Jake Cooper from Railway | Remote work/team culture, minority report sales and building data centers

I mean, other I mean, it's not free. It costs you, like, chill or rent and and, obviously, all the other things. Right? But, you get a lot of stuff from just, like, being in person. Right? So I don't wanna, like, diminish the aspect of, like, being in person. We get in together. We get everybody together, like, twice a year. We fly people out to you know, we're just in New Buffalo. I think, like, the next one will be in Portugal.

We try to, like, cycle between western and eastern hemisphere just so people don't have to travel too much. But, yeah, I think, like, there's a lot of benefits to being in San Francisco. I think, like, I personally should be in San Francisco. There's just, like, so many people here in general, whether it's, like, talking with customers or venture capitalists or, like, literally anybody in between. Right?

Like, there's just so many benefits. Right? Awesome founders who you can just chat with, stuff like that. But I think that running a road come up to me gives you some amount of advantages if you're willing to do the work, if that makes sense.

So if I have a director like, I have 2 direct direct reports in Japan. Right? Right? Right?

Right? And so if the people aren't autonomous, can't drive, etcetera, all of those things, and they're gonna, like, essentially be sitting kinda waiting around, It makes it extremely difficult to run a remote company. Right? So there's, like, benefits, which is, like, you know, it it kind of, like, forces you to go and do that skew that kinda general direction, but there's also drawbacks in terms of, like, you know, potential people who you can hire. Right?

Like, we haven't figured out a good way to do, like, junior mentorship or, like, internship stuff, like, remotely. Right? Because it's like, we don't wanna be, like, basically discriminatory about, like, where we hire, but, like, at the same time, you know, those those, you know, new engineers, they need a little bit more kind of, like, touchpoint interaction. They need maybe a little bit more help and stuff like that. Right?

And if if your time zones don't overlap, then you can potentially have these people kind of, like, drifting in space waiting essentially. Right?

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That makes sense. I I like the way you put it in, one of your blog posts, or I think one of you said one of your team said that you're you should hire, torpedoes.

He's basically single handedly built the, proxy and and edge network, and removed, like, we used to be on Envoy, and and Matt Klein was awesome. But at some point, he was basically, like, you guys have millions and millions and billions of, like, these like, actual, like, edge services, that are are, like, going to need to be like, the XTS protocol is, like you know, at some point, it it slows down. Right? And you're seeing those things. So Miguel built all of that from scratch, but, you know, he's talking about a torpedo.

It's basically like, it's like, how do you get people to to realize that, like, speed is almost the only thing that matters? And if even if you're, like, if even if you're pointed almost in the wrong direction, if you can get, like, 5 shots on that, you're you're at, call it, like, a 178 degrees. Right? You're, like, not completely opposite. Right?

But, like, you run 5 iterations of that kind of, like, loop, essentially, you're mostly gonna be on target. Right? So just, like, continually just, like, quickly, recalibrate, like, where you you should be in general and then move towards that. You know? So I think that that's the the torpedo metaphor that that they were talking about.

I run 1 on ones with people every 2 weeks. We go and sit down for 30 minutes. I have office hours. People can put me aside. I personally bias for pretty much everything in public, so I have a little, I have a a little, like, channel inside of so we run the whole company in Discord.

I have a little channel inside of Discord called, like, Cooper Inbox. And so if you wanna pull me aside or anything else like that, obviously, like, my philosophy is that, like, DMs are private. Right? Like, they're they're personal, etcetera. If you have, like you know, you can't make your one on one because doctor's appointment and stuff like that.

Right? Where you and and it's important for people to, like, have a space for that. I think that's something that I I I switched on earlier. I was like, used to be like, no DMs. Like, you don't need whatever. Right? And I was like, actually, the only thing that matters is that information, like, flows through the company in the most important way.

And then I kinda flipped on it, and I was basically like, it doesn't matter so long as the information kinda gets there. And my job as a leader should be to, like, skew people to say, like, if I want, you know, everything to go into public, like, what are the reasons for which people are using DMs? Right? It's like, okay. Well, then we can maybe, like, massage those and move them them towards there.

But it's kind of, like, always like a it's like an asymptotic goal. It's like, you're never gonna have, like, no DMs or whatever. Right? So I think it's, like, it's important to it's important also, like, I think as a leader, be able to statement, like, you're just wrong. I think that one that one's important too because people are, like, just like, oh, shit.

