I don't know why I wanted to be the best engineer, but there's all these people that I looked up to in that time. Like Joel Spolski, I want to be that great, but if you think about it, the reason we know about them is because they're communicators, right? They're explaining problems to us. I thought this guy has a blog because he's the most amazing engineer. But no, he, I know about the things that he's done because he talks about them, right?
Like all these people I looked up to, but they're actually good at was communicating, right? The person who wrote the book that I wanted to ask questions about how to do functional programming, it's not clear they were the best functional programmer in the world, hopefully they were decent at it. But no, they had written a book, right? They had spent a lot of time communicating.
So I think that actually I maybe realized that my goal was misplaced, that there was a larger goal or something, that yeah, I wasn't seeing that all these people who communicate are the people that I look up to, right? And it can be super impactful if you can take something and explain it in a way that lets it crystallize in people's minds. And I don't know that I'm the best at it, but it feels very valuable and important. Welcome to the software and misadventures podcast.
We are your hosts, Ronnick and Guan. As engineers, we are interested in not just the technologies, but the people and the stories behind them. So on this show, we try to scratch our own edge by sitting down with engineers, founders and investors to chat about their path, lessons they've learned, and of course, the misadventures along the way. Awesome to have you here Adam. You're the host of our Co-Recursive podcast before our conversation.
You were telling us a little about your background. I love sort of the the arc that you gave, the focus being the value of communication and then how you were able to get there via the different steps in your career. So I thought maybe like, interesting place to start is going back to when you were first getting started as an engineer. Like, was there different points where you specifically recognize these like, oh, wow communication is something that's quite powerful, but that's very
under leveraged by like your peers. So I used to work at this place here in Peterborough called Opera Tell made a lot of friends there. And I think like, I just really want to be really good coder I guess. You know, and they had like a large complicated code base. People were always adding, there's like enterprise software. People are adding features as fast as they could and like nobody
can keep track of any of it. And like, I just wanted to get really good at that, right? Like, oh, you want to be the guy that they go to when something's on fire because you know all the stuff, right? And there was people who knew all the stuff and I'm like, I want to be one of those people. So that was very important to me. I don't think I thought communication was important. I just wanted to have this great skill set, right? And develop it. Yeah. And then I ended up transitioning from there to
working someplace remote. So it was actually a weird thing where my boss had left. And I liked him. And he was interviewing for this other role that was in another city. And he's like, yeah, you could do it remote like from home. And I was like, that sounds awesome. It turned out the company was like less on point with me being remote than he was. But I didn't end up taking it even though it was like iffy, whether I would have to move to Kitchener. For instance, but I liked working from home.
But I missed some of the stuff from opertale, you know? And like it wasn't you said communication, that's like a big word. And makes me think of like writing up documentation for something, right? But like what I missed was like being in the cafeteria, like we had this cafeteria. And you know, you're like having lunch or waiting for the free microwave or whatever. And you know, somebody's telling some story about the something server was down last night. And like, and I got
called in and then somebody's like, oh, did you, did you check? Was it the, you know, was the disc phone? And I thought it was the disc phone, but it wasn't the disc phone. Like, oh, was it the, whatever? This was a Windows server. So it was like, was IIS like leaking memory or something? And anyways, people like go back and forth through it. And it's like a fun game. And you're like trying to figure out. And the guy's like, no, no, it turned out it wasn't at all. Like somebody had
pointed something to the wrong server and blah, blah, blah. There was always these stories, probably because people are moving too fast and things were always blowing up. But like a lot of the, the knowledge about how to solve problems, about how things worked there. Right? It was actually transferred just in people like, you know, like shooting the breeze in this cafeteria setting. And like, I didn't get that right. Once I started working remote. So that was my first inkling. I
think that like, oh, this is something important, right? Nobody says like, oh, you know, we would like to give you a raise because people have learned a lot from those crazy stories you tell at lunch. But like it turns out that that's very important. And it's like a thing where people get a lot, like people talk about mentoring. Like a lot of it is right there in these like casual venues. So that was my first inkling that like, this is something important. Interesting.
And fast forward a little bit. So you mentioned that you've then got into management. And then later on, Deborah, like how did that sort of experience like evolve into something where you're like, okay, there's a strategic point to it, rather than just something that's very, um, makes the job more fulfilling. There's like 30 steps. But like, I got, that's the problem. But like, yeah, so I started working remotely. I worked on this team. Really smart people, some of the smartest
people I worked with before. And we weren't always actually accomplishing as much as, as I thought we should. It's like, you know, sometimes you wish you're like, man, wouldn't it be great if the whole team was rock stars? Like you imagine there's these 10X developers out there. And would be so amazing. Or maybe you just imagine like you didn't have that guy who he keep having to walk him through things. That wasn't me. That wasn't me. That's
what I was like. I mean, I'm going to be like, guys, sometimes. But like the team was very skilled, but we weren't getting as much done as I thought through. Like it just didn't seem to be working. And so that was my entry point to becoming an engineering manager. Because I thought like, the problem here isn't technical skills. Like all of the people on this team are super talented. So something else is the problem. Right. So that transitioned me to being an engineering manager.
And then eight more steps. And then I ended up in developed relations. So I wanted to fast forward a little bit and talk a little bit more about podcasting. So before I think you started code of cursive, you were a podcast host at SC Radio. So software engineering radio for folks who might not know. I think IEEE actually managed this podcast. But can you share a little more about how you got into podcasting and
flashlist? Yeah. There was there was this podcast called software engineering daily. And Jeff who was the host, he made an episode for a long time every weekday. And that was a lot. So anyways, I was listening to one of his episodes. And he said, I need some people to help me do this. Right. So I reached out to him. And like he said, yeah, like just find somebody and interview them and like send me the wave file or whatever. Like there was very little two to the edge and ball.
