1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,679 Welcome back, esteemed listener, to another episode of data 2 00:00:03,679 --> 00:00:07,440 driven. In today's episode, we have the pleasure of delving into the mind 3 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:11,094 of Nicholas Means, the vice president of software development at 4 00:00:11,094 --> 00:00:14,934 SIM. With a keen intellect and a propensity for 5 00:00:14,934 --> 00:00:18,540 weaving together multifaceted concepts, Nick touches upon the 6 00:00:18,540 --> 00:00:22,300 enthralling topic of shame and its relevance in our ever evolving software 7 00:00:22,300 --> 00:00:26,115 industry. Prepare yourself for we shall ponder the 8 00:00:26,115 --> 00:00:29,715 intricate connection between shame, vulnerability, and the 9 00:00:29,715 --> 00:00:32,695 cultural shifts within the software engineering landscape. 10 00:00:33,770 --> 00:00:37,449 As we explore the depths of these subjects, Nick leaves us curious and 11 00:00:37,449 --> 00:00:41,129 yearning for more recommending a podcast episode that unravels the 12 00:00:41,129 --> 00:00:44,954 intricacies of this enthralling topic. Now on with 13 00:00:44,954 --> 00:00:45,614 the show. 14 00:00:50,235 --> 00:00:53,970 Hello, and welcome to Data Driven, the podcast where we or the emerging fields of 15 00:00:53,970 --> 00:00:57,410 data science, artificial intelligence, data 16 00:00:57,410 --> 00:01:00,950 engineering, and occasionally, ever so occasionally, 17 00:01:01,645 --> 00:01:05,025 IT operations and engineering. Today we welcome 18 00:01:05,165 --> 00:01:09,005 Nicholas Means to the show. Nick is the VP of engineering at 19 00:01:09,005 --> 00:01:12,500 STEM, Spelled s y m, not like the video game 20 00:01:12,500 --> 00:01:16,180 kids, and it's an adaptive process tool built for 21 00:01:16,180 --> 00:01:19,924 developers. He's been an engineering leader for more than a decade, focused 22 00:01:19,924 --> 00:01:23,465 on helping teens build velocity through trust and autonomy. 23 00:01:24,170 --> 00:01:27,850 He's also regular speakers at conferences around the world, teaching more 24 00:01:27,850 --> 00:01:31,390 effective software development practices through stories of real world engineering 25 00:01:32,010 --> 00:01:35,425 triumphs And failures. Welcome to the show, Nick. 26 00:01:35,725 --> 00:01:39,104 Thanks so much for having me on, Frank. Excited to be here. Yeah. Awesome. 27 00:01:39,485 --> 00:01:42,570 You know, and And we were kinda talking in the virtual green room is that 28 00:01:42,570 --> 00:01:46,009 you're not really in the data space, but you are, I would say, dare I 29 00:01:46,009 --> 00:01:49,815 say, distinguished software engineer, and There's a bunch of 30 00:01:49,815 --> 00:01:53,335 us in the data space now that kinda started in this world, and and I 31 00:01:53,335 --> 00:01:57,085 think one of the things that that, when your name came across my desk, 32 00:01:57,085 --> 00:02:00,899 I was like, reading some papers lately about, 33 00:02:00,899 --> 00:02:04,359 you know, technical debt in data systems. 34 00:02:04,500 --> 00:02:07,635 Right? Mhmm. And I think that's kind of the big dirty secret, 35 00:02:08,195 --> 00:02:12,035 and I think that there's a lot that we can learn from software engineering 36 00:02:12,035 --> 00:02:14,775 practices, in this space as well. 37 00:02:16,640 --> 00:02:20,420 Yeah. For sure. So what when you say autonomy, 38 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,405 you know, as an AI geek now, when I think autonomy, I think Something 39 00:02:24,405 --> 00:02:28,205 completely different. Well, I'm I'm assuming you mean people 40 00:02:28,205 --> 00:02:32,045 being autonomous from kinda that Dilbert type corner, you know, pointy haired boss 41 00:02:32,045 --> 00:02:34,909 guy. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. So 42 00:02:35,689 --> 00:02:38,030 you had a a pretty distinguishing 43 00:02:39,689 --> 00:02:43,465 distinguished career. You probably have had worked for people like that, and probably 44 00:02:43,465 --> 00:02:47,165 inspired you to kind of go in the other direction. Is that is that true? 45 00:02:47,465 --> 00:02:51,080 That's part of it for sure. Yeah. I mean, I, You know, I I 46 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,920 think my my journey into engineering leadership kind of involved being 47 00:02:54,920 --> 00:02:58,620 in, like, some locker room kind of cultures where the loudest voice won. 48 00:02:59,085 --> 00:03:02,685 And and a lot of my motivation from shifting from writing code 49 00:03:02,685 --> 00:03:06,390 to being on the other side of the business, being being a manager, Was 50 00:03:06,390 --> 00:03:10,230 wondering if I could do better, wondering if I could could build teams that 51 00:03:10,230 --> 00:03:13,990 functioned more humanely and actually empowered each other and and supported each 52 00:03:13,990 --> 00:03:17,135 other in getting their work done. And the the last 10 years of my career 53 00:03:17,135 --> 00:03:20,894 has kind of been a journey in that direction. So what was 54 00:03:20,894 --> 00:03:23,635 that moment where you were like, I could do better? 55 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,800 Interestingly, it was an episode of the Ruby Rogues 56 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:32,500 podcast several several years ago, that that featured Alex Harms, 57 00:03:32,835 --> 00:03:36,595 talking some about the work of Brene Brown, and shame 58 00:03:36,595 --> 00:03:40,275 and vulnerability in the way that those concepts can inform the way that agile 59 00:03:40,275 --> 00:03:44,030 teams communicate. And that was, like, when my eyes really kinda opened 60 00:03:44,030 --> 00:03:47,390 to the idea that maybe the the thing that I was living through wasn't the 61 00:03:47,390 --> 00:03:50,370 only way to do this and that that it didn't have to be this hard. 62 00:03:52,575 --> 00:03:53,075 Interesting. 63 00:03:56,575 --> 00:03:59,990 What does that mean shame in terms of, I mean, you you mentioned kind of 64 00:03:59,990 --> 00:04:03,750 the the loudest voice in the room wins, the locker room mentality, kind of like, 65 00:04:03,750 --> 00:04:07,590 you know, you know, it's like we're we're chimps back 66 00:04:07,590 --> 00:04:10,855 in the savannah, Back mill 1000000 of years ago. Right? Like, we 67 00:04:11,335 --> 00:04:13,675 like like, is that is that obviously, 68 00:04:15,095 --> 00:04:18,910 obviously, at some point in history of The human species that might have worked, 69 00:04:18,910 --> 00:04:22,430 but I don't think in software where 90% of it involves kind of the 70 00:04:22,430 --> 00:04:26,270 prefrontal cortex, I think e I don't think that's gonna 71 00:04:26,270 --> 00:04:30,095 work, and What what was 72 00:04:30,095 --> 00:04:33,715 it about the Bray Brene Brown kinda concept of shame and vulnerability 73 00:04:33,855 --> 00:04:37,630 that kinda, like, made you Connect the dots because Brene Brown exists in 74 00:04:37,630 --> 00:04:41,389 kind of a different world than than your average, you know, 75 00:04:41,389 --> 00:04:44,270 software. I'd like to know more about that podcast episode. We'll have to link the 76 00:04:44,350 --> 00:04:47,935 to that episode That sounds interesting. Yeah. I mean, so for me, it 77 00:04:48,095 --> 00:04:51,694 so so part of it is that loudest voice always wins, but one of the 78 00:04:51,694 --> 00:04:55,510 effects that That almost always happens when you have one of those really loud 79 00:04:55,510 --> 00:04:58,410 voices in the room is that it tends to silence other voices. 80 00:04:59,430 --> 00:05:02,815 It tends to make People afraid to raise their hands, say I don't know, ask 81 00:05:02,815 --> 00:05:06,574 things that feel like obvious questions to them. And all that's kinda 82 00:05:06,574 --> 00:05:10,330 rooted in in shame And not wanting to be vulnerable and and not knowing 83 00:05:10,330 --> 00:05:13,850 something or or feeling shame that you don't know something that you think should be 84 00:05:13,850 --> 00:05:17,625 obvious to you. In reality, it's not. In reality, one of 85 00:05:17,625 --> 00:05:21,065 the things that that distinguishes the best senior individual 86 00:05:21,065 --> 00:05:24,800 contributors is willingness to say, I don't know, willingness to ask Questions when 87 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:28,160 something comes up in in a discussion that they don't know about, but it takes 88 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:31,955 a long time in your career to kinda build yourself up to that 89 00:05:31,955 --> 00:05:34,514 point of confidence. We're saying I don't know is an easy thing for you to 90 00:05:34,514 --> 00:05:38,135 do, unless you're in an environment that's that has high psychological 91 00:05:38,275 --> 00:05:41,639 safety and where those questions are invited And and where the the 92 00:05:41,639 --> 00:05:45,319 environment is very much set up to be oriented around growth and around making sure 93 00:05:45,319 --> 00:05:49,135 that everybody is able to ask Those questions able to push back on 94 00:05:49,135 --> 00:05:52,515 each other when they don't necessarily agree with the the direction something's taking. 95 00:05:53,135 --> 00:05:56,760 Not in a allowed chest thumping kind of way, but more in a, 96 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:59,160 Let's talk about this. I I don't know that that's the best way to proceed, 97 00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:02,680 but maybe there's something about your position that I'm missing and just that that sort 98 00:06:02,680 --> 00:06:06,335 of curiosity. Interesting. How does 99 00:06:06,335 --> 00:06:09,155 the how does shame relate to imposter syndrome? 