Like, they make mistakes too. Like, I can also make mistakes, and that's totally fine. You know? Because mistakes are good. It means you're moving fast.

And I think we're in a we're in a good spot right now, from a revenue perspective where things are, like, growing well, etcetera. And we're, like, trying to figure out, like, what does that look like in general. Right? And so I think, like, the standard, you know, operating procedure for a company is, like, you know, they hit, probably what you call, like, product market fit where you're growing, like, you know, call it, like, 2 to 3 x year over year, and you're trying to, like, go and add more revenue. And so you, like, go ahead and you just hire a shitload of, like, sales reps and and go and do this thing and, like, try and throw bodies to the wall or whatever.

And you do the same thing from, like, a marketing perspective. You do the same thing from an engineering perspective. You just, like, you just say, like, okay. It's really working and, like, you know, we're pulling down this amount of money this this, you know, this month, and, we need to be able to operationalize it. Right? Like, immediately. Right? Like, where you can just say, like, oh, cash flow in, you know, cash flow out. Right? Mhmm.

And I think the the the thing that we do that we kinda try and lean more towards is, like, basically trying to build systems over time that can operationalize that with leverage. Right? And saying like, okay. Instead of hiring, you know, a ton of, like, line rep, like, support engineers or stuff like that, where we're just like, okay. Let's, like, we can hire a ton of these people.

We can put them all in different time zones. We can, etcetera, like, have optimal coverage so that, like, our, metrics, like, trend towards, like, time to first resolution of, like, 0, basically. Right? Like, getting back to your customers as fast as possible. Right?

Like, we've kind of actually moved in a little bit of a different direction where we've said, like, let's hire 3 really, really awesome, like, support engineers. Right? Like, full on engineers. Right? Like, they're not support reps or anything else like that.

Like, they're building out the internal help station tool that we use for all of our, like, support comms. Right? And so we've, like, invested on that front essentially. Right? So that over time, right, like, when we go to our next factor of scaling, we can say, like, hey.

We do actually want global coverage because what the limiting reagent right now is is basically whoever's on rotation, they have to sleep at some point. Right? So, like, how do we figure out how to go and scale that to, like, go and drive that down? Right? And so we try and think about, like, building leverage every single step of the way so that we can hire really, really excellent people and compensate them well. Right?

Right? And so I think Angela has chosen kind of, like, the sales support solutions kind of area to, like, make their own, and really, really go deep on that. Right? So yeah.

Whereas, like, outbound cold emails from from your recruiter was, like, no point 5. And you were like, this is just not gonna work. So I guess the non scale answer would have been just hire loads of salespeople to send a lot more emails, but then you had a quite unique approach that maybe you you can share a little bit about what you built.

And I think he got some tips and he got a little bit more kind of, like, leverage out of it, but it was still, like, not very good. Right? And so I looked at this and I was like, you know, I'm an engineer by trade. Like, why would I ever respond to this, like, email? Like, what's the what's the what's the bonus or what's the boon or, like, what's the what's the reason that I would actually go and do this?

Right? And, like, just as a more, like, philosophical question, not even, like, in the current context. It's like, why would I respond to this email? Right? And the reason I would respond to this email is, like, if this person was giving me something that I want. Right? Either, like, you know, in in a in a kind of, like, more predatory way, like, like, the the feature is gated. Right? And I want to unlock that feature and go and do those things. Right?

And so that's why, you know, some people respond to, like, traditional sales emails, right, and saying, like, I need this quota or I need this thing or whatever. Right? But what's the, like, best possible experience that we think that we could offer to somebody? Right? It's like, they get to a point where, you know, either they need some, like, reassurance because they're like, hey.

You know, like, I'm scaling on the platform. I wanna talk to somebody. You know, like, at some point, you do wanna actually, like, know who's behind your kind of, like, infrastructure so that you can be like, oh, these people are trustworthy, etcetera. So that's one reason. Right?

If you have a technical problem that you're, like, looking to go in and solve, that's another reason, etcetera. Right? So, like, at what points are people actually going to, like, want to talk to people, and at what points, which is the vast majority of points, will they have absolutely no interest in in talking to anybody on, like, the sales solutions, etcetera, kind of side. Right? And so what we've done internally is we've, you know, we keep segment events for, like, every single interaction that happens.