So no waiting all the rest. So that was my entry point. And then like he, after a while, I think he took on a couple of people like this. And he was like, this is on wieldy. I'm going to stop doing it. But then he recommended me to the software engineering radio. And they, yeah, they're based on the ultra-belie. He had started there. They had more structure. And that's all I got into it. But I mean, the motivation was like, I was still in that world where
I was like, I just want to be the best programmer. Like I want to know everything and be able to tackle all these problems. And I was at this point, like I was a scholar developer and I was getting deep into like functional programming. And there's like a million things to learn. And it's like, it's just, it seems like vast, right? And so it was like an opportunity for me to just like talk to these experts and ask them questions, right? It was like, I have a question about this thing.
This guy wrote this book. Like I can just, yeah, I'm gonna ask him questions. Yeah. Nice. So like at some point, you decided to start code recursive. Work made you make that jump. Because SIT radio was kind of doing a lot of the hard work that goes into podcasting and has a good name behind it. Then what why started it? Yeah. So I was doing these episodes for Jeff. So the software engineering daily. And I was reaching out to people to interview them. And I didn't really
run it by him. I just started booking more interviews and some of them I booked far out. And once I sent him a thing like an episode I recorded and he's like, okay, well, we stopped doing that. Like, right? And I still have more interviews booked. So it was like, I guess I'm starting my own podcast. Like I already have interviews. And I remember the first interview that I did where I was like, okay. So I said I was interviewing for this podcast. Like actually, you're being interviewed for
it as yet unnamed podcast that I just made up. Yeah. People didn't seem to care. And I remember talking to Jeff when I told him I was doing this. I was like, okay, well, like I booked these couple first episodes of my podcast saying it was yours because I mean accidentally. Like, how do I book further people? And he was like, people like to talk about themselves. I wouldn't worry about it. Like he's just like, just email people. Right? I'm sure you guys have noticed. Like it's actually
not that hard. I've been surprised by just how kind, I guess like fancy or like famous people are about their time. Because I think that's the thing I worry about the most. Right? It's like they have this busy schedule, you know, all these things talking to some random dudes from the internet seems to be low on the priority list. But I think yeah, if you're pretty clear about the messaging to show that you've done your homework, that doesn't make sense. And curious like in those first days,
what were for us? I think it was the writing that you know, I think that was the most painful to actually do. So it's kind of funny to hear that for you. It's like you've already probably had a process at that point, right? If you already booked, you know, quite a few. What was the hardest part about the early days of starting the podcast? That's a good question. Definitely reaching
into people feels fraught, right? Like you feel like you're putting yourself out there. And I was looking at your episodes like I know that there's people in that list that I have reached out to in the early days who said no, right? And maybe they would say yes now, but I'm never going to reach back out to them. It's just like you feel. You feel rejected. It's not. Rejection, I'm sensitive to, right? Like probably somebody's just like, no, I'm busy. I can't do this, right? But my perception
is like, oh, yeah, they they look deep into my soul and said that I'm not worthy, right? It's like, that's so real. And it's super funny because Radegan, I actually, we had an instance where he's someone that we reached out to like maybe two years ago. And then he said, no, no, that was not the good time. But then they actually came on the show because I didn't realize he wrote the email like two years ago. So that I would just like, oh, this person seems
pretty cool. Like let me just write the email. So that was a pretty funny moment. I remember as charity majors, I was trying to figure out reaching out to people. And so I read some articles about it by some marketers or whatever. I don't know, like don't look for advice on like how to cold out reached people. Like it's really, let's get. Yeah. Oh, no, it's terrible.
Do almost nothing that people just don't recommend it. Like, oh, there's these things. And they'll like basically like set up a chain of emails where you reach out to them and then you follow up and then you follow up, right? And so I found some tool. It's like, so I wrote the email to charity and then like three days later, it would send a follow up, she hadn't responded. There's like three of those. And so I emailed her like I set up a thing and I sent it to her. And she emailed me like
back like 60 seconds later. And she's like, yeah, sure. But like what's going on with all these emails and they had all sent that once. So I'd sent it. I really want to on the fuck. I asked you. Would you like to get in the back guys and then like, oh, you haven't got back to me? You still haven't got back to me years. Yeah. Yeah. That's how fast I iterate. So she said yes, like then 60 seconds. So maybe that's the method.
So one question on the follow up, this is something that I struggle with a lot when it comes to writing an email to reach out to a guest. One part is you want to do some research to write a thoughtful email instead of a random cold email, which I think is okay. Like there's a way to do that. But then on the follow up, at least I feel a lot of friction in doing that follow up and I have guang here pinging me almost every three days. Did you follow up yet? And I don't have one of
the tools that you mentioned. And when I say there is friction, for me, that friction comes from not knowing exactly the language to use to follow up. There are certain templates that I use but then for whatever reason I get bored and don't like them anymore and then I'll go to chat, GPT and waste 15 minutes just to craft like one line follow up. I'm curious, is there language that you figured out that you used in follow up emails that just makes it much easier to do that?
I guess the answer is no. It's funny because I guang you had to follow up with me for this just because I don't know. There's a lot of emails and I forgot. I was like, I'm going to respond to that and then I didn't. Yeah. I did a little retrospective on just the power of following up. I think I really learned it when I was doing the third inside bootcamp. I do like to try to do like a VC funded company. One of the advisors, so Yuri who used to work at YC, he was like,
yeah, you got to set it up, you know, six follow ups. I was like six, like are you kidding me? Like I would definitely be a spam. So then I think we kind of settle like, like who on earth? Anyways, but then that was also kind of drill into my head. But then he was until much later when like I think I saw Jake doing this. So he's the founder of the inside. And then he just wrote like very casually. So I kind of like, hey, just quick ripping, you know, in case you got buried.