100 00:06:10,895 --> 00:06:14,350 Interestingly enough, my very first conference that I ever did was on 101 00:06:14,350 --> 00:06:17,950 impostor syndrome, and that this was kinda this line of thinking is kinda what sent 102 00:06:17,950 --> 00:06:20,110 me down that road and made me realize that was a thing that I was 103 00:06:20,110 --> 00:06:23,875 dealing with. It's it it very much relates to it. Very 104 00:06:23,875 --> 00:06:27,475 much the idea that it it's hard as a software engineer to 105 00:06:27,475 --> 00:06:30,960 kinda get perspective on how Good or bad, you are as a software engineer. You're 106 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:34,800 really dependent on other people's feedback to do that. And that's 107 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:38,240 one of the key components of impostor syndrome is anytime you're in a 108 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:42,065 career Where something is subjectively judged, which code 109 00:06:42,065 --> 00:06:45,445 quality subjectively judged. There's there's rules. There's best practices. 110 00:06:45,905 --> 00:06:49,360 We don't agree on the rules and best practices, So that puts us squarely in 111 00:06:49,360 --> 00:06:52,880 in the subjective side of the house. So it's really no different than than being 112 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:55,780 a professional musician or a ballerina or something like that. 113 00:06:56,785 --> 00:07:00,065 You're being judged by the the quality of your work output, but it's a subjective 114 00:07:00,065 --> 00:07:03,905 set of standards. And people in fields that are judged by subjective 115 00:07:03,905 --> 00:07:07,570 standards are especially prone to impostor syndrome. Really? I 116 00:07:07,570 --> 00:07:11,330 did not know that because, I I mean, it may make sense as you explain 117 00:07:11,330 --> 00:07:15,015 it that way, because if you're a civil engineer. Right? The bridge is 118 00:07:15,015 --> 00:07:18,855 either gonna stand up or it's not. Right? It's gonna shake too much 119 00:07:18,855 --> 00:07:22,615 or it's not. Right? The wind, like, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, right, the 120 00:07:22,615 --> 00:07:25,760 wind's gonna hit the wrong way, Something's bad is gonna happen, or it doesn't. It's 121 00:07:25,760 --> 00:07:29,280 it's it's a very real world thing. I I I've often kind of 122 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:33,120 wondered as software engineers, or even this applies to data 123 00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:36,505 people too. Right? What we deal with is so abstract. Mhmm. 124 00:07:37,045 --> 00:07:40,745 You know, that it is hard to kind of gauge that, and and I 125 00:07:41,365 --> 00:07:44,949 I can't be the only one that thinks that Because it's subjective, 126 00:07:45,250 --> 00:07:48,710 organizational politics plays a huge role 127 00:07:49,009 --> 00:07:52,665 in how someone's judged. I'll share a story. I used to work at this 128 00:07:52,665 --> 00:07:56,345 consulting firm. Actually, it's back when I met Andy, who's not here 129 00:07:56,345 --> 00:08:00,110 today. But, This guy wrote 130 00:08:00,110 --> 00:08:03,710 the most awful code. I don't wanna say his name for, you know, 131 00:08:03,710 --> 00:08:07,389 lawsuit reasons, but his last name and the word code became a 132 00:08:07,389 --> 00:08:10,895 synonym for garbage code. Right. But he was such a 133 00:08:10,895 --> 00:08:14,495 politician. He would walk around, and, like, everyone loved this guy. No one wanted to 134 00:08:14,495 --> 00:08:18,270 call him out on it even though he Wrote the most god 135 00:08:18,270 --> 00:08:22,110 awful bits of code. Yeah. And and that was when you 136 00:08:22,110 --> 00:08:25,945 know, I I wouldn't say it was an moment, but I was like I 137 00:08:25,945 --> 00:08:29,625 was like, oh, he should be selling used cars. He should be kept away from 138 00:08:29,625 --> 00:08:32,985 a keyboard. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that gets into, 139 00:08:32,985 --> 00:08:36,630 like, the Dunning Kruger effect, right, where Where the people the people that 140 00:08:36,630 --> 00:08:40,230 often feel the worst at their job feel that way because they know what bits 141 00:08:40,230 --> 00:08:43,965 of knowledge they're missing, and the people that feel the best at their job feel 142 00:08:43,965 --> 00:08:47,405 that way because they have no idea what knowledge they're missing. They they just feel 143 00:08:47,405 --> 00:08:49,805 very confident in the things that they do know, and they're not worried about the 144 00:08:49,805 --> 00:08:53,519 rest of it. So it's sort of this idea that the more intelligent you 145 00:08:53,519 --> 00:08:57,279 are the more you're gonna struggle with this stuff. Interesting. It's almost like, 146 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:01,165 the self reflection kind of Guess in the same recursive into 147 00:09:01,165 --> 00:09:04,925 infinite loop and you kind of lose sight of it. Yeah. And 148 00:09:04,925 --> 00:09:08,065 if you and if you do, if you are completely oblivious, 149 00:09:09,630 --> 00:09:13,170 You're unaware. It's it's kind of like a a a cruel trick the mind plays. 150 00:09:13,390 --> 00:09:17,170 Yeah. Absolutely. Interesting. So 151 00:09:18,165 --> 00:09:22,005 How did you we were talking about physical 152 00:09:22,005 --> 00:09:25,465 engine, engineering and things like that, like, what 153 00:09:25,765 --> 00:09:29,530 obviously, you know, 154 00:09:29,750 --> 00:09:33,430 a bridge falling down that happens. Right? What what can we learn 155 00:09:33,430 --> 00:09:37,075 because it's subjective, it probably I don't I never say never 156 00:09:37,075 --> 00:09:40,515 as a policy, usually. See I even qualify 157 00:09:40,515 --> 00:09:44,170 that. What can we learn from 158 00:09:44,170 --> 00:09:48,010 real I hate this this was always a thing because there's always, 159 00:09:48,010 --> 00:09:51,535 like, there's real engineers. Right? Like, the people who build stuff and but I mean, 160 00:09:51,535 --> 00:09:55,295 like, what can we learn from physical, engineering disciplines? Right? 161 00:09:55,295 --> 00:09:58,595 Because this this has come up before, I I can imagine, 162 00:09:58,655 --> 00:10:02,170 and What what can we learn from them? So the 163 00:10:02,170 --> 00:10:06,010 fascinating thing about that is the the lessons that there are to learn in 164 00:10:06,010 --> 00:10:09,515 physical engineering disasters are all still based in the human side of it 165 00:10:09,595 --> 00:10:12,875 Because even though steel is steel is steel, and it behaves according to a set 166 00:10:12,875 --> 00:10:16,555 of physical rules that we know, the people that work with steel still 167 00:10:16,555 --> 00:10:20,190 make mistakes in how that steel is gonna behave. I've 168 00:10:20,190 --> 00:10:24,029 done, you know, I've done a series of talks kind of on on connecting real 169 00:10:24,029 --> 00:10:27,755 world engineering disasters to the software world. One of them 170 00:10:27,755 --> 00:10:30,395 that the the steel metaphor brings to mind is the one I did on City 171 00:10:30,395 --> 00:10:34,154 Corp Center in New York, which is the building that's sort of 172 00:10:34,154 --> 00:10:37,300 built on stilts. It's It's built up on 4 legs. The legs are actually on 173 00:10:37,300 --> 00:10:40,820 the the sides of the building, not in the corners, and that created some wind 174 00:10:40,820 --> 00:10:44,655 loads that weren't accounted for in the original design. And then when it was actually 175 00:10:44,655 --> 00:10:48,255 being erected, they changed the way that they fastened the 176 00:10:48,255 --> 00:10:51,695 structural members together, thinking that the the original 177 00:10:51,695 --> 00:10:55,240 designer structure had overprovisioned them, and that they didn't need that amount of string. They 178 00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:58,760 could just do rivets and stuff, or they could do bolts instead of rivets. And 179 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:01,795 it turned out that it would've it was vulnerable to a 100 year storm, and 180 00:11:01,795 --> 00:11:05,555 a 100 year storm could have actually blown that building over. And so it's 181 00:11:05,635 --> 00:11:09,315 the the story kinda gets into Fill the Measure, the the engineer 182 00:11:09,315 --> 00:11:12,790 that designed it, Basically raising his hand and going, hey, I 183 00:11:12,790 --> 00:11:16,389 figured this thing out. Thanks to a comment from an engineering 184 00:11:16,389 --> 00:11:20,045 student. We have to fix this building and, like like, sort of the 185 00:11:20,045 --> 00:11:23,485 process of talking about what happened 186 00:11:23,485 --> 00:11:27,150 himself, talking about the mistakes he had made in the design, 187 00:11:27,290 --> 00:11:30,330 bringing it to the attention of people that could then do something about it. In 188 00:11:30,330 --> 00:11:34,085 this case, the people that own the building, Citicorp, who financed 189 00:11:34,085 --> 00:11:37,785 the work, who worked with insurance companies. The whole thing 190 00:11:38,325 --> 00:11:42,050 is a story of, When you make a mistake, it's better to 191 00:11:42,050 --> 00:11:44,290 raise your hand early than try to sweep it under the rug and try to 192 00:11:44,290 --> 00:11:47,089 cover it up, because you'll end up making a bigger mess in in the process, 193 00:11:47,089 --> 00:11:50,345 and the consequences usually aren't what you've built them up to be in your head. 194 00:11:50,725 --> 00:11:54,105 So that's that's sort of an example that that kinda gets into the human side. 195 00:11:55,660 --> 00:11:58,860 No. That's awesome. Like, there are there are things in my life that I if 196 00:11:58,860 --> 00:12:02,140 I had learned that lesson sooner, would have been a lot easier. I I think 197 00:12:02,140 --> 00:12:05,085 that's true