End User Computing and Working at Silicon Valley Startups with Ruben Spruijt

Hi everyone. My name is Patrick Akio, and if you're interested in end user computing, Silicon Valley, and the startup life over there, as well as the role of AI in making people more productive, this episode is for you. Joining me today is Ruben Sprout, technologist over at Busy on Frame. And what's funny is that they're working on virtual desktops and it might actually be coming back. Enjoy beyond. Coding. Is this like the first podcast

you've done in person? First podcast this year. First podcast this year. That makes that makes sense. I'm honored. But in person? You've done it before? Yeah, multiple times really. And then mostly in the US I'm assuming. Also local. Really. What's like a podcast that's local? Cuz I don't know many. Like just end user computing related SO friends of mine who like run their own podcast. Nice. Yeah, they still do it. Most of them, I would say, postponed out to COVID.

Yeah. That's what I see. Yeah. I think I love podcasting as a medium still. It's really just a relaxed way of having a conversation and still be incredibly valuable. I think it's not as I recently listened to a lot of Andrew Huberman and I don't know if he does it with a teleprompter cuz his delivery is just so good and it's just jam packed with information all science based. And maybe it's because I'm not in that domain or sometimes I have to be like OK, rewind what

what are these terms? What's? Going on, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I I like the more, let's say, Joe Rogan style kind of podcast. Yeah, where it's more of a conversation, it's more relaxed and still I think educational and fun. Yeah, in that way. What's the ratio of people who are listening to the podcast and who are watching the YouTube? Yeah, I did a poll and the poll is definitely biased because I did it on YouTube.

Yeah. And their people said like 50% actually, yeah, 50% does the the video as well as the audio and then 50% does audio only. And I mean, I'm assuming Apple. Spotify is all, Apple is still audio only. Spotify has video now as well. And I can do polls, but my interaction on Spotify is not as big as YouTube. YouTube is the biggest platform. And then like internal, like colleagues, partners versus unknown people, what's the ratio in that? What do you mean?

How many people internal? Follow the podcast and watch the videos. Yeah, I I should do a poll internally. And I don't know how many people internally watch it because it was really in the beginning, a lot of people were like, yeah, let's do this. And then I feel like I fizzled off and I share. Whenever I think is a good episode, I share it in the chat and I get some reactions. But then Spotify does this thing which is called the wrap up and they did one for 2023.

And a guy in our company also thought it might be a really good idea to do that with songs or any media that was being prevalent for people in 2023. I didn't say anything. And then I got the results and I was like favorite podcast was beyond Corning. So some people still really enjoy it, Yeah. It sneaked in. I was like. Thank you. It's like the People's Choice. Yeah, that's how it works.

So that was cool, Yeah. Also I I listened to it's very diverse like fitness like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pump Club or the Pump app is what I like. It's very short, like 5 minutes. It's a mixture of different things but also like more technology side of podcast is all what I like do. You have one you you like really well. A friend of mine has an EUC digest, yeah, type bot podcast weekly. That's that's very helpful. It's like 20 minutes, half an hour depending on what's

happening that week. Yeah, that's more like IT related. Yeah, different things. I can imagine, yeah. I like those. Those It's like ups and downs. Like normally when I go to the gym, I have my sort of default set up. Yeah. But when I travel and it's like abroad and it's like 15 hours, 14 hours travel time, I like that because then I can sort of catch up with all the podcasts I. Back-to-back, back-to-back,

yeah. I went on this really long trip and it was a couple, actually, a long time ago by myself. It was the first time I did a trip by myself and I just listened to podcast on and on, walking, going in and out of museums, walking around the city. It was really nice, actually. I looked back fondly at that period, and I mean, I don't know.

This is kind of the, I think, the crux of podcast because I have no clue what I listen to. I feel like most of the information kind of anchors and then it like it helps for my perspective. But what it was exactly I have no clue. Yeah, that's hard. I have the same. I have the same with reading books as well. So when I read a book, I just while reading, if you ask me like 2 days later, OK what is the gizp of that book? What's the summary of that book?

If it's really like something special, I can pick up one or two sort of examples, yeah, but most probably is just captured here and then when needed, Yeah, it's relevant, then it's relevant. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, that's how I thought about it. Someone asked. Like, hey, you, you read a couple of books during Christmas time. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger would be useful. It's a good one. Atomic Habits is another good one. Yeah. And then Dutch, More like management book.

But then someone asked like, what's the summary? Yeah. That's a good question. Yeah, I recognize that. Yeah. I always thought that was a bad thing, and I haven't started this yet. But I know a lot of people online that structure their book reading or their podcast listening, and they make notes along the way and they have a whole second brain they're creating. And I think that's useful. I just never feel like an upheld battle to start like that. Yeah.

Probably, yeah. My son is good in these type of things. When he just listen to some song, yeah, or reads a book, then he like instantly can reproduce it like almost line by line. That's not that's not my DNA. I'm not sure how he gets it. That's not my DNA. That's hilarious. Yeah. So yeah, I I have that in some things. Like some things. My memory's really good. I don't know what exactly. Sometimes it's name, sometimes it's specific events.

And then it's still hard to be like, is this 100% true or not? But yeah, I'm really thankful for having a good memory and with other things, it's just not there. Like when I discuss food with my girlfriends, like, no, I just forget the next, the next half an hour, basically it's gone. Yeah, maybe it's things that really interest me. And I don't know how the brain works. We still don't know, actually. Yeah. Often for me it's more like, hey, can you create a picture

out of it? So it's easy to memorize pictures or special examples like real world, real live examples. Yeah, that makes it easier to remember them. Yeah, I like to think I'm visually oriented as well, but I'm not sure. But yeah, I mean you mentioned you listened to a lot of end

user computing stuff when it comes to podcast that is more on the tech side. And I looked you up on LinkedIn and I saw titles like CTO and Technologist, but they're always within this end user computing domain, correct? So to kick off our talk, can you explain what end user computing is and why you're so passionate about it in the first place? Well, end user computing are, I would say tools, applications, stuff and a little bit fuzzy stuff to get work done.