Like, we don't track, like, users from, like, a cookie perspective or, like, we don't have any front end tracking or anything else like that. But we do admit when people get to, you know, get to green. Right? So their first their first deploy or anything else like that. Right?

And so we can actually try and figure out, like, you know and this is, like, a lot of trial and error. Like, when do people actually respond to Outreach, and where do they respond to it most. Right? And it ends up being that, like, if you can meet the user where they are, right, and say, like, hey. You've already got some stuff, like, spun up.

You're getting to a point where you're, like, you're starting to create tickets. Right? We have all of that information, and we can add new segment events because we run our own help station. Right? Like, you've you made a couple questions and stuff like that. Maybe it's a good time for sales to get involved. Right? And say, like, hey. What are you actually trying to build here? Right?

Like, how do we get this inside of your organization? Right? Like, maybe you shadow ops IT did in in here, and your VP of engineering has no idea that this tool exists. Right? Like, what are the what are the kind of, like, blockers that we would need to, like, overcome to potentially move that through into the organization?

Right? And over the years, we've kind of, like, done that. And over the years, we've kind of removed the objections. And over the years, we've gotten a little bit better at kind of, like, doing the, like, product led growth with also the, like, sales kind of, like, assist motion. You know?

So that we can potentially project, like, hey, maybe we can be around for for you to go and do that. Right? And it it helps if your time to resolution is really quickly or really quick. You have people in disparate time zones that can help on this. Right?

You have multiple people, like, rolling through this rotation, etcetera. Right? So there's a variety of different things, but, like, at the end of the day, it comes comes down to, basically, how do you meet the user where they are when they are, like, when they're ready to, like, basically say, like, please, somebody help me. You know? Like, I have a problem or, like, whatever. I need I need this thing. Right? And you're like, excellent. We can we can do that. Right?

But the worst possible thing is, like, you send sales cold outbound with no, like, personalization or anything else like that. And then when the user says, like, hey. My my queries are slow now. Right? It's like crickets for, like, 24 hours. Right? Yeah. And, admittedly, there was a period where we're just not doing support very well. Right, where we where our time to resolution was, like, it was in the, like, 12 hours, like, you know, pushing on to, like, you know, 24 hours. Right?

And since since, like, then, we've, like, over the last year, we basically just drilled that all the way down. Right? And so now we're getting back to people, like, way, way quicker. We're rolling out, like, ways for, like, people to be able to, like, page us. We've had that from, like, a enterprise level, but, like, how do you actually determine, you know, severity of impact on, like, the support side?

Right? Like, these all these all, like, engineering problems. Right? And that's why, like, we we hire support engineers. We hire go to market engineers.

We, like, we hire, you know, obviously, product engineers and and platform engineers. Right? But, like, we wanna build out these solutions with leverage so that we can actually kind of, like, scale them over time really, really well without having to just, like, continually add people to kinda, like, almost, like, backfill and hold this whole thing up. Right?

They try to figure it out on their own. They try to whatever. Right? And then when nothing is working and they can't figure it on their own, they, like, essentially, they throw up that exception, and they say, like

Right? And then you just, like, focus on, like, ticket resolution, all those other things. But, like, if you think about it a little bit more holistically, there's all of that other stuff that, like, leads up in front of support. Right? It's like, is your documentation clear?

Like, are your deployments, like, are going green? Right? Like, we've built our own kind of, like, internal build and deploy system to, like, statically analyze code, and then we take some of the outputs and figure out, like, hey. This was a Django app. It didn't get off the ground. Why did it not get off the ground? Is it something we can go and fix in any of these, like, next packs providers to go and make this better? Right? All of these things sit in front of support. Right?

So support is not just like, I have a ticket and and I want a resolution. It's actually, like, I have a problem and I want a solution. Right? Which, like, expands the scope for which you can operate in. Right?

And that that, like, goes all the way up to our community. We have, like, awesome people in our community who've, like, built stuff out. We've incentivized them, you know, with swag and credits and all these other things. Right? And so we, like, go and push people to basically say, like, hey.

If you have an issue, in all likelihood, somebody else also has the issue. Right? Like, how many times have you just gone to Stack Overflow or GitHub or anything else like that and be like, oh, this is literally my issue. Right? And so, like, we're building a corpus, over on the, like, help dot railway.com site, of all of these kind of issues.

