The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - The indispensable cog (Friends)

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Go Time co-host, Johnny Boursiquot, joins Adam & Jerod to discuss not making the (first) cut, applying Founder Mode, being a cog (or not), realizing that companies are posting fake engineering jobs & the (maybe) imminent demise of the .io TLD.

Finally it's time for change loggin' friends With Adam and Jared and some other rando We hope that you love it and stay until the end We're not offended if you can't go We know you're probably busy coding And your deadline is pretty foreboding Your caffeine intake is an actual problem So why don't we walk outside And we can listen to the change-logging friends From Adam and Jerry in Silicon Valley We know one day the gag will come to an end But honestly that will probably be our finale

We bet you sling A1s and 0s And that makes you one of our heroes Your list of to-do's will be waiting for you So why don't we walk outside And we can listen to Change Logging Friends The better than sharing people you know Change Logging Friends Let's get back into the flow

Change Logging Friends Change Logging Friends It's your favorite ever show Favorite ever show Welcome to Changelog and Friends A weekly talk show about the British Indian Ocean Territory. Thanks to our partners at Fly.io, over 3 million apps have launched on Fly, including ours. You can too, in 5 minutes or less. Learn how at Fly.io. Let's talk. of the interface a user had going on when they experienced an issue with full tracing, full data, the advancements you're making with tracing and profiling,

cron monitoring, co-coverage, user feedback, and just tons of integrations. Give me a glimpse into the inevitable future. What are you driving towards? Yeah, one of the things that we're seeing is that in the past, people had separate systems where they had like logs on servers, written files. They were maybe sending some metrics to Datadog or something like that, or some other system. They were monitoring for errors with some product, maybe it was Sentry. But more and more what we see is people want all of these sources of telemetry logically tied

together somehow. And that's really what we're pursuing at Sentry now. We have this concept of a trace ID, which is kind of a key that ties together all of the pieces of data that are associated with the user action. So if a user loads a web page, we want to tie together all the server requests that happened, any errors that happened, any metrics that were collected. And what that allows on the back end, you don't just have to look at like three different graphs and sort of line them up in time and, you know, try to draw your own conclusions. You can actually like analyze and slice and dice the data and say, hey, what did this metric look like for people with this operating system versus this metric look like

for people with this operating system and actually get into those details. So this kind of idea of tying all of the telemetry data together using this concept of a trace ID or basically some key, I think is a big win for developers trying to diagnose and debug real world systems and something that is, we're kind of charged the path for that for everybody. Okay. Let's see you get there. Let's see you get there tomorrow. Yeah. Perfectly. How will systems be different? How will teams be different as a result? structured. They're sort of this hierarchical structure with spans. And not only is it just the spans that are structured, they're tied to errors, they're tied to other things. So when you have the data model that's kind of interconnected, it opens up all different kinds of analysis that were just kind of either very manual before, kind of guessing that maybe

this log was, you know, happened at the same time as this other thing, or were just impossible. We get excited not only about the new kinds of issues that we can detect with that interconnected data model, but also just for every issue that we do detect how easy it is to get to the bottom of it. I love it. Okay. So they mean it when they say code breaks, fix it faster with Sentry. More than 100,000 growing teams use Sentry to find problems fast. And you can too. Learn more at Sentry.io. That's S-E-N-T-R-Y.io. And use our code changelog. Get $100 off the team plan. That's almost four months free for you to try out Sentry. Once again, Sentry.io. I'm afraid of bears. You know, there's not many things that I'm afraid of in life, but bears is one of them.

Like, I don't want to be anywhere near a bear. I'm afraid of just wildlife. Like, you know, like I'm afraid, like I have deer, like, you know, like parking on my lawn, like all day, all night. I'm afraid that, you know, usually on my lawn like all day all night i'm afraid that you know usually they like shy away from you like if i'm walking on the path or whatever they might you know give me a white birth but i'm like one day they'd be like we outnumber you man right we could take you out and i got horns like a dozen of us out here yeah have you uh seen the movie Revenant?

