[English] Devs On Tape x Kscope23 - Our Guest: Scott Spendolini

00:00:00: [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Devs on Tape.

00:00:17: Today, again from K-Scope in Denver, Aurora to be precise.

00:00:22: I'm having a next guest I catched on the floor outside.

00:00:26: My guest today is Scott Spandolini.

00:00:28: Hi, Scott.

00:00:28: How are you?

00:00:29: I'm doing good, thank you.

00:00:31: So I'm very glad that you are participating to our podcast

00:00:34: and talk about, yeah, mainly your daily business, right?

00:00:38: So I did a little bit of research,

00:00:41: and I saw that you were multiple times at Oracle,

00:00:44: and you were even carrying proudly an Oracle Ace Director

00:00:48: backpack.

00:00:49: That's the best backpack I've ever had.

00:00:50: And I already told Jennifer she's never going to get it

00:00:52: back.

00:00:53: That's great.

00:00:54: So maybe we should just put Alumni on that,

00:00:56: Because if you're entering Oracle,

00:00:58: you are not an active--

00:01:00: If you got a pen, I could make that change.

00:01:03: Great.

00:01:03: Awesome.

00:01:04: So today, we are planning to talk about your career,

00:01:08: all in all.

00:01:08: And we have a couple of stories, I think.

00:01:10: We can talk about your experience with Oracle, Apex,

00:01:13: or whatever products you are working on.

00:01:15: So I would like to learn a little bit more

00:01:17: about your past career, whatever company you were in,

00:01:21: and what's your passion?

00:01:23: What's your software passion?

00:01:24: Sure.

00:01:25: - I think that's pretty easy.

00:01:27: That would probably be Apex.

00:01:29: - Yeah, of course it is.

00:01:31: - All right, so I mean, I could start,

00:01:32: but believe it or not,

00:01:33: and this will be one of those fun facts,

00:01:35: my degree is in television management.

00:01:39: - Oh, I didn't know that. - So I went to school

00:01:41: at Syracuse University at the Newhouse School,

00:01:44: thinking at some point I would produce television shows.

00:01:48: And I spent a lot of time in high school,

00:01:50: even we had this little makeshift TV studio

00:01:53: and I would put like a video yearbook together

00:01:55: or put different productions together.

00:01:58: And I really loved it, right?

00:01:59: It was really, really cool.

00:02:01: Went to school and got a job to pay the bills, so to speak,

00:02:05: and computing services at Syracuse,

00:02:08: where we would monitor the labs

00:02:11: and we'd help people print things

00:02:12: and just the daily type stuff.

00:02:14: Don't forget, this was where like,

00:02:16: we barely had a network.

00:02:19: For whatever reason, Syracuse would boot

00:02:21: all their windows machines off of a file server.

00:02:23: So when the file server went down, which was

00:02:26: weekly, all the machines on the campus would

00:02:29: be like banging on it.

00:02:30: So we would just keep people calm most of the day.

00:02:33: So, um, that job really started to get me to

00:02:39: think like, Hey, there's a whole different

00:02:41: career path here, right?

00:02:42: Like helping people and doing this

00:02:44: it thing is, is pretty cool.

00:02:46: I went back home for my first summer and my

00:02:50: electronics teacher at high school said,

00:02:52: Hey, do you want to work at Aetna?

00:02:54: And Aetna is a big life insurance,

00:02:56: a health insurance company here in the

00:02:57: U S I was like, yeah, that'd be cool.

00:03:00: What would I do?

00:03:01: He's like, Oh, I have a friend.

00:03:02: They need people to write code and

00:03:05: develop systems.

00:03:06: Okay.

00:03:06: I was like, all right, yeah, I could do that.

00:03:08: Go for the interview.

00:03:10: Um, they said they needed me to know Fox

00:03:13: pro and visual basic.

00:03:14: I knew neither.

00:03:15: Okay.

00:03:15: Right.

00:03:15: And, and, oh yeah, I know these, these are

00:03:18: easy.

00:03:18: I've done stuff.

00:03:19: Pretending, right?

00:03:19: Yeah.

00:03:20: Yup.

00:03:20: Nailed the interview, got the job and back

00:03:23: then drove to the mall to buy a book on

00:03:27: Fox pro and visual basic.

00:03:28: Yeah.

00:03:29: So I could understand what the heck I just

00:03:31: signed up to do.

00:03:32: Um, so started there and I actually did like

00:03:35: three or four summers at Aetna and I think

00:03:37: that's where I really realized the TV thing is

00:03:40: cool, but the it thing, it's just a different

00:03:43: type of cool.

00:03:44: Yeah.

00:03:44: And then as we got to like junior, senior

00:03:47: year, job offers and internships and all that

00:03:51: started to happen. And I really realized like

00:03:53: the TV industry, it's who you know, it's not

00:03:57: necessarily what you know. And I'll never forget

00:04:00: like some kid who I won't say his name, wasn't a

00:04:04: great student, but got this fantastic internship

00:04:07: with, with David Letterman show. Yeah. And we

00:04:10: were all like, how did you do that? He's like,

00:04:12: oh, well, my dad's David Letterman's attorney.

00:04:15: Yeah, okay.

00:04:16: Yeah.

00:04:16: So it's like.

00:04:17: Vitamin plus, right?

00:04:18: So it was tough.

00:04:19: Right.

00:04:19: But, and meanwhile, IT I've always felt, and I do still feel it's the great

00:04:24: equalizer where people care more about your skill than anything else.

00:04:31: And anybody can make a name for themselves by learning and refining skills.

00:04:38: And nowadays I would argue that it's, it's pretty equitable if you have time

00:04:44: and an internet connection.

00:04:46: Now those two things aren't a hundred

00:04:48: percent equitable throughout the world, but

00:04:50: there's nothing stopping you from going to

00:04:53: Oracle and getting a free account or Azure

00:04:55: and getting a free account.

00:04:57: You could watch hundreds of millions of

00:04:59: hours of good content on YouTube.

00:05:02: You could go take the MIT open courseware.

00:05:04: Oh yeah.

00:05:05: I saw them.

00:05:05: That's great.

00:05:06: You could do Khan Academy.

00:05:07: You could just build stuff.

00:05:10: Right.

00:05:10: And so many people have gotten their start

00:05:13: doing that.

00:05:13: And I think that's when I started to veer more

00:05:17: towards the it trend.

00:05:19: Fast forward a little bit, good friend of mine

00:05:21: said, Hey, do you want to interview at Oracle?

00:05:24: Oh, great.

00:05:25: I was like, what does Oracle do?

00:05:27: Okay.

00:05:28: We had a, we had a Mac two at Aetna that

00:05:30: literally sat on a file cabinet.

00:05:32: That was the Oracle server.

00:05:34: Nobody could touch it.

00:05:35: Okay.

00:05:36: I would look at it cause I, I'm big Mac fan,

00:05:39: of course, and I, I want to use it, but I'm

00:05:42: not supposed to touch it.

00:05:42: So I never really knew what Oracle was.

00:05:45: Flew to DC, did my interview,

00:05:48: that a really, really efficient process.

00:05:50: The interview took two days.

00:05:52: And as you were leaving, they told you if you got the offer.

00:05:55: - Oh, great, yeah.

00:05:56: So you don't have to get home and wait for a result, right?

00:06:00: - Yep.

00:06:00: So I thought I did a good job.

00:06:03: Day one was more difficult.

00:06:05: Day two was kind of, we're gonna put you in groups

00:06:09: and make sure you're not a jerk.

00:06:10: 'Cause they already knew who they were gonna pick.

00:06:12: But if like you failed day two, you would

00:06:14: also fail day one.

