1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,960 I just see so often that you have a founder or an engineering 2 00:00:04,960 --> 00:00:09,880 leader will copy effectively blindly processes and systems 3 00:00:09,880 --> 00:00:12,600 that they see being used at other successful companies. 4 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:20,800 And this is dangerous because if you don't have the problems that 5 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:26,800 that company did, you could wind up paying a pretty hefty tax for 6 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:30,440 something that you're not getting very much benefit or ROI 7 00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:33,080 from. So the gain that I think a lot 8 00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:35,720 of people think that they're getting from stand ups is this 9 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:40,120 idea that the team really needs to uncover blockers. 10 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:43,440 They need to coordinate, make sure they're not duplicating 11 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:47,680 work, things of that nature. What I would say is if those 12 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:53,160 things are happening often enough for that meeting to be 13 00:00:53,160 --> 00:00:56,800 capturing that value, you probably have a deeper problem. 14 00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,960 Like any meeting that you have, you are taking N number of 15 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:03,920 people, you take their salary or their hourly rate and then you 16 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:05,440 multiply it by the number of people. 17 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,160 That's the cost of the meeting. So whatever you are getting out 18 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:14,600 of that particular meeting, you should get a return higher than 19 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:19,040 that cost. This is even more of a problem 20 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:21,920 when you have a recurring meeting you're getting into like 21 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:25,200 the Fang style interviews with the what I call computer science 22 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:28,640 riddles. And it's so much like this 23 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,320 theme. It's it's the don't solve the 24 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:33,440 problems that you wish you had, like solve the problems that you 25 00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:37,160 actually have. And so if you're looking for an 26 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:41,000 engineer, the goal really shouldn't be like, OK, who can 27 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,920 solve the hardest problems? A lot of founders get it in 28 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:48,040 their head that there is these 10X engineers out there and 29 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:52,520 those are who they want to find. They have in their head the idea 30 00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:57,200 that there was this developer who, given a hard problem, comes 31 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,960 up with a solution that is so elegant that nobody else would 32 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:03,600 have thought of it. And everyone's just like, you 33 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:19,840 know, like, mind blown. Hello everyone. 34 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:22,520 Welcome back to the Technical Podcast Show. 35 00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:24,680 Today I have with me David Gutman. 36 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:29,080 He's one of the thought leaders in the JavaScript space, right? 37 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:34,840 And also in the startup space that he has over 90 open source 38 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:37,960 packages on MPM. That's kind of like a lot to me. 39 00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:40,640 And also he wrote 2 popular JavaScript books. 40 00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:43,480 But today, funnily enough, we are not going to talk about 41 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:46,960 JavaScript and its ecosystem. We are going to talk about his 42 00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:50,040 book, which is titled The Superstar Manifesto. 43 00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:53,800 So when I read the book, I think it's pretty intriguing and 44 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:56,240 interesting. And hopefully we can cover some 45 00:02:56,240 --> 00:02:59,960 of the popular manifesto today so that we all can learn how to 46 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:03,040 build a great tech engineering team or tech company. 47 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:05,680 So, David, welcome to the show. Thank you. 48 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:08,600 Thanks for having me. Right David, I always love to 49 00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:11,880 1st invite my guest to share a little bit from your career. 50 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:14,320 Any turning points that you think we can learn from you? 51 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:18,080 Yeah, Don't know if you'll be able to learn from me, but I 52 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:22,560 think one of the the early ones that was really big for me was 53 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:27,120 when I was at Disney going into the more corporate world. 54 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:31,360 One of the things that that was most fun for me in larger 55 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:35,960 companies was how many people there were around working at the 56 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:39,120 company that you could talk to, you could take out to lunch, you 57 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:40,640 could ask him what they were working on. 58 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:44,240 And if they weren't a software engineer, it would be totally 59 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:47,280 different than what you dealt with day-to-day or you thought 60 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:49,400 was important. And what's really cool about 61 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:53,800 that is it's almost like you're in Harry Potter and you get to 62 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:56,760 meet Muggles and you have magic powers. 63 00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:02,480 And so they'll tell you things that to you, like, are so 64 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:04,880 simple, like you don't even think of them as problems. 65 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,680 They're just like complete non problems. 66 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,400 So it'll be something like, yeah, I keep trying to eat my 67 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:13,240 food, but it's always so cold and like, I hate eating raw 68 00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:14,560 meat. And you're like, oh, let me show 69 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,839 you fire. And so at Disney, you know, 70 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:20,720 there would be things like that that, you know, there was a one 71 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,360 example was an editorial team would always put things on 72 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:26,240 YouTube and they just didn't, they weren't able to track it. 73 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:29,800 And so I just easily built them a scraper that went onto 74 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:32,560 YouTube, looked at the number of views, and then they could see 75 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:34,800 it overtime. Now look, that was a long time 76 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:36,600 ago. There's like a billion tools for 77 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:38,440 that now. No longer impressive. 78 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:41,320 Much like if I were to pull out a lighter and show you fire, you 79 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:44,360 wouldn't find it impressive. But the important thing was just 80 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:46,720 recognizing that there were opportunities like that all over 81 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:48,840 the place to drive business goals. 82 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:52,200 And I just think a lot of engineers don't realize that 83 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:55,880 that they can do that, that they can be self-directed, go find 84 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,600 people to help going from Disney that then then I got my first 85 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:03,880 like chief scientist position and AD tech company. 86 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:07,200 And so that was really interesting. 87 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:11,840 More from like a technical like scale data architecture 88 00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:15,840 position, you know, eventually at that company, we're running a 89 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:19,560 video ad server and then during the the peak ad buying season, 90 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:22,480 more towards the holidays, we were getting over 10 billion 91 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:25,120 requests a day and we were trying to do real time analytics 92 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:29,360 and how do you do that in a way that works at that scale? 93 00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:33,120 And so, you know, I found that a lot of fun, like those types of 94 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:34,440 engineering problems are really fun. 95 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,840 You don't ordinarily get to do those unless you're in like 96 00:05:37,840 --> 00:05:40,920 specific industries or working at certain types of companies. 97 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:45,840 And, you know, at that point in time, I think what I fell in 98 00:05:45,840 --> 00:05:48,680 love with was just trying to do it as simply as possible, like 99 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,680 don't overcomplicate it. Have as few moving parts as 100 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,800 possible and you can really get quite far with that. 101 00:05:56,280 --> 00:06:00,000 And then probably the most recent was going out on my own 102 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:03,280 as a consultant. And so starting superstructs, 103 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:08,840 taking things that I learned from, you know, being ACTO and 104 00:06:09,320 --> 00:06:13,200 really systematizing that in a way that could be useful to more 105 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:16,240 companies than just one. When you're ACTO, everything is 106 00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:20,160 in service of that one company. And then trying to take those 107 00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:25,120 lessons and package them in a way that can be used by other 108 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:28,720 companies. And that's where you get to, you 109 00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:31,280 know, we'll talk about my book. That's where a lot of the book 110 00:06:31,280 --> 00:06:36,600 came from, is these principles that I try and use when creating 111 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,760 engineering teams. And yeah, we can. 112 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:42,240 We can get more into that. We can get more into that later. 113 00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:44,600 Right, thanks for sharing the story. 114 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:47,320 So I left when you mentioned about your Disney learning 115 00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:49,400 experience, right? So sometimes engineers thought 116 00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:51,680 things are quite simple, normal, right? 117 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,880 But for others it could be really, really helpful. 118 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:57,520 So I think that's a very good call out and I think 10 billion 119 00:06:57,520 --> 00:06:59,920 requests a day. So I think that's not a joke, 120 00:06:59,920 --> 00:07:01,840 right? So something like not all 121 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:04,240 engineers would have a chance to experience that. 122 00:07:04,560 --> 00:07:07,080 But thanks for reminding that building something simple, less 123 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:09,640 some moving parts is something that is more scalable. 124 00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:13,360 So before we go into your book, right, so I'm a bit intrigued by 125 00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:15,920 the name Superstruct. So why do you name your 126 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:18,600 consulting company Superstruct and your book Superstruct? 127 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:20,560 So maybe a little bit of background there. 128 00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:23,840 Yeah, for sure. So superstruct is is actually a 129 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:27,480 like it's a real word and it means to build on to an existing 130 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:30,280 structure. So in this case, it's quite 131 00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:32,800 literally that there is an existing company and then I'm 132 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:35,840 building engineering teams on top of it. 133 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,720 So coming in from the outside and being able to build 134 00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:43,200 something that fits with what's existing, but then also adds on 135 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:44,720 to it. Nice. 136 00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:48,640 So your manifesto contains 10 different kind of like 137 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:52,120 principles or lessons, right? So most of them are unique, 138 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:54,040 right? Because this is something like 139 00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:56,040 an insights from your experience, right? 140 00:07:56,360 --> 00:07:59,400 But in the 1st place, tell me, like, for example, why do you 141 00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:01,200 came up with all those 10, right? 142 00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:04,320 So from what learnings that you see and why do you make them as 143 00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:06,680 principles? Yeah, for sure. 144 00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:10,760 So the principles actually got turned almost in reverse. 145 00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:12,680 And so the book is a survival guide. 