And so those users can, like, run into that issue, figure out it's an issue. Either it's a platform issue and it has to get bubbled up to us, at which point we can, like you know, we built the whole systems. We can attach a linear ticket to it. We can go and, push it through triage. We can go resolve it, and that whole life cycle is all automated.

So whenever the ticket goes to in progress, these these will be notified. Whenever it goes to resolved, it'll they'll also be notified. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And then yeah. So then you can just, like, group and aggregate these these things. Right? And, again, those are only things that we can go and do because we get built out our support experience so that we have the ultimate control to basically say, like, how do we build the ultimate amount of leverage?

This is, like, this is, like, the hardest problem and probably the big biggest limitation for most people that wanna build stuff is I I've had it myself where, like, I wanted to build something for the first time that was a lot more complex than just, like, something I could build with, like, a, you know, classic kind of, like, you know, Next. Js, whatever. And suddenly you wanna deploy this really complex thing that dot, like, process videos, in my case. And, you know, suddenly you have to spend so much time on infrastructure, which is really hard. And, you know, it kind of solves with AWS in the sense of, like, you can do it.

It's like you could build your whole stack on AWS, but it's very, very complicated. And you I what I think is so hard is that you've got this challenge where you've gotta be, like, you've gotta be able to do everything that you do on AWS, but it's gotta be, like, significantly more simple that, to to do than to to do than with AWS, I I would feel like is your is your challenge, which I I've spoken to a few startups that are doing this, and I always think this is the hardest the hardest problem to be solving. I'm my my question is, like, how are you yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So there was a question in there, which was just, like, I I guess, like, how do you think about that kind of, like, the complexity and the simplicity, like, the power and the and the simplicity?

And I think one of them that, like, you know, I've I've I've really, really liked is, like, almost expose so the the principle, if I had to put it into words, would be, like, expose complexity as depth incrementally. It's kinda wordy, and we'll we'll work on that. But, essentially, what it means is that, like, the user should always right? So if you talk about, like, Donald Norman's, like, design principles. Right?

Like, visibility feedback and mapping. Right? And so mapping is really, really important. It's basically, like, where does the user kinda map this in their brain? When you think about the complexity, it's essentially like when you're designing a feature, you should really know where your user is almost going, like, next.

Right? It's like, if I am in the current user life cycle, what am I trying to go in and do? Right? Like, and and where should that kind of, like, feature or toggle or anything else like that exist in the kind of, like, visual space. Right?

And that's why we've, like, invested really, really heavily in the Canvas. Right? Because we're basically saying, like, hey. We wanna make it really easy for you to only kind of, like, think about the things that you really wanna think about right now, and the other stuff can be removed. You can kind of, like, know where it is, like, vaguely in space in, like, kind of, like, an age of empires, like, fog of war type thing. Right? But, like

Right? And so a second principle that I really, really like is, like, make the user make no choices. Right? And so I think, like, people kinda mess this up generally when when they kind of, like, say, like, hey. Here's a model and, like, here's 2 options.

You have to make a choice. Right? Like and the the my my thing about this is, like, people think that there's, like, 2 options and you can, like, look at conversion and stuff like that. Right? But you have to also look at the fall off in the funnel. And when you give a user 2 options, they're gonna pick a 3rd option, which is close the tab. Right? Even if you give a user one choice and say like, okay. Cool. Right?

Like, we have our terms of service. Right? We have 90 98.6% conversion from, like, terms of service to, like, sign up. And the terms of service is literally like it's like a it just goes through to the like, there's no actions that you have to do. You literally hit a button, the big button at the bottom of the page, and you still get 1% drop off in that funnel.

Right? And so if you make the user make choices, you're gonna, like, you're gonna overload them with complexity. Right? Like and so that's what we think about is, like, don't make the user make any choices and, like, whatever the next possible hop is in that user journey, make it as close as possible so that the user can actually say, like, oh, that's, like, that's where I was going. Right?

Like, it's so easy. It's, like, really, like and then you draw, like, a very, very thin line for them to say, like, that's the thing. Right? Like, here's the button. Right? Because in an ideal world, that's the best possible experience is you hit a button, you get the resolution. Right? You hit a button, you get the resolution. Right? I think this is thing something that, like, you know, AI for all the type or whatever is, like, you know what the next possible step is.