for all of us, and that's one of the reasons that I I 198 00:12:05,085 --> 00:12:08,765 find I mean, I'm I honestly, I kinda came into this line of of 199 00:12:08,765 --> 00:12:12,546 conference speaking because I like to read about disasters a 200 00:12:12,546 --> 00:12:14,920 lot. I I watch way too much Seconds from Disaster as a kid, and I've 201 00:12:14,920 --> 00:12:18,760 always been infatuated with this stuff. And it's it's sort of a way for me 202 00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:22,565 to Justify taking a really deep dive and learning a lot about 203 00:12:22,565 --> 00:12:25,205 one of these things and getting something productive out at the other end of it 204 00:12:25,205 --> 00:12:28,900 versus it just being a long Wikipedia Safari for its own sake. 205 00:12:29,620 --> 00:12:33,300 But I but I you know, there's I think there's a lot that we can 206 00:12:33,300 --> 00:12:37,060 learn from people that have been doing engineering longer than us because the the 207 00:12:37,060 --> 00:12:40,535 human factors The the communication between people working 208 00:12:41,555 --> 00:12:45,155 is still a a thing that existed in the physical engineering world, and that's been 209 00:12:45,155 --> 00:12:48,690 going on far longer than we've been building software for computers. So there's absolutely things 210 00:12:48,690 --> 00:12:52,290 that we can learn from those disciplines. Interesting. And in 211 00:12:52,290 --> 00:12:55,810 regards to the Citibank building thing, I remember seeing something in the History Channel about 212 00:12:55,810 --> 00:12:59,285 those. Apparently, like, overnight, like, they had 213 00:12:59,285 --> 00:13:02,645 crews working in the middle of the night. And then is it true? I don't 214 00:13:02,645 --> 00:13:06,380 remember all the details, but is it true they largely kept a hush-hush? Mhmm. 215 00:13:06,460 --> 00:13:09,980 Yeah. They did. They would go in, and and they would build these welding shacks 216 00:13:09,980 --> 00:13:12,860 around the the places where they needed to weld inside the building because all of 217 00:13:12,860 --> 00:13:16,215 the all the cross members were exposed inside the building, and it just been drywalled 218 00:13:16,695 --> 00:13:19,095 around them. So they would go in and build a little plywood shack, and knock 219 00:13:19,095 --> 00:13:22,375 the drywall off, and and weld it. And there's pictures of the building where you 220 00:13:22,375 --> 00:13:25,255 can see it lit up in the night with somebody welding on one of these 221 00:13:25,255 --> 00:13:28,920 structural members. Wow. They didn't tell people what was what was 222 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:32,760 going on. It came very close to needing to order an evacuation because of a 223 00:13:32,760 --> 00:13:35,720 tropical storm that was headed towards New York, and the storm ended up turning away 224 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:39,525 at Last minute. Wow. Wow. I do 225 00:13:39,525 --> 00:13:42,985 remember the part about that 100 year storm was, basically, 226 00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:50,480 almost happened. Yeah. Alright. Here's Andy. 227 00:13:50,480 --> 00:13:54,160 And in all of our years of podcasting, it's the first time he has, 228 00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:57,605 shown up late, so, kudos for him. 229 00:13:58,145 --> 00:14:01,365 I will I will I will either leave this edit raw, 230 00:14:02,145 --> 00:14:05,860 or, Or, kind of 231 00:14:05,860 --> 00:14:09,380 include it, with the, the thing. So I'll 232 00:14:09,380 --> 00:14:13,070 I'll I'll clue Andy in. Nick Means is the VP of software develop 233 00:14:13,344 --> 00:14:16,995 this I will edit out. VP of software development at a place called 234 00:14:16,995 --> 00:14:19,654 SIM, and he has connected, 235 00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:25,480 he's done a lot of personal research out of his interest 236 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:29,079 in, disasters, and how those 237 00:14:29,079 --> 00:14:32,585 lessons can be learned, in software engineering, where 238 00:14:32,585 --> 00:14:36,265 software engineering, he can I can I can tell if I'm 239 00:14:36,265 --> 00:14:40,105 paying attention, is that, you know, it's largely been this, you know, who 240 00:14:40,105 --> 00:14:43,770 who can Pump their chest, the loudest type thing? And 241 00:14:43,770 --> 00:14:47,370 it's not really been the there's a certain pecking order 242 00:14:47,370 --> 00:14:50,894 that May have worked in ancient times, but works 243 00:14:50,894 --> 00:14:54,115 terrible in software engineering. Is that about right? Yep. 244 00:14:54,575 --> 00:14:57,800 Cool. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm gonna have to listen to the first part of this. 245 00:14:59,959 --> 00:15:03,800 This reminds me of Spaceballs. This, like, Spaceballs. Let's go 246 00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:07,435 to the instant machine own video. When will 247 00:15:07,435 --> 00:15:10,815 then be now? Now. Just now. What is this? 248 00:15:11,195 --> 00:15:12,014 This is now. 249 00:15:15,740 --> 00:15:17,279 Well, what happened? Classic. 250 00:15:20,860 --> 00:15:22,240 Never play that part again. 251 00:15:25,425 --> 00:15:28,785 Alright. So now that we were on I'm sorry. What? I was gonna say it's 252 00:15:28,785 --> 00:15:32,330 nice to meet you, Nick. And, You as well. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry Sorry, 253 00:15:32,730 --> 00:15:36,570 I was late. I've it's a great problem as a consultant to 254 00:15:36,570 --> 00:15:40,250 have being double booked and stuff, and usually, we're able to work this out, 255 00:15:40,250 --> 00:15:43,695 but, I am experiencing too much 256 00:15:43,695 --> 00:15:47,295 business. Again, great problem to have. Still a problem. Yeah. Great 257 00:15:47,295 --> 00:15:50,920 problem. Especially right now, it's a great problem. Right? Yeah. Yeah. 258 00:15:50,920 --> 00:15:54,680 So I'm very, very thankful and grateful for that. But, I know 259 00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:58,505 Frank Frank did a wonderful job, and I'll just, I'll hush now, 260 00:15:58,505 --> 00:16:02,045 and, we can get on with the show. Alright. 261 00:16:02,825 --> 00:16:05,965 So we were talking, so so that's interesting. So 262 00:16:06,990 --> 00:16:10,370 With software engineering, with with buildings and physical 263 00:16:10,750 --> 00:16:14,165 things. Right? You know, the nuclear reactor can melt down. Right? The, The, 264 00:16:14,404 --> 00:16:17,945 bridge can collapse, the Citibank building could almost tip over. 265 00:16:19,765 --> 00:16:23,190 With software engineering, you got a lot of other problems too. Right? I mean, 266 00:16:23,270 --> 00:16:26,570 Security breaches Mhmm. Come to mind. And and 267 00:16:29,190 --> 00:16:32,964 in your in your, kinda, your your sheet, like, You mentioned something 268 00:16:32,964 --> 00:16:36,425 called a blameless mindset. What what is a blameless mindset? 269 00:16:37,285 --> 00:16:41,060 So, I mean, it's really the the orientation that anytime something happens, your 270 00:16:41,060 --> 00:16:44,260 primary goal should be to learn from that thing, not to figure out whose fault 271 00:16:44,260 --> 00:16:47,995 it is. It kinda gets into, if if you if you've done any 272 00:16:47,995 --> 00:16:51,754 research into, like, safety 2 or or human factors. It gets into the work 273 00:16:51,754 --> 00:16:55,134 of Sydney Decker and and what he calls forward accountability. 274 00:16:55,970 --> 00:16:59,650 Kind kind of the idea is that nobody comes to work intending to do a 275 00:16:59,650 --> 00:17:03,410 bad job. And if if they make a mistake that causes an outage 276 00:17:03,410 --> 00:17:06,965 or causes a security breach, They probably already feel 277 00:17:06,965 --> 00:17:10,325 pretty bad about it and don't really need you piling on most of the time 278 00:17:10,325 --> 00:17:13,685 to learn their lesson. What they do need is a chance to tell their 279 00:17:13,685 --> 00:17:17,440 story, so that they can kind of put the facts together 280 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:20,560 in their own mind. They can help other people learn from from what they just 281 00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:24,295 did. And that that kinda gets into when 282 00:17:24,295 --> 00:17:27,835 when something happens. It's often very tempting, 283 00:17:27,895 --> 00:17:31,730 especially for for us pointy head pointy head boss types To point 284 00:17:31,730 --> 00:17:35,570 the finger and and to find somebody on whose head the the blame for 285 00:17:35,570 --> 00:17:38,930 this thing lays. But when you do that, when you focus on 286 00:17:38,930 --> 00:17:42,775 establishing blame as as a primary Goal in one of these situations, 287 00:17:43,155 --> 00:17:46,195 you prevent people from learning, and you prevent people from raising their hand when it 288 00:17:46,195 --> 00:17:50,010 happens. You encourage people to sweep it under the rug. Kinda what we're talking about. 289 00:17:50,010 --> 00:17:53,290 It's it's the thing if Phil Meacher had done this with Citicorp Center. Citicorp Center 290 00:17:53,290 --> 00:17:56,985 probably would have fallen over at some point. And so having a 291 00:17:56,985 --> 00:18:00,665 blameless mindset when something goes wrong encourages people to raise their 292 00:18:00,665 --> 00:18:04,440 hand sooner, bring other people in on the solution, Let the whole organization 293 00:18:04,580 --> 00:18:08,100 learn from the the mistake that they just made. And and, you know, it's kinda 294 00:18:08,100 --> 00:18:11,825 rooted in a systems thinking mindset as well. You know, how can we Change the 295 00:18:11,825 --> 00:18:15,585 system so that a a mistake that's shaped like this is more difficult to 296 00:18:15,585 --> 00:18:19,365 make in the future. So here's a random question. 