Yeah. So you and I, we are both end users and the tools we use on a daily basis to get work done is end user computing. OK End user computing could be like an sort of umbrella term which fits many different things like the the tools we use like smartwatch like devices in general of course are part of end user computing applications to get work done. Mobile apps, web software as a service, windows apps, Mac apps are tools to get work done. Some of these apps are enriched with AI.

We will cover that. We'll. See. That's also part of end user computing. Yeah. Maybe you're using a browser to access a cloud workstation or a cloud PC. That cloud PC or that cloud workstation is also end user computing. You log in with an identity, modern identity like Google Identity or Microsoft Intra Azure Active Directory identity. That's also part of end user computing. Maybe your device is managed by the IT organization. It is. It's also part of end user computing. Interesting.

Collaboration, like, how do we work together? How do we exchange information through like OneDrive or Dropbox or like online platforms? It's also end user computing. Yeah, so end user computing is super exciting because there's so much happening in that space. And that's why I'm passionate about end user computing. It's close to you and me, to people like real people. We can touch each other.

We can hug each other, sometimes, slap each other like move on, move on. But it's also connected to people and technology, and that's what I really like about end user computing. It sounds like really broad if I

think about what I use on a day-to-day. I use Slack. I use Microsoft Teams for an organization that uses both. I use my IDE. I use my terminal. I mean I use any type of web browser to get my information. Use development tools to develop your own apps at front end you have like back end services where the front end communicate with the back end is not end user computing, it's more like data center cloud services services in general and these two worlds need to communicate

with each other. You can have a great end user computing environment, but when the connection to the back end, the data center or the cloud, either connection is shitty and end user experience is not king, it's also going to be shitty. Yeah. Exactly. And end user experience needs to be king super important and that is tied to the technology, it's tied to managing expectations. Sometimes it's tied to non tech stuff like processors and these type of things. So it's an interesting, very

interesting place. Yeah, I love that.

Interesting. Like I've I'm big on product development and I've created a lot of products where UX is involved. Yep, nice visual feel is involved. And then usually I work either on the front end, but more so recently, mostly on the back end when it comes to delivering value for end users. But they're they're not. It's not collaboration software, They use it to get whatever they need done. Is that then still kind of an end user computing you think?

The tools you develop to get things done, you you mentioned it yourself, is the tools to get things done. Yeah, equals and user computing. That's nice. Is that a term? Like is that a more recent term or has that term been around for a while? Cuz when you coined it, when we talked in the pre show, it was kinda new for me as a term. But as you lay it out, I'm like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense that there will be a term for. I mean, anything you need to get your stuff, I'm not.

Sure I don't. For me, it's not new. No. Some people call it like workspace, Modern workspace, Modern workplace. These are all sort of connected to the end user computing. Yeah, if I if my dad or my father-in-law ask me like all my my kids ask hey what do you do and I explain end user computing and I'm in end of user, I'm in end user computing, then they probably will. Not sure what you're talking about, but then if I had to say comma, it means this and this

and this in your daily life. And yeah, tangible. Yeah, exactly. And then do you get more energy

out of let's say the technical side of it. So what technologies we use to leverage to make people more effective or more so also kind of the user experience wise side of it a? Little bit more of the technical side of things. Yeah, like my role is technologist or CTO whatever you wanna call it with my feet on the ground is technology. Yeah, but also I understand that technology on its own is not gonna fly.

So great technology is 1, but if it doesn't meet the end user expectations, a user experience in general, yeah, usability then yeah. If that's not aligned, then no, go for technology. Yeah, exactly. Should be aligned. Interesting. So therefore, it's important to understand what is the challenge companies or colleagues in general, what they, what kind of

challenges they have. Yeah. Or sometimes what kind of ideas they have to boost the business to get new things done or to create a competitive advantage and then translate it. OK. What kind of tools are available to make it happen to solve that issue or to catapult the business. And that's end user computing. But also like data center and cloud are also part of that conversation. But my main focus and my company focus is like end user computing. Yeah.

I was wondering when it comes to the adoption side, let's say of new tools, usually when I roll into an organization and I, I started with operations, it was more so like, OK, these are the tools we use, That's it. And learn how to use them and then we start rolling. Basically, I think from an adoption standpoint, it's very hard for a new tool to then kind of wiggle yourself into an organization because organizations will adopt what is established, but then you can

never be established. If organizations don't adopt it, what what do you think can give kind of an an edge to tools like that to get adoption or to gain adoption? That's a good question. In the past, like some years ago, we called it shadow it. OK, and shadow it means that you or I like us as end users. We use tools to get our work done and these tools are not provided by it.

Yeah, hence shadow it. And that on one side is conflicting because it wants to be in control and now the user decides they swap the credit card and they just procure a new app because the other apps which are in IT are not suitable. Or maybe these tools are not available in the IT sort of catalogue of tools and that shadow IT is a great sort of measuring stick for IT department.

If they are smart to say, hey we are missing out something, there's something lagging in our catalogue or we forgot something, maybe we are not well connected to the end users to understand what they really need. So if you're able to explain these tools directly to the end users or the business owners, that also is another angle to get new tools into the organization. Yeah, it's a little bit of flying under the anti radar. Completely. But I've seen that many times,

especially with cloud services. So it's so easy to say, hey, I wanna try this cloud PC or this cloud workstation, this virtual app and desktop environment for my use case. Let's give it a try. I'll swap the credit card in couple of hours. I'm up and running. Does it work? Yes, I will stay.