It's like you move to natural language and you say that was wrong. Right? And, like, getting more accurate over time is a thing that, like, will happen with AI, but there's a very tractable next step, which is, like, you see the thing and you know where to go.

Right? I know based on your repository, like so I could I could do I could do 2 things upfront. Right? I could do the easy thing for me, which is basically say, like, tell me that this is like a Docker file and that it exists here and, like, you know or otherwise, you know, tell somebody to select, like, a build pack, like Cloud Native build pack or whatever or anything else like that. That's, like, the easy thing to build.

Like, the UI is, like, pretty easy or whatever. Right? But it requires the user to make a choice. It requires the user understand what the Dockerfile is. It requires the user to understand what the build pack is. It requires and that's one step. Right? Like, this is why the AWS, like, configuration thing is, like, kind of a mess. It's like, you go through it and you're, like, okay. I'll select, you know, my name. Okay. Cool. That's good. That's not really a choice. Like, it's fine.

And then you move on to the next thing, and it's, like, do you want a bunch of other operating systems or stuff like that? And you're, like, what the fuck? Like, what am I doing here? Like, what do like, I I have no idea. And then you go you close a tab to, like, go and figure out something else, and then maybe you never come back.

Right? And so that's the attrition in that funnel. Right? And so if you can actually do all of the hard work to basically, like, statically analyze the code and stuff like that and be like, this is probably this. Right? This is these are these are these are probable outcome or whatever. Right? And then, you know, maybe not even make the user make any sort of decision. Just say, like, that was the thing. Right?

And then kind of, like, usher them forward by saying, like, hey. We weren't able to build your thing. Right? Like, we statically analyzed it. We look for any of the stuff, etcetera. Right? And then try and figure out where they're trying to go next. Right? Like you know? And then, you know, build that into your experience and say, oh, actually, it looks like, you know, we have a higher percentage of, like, failures when it comes to, like, a monorepo.

Maybe, like, our monorepo detection needs, like, work for the stuff like this because people are trying to, like, you know, push a front end and a back end into here, and they don't know that they've got to, like, you know, kinda select in into the, like, front end folder, right, and set a root directory.

Yeah. And then they can back out of that later if it's not the thing they want and, like, displaying more.

And so, like, an issue with, like, call it, like, monorepo deployment or, like, microservices or any or, stuff like that is basically, like, what is the ordering of my service? Right? Like, I think Lyft had a PR open on Kubernetes for, like, years, where they were just like, we need, like, ordering or anything else like that. Right? And they're like, no.

I don't know if that I think that that might be the PR, but, anyways, you need ordering and stuff like that, and many people will integrate, like, Basel or, like, custom workflows or anything else like this to go and and make this happen. And so well, how do we, like, derive, like, ordering? Right? Like, as a just an implicit thing. Right?

It's like, well okay. Like, we need an ability to, like, kinda, like, store variables. Right? And so, like, we know to know what your, like, back end URL is. Right?

And so if we build a system that allows you to, like, drag pieces on the canvas to say, this is my back end and it needs to consume this variable on this database, then inherently, like, this service depends on this service. Right? And so this service should roll out before this other service. Right? And so you can construct that like DAG, and that's like a feature we wrote all that recently.

But it's like, if you're already using these features, you can just, like, get compounded benefits. Right? And I think that, like, as you figure out how ways to, like, go in and compress that experience to say, if you use a couple of these primitives, you get all of these outputs. Right? Then, like, you can incrementally adopt those things.

That's what ends up moving people towards, like, oh, this feels like magic. Right? Like, that's awesome. Right? It's like magic, you know, and and people are like, oh, what is magic? Like, how do you like, magic is just doing less shit than you thought you would have to go into. Right? Like, that's that's it. That's that's the only thing that that that, like, quantifies magic. Right? It's like, oh, wow. Like, it already works. That's awesome. Right? Like, it feels like magic.

Right? And so if you can figure out ways to just have the user do do less and get more, like, your product your product will feel more magical. Right? Like, a lot of the kind of trend of, like, moving stuff onto your landing page and, like, allowing people to access your product, right, is, like, you know, that's that's magic. Right?

Because you're just like, oh, normally I have to sign up. Normally I have to, like, whatever, do all of these other things. Right? Like, so you can just think about, like if you think about that compression, then a lot of, like, magical experiences just open up to you. You know?