And then he says, but if not the best time, like no worries. Like that line to me was like magic because he just like, absolved me from all the, because I felt so bad for like, I feel like I'm not even begging for like, oh, can you please like, you know, do this thing? Can you please like take a look? And then that really changed the equation to more like, hey, I'm trying to find like a match right to see if there's like value that we can provide. And if that's something that you're
interested. So it's kind of like, okay, it's more like equal instead of like, I'm trying to, you know, gear stuff from you. So yeah, so no, I'm not much less scared about doing. Yeah, I have this thing. Okay, one second follow up then dot com. All it is. Yeah, all of this is like a whole bunch of email accounts that you add to your contact list. And so when I message somebody, I'll just, I'll just write them a message and then I'll BCC like two weeks at followupthen.com. And it just emails me
the email back two weeks later. So it's like, that's my system now. I don't have any. So you don't, you keep track of it. Now where you can do the follow up or if you can check to see if you still want to follow up. Just put it back to the top of my email box. And then I'm like, okay, yeah, like, I agree, like saying like, yeah, no worries if it's not a fit or whatever makes it feel I don't know, less on the line, I guess, right? Like, yeah. Oh, so I was doing core courses
profile on Apple podcasts. And there are bunch of good reviews about your story telling where people like every story feels very unique. It's very engaging in things like that, which is pretty amazing. So I'm curious like, how did you figure out what sort of story telling mechanism you want to use in the podcast? And how do you now go about structuring the episode? This is mostly me trying to learn. So software engineering radio is very technical and like dry, I would say.
And they have like a very strong format. It's like, let's interview somebody about the cap theorem, right? And then it's like, you have to have like an outline prepared and you have to show that this person's an expert and then you can go through like, oh, what are the trade-offs of this versus that? And it's very dry. You can learn a lot, I guess, but as I, like, as I was doing it, and then kind of repeating it on my own, talking to people for a co-recursive, like, I found like the
parts that spoke to me were not that, right? Like the parts that stood out to me talking to people was when people shared things, right? We go back to what I was saying at the cafeteria at opertel and, you know, they're explaining like, oh, the server was down and how do we look into it? And like, that stuff was so much more compelling to me. And I just wanted to do more of that. The last interview I did for for software engineering radio was Steven Wolfram. I was talking to him
about his, you know, his programming language and all the things he's built. But then I forget what we started talking about. Like, if he could estimate, you know, something to do with like, how much he weighed based on his calories or something. And he's like, you know, coding in his language and trying to figure out how much he weighs. And it was just like us having fun, like, using his Wolfram and Mathematica and stuff. And I was like, this is better, right? It's like
just an experience rather than him explaining the trade-offs of various things. They cut it from the episode, like they got rid of it all. Yeah. Oh, wow. And he was, I forget what we were coming up with. But it was like, I was throwing problems at him and he was going to calculate them. And I was like, oh, I'm in Peterborough. And he's like, Peterborough UK. I'm like, no, Peterborough Canada. And he's like, Mathematica is like his baby. And it's like he was like the Tom Cruise in minority
report. Like he was like pulling the data from various places. And I was like, this is awesome. But yeah, they didn't, they didn't feel that was like educational. But the point is I was like, this is the good stuff, right? Just like lean into the actual experiences that people have. Yeah. So that I don't, I don't have a quick answer for like how you do that. But like, pay attention to what you find interesting, right? And like, double down on that, I think is the key. That was,
that must have been super interesting, weird experience, right? Being like, oh, I think I got this really golden nuggets, but having that cut out like, did you, how do you work with the editor like in that process? Like do they kind of come up with like, hey, you know, the outline that you mentioned, and it's like, we need to hit these things. And then do you get much say in terms of like, so as a suffering radio, the Robert who runs it, he has a very in depth process. It's like
the manual that he made for is online. And actually, like, I don't think he's wrong about, about cutting it because the way that that podcast worked was always like, about the technical details, right? It wasn't like, oh, let's have some fun with Stephen Wolfram, right? It was like, tell me about Mathematica and like, what's the history of it and what, you know, how would you
parse it and whatever the details are? But so their process was you'd come up with an outline in a Google Doc, the editors and the other hosts would review it, offer feedback, and then you record the episode, and then you can provide a list of edits. If you're like, oh, you know, we need to cut out this one part. You would just give like time stamps. And then they kind of took it from there, and usually they just went with whatever you had. But my interview with Stephen was long because
we were just like messing around. And so I guess you wanted to cut some stuff out and he's like, yeah, let's get rid of this, like playing around. Like, what's the one of that? So along with those lines, so Ron, I mentioned this as well. And, you know, you, so you started out, correct, cursive back in 2018, being pretty technical. Like you said, coming off like,
sub-engineering daily. And now it's, you know, it's a very like storytelling driven, right? I think you mentioned that the raw interviews can be like up to two hours versus like the final product, right? It's like only maybe like 40, 50 minutes. So there's a ton of like editing, you know, you're thinking about the story. So it's super different now and then like, were there any like pivotal moments in that journey in this like evolution of the podcast that
you like that comes to mind? So yes. But many. I got, I got, so the other day, I get all these emails from people who like want their CEO of almost always Bitcoin startups, like varying things to like see you guys on the podcast, right? Somebody reached out, wasn't like a blockchain thing, but they're like, oh, you should talk to this to our CEO, whatever. It was like sort of interesting. You know, they're like, oh, Ron can talk about our new release. And we have a new feature flag on the
settings page. I was trying to explain to them like, no, that's not what I need. Like, does he have an interesting story? And they're like, oh, he's got tons of stories, right? Until like we had some back and forth, but there was like a gem of stuff where I was interested. And so we got on a Zoom call to talk it out, right? And I was telling this person, this is what I learned. And I tried to, I tried to give it to them, right? So this is a story. I am here in Peter
Row a couple of months ago. I'm driving to see my wife at her work. And I'm almost at her work. And I'm at a stoplight. And there's like several cars in front of me. And I have to pick her up. Then you know, the light turns green, the car in front of me goes and then like this guy runs out in front of my car. And he's on crutches, right? And he doesn't look well, but not in like the injured way, but in the like I've been living a rough life type of way. And he's like screaming,
right? Just like screaming, not at me, but like often some other direction. And then I see what he's screaming about. And there's another guy in a wheelchair that he's screaming at. And they're screaming back and forth in the guy in the wheelchair. Like, first of all, I just want to go. Like I want to drive. I can see my wife's work because it's like on the corner. But like this guy is standing in front of me,
like having the screen matching. And the way I don't want to catch his attention, right? But like, I also want to get by him. And then the guy in the wheelchair is like wheeling, right? And he like builds up speed and he actually smashes into the guy on the crutches, knocks him down. The crutches are on the ground. Like I'm still there. Like I still am like, I'm going to be late to pick up Courtney, my wife. I'm probably not that late, but like I don't want to anger her like I borrowed her
car and blah, blah, blah. And then the guy with the crutches like gets up and I'm like, oh good, he's going to go the way, but he takes his crutch like a baseball bat and he goes in the guy with the wheelchair and like smashes a crutches time. And then just like fighting like out in the middle of the street, right? And so I say to this lady, like that is a story, right? Like I'm the protagonist, and I'm trying to get to my wife's work, right? That's my objective. And then there's obstacles.