297 00:18:20,049 --> 00:18:23,570 I noticed that GitHub has something called the blame tool. I think it's part of 298 00:18:23,570 --> 00:18:27,010 Git. Mhmm. Is that is that a tongue in cheek 299 00:18:27,010 --> 00:18:30,635 reference, or is that actually, Like, actually a 300 00:18:30,635 --> 00:18:34,475 blame. Like, what are your thought? Well, I don't know the history of that, 301 00:18:34,475 --> 00:18:38,155 so maybe maybe you could tell me. And then Yeah. I mean, it it is 302 00:18:38,155 --> 00:18:41,370 from Git Self not from GitHub. It's something that just showed up in the in 303 00:18:41,370 --> 00:18:45,210 the GitHub UI from from Git. I actually, on my own system, alias 304 00:18:45,210 --> 00:18:48,445 it to get credit, so I don't have to type git blame. Oh, I like 305 00:18:48,445 --> 00:18:52,205 that. Oh, that's awesome. And that's 306 00:18:52,285 --> 00:18:55,405 I I it's definitely not my original idea. I know a lot of people that 307 00:18:55,405 --> 00:18:59,160 do that as well, just because Get blame puts you in 308 00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:02,760 sort of a certain frame of mind when you're reading code, and it's often not 309 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,395 a helpful or charitable frame of mind. Whereas get credit is more like, 310 00:19:06,395 --> 00:19:09,995 okay. Who can I ask to hear this story of of why this line code 311 00:19:09,995 --> 00:19:13,639 came to be? Yeah. That was because that 312 00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:17,080 yeah. When you mentioned blameless mindset, and I was like but, I mean, I guess 313 00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:20,919 that speaks to kinda, like, you know, like, you know, the origin story 314 00:19:20,919 --> 00:19:24,705 of Git, I guess, Blame the blame tool or I don't I 315 00:19:24,705 --> 00:19:27,264 don't know. Like, it just to me, it just seemed like there's gotta be more 316 00:19:27,264 --> 00:19:30,910 to that story. Yeah. And when I first heard the tool, The guy I was 317 00:19:30,910 --> 00:19:33,710 working with, he thought it was funny. Oh, they have a blame tool, so you 318 00:19:33,710 --> 00:19:37,310 can always know who's to blame. And I was like I was like, that's kinda 319 00:19:37,310 --> 00:19:41,054 mean, actually, you know. A little bit. A little bit. I mean and again, you 320 00:19:41,054 --> 00:19:44,735 know, it gets into, like, the the prime directive of retrospectives if you've done spent 321 00:19:44,735 --> 00:19:47,934 any time in the Agile world. This idea that everybody was doing the best that 322 00:19:47,934 --> 00:19:50,380 they could at the time that they did it and made the best decision they 323 00:19:50,380 --> 00:19:53,040 could with the information they had. Right. 324 00:19:53,980 --> 00:19:57,825 What's interesting in as you see those That 325 00:19:58,524 --> 00:20:02,365 agile processes kind of happen, right? There's there's 326 00:20:02,365 --> 00:20:05,345 the theory, and then there's the practice. Mhmm. And 327 00:20:05,970 --> 00:20:09,649 Its organizational culture tends to take all the 328 00:20:09,649 --> 00:20:13,090 oxygen out of that room. Yeah. You know and and you're not 329 00:20:13,090 --> 00:20:16,934 surprised so I guess that's that's a thing You know? I 330 00:20:16,934 --> 00:20:20,775 I I like to and I forget who coined this distinction. It may 331 00:20:20,775 --> 00:20:23,915 have been kept back, the idea of big a agile versus little a agile. 332 00:20:24,450 --> 00:20:28,290 Yes. Big Agile, the idea that there's all all these off the 333 00:20:28,290 --> 00:20:31,490 shelf methodologies that you can just pick up off the shelf and adopt in your 334 00:20:31,490 --> 00:20:35,075 organization, and and suddenly the the heavens will part and will sound and you will 335 00:20:35,075 --> 00:20:38,755 be more agile. You look at something like SAFe, the 336 00:20:38,755 --> 00:20:42,275 scaled agile framework, and you can pretty clearly see that that's not the case. It's 337 00:20:42,275 --> 00:20:44,850 just Waterfall in disguise at the organizational level. 338 00:20:46,270 --> 00:20:49,710 Whereas more more little a agile is the actual principles, the 339 00:20:49,710 --> 00:20:53,355 spirit of Of sort of the agile software movement where it is more 340 00:20:53,735 --> 00:20:57,274 autonomous. It is more short planning cycles, getting feedback early, 341 00:20:57,335 --> 00:21:00,919 shipping in small increments, that sort of thing. And it's really easy to pick up 342 00:21:00,919 --> 00:21:03,740 an off the shelf agile methodology and not do any of that stuff. 343 00:21:04,360 --> 00:21:08,120 Right. I I remember hearing an interview once, a podcast, 344 00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:11,805 probably a decade ago where, someone referred 345 00:21:11,865 --> 00:21:15,625 to their, their software development life cycle 346 00:21:15,625 --> 00:21:19,039 as Scrum Bud. Mhmm. And so when we're doing 347 00:21:19,039 --> 00:21:22,640 scrum, but and then, you know, something followed that wasn't 348 00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:26,475 scrum. And it sounds a lot like what you're describing. Yep. 349 00:21:26,475 --> 00:21:30,235 Absolutely. Yeah. One of the reasons I I tend to be more with my teams, 350 00:21:30,235 --> 00:21:33,995 more Kanban inspired than Scrum inspired. And and the reason for that 351 00:21:33,995 --> 00:21:37,500 is Because I've seen too many teams try to win the 352 00:21:37,500 --> 00:21:41,340 sprint, and and it sort of creates this perverse incentive to just 353 00:21:41,340 --> 00:21:45,085 get code across the line no matter what it takes. Yeah. I I like 354 00:21:45,085 --> 00:21:48,924 the community aspect of Kanban, the swarming, and Mhmm. You know, I've 355 00:21:48,924 --> 00:21:52,365 seen that work. I I actually learned that on a real live plant 356 00:21:52,365 --> 00:21:56,030 floor. So, you know, I've got I I used to joke with 357 00:21:56,030 --> 00:21:58,850 Frank that I've got about 8 more years of books I can write, 358 00:21:59,470 --> 00:22:03,185 process engineering because I know where they're going. Yeah. And, you know, 359 00:22:03,185 --> 00:22:06,625 and and what's interesting is we've reached that phase where I was in 360 00:22:06,625 --> 00:22:10,380 manufacturing in the late, nineties, And we reached that 361 00:22:10,380 --> 00:22:13,900 phase where we learned where it wouldn't work. Mhmm. For 362 00:22:13,900 --> 00:22:16,000 instance, it didn't work in engineering. 363 00:22:17,865 --> 00:22:21,705 So it's interesting that we're kinda getting to that maturity. I guess that 364 00:22:21,705 --> 00:22:25,405 maturity would be a good description of it, where we're seeing in the context, 365 00:22:25,549 --> 00:22:29,090 Especially if software engineering that is falling over some. 366 00:22:29,309 --> 00:22:32,965 Mhmm. It works really, really well on the plant floor Mhmm. When you're 367 00:22:32,965 --> 00:22:36,345 in a manufacturing environment, that quality goes through the roof. 368 00:22:36,485 --> 00:22:40,265 Deming's methodologies are phenomenal. The, 369 00:22:41,230 --> 00:22:44,910 And maybe you've already covered this, but the culture wherein a lot 370 00:22:44,910 --> 00:22:48,530 of that, you know, from the manufacturing perspective was developed, 371 00:22:48,998 --> 00:22:52,816 is a vastly different culture than we have today in the United States. 372 00:22:52,816 --> 00:22:56,634 It wasn't even I mean, it was Japan. Right. You know? Coming 373 00:22:56,634 --> 00:23:00,289 out of post World War 2, and That's that is a 374 00:23:00,289 --> 00:23:03,970 different place. Mhmm. It's probably different than Japan today. I'm 375 00:23:03,970 --> 00:23:07,705 sure it is. Yeah. You know? So That that has a lot to do with 376 00:23:07,705 --> 00:23:11,305 it, and you did, I heard I heard the screed behind the 377 00:23:11,305 --> 00:23:14,980 words about corporate culture. That's that's a huge driver. 378 00:23:15,279 --> 00:23:19,120 Mhmm. It it just is. Alright. I'll show up. It's and it's, you know, 379 00:23:19,120 --> 00:23:22,559 it's it's not it's really not any different than than what we're talking about about 380 00:23:22,559 --> 00:23:26,135 off shelf agile methodologies. Right? Like, all of these things are tool are toolboxes. 381 00:23:26,435 --> 00:23:29,315 There's useful things in all of them, and there's things that don't apply and don't 382 00:23:29,315 --> 00:23:32,680 work On an organization by organization, team by team basis. 383 00:23:33,060 --> 00:23:35,860 Absolutely. And the trick is you have to be able to have all of these 384 00:23:35,860 --> 00:23:39,400 tools in your toolbox and then go up to a team and go, oh, 385 00:23:40,005 --> 00:23:43,125 I know this shape problem, and I these are the things that we can try 386 00:23:43,125 --> 00:23:46,345 that that will help make this better. Right. Right. 