Yeah. And, okay. So one one question I've got, which is actually, I don't know if I if I caught that part, but Paul Butler, in case we did, Paul Butler is, a customer of yours, a fellow Canadian, and, a great guy running drifting in space. And, he was, get it he wanted me to ask you about your dedicated servers, your your bare metal servers that you're you're now operating. So it's not in the usual dev tools playbook of, like, open your own data center.

So we'll have, like, 4 data centers in, you know, basically 4 different regions, and we'll have a global coverage of, like, you know, less than a 100 milliseconds, like, door to door for for literally anybody in the world, which is super cool. And I would say it's, like, going pretty well. I think we've got a we've got a blog post that we're working on right now. It's basically, like, how do you go from 0 to, like, like, running your own hyper hyperscaler in, like, 6 months. And there's a lot of really, really interesting stuff in there.

And so, like, you know, there's a lot of interesting stuff when it comes to running a data center. Right? There's obviously, like, the procurement of servers. Like, how do you buy them? Like, what do you spec? Like, what are people interested in? And then there's like, okay. Well, like, how do you find a space for these things? Right? Yeah.

You know, like, we basically have to, like, find a building. Right? And so you have to, like, you have to, like, go to Equinix or Digital Realty and, like, compare all these things. Right? And then, like, you have to kind of, like, almost take this transparency paper of, like, who's providing which services, like, Internet services at which rate to, like, these other companies.

And then because, like, we wanna move to, like, a a point where we are doing, like, really, really cool, like, you know, 0 downtime stateful failover, like, interactions with, like, any any perceptible latency, any perceptible issues, or anything else like that. Like, we're taking another transparency paper, and we're saying, like, where are dark fiber lines that we can actually, like, go in and tap into so that we can we can go and do, like, terabit, or, like, terabyte, plus, transfer rates, right, to, like, make sure that we can say, like, if this like, if a tsunami hits, like, this data center, like, you're totally fine. Like, there's no there's no issues or anything else like that. Right? And that provides a variety of benefits.

Right? Whether it's, like, image transfer sizes or anything else like that. And we've hooked it into our orchestrator so that, you know, and I think, like, this is the the thing that's, like, really interesting. It's, like, ultimately, the only thing that matters is that, like, your compute is close to your storage. Right?

Like, like, it it so, like, that's that's what matters because, like, your database queries. Right? If you have to go speed of light between these data centers, it takes way longer. Right? So, stories end up being a really interesting problem that we've, like, you know, we've, I would say, solved on the cloud stuff, and we're now solving on on the kind of, like, bare metal stuff.

Right? But it's still, like, one singular person basically, like, driving these DCs. Right? So there's a lot of different stuff that goes into it. But, yeah, it's it's it's been cool because we've just, like, we've continued to operate with Levered and say, like, you know, like, philosophically, how do we how do we attract really, really excellent talent.

Right? It's like, well, we give them really, really interesting problems. We, you know, give them the capacity to, like, push these forward and, like, give them the the space where they can build the best you know, like, do the best work of their life, right, for the lack of better word. Right? So, yeah, that's it's it's close to, like, 1 ish person doing doing these things. Right? And there's a lot of stuff that gets involved. Right?

Right? And so you have to you have to, like, punch in this format, basically. It's like you're doing punch cards, essentially, where you're just like, here, put these, like, servers here and then put these cables here and then plug in these, like, fiber lines here and then, like, put this, like, spine here, essentially. Right? And we're like, wow.

That's like a lot of paperwork that we, like, don't wanna go in and do. And so, Pierre has built this thing where it's like we've essentially kind of like virtualized the racks because we're like, well, we need to know where these things are anyways so that we can kind of like say the storage needs to be close to the compute. So we'll keep all your stuff together so that your your everything is super fast. We've, like, virtualized those racks. So it's, like, well, like, what if we just had, like, an output thing where you could just, like, add more stuff to this, like, virtual rack and then just say, like, here's the diff, go and and, like, send it to these people.

Right? And so, kinda taking that arcade format and, like, moving it a little bit more forward so that we're getting just, like, almost get to a point where it's like, how do we copy paste data centers? Right? So that's, like, one thing that we've learned, that's, I think, super neat.

Like, a lot of these things are hard. Right? But it's like, oh my god. Like, a lot of this is like a kind of a bit of a shit show. How do we, like, go in and refine a bit of this process to make it kind of less of a mess?