Like the obstacle of these guys, like a guy in a wheelchair and a guy, they ended up being fine. Like they both, like I don't think the wheelchair guy was a paraplegic because he kind of jumped like and they were wrestling. So like he obviously could use his feet. But yeah, but I was like the new settings thing on the feature, whatever, it's not a story, right? I need like the, what did Ron do? Like what were the things that happened? Yeah. So this, this is what I think about,
right? There's like you need a story. And like a story is a very simple thing. It's that, right? You have a protagonist, he has an objective, and then there's obstacles. And that's like, that's like 90% of the thing, right? It's just like you find somebody who has those ingredients. And sometimes you don't know, right? You just start talking to them and then they're like they tell this story. But, but that's what I focus in on. Halfway through the story, I was like, where is Adam
going with this? And then I realized, I realized, oh, this is an analogy that he's trying to draw for the code email. And I realized, oh, wow, that's actually very spot out. And well, place are well played. How do you go about finding, right? Guess who have a good story to tell, by the way? Like that's hard because you don't know a lot of people and don't know their stories. Agreed. Yeah, that's the hardest thing, right? Sometimes I'll see something and I'll be like,
oh, yeah, I've got to talk to this person. Sometimes I will just talk to somebody and like, basically, I'll do a pre-interview. I'll just chat with them and see, you know, what's going on? You know, tell me something interesting to happen to you, kind of explore it. But yeah, I mean, I think that's difficult. And the story doesn't have to be like, I did this episode with my friend Don. And he had worked with me at this place. I've ever told I was describing with the cafeteria
and the stories and whatever. And like, the story was just about how like, he started at this place as soon as he finished university. And you know, he just felt like they never valued him. Like, he stayed there for a long time. Like, he never worked anywhere else. He never got the context for like, oh, maybe this isn't a great place to work. And like, I guess this story was like, you should
value yourself because I went through this thing. Like, I was working so hard for this place. And then I found out like, I wasn't being paid well and there weren't good working conditions and whatever. So I mean, there doesn't have to be a guy with a wheelchair and a guy with a crutch. It's more like, it's through the eyes of the person you're talking to. Right? I guess is a way to think about it. You mentioned pre-interviews. Like, is this do you do that commonly? And if so, then what does your
picture look like to the person you're reaching out to? Yeah, I just email them and say, hey, I think you could be an interesting guest for my podcast. Do you want to have a chat about it? And then I send them like a calendly link. And I think sometimes that it can be valuable for them too because they get to ask me questions. I think they just get to meet me, right? So it's not like a blind date.
It's like, oh, we've we've chatted before. Yeah. Yeah. Do many people take you up on that? Or is it only a harm? I always talked to everybody first before I interviewed them. Yeah. I didn't always. But yeah, it's grateful. I took some classes from the independent association of radio journalists. I think it was called. Anyways, MPR type folk. And they were super valuable. But like one thing that proper
journalists do is audition people like they'll audition people all the time. And like, you know, something happened like, okay, the big security thing that just happened. What was the company again? Crowdstrike, right? So you're writing an article about Crowdstrike and like, you need a quote from like an expert or whatever, right? Like a lot of times journalists will talk to like seven experts, right? Like whoever they can get a hold of quickly. And they're just looking for whoever's
the interesting person. And like, that will be the quote that they use, right? So basically, they're auditioning people. Like, who's going to say something that's, you know, poignant and gets my point across? So yeah, it's for radio. They would call that like a pre-interview. If it's like a a TV show, right? Like often they have producers who this is all they do is like try to reach out and find like, okay, we need somebody to fill in this little segment, right? Like who do we got?
And like, are they interesting? What are some traits you look out for during those interviews to like see if they're, what do you call them? You wouldn't really crazy. You wouldn't believe the story. Yeah, so I think there's just two criteria. One is that they have, yeah, some sort of story where they have, they had an objective and like they're, they're willing to share that. So that's like, has a story. And the other one is like, is a talker to use just, that's my generic
term for somebody who's just like interesting to hear talk. What questions do you ask to get these responses from them? Like the how is story? Is that the question? I'm assuming something else. So the talker thing, I think you'll know. Let's look, I have a checklist here. Please stand by. I'm a big fan of checklists. So I have, when was the time when you thought things were really bad? Usually there's like something else attached to that, right? Like when in your experience at LinkedIn,
where you're like, oh, we're screwed now, you know? And we'll say like, oh, you know, yeah. And like, what was the scariest thing, et cetera? Attach that to something, right? So it's like, yeah, tell me about your time about LinkedIn. Like what was the scariest thing that happened when you were there? You know, what was the time where you know, you really, those are the only two questions I have in front of me.