I will keep under the radar. Or if it's so massive and so big or so has so a massive impact for the business, then it's good to connect with it as well to say, hey, I have this handy tool, this handy app, can you help me to support that? And then the conversation will start and they might say no at the Department of Doctor, no sometimes is the IT department. Yeah, sometimes it has to be. Sometimes it has to be as well, exactly. Yeah, I agree very because.

There are guidelines and there are sort of boundaries. Of course, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even within a software,

let's say, product team, we think about total cost of ownership, right. If we have multiple services which we rely on and we don't have to build everything ourselves, our cost of ownership just by virtue of being very small, we can do a lot of things with a small team then as well. Yep. But also like risk and the compliance, yeah. Or maybe not like the first things the end user will think about, but the company as a whole. Has to, has to.

Yeah, absolutely. And the term shadow it like I I've heard it thrown around here and there. But I love your definition of it that it's. Yeah, I think a tool can really then just leverage accessibility in that way. If it's as easy as plug and play and you just need to swipe and then people have access to it, that means people can try it out. And if people like it after trying it out, then the adoption happens, I think, yeah. I think that's and also it can

try it out easy as well. Yeah, that's different than maybe longer time ago where it took months and months for the design to happen and then it took months to implement and then it took months to really adapt. Yeah, now with like cloud services, which is not new, IT is very easy to get started. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. There's an interesting trend and I'm curious to hear your opinion on this as well because virtual desktops were a thing when I joined in operations, but they're incredibly clunky. Like from my point of view with with maybe our team or the way of working, I would have to log in and then I would accidentally kick someone out. Or I would not have access to files on my machine.

I would have to finagle my way to get it on the virtual machine to get stuff done and I would only have access I think, which is can be a good thing or a bad thing. But I would only have access through the virtual desktop, so sometimes working from home would be an issue. And especially in operations when I needed to have access at crucial points when things were on fire, it was sometimes a

bottleneck as well. And now I see this trend where all of a sudden, let's say from a software engineering point of view, there's this trend where people are saying, well, we don't have to give up laptops anymore, we just give access to this virtual desktop and they have everything and onboarding is easy and offboarding is even more easy because off is off and they don't have access anymore. So I feel like this is somehow

going full circle. It is, it is and also it's there's massive sort of adoption happening on that space. Yeah, that could be a podcast on its own, but why multiple things? So start with why is a good practice, I would say why are virtual desktops, which could run in a in a data centre, could run in cloud cloud workstations, cloud PC, virtual desktops, virtual applications all combined is like similar technology, Not exactly the same, but that's like another podcast.

So they'll start with why everything is happening in a remote environment. So there's no data on the endpoint, which makes it easier to secure, makes it easier to manage. You can work from everywhere. The only thing you need is a browser and a network connection to get work done and then at work is done on a machine somewhere in a data centre or maybe machines if you're like an like a developer and you can benefit of multiple machines at the same time. Maybe for like a peak moment.

Yeah just spin up 10 machines, get work done, remove the machines, bye bye. So much easier to get work done, easier to secure, easier to manage.

Often not always. It depends how it's being designed. Really good user experience. Especially when the data like the back end services are close to where the execution is happening. So imagine you're designing a new era like a massive building or an airport or like a design application that's like a massive amount of data. And the apps were being used to develop these kind of like buildings, architect, engineering, construction companies are active in that

space. If you use that kind of applications, the performance of the app is like light years better. If the app is very close to where the data is instead of you where it's your laptop, maybe through VPN somewhere in Amsterdam or or whatever it is, yeah, then the app will not communicate well or often or well enough with the back end services causing user experience

issues exactly. So the user experience can depends on how it's being designed, but can be really really great when the app is close to where the data is as well. Interesting, yeah.

So these are, I would say, general examples. Why? Virtual desktops call it like that, virtual applications, same technology. While that is sort of picking up fast, newer technologies are in place. Newer remoting protocols, so to stream pixels from A to B so that on your endpoint with your browser you can see the application which is running remotely. You interact with the application with your local keyword, mouse and other

peripherals. That streaming protocol is is different than 10 years ago when you started. It has to be. It has to be. It is using similar technology as you're using Netflix today. OK, the difference with Netflix is you just consume a popcorn and a soda. You don't use a keyword and mouse to and. But the streaming protocol itself is using similar codecs, so capture encoding and decoding technology to stream pixels from A to B.

Yeah, yeah, I love. That that technology is, these kind of technologies are ramping up fast. They're using GPS graphical processor units to accelerate that kind of user experience. So their massive amount of development and development happened and happening in that virtual desktop space. Do you think we'll get to a

point where people, let's say, owning a laptop, don't have to get a company laptop anymore and they can just go onto a virtual? Do you think it's really what's? Happening on the An example on the Microsoft side, there's one big gorilla. Some people call it Nasty gorilla. Doesn't matter it's a it's a big gorilla or a big like big a big company with massive impact. Look at just Windows.

Like next versions of Windows, they might boot straight into a cloud PC, so you don't have any clue if what you see, your Windows apps, your Office apps or any other apps, if these apps are running on your physical PC or on your virtual PC, for the user, it doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter because it's getting work done. It doesn't matter if it's virtualized and running remote or if it's not virtualized and

running local. And that type of technology is, yeah is already announced and is is happening, happening first in the business side and also probably on the consumer side as well. That sounds really cool. And then I'm assuming that also on the physical side, let's say on my laptop like I only have to have limited hardware like when I. Just run a browser. I just need yeah, exactly like when I need it to. Like a Chromebook is a good example on that.