No, but I know. Doesn't he get eaten by a bear? Not quite. Almost. Almost eaten by a bear. Yeah. Leonardo DiCaprio, his character, I believe his name was Howard Glass. But this guy is like famous in the, I don't know, the era before there was electricity, basically.

I don't know. There may have been electricity, but it was like. The days of yore. Yeah. Back in the day when you used to have to fill the weapon or the gun with the powder and the gunpowder and all that to fire it, you know, that kind of day. And I won't tell you because it's worth checking out, but it would make you fear bears even more. That'd be hard because I'm pretty afraid of them already.

It would solidify. How about this? It would icing your cake. It would confirm. It would confirm your suspicions. Yes. I'm not that afraid of deer, though, Johnny. I just don't think they can organize like we can.

You're giving them too much credit. They're not going to organize against us. I mean, in the age of AI, anything's possible, you know? Put a chip in that deer head. Yeah, well, maybe. That's true. Hugh Glass, to close a loop. Hugh Glass, H-U-G-H Glass.

A very famous person. It's like Paul Bunyan, you know, a tall tale. He had conquered such massive encumberments, I would say, in life. Bears. He recovered from this. I guess I'm going to kill that one plot for you. Well, we already know that he almost died from a bear. Obviously.

But he survived circumstances no one should survive and has been through things that not many people have been through. And so his tale is bigger than him. And so that's why Hugh Glass is a well-known name if you pay attention to those kind of stories there's a I'm also noticing that there's a dad joke here somewhere which okay glass yeah no I was going I was gonna go on to that and I'm just like let it go Jared let it go what's the tell the dad joke no I mean you're a dad, Adam. You should have already gotten it.

Nope, don't get it. Oh, man, we need to work on your dad joke abilities. School me. Give me a quick schooling. I want to know what you're laughing about. You glass. You glass. You glass. You glass.

You glass. You glass. You glass. You glass. You glass. You glass. You glass. You glass.

You glass. You glass. You got to connect these dots for you, Adam. You glass. Okay. You glass. I've been schooled. Thank you, Adam? Come on. Okay. All right. I've been schooled.

Thank you. I'm there now. And I've tracked with you and I'm laughing with you now. I actually met somebody yesterday or the day before who was quite witty. And he would joke a lot, right? Sarcastically. And I'm cool with that. Except for when you're laughing and I'm not because your joke is funny.

But it's only funny to you because it's so insider baseball it's only insider to you right and i had to explain i'm like i want to laugh with you and i can't because the joke is only for you and so you make me feel foolish and i want to laugh with you so just give me a little bit more i don't mind the sarcasm i don't mind the witty jokes and stuff like that but just bring me inside a little bit more. I don't mind the sarcasm. I don't mind the witty jokes and stuff like that, but just bring me inside a little bit on this one. Do you ever just laugh anyways? You don't get it, but you're like, eh, I'll laugh at this person. And I do, and I do, but the person had done it so much, I was like, I can only

laugh a few times like that until I'm like, I'm not giving you one, okay? I'll give you a couple. And after like three or four, I'm like, explain that one to me, because I want to laugh with you. And I feel like a fool because it sounds funny. Give it to me. Anyways, it's been a minute, Johnny, like way too many minutes.

You're like one of my favorite people in the entire world. Every time I see you in person, I want to give you the biggest hug ever. You're such a cool dude. You're such an inspiration really too. And I think the joy you have for all you do is infectious. That's my favorite thing about you. Oh. Yeah.

Always the big smile. Always welcoming to people. Always kind. And I think those are some traits we admire to have in life. Thank you. Appreciate that. It's not always easy to be all those things, but that's- No, it is not.

That's what makes it rewarding, right? Right. Doing things like that, but you know, that's what makes it rewarding. Right. Right. Things like that. Right. Yeah, absolutely. No matter how hard you have it in life, I've come to learn that, you know, there's always probably somebody who was having it harder than you. Right.