146 00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:17,040 And so the reason why I made it as a survival guide for tech 147 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:23,520 leaders is I just see so often that you have a founder or an 148 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:28,400 engineering leader will copy effectively blindly processes 149 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:30,960 and systems that they see being used at other successful 150 00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:36,880 companies. And this is dangerous because if 151 00:08:36,880 --> 00:08:42,200 you don't have the problems that that company did or that they 152 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:47,080 are they're using that system to solve, you could wind up paying 153 00:08:47,560 --> 00:08:52,200 a pretty hefty tax or a pretty hefty cost for something that 154 00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:55,440 you're not getting very much benefit or ROI from. 155 00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:59,840 And so there's a couple of ones that I see all the time, like 156 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:03,920 for example stand ups. Stand ups, I think it's very 157 00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:06,160 interesting, right? So you mentioned that so many 158 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:08,640 engineering leaders and you know, and founders, right, 159 00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:11,040 almost all the time, right? Look for best practices 160 00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:13,040 typically online, right? So there are many people 161 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,960 blogging these days. Almost all big tech companies 162 00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:17,480 would have it's own blocks, right? 163 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:20,600 And they will just share whatever best practices. 164 00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:24,240 Few I think that I could think of, for example, Spotify model, 165 00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:28,240 you know, agile practices, you know, Google, all these Fang 166 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:30,040 companies hiring strategies, right? 167 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:32,480 So I think you cover most of them in your book. 168 00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:35,240 So I think let's probably start with the first one we mentioned 169 00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:38,120 about stand ups, right? So I think this is I think will 170 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:42,000 be the habit or the practice for most of the engineering team, if 171 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,000 not all right. These days they practice 172 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:45,960 typically like some kind of agile flavor. 173 00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:49,560 So stand up is definitely one of the practice that the many teams 174 00:09:49,560 --> 00:09:53,120 advocate. So tell us like why stand up is 175 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:56,080 not great for us to do? Yeah, for sure. 176 00:09:56,080 --> 00:10:03,280 So I think broadly speaking, the use of time of meetings, it's a 177 00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:04,840 very dangerous game to play with. 178 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:08,960 Like any meeting that you have, you are taking N number of 179 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:10,720 people. So however many people are in 180 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:14,200 the meeting. So whatever they could be, 181 00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:16,600 either opportunity cost, whatever they could be doing 182 00:10:16,680 --> 00:10:20,160 instead of that meeting could be quite literal, like you take 183 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:23,040 their salary or their hourly rate and then you multiply it by 184 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:25,800 the number of people. That's the cost of the meeting. 185 00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:30,480 So whatever you are getting out of that particular meeting, you 186 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:35,000 should get a return higher than that cost when you multiply it 187 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:36,440 out by however many people you have. 188 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,880 So this is even more of a problem when you have a 189 00:10:41,880 --> 00:10:45,160 recurring meeting and it's more of a problem when you have a 190 00:10:45,160 --> 00:10:47,760 daily recurring meeting. So this means that you're paying 191 00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:52,360 that cost every single day. Now yes, I, I understand that 192 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:56,600 stand ups are so short, but I mean, I, I, it's, it's funny 193 00:10:56,600 --> 00:10:58,960 because it's in the name. It's almost like if you didn't 194 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:02,240 make people uncomfortable, they would want to be longer. 195 00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:07,000 And so I think people just have to be really careful about just 196 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:08,800 those recurring meetings in general. 197 00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:11,320 And the most common one by far is daily standups. 198 00:11:11,680 --> 00:11:14,520 So the gain that I think a lot of people think that they're 199 00:11:14,520 --> 00:11:19,320 getting from standups is this idea that the team really needs 200 00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:22,480 to uncover blockers. They need to coordinate, make 201 00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:25,880 sure they're not duplicating work, things of that nature. 202 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:31,440 What I would say is if those things are happening often 203 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:35,840 enough for that meeting to be capturing that value, you 204 00:11:35,880 --> 00:11:39,280 probably have a deeper problem. I feel like most people who have 205 00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:42,600 daily standups, most meetings are not. 206 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:46,120 Oh wow, thank you for catching that. 207 00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:48,840 I was so blocked. I'm glad I mentioned it here. 208 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:52,760 Like that's super insightful. I'm glad that we were able to do 209 00:11:52,760 --> 00:11:54,800 this. We just saved hours and hours 210 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:57,680 and hours of time. I'm not going to doubt that that 211 00:11:57,680 --> 00:11:59,040 that happens. I'm sure it does. 212 00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:02,680 I just don't think it happens with the frequency for this to 213 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:07,200 be an entire meeting around it. That's where I think the ROI 214 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:10,560 really goes out of whack. What's interesting is is I'll 215 00:12:10,560 --> 00:12:13,800 talk to founders and, you know, I'll talk to them like, OK, so 216 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,360 you basically got over an hour a week minimum. 217 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,200 I mean, that's assuming if they really are limited to 15 218 00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:22,680 minutes. If you're listening to this, 219 00:12:22,680 --> 00:12:24,360 maybe your stand ups are 15 minutes. 220 00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,520 I've known a ton of people whether or not. 221 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:29,360 So let's just say that it's the 15 minutes. 222 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:34,720 We can even ignore the whole productivity angle of how it 223 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:38,600 takes time to disengage from what you were working on, go to 224 00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:43,240 a meeting, leave your whole mental model behind and then try 225 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:45,680 and get back into the flow. We'll we'll come back to that. 226 00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:49,320 So just imagine it really was only the time in the meeting, 227 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:51,640 you know, I'll talk to founders like if they really think that 228 00:12:51,640 --> 00:12:55,520 they're getting the value out of it and they will agree that 229 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:59,120 they're they're not. But the reason why they don't 230 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:02,600 want to get rid of stand ups is because they feel like it's the 231 00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:06,680 only time that the team gets to talk to each other and hear each 232 00:13:06,680 --> 00:13:10,040 other's voices and sort of build this camaraderie. 233 00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:15,520 And for over an hour a week, that's the best you can come up 234 00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:16,680 with. Like people are going to read 235 00:13:16,680 --> 00:13:18,400 their To Do List to each other each day. 236 00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,600 I think if that was your goal, like you could really come up 237 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:24,400 with something better. And then like I said before, I 238 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:28,720 mean, it's way more costly than just the time because if anybody 239 00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:32,400 knows about Cal Newport and Deep Work and how to have these 240 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:36,680 uninterrupted blocks of time, like you don't want a meeting 241 00:13:36,680 --> 00:13:38,880 just in the middle of this block of time. 242 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:43,200 Like for a lot of developers that morning, a lot of people 243 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:45,000 have the, you know, daily standups in the morning. 244 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:48,640 Like a lot of people just that's their most productive time. 245 00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:52,320 And so you would like really have to nail the timing of the 246 00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:56,320 daily stand up for like everyone to be starting their day right 247 00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:59,520 at the exact time. So that that block, that 248 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:04,560 productive block all only starts after the daily stand up and not 249 00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:06,520 in the middle for some people and others. 250 00:14:06,920 --> 00:14:12,400 And I think that that flow is just a really, really expensive 251 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:15,920 thing to waste. And yeah, I think you wind up 252 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:18,480 upside down on that ROI quite frequently. 253 00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:20,760 There are so many things to uncover there. 254 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:23,960 So I think you just mentioned like a number of anti patterns, 255 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:25,800 maybe let's mention it, anti patterns, right? 256 00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:28,040 So there are many things that could happen in the stand ups 257 00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:30,280 that probably is not effective and efficient, right? 258 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,440 So maybe let's start with probably the time itself, right? 259 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:37,160 So you mentioned stand ups typically in the morning, but I 260 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:40,280 feel sometimes to cater some night hours, right? 261 00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:43,800 So they start a little bit, you know, later, not in the morning 262 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:45,960 time. So you mentioned about having to 263 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:49,960 block the time in the middle of the day just to meet everybody 264 00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,320 and kind of like convene with everyone, right. 265 00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:55,000 So I think that sometimes, yeah, can be a productive particular 266 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:59,120 because typically, let's say if you schedule your stand up in, 267 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:01,480 you know, in the morning, but one hour later, right? 268 00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:04,800 So like maybe if you start the day or at 9, you start at 10. 269 00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:08,320 So typically people won't start the serious worker in the first 270 00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:10,040 hour, right? So I think that's kind of like 271 00:15:10,040 --> 00:15:12,880 one of the danger and after the meeting as well, because there's 272 00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:15,600 so many things that we need to, you know, I don't know, contact 273 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:19,280 switch and do preparation or even to unload some of the 274 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:21,120 conversations that just happened, right? 275 00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:24,440 We were also not productive. So that left us with, I don't 276 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:26,920 know, like maybe half a day kind of productivity, right? 277 00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:31,360 So is this something that you also think that could be a 278 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:34,520 productivity killer for many of the engineering teams happening 279 00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:36,880 out there? Yeah, absolutely. 280 00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:40,160 I mean, I just, yeah, I mean, like you said, like the hour 281 00:15:40,160 --> 00:15:45,280 after the start time is it's just so it's so common because 282 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:47,320 it's really difficult to coordinate everybody. 