387 00:23:47,500 --> 00:23:51,020 What's your, sorry, Anya cut your head. Go ahead. Go 388 00:23:51,020 --> 00:23:54,780 ahead. How do how does, how 389 00:23:54,780 --> 00:23:56,720 does a software engineering team 390 00:23:58,365 --> 00:24:02,205 Change or leadership within software engineering change the the 391 00:24:02,205 --> 00:24:05,720 the organizational culture, Because I think that's a 392 00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:09,559 big problem. I think that software is eating the 393 00:24:09,559 --> 00:24:12,940 world. I think that was a Mark Zuckerberg quote, and I think that, yeah, 394 00:24:13,645 --> 00:24:17,325 Definitely since ChatGPT, I would say AI is 395 00:24:17,325 --> 00:24:21,140 eating the world. Right? But but ultimately, I'm old enough to 396 00:24:21,140 --> 00:24:24,900 remember when software people were those weird people that they they stuffed us in the 397 00:24:24,900 --> 00:24:28,600 basement Mhmm. And did not wanna hear anything from us 398 00:24:29,025 --> 00:24:32,725 Other than everything's working fine, everything's fine, they certainly 399 00:24:32,945 --> 00:24:36,165 did not wanna hear, management philosophy of, 400 00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:41,440 stump speeches from us. I imagine that's changed 401 00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,200 a little, but how does how does 402 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:48,865 someone who's listening to this Wants to affect chains, wants to 403 00:24:48,865 --> 00:24:52,705 kinda bring that blameless mindset into their organization. How do they 404 00:24:52,705 --> 00:24:56,385 start? I know that's probably, like, a 3 hour talk, 405 00:24:56,385 --> 00:25:00,210 but Where would they how 406 00:25:00,210 --> 00:25:03,809 would they what's the first step? Yeah. I mean, what what a great 407 00:25:03,809 --> 00:25:07,555 question. You know, I think step 408 00:25:07,555 --> 00:25:10,995 1 is just learning and and kind of figuring out where this information 409 00:25:10,995 --> 00:25:14,755 exists. So, like, reading some of the blog posts from John Alsbaugh when 410 00:25:14,755 --> 00:25:18,260 he was When he was CTO at Etsy, reading some of the work 411 00:25:18,639 --> 00:25:22,240 of Sydney Decker, that he's done on safety 2. I mean, 412 00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,544 John John Osborn is still out on the speaking circuit doing talks a regular basis. 413 00:25:25,544 --> 00:25:29,245 So there's there's plenty of material to learn from out there. I think it's 414 00:25:29,544 --> 00:25:32,890 it's probably most at home in the SRE community right now. 415 00:25:33,610 --> 00:25:37,130 That's that's where I see a lot of safety cultures and human factors research coming 416 00:25:37,130 --> 00:25:40,505 out as in NSRE at the moment. It was it's still in the dev ops 417 00:25:40,585 --> 00:25:44,265 movement as well. That's kinda where I got acquainted with it. So step 418 00:25:44,265 --> 00:25:47,625 1's kind of learning and then just teaching, giving people the 419 00:25:47,625 --> 00:25:51,470 opportunity to realize that There is a different way that some of the stuff can 420 00:25:51,470 --> 00:25:55,150 be done. You know, as far as an engineering leader being able 421 00:25:55,150 --> 00:25:58,695 to affect larger change in an in an organization, The 422 00:25:58,695 --> 00:26:02,215 one advantage that an engineering leader has is that software 423 00:26:02,215 --> 00:26:05,915 engineering salaries are usually one of an organization's biggest cost centers. 424 00:26:06,910 --> 00:26:10,750 And so it's pretty easy to make a case that optimizations there will 425 00:26:10,750 --> 00:26:14,534 pay off if you can make a A persuasive 426 00:26:14,534 --> 00:26:17,815 case for the optimizations that you wanna make. And that's where some of the things 427 00:26:17,815 --> 00:26:21,500 like getting into manufacturing theory and queuing theory and 428 00:26:21,500 --> 00:26:25,260 systems thinking and being able to put together a very data driven 429 00:26:25,260 --> 00:26:28,140 kind of case around some of the improvements that you're trying to affect and the 430 00:26:28,140 --> 00:26:31,875 ways that you're trying to affect them. It it's funny. One 431 00:26:31,875 --> 00:26:35,635 of one of the most common interventions that I found myself making over and over 432 00:26:35,635 --> 00:26:39,270 again with engineering teams is putting WIP limits in place. Just 433 00:26:39,270 --> 00:26:42,870 because when an engineering team is trying to work on too many things at the 434 00:26:42,870 --> 00:26:46,230 same time, they end up spending so much of their time on context 435 00:26:46,230 --> 00:26:49,934 shifting And and trying to load up new contexts and pick up a 436 00:26:49,934 --> 00:26:52,975 project that's completely different than the one that they're currently working on so they can 437 00:26:52,975 --> 00:26:56,640 provide effective code review, that sort of thing. And it's pretty 438 00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,320 easy to kinda talk through the data of if we work on less, 439 00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,920 we can get more done, but it's really counterintuitive on the 440 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,505 surface when you first hear that statement. Well, the whole drive 441 00:27:07,505 --> 00:27:11,345 towards parallelism. Mhmm. You know, from a machine level right 442 00:27:11,345 --> 00:27:15,105 through you know, it bleeds through. They're all leaky abstractions to throw out some 443 00:27:15,105 --> 00:27:18,899 other Yep. Terms. But, you know, that that whole idea that if you 444 00:27:18,899 --> 00:27:22,419 do things in parallel, you're gonna be able to accomplish more. And I've 445 00:27:22,419 --> 00:27:25,865 seen, I'm gonna I can't remember the book. I was reading 446 00:27:26,325 --> 00:27:29,705 reading a book by someone. It was maybe 2, 3, 4 years old, 447 00:27:30,245 --> 00:27:33,850 and He was talking about just the exact opposite, and he had use 448 00:27:33,850 --> 00:27:37,690 cases and it just you know, serialize it, and 449 00:27:37,690 --> 00:27:40,990 you'll get more done. And it it it's exactly that context 450 00:27:41,355 --> 00:27:45,115 You eliminate that. Human brains stink at constant 451 00:27:45,595 --> 00:27:49,055 context switching. Awful at it. Yeah. Yeah. So 452 00:27:49,470 --> 00:27:52,450 Great. Great point. Interesting. 453 00:27:52,910 --> 00:27:55,490 So another thing that you you kinda 454 00:27:56,565 --> 00:28:00,404 Mention is talking about compliance. Mhmm. And before everyone 455 00:28:00,404 --> 00:28:03,865 kind of tunes off, turns off the the thing and stops, 456 00:28:06,220 --> 00:28:09,580 stops listening. Bear with me. There's a point here, and I think it's 457 00:28:09,580 --> 00:28:13,420 important. No one gets excited about compliance. I I know I know 458 00:28:13,420 --> 00:28:17,245 that. My wife works in IT security compliance. No 459 00:28:17,245 --> 00:28:20,445 one's happy to see her. I'm I'm happy to see her, but no one at 460 00:28:20,445 --> 00:28:23,720 her job is happy to see her. Dear Roberta, you'll never 461 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,559 Alexa, order some flowers. The, 462 00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,825 but With the rise of software 463 00:28:33,825 --> 00:28:37,505 being more and more important, more critical to our, I was talking to somebody 464 00:28:37,505 --> 00:28:40,900 else. It might have been in a preview, The another guest on 465 00:28:40,900 --> 00:28:44,260 another completely random topic. I think 466 00:28:44,260 --> 00:28:48,020 regulation is coming to the software industry whether we like 467 00:28:48,020 --> 00:28:51,695 it or not, Because of its core kind 468 00:28:52,715 --> 00:28:56,395 of nature to our, just economy and infrastructure. Mhmm. And I think that 469 00:28:56,395 --> 00:29:00,080 compliance is gonna be one of those things where, You know, learn 470 00:29:00,220 --> 00:29:03,660 it or, you know, learn it, love it, or, you know, leave the 471 00:29:03,660 --> 00:29:07,265 industry. Yeah. Yeah. And and, Yeah. I'm 472 00:29:07,265 --> 00:29:11,025 sorry. So so, like, how do you how does that it seems like 473 00:29:11,025 --> 00:29:14,750 that would kinda dovetail into this. Right? The the the Learning from 474 00:29:14,750 --> 00:29:18,590 mistakes and and meeting these compliance. I mean, certainly, we see it 475 00:29:18,590 --> 00:29:22,440 in data and various data compliance schemes, but but how does he think this is 476 00:29:23,115 --> 00:29:26,875 How does this gonna affect kind of software? Yeah. I mean, the the first thing 477 00:29:26,875 --> 00:29:29,035 I was gonna say is you can you can already see some of this in 478 00:29:29,035 --> 00:29:32,760 things like GDPR and the California privacy regulations, The the stuff the White 479 00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,520 House has been doing lately on software bill of materials, we're starting to see it 480 00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,320 kind of creep in in in the in the periphery of the things that we 481 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,295 work on. You know, it's 482 00:29:42,835 --> 00:29:46,275 it's tempting to just look at it and go, this is dumb. This will never 483 00:29:46,275 --> 00:29:50,060 work. It's not gonna make any difference. But there's a there's a There's a more 484 00:29:50,060 --> 00:29:53,900 terrible way to look at it in that it's pointing at a thing that 485 00:29:53,900 --> 00:29:57,605 actually is really important. You know, to to your point, s soft 486 00:29:57,605 --> 00:30:00,725 reads the world as organizations hold on to more and more and more and more 487 00:30:00,725 --> 00:30:04,025 data. That data's a liability, and 488 00:30:05,450 --> 00:30:09,290 If if we're not taking steps to make sure that, a, we're only 489 00:30:09,290 --> 00:30:13,105 holding the data we actually need to hold, and, b, we're doing it as 490 00:30:13,265 --> 00:30:16,785 carefully as we can. We're putting as many walls around it as we can, and 491 00:30:16,785 --> 00:30:19,525 still be able to do our job on on an ongoing basis. 