So you never know. Right. If you cross paths with somebody, maybe a smile, maybe a hello, right. Something could be that one thing that tips them over and, you know, prevents them from, you know, from them to else from tipping over. Right. So yeah, it's just, you know, try to keep it positive whenever you can. I don't have my journal near me, but I do journal and I just journaled the other day,

that kind of thing. And the paraphrase of what our journal was, it could always be worse. It doesn't mean you should always be like, oh man, I can't be sad about my circumstances. It's more like, you know what? It really could be worse. I mean, because my family has been through some things. We've had loss. We've had just various things throughout our years. And it really could always be worse. So find the joy, the glass half full versus half empty in life. And so I don't know that that's specific for you, but you just said so,

but my demeanor for you has always been, or my assumption of your demeanor has always been, man, you're just so joyful to be around. You're always happy, always smiling, always bringing something fun, never a downer, never a complainer, you know, in any way, shape or form. So I've always appreciated that about you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Well, for those who don't know Johnnyny he's also known as golang johnny is that right oh yeah don't you have that website johnny i do it was like a a joke we came up with during an episode during a go time episode right and then uh it sounded it was so funny and i went ahead and registered it anyway right because i wanted I wanted to, on the following show, I wanted to come back.

You wanted to say, I got it. So if you go to golangjohnny.com, is that what it is? Yeah. And you're going to find Johnny Borsico. Does it just redirect to your website or is it actually a website itself? No, that's its own thing. It's its own thing. It just has a picture of me on stage at GopherCon.

Awesome. That's one way to get Google juice is just go ahead and buy that sucker. So you are going Johnny, one story that I would love for you to tell from your perspective and ours, I think you hinted at it on go time 300, which was very much a look back and I look forward at go times past and future. And you mentioned the reason I want to bring it up here is because the three of us were involved in that. And I don't think anybody else really was, was that while you are a staple and a regular go-time host and have been for years, you were initially cut from the ranks. Yeah. Yeah.

You didn't make the team the first time around. And I mean, talk about some perseverance. Adam, you were heavily involved in that decision. You guys want to drudge this out? I remember vividly because it felt like firing, and I'm not a firing kind of person. I don't like to deliver bad news to anybody, but I'm also naturally comfortable in confrontation. Not fistfight confrontation, but more like if I've got to deliver bad news,

I think you could probably tell me right here now on the podcast, if I was gracious about it. I feel like I was. Yeah, you were. But I really tried to be kindhearted in delivering not always positive news. And I really can't remember what it was. I think we were early on even, I would say potentially even green. We hadn't had the network yet. Jared and I had only done this single podcast.

It was our first non-Changelog show. Like not the Changelog, it was our first one. Yeah. And there were a few factors. I mean, I think very little of it was personal to Johnny. A lot of it was just the fact of like we already had three and four is a weird number of hosts. Three is a magic number.

And so there was like, well, you know, there can be only three. It is a magic. It is a nice is a magic number and so there was like well you know there can be only three that is a magic it is a nice conversational magic number especially if you're gonna have a guest now you already have four four with a guest is like that's just like too many cooks right and a lot of it was because eric and brian were the original team and And yeah, we're just like, well. I would say our invitation to go was Brian Kettleson and then Eric. Right. And so I feel like we were in some ways like being shepherded into the go world by them, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that the two of you nailed it on the head. It was more logistics than anything else right i didn't take it personally at all right it was basically it wasn't it was it wasn't there was nobody nobody owed me anything right so it was it was a conversation that we're having still trying to put together a show she's trying to figure out how is this gonna actually operate and you know actually it was it was bill kennedy who reached out says hey this thing might be happening. Would you be interested?

And things like that. And he started connecting the dots. And I'm not sure, you know, how you came across, you know, my name, Adam. But to me, that was the genesis of it, right? It was Bill says, hey, I think you'd be a good fit here. And let's see if we can make that happen, right? And then conversations went on. And I'm like, oh, this sounds great.