00:06:15: And I remember getting that offer and it

00:06:17: was just floored.

00:06:18: Like it was a good amount of money, way

00:06:21: more than I was thinking I would get.

00:06:22: And my claim to fame that day is I drank

00:06:27: in four states that day.

00:06:29: Okay.

00:06:29: Which I don't think I've done before.

00:06:31: You drank.

00:06:32: Drank in four states.

00:06:33: Definitely had a beer in Maryland.

00:06:35: Cause my buddy who, you know, had me come

00:06:37: in, we had a beer at the office or right

00:06:38: outside the office in Bethesda.

00:06:40: Yeah.

00:06:40: Had a beer at national airport, which

00:06:42: is Virginia, had a beer on the flight.

00:06:45: And the way that I factored, I was over Pennsylvania

00:06:48: at the time.

00:06:49: So that counts as Pennsylvania.

00:06:51: Do you have a medal for that?

00:06:52: So kind of--

00:06:54: No, back then, you just said you did it.

00:06:56: And everybody believed you.

00:06:57: And they couldn't prove you wrong.

00:06:58: OK, so now it's on record.

00:07:00: So next time we will see you get a certificate for that,

00:07:03: I will take care of that.

00:07:04: OK, that'll be great.

00:07:05: Sure, sure.

00:07:06: And then obviously, New York, when I landed,

00:07:08: I had, let's just say, more than one alcohol beverage

00:07:10: that evening.

00:07:11: But it really changed the whole vector of my career,

00:07:16: because I had no idea what Oracle did.

00:07:18: And when we got there, they talked about,

00:07:21: we're doing media stuff now.

00:07:22: We're starting to stream video.

00:07:24: We're just getting into the web.

00:07:26: We're building our applications, and they're

00:07:28: going to be web-enabled.

00:07:29: It's like, oh, I know all this stuff.

00:07:30: I've been building systems on Fox Pro and Visual Basic

00:07:35: for a health care company.

00:07:36: This is easy.

00:07:37: And it really took off.

00:07:40: We had a six month training class called

00:07:42: class of, and they're doing class of now.

00:07:45: Like on, on boarding, right?

00:07:46: Yep.

00:07:47: Yeah.

00:07:47: So they, they put us up in, in Bethesda,

00:07:49: Maryland, and right away, they're like,

00:07:52: you're going to corporate, which was

00:07:54: Redwood Shores at the time.

00:07:55: So we spent, I think, a month and a half

00:07:57: in Redwood Shores, taking training and

00:08:01: building a project.

00:08:02: Okay.

00:08:03: Crazy, crazy, crazy time.

00:08:05: I mean, we worked hard.

00:08:07: We had a couple all-nighters, we got to

00:08:10: meet some of the local police officers one night.

00:08:13: They happened to be in the same neighborhood

00:08:14: that our hotel party was in.

00:08:16: They wanted to check in on us.

00:08:18: As long as you had parties, so everything

00:08:19: was nice, right?

00:08:20: That's right.

00:08:21: Yeah.

00:08:21: But it really like, it took off after that.

00:08:25: Right.

00:08:25: So I got more into the e-business suite side.

00:08:31: Mostly we'll say, well, while we're being

00:08:34: honest here, once we were out of the program,

00:08:37: they would spin us off to different States.

00:08:39: I wanted to do Cortek, but Cortek I think was New York City or Boston.

00:08:45: And I like both of those cities, but I was seeing somebody in Virginia.

00:08:49: Okay.

00:08:50: E-Business Suite was Virginia or Maryland, I guess.

00:08:53: So it was a decision based on not the technical part.

00:08:56: It was a little more of a personal decision.

00:08:59: So I don't regret it.

00:09:01: I learned a lot about how the apps worked and a lot about how the apps worked.

00:09:07: We'll leave it at that.

00:09:08: more importantly, the business side, right?

00:09:11: Like companies need these big systems, right?

00:09:15: They're going to have payables and receivables.

00:09:17: And by the way, what's a payable and what's

00:09:18: a receivable wasn't very good at accounting.

00:09:20: So I learned a lot of that, learn how to build

00:09:23: demos, learn how to most importantly present.

00:09:26: Yeah.

00:09:27: And, and sit down with customers.

00:09:29: Cause we were a sales team and we would have

00:09:30: to sit down and say, you know, what do you

00:09:33: need our system to do?

00:09:34: Oh, we need to do this, this, and this.

00:09:37: let me show you how we would do it.

00:09:38: So every day was different.

00:09:40: It was a lot of fun, long hours, like crazy

00:09:44: long hours.

00:09:45: You know, we used to joke, and this was true,

00:09:48: we would have dinner out of a vending machine

00:09:51: one night and at like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse

00:09:54: the next night.

00:09:54: Yeah.

00:09:54: Cause you would just work, work, work.

00:09:57: And then when you were done, if the sales

00:09:59: rep was any good, they'd take you somewhere

00:10:01: nice.

00:10:01: Oh right.

00:10:02: And then, you know, fly home and do it again

00:10:04: next week.

00:10:06: Sounds like a busy, busy time, right?

00:10:07: It was very busy.

00:10:09: And here's where the transition is.

00:10:11: I got asked to build a demo for a DOD customer

00:10:16: and the requirements were really weird.

00:10:19: They wanted to give away stuff to other

00:10:22: DOD military facilities.

00:10:25: So say I have a desk, it still works, but I

00:10:29: somehow got a new desk.

00:10:30: Okay.

00:10:31: I want to sort of put my desk out there.

00:10:34: So if someone else needs an extra desk, come

00:10:38: get it, right.

00:10:38: Maybe it's someone down the road, maybe it's

00:10:40: someone at a different base.

00:10:41: So they wanted me to build an iStore, Oracle

00:10:45: iStore app for this, but I'm like, there's no

00:10:47: money here.

00:10:47: No, no, it's all free.

00:10:49: And I'm like in the inventory, like you're

00:10:51: not, you don't have multiple items.

00:10:54: Everybody has their own item.

00:10:56: Maybe it's the same desk, but one's in Baltimore

00:10:58: and one's in Birmingham.

00:10:59: Yeah.

00:11:00: I'm like, you know, I'm going to try something

00:11:03: here.

00:11:04: So at the time I sat near my Kitra's office

00:11:08: and we would talk.

00:11:09: So it's obvious what happened then, yeah.

00:11:10: Yep.

00:11:11: Yep.

00:11:11: And they had this new tool called Oracle

00:11:14: Flows and I said, you know, your tool, it's

00:11:17: a web thing, right?

00:11:18: Oh yeah, yeah.

00:11:18: I was like, and you built the Oracle

00:11:19: calendar with it?

00:11:20: Yep.

00:11:21: Like, okay, here's the requirements.

00:11:24: We just have a customer, they want to

00:11:25: like give stuff away.

00:11:26: Could Oracle Flows do that?

00:11:28: Oh, totally.

00:11:29: So I built the demo, taught myself Flows

00:11:33: And it was, it was different than it was today.

00:11:36: A little, little more difficult to navigate

00:11:38: maneuver and had like two different portals.

00:11:42: I had like the buyer portal, the seller portal

00:11:44: was able to upload images.

00:11:46: Like here's a picture of a desk I'm located

00:11:49: here, boom.

00:11:51: Now it shows up as a saleable item.

00:11:52: Somebody claims it, emails are sent, they

00:11:55: arranged the transport of the, of the item.

00:11:57: Great.

00:11:57: Yeah.

00:11:58: Customer loved it.

00:11:59: And they said, what'd you build this in?

00:12:00: Oh, it's this tool we haven't released yet.

00:12:03: And I was done.

