 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:37.000 There were things that I didn't like particularly, right? 00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:42.000 But there were lots of things that I'm grateful for, and lots of people that have made connections with. 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.000 So I wanted to make sure that I live very nicely. 00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:48.000 And sometimes I think we take things for granted. 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:52.000 At the end of it, the jobs at Google and Amazon. 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:54.000 Those are awesome jobs. 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:56.000 Compared to some other jobs. 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:58.000 Yeah. OK, last question. 00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:03.000 What's your goal for the first year of unemployment? 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:07.000 And how will you measure that goal? 00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:09.000 I measure goals in my life. 00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:13.000 OK. Yeah, so that's a short answer. 00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:16.000 But I do have a specific thing in mind. 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:19.000 So first of all, I wouldn't call it unemployment. 00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:23.000 I have the whole executive position in the paper company. 00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:25.000 You're the CEO now. 00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:26.000 Oh, yes. 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:27.000 And co-founder. 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:30.000 But once we launch, I think that she will get real. 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:38.000 Because we intend to have monetization up from the first days, from very beginning, because we need to make money. 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:46.000 So my short term goal is to make sure that our company has enough MRR to pay you and me an infrastructure cost. 00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:53.000 So at least to the extent that my runway is extended, let's say, from one year to two or three years. 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:56.000 And then eventually, I don't have to use my savings at all. 00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:58.000 And eventually, I could save up as well. 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:00.000 But that's like a longer term. 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.000 So yeah, I think I would call the success. 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:05.000 If in six months, I do have to spend my savings. 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:07.000 I would have a big success. 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:12.000 And the moderate success would be like, maybe if I have to use it as much as I'm using right now. 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:17.000 Actually, there was a question linked in that somebody asked under my post that I think we should honor the request. 00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:25.000 Yes. I've been thinking about that question for a few days now, because it brought up some good points when I was reading it. 00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:28.000 I'm like, that's not how I think about it anymore. 00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:30.000 But I used to think about it the same way. 00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:31.000 So yeah, let's bring it up. 00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:33.000 Let me read it out. 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:37.000 This is in linked in when you and I posted that we're doing this podcast. 00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:39.000 Who is a question from? 00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:45.000 Alina. Okay, I tend to believe that building a carrier is a path to yourself. 00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:47.000 It is winding, full of ups and downs. 00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:52.000 But there is some inner strength that motivates you to go through it. 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:54.000 Regardless of external circumstances. 00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:00.000 A certain driving force from within, which does not allow you to turn off from the path to yourself. 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.000 Do you have something similar regarding your carrier or professional path? 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:07.000 Yeah, so there are two things in there that I wanted to comment on. 00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:08.000 So first is the path. 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.000 I think it's implied in the question. 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:12.000 And I also imagine it the same way. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:14.000 Used to imagine it the same way. 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:16.000 It's like path is like a road. 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:18.000 So it's a certain path that you follow. 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:22.000 She's saying it like winds around, you know, the forest or whatever. 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:31.000 But the, again, after the after the I was experienced, I came to more of the realization that path is not a road. 00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:35.000 And I really like how the guy called Jerry Kalonon put it. 00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:38.000 And he talks about a pathless path. 00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:48.000 So unlike a path that goes on the ground, let's say like a path in the forest or like a road, you are like in a lake. 00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:51.000 And the lake is so big, you can't see the shores. 00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:56.000 So basically, like in the middle of this Kalon waters, or you could imagine this as an ocean too. 00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:59.000 So you're basically in the middle of those waters. 00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:02.000 And whichever way you go, that's your path. 00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:10.000 Because a path on the ground has been laid out by somebody before you already and you're following it. 00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:15.000 Yes. Or maybe like you're in the jungle and you make a path with him, 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:17.000 I chat there. Well, I guess it's too much effort. 