492 00:30:21,260 --> 00:30:25,020 You sort of have to put that responsibility hat on and and think about 493 00:30:25,020 --> 00:30:28,784 it in terms of how can I be a good steward of the data 494 00:30:28,784 --> 00:30:32,304 that people have entrusted to me in in this organization that our customers have given 495 00:30:32,304 --> 00:30:36,065 us? Yeah. And and in that that perspective, when you're looking at it 496 00:30:36,065 --> 00:30:39,590 from the Spirit of law versus the letter of the law. It makes some of 497 00:30:39,590 --> 00:30:42,470 the controls that you need to put in place for some of these compliance regimes 498 00:30:42,470 --> 00:30:46,145 a little bit easier to swallow, And it also gets you into sort 499 00:30:46,145 --> 00:30:49,904 of a an outcome mindset because, you know, 500 00:30:49,904 --> 00:30:52,784 it's really easy to go through and and comply with some of these regulations with 501 00:30:52,784 --> 00:30:56,260 checkboxes. Just do the things they say and and not really 502 00:30:56,260 --> 00:30:59,399 actually make any difference in the overall security of your organization. 503 00:31:00,340 --> 00:31:03,315 But if you look at it from a perspective, this is actually a And and 504 00:31:03,315 --> 00:31:06,715 we should actually be doing this, then you can go about it and put 505 00:31:06,715 --> 00:31:10,555 meaningful controls in place that that don't make it harder to get work done. 506 00:31:10,555 --> 00:31:14,210 They just make it safer to get work And that's ultimately that's ultimately the goal. 507 00:31:14,210 --> 00:31:16,290 That's I mean, that's what we're working on at Sym. It's sort of the whole 508 00:31:16,290 --> 00:31:20,130 point of the product. Yeah. It's a good segue. So 509 00:31:20,130 --> 00:31:23,795 what is Sym? SYM. Not the 510 00:31:23,795 --> 00:31:27,475 Sims. I'm sure that's not I know that's not the first 511 00:31:27,475 --> 00:31:31,210 time you heard the joke today, but, You know? So It's it 512 00:31:31,210 --> 00:31:35,050 is not the 1st time I've heard that joke for sure. What what is what 513 00:31:35,050 --> 00:31:38,715 is Sym do? Like, what What 514 00:31:38,715 --> 00:31:42,315 is the the product? It it's essentially at its core workflow 515 00:31:42,315 --> 00:31:45,755 engine. It allows you to build simple workflows to 516 00:31:45,755 --> 00:31:49,170 request and Orchestrate access to to 517 00:31:49,170 --> 00:31:52,850 production systems. It's probably easiest to explain by just telling you 518 00:31:52,850 --> 00:31:56,370 how we use the product at SEM. We have all of our production infrastructure behind 519 00:31:56,370 --> 00:32:00,115 our own product. So when one of our engineers needs access to 520 00:32:00,115 --> 00:32:03,875 a production system, they just they create a request in Slack, and 521 00:32:03,875 --> 00:32:07,669 then anybody else on the engineering team can approve that request. So kind of a 522 00:32:07,669 --> 00:32:11,350 a 2 keys to launch the rocket approach. And then in the back end, 523 00:32:11,350 --> 00:32:14,925 there's some code that runs in AWS. We assume a role An 524 00:32:14,925 --> 00:32:18,305 AWS that lets us escalate somebody into that 525 00:32:18,365 --> 00:32:22,205 administrator access role or whatever permission set that they've requested 526 00:32:22,205 --> 00:32:25,660 so they can go in and do their job. And then an hour later or 527 00:32:25,660 --> 00:32:29,280 or 4 hours later, whatever time interval they've requested, that access expires. 528 00:32:29,580 --> 00:32:33,245 So you don't end up over time accumulating that janitor's key ring of System access 529 00:32:33,245 --> 00:32:36,145 that you don't actually need on a daily basis. Right. 530 00:32:37,085 --> 00:32:40,065 That's cool. That is interesting. 531 00:32:41,050 --> 00:32:44,890 Now and it it you said something, a a a little bit ago that 532 00:32:44,890 --> 00:32:48,650 I thought was might have sound blasphemous to some of our listeners. Right? 533 00:32:48,650 --> 00:32:52,475 The data is a liability. Yeah. But the more, like, you kinda unpack it, 534 00:32:52,475 --> 00:32:56,315 oh, yeah, I mean, you're right. Like, you know, we're so conditioned to think of 535 00:32:56,315 --> 00:32:59,835 data as an asset, and and asset only. Right? 536 00:32:59,835 --> 00:33:03,370 That I think we will lose sight of reality. Right? Or the 537 00:33:03,370 --> 00:33:06,730 risks of holding data. Right? And I was just thinking, like, you know, if I 538 00:33:06,730 --> 00:33:10,245 had a company, and I had, let's just say, some kind of PII. Mhmm. 539 00:33:10,245 --> 00:33:13,845 Right? And I, after so many 540 00:33:13,845 --> 00:33:17,305 months, or once I'm done doing what I'm doing, I purge it. Right? 541 00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,840 I probably would sleep better at night if if I heard, 542 00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:26,080 about, like, there's a there's a breach or anything like that. Right? Like, it's kind 543 00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,525 of like, I think I think that there's a, for lack of better term, data 544 00:33:29,525 --> 00:33:33,365 hoarding happening in a lot of organizations. Yeah. And I understand it, 545 00:33:33,365 --> 00:33:37,020 right, because there's this If we've been so conditioned to think data 546 00:33:37,020 --> 00:33:40,780 is only an asset, right? Oh, well, why 547 00:33:40,780 --> 00:33:44,625 not just store it? Store it is cheap, you know? Right? But if 548 00:33:44,625 --> 00:33:46,885 you also think that it can also be a liability, 549 00:33:48,304 --> 00:33:51,424 and obviously not all data types are created equal. Right. Yeah. Of course. And not 550 00:33:51,424 --> 00:33:55,140 all liabilities are created equal. Mhmm. Then that becomes a pretty cold 551 00:33:55,140 --> 00:33:58,580 calculation of, well, yeah, maybe we'll figure 552 00:33:58,580 --> 00:34:01,880 out, you know, if they have an even or odd social security 553 00:34:01,940 --> 00:34:05,605 number. If that means that they're more likely to buy our 554 00:34:05,605 --> 00:34:09,285 product. Yeah. But I don't wanna even hold that stuff anymore. Right? Or 555 00:34:09,285 --> 00:34:13,070 I'll collapse it into, you know, Flag 1, flag 2 based on 556 00:34:13,070 --> 00:34:16,750 that. Right? So, you you know, I I I like that. I hadn't 557 00:34:16,750 --> 00:34:20,045 really thought about that. Yeah. I mean, one of the interesting use cases, you know, 558 00:34:20,045 --> 00:34:22,364 if you think of health care data, there's some of that that you have to 559 00:34:22,364 --> 00:34:26,045 hold. Right. But HIPAA is pretty strict about who can access it and when they 560 00:34:26,045 --> 00:34:29,510 can access it. So one of the workflows that we've seen set up is 561 00:34:29,510 --> 00:34:32,890 is requesting approval to access a particular patient's 562 00:34:33,030 --> 00:34:36,744 data with a reason for needing that access So that it's all audit logged. 563 00:34:36,744 --> 00:34:40,344 It's all recorded, who requested it, who approved it, that there was an actual business 564 00:34:40,344 --> 00:34:43,804 need to access that data, that it wasn't done willy nilly, or 565 00:34:44,119 --> 00:34:47,099 that that you had the patient's permission to access that data. 566 00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,735 You know, just creating that that simple little bit of 567 00:34:51,895 --> 00:34:54,715 diligence to say, yeah, this data access happened for a reason. 568 00:34:55,735 --> 00:34:59,410 Right. And that it's automatically documented, so then you don't have Some 569 00:34:59,410 --> 00:35:02,450 tedious manual process where you have to fill out a form and and fax it 570 00:35:02,450 --> 00:35:05,970 to headquarters and wait on them to contact somebody and, you know, the the typical 571 00:35:05,970 --> 00:35:09,155 Byzantine Data access processes in health care. 572 00:35:10,655 --> 00:35:13,954 Very cool. I I tweeted that. I didn't overheard. 573 00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,120 Oh, I heard that more and more lately here, because during the pod 574 00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:22,200 you know, the podcast recordings because, definitely trying 575 00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,695 to tease season 7. And, yeah. It's 576 00:35:25,855 --> 00:35:29,475 that's a that is a great a great line. It's it's got controversy 577 00:35:29,535 --> 00:35:33,060 written all over it, Nicholas. Thank you. Absolutely. God, I can have 578 00:35:33,060 --> 00:35:36,760 one. I totally agree with you, on on that. And 579 00:35:36,980 --> 00:35:40,740 it's you know, I and I understand the drive to say data is 580 00:35:40,740 --> 00:35:44,494 an asset Because for so long, people just looked at at data 581 00:35:44,494 --> 00:35:48,310 as being something kinda neutral. You know? It was hanging around. Maybe they were, 582 00:35:48,790 --> 00:35:52,550 Yeah. I was taking up space, filling up the sand Or byproduct. Or 583 00:35:52,550 --> 00:35:55,910 byproduct. Right? Right. You know, I I always think of the story about I I 584 00:35:55,910 --> 00:35:58,755 don't know exactly the chemical Or whatever, but apparently, 585 00:36:00,095 --> 00:36:03,935 I guess steel mills used to produce, like, this kind of ash, and 586 00:36:03,935 --> 00:36:07,120 it was useless until somebody figured out that it's Good for, 587 00:36:07,820 --> 00:36:11,500 getting traction in snow or for car for for parking 588 00:36:11,500 --> 00:36:15,015 lots or something like that. I I It's it's a bit late in the day. 589 00:36:15,015 --> 00:36:18,295 It's been a long day, so I I don't forget exactly what it's about, but 590 00:36:18,295 --> 00:36:21,835 I remember. So, you know, so the story goes is that, you know, whoever 591 00:36:21,895 --> 00:36:25,510 figured that out, I mean, they the the 592 00:36:25,510 --> 00:36:28,870 steel companies just, like, here, if you're willing to take our trash, go ahead. As 593 00:36:28,870 --> 00:36:32,415 soon as they found out that this guy was making money off that, Suddenly, it 594 00:36:32,415 --> 00:36:35,935 was no longer free. They charged, like, you know, 595 00:36:35,935 --> 00:36:39,559 $5 a ton or something like that. It was just interesting how How, 596 00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,760 you know, as the thing goes, 1 man's trash is another man's treasure, but as 597 00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:46,599 soon as it becomes a treasure, then other people are gonna see 598 00:36:46,599 --> 00:36:50,375 that. Yeah. I mean, at point in time example, Reddit's in the 599 00:36:50,375 --> 00:36:53,815 process of making their API paid right now so that you have to pay to 600 00:36:53,815 --> 00:36:56,940 train, like, large language models on it. Interesting. 