283 00:15:47,320 --> 00:15:50,480 Like, no, your day starts right now and we're going to start all 284 00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:52,920 of our days like right at the same time with this daily stand 285 00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:55,920 up. And then, yeah, I mean, I 286 00:15:55,920 --> 00:16:00,080 completely, completely agree that whatever that loss is to 287 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,120 flow and productivity, like it's hard to get that back from 288 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:04,920 whatever happens with within the stand up. 289 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:07,640 Right. And you mentioned in the book 290 00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:09,480 that we can't live without stand up. 291 00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:11,960 So what would be the alternatives that typically you 292 00:16:11,960 --> 00:16:15,080 suggest for all the startup founders or maybe the tech teams 293 00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:18,440 out there? Yeah, so one of the funny things 294 00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:23,240 about doing a survival guide and having a book that's here's what 295 00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,440 not to do is it begs the question, like, what should we 296 00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:28,720 do? What I really want to reiterate, 297 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:31,840 though, is that for the same reason that I wrote the book of 298 00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:34,440 not copying the big companies, it's very difficult for me to 299 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:36,840 tell you like, oh, no, here's what to do. 300 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:39,840 Here's what we do. And as a perfect example of 301 00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:42,920 that, one of the best things that I think you know, for the, 302 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,080 let's just say you wanted to do it for the camaraderie angle. 303 00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:47,640 Like that's the most important thing to you. 304 00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:51,520 You know, on one of the teams that I was on more recently, the 305 00:16:51,520 --> 00:16:54,240 thing that we did is we played Valorant, the first person 306 00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:58,120 shooter by Riot. So we all played, you know, 307 00:16:58,280 --> 00:17:02,240 basically a very high skill first person shooter computer 308 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:06,119 game like that you would have to have a gaming PC for you would 309 00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:10,040 have to have more or less played Counter Strike like games 310 00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:12,680 before. And so it's just so fun to me to 311 00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:15,160 say like, no, like the best thing you should do if you're 312 00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:18,319 listening to this, do not do anything else other than play 313 00:17:18,319 --> 00:17:21,640 Valiant with your team. Like I don't care if nobody on 314 00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:23,440 your team likes first person shooters. 315 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:26,240 I don't care if if they don't have a gaming PC, they should go 316 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:28,880 out and buy one. Like it's just doesn't even make 317 00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:33,160 sense for me to say what works for my particular team. 318 00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:36,680 I think what people should do instead is really think about 319 00:17:37,080 --> 00:17:41,200 what it is that they're getting from the stand up or what 320 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,360 problem they think the stand up is solving, and then think what 321 00:17:44,360 --> 00:17:46,800 works best for their team to do that. 322 00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,200 So if it really is that you have juniors that are blocked and 323 00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,320 they're too timid to speak up and they get lost for a week and 324 00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:56,400 then you talk to them and you're like, so like, how's that thing 325 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:58,040 coming? And they go like, oh, well, you 326 00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:01,360 know, I wanted to do X, but then I realized I need to install Y. 327 00:18:01,360 --> 00:18:04,280 But then to have Y installed, I, I needed to go do Z. 328 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:06,520 And so anyways, that's what I've been out for the last three 329 00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:08,360 weeks. Like if that keeps happening, 330 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,120 like, I don't think daily standup is like the best way to 331 00:18:12,120 --> 00:18:14,760 do it. Or like I said, you know, if 332 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:16,640 developers are working on the same thing or they're not 333 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:20,240 talking or whatever, you should really come up with a system 334 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:23,760 that addresses that particular problem with a system that 335 00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:26,040 really fits your particular team. 336 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:28,840 Right. I think I love that reason, 337 00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:30,080 right. So I think first of all, 338 00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:32,360 identify the problems in your team, right? 339 00:18:32,360 --> 00:18:35,560 And maybe try to come up like a contextual or maybe like 340 00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:38,280 situational kind of activities that maybe to solve those 341 00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:40,360 problems. But one particular thing, 342 00:18:40,360 --> 00:18:43,520 especially for leaders that I heard a lot in the stand ups 343 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:46,400 that typically happen is that first is about status report. 344 00:18:46,840 --> 00:18:49,360 So I heard the leaders want to know what is happening between 345 00:18:49,360 --> 00:18:51,640 the team members. And the second thing is about 346 00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:55,320 building so-called a pressure accountability so that everyone 347 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:57,120 is kind of like on the toe every day. 348 00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:01,240 So maybe anything's from you to maybe teach us here. 349 00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:04,800 What can leaders do in order to get those two from the team as 350 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:06,440 well? Yeah, I mean, I could certainly 351 00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:08,760 look. I can also give an example of 352 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:11,320 what I do with Superstruct engineers. 353 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:15,120 Superstruct has its own internal platform for management. 354 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,440 I am working on the more public version available of that. 355 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:22,840 So if you wanted to adopt some of the same systems and 356 00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:25,440 behaviors that we use, you would be able to do that. 357 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:27,600 And so the first one is called Team Machine. 358 00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:31,600 And if anybody's familiar with a tool like stand up Lee, this is 359 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:36,160 a bot and slack that'll message your, I guess everyone on the 360 00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:39,240 team and it can ask whatever questions that you want. 361 00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:43,800 So if you really wanted to do just the the basic most default 362 00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:46,680 stand up, which is the what were you working on? 363 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:50,160 What's your plan? Any blockers thing you get 100% 364 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:52,760 do that. You mentioned accountability, 365 00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:57,840 the, the way that we do it, the questions that we have are a 366 00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:00,880 little bit different, very similar, but different, which is 367 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:06,240 what is your plan for the day? And the, the key part of this is 368 00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:09,440 that that plan has to culminate in something that is 369 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:11,880 independently verifiable. So it doesn't work for an 370 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:16,200 engineer to say, oh, I'm going to research XYZ or I'm going to 371 00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:20,200 look into whatever bug, or I'm going to work on issue number 372 00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:23,720 123 or whatever it is. That is off the table because no 373 00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:27,720 two people can agree on what work on means or what research 374 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:32,160 means or anything of that. Also if that developer and their 375 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:35,280 laptop get sucked up in the rapture like it basically never 376 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:37,040 happened. Like if the tree falls in this 377 00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:40,240 forest and no one was around to hear like didn't make a noise. 378 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:44,080 Like the output. For any output to be valuable it 379 00:20:44,080 --> 00:20:47,600 has to be able to exist independently of that person. 380 00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:52,040 So someone else on their computer with no help from the 381 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:54,240 authoring engineer should be able to get value from it. 382 00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:56,840 And so I mentioned the research example. 383 00:20:57,240 --> 00:20:58,560 That's fine. You can still research. 384 00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:01,200 That just means publish some kind of document. 385 00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:05,720 You find an issue on GitHub that shows your findings that anyone 386 00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,680 could read, even if you or your laptop are offline. 387 00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:12,120 That's totally fair game for an issue, you know, like work on 388 00:21:12,120 --> 00:21:14,720 issue 123, fine. Just say what you're going to 389 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:19,200 have in the pull request that's going to go out before the end 390 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:21,720 of the day. And it doesn't even have to be 391 00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:24,280 the full issue closed. It could be part of it, but just 392 00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:27,640 say what it is fine. Like you want to just change the 393 00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:30,360 the color of the button from red to blue and just say that 394 00:21:30,360 --> 00:21:33,120 everyone can see like, yes, they changed the button from red to 395 00:21:33,120 --> 00:21:34,320 blue. That's fine. 396 00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,480 Like there's nothing about this that prescribes what your plan 397 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,520 is. It really should be giving that 398 00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:45,000 autonomy to the engineer, like all the engineers should be 399 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,680 adults enough to know what they should be getting done. 400 00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:52,560 It's just calling the shot ahead of time. 401 00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:56,160 And then this is the accountability, which is the 402 00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,280 next day. The other question that is part 403 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,560 of this is, hey, here is what you said you were going to do 404 00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:03,760 yesterday. Did you do it, yes or no? 405 00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:07,800 And because it's very simple to know, like, well, did you push 406 00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:09,960 the VR that changed it from red to blue? 407 00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:12,120 It's very simple. It's a yes or a no. 408 00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:15,560 It's not like did you work on it where it's like, well, you know, 409 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:18,040 I opened the issue. I reread it, I thought about it 410 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:20,920 and then I watch YouTube and yeah, yeah, I worked on it. 411 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,720 Like it's very clear. And if the answer is no, the T 412 00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:29,680 machine, the thing that I have it uses AI to both check that if 413 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,840 they the answer is independently verifiable and it'll re ask it 414 00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:36,200 if it's not, but also it'll ask, you know, did you do it yes or 415 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:37,920 no? And then it'll follow up with 416 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:41,120 like, why not? If the answer is no, I think a 417 00:22:41,120 --> 00:22:43,560 lot of people at this point, I don't know, I think there could 418 00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:46,280 be weird reactions to the idea of this accountability. 419 00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,680 Like I think because you asked it, accountability is important, 420 00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:52,640 but I think we also don't like to think that we're being held 421 00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:55,440 accountable. I don't know, just in case we 422 00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:58,760 had, I don't know, a bad day or something got in our way. 423 00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,440 Like now we have to say no and now it's on our permanent record 424 00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:02,640 and everything's bad or whatever. 425 00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:04,480 But like, that's really not the point. 426 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:10,720 The point is that you have this record of not doing what you 427 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:16,400 planned because this is what is going to surface real issues. 