00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:19.000 It's easier to be on the path with the lake. 00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:21.000 I like the knowledge more, you know. 00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:26.000 But yeah, to your point, like, yeah, the path, the implied that paths already exist. 00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:29.000 Whereas in the sea, you navigate by yourself. 00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:33.000 So that's why I don't think about the path anymore. 00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:36.000 But I also don't think about the career path as a thing. 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:43.000 Because like when you're at the big company, you have those kind of your SD1, SD2, SD3, L5, L6, whatever, right? 00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:46.000 And you keep growing up and you start managing people. 00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:48.000 It's a very predefined path. 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:50.000 Pretty unified across all industries. 00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:52.000 You have a certain difference in levels and all that. 00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:54.000 But like conception, it's all the same. 00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:01.000 Whereas when you are an entrepreneur, especially in a small company, like we are right now, you can just go whatever directions we want. 00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:03.000 We don't need roads. 00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:06.000 Remember that quote from Back to the Future? 00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:08.000 Yeah, so you just make our own path. 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:15.000 And for me, I think when I work on my own thing, it's inseparable from my life, that is my life. 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:20.000 But the word career for some reason for me is associated with working for somebody. 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:28.000 For me, it's associated with like levels and promotions, which is all a framework laid out by somebody. 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:30.000 Somebody smart to make it work for them. 00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:35.000 Yeah. Yeah. At some point, we will have to lay out this as well if we are successful. 00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:38.000 But we'll be the smart ones laying out. 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:40.000 I don't know how to make it work otherwise. 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:42.000 We will have to make something up. 00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.000 Maybe we'll be the pioneers of the, you know, we start with the podcasting company. 00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:52.000 And we will end up with like consultancy for organizational culture without levels, culture without levels. 00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:55.000 One of my friends is an organization designer. 00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:58.000 So that's what she does the whole time, yeah. 00:40:58.000 --> 00:40:59.000 Sounds fancy. 00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:03.000 Yeah. So the second part of the question was about the internal drive. 00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:07.000 And I think that can take different shapes and sizes. 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:10.000 When you can be driven by ego. 00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.000 And again, that's something that kind of got shot for me when I was in Peru. 00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.000 It's like you want something because other people have it. 00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:22.000 So you are driven by jealousy. 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:25.000 You know, oh, you like want to get to the next level or whatever, right? 00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.000 Yeah. You're reducing it to the basics, but yeah, that's what it is. 00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:31.000 Yeah. That's what it is, right? 00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:33.000 You want kind of more of the same that somebody else has. 00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:35.000 You can kind of keep going there. 00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:38.000 Or kind of another way that ego works. 00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:42.000 You want your mom to be proud of you or your dad, right? 00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:43.000 You close that thing. 00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:45.000 You may not even realize that. 00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:53.000 But if you expect somebody to tell you you've done a good job and you reward you for that, and you really feel happy when somebody is doing that, that's not healthy. 00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:59.000 And I hate to say this, but it's not healthy because if you work for praise, it means you have not gotten enough praise. 00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:02.000 Oh, you've only gotten praise when you did something good. 00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:05.000 Maybe you haven't gotten that unconditional love from your parents. 00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:08.000 And that's why you have to earn that love. 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:12.000 And that's what you just keep doing as an adult while working a job, right? 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:16.000 But also because you can't expect unconditional love from a company. 00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:19.000 That's why you're never going to get that love. 00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:21.000 That's why it's never enough, right? 00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:25.000 Get the senior, you get the principal, then you're going to get the director. 00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:37.000 Each level, most people will start to get more busy, do less of the things that they like, get themselves in golden handcuffs, expand their lifestyle, which they don't need to after a certain level. 00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:39.000 And then they just get trapped in there. 00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:42.000 And I think I'm not immune from that myself. 00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:47.000 It's just like when you work on your own finger, sometimes it's difficult differently when you don't have income. 00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:49.000 But that's like the ego drive, right? 00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:55.000 So that's like an unhealthy drive to achievement in a society which I think all of us have in some way or another. 