But yeah, it's usually like, how long do you schedule these charts for? Like 20 minutes. And after the chat, have you, have you said no to any guests? Yeah, I'm not good at saying no though. Yeah, I would imagine that to be hard for it because you're reaching, you're inviting someone to say, hey, you could be a good fit, let's chart more. But then you may not like the stories or maybe they don't have as many as you might think. Yeah, what have you said, if you have said no, I would love to know
how to do go about it. Yeah, I think I've just said to people like, I'm not sure if it's like quite a fit or, but yeah, I don't like to do that. Like, but yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I think the journalists are good at that I'm not, right? It's like, they're like, oh, I'm going to talk to six people and only one of them where I feel like I'm using people's time so that like there should
be some end result. Yeah. When this case, like, when you have this pre-chart with them and you invite them back on the podcast, what does your prep typically look like and do they know that this is the story that you'll focus on? Yeah, I try to let them know, you know, what's interesting to me and then sometimes though during the interview, the directions change just because something more interesting comes up. I interviewed before this guy who he created a Google AdWords, I think,
or AdSense, we were going to talk about that. So I did the pre-interview, we chatted it sounded pretty interesting. He was like, very early Google employee, but then when we were talking, I was like, well, you know, let's go back further and like he had worked at the JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he had like been this person who had pushed for them to use the list and I had
gotten a list like on this spacecraft and then like had a problem with it and got like, had to get a REPL going into this like thing that was like 100,000 miles away in space like through satellites and he's like, I don't know how this REPL works, but you know, he's printing out, I assume a thousand open braces from space. So I was like, I just changed what we talked about, right? Like we didn't, I mean we still talked about the AdSense thing, but I guess that's a benefit
of being able to talk to somebody for two hours and then cut down to an hour, right? Like once I had that, I was like, okay, maybe this is the story. That's really cool. So in other words, you talk to somebody, you look, you know, what's an interesting experience, but then when they tell, like you know, then you just pay attention to what's interesting and keep meaning in on it, right? Maybe once you
edit it, it changes as well, right? You're like, oh, the focus should really be X. Be later to the podcast yourself or be outshores that. Yeah, I edit it. It's a pain. I think it's super cool that you take so much effort into that editing process and not because for us it's more of a chore, but for you, right? It's like a creative process, right? Like that's where you have all the Lego pieces and then you're putting together something, you're creating something. I'm curious,
like what's your favorite part of the process of making a podcast episode? Because for us, I feel like there's less choices versus for you. I feel like there's a lot more that you're doing a lot of interesting stuff. The problem is, like I kept on putting more work into like polishing the episode. And so sometimes I feel like it takes me so much time that I'm like, oh, what am I doing? But yeah,
like at some point somebody told me like, oh, you should have music. And then so I did put music in, like just at the beginning and then at the end, like I think this person wanted me to like, like score it like Hans Zimmerman or something. I was like, yeah, I don't even know how that work. But it turns out like putting the music in is super fun. So that was like just a fun part I enjoy. Right? Once again, I took a little class from some sort of like NPR folk. And so instead of just
having like, oh, we're going to play our theme song, right? They would try to have like a song, you know, like where the kind of like beat drops at the right time to like cut you into the story. And that is like putting that in. It's kind of a pain because I'm like, oh, I still got to do that. But it's super fun. But you mentioned a class before as well. Can you talk more about class you took? Yeah, I took this class from Christina Shockley. And I took two classes from her. I forget what they
were called, but she works for NPR. It was one of their morning programs, I think, but just like the Michigan version of it, I believe. Anyway, she's super talented. It took this class. It was all like a journalist and radio people in it, except for me, which like totally freaked me out. Like there's a guy from the economist and I was like, what am I doing here? Look, I just interviewed people about like whatever. How did you get in?
Like it's a, so there's this thing called air. It's like an association for independent radio journalists. So you just, you just pay to join. Like, and then they have classes. And then I paid for the class. One of the things she had us do in the class was every, so I think we had a class every Sunday for several hours. And we did like various things. But she also had us make like a,
there was an assignment every week. And it was like making a two to five minute like audio, which, you know, like if you're listening to the radio, sometimes they'll like cut into like, oh, here's a, whatever, a small story about Amanda Newfoundland who's reunited with this dog or whatever. It's like a little thing. But she had, she had us make them like about ourselves and like reflecting on ourselves, right? So it was like a audio piece. Like it's almost like an audio essay,
I guess, about yourself, but like making it very small and condensed. And then she was giving feedback on it. And yeah, so I don't know. I forget how long the class went, but it was like making these every week. And it was pretty fun. It's like writing like a, you know, a reflective little essay, but instead of for your blog, it's like your, your speaking. So I learned a lot from that process that like you can make something interesting in audio by just like reflecting on something that's
going on in your life. I'm very curious about like the, the conviction aspect of like getting enough like conviction that like, hey, this is something I want to really get good at, right? Like I want to invest in learning all these new skills, right? Skills that are core to like producing like this great piece. But before that, I'm curious about like, were there any engineering practices that you thought that were pretty helpful in kind of system enticing this? Yeah, I have checklist for
the process of going through an epim. So kind of built them up over time. And then I tried to write down things that don't go well. And I'd keep a list of that. And so it's just like some process was a pain or I forgot to do this thing. And then I tried to go back and try to knock some of the, so that's like my, I guess like refinement step, right? And so if I write them down a couple times on this list, like all this didn't go well, this didn't go well, then you know, I can go back.
Because oftentimes it's like, okay, yeah, it was a pain to do this, but like I got to get the episode out like I don't care that it's, that's pain and you to do it. But then afterwards I'll have it on the list like, oh yeah, that's, what's an example of that? I was hoping. What's an example? Let me look. I was hoping there's going to be some mention of Fibonacci numbers and story points. Yeah, so like I was getting transcripts down of the podcast. But then I switched to, to using,
I guess the open AI transcribing thing whisper. Yeah, but it's like, like I ran, so all kinds of problems with it. And so I had to feed a glossary and then had to tweak things on it. So like one time, like I have written down here, I wrote this thing like glossary generator, right? And so it takes the the whisper transcription feeds it to like chat GBT4 and there's probably some mistakes in it. Like can you make a list of the words that it got wrong, right? And then I feed that back again.