Like a Chromebook is like designed to run a browser on steroids. Yeah, it's super easy to manage. It's secure. It's in general fast. It's relatively cheap, although the high end Chromebooks are also because of the Expanded. But yeah, it's. It's interesting, Good stuff. And then you get to like AI mean if you have a virtual desktop, you get to like a software as a

service model. More so than just having everything installed on a local machine with bootleg copies and everything we had like 20 years ago, basically. Yeah, that's funny. Hence, easy to easy to manage, easy to maintain, secure by design, easy to access. Yeah. Yeah. All benefits in that in that space.

Yeah, and from a hardware footprint, I mean you, you drastically reduce it. Like I'm I'm onboarding into ING now and I just did my onboarding yesterday. I still don't have a second laptop because I have to have a laptop from ING to get started. And I'm like, I already have a laptop. But yeah, apparently that's not good enough because it needs to be secure, as secure as possible, And I get it because of risk and compliance. And it's a bank, so it's a security concern.

But it would be very easy if I could just use use my laptop and then get up and running whenever I am onboarded. So sustainability and you briefly touched on that topic while while mentioning that in like the previous sentence. So sustainability is an important topic as well. In we look at sort of AI and AI embedded into the new Windows OS, there are certain companies who predict there will be 240 million PCs not being usable anymore when that type of

technology is happening. That's just a way that's so much e-waste in that space. Absolutely. So why not use that older machine defined old defined classic and use that machine as a jump board to access a very modern environment? Or maybe a 7 year old or a 8 year old machine is still fine to run like a repurposed OS. Could be a Linux OS and use as repurposed OS as a jump board to access maybe a modern Windows XYZ version in a cloud. Yeah, I mean, that's a completely shifting kind of the

model that we have, right? Because if I look at let's say the last 10 years, if I didn't get a new laptop every two, 3-4 years, I'd be running very slow with new applications or even my IDE and the upgrades there or the technology I'm using, I would just be running behind. So I needed to get new hardware to do that. But now if your hardware can stay consistent or maybe like you have patch updates in software and let's say virtual hardware can scale.

If new updates come out, or if new insights come out, new hardware arrives, then all of a sudden you have a different sustainable model. But that completely collides with what we have now. Do you think it will actually go that way? Where? That's happening already. But then there should be laptops that go for the longevity, let's say like even my phone right now I I don't know the newer versions of an iPhone, but I

refuse to buy an iPhone. If my my current phone still does it and it's I'll show it to you afterwards. It has cracks. The back is I I need a new phone. Basically I've gotten to that point, but I've done 6-7 years with this phone and in those 6-7 years there's all new versions and some people didn't even get a new version every year, which is a complete waste. Yeah, now often in that phone like example, the reason to buy a new one is like battery is is like not sustainable anymore.

Like battery is is shitty and that is annoying and then annoying becomes like super annoying. OK, I'm done. I'll buy a new one. After six years I'm I'm ready for a new one. Let's go back to that sort of analogy where you rely less on the new developments on the endpoint. The beauty of this approach is that you rely more on what's

happening in the cloud. Yeah, because if there are new CPUs, or if there are new GPUs or whatever kind of developments are happening, you just consume them as a service and you don't need to worry about what's happening on the endpoint because it really doesn't matter how fast that endpoint is. The only thing is, what I need is a modern browser and a network connection to access modern stuff in the cloud exactly. And that's the that's the beauty

of that approach. Yeah, I'm assuming I will have

to pay for accessibility then, right? Let's say a new CPUs come out I can do. Normally you pay like a certain amount per VM or per user per month. Yeah, and there's likely competition happening in cloud, Amazon, Azure, Google Alicloud, Alicloud. We don't see that much here in this part of of the world. Very prevalent in China though.

Exactly, exactly. And you have also on premises and cloud service providers like maybe not the tier three or three or four like providers like the ones I mentioned, but maybe more localized providers. So there's competition happening, and competition is healthy.

So price down, yeah. Or innovation up because if vendor A has brand new GPUs and you can use them and it unlocks new capacity and new capabilities and the other one doesn't don't have that kind of technology yet, yeah, then yeah, why not sort of make that as part of, OK, maybe it's time to move from A to B. Yeah, yeah, I love that.

I want to get into how AI can help people be more effective. But before I do, I saw on your LinkedIn that you you actually worked in startups in Silicon Valley. And for me that's very interesting because Silicon Valley for me is this abstract thing and things happen. But I have no clue. So I'd love to get like a behind the scenes. And to start that off, how'd you get in touch with people and how'd you did you actually move there physically, let's say? How'd you make that transition?

No, I always remained here in Netherlands. Yeah, I just spend more time in the Airbus, OK, especially in the days before COVID, but that's that's a different story as well. So travelled quite a lot. But with modern tools, a part of EUC, it's easy to communicate anyway. The only code downside or two other two downsides, one of them is time zone and the other one is you're not physically connected and it's just different. It's different.

If we communicate like this and we see each other, then we see each other through a webcam, it's just different. And if everyone is remote, then it's all like a similar like everyone is in the same boat. Same playing field. But if for instance out of the 10 colleagues 8 of them are in one office like this office space and two of them are remote like iOS remote and I am remote, that is tougher.

So people and colleagues need to be aware of that and it requires some sort of different, maybe sometimes style of communication. But. Was that the case in your environments as well, where you were kind of the odd one out remote? Yeah, mostly. Yeah. Because my colleagues were like in in Silicon Valley. Yeah. And I was remote together with another colleague. It's part of the game, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you could, you could have moved probably, yeah. But yeah, you know.