00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:04.000 The other thing is like that internal fire that burns in you, you know who you are and you follow that path. 00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:09.000 But I think that path is usually like, I know I'm meant to be heavy, be at time. 00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:13.000 I'm like, no, that's not the thing I'm talking about. 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:17.000 Which may be true for somebody, but not for you and me. 00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:24.000 Which may be true, but only in a way that maybe your passion is to, not passion like that, your vocation, right? 00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:32.000 Is to do certain things for people that you can get best at while being heavy, you know, at Amazon. 00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000 Maybe like you really somebody whose path in life is to help people connect, for example, right? 00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:39.000 And you create Gmail. 00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:40.000 Then it makes sense. 00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.000 You could have created Gmail by yourself, but it's just easier to do inside of a big company. 00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:48.000 But because you did that, you became the VP of VP in Google. 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:49.000 Yes, makes sense. 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:54.000 Yeah, VP is just like a derivative, I guess, success thing. 00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:55.000 Byproduct. 00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:56.000 Byproduct, yeah. 00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:00.000 I think for me, I don't even know what my vocation is in this regard. 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:02.000 And no, I like to create. 00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:09.000 Creating things that I personally enjoy that I love is what I want to be doing. 00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:15.000 That was also partially the reason why it was really hard for me to work on some of the things at Amazon and Google. 00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:17.000 It's just like I didn't care enough. 00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:21.000 I think that's the biggest similarity between you and me. 00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:25.000 Is this drive to like create things? 00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:28.000 I also like to like mentor and work with people. 00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:32.000 And I know that we will miss that part of it at least in the beginning. 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:37.000 But I'm okay to compromise on that and just focus on the creating part. 00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:43.000 Because I know that I won't have to do a lot of the things that I did not like. 00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:47.000 I did not like the spending energy and things that I did not want to do. 00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:52.000 Yeah, because when you do things you don't want to do, you spend actually more energy. 00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:02.000 So even if it takes the same amount of time, just like agonizing over like how you don't want to do this review, you will consume like three times more energy for the same amount of time. 00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:07.000 Or maybe you'll consume three times more time because you don't want to do it. 00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:10.000 And it's like you become kind of counterproductive in that regard. 00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:16.000 So yeah, I think that's one thing that came to me in Peru as well is like lead people with your voice. 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000 And I'm like, wow, let's just like how I felt it. 00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:23.000 And maybe this is where the podcasting thing comes in, right? 00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:28.000 When I came back, I wrote on my whiteboard, amplify people's voices. 00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:32.000 And I like doing that, I like doing that in the podcast. 00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:40.000 I think with the technology that we're working on, we will give a lot more people a lot more opportunities to use their voice and prefer their voice. 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.000 Well, we are almost two hours into this recording time. 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:48.000 We'll cut it short, but still this is going to be a long episode. 00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:51.000 I feel like this was one of our best episodes so far. 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:58.000 But listeners who have listened to it all the way till the end, please let us know if you liked it. 00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:02.000 If you didn't like it, let us know what you didn't like about it. 00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:08.000 Yeah, leave a rating, review, comment, all that good stuff, spread the word. 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:17.000 If you like this episode, if you don't want to share the whole podcast, that's okay because we are a mixed bag of as we grow up in podcasting. 00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.000 But if you like this episode, share this episode with people you know. 00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:34.000 Yes, and if you know somebody who is building some cool podcast technology or have done some work, if you know somebody who worked on the iPod for years, send them out where we would like to interview people like this. 00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:41.000 Yeah. And if you're listening to this because you're also a wanter per nurse, let us know. 00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:43.000 We love to have a chat. 00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:48.000 Stop wanting, start doing or figure out a way to stop wanting. 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.000 Yeah, I'll link that podcast episode with Alex Hermosy in our show notes. 00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:56.000 It was a very good, very, very, very good episode. 00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:58.000 You guys does like gym turn around. 00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:01.000 I don't even go to the gym, I have no idea what he does. 00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.000 But the conceptual idea is that he brings up the applicable anywhere. 00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:07.000 Right, cool. 00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:08.000 This was awesome. 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:09.000 Thank you, Illia. 00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:13.000 Bye guys, chat.