00:12:04: They're like, we can't do it.

00:12:05: Yeah.

00:12:06: Like, well, but it's perfect.

00:12:08: It's done.

00:12:08: Like you could take this code and it's 80%

00:12:11: of what you need.

00:12:12: Well, if it's not a supported tool, we're

00:12:14: not allowed to use it as the US military.

00:12:17: I'm like.

00:12:17: And then you get, my kids were to release it

00:12:21: to get this thing done.

00:12:23: Right.

00:12:23: It really, the feedback I gave Mike, I think

00:12:28: is what got Mike to say, there's two things

00:12:31: you could do.

00:12:31: you could leave me alone because you're

00:12:33: bothering me every day, or you could come work

00:12:36: for me and then you could do this all the time.

00:12:38: Yeah.

00:12:39: And at the time my team was at a juncture

00:12:41: where we were being pushed in like one or

00:12:44: two different directions, neither was very

00:12:47: interesting to me.

00:12:47: I want to think it was the old Oracle

00:12:50: collaboration suite was a product they wanted

00:12:53: us to sell.

00:12:53: I don't like it's email, I don't want to sell that.

00:12:56: Yeah.

00:12:56: And I talked to Mike, I talked to my manager,

00:12:59: they made the transfer and I became one of

00:13:01: the first product managers of what has become apex.

00:13:05: Oh, great. And which year was was that?

00:13:08: This was 2002, I believe. 2002.

00:13:12: Really, really early stage of what's known as apex now.

00:13:16: I mean, I want to say 20 years ago, but I don't want to say

00:13:18: it was 21 years ago.

00:13:22: Wow. Yeah, you will. You will not know what I did when I was

00:13:26: like 20 years ago, right? So I was not even thinking about the

00:13:29: stuff. All right so this was quite a story with this project which is basically what's

00:13:38: in Germany it's eBay like garage sale thing right so you have something here and I mean it was

00:13:45: years ago so there wasn't even eBay right on 2000 I think. Barely if there was. Yeah all right so

00:13:53: In this long journey, so you were at Apple, at Oracle for a couple of years then, right? And you visit Apex Evolving then, or HMLDB then, right?

00:14:04: It was wild, right? So, joined the team and it's still a very small team. I want to say it was like Mike Hichwa, Joel Coleman, of course, Raj Matamal, Sergio Lunasen.

00:14:17: all those people, obviously, not Joel, but Joel was still at Oracle. All those people are still at Oracle, right? So Mark Ziefs. That was the core team. Scott Spadafore was another one who unfortunately he passed away, I want to say maybe like 10 years ago, but that was the team that built Apex. And then most of them are still here.

00:14:37: Yeah. So you were in the product management, right? So were you developing actively on the framework? Or were you just managing?

00:14:44: We did a little development, but not a lot.

00:14:48: It was more, it was really like an outbound

00:14:51: product management role where, I'll never forget

00:14:55: the open world that we debuted HTMLDB at.

00:14:58: It was 2003, we launched it in conjunction with Oracle 10G.

00:15:04: We were in the basement of the Marriott,

00:15:09: and if you've ever been there out in San Francisco,

00:15:11: you go down a level, then you go down another level,

00:15:13: And it's that big long haul.

00:15:15: The line to see our spreadsheet upload demo

00:15:19: stretched the entire duration of that haul.

00:15:23: Yeah.

00:15:23: It was insane.

00:15:25: We must have, the three of us have did that

00:15:27: demo a hundred times that night.

00:15:29: Standing room only, there'd be a group of like

00:15:32: 20 people all huddled together, click, upload,

00:15:35: next, show the table, build an app.

00:15:38: Now I'm editing it in HTMLDB.

00:15:39: It was just blowing people's minds.

00:15:42: - And then 20 people out of the room, the next 20, right?

00:15:44: - Next 20 came in.

00:15:45: I'll never forget, I was so hungry

00:15:48: because we literally went from like session,

00:15:50: the session, the session to this OTN at the time,

00:15:53: the Oracle Technology Network Night event.

00:15:56: I hadn't eaten lunch that day.

00:15:58: So it was like 8.30.

00:16:00: I just grabbed somebody's badge

00:16:02: and I literally walked to the front of the food line.

00:16:04: I said, "I'm with Oracle.

00:16:05: I just need a slice of pizza right now."

00:16:07: And they were like, "Oh, you must be a port.

00:16:09: Here you go."

00:16:11: And then get right back to demoing, right?

00:16:12: Because it was--

00:16:13: I mean, that's the way to do it.

00:16:14: Yeah.

00:16:14: Otherwise, there would be no Scott Spanielini for that day,

00:16:17: right?

00:16:17: That's right.

00:16:18: All right.

00:16:19: So right after that, you did a journey

00:16:22: through some different companies.

00:16:24: So we don't have to be in detail on that one.

00:16:27: But I'm very interested what was the funniest story you

00:16:31: can tell about inside a project, maybe during the time

00:16:34: when you were not at Oracle, I think.

00:16:36: You can talk about that, right?

00:16:37: I need to think of a funny story.

00:16:39: Funny, funny or yeah, maybe something bad happened

00:16:44: or something special.

00:16:45: I mean, you have so many years in experience.

00:16:48: Go ahead and tell us a story.

00:16:49: Let me think of something funny first.

00:16:52: I got a good one.

00:16:55: Okay.

00:16:55: Hopefully we don't have, well, it's PG.

00:16:58: So I'm finishing a session and I was an ace at the time.

00:17:03: And someone had a question like they always do, right?

00:17:06: So we're chatting and I'm looking at my watch

00:17:08: and I'm in like, I wanna say I was in the Marriott

00:17:10: and I had to go all the way over to the Sofitel.

00:17:14: So it's like a 20 minute walk.

00:17:16: And I have like 30 minutes to do the walk

00:17:18: to get to my next session.

00:17:20: So I look at the guy and I'm like,

00:17:22: look, I really wanna keep talking to you,

00:17:24: but I need to start walking towards Sofitel.

00:17:26: I'm happy if you're going in that direction

00:17:29: to continue the conversation.

00:17:31: And he said, sure, yeah, I could go that way.

00:17:33: So we're walking through the hall

00:17:34: and we get to the restroom.

00:17:36: And I said, "Let me stop here real quick.

00:17:38: I'll be right back."

00:17:39: And I walk in and he was standing right behind me.

00:17:42: (laughing)

00:17:43: - Oh, he wanted really to-

00:17:45: - I'm like, "Whoa."

00:17:46: (laughing)

00:17:47: And he's like, "Oh, I'm just waiting."

00:17:48: I'm like, "Oh, here?"

00:17:50: - Oh God.

00:17:51: So he was really into it.

00:17:52: - He was into it.

00:17:53: He didn't wanna miss a beat.

00:17:54: And I just wanted like 30 seconds, but you know, I'd-

00:17:58: - He was just thinking you were sneaking away, right?

00:18:00: So he just wanted to take care of-

00:18:01: - I'm not sure what he was thinking.

00:18:02: - Oh boy.

00:18:03: - I hope he's not listening.

00:18:04: And if you are, I'm sorry,

00:18:05: but there was a personal space thing that--

00:18:08: - Sure, of course. - I just needed my minute, right?

00:18:09: - Yeah, exactly.

00:18:10: - But anyway, I still laugh about that to this day

00:18:12: 'cause it was just kind of bizarre.

00:18:15: - Okay, I write it down as a note,

00:18:17: not following Scott Spandolini till the rest of the--

00:18:19: - Yeah, yeah, please let me-- - Okay, all right, all right.

00:18:21: - Let me do my thing, right?

00:18:22: - Great, awesome, now,

00:18:24: the worst you experienced in the project?