428 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:20,440 Some of the time it's going to be something like, no, I didn't 429 00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:22,800 do it because the product manager swooped in and told me 430 00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:25,440 to stop doing what I was doing because this other super 431 00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:29,440 important thing came up. Well, lo and behold, if you keep 432 00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:34,600 saying no and you keep saying something like that, that really 433 00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:38,560 reveals that a product manager needs a talking to or there's 434 00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,960 something at a deeper foundational level that needs to 435 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,680 be addressed because you can't plan your day. 436 00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:47,760 You you have a bigger problem. Now. 437 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,120 Sometimes it's personal. Like you will realize that you 438 00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:54,800 just keep coming up with excuses where like, yeah, I was going to 439 00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:56,800 work on that. But then I had this like, great 440 00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:58,360 idea. We could use this new database 441 00:23:58,360 --> 00:24:00,200 that just came out. And I started looking into the 442 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:02,040 database. And then while I went down this 443 00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,040 rabbit hole because it didn't really support the thing, you 444 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:07,680 know, it's like you can surface those as well and catch yourself 445 00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:11,240 like, OK, well it's been 3 days in a row where I haven't done 446 00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:13,080 the thing that I said I was going to do and it's not the 447 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,360 product manager's fault. Like maybe I should knock it off 448 00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,240 or your manager can talk to you about it or whatever. 449 00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,760 So those are more of how I view it. 450 00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,400 Now. The other important part of that 451 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,960 which you might have picked up on is that it's asynchronous. 452 00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:32,560 Like it isn't this like synchronous block of everybody 453 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:36,000 at the same time? It is just that you more or less 454 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,600 have to do this on your own time once a day thinking about, OK, 455 00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,640 this is what I'm going to do. And it's really easy to just do 456 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,200 that before you do any kind of work and it's done. 457 00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:48,680 You don't have to worry about it anymore. 458 00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:51,560 Thanks for such an elaborate answer, right? 459 00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:53,760 So I think there are a few things that I picked from the 460 00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:56,720 answer that you gave just now. So the first one, I think for me 461 00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,480 at least as well, the stand up kind of tradition helps 462 00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:01,960 everybody to actually plan, right? 463 00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:03,520 So kind of like plan the day ahead. 464 00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:05,600 And the second thing is about alignment, right? 465 00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,680 So if you plan something that is aligned with the goal of the 466 00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,560 team or you know, the situation that is important for the team, 467 00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,120 I think that's really great. Second thing, it doesn't have to 468 00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:17,360 happen synchronously, right? So you can also use, I don't 469 00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:21,440 know, documents, Slack bots and whatever a mechanism to just put 470 00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,800 down what is the plan and what is the outcome kind of thing 471 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,000 right into some like written kind of a channel. 472 00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,480 And then the last one is about treating everyone as adults, 473 00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:33,320 right? So I think, yeah, we should 474 00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:35,440 respect each other. Like we want to have team 475 00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,160 members who are also kind of like behaving like adults, not 476 00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,000 like we have to keep on following up and asking them to 477 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:43,280 do things. So I think that's a really 478 00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:44,920 great. So hopefully people learn about 479 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,200 this better stand ups or better not to do stand ups kind of 480 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,320 thing, right? So the second aspect of the 481 00:25:50,360 --> 00:25:53,960 typical pitfall that you cover in the book is about hiring 482 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,400 engineers, right? So the first one is about trying 483 00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,440 to find the 10X engineers. And the second thing maybe 484 00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,480 slightly related to that is that we try to hire by using, you 485 00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,760 know, the big tech giants kind of interview styles typically 486 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:09,880 like system design, you know, algorithms, those kind of 487 00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,480 things. So tell us these two things, 488 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,000 right? Two principles why we should 489 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:15,920 avoid them? Yeah, for sure. 490 00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,840 So, so I guess I'll first talk about the 10X engineers. 491 00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,400 A lot of founders get it in their head that there is these 492 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:26,440 10X engineers out there and those are who they want to find. 493 00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,480 So the general concept of a 10X engineer is that an engineer can 494 00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:35,200 have 10 times the output. You know they are 10 times as 495 00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:40,560 valuable as other engineers, but you know they cost the same. 496 00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,560 So the same salary dev, same level, whatever. 497 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:50,640 One of them as 10 times the value output than the other one. 498 00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,400 What's interesting about this, Amy, if you trace this one back, 499 00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,480 where this comes from is there was a study in the 1960s, it was 500 00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,880 by the US Air Force back when, you know, everyone was working 501 00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,400 on a mainframe, I think with punch cards or whatever. 502 00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,320 And you know, this is a computer the size of like an entire floor 503 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,320 of a big office building. So think first if that resembles 504 00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,040 your work environment and your team environment and if you want 505 00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,520 to really take the conclusions from that. 506 00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:22,600 But if you do, there's other things to remember from that 507 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:27,240 study, which is that the the 10X spread was not between the top 508 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,320 developer and like the second best developer. 509 00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,960 It wasn't like there was one that was 10X and then #2 and 510 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,240 then, I don't know, like on and on and on. 511 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,960 It was a 10X spread between the top developer and the worst 512 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,880 developer. And so how these things were 513 00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,000 rated, there were two different tests given to all the 514 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,120 developers. Now this was in government. 515 00:27:48,120 --> 00:27:51,520 So government salaries are all super lockstep and there isn't a 516 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,120 whole lot of wiggle room with all seniority and stuff anyway. 517 00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,760 So the two tests, one was I think mazes like solving a maze, 518 00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,040 and the other one was solving like some algebra math type 519 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:04,680 thing. So that 10X spread was I think 520 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,280 found on both of them. And it was between the top dev 521 00:28:07,360 --> 00:28:09,560 and the worst dev. And I think those was based on 522 00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,080 how long it took them to come up with an answer that was, I don't 523 00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,400 know, error free and correct or something like that. 524 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,160 Most of the devs were near the top. 525 00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:22,160 So that top dev was actually closer to the median than the 526 00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,680 bottom dev was. So people have really taken to 527 00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,480 this like find the 10X developer, but like, no, no, no, 528 00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:32,160 no, it's find the 0.1 X developer and don't, don't leave 529 00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:34,840 them on your team. That's where you're getting the 530 00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,600 spread. So that's one thing to remember. 531 00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,760 And then the other thing to remember is it wasn't the same 532 00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:44,880 dev who did good on both, right? Like you can certainly have 10X 533 00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:49,560 devs for particular problems or tasks or things that you're 534 00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,240 building. Like, I mean, especially if 535 00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,560 someone has built that same thing before or multiple times. 536 00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,200 Like you compare them to somebody who's never worked in 537 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:02,040 that space before, like, yeah, of course they're going to do it 538 00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,560 10 times faster with 10, you know, less bugs or whatever. 539 00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:09,440 And yeah, I wouldn't expect their salary totally different 540 00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,840 just because this person has worked in this problem domain 541 00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,520 and this person hasn't. I think people just really need 542 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:22,560 to remember that even though you can find these examples of sort 543 00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:27,160 of output differences in developers, it's not consistent. 544 00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:29,280 It's not like you have a 10X over all time. 545 00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:33,600 And you can also, it's not weighted towards this one 546 00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,480 developer being so much more awesome. 547 00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,280 It could be weighted towards the developer just who's really not 548 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,680 doing a great job, you know? And we can all just imagine how 549 00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,720 easy it is for that to happen instead kind of how I think 550 00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:48,400 about it. And I think this is really what 551 00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,120 a lot of people are thinking about in terms of 10X developers 552 00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,280 is that they have in their head the idea that there is this 553 00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:59,600 developer who given a hard problem, comes up with a 554 00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,680 solution that is so elegant that nobody else would have thought 555 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:05,040 of it. And it, and it almost like 556 00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,760 sidesteps the whole issue, right? 557 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,200 Like everyone's just thinking of like, how do we efficiently 558 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:14,080 compress this data so it fits on the drive and whatever. 559 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,280 And then the 10X engineer is like, what if we don't save the 560 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:21,640 data and everyone's just like, you know, like mind blown. 561 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:23,440 And I think that's really important. 562 00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,720 Like, I'm not going to say that that type of skill set isn't 563 00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:29,880 hugely valuable, isn't hugely important. 564 00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,840 I think in that particular instance, they could have saved 565 00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:35,840 tons and tons and tons of money. Like they could have paid for 566 00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:38,280 their entire salary just from that one thing alone. 567 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:42,560 I don't doubt it. What I'm more getting at is like 568 00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,680 that type of engineer who I call the commando, who really loves 569 00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,720 to like swoop in, solve a super hard problem that nobody else 570 00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:55,480 can do and then like jump out. Those problems are kind of rare. 571 00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,240 Those really aren't. It's not like every single day 572 00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,720 you have one of those issues. I do think that there are some 573 00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,760 industries that are kind of like it like that. 574 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,400 I mean, I think I can imagine like think tank and agency work 575 00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:11,360 where it's always some new, like someone's coming to you to solve 576 00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,880 like some crazy problem that's never been done before. 