Right? Because it's hard because it's, like, esoteric and difficult to navigate and, like, there's problems that, like, pop up and stuff like that over time. Right? But if you just keep solving those hard problems, right, like, you get to a point where you're actually like, oh, okay. Cool. We can we can just you can just do things, you know, the meme or whatever.

Right? So we're not dogmatic about, like, where we wanna run this. Right? Like, again, we built our own orchestrator so you can just, like, curl the binary into a box, pair into the WireGuard network. Right? Just like bada bing, it works. Right? But, like, we wanna make sure that we can offer the user the best possible experience. Right? And for us, like, there's only so much stuff you can go and do on the cloud.

Right? And so, like, you know, we've built, like, some in house, like, storage stuff that's allowing us to, at this point, like, start to roll out, like, copy on right pull request environments. Right? So, like, we already currently do, like, your full infrastructure is like a preview. Right?

But, like, you know, the database is empty or whatever. Right? And some people are like, oh, how do I, like, seed this with, like, data that I can actually use and stuff like that. Right? And so now we can actually give you, like

Then you merge, and we'll go and clean all those things up. That's only possible because we have our own DCs, and we've, like, built all of those things. Right? Like, being able to do, like, really, really fast image transfers. So, like, so you get, like, instantaneous, like, builds. Right? Like, you can do it on cloud. Right? If you, like, get really, really good about, like, data proximity and all of those other things. Right?

And, like, you know, you can build your stuff beside where it's gonna go and and have to run. But you can also just, like, take advantage of of, like, you know, 100 gig lines that you happen to run between these DCs or, like, multi like terabit lines that, right, like, that you run between these DCs or stuff like that. Right? So, like, it allows you to unlock this kind of additional layer. Right?

And so, I mean, AWS is huge. There's so many other companies as well. Right? Like, we just wanna give people the best possible experience.

Like, people need it from, like, an ability to move forward perspective. The market is absolutely gigantic. Right? And so there's a massive amount of, like, leverage to be had here. Right?

Like, I I think that, like, if we do this right, like, there's almost this kind of, like, kinked toes right now, which is, like, how do I go from, like, idea to, like, thing that is running that everybody can go and access. Right? And if we do our job right, we kind of unkink that hose. Right? And a massive, massive amount of kind of, like, you know, call it GDP. Right? If you wanna use, like, Stripe terms or whatever for the Internet, just kind of, like like, is unlocked. You know?

Like, there's this massive, massive machine of, like, how do I go from idea to production? In most organizations, it's it's kind of like, you know, use that leverage, quote. It's kind of almost like held up by, like, all of these, like, DevOps, SRE people, like, literally just doing God's work to just, like, go ahead and just make sure all of this stuff just

Like, you know, I I think that, like, you know, I I'll I'll rag on Kubernetes because I think, like, you know, it's it's it's kind of a lot of complexity and stuff like that. But, like, you know, it's a good tool. Like, it works, and it solves the problems that they need. Right? I just think that, like, if we can take a bunch of these, like, verticalized industries that people have done, like Terraform and CUBE and Ansible and all those other things, and you can kinda, like, merge them together, you can get a lot of outsized benefits.

Right? Even especially if you start to, like, look at things like observability, like Data dog. Right? If you start to look at, like, things like CDNs, like Cloudflare. Right? You start consolidating a lot of these things. It's really, really it would be really, really great if you could just learn one tool and just apply it wherever.

It's like a chasm. Suddenly

You go and figure out, like, ways to go and build these workflows, right, like, in such a way where, like, you're like, okay. They work for me. Right? And then you go, like, bring people on on your team, and you're like, wow. That doesn't work anymore.

Right? Like, I guess I need different workflows, and I need to replumb everything. Right? And then you have this kind of, like, you know, n squared complexity of, like, I have all these microservices and I have all these environments now, and I have all these, like, you know, all of this stuff I gotta, like, plumb together. Right?

And it pretty rapidly becomes like a full time job, which is why, like, it gets consolidated into those areas where you just, like, don't run into them until you really do. And then you're like, oh, I've, like, stepped almost, like, off this cliff into this, like, amount of stuff that I feel like go and pick up. Right? And so, you know, that was kind of, like, one of the main things where I was like, okay. Like, something has to exist here.