00:18:27: - Oh, I had a customer,

00:18:29: and I won't say their name, of course,

00:18:32: decide not to pay a rather large sum of money

00:18:35: that I owed a subcontractor.

00:18:36: Um, fortunately, and here's some advice.

00:18:40: If you have your own business or even if

00:18:41: you don't save all your emails, um, I was able

00:18:45: to go through and talk to their legal department

00:18:48: and basically show them me saying, I'm not

00:18:52: comfortable extending the work without a contract.

00:18:56: Them saying, don't worry, you have our word.

00:18:59: Me saying, I prefer you sign paper.

00:19:03: them saying, "We will, we just need you to start today."

00:19:07: Me saying, "I'm not comfortable,

00:19:09: but if it's that urgent, I'll do it."

00:19:11: So having all that documentation,

00:19:13: they said, "We're not gonna pay you,

00:19:14: you should have done the work,"

00:19:15: and I forwarded it all to their attorney,

00:19:18: and luckily they did make good on the payment.

00:19:20: - Oh great, yeah.

00:19:21: I mean, it has something to do with trust, right?

00:19:23: So you can start a project early

00:19:26: and even without the paperwork,

00:19:27: but you have to trust each other.

00:19:29: - Absolutely.

00:19:30: And it's funny that I've had a couple other non-payment issues in my career,

00:19:34: always the big companies. I had a small company, it was one guy,

00:19:38: he would, that,

00:19:39: that check would arrive like clockwork on the first of the month. Handwritten,

00:19:44: hand stamped on the envelope.

00:19:46: It's your own money. It's your own money. You're taking care of that, right?

00:19:48: Big companies might just put it into the chain and then forget it.

00:19:52: Yeah, exactly.

00:19:54: Yeah. I made this, this experience too.

00:19:56: So I was expecting a story like you did in RM minus F on star, like on root or something.

00:20:03: I'm trying to think if I ever did that. I probably have and just blocked it mentally.

00:20:09: Oh, I was a kid when I did it, but that that doesn't count.

00:20:14: It was a long as you did it with Oracle. I don't know.

00:20:16: It was FileMaker Pro. We won't go into that one because that one.

00:20:20: Okay.

00:20:21: That one was definitely interesting.

00:20:23: Yeah. So yeah, I mean, there are a couple of companies you were in between. So you had always

00:20:29: like management role, I think. So you had an own company, I saw, or at least the co-founder, right?

00:20:35: So Sumner, Sumner?

00:20:37: Yeah. So Sumner, when I left Oracle, I founded Sumner Technologies. Then I brought Doug Galt

00:20:44: aboard and we were co-owners of Sumner. Sumner was us working with Dimitri Gilles and John Scott.

00:20:52: So it was more of like a marketing relationship that we had. It lasted for a little while,

00:20:57: we kind of had our differences and we decided to just sort of retract that and go back our

00:21:01: own separate ways. It was interesting. I think it had some potential, but I think if you look at

00:21:06: the four people in that company, each one is tremendously successful in their own right. So

00:21:13: maybe we just couldn't do it together. We all had to sort of go our own ways to get it done.

00:21:18: I mean, it is kind of a callback when you said in the TV business, so it's basically a very great thing to have this vitamin B, to have someone in the network who is bringing you stuff or like a job or something.

00:21:33: And I think this is getting in the same in the IT, not you have to know someone to get somewhere in, but you have a very strong network. And that's the reason why we're speaking right now.

00:21:43: Yeah, I'm not. As I said in the intro, I just catch you on the floor outside,

00:21:48: right? No, it was the way that I was just reaching out the network I'm already in

00:21:52: or almost in in certain places. And I'm just asking people right. And when I hear

00:21:57: that you did business with so many different guys from the community, and

00:22:02: they are all successful right now, and we are still one big community is still a

00:22:06: strong factor, I think. So if you're getting into this network, you will not

00:22:10: have ever a problem to get a job or something, right?

00:22:14: - I can't say how critical networking is.

00:22:18: And events like this, I'm so happy they're back,

00:22:22: are really the best place to do that.

00:22:25: And I encourage people,

00:22:27: I talk to people a lot about careers

00:22:28: and how do you get your name out?

00:22:30: How do you become good at what you do?

00:22:33: Start small, start at your local user group.

00:22:37: They are starved for content typically.

00:22:40: You're not going to get paid.

00:22:41: Yeah.

00:22:41: Sure.

00:22:42: Not going to go anywhere exotic, right?

00:22:44: Sometimes they're, they're doing their

00:22:45: sessions out of the Oracle office or out

00:22:47: of someone who has an office or has

00:22:49: access to it, but it gets you the

00:22:52: credibility and you start to build your

00:22:54: network, you talk to people, you laugh,

00:22:56: you joke, you tell stories, you learn

00:22:58: from one another, those relationships,

00:23:01: as long as you maintain them, it's

00:23:03: pretty easy to do that these days.

00:23:05: They could last a lifetime.

00:23:06: Yeah.

00:23:07: And it could be in the right situation

00:23:08: where you need a job or need some new things to do.

00:23:12: So you went from your own company

00:23:15: to a quite big company like Enkitech, right?

00:23:18: Like Accenture Enkitech.

00:23:20: Enkitech was small-ish, 150 people, I think,

00:23:24: when we got bought by Accenture.

00:23:25: That's-- yeah, all right.

00:23:27: Here's a funny story from Enkitech.

00:23:28: Yes.

00:23:30: So this one's pretty good.

00:23:31: We got acquired by Accenture, obviously.

00:23:34: And part of that was the HR onboarding.

00:23:37: So Accenture has their own process, which

00:23:40: typically they said was a three day training

00:23:43: class.

00:23:43: And the woman was very flustered because she

00:23:46: said, I've been given three hours with this

00:23:49: group to cover three days of material.

00:23:51: And of course we all groaned cause it's

00:23:53: like three hours we got to sit here for.

00:23:56: Sure.

00:23:56: Can we do it in two or one?

00:23:57: So they were going through the office and,

00:24:03: you know, looking at the facilities, like, so

00:24:06: there's a lock on the door.

00:24:08: Uh huh.

00:24:08: And it was one of those locks, like a

00:24:11: combo lock when you press the buttons, but it

00:24:13: only had five numbers and everybody knew the

00:24:17: combination.

00:24:18: Yeah, sure.

00:24:18: Right.

00:24:19: Yeah.

00:24:19: So like, what's the combination?

00:24:21: How many digits is it?

00:24:22: We're like three.

00:24:22: And like, so we could probably brute force

00:24:25: that in an hour.

00:24:26: I'm like, this guy's daughter brute

00:24:27: forced it in three minutes.

00:24:29: We got to change that.

00:24:31: Yeah.

00:24:32: got to be like a badge reader with audit

00:24:34: logs and compliance and, and, you know, what

00:24:38: kind of shredder is that?

00:24:39: Right.

00:24:39: They're now they're in like one of the offices,

00:24:41: like, I don't know, we got it at Staples or

00:24:43: Home Depot or wherever you get shredders.

00:24:45: Well, the cross cut is less than two inches.

00:24:48: Right.

00:24:48: Okay.

00:24:49: So it was more like an assessment thing, right?

00:24:51: So, okay.

00:24:53: It was so painful, but we had a lot of fun,

00:24:54: just like, oh, well, you know, my experience

00:24:57: with one inch cross cuts is not very good.

00:24:59: That's why we went with two.

00:25:00: Okay.

00:25:01: [LAUGHS]

00:25:02: They got a little--

00:25:03: that this guy was there for business and us being who we

00:25:06: were.

00:25:07: Of course, yeah.