I could have moved and I thought about it a couple of times in obviously the past maybe eight years. That could be another topic for podcast. As well, yeah. Yeah. I think like my kids, I have three kids, they're like 23/21/17 when we record and the question is, is it, what do you think about moving to the US and what does it mean for the kids? Will they join? If they join, will they stay? Will you want to stay? These kind of things are part of

the conversation. Hey, what is the plan to move to to US? And they're huge life decisions. These are massive decisions, so we thought about it a couple of times of course, and there was an opportunity as well to make it happen. But we thought, hey, it's with a twink. It's much better to enjoy like the start up life, to see the massive energy level, to get a salary of Silicon Valley but still live in in Netherlands. It's called like that. I can see that.

There are pros and cons as I mentioned a couple of them, but yeah, we took the decision to remain here, travel more but still enjoy that whole like start up life Silicon Valley experience. Yeah, I think that makes the,

for me, that makes the journey even more impressive in a different way. Because somehow they found you, you were here in the Netherlands, they, they were in Silicon Valley. Personal branding, Personal branding. Not on topic. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, we may, we should, we should note this down.

But in any case, they found you through whatever you were doing at the at the time and they were willing to take this risk with you, you staying in the Netherlands and then them being there and you being let's say the few ones of the odd one out being on the remote. How'd they find you? Network like social presence. Like how does your resume look like? If you just search for your name, you'll see podcasts. It's gonna be you too. Exactly. So your resume is who you are in

the online world as well. And then you also have communities. So there's an end user computing community, there's an desktop facilitation community, there's a GPU community and a part of multiple communities. Sometimes I lead or Co lead these communities and that's how you build your personal brand in the past, I don't know, 15 years, 20 years, yeah. So it doesn't come like like

this. It takes a long time to build that that brand and it takes a lot of energy both on the personal side, on the spouse side, on the employer side. It's like a triangle. If that is like if the triangle is like well aligned, then you and I, we can do, everyone can do remarkable things. And that happened. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So they found you just by virtue of you being involved in communities, you putting yourself out there, taking those extra steps, probably beyond

your day-to-day. Exactly. And then they reached out and they said, well, we have this. Do you know what? Do you know a friend who has this capabilities? And then they sort of list what you can do? And then you, you read that and you got enthusiastic, Yeah. But then they, they came with

this, let's say proposal. And for you it was a decision, right. Keep doing what you're doing on this path that you have or take this kind of chance. And a chance also has risks like can you talk about kind of the decisions involved there? Yeah I first I look at OK what is the the why again. Yeah why why is this important? Sometimes your that's it was like 2015 2014 2015 I was ready

for something new. I was not done with my like previous employer PQR great great company but I was ready for like a new next thing And then coincidence or not, I don't know. But coincidentally the Co founder of one of the of the first start up I I joined asked me hey do you know a friend and I said well I I might be interested please explain more what how my role looks like. What the company looks like. What the future of the company looks like. Financial part.

Not only for me but just a company like hey what kind of funding is involved like all these kind of things are part of this big sort of part and then you look at that OK what is the uptick What's the why should I join. And that is hey do I want to be part of something bigger or potentially bigger Because you never know in starter world if that really happens. That's the risk part of it. We'll talk about that a little bit later but first OK do I get energy of the what's on the horizon.

The point of of the what's what's on the horizon. Is it energizing If the answer's yes that is the starting point and there are multiple reasons to get energized but that's something something different. And then you think about OK what is the risk when I leave this sort of safe haven and join the start up with, yes I'm a Dutch guy but there is no Dutch

organization. So how does it, how does, how does the contract looks like, how does the financial piece looks like, what kind of sort of safeguards are in place and

there are some safeguards but on the other side with start up you could they could say they can unplug and next month it's like bye bye. Yeah, just like that. That just like that, that's the risk part of it. That piece was pretty easy for me but maybe took I don't know maybe half an hour. Interesting to think about that risk because the risk, the how do you circumvent that risk is a financial conversation. Yeah. If the risk is OK, I could be sort of laid off easily.

And that is true especially in the setup in the first two startups I joined. OK, what's the risk? When I got laid off, I need a financial buffer to not be coming into trouble. Yeah. So that's a financial conversation. So when I join, it's OK, I will join. But this is the this is the level you can see when you listen to the podcast. You cannot see my hands. But this is like the level I make right now. And when I join the starter, there's more risk.

So the financial rewards should be higher. And that's like real money, but also potential shares or options. That is paper money. It's not worth anything until something like an acquisition or IPO happens. But if that uptake is high enough, then you can just save that money in case of when shit hits the van. And that's what I did. So I didn't buy, didn't buy a new house or a new car or a boat or whatever. I just save that money. That's how I operate. And yeah, if shit hits the van

then I'm not worried. I'm not worried because I have a financial plan. I have a financial buffer and I know that my personal brand is not at risk because I continued also within the start-ups to continue building on my personal brand and that first company was sold. I have two types of selling. One of them is like hockey stick down. Yeah, and one is hockey stick up. That's what everyone wants. That's what everyone wants. That's how it works, yeah. Maybe 2 out of 10 is hockey. Stick up.

Yeah. And then I would say maybe six or seven of them are hockey. Stick down, no? One talks about. Those. And then there are a couple of which are sort of hoovering in neutral mode. Yeah. So that's how it is. I've seen both. OK, that's interesting. But from a financial perspective, I, yeah, I lost some money, but that was part of the risk as well. Yeah. And on the other side, when I joined the second startup, I gained money. Yeah. That was also the benefits of the risk.

Yeah, exactly. That's how I operate and that's just from a financial risk of averse, yeah, planning perspective. Yeah, it makes sense. That gives a lot of sort of confidence and also mental pace. Of course I'm not worried. Yeah. It's so no one can do something to me from that perspective. I can be like laid off. Yeah, OK. I know my personal brand. I know what I can do. I know what I cannot do. I remain active in that space, continue working with other peers, sometimes competitors.