601 00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,880 I would shudder to think what a a large language model training that would 602 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,305 be. Little scary. You know, I don't wanna go to go down that 603 00:37:05,385 --> 00:37:09,145 That's something I've been watching a lot lately, for 604 00:37:09,145 --> 00:37:12,265 some for some playtime work I've been doing. And, 605 00:37:13,224 --> 00:37:16,950 it dramatically dropped, The, the cost to 606 00:37:16,950 --> 00:37:20,150 train because the large language models aren't as large any 607 00:37:20,710 --> 00:37:24,355 Mhmm. At least the sets of tokens and such. Yeah. So it's gone 608 00:37:24,355 --> 00:37:28,195 down to, like, less than $100. That that's on certainly less 609 00:37:28,195 --> 00:37:31,955 than 1,000, but in some cases, like, you know, 30, $40 to train him 610 00:37:31,955 --> 00:37:35,750 on. Yes. Which is a far cry from the 7 to 12,000,000 that 611 00:37:35,950 --> 00:37:39,410 Right. Yeah. That some of the more popular ones have been on. So it's, 612 00:37:39,674 --> 00:37:43,194 you know, and and and it it amuses me that, you know, you have countries 613 00:37:43,194 --> 00:37:46,875 that are trying to ban chat gpt. Right? The the the 614 00:37:46,875 --> 00:37:50,220 cat's out of the bag, genie's out, whatever, Genius on the bottle, like, you can't 615 00:37:50,220 --> 00:37:54,060 stop the signal, you know, like, it's already out. And Great 616 00:37:54,060 --> 00:37:55,600 reference, Frank. Yeah. 617 00:37:57,835 --> 00:38:01,295 I was talking to somebody yesterday on a completely on nontechnology 618 00:38:01,595 --> 00:38:05,435 related thing, and I said, you can't stop the signal. And he got the reference, 619 00:38:05,435 --> 00:38:07,030 so which I thought was pretty funny. 620 00:38:09,090 --> 00:38:12,930 But I'm sorry I cut you off, Nick. No. Oh, thought 621 00:38:12,930 --> 00:38:16,715 I did. No. This is 622 00:38:16,715 --> 00:38:20,395 a fascinating conversation. I think we can go on for hours, but we wanna be 623 00:38:20,395 --> 00:38:23,775 respectful of your time and switch to our pre canned questions. 624 00:38:24,460 --> 00:38:27,900 I will kick off number 1 because we have to change it slightly. How did 625 00:38:27,900 --> 00:38:31,420 you find your way into technology? Did tech find you, or did that 626 00:38:31,420 --> 00:38:34,355 Techlife, Where you found that Tech Life? 627 00:38:34,975 --> 00:38:38,115 So I had an uncle that when I was, 628 00:38:38,655 --> 00:38:41,920 gosh, 9 or 10, Had an old Amiga 629 00:38:42,220 --> 00:38:46,059 computer, and that was the 1st computer I spent any significant time 630 00:38:46,059 --> 00:38:49,805 with, and just sort of Really kinda fell in 631 00:38:49,805 --> 00:38:53,485 love with it as a toy first. And then, you know, not long after 632 00:38:53,485 --> 00:38:56,870 that, IBM PC's PC DOS came out. 633 00:38:57,430 --> 00:39:01,190 Basic was everywhere. Went to a summer camp and learned how to program 634 00:39:01,190 --> 00:39:04,630 in basic. And, the the first productive thing I ever did on a 635 00:39:04,630 --> 00:39:08,345 computer was I wrote a 20 question quiz in Apple 636 00:39:08,345 --> 00:39:11,865 2 Basic over Egyptian history for a 637 00:39:11,865 --> 00:39:15,640 6th grade project. And I Nice. We didn't have a computer at home at the 638 00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:18,860 time, so I stayed after school working on that Apple 2 to write that code. 639 00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,865 And just I I obviously got a good grade on the assignment and just have 640 00:39:22,945 --> 00:39:26,545 I've been infatuated with being able to make the the 641 00:39:26,545 --> 00:39:29,765 magic blinking box kinda do what I want it to do ever since. 642 00:39:30,865 --> 00:39:34,530 I like that description. Very cool. Our 643 00:39:34,530 --> 00:39:38,230 second question is, what's your favorite part of your current gig? 644 00:39:39,250 --> 00:39:41,730 My favorite part of my current gig is kinda it gets into what we were 645 00:39:41,730 --> 00:39:44,695 talking about at The the top of the call, sort of 646 00:39:45,395 --> 00:39:49,234 being able to really shape and and build a culture where the the people 647 00:39:49,234 --> 00:39:52,760 on the engineering team are really able to thrive, and really able to support each 648 00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:56,600 other. It's a really fun group of people 649 00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,335 to get to work with, and and the way that they're able to support each 650 00:39:59,335 --> 00:40:03,175 other in projects and in in growth and, learning new things is 651 00:40:03,175 --> 00:40:06,955 really, really fulfilling for me from from a leadership perspective. 652 00:40:10,100 --> 00:40:13,540 Interesting. So we have 3 complete the 653 00:40:13,540 --> 00:40:17,035 sentence, questions. When I'm not working, I 654 00:40:17,035 --> 00:40:20,875 enjoy blank. Trying to come up with 1 answer, 655 00:40:20,875 --> 00:40:24,420 but this is really hard. I'm a huge soccer fan, so I'll say that. I 656 00:40:24,579 --> 00:40:28,420 we have season tickets to Austin FC, watch a lot of EPL with my son. 657 00:40:28,420 --> 00:40:32,099 My son plays. So Oh, cool. A a lot of a lot of 90 658 00:40:32,099 --> 00:40:34,905 minute increments of my life are spent watching soccer matches. 659 00:40:37,685 --> 00:40:41,365 Awesome. Our second is, I think the coolest thing in 660 00:40:41,365 --> 00:40:45,170 technology today is Blank. That it's 661 00:40:45,170 --> 00:40:48,930 becoming more humane. Like, the the conversation that we had at the 662 00:40:48,930 --> 00:40:52,415 top of the call is one that is Far more common 663 00:40:52,415 --> 00:40:55,935 today than it was 20 years ago when I started my career. And I think 664 00:40:55,935 --> 00:40:59,539 it's only gonna get more that way, because As systems get 665 00:40:59,539 --> 00:41:03,079 more complicated, we're gonna have more sophisticated and complicated discussions 666 00:41:03,220 --> 00:41:06,579 about humans' roles and interacting with those systems. AI is a great 667 00:41:06,579 --> 00:41:10,315 example. What part of jobs does this supplant? What part of jobs does 668 00:41:10,315 --> 00:41:12,555 it augment? How do we do it in a safe way? How do we keep 669 00:41:12,555 --> 00:41:16,370 it aligned with people? And at at at the root, Those are all questions about 670 00:41:16,370 --> 00:41:20,210 how do humans interact with technology and with each other when technology's 671 00:41:20,210 --> 00:41:23,970 in the room, and I think that's a really interesting bit of history to get 672 00:41:23,970 --> 00:41:27,135 to live through. Interesting. 673 00:41:27,835 --> 00:41:31,675 Our 3rd and final complete the sentence. I look forward to the day when I 674 00:41:31,675 --> 00:41:33,695 can use technology to blank. 675 00:41:35,780 --> 00:41:39,540 I just did my taxes, so autonomously do my taxes. That would 676 00:41:39,540 --> 00:41:40,200 be nice. 677 00:41:43,355 --> 00:41:47,194 Here's a moonshot goal. Have, some kind of large language model that can explain 678 00:41:47,194 --> 00:41:50,795 the tax code in the United States. K. Good good luck with that one. It 679 00:41:50,795 --> 00:41:52,424 would just Yeah. Yeah. Answers. 680 00:41:55,950 --> 00:41:59,630 Oh, I thought of, like, 3 things to say, and I'm not gonna 681 00:41:59,630 --> 00:42:02,885 say either of those things Because 682 00:42:03,585 --> 00:42:07,425 We wanna keep our Itunes clean rating. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna 683 00:42:07,425 --> 00:42:11,185 finish that segment. Yeah. Good segue to that. Share something different about 684 00:42:11,185 --> 00:42:14,700 yourself. And do remember that we're a family show, 685 00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:18,519 and we wanna keep that clean rating. Something different about 686 00:42:18,519 --> 00:42:22,265 myself. I am really, really obsessively into To pour 687 00:42:22,265 --> 00:42:25,865 over coffee. I spend an awful lot of time and 688 00:42:25,865 --> 00:42:29,405 energy trying to dial in my daily cup because it's it's that just 689 00:42:29,660 --> 00:42:32,460 Even the ritual of making coffee in the morning is sort of the thing that 690 00:42:32,460 --> 00:42:35,520 mentally transitions me into work as someone who works from home. Uh-huh. 691 00:42:35,980 --> 00:42:39,625 And, it it's one of those things that The more time I 692 00:42:39,625 --> 00:42:42,585 spend on it, the more I learn about it, the more it rewards me with 693 00:42:42,585 --> 00:42:46,290 a better cup of coffee. So you're doing the filter In 694 00:42:46,290 --> 00:42:49,890 the kind of the ring, and you put the grounds in Mhmm. And then pour 695 00:42:49,890 --> 00:42:53,510 the coffee through them. Yep. That's interesting. 