00:25:08: It's a cross-cut strider, buddy.

00:25:09: Whatever.

00:25:10: Yeah, you can't read it, right?

00:25:11: But if there's some rule to have it like smaller pieces--

00:25:16: I don't know.

00:25:17: It was a rule.

00:25:18: Yeah.

00:25:19: So then you went over to Viscosity, a well-known company

00:25:23: here in America.

00:25:24: Yeah, so after Accenture took over Incotec--

00:25:30: It's probably there like eight months, give or

00:25:32: take it just Accenture looks at big, big

00:25:36: projects, right?

00:25:37: Like they're, you know, anything less than a

00:25:39: million dollars, um, they're probably not

00:25:42: going to chase.

00:25:43: Apex projects could be 50 K a hundred K, right?

00:25:47: Small, quick hit.

00:25:48: Like we could do that for you in a month and

00:25:51: it just, they would lose money on that level

00:25:55: of agility.

00:25:56: So it just wasn't what we thought it would

00:25:58: be.

00:25:59: Okay. So you totally merged. So when

00:26:01: Accenture bought Ankitek, they just, you

00:26:04: merged completely in. So you were not able

00:26:06: to do your own business still, right? So.

00:26:08: Right. Now Ankitek also had, you know, some

00:26:10: of the best Exadata folks and that was

00:26:13: the meat of the deal is, is they wanted to

00:26:16: get ahead in the Exadata space, you know,

00:26:18: so Kerry Osborne and that whole crew of

00:26:21: that, that worked with the Exadata was what

00:26:23: they were most interested in. So we spun

00:26:25: off, you know, it was, it was amicable. I

00:26:28: went back and did my own thing for a while and

00:26:31: then joined up with Viscosity, I want to say

00:26:33: it was 2018 or so.

00:26:35: Yeah, June 2018.

00:26:37: There you go.

00:26:37: Right.

00:26:38: So that was like right at a K-scope, I think

00:26:41: that might've been the Orlando K-scope in 2018.

00:26:44: Yeah.

00:26:44: They actually moved me from Virginia to Austin.

00:26:48: It was one of the regrets I had with Ancotech.

00:26:51: So Ancotech was headquartered in Dallas.

00:26:53: Okay.

00:26:54: And they offered to move me and I just didn't

00:26:56: want to at the time. Like I liked where I was,

00:26:59: wasn't ready to make the move. Um, and being remote,

00:27:03: just like you were never at the table, you know,

00:27:06: and it was good because Doug was there and Doug and I,

00:27:09: you know, have been friends forever and you know,

00:27:11: he would keep me posted. But if, if carrier Wade,

00:27:14: the other owner would, would say like, Hey, I got an idea.

00:27:17: I wouldn't be involved in that. It would just be Doug.

00:27:20: So I decided, all right,

00:27:22: I want to be closer to the company and talk to my wife.

00:27:26: and she had just got a job offer at Inova

00:27:28: Fairfax Hospital as a trainer for Epic Software.

00:27:32: And she said, "No, I want to change too,

00:27:35: let's do it."

00:27:36: Great, yeah.

00:27:37: We took a risk and we moved out to Austin

00:27:39: and very different world and very different

00:27:43: everything.

00:27:43: The kids, I thought it would go the other

00:27:45: way around.

00:27:46: I thought my son would be happy and my

00:27:47: daughter would be miserable.

00:27:48: It sort of initially flipped, but now they've

00:27:52: both found their own little cruise and they're

00:27:54: pretty happy there.

00:27:55: Oh, that's great, yeah.

00:27:55: So then you stayed at in, in, in Austin, right?

00:27:58: Yep.

00:27:58: For like two years.

00:27:59: I'm still in Austin.

00:28:00: Oh, you're still in Austin, but not for

00:28:02: viscosity, obviously.

00:28:03: Right.

00:28:03: Right.

00:28:03: Yeah.

00:28:03: So you went back to Oregon, that's where

00:28:06: the journey begins again.

00:28:08: That's right.

00:28:08: In the, in the team, right?

00:28:09: So tell me, tell me what's, what's

00:28:11: happening in round two.

00:28:12: So pandemic, right?

00:28:15: It's February and things are starting to get

00:28:18: kind of dicey and I'm talking with Shaquib and

00:28:22: Joel and Doug, you know, over, over text message and stuff.

00:28:26: And they're telling me about like, Oh, these, these big things happen in here.

00:28:29: We're building these systems.

00:28:31: We had a call with, you know, the head of FDA, the head of the CDC, Larry, you

00:28:35: know, all these doctors and I'm like, you guys need help.

00:28:39: And, and I'll never forget like reaching out to Joel and Joel was like, come on

00:28:45: back.

00:28:46: It's like, I think it's time.

00:28:48: Right.

00:28:49: Welcome home.

00:28:49: I just, I couldn't not get involved to help

00:28:52: them do what they were doing 'cause they needed

00:28:54: all the help they can get.

00:28:55: Sure.

00:28:56: And you know, there's only one Shaquille

00:28:58: Bear, right?

00:28:59: There's only one Doug.

00:28:59: They needed people 'cause there were multiple

00:29:02: pandemic projects.

00:29:03: I mean, it started out with just one, and

00:29:06: quite honestly, the first one, they did a ton

00:29:08: of work and it never took off, but the second

00:29:11: and the third and the fourth and the fifth

00:29:12: and the sixth one all did.

00:29:14: So that's how I went back.

00:29:16: It was weird because the office is closed.

00:29:20: - Yeah, everything was locked down, right?

00:29:22: - Yeah, I'm sitting at the same desk on the same computer,

00:29:25: but now I'm an Oracle employee again.

00:29:26: - Yeah, yeah, it feels weird, right?

00:29:28: - It was very, very surreal.

00:29:30: It's still surreal.

00:29:31: - Every job changed during the pandemic.

00:29:33: I heard from many people, like, yeah, same place,

00:29:37: same day, other people, but yeah,

00:29:39: just wearing the red shirt then, right?

00:29:42: - Yeah.

00:29:42: - Yeah, so what is your daily job right now?

00:29:45: So the pandemic is obviously, I mean,

00:29:47: you can tell that it is almost over, I think.

00:29:51: So we don't have any big deal, right?

00:29:53: - The emergency orders have all been lifted here in the US.

00:29:56: I think one person in the entire airport had a mask on

00:30:00: and that's fine, that's a personal choice.

00:30:02: And there's people that weren't before too.

00:30:04: So, but so the pandemic hit, we worked crazy, crazy hours.

00:30:09: I rolled over to a different role in January

00:30:14: where we were working with a brand new, what's

00:30:17: called the global business unit.

00:30:18: So in Oracle, you have Larry and Safra,

00:30:21: they're both peers, right?

00:30:23: Yeah.

00:30:23: Safra owns most of sales, all the ops, and

00:30:29: this thing called the global business units.

00:30:31: GBUs, global business units are typically

00:30:34: acquisitions.

00:30:35: So for instance, Oracle micros, if you've

00:30:39: eaten at this hotel, it's an Oracle micros

00:30:41: property that's owned by Oracle and run almost as

00:30:45: a separate little mini company inside Oracle.

00:30:48: There's about 10 different GBUs.

00:30:51: Now Larry owns OCI and e-business suite and

00:30:54: database.

00:30:55: So you go up the chain and over, depending on

00:30:59: what part of the company that you're in.

00:31:01: So we were going to start a new GBU that was

00:31:05: doing public safety applications and they're

00:31:09: still doing it and we're still working with it,

00:31:11: but they had some pretty terse, pretty difficult

00:31:17: to achieve requirements for Apex.