And, you know, truth be told, I was very excited about it. You know, I was, I mean, my imposter syndrome was kicking very hard, right? Like, I'm like, oh, what am I going to do? And, you know, I started to do that. Like, trying to understand what do podcast hosts do? How do they interview? Like, I started studying, like, the process, right? So I wanted to do it as good a job as I could.

But then, you know, by the time, you know, things started rolling, right? You know, we had that conversation. I was like, oh, I'm not going to lie. I was bummed. But, you know, you delivered, you know, the message sort of very kindly. And I understood why. And I'm like, you know what? Hopefully, this is not my last opportunity, right?

And I think you said so yourself, right? You know, we've got a lot of things in the works. We've got a lot of things coming, you know, like, let's keep that door open. And yeah, and lo and lo and behold eventually i made it onto the team and and you know and the rest is history right so i i i try not to when i think about it there's there's a couple ways i could have handled it i could have been like oh these guys you know like i could have been right bitter about it resentful or i could be like you know what almost got this one right let me just keep

moving forward and hopefully another opportunity you know sort of shows up but i keep doing my thing right so i can't hand like my sort of a contentment right and my joie de vivre right you know i am i'm a french speaker after all i can't hand that over to somebody else right like i i am responsible for my own happiness so i can't be bitter and sort of you know take on things right that that i have no control over right so i kind of have to be like you know what next time and it happened right so the universe works right the universe works in interesting ways it does i'm also you know and jared i think you're this is why we make great partners is that we're i'll say we because this cause this is how I am. And I'm assuming this is how you are. Cause I don't see you acting this way. I do not like to burn bridges with anybody. I'm never like, you don't measure up. You're out of here for any reason. Even if the

person is owed that response, I would never, I would, I would always be kind in my delivery of any negative news whatsoever. And I just do not, desperately do not like to burn any bridge. I like to leave opportunities open, leave doors open. Now, if there's scenarios where there clearly need to be, I will close the door and lock it, but I won't burn the door down,

you know, or the bridge down to keep using the bridge metaphor. I would just be like, you know, this bridge shall not be crossed ever again, but I won't burn it down, you know? And that's just how I operate in life, really. I don't like to burn bridges. Well, thankfully, that bridge wasn't burned.

And I think the original trio, that was Brian, Carlicia, and Eric, did almost 100 high 80s, low 90s episodes. And then we put it on hiatus for a while. And when it came time to reboot go time which we weren't sure if we'd ever reboot go time it was out there for probably about a year maybe 18 months of no production but when we decided to get a team together and give it a second shot which we did the exact same thing with jsparty by the way i'm not sure if it's like making the same mistake twice or was it even a mistake i don't even think it was necessarily a mistake just the way the history went there's Johnny like right there on

our short list of like well we need some more people and because you didn't burn the bridge and we still you know had fond feelings for you just didn't work out the first time it was like an obvious choice second time around can you believe that initial conversation was probably very early in the year 2016. So we're talking about, you know, eight years ago. Wow. And then you've been on the show for probably five. I don't even know how long. Yeah. I've lost track at this point. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah. One thing you said early on was like, how are we going to keep doing a show about go every week? Like, aren't we going to run out of stuff so far no but i mean i know it gets hard sometimes like how do you how do you come up with new stuff all the time to talk about because go is a niche inside of a niche and so you know there's only so

many go releases and functions to call and i know right you know i think we started diversifying the the kinds of things we were talking about, right? So we started talking about things that are adjacent to Go, right? Not just the language itself. And, you know, there's only so many episodes you can have, you know, on the actual syntax and, you know, the concurrency and all these things. You know, there's been dozens and dozens of blog posts about, oh, why I like Go? Why I hate Go? I mean, wherever you fall on the fence there.