So that was like just something I added because I was like, okay, this is wrong. And then I'm like, okay, now I have this list and I'm feeding it back and then it gets it. Yeah. Nice. You mentioned you learned a lot from their class. What are some of the pieces you learned that were involved telling a good story? The thing I learned from Christina, there's a lot in your
in your voice, like a lot of emotion and power. And if I am telling a story to my wife for something, even just like I was reading this book and I had this crazy story in it, it was like a nonfiction book. And I'm like animated and telling her all this, right? But then I would, you know, want to introduce the story from my podcast and I would be talking just into the void. I'm like recording the intro and there's nobody there. And I just don't sound like a person.
I just sound so bored, right? Like I don't sound excited. Really? That's hard. Like I still struggle with that. But like that was the thing where she was like, yeah, this isn't good. Like, you know, there's all these radio people in the class. And then I remember because she had me like I was in this room and we were all in this big zoom meeting. Whatever I have to like practice reading. So then like reading the intro and she's like,
oh, yeah, try again. But she's like, leave like get out of the room. And then I want you to like run in as fast as you can and then like stop and give your intro, right? And then I did that. And she's like, see, it's getting better. And it was like she was like, she made me just like physically move a lot. But the idea was like to try to get some of that humanness of like how I would normally talk.
It's like, for whatever reason, like a switch would flip in my head and that'd be like, time to read the introduction to my podcast, you know? How did you come across this class by the way? Like I think I found a link to this. It's like association of independent audio producers. Is that the one? Yeah. Yeah, they have class. So training. Yeah. So I joined them and then they send out emails and they're like,
hey, who's a class? And I was like, I should sign up for this. And then I was very nervous about it because it doesn't feel like I should be part of the independent association of audio producers. Yeah, it's fine. Oh, nice. So you mentioned it took another class with NPR as well, which was more about like, where can you add certain sound bites, not sound bites, but rather or a side word audio pieces to emphasize what the person is saying. What was that about? It was about
that. Like we're at. What did you learn as part of that class? Yeah, like so if you were to listen, I guess like cereal was like a really big breakthrough podcast back in the day. And like it, it was like scored like it had like music and the music kind of gave it momentum and you know, kept it moving and made it interesting. And that was created by the people who made this American life. And if you listen to this American life, right, it's like a bunch of 15 minute versions of that.
And they use music. Sometimes it's too much and I don't like it, but sometimes it really adds a lot to the episode. And so yeah, I took a class where they talked about how it's done. You know, there's podcasts that are like full dramas with like people acting out of fiction with sound effects, but I just learned the very basics. And yeah, I found it very powerful.
And the thing that I learned was like, if I took like a, so I paid for a non like a royalty-free music service and I found like if I found like a rock song and I drop out all the instruments except just the bass. And then I can use kind of like a gritty sound bass. And then when you, you know, just like a repetitive bass chord when I'm introducing things and then I drop out like that when you cut the bass and then the story starts and people are like, you know, it gives them
an audio cue that like, oh, something's changed here, right? That was Adam talking, but now like, boom, now we're in the pretty cool, pretty cool. Well, you got to add more music. No, you, I was gonna say you should be taking notes. Not all right. How did you get this conviction to, you know, put in all this investment in terms of like learning new skills? I imagine, yeah, it must have been pretty daunting to be in that room
with the people from the economists, the people. Yeah. So I read this book called Ultra Learning and it's by Scott Young, I believe, super good book. Ultra Learning Master Hard Skills, Outsmart, the Competition, accelerate your career. It's quite a subtitle. So Scott Young was this guy who he finished business school and decided, why didn't I go into computer science? Like, I like computers, right? I like programming. And so he embarked, you know, this was,
I don't know, 20 years ago, but it was right when the MIT like open courseware came out. So he embarked on this project like, I'm gonna do the whole MIT undergrad, but I'm gonna hit it like full time as a job and I should be able to do the courses, like do a triple course load and pass through all these classes. And he, he did do that. I mean, you don't get a degree for just doing all the online MIT things, but he had somebody grade him, like he got tests and whatever. And then
he were, I don't know, he did this bunch times. Anyways, he wrote a book about this. He called it, like, Ultra Learning. And I read it around the time that I transitioned to this storytelling stuff. And I guess the point of the book was like, hey, if you like really hit something hard, in a short period of time, you can make a lot of progress, right? Other examples in the book included like people who, you know, develop a level of language proficiency really quickly.
And how they, they just invest a lot of effort and surpass somebody who spends 10 years on Duolingo, you know, they get there in three months, but just by like, hammering it. So I think that that's true, right? So what do you want to throw yourself at, right? So I chose to throw myself a podcast. There's people now, you know, I mean, you mentioned data science, right? It's like, like, sometimes if you encounter something new and you're excited about it, you can just really
invest a lot of time and level up pretty quickly. Nice. Tinging that back, right? Like you're doing this all, like, well, having a full-time job. How did you balance this? Like, did you treat this? It's just like kind of like a hobby that you like do on the side or, yeah, I mean, so it started off when I wasn't putting much into it, then it wasn't too hard. Like before I really started focusing on what, let's make the best episode I can, then it wasn't that challenging because it didn't take up
that much time. At some point, I started waking up at five o'clock, and so I would work for two hours, like from five, 15 to like seven, 15. Then I would get ready for my day, and then I would work. I would just do two hours of podcast work before I worked each day. And like, sometimes I wasn't super, it probably wasn't my best hours for working, but cumulatively, there's actually a lot of hours there. So that worked very well. So it was just like putting in the time. I stopped. I moved the time
from five to six, because like eventually I did it. Like, I think after like two years of that, like, I was just like, that's like kind of sleep deprived, or I don't know, like it ended up, I ended up switching it, because my wife was just like, why are you an asshole all the time? She didn't actually say that, but it was like, I felt like I was, I was wearing a little bit by social niceties. But yeah, so that was a big way. I just, I just spent two hours on it each morning.