00:31:19: Okay.

00:31:20: And, and this is very, you know, it's

00:31:22: interesting and I like to think I, I, I

00:31:24: made the right call here.

00:31:25: After learning the specifics of what we

00:31:28: had to do, I started saying like, maybe

00:31:32: Apex isn't your, your best answer here.

00:31:34: Um, one of the systems we wanted to build

00:31:37: was a device running inside a police car.

00:31:42: Oh, all right.

00:31:43: Right.

00:31:43: So they wanted, and they ended up using

00:31:45: Android tablets with a native app, which

00:31:47: is the right answer, but they wanted Apex

00:31:50: to run and have offline capabilities, to

00:31:53: have local caching capabilities, to also

00:31:57: be able to do turn by turn navigation.

00:31:59: Okay.

00:32:00: Like if there was just one of those

00:32:02: three things, I might've said, let's

00:32:04: give it a shot, but all three of those

00:32:07: things, it would just be super, super difficult to implement

00:32:12: with with the state of the art of where apex is today.

00:32:15: I think I think that we will go this journey definitely not at

00:32:19: that point where you needed it. But I think we are exactly in

00:32:21: this path because offline capabilities. There are a couple

00:32:24: of talks on this conference here about offline capabilities. And

00:32:27: when someone Oh, is very intense working on PWAs, location

00:32:31: services coming from where turn to turn or side, turn by turn

00:32:35: and directions could be possible to access.

00:32:38: So I think in a couple of months or years,

00:32:41: we will be able to achieve almost everything.

00:32:45: We can now with Android and so on, right?

00:32:48: - I agree, we're headed in that direction,

00:32:49: but don't forget this was early, early 2021.

00:32:53: None of it was there.

00:32:53: PWAs barely existed if they did exist then.

00:32:56: - Yeah, it's nothing for production, right?

00:32:59: So we were talking about offline capabilities of Apex

00:33:01: for the last like six years, I guess.

00:33:04: but it was not so mature that you can use it.

00:33:07: - Right, right.

00:33:08: - All right, so you're working now after this.

00:33:13: - Yeah, so as a result of that,

00:33:16: they were talking about forming a central Apex team

00:33:19: that would work across all the different GBUs.

00:33:22: And I felt awful, like I had a new boss,

00:33:24: they brought in somebody, you know,

00:33:25: in between me and the GM who ran the GBU.

00:33:28: And my first one-on-one call with him was,

00:33:31: "I want out."

00:33:32: I mean, and he's like, "What?"

00:33:33: And I explained everything and he was like, okay, I get it.

00:33:36: I get it.

00:33:37: So we took some of the team and formed this brand new team, um,

00:33:44: called GBU ACE, right?

00:33:45: It was a little nod of the cap to the ACE program, but ACE there

00:33:49: stands for Apex Central Engineering.

00:33:51: Oh, what a coincidence.

00:33:53: It was not a coincidence.

00:33:54: It was, we got a really cool logo.

00:33:58: Uh, the Apex team whipped up for us.

00:34:00: Um, I'll try to share it, but it's, it's very slick.

00:34:03: It's like the Redwood version of an ace and

00:34:05: it's got the ace, the ace symbol there.

00:34:08: So I like it.

00:34:10: It just rolls off the tongue and it, that's

00:34:12: why I could still carry my ace director bag

00:34:15: around.

00:34:15: Yeah.

00:34:15: So we've, we've grown from that time.

00:34:18: I think we were six people, we're 74, 75

00:34:22: people now building.

00:34:24: Today I would say we've got about 15 to 20

00:34:27: projects in various stages of development.

00:34:30: Some are early, we're still doing POCs, we're

00:34:32: still working through it.

00:34:34: Others are live, and we're in V2, V3 type mode on those,

00:34:39: and then pretty much every phase in between.

00:34:42: Are the other guys from the team we're working in

00:34:48: are also active in social media and the Oracle APEX community?

00:34:52: So I'm not sure if I met some one of them.

00:34:55: A lot of them aren't.

00:34:57: I'm trying to think of any--

00:34:59: like Tim St. Hilaire works for me now.

00:35:01: he has been active in the past.

00:35:04: I don't know if he's too, too active now.

00:35:06: I do see him on LinkedIn more than anywhere

00:35:08: else.

00:35:08: Um, yeah, most of them aren't.

00:35:12: And that's, that was the fascinating part

00:35:15: is during the whole pandemic run up, we all

00:35:19: went out to friends and family, right?

00:35:20: It was, you know, grab anybody we could that

00:35:23: we knew in the community.

00:35:25: Well, that wore off cause you know, either

00:35:27: we hired everybody or people we couldn't hire,

00:35:30: we couldn't hire for whatever reason.

00:35:33: So we had to go looking deeper.

00:35:35: And man, there are some rock stars out there.

00:35:37: I mean, we brought a few people on the team that never heard

00:35:41: their name.

00:35:42: Like, didn't even hear the companies that they worked for.

00:35:45: And interviewing was like, oh, yeah, I

00:35:47: built Apex applications on top of E-Business Suite.

00:35:50: We've got 45 apps in production.

00:35:52: It integrates with Kerberos and this and this.

00:35:55: But not interested in sharing knowledge and participate

00:35:57: in the community, right?

00:35:58: I don't know if they weren't interested.

00:36:00: I, maybe they just didn't know about it or, or,

00:36:03: you know, maybe to be fair, they just didn't

00:36:04: want to, I, it's not a skill everybody has.

00:36:08: Yeah.

00:36:08: But I was grateful that we found these folks

00:36:11: cause you know, some of them have just really

00:36:13: risen as, you know, they're as capable as

00:36:16: the people who are at this conference here

00:36:18: doing presentations.

00:36:19: And I'd love to see them get out of their

00:36:21: shell a little bit, maybe blog a little bit

00:36:23: and perhaps go and do some of the local stuff.

00:36:26: Um, budget wise, it's tough.

00:36:29: we don't really get a big travel budget

00:36:31: because we're all remote.

00:36:32: So it's difficult to have them go out to a cloud world

00:36:35: or a case.

00:36:36: - Yeah, sure.

00:36:37: Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty big investment then, yeah?

00:36:40: - Yeah. - Right, yeah.

00:36:41: So yeah, we don't have that much time left.

00:36:44: I'm sorry, so maybe we do--

00:36:45: - And it's flown by.

00:36:46: I feel like I've only been here like 10 minutes.

00:36:48: - Yeah, yeah, it ran just, yeah, it flew by.

00:36:51: So I have a couple of questions from our categories.

00:36:53: So this is something we do in almost every episode

00:36:58: of "Devs on Tape" to make it somehow comparable

00:37:02: to other guests we already welcomed on our podcast.

00:37:05: So we start with the hypothetically category.

00:37:09: So if you could undo one technological trend in the past,

00:37:13: what would it be?

00:37:14: It could be everything.

00:37:15: It could be electrical cars.

00:37:17: It could be ventilators on hats or whatever.

00:37:21: - Ventilators on hats.

00:37:22: No, I think that's a good invention.

00:37:24: We all should have that.

00:37:25: And all of a sudden you need that.

00:37:27: I want to say AI, but I'm worried that AI will get me.

00:37:29: If I say AI, so I won't.

00:37:32: Might be indexed in the podcast, and they will get you.

00:37:35: So not AI, right, AI?

00:37:37: I'm going to say self-checkout lanes at stores,

00:37:41: like Target, grocery stores, and stuff.

00:37:44: I think you need to have a certification to use those.

00:37:47: You should swipe your card, and you'd

00:37:48: have to have proven you could do it.

00:37:51: Yeah, you need a certification or somehow a rank on your shirt

00:37:56: so you're allowed to do that?