But, you know, the things that are being built will, but you know, the, the things that are being built will go, you know, the productivity gains people are getting out of it, what companies are being, are building their entire stack around, like these things became sort of where we spent a lot of times. And then as time went on, I think we've also sort of bringing even non-technical, but still adjacent to some degree, right. Topics into the mix as well. Now, I don't know how, how much our audience appreciates that sort of diversity of, of topics. You know, I'm sure some people would prefer the hardcore technical stuff all the time and nothing, but, but I'm sure, you know, I've heard from other people as well as say, Hey, you remember that

episode you did on something that is not ghost specific, but you know, it was something that maybe they were investigating or going through it. And they, they heard from, from one of the, the hosts about something that resonated. So I hear it on both sides. Right. So I think the, the, for me, it's, unless somebody says, Hey, you can't do that. I think a lot of, a lot of topics should extend beyond ghost specific things, as long as there's some connection back, right? Because life is not one dimensional, right? So there's going to be some things that are relevant, right? That makes sense to touch on.

For instance, I'm listening to the Founder Mode conversation right now. I'm a few weeks behind, of course, as I always am, catching up with Go time. And Founder Mode conversation with you, Chris and Angelica, when you're not a founder, you're just a regular employee at an organization. How does this Paul Graham essay apply to us? And I think it's fine. I think it's totally legit for a GoTime conversation because of course we all live in this world

where we're using our skills to make a living or to create stuff or to start a business or working for a startup founder or working in a large organization. We're all in these different areas and these facets all affect us. And so it's easy to tie back to the programming language or to the people using the programming language because we're all kind of in this similar lifestyle. I think you hit the nail on the head with the word facet there. I think that's what it is, is like perspectives and facets within an ecosystem. It doesn't have to be, oh, what is the latest feature that's being scrutinized, which there's, you know, some in the go world, you know, what's the latest feature? What's the latest release? How does that work? I think it's more about the culture of being a developer that I think shows are more interesting

around. It's like, I know that you're steeped in this cloud native go world where that is, you know, very much the way things are. However, you know, I also want to know why you think the way you think or how you react to a certain piece of news that affects every developer to some degree shape or form I will say however I am totally unschooled

on founder mode I have purposely not I've heard of it, I know it's out there I can assume what it means but I have not read the essay I have not even read Brian. I can assume what it means, but I have not read the essay. I have not even read Brian Cantrell's response to it and other people kind of like jumping on the bandwagon of it and how great it is.

I've only been on the peripheral to know it exists. I do not know the details of the essay, and I have not begun to listen to this episode either to hear y'all's perspective. So just put my card out there. I am non-steeped in founder mode. Okay. Are you hoping that we steep you or are you hoping that we move on?

Steep me if you have to. What are you trying to do here? Close some loop if you don't mind. Oh, gosh. What is important? What are the cliff notes of founder mode? TLDR it, Johnny. What's founder mode and what was the overall takes on go time?

I know Chris was kind of meh. Angelica was excited. I'm only halfway in. You seem to be in the middle. Yeah. So for some context, right? Every once in a while, you'll have these sort of, let's just say influential from one way or another by some definition, right? You know, video or blog or whatever it is that comes from a popular figure, right? In this case, you know, it was Paul Graham, right? You know, which hopefully most- Famous for his essays.

Right, yeah. It's famous for the essays. You know, they tend to be sort of impactful, you know, short to the point, you know, no flowery language. People love that about those essays. And Foundamode was one such essay and sort of focused on sort of what happens

when you especially start to go, you know, from a startup and you become a scale up, you know, from a startup and you become a scale up, you know, as they use in terminology and you start to grow as a company and now you have multiple layers being added, you know, you know, between the top and the people on the ground, you know, writing software, you know, shipping things. So you have all these sort of levels, these managerial levels, you know, that, that come into the picture and the, the founder or founders, you know, with the original idea or the original vision,

right, they start getting sort of decoupled, right, further and further away from the people with the boots on the ground, implementing the thing, implementing the vision, pushing things forward, right? And then now, because of all these sort of managerial layers, right, there become sort of different ways you can work in a company with these different managerial layers. You have the people that are sort of action-oriented and you have the people that are sort of discussion different ways you can work in a company with these different managerial layers. You have the people that are sort of action oriented and you have the people that are sort of discussion oriented, right? So, and you can, it's not the moment you read it, you're like, oh yeah, I've been in those situations where I have the managers who have to have, you know,