Yeah, that's part of the community.

That's really cool. I I really like that. I think it's it's more risky, like it's always risky to join a startup. And then the extra risk involved is it's not a startup here, but it's a startup abroad. And just by being abroad it has complications basically. But by being that risk averse and just having a buffer like you'll land on your feet either way, right? And you'll find a job either locally or again abroad, if you

really like that. So maybe it takes a three months or six months or maybe it takes a year. Yeah. Maybe it takes a year and a half. Yeah. You never know. But if. Yeah, if you plan correctly, yeah, then I'm not. Worried about it? You have to write it out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Then when it comes to, I don't know if you were involved in startups before joining, let's say the Silicon Valley startups.

But what is the. I'm interested in the startup life there as well as kind of the cultural differences because you'd never worked with AUS organization, let's say from behind closed doors, probably mostly from how we're facing. At least that's my experience. So how is it behind the scenes there? I like. I loved it. I like it. OK, I'm still in that mode because I'm not in a startup anymore. It's more like a scale up. Yep, startup means there is fight for resources.

OK? And it could be like people, could be money, could be like both could be time. Yeah, in scale up you have less fights, but still there are sort of boundaries right now I do work for in scale up. But back to the question like, hey, how's it behind the scenes, Much faster. Things are moving much, much faster than I would say typical working like here in Netherlands as an example. Moving faster. OK, there's an idea. OK, let's try it out.

If it works, let's scale it up. If it doesn't work, OK, let's kill it. OK, That is what I really enjoyed. Yeah. And it happens on all sides, on the product development side. So building the service or building the product on the marketing side, hey, let's try this. Let's try podcast or let's try XYZ or let's try to build an A brand around that. So that fast moving pace of innovation, Yeah, that's what I really liked. And it's not just ideas, it's also execution. Yes, yeah. Yeah.

So execution just goes faster. Much faster. OK, What I found sometimes challenging and different is

more like the personal aspect. OK, in here in Netherlands it's very like it's common. OK, let's let's meet and talk like non business things as well. Yeah, it could be politics, could be religion, could be like kids could be like. And that's mostly like level deeper than what I see like in US as an example. And that's fine. Nothing wrong with with that. It's just a different sort of way of making connections to colleagues. Yeah, there are other relationships. Yeah, I get that.

So often it's it's just a small examples when US colleagues or when you're in the shop and say hey, how, how are you doing? We think as Dutch folks hey they're interested how I'm doing. No it's just to say hi. Yeah. So nothing more than that. So these type of small examples are like, hey, that's different. So under the covers it's different to work with colleagues on a personal level, but on the other side, they are really open as as well and especially colleagues who did

work abroad. So I have like 4 colleagues who did work in Europe, were born in Europe as well. So they know also culturally how things are different, so it's easier for them and for me to to communicate and to connect with. Do you think these kind of business like relationships versus the more interpersonal ones, are they helpful or harmful Because you also said somehow their decision making, their letting go of ideas, they're adopting ideas, their

execution is just faster? I think it's helpful. That's how I operate. I like to be more, I would say on the personal side to understand how people are wired, what their business life looks like. Yeah, just so that I can sort of imagine how things work or try to imagine. There's also a risk in that you're not part of the family. It sounds a little bit strange the the business is not a family because in a family you don't say no to your your if your brother, you're still brother

even if something shit happens. You're part of of a team, a very cohesive team. But if she hits a van, sometimes people need to let be let go and that doesn't happen in a family. Normally I would say so I like the personal approach, but don't confuse that, OK, now you're now we're part of a family, Don't use the Word family. It's more like, hey, we're A-Team like an A team with like a players. But things can happen and that sometimes means that we need to

say goodbye to team members. Yeah, exactly. That is part of that sort of game startup game as well. Yeah, I think there's there's levels, right. You can just be, let's say, business colleagues. I had a colleague and he, he very adamantly said we cannot do anything outside of work because we're colleagues. And that for him was black and white. That was the border. And I'd never met someone like that. I mean he lived in the same

neighborhood. He came from the same city as me. So then I was like, now we know the same people. Like, this is weird, like can't have your phone number, We can't hang out. And I was like, OK, I had to accept that though I. Fully respect that as well, yeah, but that's not how I normally. No, not at all. That's why from my point of view, that was one of the most interesting kind of interactions when it comes to that relationship side. And then I thought, OK, you have

levels. Apparently, yes. Some people, especially when they're not from the Netherlands and they come here and they live, then obviously the people they interact with on a day-to-day, like 90% of their time might be colleagues. They don't have friends and family because they're still, say, back home because they're abroad now. And I feel like those types of colleagues really put in the extra effort to also, outside of work, get to know each other. And then those relationships

transfer. Even if people leave companies, you still build up relationships. Maybe it's a it's a Dutch thing. I don't know. It could be when I when you when you share that feedback.

I thought about the EUC, the end user computing communities There are multiple but what I find interesting and my US colleagues asked me to go why are they so many Dutch folks in these communities? I don't know maybe it's true valve or maybe it's the milk we drink. I don't know. So that if if. That's the case. Or maybe it's because how we are wired and we love to communicate. Many of us like Master English well or well enough to have a podcast. So maybe it's a combination of

these things. But it's interesting to see in my sort of end user computing communities like five or six, I would say maybe 40% of the total population. The leaders of the population are sort of Dutch and that's special because like now this is like a it's so. Tiny. It's it's strange. That's very interesting. Yeah. I wonder what that is, but that we might have. To do 12. Hours. It must be like that. It must be something if something is not. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

That's very funny. I mean, I love the career path you laid out. I think it's very interesting and not many people get to experience that either from a remote perspective or an in person perspective. It's just different. And I feel like it's also exciting joining a startup and then kind of seeing the full

journey. You think you'll always be kind of involved in startups and scale UPS from now on because it's a different environment, right? Just by virtue of being a startup, you said resources are limited. Probably everyone thinks every second matters and it probably does. But that's different, let's say compared to a bank or a bigger organization. Yeah, so two startups. And then I mentioned Hockey stick down, Hockey stick Up.