That's a big commitment, to be honest. Yeah. I mean, I struggle with this all the time. Is there a clear, I mean, you know, you've already talked about sort of the goal is to kind of keep on improving it and then produce the best podcast that you can? How do you go about like goal setting,
I guess? I don't know. Yeah. You know, I've been thinking about this thing like, like goal drift, start with the specific goal, you know, doing the podcast because I want to learn about more technical stuff, where I want to ask person question who I read their book and then like, you know, get some attention, then you're excited about it, and then it's like, well, maybe I'm going to be Joe Rogan with hair, like I don't know, and like that maybe that's my next stop, right?
And then, you know, then I get into the storytelling thing. That's nice. What, I guess, what's your, like, current goal, if you have one? So my current goal, it kind of relates to something you were asking, which is, yeah, if somebody has this big crazy story, like a guy who did list in space, like that's amazing, right? But like what about like, people's everyday lives, like how can that be interesting and how can people learn from that? Because I think like, well, first of all, there's a limit
of people deploying lists in the space. But like, also, there's so much to learn from, you know, just like everyday stuff that happens to people, but how do you, you know, make that entertaining? So I think that's like a big challenge for me, right? It's like, you can write the science fiction book where like the world is on the line, and if you don't save things, the earth is going to explode, right? But like, can you write the story where it's like very compelling,
but it's about like something much smaller, right? Like somebody raising their kid or whatever. That's a metaphor. I'm not working on those things. But like, I was talking to somebody recently, about something I was working on at work, and how I was given this ticket to work on this area I wasn't familiar with, and like I thought I knew how to solve it, and I was working on solving it. In turn, it was wrong. I didn't understand what I was doing, but it was like three days later,
when I figured out I didn't, like I was doing it wrong, right? And like, I was new to this, so there was expectation like I could get feedback and help, but also it had been three days. And so I was like, it's too late to like reach out and ask for help, because they're going to be like, well, what the hell have you been doing, right? And so I was explaining this to somebody, and I thought it was like a very much my weird headspace, right? That I was going over this my head, like oh my god,
it's too late to ask for help. And this person was like, oh my god, like, I think about that all the time, like it's too late to ask for help, like I'm stuck by that. And then that made me think, like there's all these things, the small things of everyday work world, and like how do you make those interesting and compelling stories? So that's something I'm thinking about. I don't know that
I have an answer, but yeah. I guess the obviously, if it's crazy, it has its own appeal, but then, you know, the further away you get from crazy, like the more normal it is, like more relatable it is, right? So there's much more of the emphasis on how well the storytelling is, versus just like, sort of you dump the facts in terms of, oh yeah, this was hell-and-ish. Yeah, but like how do you make it interesting, right? Because like our days can be boring, right? But like where's the
the pieces where it's not boring, right? And I think it has a lot to do with vulnerability, right? Like if you're able to share the things that you are struggling with, like internally, like that can be a lot, there can be something interesting there. Like even though this ticket that was a problem for me was super minor and boring, and if I described it to you, like you wouldn't care. But the fact that it like got me worked up and I was worried, you know, that they're going to
think I'm dumb and like how did I think that this way would work? And like I have to hide it, like how am I going to catch up so they don't know why I went down this? Yeah. That's where it gets interesting to me. Thanks, thanks. So speaking of storytelling, so DevRel, so developers relations, there's also I imagine a ton of storytelling there. Like how did you first get into it?
From the management story now, fast forward, like a little bit, sorry. Yeah, I mean, I had the podcast and so somebody reached out to me about a developer relations role. And I was like, yeah, like, you know, communicating to developers. Let's give it a try. And yeah, I didn't know what I was doing. And the person who hired me had number. They didn't know what developer relations. I mean, I think this is all the ideas, right?
But so I started thinking that like I would go give a lot of talks, the conferences and then we tried to do meetups and I wrote tutorials talking about our product. And we didn't see a lot of success. But then we reached out to this guy, Mitch Weiner, he's one of the founders of Digital Ocean. And he said, like, well, you just need to understand the people who might be the customers of your product, like these developers, like what problems
they have. And then like just solve those problems, like write down the solutions. And we were like, okay, and then what? And he's like, that's the whole thing. Like that's, like people didn't know how to install my sequel onto a Linux server. We wrote that down. We put it like on the Digital Ocean website. And we didn't say like, check out Digital Ocean. I mean,
maybe, but like we just told them how to solve their problem. And like that happens to be, obviously those people, you know, might be interested in getting a virtual private server from Digital Ocean, right? So that's how I got my start. And we just tried to help people with their problems, right? One of the big first things I wrote that the people really remember me by was this article about JQ, JQ, parses Jason, super idiosyncratic tool, I guess, right? Like, and so I
just wrote a tutorial for how it works. Because if you understood kind of the logic behind it, like it made sense. It's like it's own little JQ world. You can, it's actually turn complete. You could build whatever you want inside of it. I think it was on hacker news recently. Somebody built JQ inside of JQ, like using the turning of. Oh, that's fun to see. I just spent a lot of time writing down. You know, like, here's how you use it and explaining things to people. And then
that did very well. You know, it showed up on hacker news. People were on our website. They learned about our product. And that was like how I started to, yeah, to learn these skills. So I mean, I guess that's not really storytelling. It's more understanding developers and what problems they have. So one follow up on that, like when it comes to developer relations, you see many people in this role from different companies and they all do it very differently. Kind of going by what
you said earlier. In many cases, you see some people building kind of a tutorial working tutorial of sorts. And they would publish it on gethams. Like, here's how you can use tool X to achieve Y, which is basically a way to show how you can use one of their products to solve your problems. In some cases, it's tutorials like a blog post. And other cases like a conference talk, for example, what are the parts which are not visible outside two people, which is sometimes talking to
customers, for example, to understand what their problems are. So if I just look at the words, like, developer relationships, what are the aspects here which are not public facing, which happens behind the scenes? Yeah, I mean, that would be one of them for sure, like talking to people using the products, seeing what problems they have, maybe paying attention to where people are just talking about your products or competitors or whatever, seeing what issues they have.