577 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:16,880 Look, if that's the work that you're in, fine, by all means go 578 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,440 for those commandos. I think a lot of companies, 579 00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,000 that's not the day-to-day. I think of a company, a lot of 580 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,400 companies, you have certain types of problems that have been 581 00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,800 solved before. You just need to do it. 582 00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:32,000 You need to put in the work. And I think there's a different 583 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,240 profile, the model that I'm referring to with commandos, 584 00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:37,080 with commandos, infantry and police. 585 00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:42,160 And so I think that model of like a certain type of developer 586 00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,200 who can work well on a team. Here's the plan, execute on the 587 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:50,880 plan, divvy it up and really not just get super bored and make it 588 00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,120 really complicated and just try and make it into something like 589 00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,960 crazier than it is. Like we talked about keeping 590 00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,280 things simple. I think there's a lot of value 591 00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:02,720 to that type of engineer. And so often what I recommend 592 00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:07,440 is, yeah, like you can imagine a situation in your head where 593 00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,880 this commando swoops in and saves you like oodles of money, 594 00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,080 or they invent this thing that now makes your startup worth 595 00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:18,200 like 30 times whatever. Like is it I don't want, I 596 00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,760 wouldn't really just like bet your company on that. 597 00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:24,880 I would just, I would bet on you having more standard problems 598 00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,360 most of the time and find the engineers who can really 599 00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,440 cooperate, follow a plan, come up with those plans and execute. 600 00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,840 And then just for completeness, I'll mention the last type of 601 00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,120 engineer is police. And they are not the one that is 602 00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,200 so much building. They're the ones, if you have a 603 00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,440 system that you need cared for, you're not adding on to it, 604 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,400 you're not changing it very much, but you do want to make 605 00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,560 sure that it is just very well cared for, it stays up, it's 606 00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:54,440 working properly. If there's an issue, it gets 607 00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,840 fixed. And that's really like that 608 00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:00,920 other type of engineer who's really big on documentation, 609 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,360 following procedures, like if this is what happens here is how 610 00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,480 you deal with it, checklists and that type of thing. 611 00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,280 So depending on your situation, usually I think people are 612 00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:14,560 looking for infantry and that's why I say stay away from like 613 00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,200 what I think most people are thinking of when they're 614 00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,720 thinking of that, that 10X engineer. 615 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,720 Now, if you want, I can get into the, you know, I think you were 616 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,840 getting into like the Fang style interviews with the what I call 617 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:31,040 computer science riddles. And I mean, again, I think it's 618 00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,840 so much like this theme. It's it's the don't solve the 619 00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:36,960 problems that you wish you had, like solve the problems that you 620 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,680 actually have. And so if you're looking for an 621 00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,520 engineer, the goal really shouldn't be like, OK, who can 622 00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,680 solve the hardest problems? Like, OK. 623 00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,400 And if they can solve that super hard problem, well, then they 624 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,680 can build out our whatever it is because clearly if they can do 625 00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:56,640 the hard thing, they can do this one. 626 00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,560 And man, hiring is hard. Like you're effectively doing a 627 00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:04,840 class of predicting the future, which generally humans are not 628 00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,840 good at. I think most people would agree 629 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:11,560 with me there. And so, like, don't make the job 630 00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:14,000 harder, right? Like if you're trying to predict 631 00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,719 whether someone is going to be good at this particular thing, 632 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,159 you should really be testing them as close to that particular 633 00:34:20,159 --> 00:34:23,159 thing as possible. Like don't play games with like 634 00:34:23,159 --> 00:34:25,920 bank shots or like, oh, if they're that great, they could 635 00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:28,320 do this. Like, no, just think really, 636 00:34:28,679 --> 00:34:34,639 really hard about what work you think they are most likely to be 637 00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:41,520 doing and create some sort of test problem that really mimics 638 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:43,080 the type of work that they would be doing. 639 00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,120 So you can easily do this just by asking your engineers or, you 640 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,480 know, if you're a tech lead, you know, like you're gonna know 641 00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:53,560 what you've been working on. You can look back in time, you 642 00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:57,080 can look through all the tickets like you can see what it's been 643 00:34:57,560 --> 00:34:59,880 and build something based on that. 644 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,160 Like you just you'll, you'll be able to see like, Oh well, like 645 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:05,800 to work on this system, which we're working on constantly. 646 00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,880 Well, you kind of have to be familiar with how we're using 647 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,920 Redis or you constantly have to be, you know, like you have to 648 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,200 know how we're using like these cues where you have to know how, 649 00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,560 whatever you can look at a certain type of bug that was 650 00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:23,000 pretty difficult to figure out and see like, OK, how did we 651 00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:24,560 solve that? How did we like, how did we have 652 00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,000 to change our thinking to be able to do that? 653 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,680 And then you can create a test around that and, and you can see 654 00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:33,760 like, oh, is this person able to get their head around that or 655 00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:35,840 not? That's a great thing to know 656 00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,400 because that's what they're probably going to be dealing 657 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,640 with. I don't think the Google style 658 00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:42,120 way of doing it. I mean, it works for them, 659 00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:43,880 right? They got a billion applicants. 660 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:45,320 Like they can filter it any way they want. 661 00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,960 They make tons of money. Far be it for me to tell them 662 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,320 what's right or not. But if you don't have those 663 00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,360 style problems, I wouldn't necessarily copy them. 664 00:35:54,240 --> 00:35:56,040 Right. So there's so many things I 665 00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,440 would like to cover, right? So I think thanks for sharing. 666 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:02,160 I think these are the typical practice in many tech startups, 667 00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,080 right? Like they copy from the bigger 668 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:06,600 boys, right, the bigger startups, other practices. 669 00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,360 So the first one is about 10X developers, 10X engineers. 670 00:36:09,720 --> 00:36:13,720 So I think thanks for sharing about the history, the 1960 671 00:36:13,720 --> 00:36:16,000 where this concept may have come from, right? 672 00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,360 So I think that back then maybe like when you have like these 673 00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,520 giant mainframes, right? Obviously the kind of output 674 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,600 that someone produce can be much different. 675 00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,680 But today we all use, you know, advanced computers, almost 676 00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,200 everything available online, right, including the resources 677 00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,520 and you know, the how to the tutorials and all that. 678 00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,120 So I think many people would have the same opportunity to 679 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,160 learn and be able to do the same thing, right? 680 00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:42,000 So I think maybe the concept of 10X output is probably something 681 00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,200 to debunk here. And the second thing is about 682 00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:49,080 instead of finding 10X developers, try to find the 0.1 683 00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,560 X developers and kind of like oust them out, right? 684 00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,640 So I think that's definitely very, very important because you 685 00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:56,720 don't want to have one of the team members who are not 686 00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,400 producing or delivering stuff. So instead of the 10X, maybe 0.1 687 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,080 X is something that you should figure it out how to solve. 688 00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,360 And I think the other thing is about commando inventory and 689 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:09,080 police. I think I find that concept 690 00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,800 really interesting, right? So obviously in the team you 691 00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,000 need a balance. You can't have all the commandos 692 00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,040 or all the police, right? So having a balanced skill set 693 00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,920 and maybe responsibility in the team will be something that is 694 00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:22,600 great, right? And I think about, you know, the 695 00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:25,960 commandos who will come up with some great solutions to, you 696 00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,200 know, some particular problem all the time. 697 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,960 I think this is quite rare. I mean, like I can see it also 698 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,240 in my career, right? Mostly we all write crap 699 00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,040 applications, right? So, you know, like getting an 700 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,000 input, saving to database and communicating it to other 701 00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,000 systems or other, you know, software. 702 00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:44,440 So I think that's the typical things, right? 703 00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,320 And in between you have so many different permutations, like how 704 00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,800 things get done, right? So I guess like the kind of a 705 00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,080 problems that algorithms arithmic is something that is 706 00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:53,920 quite rare. And you mentioned in your book 707 00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,560 that we should optimize for more predictability. 708 00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,200 So people who can maybe plan and deliver right, rather than, you 709 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,600 know, finding these commandos who can suddenly deliver great 710 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:05,920 output. So the next I want to cover 711 00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:07,800 about interviewing style thing, right? 712 00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:12,120 So many people actually kind of like find it difficult to figure 713 00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:14,440 out the questions that we should ask engineers. 714 00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:17,680 I mean, the the Google, the Facebook or the Amazon, maybe 715 00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:21,400 you have their own styles, but what would you think will be a 716 00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:25,000 great interview questions that we should ask engineers for a 717 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,920 smaller type of company or smaller like a typical 718 00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,160 engineering team, right? And so is it something that you 719 00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:32,920 have some kind of best practices? 