The second startup was acquired by a company called Nutanix. 6000 people compared to 100 ish people. So that's a different thing. But I also enjoyed that sort of journey as well. It has its challenges, but also things are really well organized. It's a massive sort of machinery, don't have discussions like hey, is the company still around in a couple of years from now because it's a massive company, it's established, it's established. So I've seen that part as well.

But nevertheless that sort of start up was which was acquired by Nutanix like 5-5 years ago was spin out of Nutanix, I've seen that part as well. And now this sort of after the spin out which happened May last year, we are merged with another similar company in size, OK. So I've seen startup, startup, startup being acquired part of a larger company and I'll spin out or whatever you want to call it and merge with another company.

In general, I like smaller companies or I would say I like companies where I can make a difference if it's small or big. Size doesn't matter that much, although with bigger it's it's like an oral tanker or similar analogy where it's tougher to move faster. A special one is really established or maybe designed not to move fast and to change

course fast. Maybe some certain companies are not designed for that by virtue like like a bank could be an example or maybe the like the majority of like bank functionality. So I like, I like these like faster moving things where you can make a difference or together with team you can make a difference. You can see the impact of that and not like three or four years later you might see the impact. I don't like, personally, I don't like that, yeah. Yeah, it's a different type of

impact and I think both are needed, but probably people get passionate about both sections, right? Yeah, I had a person on the podcast and she talked about this whole transition because they got acquired and they had to merge brands and she was basically involved in that and it was gonna be huge challenges. It's like a year, multiple year long thing and obviously with the right team, the right people, it's still gonna be a long, long time.

Welcome to my world. There's part of like, hey, when you merge frame and vision to companies into one company. Yeah, make it happen. Then new brand needs to be established, yeah. And we don't have three years to establish a brand. We have three months. Has to be now. Yeah, has to be now. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I, I have an experience, let's say acquirements or acquisitions. And I, I like what you say about kind of those ripple effects,

right. If there's a pond of water and I drop a rock in the middle, then it's going to ripple. And the bigger that pond, the ripple effect is going to kind of trickle down. And I feel like with bigger organizations, that ripple effect is just sometimes it trickles down and you're like, what am I doing this right? You're just a cog in the machine. And then just by virtue of being in a startup, I mean there's only so many people there. You probably know almost

everyone. If it's still tiny size wall, yes, for sure. So you will make a difference.

People know it's you also and your impact makes a direct change, which is tangible instead of being part of kind of this puzzle piece. So I get it from that. Side I also wear many hats. That's also a part of what I like. Yeah, it's challenging wearing many hats because it's it takes just a lot of time and a lot of, like, spending the time wisely. Yeah.

But I like this sort of spider in the web with like one connection to sales or one connection to marketing, one connection to product development. Yeah, part of like a management team that these kind of things is that that combination is what I personally what I'd like. Yeah, that's that's what I've done in both startups and now again in a sort of scale up as well.

That's really cool. I think I I like it most because of the learnings because you get to go in and out and probably learn from those experiences more so than what I think kind of having the same hat and then going more deep. But yeah, I haven't, I haven't experienced it that much. That's now now my super visual view basically. But also you can. You can also wear many, maybe not many hats, but still multiple hats. Of course, in in your company as well, you wear already at least

two hats. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The hat like the the media hat and the podcaster hat but also like the like the developer Co developer PM hat as well so. I'm gonna do the PM role now. That's a completely new hat. I'm excited, but I'm nervous. That's a good thing, yeah. It's good to be nervous. I think it's healthy. It is like the spark as well to keep you sharp. Yeah, I think so. I think so.

It's kind of the last topic I still had left off. It's kind of the role in end user computing.

I know a lot of people when ChatGPT came out, when kind of generative AI was always already there but got more accessible, more established are now thinking man, what I'm doing on a day-to-day, I know some people that just read PDFs and then have to fill in a form that with the with regards to the content of that PDF, some stuff is going to be automated and people's work is going to be easier but also different. And that's a big part having to do with AI and what is capable

now. And I think in end user computing, especially in tools like Excel or I mean Excel is just king basically it's any type of sheet software wherever people can get access to data and they still have to figure out the insights. That's where a lot of AI can help, I feel like. Is that also the trend you've seen kind of happening now? Big time. Yeah. Like I like Microsoft's marketing name called Copilot. Copilot, everything.

It's it's a very smart thing. So that means that I'm still in control, like I own my data but I have a copilot who helps with with finding the right sort of Nuggets in that data. Yeah. And I can use like natural language to communicate with my Co pilot and it could be done in office, could be done in the coding side of things, could be done on the marketing side. Before the recording, the

podcast recording started, I showed an like a 3 minute frame product video and I I showed it to you and as well great. But what's special about this? And I said, well, what you see here in this video is not me, but it's my digital twin. And you didn't know because well, and even my wife didn't

know. And my brother who is sort of in in that particular space as well, he didn't recognize that me, wasn't me. So it's getting more and more strange in a positive way, but also maybe in a negative way. People might say, hey, why are you creating your digital twin? That can be abused as well, can be sort of people can use it in a bad way. And that's the also the beauty about developments. It's like fire, you can warm your hands and you can burn your butt.

And that's the reality with like new developments including Gen. AI. Yeah, people already like if they wanna clone my voice, they already can just watch the just listen to the podcast and recall my voice. Yeah, So I rather use the technology in my favour and create like a sort of a positive corner in the Internet around around that. Then like overthink as I will not use it because there's like a massive downside as well.