One of the problems is like developer relations is a weird role. It means a lot of different things to different, depending on the organization, right? I mean, I guess that's true of any role, right? But like some people is communicating feedback that, you know, users of the product are getting to the product team, right? So it can look a little bit like a PM role or something, right? Where, you know, developers are using this API, they're having this issue, like, how can we prioritize
this? So I worked at Earthly, it was like a seed sage startup. And like our big problem, you know, was we were competing obscurity, right? Like nobody knew we existed. If you worked in developer relations for Amazon on AWS Lambda, like everybody knows it exists, right? So then it's a different type of problem, right? You don't need to let people know that Lambda is a thing. Yeah, maybe it's much more relevant to provide tutorials that show how to use the latest feature or yeah, that part
where you're feeding feedback back to the product team. So varies a lot. But yeah, I guess I did a lot of like awareness stuff, right? And that's where that digital ocean perspective really made sense. Because if you go like, got what went to a meetup to talk about Earthly, it was like an online meetup. And like, there was the guy who hosted it and there was one other person. And then I gave some presentation. And then at the end, I was like, any questions in the one person who wasn't like the
host was like, so this is a command line tool. I was like, yeah, it is a command line tool. But the thing is because who wants a meetup where various dev tools startups come and show what they've built, right? Nobody does, right? So I think Mitchell Einer's point was like, what problems actually people have? And you don't need to sell them on your product. Just help them solve their problems. And often it's tangentially related, right? Like I remember,
Earthly, for example, really good at doing builds for mono-repos, which can be a challenge. And so we wrote lots of stuff about like, here's how you can build mono-repos, right? Not just, here's how you do it with our tool. Like, here's how you structure it. Here's best practices. It's like educating people. Those people, you know, we think they would really benefit from using our product. But just putting that out there, they're aware of us. And they know, you know, maybe when they're
like, hey, what build tools should I use, they might check it out. So in a way, talking about gold drifting at the beginning of the podcast, like you mentioned, your goal was to be this amazing programmer who knows how to solve all these problems in the code. On the developer relationship, side, I wish it's slightly different where it's a little more breadth than depth. Maybe I'm getting that wrong. But it's a case like in a way that gold has drifted.
Considering that, do you want to stay on the dev world path or would you consider changing it? Like you think I've drifted from my technical roots, I guess? Yeah. I'm curious about that as well. Because like when you said that, right? Like I was like, ooh, like kind of being like an engineer's engineer, right? Like being really like on drill down. Is that still important to you? Like do you still want to be that? Or after all this experience,
you're kind of like, you know what? Maybe that was kind of a pseudo goal. Yeah. Or part of the journey that got me to where I am. Ooh, that sounded pretty good. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I don't know why I wanted to be the best engineer. Like I don't know, I don't know, just I wanted to. But like there's all these people that I looked up to in that time, right? Uh, I'm trying to think of specific people like Joel Spolski. I remember he had this blog
talking about engineering like back in the day. It was the guy from Steve Yagi or whatever. I don't know. There was all these TV Yagi. Yeah. There was all these people and I was like, you know, I want to know all the things that they know. Like I want to be that great. But like if you think about it, the reason we know about them is because actually they're communicators, right? They're explaining problems to us. Like I thought this guy has a blog because he's the most
amazing engineer. Um, but no, he, he, he's, I know about the things that he's done because he talks about them, right? Like what he's actually good at. Like all these people I looked up to, what they're actually good at was communicating, right? The person who wrote the book that I wanted to ask questions about how to do, you know, whatever functional programming, like it's not clear, they were the best functional program I'm in the world. Hopefully they were decent at it.
But no, they had written a book, right? They had spent a lot of time communicating. So I think that actually like I, I maybe realized that my goal, you know, was misplaced that there was a larger goal or something that, yeah, I wasn't seeing that all these people who communicate are the people that I look up to, right? And it can be super impactful if you can take something and explain it in a way that, that lets it crystallize in people's minds.
And I don't know that I'm the best at it. But like it's, it's, it's, it feels very valuable and important. Yeah. And so that's what I'm going for, right? And like it's weird because developer relations feels like it's a good rocket because I like communicating to developers, right? And if I can find a place where they value those skills and it can help impactfully, you know, grow their business
or whatever. And also I get to like write about why we should stop using YAML, like for everything, or whatever my perspective is, like it feels like a super good, it feels like it shouldn't be something that I paid for, but it seems like people are willing to pay. Why we shouldn't use YAMLs for everything? Well, there's the new hacker news and we're on post. Yeah. That was a really nice full circle in some ways. That yeah, and that's actually quite
profound that I need to think more on that. Yeah, if you think about the people you look up to, right? Like I was looking up to them because I thought they were the best, but like I would never have known about them if they didn't invest time into communicating, right? Like I remember reading all these Carl Sagan books when I was a kid. I loved them. You know, like a Carl Sagan is the most amazing scientist in the world. Well, he was amazing science writer, right? Like I
think he was a good scientist, but that's not why all of them. I know of him because he was a science writer. Communication is everything, right? The people telling stories about the builds breaking at operital. The person I learned the most from, I think he was just really good at telling these stories, right? You know, like somebody would be like, oh, yeah, I got called in on the weekend, like turned out the disc was full. But Richard, that's not how he would tell the story,
right? Like he would give you breadcrumbs. It's like, I get this call, land on my couch, I'm watching lost, and then like I need to drive in. And you know, and he would like, like, oh, Richard's got another good one. Oh, was it this? Was it that? Was it the router? Power out again? Yeah, and it's like I learned a lot from Richard, but only because he let you kind of live that debugging experience, right? Like you got the vicarious learning of that battle. That's just because he was a good
storyteller. True, why did you true? I love it. I think we've had a great time talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing your journey, as well as all of your experiences with software engineering podcasting and developer relationships. And most of all, communication. Thank you so much for joining us today. This was really amazing for us. Hope it was entertaining for you. I thought I would. Yeah, everything you bargained for. Hey, thank you so much for listening to the show.
You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about us at softwaremissadventures.com. You can also write to us at hello at softwaremissadventures.com. We would love to hear from you. Until next time, take care.