720 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,280 Because you mentioned that we should be similar to the 721 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:36,760 problems that the team is having. 722 00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,640 But at the same time, you also can't reveal too much. 723 00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:41,480 That's the first thing. Second thing is like, probably 724 00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,240 you don't want to have too many setups like, you know, setting 725 00:38:44,240 --> 00:38:46,720 up Redis, setting up a particular database just for 726 00:38:46,720 --> 00:38:48,960 that particular interview. Or worse, some companies 727 00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,800 actually actually give the candidates homework, asking them 728 00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,960 to do some questions outside of their working hours. 729 00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:57,280 So maybe from your view, what's your take here? 730 00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:00,400 Yeah. So, yeah, I guess it probably 731 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:02,960 makes sense that it wasn't clear from how I was talking about 732 00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,280 that. So the way that we do interviews 733 00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:10,240 is 100% that homework that you mentioned, but there are paid 734 00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:14,360 challenges. So when superstar hires, we have 735 00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:17,480 like a very short filtering project. 736 00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:21,720 So like we do need you to show us code, but that is, that's 737 00:39:21,720 --> 00:39:25,080 much more of a like, did you get it or did you not get it? 738 00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,320 Like if you know the answer, like that's like 5 minutes or 739 00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,000 something like that. It's like incredibly, incredibly 740 00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:32,400 short. And so that's like a filtering 741 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:33,640 one. We don't pay for that one. 742 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,080 And so that's one of the threshold ones. 743 00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:41,720 In terms of the paid challenges, yeah, those are much longer. 744 00:39:41,720 --> 00:39:45,720 Those are maximum like I think we do five hours and we will pay 745 00:39:45,720 --> 00:39:47,680 for time on those. Yeah. 746 00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,560 I mean, I think it is a challenge to figure out how do 747 00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:57,720 you distill a real business type challenge into something that 748 00:39:57,720 --> 00:40:00,640 you can share, right. Like, because you're not going 749 00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,760 to say like, Oh well, well, here's a feature that we want to 750 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,280 add to our production system. But then, Oh yeah, but you got 751 00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:09,520 to, you got to know this and that and like, oh, we're giving 752 00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,400 you access to our GitHub. Like, no, no, it doesn't. 753 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,360 It's like it doesn't even doesn't even make sense in terms 754 00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,000 of the setup and the like. If you do want to test something 755 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,680 with let's say Redis or AQ or something like that, I do think 756 00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:23,360 we're actually in a really good age for that with Docker. 757 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:28,240 Like you can sort of create like all of this like 11 button spin 758 00:40:28,240 --> 00:40:30,960 up that works on everybody's machine if you really wanted to 759 00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:34,240 do that. In general, I think the the goal 760 00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:38,080 really is to reduce that anyway. Like there's a reason not to 761 00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,840 introduce all of those dependencies because it's a pain 762 00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:46,120 and it's variation and can create all kinds of issues that 763 00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:48,160 aren't related to what you're testing for. 764 00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:52,600 But also because I think you do want to distal it down into like 765 00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,800 what is that core pathway that you are testing for? 766 00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,400 And if you introduce too many dependencies, you're kind of 767 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,960 like introducing too many distractions from the thing that 768 00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,880 you're testing. This is again, one of those 769 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,600 things that would be really hard for me to say like here's how 770 00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,960 you do it without knowing what the team is. 771 00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,000 But I could say like, think really hard. 772 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:16,640 Like are you solving e-commerce type problems? 773 00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,360 Are you solving like ad tech type problems? 774 00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,600 Like, are you solving like a consumer photo sharing app type 775 00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:27,000 problem? Like all of those are gonna be 776 00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,040 so different in what you're looking for because each one of 777 00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:35,040 those is gonna have its own either industry or code base 778 00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:39,000 type constraint that is like, I don't know, it's almost like 779 00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:41,440 this no go. It's like when you're working at 780 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,920 the scale of the ad tech and all those requests, like you can get 781 00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,480 yourself, like one of the things that you can test for is just 782 00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,120 whether or not they know that they just can't put like the 783 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,120 entire set in memory or something like that. 784 00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,560 Like that's almost like what you're looking for is like that 785 00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:58,760 they can have that awareness. And there could be something if 786 00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:02,160 you're more consumer focused, like their answer has to be 787 00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:06,160 something that isn't going to drive a user insane, even though 788 00:42:06,240 --> 00:42:10,920 you know, And so it's really hard for me to know upfront what 789 00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:13,800 those types of things are that your team cares about. 790 00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:16,640 But you should be able to identify those. 791 00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,760 And once you can articulate those, you should be able to 792 00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,280 create a test around it. But that's, I would say the 793 00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,360 first step is really thinking about what is important to your 794 00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,640 team. To the extent that anything like 795 00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,720 you think about an engineer who hasn't done very well, like what 796 00:42:30,720 --> 00:42:34,320 were those things that they were missing or oh, this engineer is 797 00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:36,960 really good, like what are the types of things that they did 798 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,240 well and test for them? So unfortunately I think that's 799 00:42:40,240 --> 00:42:42,720 the best I can do. Right. 800 00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,640 I also agree that the, you can't probably, you know, come up with 801 00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,600 just one style of interview questions that will work for 802 00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:50,320 almost all engineering teams, right? 803 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,000 So definitely it depends on the stage, the problem that you're 804 00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,440 solving, right? The formation within the team as 805 00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,600 well, right? Because you might have existing 806 00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:00,240 team members, you probably don't need to find all similar 807 00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:02,400 engineers, right? First, I think identify the 808 00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,320 problems that you think is very crucial for the candidates. 809 00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,640 And second thing is come up with kind of like a similar questions 810 00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,360 that would solve those problems. So definitely very, very 811 00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,400 important. So I think we still have one 812 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:16,280 more manifesto that we can cover. 813 00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,480 So I think one particular thing that I would like to uncover is 814 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:23,280 about deaf giving estimates. So I think this is kind of like 815 00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,720 legendary problem in engineering teams, right? 816 00:43:25,720 --> 00:43:28,800 So how can we come up with accurate estimates? 817 00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:32,280 But you're saying that we should ask deaf to actually give 818 00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,000 estimates. So maybe tell us about why this 819 00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:36,960 principle exists. Yeah. 820 00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:45,600 So one thing that I have found is that just by having a 821 00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:52,480 developer give an estimate, the projects is much more on track. 822 00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:56,280 And the the mechanism by which I think this happens. 823 00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,880 And one of the things I say in my book is like you could even 824 00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:02,440 take that estimate in a sealed envelope and never look at it 825 00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:04,160 and things are going to go better. 826 00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:08,200 Like it's not even the estimate itself, it's the fact that the 827 00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:12,040 developer gives 1 that things go more smoothly. 828 00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:16,680 And I think the mechanism by which this happens is that once 829 00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:22,760 that estimate is said, like that then becomes the budget that 830 00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:26,200 they're working around now. I don't actually, you know, I 831 00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:27,840 think one of the things that people talk about is like 832 00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,640 accurate estimates. Like I don't, you know, I 833 00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:32,440 mentioned this before, predicting the future is hard. 834 00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:37,760 Like I don't actually think that it matters if the estimate is 835 00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:39,920 accurate. I mean, I think all of us as 836 00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:41,560 engineers, we want to measure things. 837 00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:44,480 We want that like perfect precision on measurement. 838 00:44:44,720 --> 00:44:47,600 Like it's really not possible to measure anything perfectly. 839 00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:50,120 Like we know roughly how tall we are, but like not to the 840 00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:51,800 micrometer or something like that. 841 00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:56,760 So there's value to having these estimates or these measurements 842 00:44:57,080 --> 00:45:04,440 even if they are not precise. And so on the developer side, 843 00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:10,640 thinking about how long it's going to take, saying a 844 00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:15,720 particular date that it's going to be done by has a really good 845 00:45:15,720 --> 00:45:20,080 counter balancing effect on a lot of what I would say is our 846 00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:24,480 tendencies, which is that once we get into the problem, there 847 00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:27,240 are lots of things that can blow us off course. 848 00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:34,400 And we might try to overreach sometimes or try and explore 849 00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:39,640 something that catches our interest when it is not wise to 850 00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:43,320 do so. And so if you say, yeah, this is 851 00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:49,920 going to be done in two weeks and now you're in it, you may 852 00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:54,240 not be so frivolous with trying to play with new technologies or 853 00:45:54,240 --> 00:45:58,600 toys or do things that introduce variability, right? 854 00:45:58,720 --> 00:46:02,080 Like you might, You are likely to just try and stick to the 855 00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:07,360 budget or you have a really good reason for it. 856 00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,720 And then that is something that you can communicate, you know, 857 00:46:10,720 --> 00:46:12,440 like, hey, I've been working into it. 858 00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:14,520 And so this is one of the things that I think is really important 859 00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:18,080 to say, which is that the estimates are not something that 860 00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,160 the devs are really held accountable. 861 00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,840 Like it's not a deadline. It's not something that that 862 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,640 then becomes weaponized. And like, oh, you said that the 863 00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:30,280 estimate was this and you didn't hit it because it's important 864 00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:34,680 that the estimates update as the developer has more information. 