Right? Because you have this almost, like, happy past, etcetera, over here. We're like, I'm building my nice, like, React app, and, like, everything works or whatever. Right? And then you're like, what do I do when I wanna go host a back end? And then, like, go see that guy down the street. It feels like you're walking down, like, a seedy alley, and you're like, what am I what am

Right? And I don't wanna diminish any of the stuff that we're doing. There's a lot of stuff that we're doing that's really, like, really, really, really difficult. Right? But the nice thing is is that when you have these difficult problems and you have these, like, audacious goals or anything else like that, turns out, like, people like working on hard problems.

They like working on interesting things. Right? Like, it's actually so much easier to, like, get people who are interested in, like, really, really core, you know, dev tools, etcetera, things than, like, you know, I don't disparage any company, but, like, you know, DocuSign. Like, some sort like, how do we send forms or anything else like that. Right?

Like, it's not that interesting. Yeah. Right? But if you have all of these hard problems, obviously, you have to go and find the people who who have the capacity and desire along with that desire to, like, go and do those things. Right? But, you know, you can attract really, really awesome people to help you go in and and build your vision. Right? And so if you're like, oh my god. It's so hard. Like, how can I go and do it alone?

Like, first of all, there's always a clear path to, like, getting some really, really garbage version of the thing off the ground. Right? Like, first word version of railway that that that, like, I showed to people was, like, you can you can get a Postgres in the version, like, instantly. Right? And do you know why it was be instant?

Because it was the same Postgres version. It was the like, I just created new users for people. They would hit a button, and it would create a user and give you a password. Right? And, like, that was it. Right? But people were like, oh, I really want this. Right? Because, like It's so fast. It's so fast.

Like, there's no provisioning. I can just, like, connect to it or whatever. Right? And then you end up with all of these, like, problems, like, you get serverless things connecting and, like, flooding your database and all of these other things. Right? You're like, okay. Well, I actually have to solve all of these problems. Right? But doing that hard thing quickly and then figuring out if, like, there's actually a market for it. Right?

Like, I would say is the main thing. It's, like, find your 80 20, find your fast fast possible thing, figure out how to, like, get your first 100 people in, like, a Discord. Right? And, like, build something there, and then try and figure out how to, like, make your first dollar. Right?

And that's, like, I think the, like, the way to, like, cut and, like, do the the harder things is, like, just get really, really core to the thing that you're trying to go in and do, but, like, also really lean into those hard

But he's basically saying, like, people are we're talking about AGI. People are talking about AGI and what it, like, looks like, and and it seems to more look like I just talked with my friend, like, Claude, like, 11 times a day. I'm like, oh, that's like so right. You know, it's like this this thing is like here and it, like, works, you know. Dev tools wise that I think that that are are solid.

I actually quite like Space Lift, as, like, a tool in general. I think that they're they're really good. And so if you're in, like, the DevOps Espace, I think they're they're great, and you have to manage those cube clusters.

Right? So if you have, like, you know, something you wanna consolidate into a bastion somewhere or anything else like that that, like, runs essentially on PR environments or, like, on merge or anything else like that, like, this tool works quite well. It's, again, like, a bit complicated. But, like, we dog food, like, state of the art stuff internally. Like, we have a cube cluster, and we, like, have all of these.

And we've used service meshes in the past and, like, all of this other stuff. Right? So we dogfood some of our stuff, just to host, like, our web app. And so, like, this is a tool that, like, actually is, like, okay. This is pretty nice. That actually works, you know, and does the thing. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to set up. You have to write, like, policies if you wanna do anything complicated. Right? So, like, rewriting Rigo.

But, again, Claude is actually really good at writing Rigo, so you can just do that.

And so, like, I was talking to somebody the other day, and it was like, you're always I think you're always gonna have, like, a human in the loop because, like, by definition, the AI, like, is kind of, like, a fuzzy search. Right? So it'll always be 99, 99.9, etcetera, kind of thing. Right? So I'm actually pretty bullish on those, like, human in the loop kind of experiences.

Right? Like, Copilot, etcetera. Right? But, like, at the moment, you get to, like, AI for some random esoteric thing here that's gonna, like, go and solve your stuff, I'm just like, there's no way. Right? Like, it's always gonna have, like, any issue or anything else like that. You need the the person there. So it's it's it's leverage. It's compression. It's all of those, like, lovely things. You know?