00:37:57: - Right, and not take 30 minutes to do it, right?

00:37:59: - Yeah, okay.

00:38:00: - So we'll go with that one.

00:38:01: - Yeah, right, so the exact opposite.

00:38:04: So hypothetically, what would you like to invent

00:38:07: or create in the technology sector?

00:38:09: - Oh, this one's easy, AI for Outlook.

00:38:13: So I do a lot of meetings, way too many,

00:38:16: and there ought to be some AI that shows

00:38:21: that I have 15 calls with no breaks

00:38:25: and proposes a better way.

00:38:28: Like, "Hey, when are you gonna eat?

00:38:30: "Hey, when are you gonna go to the restroom?

00:38:32: "Hey, when are you gonna get a break?"

00:38:35: And is able to understand, like, these are recurring calls,

00:38:37: make 'em 20 minutes instead of 30.

00:38:40: These are calls that happen infrequently,

00:38:41: they're very important.

00:38:43: The people on the call are important,

00:38:45: they're hard to get ahold of, don't move this one.

00:38:47: So as people add stuff to my calendar,

00:38:49: AI should be able to shuffle and move.

00:38:52: This sounds for me more like a feature request for Apex ideas,

00:38:56: so we can access calendars over the--

00:38:58: Sure.

00:38:59: I think you can do it with OData Connector,

00:39:02: maybe, to access the Office stuff.

00:39:04: And then you can--

00:39:05: oh, I'm already in implementation.

00:39:07: There you go.

00:39:07: Writing a concept.

00:39:08: Grab your laptop.

00:39:08: We'll build it over.

00:39:10: Great.

00:39:10: For next conference, we will present it.

00:39:12: I'm in it.

00:39:12: I'm full in.

00:39:13: So yeah, most of the time, we are

00:39:16: going through some very, very hypothetical thing.

00:39:21: what would you invent like something

00:39:24: which isn't even possible.

00:39:25: But I think AI and the office suite is coming.

00:39:30: It's already coming, right?

00:39:31: - I know, but it's gotta be good.

00:39:33: - Exactly what you said.

00:39:33: - Right. - Yeah, exactly.

00:39:34: - Like if you double book me,

00:39:35: it should delete three of your emails,

00:39:37: not tell you which ones.

00:39:38: - Yeah, I read that.

00:39:39: You posted that, I think somewhere, right?

00:39:42: - I'm strongly in favor of that feature.

00:39:44: - Yeah, you have to be sanctioned

00:39:47: when something like this happens.

00:39:50: All right, so next category is in private.

00:39:54: - Okay, oh boy.

00:39:55: - Yeah.

00:39:57: Would you show us your screen time on the iPhone

00:39:59: without blushing?

00:40:00: - Yeah, I would.

00:40:02: - Yeah, so you're-- - I'd do anything.

00:40:03: - You're no smarmy, right?

00:40:05: - No. - So like every day,

00:40:06: all day on the screen, not even socializing

00:40:10: because, all right.

00:40:11: - It's gonna be very different when Apollo dies

00:40:14: from Reddit later this week, I think.

00:40:17: It'll go way down, which I think is good.

00:40:20: I'll spend a little more time on that.

00:40:21: It might come back.

00:40:22: It might come back.

00:40:23: We usually don't talk about things

00:40:27: that are currently happening, because we don't know when

00:40:29: this episode will be out.

00:40:31: But in this case, I think that it's coming back.

00:40:34: So even if this episode will be like back in the future,

00:40:39: will be released then, then there might be something else.

00:40:42: But I'm guessing now that it's coming back,

00:40:44: because no one will use Reddit if the API

00:40:48: fees will be that high.

00:40:49: - I hope so.

00:40:50: - And the moderators are now saying

00:40:53: that they won't work anymore if this is the case, right?

00:40:56: - But I'll be honest,

00:40:57: I never installed Facebook on my phone.

00:41:01: It's a good thing.

00:41:02: I still have it on my iPad.

00:41:03: I can still look at it occasionally,

00:41:05: but it eliminated that need to see stuff.

00:41:09: And it's gotten so bad.

00:41:11: It's just ad, ad, ad.

00:41:13: Person I don't really know, but somehow posts a lot.

00:41:16: - Yeah. - Ad, ad, ad.

00:41:17: - First name, first name, eight digit number.

00:41:20: - Yeah. - What's the video from?

00:41:21: Yeah, funny things. - Exactly.

00:41:23: And it's just a waste of time, right?

00:41:25: Someone said to me, and it really rang true,

00:41:28: like if you took your social media time

00:41:30: and actually read books, how much smarter would you be?

00:41:32: - Yeah. - Like, yeah,

00:41:33: that's a good point, but I wouldn't see like a cat

00:41:35: jumping off a chair and landing on its head or something.

00:41:39: - They can be very cute. - They can.

00:41:40: (both laughing)

00:41:42: That's what Insta Reels are for though.

00:41:43: - Or TikTok. - Yeah.

00:41:45: All right, next question in private.

00:41:47: Are you satisfied with your work-life balance currently?

00:41:51: - I do strive to carve out time,

00:41:56: whether it's family, whether it's me.

00:41:59: As you get older, your kids are getting older

00:42:02: and they're gonna go away soon and go to college

00:42:05: and trying to spend more time with them.

00:42:08: Weekends, I really do unplug.

00:42:10: I will read email.

00:42:12: I may tinker, right?

00:42:13: I don't get a lot of development time during the week.

00:42:15: So I may tinker with stuff or ideas or, Hey,

00:42:18: you know what, I need a report on our project

00:42:20: tracking app.

00:42:20: I'm just going to do it so I can keep my skills

00:42:22: fresh.

00:42:23: Um, but yeah, you've got a balance, you know,

00:42:26: of course I could do better.

00:42:27: I think a lot of it is, you know,

00:42:29: being on calls all day, it's five 36 o'clock.

00:42:32: Shakiba and I used to call it the pandemic

00:42:34: second shift starts, right?

00:42:35: When you actually do the work, you're done

00:42:38: with all the calls.

00:42:39: So let's get to the work, but.

00:42:41: Yeah.

00:42:42: I mean, as long as you're satisfied with

00:42:44: that or you don't have to hassle with work, right?

00:42:48: So you can even work more hours if it's like fun

00:42:51: or something necessary to do.

00:42:53: But if it's okay for you, great, right?

00:42:55: Why the change?

00:42:56: - It's tricky 'cause I have teams in Australia.

00:42:58: So I do have to put in late hours sometimes.

00:43:02: And the team is pretty large.

00:43:03: If there's a problem,

00:43:04: it's gonna bubble up to me at some point.

00:43:06: So that's why weekends, like, don't bother me.

00:43:09: Stuff's gotta be really on fire on the weekend.

00:43:12: And I tell the team the same thing.

00:43:13: I really want people to shut off at 5, 36 o'clock,

00:43:17: whatever their end of the day is, and decompress.

00:43:20: Otherwise, they burn out.

00:43:21: And then--

00:43:22: Yeah, it's very important to make sure that this happens

00:43:25: and you don't just look away, right?

00:43:27: OK, last category now, consumption.

00:43:31: How do you consume news and new knowledge?

00:43:34: Do you read newsletters, Twitter, books, magazines,

00:43:37: or even the "Devs on Tape" podcast?

00:43:39: I've listened to the podcast a couple of times.

00:43:41: Most of my news probably comes from either

00:43:46: Twitter or Reddit, believe it or not.

00:43:48: We used to watch the local news in the morning.

00:43:52: So we'd wake up like six ish.