865 00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:39,800 So the problem is that if they don't update you, like they say 866 00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,760 it's going to be, you know, done on Tuesday and then they don't 867 00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:45,760 say anything and you're like, hey, it's Tuesday. 868 00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:47,440 And they're like, oh, no, no, it's going to be another two 869 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:49,160 weeks. Like I'm, I'm not a fan of that. 870 00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,600 That's yeah. But in my book, I talk about 871 00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,840 this thing because certain people don't want to give an 872 00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:58,640 estimate because they don't, they don't want to get tied 873 00:46:58,640 --> 00:46:59,680 down. They think anything could 874 00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:00,920 happen. Like, how can I know? 875 00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:02,600 It's that like predict the future. 876 00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:06,200 And look, I mean, that's like, as if someone's like you asked 877 00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,480 your friend to pick you up from the airport and your friend's 878 00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:10,600 like, well, I don't know, I could be sick that day. 879 00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:12,960 I could get a flat tire. Like, like, why don't you call 880 00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,320 me when you land? And then we'll see. 881 00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:19,200 That's not OK. Like you can plan, but what you 882 00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,120 expect from your friend is not to leave you at the airport. 883 00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:27,040 Like they can commit and then you just expect that either if 884 00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:30,120 they're sick or they have a flat tire, they call you and they or 885 00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:31,480 they leave a message or something. 886 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,600 So you're not just like waiting for them at the airport without 887 00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:36,680 anything happening. And so that's the important 888 00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:40,000 distinction is like these estimates can move as you get 889 00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,680 more information and they will become more accurate over time 890 00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,040 or they really give you a strong signal that the developer is 891 00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,200 really in over the head. If like it keeps moving and 892 00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,800 keeps moving and keeps moving and it's not getting more 893 00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,200 accurate. So that's part of it. 894 00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,160 Now, it's so interesting because I get a lot of pushback that 895 00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:01,440 this is like micromanagement, like asking for the estimate and 896 00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,120 checking on the estimate. Like this is micromanagement. 897 00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,960 Like it's treating a dev like a kid or something like that. 898 00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:09,640 And I think it's quite the opposite we were talking about 899 00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:11,120 before. Like it's treating devs like 900 00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,160 adults. Like, I don't know why people 901 00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,600 think asking for, like, an estimate is micromanagement. 902 00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:20,280 Like if you go to the mechanic and, like, you ask them like 903 00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:22,880 when they think the car is gonna be ready, like that's 904 00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:27,400 micromanagement. No, Like, yeah. 905 00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:30,760 So I mean, I just, I feel like it's worth bringing that out 906 00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,080 because that's like a common reaction that I get that I think 907 00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:36,120 isn't, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. 908 00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:40,520 But the final thing is that, and this is kind of related to the 909 00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:44,960 budget or the developer really thinking about it ahead of time, 910 00:48:45,240 --> 00:48:49,480 thinking what the scope is and coming up with an estimate is 911 00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:54,800 that when that estimate is said, like if that is much more than 912 00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:58,800 the business thinks is reasonable or is more than they 913 00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:02,760 think the feature is worth, that will trigger a conversation. 914 00:49:03,240 --> 00:49:06,120 And so that conversation itself is really useful. 915 00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:08,240 Like, OK, you're saying this is 4 weeks. 916 00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,200 That's not really how much value we placed on it. 917 00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,120 Can you help explain like why it's four weeks? 918 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:15,920 Like what's the most time consuming part of this? 919 00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,160 And in my experience, like that often, not always, but that 920 00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:21,960 often will lead to a conversation that is something 921 00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:26,040 along the lines of, well, for this to be perfect or this to 922 00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:28,280 support like every locality ever. 923 00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:32,120 Or if this scales like to Infinity, it's got a handle XYZ. 924 00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:36,960 And that's a really good time to recognize, wait, is that do we 925 00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:40,400 care about those things? And if you don't, often what can 926 00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,000 happen is like, no, we don't need this to like go to 927 00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,480 Infinity. We just have a demo with an 928 00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:48,800 investor and it just has to work once like for one user for 5 929 00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:50,760 minutes. And then you know, the response 930 00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:52,400 that you go like, oh, I can get that done in an hour. 931 00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,720 And you go from like 4 weeks to an hour. 932 00:49:54,720 --> 00:49:56,640 And I think everybody wins in those cases. 933 00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:02,160 So it's really nice not to just have it be floating because if 934 00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,080 those expectations are super out of line, that's a really good 935 00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:08,880 opportunity to have that conversation, get some good 936 00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,960 value out of it. Right, So I think everyone 937 00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:14,280 listening to this, I'm sure you can relate, right? 938 00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,520 So what is the, you know what you hate about estimates, why 939 00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:20,120 you like estimates, right? So I think one of the things 940 00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:21,680 which I learned from somewhere as well, right? 941 00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,600 I think estimates one of the best way to kind of like do a 942 00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:26,280 planning. So it's like a planning tool, 943 00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:29,240 right, Rather than making people accountable for delivering 944 00:50:29,240 --> 00:50:32,480 something on time, right? So I think without doing some 945 00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:35,040 kind of estimates, probably just like what you mentioned, right, 946 00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,240 you're giving someone like no kind budget kind of a thing, 947 00:50:38,240 --> 00:50:40,120 right? So you can spend all your time 948 00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:41,760 and just deliver it whenever you like. 949 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,760 So I think definitely in a team, especially if you work in a 950 00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:46,720 company, you can't just work like that. 951 00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,440 You need some kind of a planning and maybe the most important 952 00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:51,360 thing as well as to coordinate with other teams, right? 953 00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:54,080 Because when you deliver something, maybe someone else 954 00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,640 need to do some coordination effort, be it marketing, be it 955 00:50:57,720 --> 00:51:01,520 sales, right, or the support team in order to prepare what 956 00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:03,960 you're delivering, right? So I think that's almost very, 957 00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,760 very important in a company setup because without giving 958 00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,680 that kind of estimate when things will be available, it's 959 00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:11,480 really hard for the other teams to coordinate. 960 00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:14,240 So I think the other aspect that you mentioned is about 961 00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:17,400 micromanagement, right? So I think many people hate 962 00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:20,640 giving estimates simply because they will be given a ransom, 963 00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:22,160 right? You said something about, you 964 00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:25,560 know, delivering it this day. I think this is still typical in 965 00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,360 many companies simply because and you know, we have many 966 00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:31,240 stakeholders, right and people kind of like take it for granted 967 00:51:31,240 --> 00:51:34,120 that whatever that we mention is something that is accurate. 968 00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,600 So how can we change this habit or maybe how can we educate 969 00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:41,120 other stakeholders such that, you know, we we are OK to give 970 00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:44,320 an estimate, but don't put us so hard if we cannot deliver it. 971 00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,520 Yeah. So one of the things that my 972 00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:52,640 managers do with the estimates is that they'll check back in at 973 00:51:52,720 --> 00:51:57,960 like the 50% mark, the 75% mark just to see if everything is 974 00:51:58,160 --> 00:51:59,160 still going. OK. 975 00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:02,400 You can flip that, right. If you are the one that's giving 976 00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:06,200 estimates upfront with the estimate, you can say like, 977 00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,840 yeah, I, I think this is going to be two weeks, but I'll tell 978 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,440 you what, I'm going to check back in a week and I'll tell you 979 00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,040 if that's still the case, like the 50% time. 980 00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:18,880 And I think that just makes it really clear that that two weeks 981 00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:23,800 is not final. And if it's moving, you're going 982 00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:28,000 to find out in a week, right? And so if you're giving that, in 983 00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,280 my head when you were talking, I'm just imagining this chain of 984 00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,320 stakeholders where maybe you do give that to your manager and 985 00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:35,400 they give that higher up and higher up and higher up. 986 00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:38,200 Like you're giving a very clear signal to, to whoever you're 987 00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,000 giving that manager to. Like, look, you can communicate 988 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,320 this up if you want, but just know that you might be giving an 989 00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:48,680 update in a week. Like, so don't, don't say like 990 00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:51,800 don't act like it's final. And I think that'll probably go 991 00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:55,800 a long way to helping anybody who's giving an estimate feel 992 00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,240 more natural about giving an updates because they're even, 993 00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:01,720 it's almost like they're making another commitment, which is 994 00:53:01,720 --> 00:53:05,040 like, hey, in a week I'm going to be giving you an update. 995 00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:08,880 Like I'm going to be telling you that my first estimate was 996 00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,400 wrong. Yeah, I like that tips, right. 997 00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,960 So definitely when you are given an estimate, right, So you can 998 00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:16,880 always check back in terms of milestones, right? 999 00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:20,120 Maybe it could be like when you said 50 percent, 70% or even 1000 00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:23,280 maybe slightly more frequent, especially if it's a longer kind 1001 00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:25,520 of estimates, right? So the other things that are 1002 00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:28,880 typically do is also asking people to actually think about 1003 00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:31,920 the worst case, best case and maybe like a normal case at 1004 00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,160 least you kind of like know some kind of variability could happen 1005 00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:37,480 if you think about the worst case, for example. 