696 00:42:54,055 --> 00:42:57,415 So, yeah, I've I do a French press, but I've been doing that for I 697 00:42:57,415 --> 00:43:01,015 don't know. It's way too long. But the, the I've 698 00:43:01,015 --> 00:43:04,780 heard AeroPress. I've never I've had a lot of people recommend AeroPress. I've never 699 00:43:04,780 --> 00:43:08,619 really tried it. It's great. So is it? It's a it's a really easy 700 00:43:08,619 --> 00:43:11,845 way to get a really good cup of coffee. So what do you think the 701 00:43:11,845 --> 00:43:15,145 big difference is then between AeroPress and pour over? 702 00:43:17,125 --> 00:43:20,660 With AeroPress, Pressure is a component of how you're brewing. I mean, it's not 703 00:43:20,660 --> 00:43:24,420 anything close to espresso. Yeah. But but you're generally going 704 00:43:24,420 --> 00:43:28,065 to brew you're gonna grind a little bit Feiner for AeroPress, you're gonna 705 00:43:28,065 --> 00:43:30,945 extract a little bit different notes out of the coffee with a little bit of 706 00:43:30,945 --> 00:43:34,065 pressure that you add. So you kinda have to dial in the rest of things 707 00:43:34,065 --> 00:43:37,795 to make sure you're extracting the part of the coffee that you wanna 708 00:43:37,795 --> 00:43:41,454 drink. You said notes. Mhmm. So is that how you think about 709 00:43:41,454 --> 00:43:45,265 it musically? Flavor notes. Flavor notes. So light. I 710 00:43:45,265 --> 00:43:48,704 didn't understand. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you get into, like, the the one 711 00:43:48,704 --> 00:43:52,140 of the easiest ones to taste in in lighter roast coffees is the difference between 712 00:43:52,140 --> 00:43:55,980 a natural process and a washed processed coffee. So if 713 00:43:55,980 --> 00:43:59,180 you get a single origin washed processed coffee, you're gonna get all kinds of citrus 714 00:43:59,180 --> 00:44:02,885 notes from it. You're gonna get orange and lemon. If you get a natural 715 00:44:02,885 --> 00:44:06,404 process, it's probably gonna be weighted more towards the berry side of the flavor 716 00:44:06,404 --> 00:44:10,164 spectrum. So Interesting. A really good Ethiopian natural process 717 00:44:10,164 --> 00:44:13,869 coffee Prepared well is gonna taste like blueberry pie in a way that you just 718 00:44:13,869 --> 00:44:17,470 cannot miss. Wow. I've had really 719 00:44:17,630 --> 00:44:20,865 I've had good coffee. I and I'm sitting here, like 720 00:44:21,425 --> 00:44:24,305 Like, when I when I wake up in the morning, like, I am the only 721 00:44:24,305 --> 00:44:27,285 thing I can functionally do is let the dogs outside 722 00:44:27,744 --> 00:44:31,450 and Lift the Keurig machine, drop the kappa in, hit the button, 723 00:44:31,450 --> 00:44:35,210 which I know is probably blasphemy, to 724 00:44:35,210 --> 00:44:38,825 to to to To the purest out there, but I'm just incapable of doing. 725 00:44:38,885 --> 00:44:42,565 However, if I am somewhere, and I can enjoy a good cup of coffee after 726 00:44:42,565 --> 00:44:46,280 I've had my first couple of, cops to get conscious? 727 00:44:47,860 --> 00:44:51,620 I do I do I have had that that type of Ethiopian single 728 00:44:51,620 --> 00:44:55,395 source, and It's it's just very it's very strange. 729 00:44:55,395 --> 00:44:59,235 Like, almost has, like, blueberry ish pie thing 730 00:44:59,235 --> 00:45:03,049 going on. Like Like, what is in it? You know, like but and 731 00:45:03,049 --> 00:45:06,730 then I think it was at some airport somewhere. It might have been Seattle where 732 00:45:06,730 --> 00:45:10,515 they had, like they take coffee extremely seriously. And Mhmm. I was like, no. 733 00:45:10,515 --> 00:45:13,875 No. No. That's just part of the thing. I was like, oh, that's interesting. So, 734 00:45:13,875 --> 00:45:17,635 yeah, you had me at Blueberry. Now I got you at Blueberry. Yeah. I'm 735 00:45:17,635 --> 00:45:21,280 a I'm a Blueberry fanatic. Nice. Awesome. 736 00:45:23,740 --> 00:45:26,720 Alright. So Audible is a sponsor of Data Driven. 737 00:45:27,575 --> 00:45:31,255 Do you do audiobooks and and do you recommend okay. Cool. 738 00:45:31,255 --> 00:45:34,615 So, any particular lessons you would recommend to our, 739 00:45:34,855 --> 00:45:38,599 listeners? I will give you 2. Right now, I'm listening to 740 00:45:38,599 --> 00:45:42,200 John Scalzi's agent to the stars, narrated by Wil Wheaton, who is my 741 00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:45,935 absolute favorite audiobook narrator. I actually pick audiobooks based on the 742 00:45:45,935 --> 00:45:49,775 fact that he's the one that narrates them because he's just the the character 743 00:45:49,775 --> 00:45:52,255 he brings to the book, the way he brings out the story, I just I 744 00:45:52,255 --> 00:45:55,720 really enjoy. So that's a fun it's a really fun listen. And 745 00:45:55,720 --> 00:45:59,560 then on the nonfiction side, my favorite management book of 746 00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,335 all time is Turn the Ship Around by, admiral David Marche. It's about 747 00:46:03,335 --> 00:46:07,095 a captain of a a nuclear submarine that sort of uses the same kind of 748 00:46:07,095 --> 00:46:10,549 things we've been talking about to to turn around the performance of The 749 00:46:10,549 --> 00:46:13,910 previously worst performing boat in the fleet. So kinda bucking 750 00:46:13,910 --> 00:46:17,645 military hierarchical management traditions for for something that 751 00:46:17,645 --> 00:46:21,005 gives the people on the boat more autonomy and ownership over over the thing that 752 00:46:21,005 --> 00:46:24,305 they're in charge of on on the boat into some pretty spectacular results. 753 00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:28,040 Nice. And it's it's very narrative, so it doesn't read like a business book. It's 754 00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,100 a great audiobook listen. Yeah. Cool. Interesting. 755 00:46:32,095 --> 00:46:35,875 So, if you go to the data driven book.com, you will get 1 free audiobook 756 00:46:36,095 --> 00:46:39,910 on us, and then we get, Maybe enough to 757 00:46:39,910 --> 00:46:43,590 get a a nice cup of blueberry pie. One of those blueberry pack office. I 758 00:46:43,590 --> 00:46:47,365 was thinking the same thing if you sign up. If you sign up, 759 00:46:47,365 --> 00:46:50,965 health support to show helps us, kinda grow, and we're already 760 00:46:50,965 --> 00:46:54,805 in season 7, but we're recording us before season 7 launch. So hello, 761 00:46:54,805 --> 00:46:58,510 future people. And then 762 00:46:58,510 --> 00:47:02,110 finally, the final question is, where can 763 00:47:02,110 --> 00:47:05,010 people learn more about you, Nick, and Sim? 764 00:47:06,085 --> 00:47:09,204 So for me, all I've got a lot of blog posts and all of my 765 00:47:09,204 --> 00:47:12,940 talks up at my personal website, nmeans.dev. And 766 00:47:12,940 --> 00:47:15,680 then for Sim, you can visit our website sym0ps.com. 767 00:47:17,660 --> 00:47:21,415 Sign up for a free tile trial, kick the tires. We'd love to get 768 00:47:21,415 --> 00:47:24,955 feedback on it. So if any of your listeners try it, have questions about it, 769 00:47:25,335 --> 00:47:27,655 feel free to to reach out to me or anybody at Sym. We'd love to 770 00:47:27,655 --> 00:47:31,430 help you kinda get started on the platform. Excellent. Well, thank 771 00:47:31,430 --> 00:47:35,270 you very much. Any parting words, Andy? No. I'm just really sorry 772 00:47:35,270 --> 00:47:39,105 now after listening to the 2 answers that referred To the beginning of the 773 00:47:39,105 --> 00:47:41,985 show. I'm really sorry I missed that. I'm gonna have to wait. Well, we can 774 00:47:41,985 --> 00:47:45,345 use that that that machine from Spaceballs. You can go 775 00:47:45,345 --> 00:47:49,109 back And then redo it so future Andy 776 00:47:49,109 --> 00:47:51,530 will know how it all turned out. 777 00:47:52,869 --> 00:47:56,605 Perfect. Perfect. I think Nick knows that we we, you know, 778 00:47:56,605 --> 00:47:59,085 we we do a lot we do at lee there always ends up being at 779 00:47:59,085 --> 00:48:01,905 least 1 movie reference, so we got that. Nice. Yeah. 780 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,880 Alright. Thank you, Nick. Any last thoughts? No. Thanks so much for having me on. 781 00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,640 This has been a really fun conversation. Awesome. Thank you. We'll we'll let 782 00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:14,115 Bailey finish the show. And that wraps up another 783 00:48:14,175 --> 00:48:18,015 intriguing episode of data driven. We hope you 784 00:48:18,015 --> 00:48:21,410 enjoyed our conversation with Nick Means, the VP of software 785 00:48:21,550 --> 00:48:25,230 development at Sym. From exploring the concepts of 786 00:48:25,230 --> 00:48:28,665 shame and vulnerability in the software industry Dri to diving into the 787 00:48:28,665 --> 00:48:32,345 fascinating world of engineering disasters. This episode has been a 788 00:48:32,345 --> 00:48:36,160 thought provoking journey. We delved into the importance of 789 00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,680 being good stewards of data and the significance of compliance with 790 00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:43,119 regulations, all while finding ways to balance security and 791 00:48:43,119 --> 00:48:46,705 efficiency. As we wrap up, we encourage you to 792 00:48:46,705 --> 00:48:50,405 reflect on the valuable insights and takeaways shared in this episode. 793 00:48:51,345 --> 00:48:54,610 The path towards a blameless mindset, fostering stronger 794 00:48:54,750 --> 00:48:58,590 organizational culture, and embracing the principles of little agile 795 00:48:58,590 --> 00:49:01,010 are just some of the actionable steps we discussed. 796 00:49:02,185 --> 00:49:05,945 Remember, mistakes happen, but it's how we learn from them and share 797 00:49:05,945 --> 00:49:08,445 our experiences that truly makes a difference. 798 00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,200 So let's continue to grow, adapt, and shape the software 799 00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,380 industry into a more resilient space.