00:43:54: I don't know why, like we've migrated to this

00:43:59: smaller room that has, it's a little cozier

00:44:01: in the morning.

00:44:02: We grab our coffee and we just kind of sit

00:44:04: on our devices and go through stuff.

00:44:06: So I don't miss it because there's never

00:44:10: anything critical there.

00:44:12: And between Reddit and like the Apple News app,

00:44:15: which is okay, there's a lot of garbage

00:44:18: that I kind of keep shuffling out.

00:44:20: I think I'm pretty up to date on that.

00:44:23: Now, obviously like media consumption's a huge, huge thing.

00:44:27: And I was listening to a podcast,

00:44:29: This Week in Tech a couple of weeks ago,

00:44:31: and they were talking about how like media literacy

00:44:35: is such a critical skill that so few people

00:44:39: have.

00:44:39: Yeah.

00:44:39: You've really got to understand where is

00:44:44: this story coming from?

00:44:45: Who's the source?

00:44:46: What's the ulterior motive?

00:44:48: Exactly.

00:44:48: Because there is one.

00:44:49: And then go see if you could find other

00:44:52: supporting stories.

00:44:54: So probably one of my proudest parental

00:44:55: moments, it was back in 2020, early 2020,

00:45:00: when Kobe Bryant tragically passed away

00:45:03: with the helicopter crash.

00:45:05: I didn't get the alert on my phone, but I got a text from my daughter saying, "Oh my God, Kobe died."

00:45:12: And I wrote back because we had just gone through this, "Okay, you can't trust Instagram. People post crazy stuff."

00:45:20: "No, dad, I checked ESPN.com and I checked CNN.com and both of them are reporting it."

00:45:27: And I was like, "Wow."

00:45:28: That's media competence, right?

00:45:30: So the next generation is really growing up with that.

00:45:33: that. So it's just the generation, I would say the generation before my generation,

00:45:38: they are through or has been thrown in this, the social media and this, um, yeah,

00:45:45: over overhelming news, um, thing.

00:45:47: It's non-stop, right?

00:45:48: Right. They read it on Facebook. You, you said it right there. Some accounts on

00:45:52: Facebook, they're just posting it. They read it and they just keep it for real.

00:45:56: And they don't know how to evaluate that. And that an information can come from

00:46:02: like five different sites with five different reasons

00:46:05: why they are posting what you see, right?

00:46:08: And I know that the next generation is able to grow up

00:46:13: with kind of a good media competence.

00:46:16: So they know that nothing what I read

00:46:18: should be directly being kept for real, right?

00:46:22: - Yep.

00:46:23: - All right, so next question is going to that again,

00:46:27: to the same topic.

00:46:28: How do you deal with the growing flood of information

00:46:30: via various channels.

00:46:32: So news informations are coming more and more,

00:46:34: push notifications and so on.

00:46:36: How you are dealing with that?

00:46:38: - I have a very exclusive push notification list, right?

00:46:41: And I know every app wants it, like nope.

00:46:43: If you're not an airline or one of my banks,

00:46:46: you're probably not on that list.

00:46:48: So I do think I do like AP news alerts,

00:46:53: but even then, like, I don't really care

00:46:58: that Pat Sajak is retiring from the Wheel of Fortune, right?

00:47:02: That's an alert I got.

00:47:04: Like, news is, to me, important events.

00:47:08: And being here in the States, like,

00:47:10: if it didn't happen in the States,

00:47:12: it's probably not important.

00:47:13: And we don't get to see that.

00:47:15: Like, there's other countries.

00:47:16: There's pretty major things going on.

00:47:19: And we could say that any time of the year outside.

00:47:23: - So finally, there are a couple of features in the iPhone

00:47:27: where you can just group those notifications.

00:47:30: So you can always say, this notification of this app

00:47:33: should reach me directly when this occurs,

00:47:36: or I want to collect those notifications

00:47:39: that are coming in between 12 and three, for example,

00:47:43: and then just group them and show just the icons

00:47:46: and say there are 47 notifications at that time.

00:47:49: So when I'm looking at my phone, I see exactly that.

00:47:52: There's some summation from noon, right?

00:47:56: or from the morning, I guess.

00:47:57: And then you can just look into it

00:48:01: if it's interesting or not,

00:48:02: but you don't have to be bugged by your phone

00:48:04: or your watch the whole day.

00:48:05: - Yeah, the notification thing, it's interesting, right?

00:48:08: It's all about clicks.

00:48:09: They want you to click, click, click, click.

00:48:10: - Exactly.

00:48:11: - But I'm not always interested in the topics.

00:48:14: Every once in a while, I will go click on media sources

00:48:19: I don't normally visit, right?

00:48:21: So Al Jazeera US, right?

00:48:23: Just to see what they're talking about.

00:48:25: Like what's here that's not there.

00:48:27: I'll go to USA today, which, you know,

00:48:30: you people who are like hardcore journalists,

00:48:32: don't give them a ton of credit, but every

00:48:34: once in a while they do have interesting stuff.

00:48:36: Wall street journal, you know, heck,

00:48:38: sometimes I'll do the rounds and do the MSNBC,

00:48:40: Fox news, CNN, just to see like, yeah,

00:48:44: are there other things going on that I'm missing?

00:48:46: But it's tricky.

00:48:48: Um, it's a real problem I think,

00:48:52: because you could be consumed by it and you

00:48:55: you could just spend hours reloading and reading

00:48:58: and you go down those rabbit holes of conspiracy theories

00:49:03: and now you're sort of dangerous.

00:49:06: - You're getting addicted to that, right?

00:49:08: So during the pandemic, there was so many information

00:49:10: and so many things going around.

00:49:12: So what I used to do is turn off all this notifications

00:49:16: about that and there's one time at the day in the evening

00:49:20: where me and my wife were sitting on the couch

00:49:22: and watching the daily report from our public TV show.

00:49:31: And they were telling us everything from the day.

00:49:33: And it's, I think, the most valid or the most trustful

00:49:37: source.

00:49:38: And you get everything in like 15 minutes,

00:49:40: and then you're informed well.

00:49:42: And you don't have to carry everything during the day.

00:49:44: Right, right.

00:49:45: Yeah, we had some fun with that during the pandemic.

00:49:49: Every day when something wacky came out,

00:49:51: we had our daily call with CDC, NIH.

00:49:54: I mean, these were scientists.

00:49:55: These were, and I'll say it 'cause I want it on record,

00:49:58: these were some of the hardest working,

00:50:00: underappreciated, underpaid people I've ever met.

00:50:04: They worked harder than us to get this stuff done.

00:50:08: And the thing is, they were probably working

00:50:11: this hard before, and they still are.

00:50:13: - No one noticed that before.

00:50:15: - Yeah, but we would be at these calls,

00:50:18: you'd read the news that would say like,

00:50:20: UV light kills COVID and everybody would just be face palming.

00:50:25: - Yeah.

00:50:26: - It's like, I guess we're done, right? Just go get a UV light and shine it around your house and

00:50:30: right, right?

00:50:32: - I guess this sounds like another time, another podcast, we should just invite someone from

00:50:39: these institutions so we get in touch and talk about this topic.

00:50:44: - Oh, that's fascinating.

00:50:45: - Unfortunately, we have to leave this room now, so we have to close the podcast.

00:50:50: I'm very glad that you were here Scott, I was enjoying talking to you and I hope we

00:50:54: have a great time at the conference and thank you very much.

00:50:57: No, thank you very much for having me.

00:50:59: I appreciate it and hope we learned some new stuff this week.

00:51:02: Yes, great.

00:51:03: So see you soon.

00:51:04: Cheers.

00:51:05: Bye to our listeners.

00:51:06: Bye.

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