1006 00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:41,400 And the other aspect is actually to break down the tasks into a 1007 00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,040 smaller chunks rather than, you know, like a big chunk. 1008 00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:46,560 Because when you have a big chunk, if you want to predict 1009 00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:49,440 it, it's kind of like difficult to get like kind of like a 1010 00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:52,360 accuracy, right? So how can we deliver in chunks 1011 00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:54,760 in a smaller scope? I think that will be a key as 1012 00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:56,680 well. And you mentioned also something 1013 00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,200 about estimate, right? If people don't give estimate, 1014 00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:01,960 they typically don't own the problem. 1015 00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:05,880 So why giving estimates actually kind of you can associate it 1016 00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,840 with kind of like ownership maybe if you can enlighten us 1017 00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:12,480 here. Yeah, so I would say this 1018 00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:16,240 happens a little bit more when it's not that like there's no 1019 00:54:16,240 --> 00:54:21,080 estimate, it's more that the developer is given the deadline 1020 00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,040 or they're, you know, like, oh, we really need it, you know, X 1021 00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:26,400 like, oh, this will only take, you know, so much, don't you 1022 00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:30,960 think? So this is problematic because 1023 00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:34,560 the developer, like, if they're not the one that came up with 1024 00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:37,440 the estimate, if it's wrong, well, it's not really their 1025 00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:40,000 fault, right? Like, well, I didn't say that, 1026 00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:41,440 right? Like I tried, didn't work, 1027 00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,240 whatever. And so it's a very different 1028 00:54:45,720 --> 00:54:48,600 stake or different amount of skin of the game, like if they 1029 00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:51,120 are the one thinking about when it's going to be done. 1030 00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:55,200 Now, I do want to say that some deadlines are real, like you can 1031 00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:57,720 have the date that something needs to be fixed. 1032 00:54:58,240 --> 00:55:02,320 What I really want to make clear though is that you can either 1033 00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:07,320 choose one, the date can be fixed and the scope is flexible 1034 00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,640 or the scope is fixed and then the date is flexible. 1035 00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:13,280 And that's usually what I'm talking about with the the 1036 00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:16,400 estimates, which is that the scope is fixed and the date is 1037 00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:18,280 flexible. So here is this amount of scope, 1038 00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:20,640 when's it going to be done? But you can do it the other way, 1039 00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:24,320 which is like a, this is what we want delivered. 1040 00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:28,600 How much of this can you get done by this date that is also I 1041 00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:33,160 have is if both are given to a dev, whereas this is the scope 1042 00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:34,960 and this is the date that we need it by. 1043 00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:37,280 I don't think that's good for anyone. 1044 00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,000 Yeah, I think that this. Is the triangle of, you know, I 1045 00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:42,720 don't know, project management, something like that. 1046 00:55:42,720 --> 00:55:44,400 That's the other one, which is the budget, right? 1047 00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:47,400 But typically, it's very hard to play the lever of the budget 1048 00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,000 unless you are like, I don't know, like a rich startup or 1049 00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:53,360 company, right, where you can just hire consultants out there 1050 00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:55,720 as well. So, David, thank you so much for 1051 00:55:55,720 --> 00:55:57,400 all this. I think we reached the end of 1052 00:55:57,400 --> 00:55:59,440 our time. So for people who are interested 1053 00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:02,400 in what we just discussed, there are so many other things, so 1054 00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:05,320 many other principles in the manifesto that David wrote in 1055 00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:08,720 his book Superstruct Manifesto. Because I've read the book, I 1056 00:56:08,720 --> 00:56:11,840 find it really insightful and sometimes fun because you kind 1057 00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:14,000 of like reflect back to your experience. 1058 00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:16,080 And hey, yeah, I had this problem before. 1059 00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:19,080 And I think I can learn from what David is mentioning in the 1060 00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:21,120 book. So I have one last question for 1061 00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:23,520 you before I let you go. So typically I ask this 1062 00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:25,960 question, the tree technical leadership is them. 1063 00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:28,920 So maybe if you can think of them just like an advice, is 1064 00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:31,080 there something that you can share for us today? 1065 00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,720 Yeah, I mean this. Kind of goes into the whole 1066 00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:40,160 reason why I wrote the book is that I really, really hope that 1067 00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:45,200 people don't just cargo cult don't just copy what they see 1068 00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:48,880 other companies doing, like wholesale copying of systems, 1069 00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:54,160 wholesale copying of processes, Like don't just don't do that. 1070 00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,960 I think that's that that's what I would say what you really 1071 00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:02,160 should do is just think about the problems that you actually 1072 00:57:02,240 --> 00:57:08,160 have and really come up with solutions that really fit your 1073 00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:10,480 issue, like solve the problems that you have, not the problems 1074 00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,760 that you want. Kind of, you know, related to 1075 00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:17,360 that is, you know, I sort of brought this up in the in the 1076 00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:19,480 beginning when I was talking about building like the, you 1077 00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:25,800 know, the high skill systems in really, there's like a lot of 1078 00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:29,720 value in reducing the moving parts that you have in any of 1079 00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:32,640 these systems. And sometimes as engineers, like 1080 00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:35,080 we, you know, we're guilty of over engineering. 1081 00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:39,160 We like to make things like more novel and try this, then try 1082 00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:42,080 that. And you know, it all fits 1083 00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:44,960 together and in a cool way and building this big machine, 1084 00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:48,880 you're also, you're often going to be much happier if you really 1085 00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:51,920 try and minimize the number of parts, minimize the number of 1086 00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:56,800 moving parts, like simplify as much as possible just as a 1087 00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:00,960 general way to go. I kind of think of Occam's 1088 00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:04,200 razor, the simplest explanations, generally the 1089 00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:07,320 correct 1. You can apply that as well. 1090 00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:13,680 And I think the third one, I guess I'm just, I'm going to go 1091 00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,920 back to the beginning when I was talking about the career pivot 1092 00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:19,840 and or like the parts of my career that I think, you know, 1093 00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:24,680 were meaningful to me and the never lose sight of those 1094 00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:27,040 business goals, right? So when I was talking about, I'd 1095 00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:29,600 go out to lunch with people and I'd figure out what they were 1096 00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:32,400 actually the problems that they had in their day-to-day. 1097 00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:35,800 I think it can be possible depending on your team, 1098 00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:39,200 depending on your company, depending on what's going on, it 1099 00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:42,840 can be possible to lose sight of why we're doing the engineering 1100 00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:47,200 that we're doing. We can lose sight of the company 1101 00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:50,720 that we're working in. It's a machine that can only run 1102 00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:54,640 if it's getting fuel. And oftentimes that's revenue. 1103 00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:59,560 And really trying to think of what you are doing to get more 1104 00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:03,880 revenue, more profit in because that's what sustains it. 1105 00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:06,400 That's, you know, what pays for your salary, your team's salary 1106 00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:09,640 for all of the, you know, the systems that you use, everything 1107 00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:11,440 like that. And sometimes it can be really 1108 00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:13,640 difficult, right? I mean, sometimes there isn't 1109 00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:16,640 clear how you can do anything to drive revenue. 1110 00:59:16,960 --> 00:59:19,400 Sometimes it can be that you lower costs. 1111 00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:21,800 You know, you can, you can increase profit by lowering 1112 00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:26,120 cost, by saving time. And I, I just don't lose sight 1113 00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:28,400 of that. And, and sometimes that it means 1114 00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:31,640 taking other people out to lunch or just having more 1115 00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:34,680 conversations with people in other departments to know, to 1116 00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:37,880 even be aware of where those opportunities are or where those 1117 00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:41,480 problems are that you can sort of shift resources to solve. 1118 00:59:41,480 --> 00:59:42,920 So I think those would be the three. 1119 00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,400 Yeah, I like the last. One, and especially in your 1120 00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,440 book, you also cover, don't forget to actually give some 1121 00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:51,640 meaning to the developers on the work that they do, right? 1122 00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:54,040 So relate that with the business goals, relate that with the 1123 00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,080 impact that the product that you're building given to other 1124 00:59:57,080 --> 00:59:58,680 customers or people right out there. 1125 00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:01,360 So find the meaning. And I think that it's also 1126 01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:03,320 important for engineers not to lose sight. 1127 01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:05,760 You know, sometimes techies like to play, I don't know, with 1128 01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:09,800 technologies, try out new things or build some complicated system 1129 01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:12,640 that will probably not solve the problems that the company is 1130 01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,200 facing at that point in time. And so, yeah, don't lose like 1131 01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:17,040 the business. So I think thanks for the tips. 1132 01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:19,600 So David, if people love this conversation or they want to 1133 01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:21,880 check out the book, is there a place where you would recommend 1134 01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:24,800 people to go to? Yeah, So it's called the Super 1135 01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:25,880 Struck. Manifesto. 1136 01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:29,280 That would be difficult for me to spell out, so if you want to 1137 01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:31,520 get redirected to the books page, just go to 1138 01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:36,640 treatdevslikeadults.com and it'll take you there. 1139 01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:41,560 You can also find me on LinkedIn, David Gutman and yeah, 1140 01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:44,080 I think those are the two two places to go. 1141 01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:48,120 Wow, nice catchy URL so I'll. Put it in the show notes if 1142 01:00:48,120 --> 01:00:50,920 people want to check it out. So thank you so much again, 1143 01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:52,520 David, for sharing your manifesto. 1144 01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:54,760 I think it's really insightful. Thanks again for that. 1145 01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:56,640 Yeah, thanks so much for having me. 1146 01:00:56,640 --> 01:00:57,480 It was great. Being here.