Yes, there is and they can be tricky and risky things around it. But I see the positive side of things and try to find the right balance to use that positive technology in a positive way. Yeah, yeah, I fully agree with that. I mean, it's funny because the video you showed, normally you see, right? Either the voice is different or the lip sync is off, or just the face looks different. Something is, something is. Not right. And now I didn't see.

And even when you said it, I I actually physically put my head closer to the phone and I still. The algorithms they they developed are really like sophisticated. Yeah, yeah. More and more I had tried to point out I was like, maybe it's that, but it's a maybe. Like I couldn't be like it's it's exactly that. And that's where it gets. And imagine like 2 years, three years from now. Yeah, yeah.

That would look like because. I tried this platform three years ago and instantly when I shared a video, it's fake. Yeah. OK. That's a good test not to use it because timing is not there. And I did it again before Christmas. I recorded 15 videos. I shared like the raw video with I would say 10 close friends. And there was one guy who said, hey, this sentence sounds a little bit strange. That's not how you normally speak when you talk English. So that's. I think you're fake.

This is fake. That's. OK, good catch the. The other one one and I didn't see, didn't hear. So now you need to tweak a little bit how the pronunciation in that sort of text to voice how that how it works and that's where like potentially newer algorithms or more data, better recordings, whatever it is will will play it's game in that particular type of like AI for content marketing. Yeah, exactly.

How do you or what would you advise for people to kind of stay on top of this AI trend when it comes to whatever Microsoft's doing with Copilot or new tools that come out? When it comes to media and stuff you can use, do you pick it up and try and test it out or how do you kind of stay ahead of the game as well? I would say ready, go, set. Yeah. And not ready, set, go. OK, often we think, OK, let's ready set go and that set part

will take a lot of time. OK, let's investigate and let's do analysis around, hey, what tool to use, what are the pros and cons. It's good to investigate a little bit but just do faster. Just do spend half a day in their platform, see if the potential is there, look at examples, maybe others used in this particular context and just just try. And if it doesn't work, then let it go fast as well. And if it does work, then make it bigger. And that's what I've done.

I tried it for half a day. I thought, well, this is great. 9 out of 10 folks I know well and they know me well, didn't didn't see a difference. There's potential here. Sounds good. Let's let's write, let's create a couple of slides with some ideas for other management colleagues that this type of platform is a good platform to use. And why and why are we using this type of platform And then execute it. That's what I've done. So move fast and fill fast when

it's needed. Or if you don't fill then just continue and and and speed up. Keep going. Yeah. Left that a lot. And and also that will apply to other types of AI in the office, like the workspace AI integrated into Visual Studio or into Office or into like a Google suite or whatever platform you're using. That is also still early days, like a data set. Often it's a public data set.

What if you can use like your internal datasets, your internal information and and and use AIS to AI to like gain knowledge out of your data set as a different sort of angle. And that is also just getting started. So yeah, good stuff. Yeah, I like that a lot.

The the mindset of just picking it up, trying it out and letting it go. For me, the hard part is sometimes letting it go because I have assumptions and then I'm like, OK, this has to work. It's almost like your own child. It's like a skill you have to do. And it's tough to say goodbye to your own. Sort of. Yeah, I think it is a skill to let go of your ideas and be like, well, this doesn't work, let's try out another one because you get attached to your

ideas, but I think it's. Sometimes it's tough to measure if it's a success. That's what I find tough. Like when is this a success? Yeah, maybe it's a success because it will save save me time. It also be in the sort of measuring stick. And we talked about it. Hey, how much time will it take to create such a video? What's the quality and how much time does it create to build that video? If it's better quality, same time check good. If it's same quality last time, also good.

If it's shitty quality, more time let go. So that's, yeah, very pragmatic way to look at certain things, yeah. And in the moment, your time and the quality, I think those are in general great metrics to uphold. But just this advice of seeing what's out there, picking it up, don't not being afraid. I think is very helpful and I think a lot of new stuff is going to pop up and we just have to try it out and if it works, keep using it and if it doesn't work, just let it go.

You can also now easily outsource certain things, because now I could say to a colleague, hey, this is a script I created, just let me my digital twin. Work over time. Or now you create your script and my twin will execute and will create like an avatar for that. So it's much more scalable as well. I could create 10 videos in like an hour and a half. That's incredible. And that's yeah, that's that saves a lot. Of time? Yeah, it would.

It would not be possible. Otherwise you're not scalable and all of a sudden you are. That's. That's and also it's good to be different. So it's good to have something special when you're sort of outgoing from a marketing perspective. So people might say, well this is a 3 minute product video,

yeah, great. But now if I say, well this is generated by AI here and here and here and people look differently to the video like interesting guy, interesting company, maybe I should investigate more what these guys are doing. Maybe they have other things which are interesting as well. Yeah. So it's a different angle from a marketing perspective to to be different in this space. I haven't thought about that, but it distinguishes you versus what everyone else is doing in

that way. Yeah, that's really smart.

I love this conversation and this was a blast, actually. I think I'm going to enjoy listening back to this because I think there's a lot of advice and a lot of golden Nuggets in here. Is this kind of what you expected coming into it? Yes, yeah. More than that. Yeah. It was really sort of easy going. Yeah, this could be like a conversation we had in an in a cafe or bar with a beer or in a 00 beer, whatever, whatever, Whatever we drink. Doesn't matter if it's alcohol,

no alcohol. All good, All good for me. So yeah, it's really comfortable and I enjoyed it as. Well, awesome. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, cool. Then I'm gonna round it off. I'm gonna put all Ruben socials in the description below, check them out, let them know you came from our show. And with that being said, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one beyond coding.