a meeting, you know, set up a meeting for a meeting, like your dog, I heard you like meetings, right? So I got you some meetings, right? And then you have the people that are sort of more action oriented, right? So all that, basically there's this, you know, this aspect of the founder sort of, you know, or an individual sort of going founder mode, basically saying, Hey, boost the ground, let's do this, remove the layers, remove the sort of the fluff, be actionable, like be action oriented and sort of do things. At least that's what I took away from, from the whole thing. So it's like basically saying,

do whatever it takes to move the mission forward, move the product forward, whatever it is that you're working on, move that forward and sort of know exactly what kind of management you're on around you, if at all, right, that kind of thing. So again, I think it was, he was speaking to, you know, startups and scale-ups,

you know, companies that are not huge, massive empires. Because those companies, once you get that big, there's naturally going to be multiple layers of management. I don't know if you can even avoid that. That's just what happens the more people you have in an organization. But if you are a startup or a scale-up, perhaps push back against that tide

of all those layers, because you're going to be more effective and you're going to be delivering stuff. startup or scale up, perhaps sort of push back against that tide, right? Of sort of that, that of all those layers, cause you're going to be more effective and you're going to be delivering stuff. So to me, I'm like, okay, if I'm just a cog in the machine, I'm just low in the totem bowl, right? I'm not a founder, right? The founder saying, Hey, let's push, let's go. Let's, let's, let's get in there and deliver things. Let's work on things, right? That, that, that zeal, that passion, that energy. If I'm just getting a paycheck every couple of weeks from you i'm putting in my 40 hours or whatever like should i care because it's your company right unless i'm getting some equity or stock or something right from from doing more right then you're paying me for right like how

should i view founder mode if i'm a software engineer writing Go code, right? How should I, and you come at me with founder mode, like, should I care? Is it relevant to me? Like, so basically I'm trying to, the way I understood this is, okay, I understand the spirit of the essay, but how do I make it applicable? How do I take the good parts, so to speak, right? And make them applicable to what I do on a day-to-day basis if I'm not a founder, right? And that's what our discussion focused on. You think founder mode, if you're not in that founder position, you get positioned as a cog. Is that right? I would say if you're not. So I think my attitude on sort of being a quote unquote cog in the machine has sort of shifted over the years. Before I used to think, and early on in my career, or perhaps not even sort of my career,

but early on, or rather, let's say, let's go back 10, 20, 25 years, right? Ooh, that's back there. Companies, right, that's back. Hey, I've been doing this for a while. He's been around, man. I've been around, I've been around. People have been paying me to wear a coat for 26 years now.

I calculated it. And I'm astounded by that fact. But anyways, if I go back to the early days, you know, a few years ago where companies had a, I think had a, had a softer edge,

at least one that appeared that way. You know, they, they, you know, companies used to talk about, Oh, we are family here.

Right. You know, we, we care about our people, like all of that sort of language. I think underneath, everybody sort of knew what, you know, you pay me to do the job and I know if I stop doing the job or if I don't do it well by some definition, I'm out of here, right? People knew that, but companies were more willing, at least in the tech sector, right? Were more sort of softer you know, softer on the edges, so to speak. But, you know, nowadays, I don't think anybody who works in tech, especially

in light of the recent, you know, rounds and rounds and rounds of layoffs and everything else. And, you know, you got people, you know, recording and putting their layoffs on TikTok and things. Like the attitude, you know, towards companies with those languages that say, oh, we care about our people, whatever it is, yet executives are raking in millions in bonuses while they're laying off people. That's dissonance between what they're saying or have been saying in the reality of you being an employee or cog in, right? No matter how good a job you do, right, you are always at risk, no matter how good a job you do. Like your performance, while they might position, right, your layoff, right, or your firing as a performance thing,

we all know, right, that's not always true, right? We know at the end of the day, companies, especially publicly traded companies, they don't have your best interests at heart. They have the shareholders' best interests at heart. That is priority one, the shareholder, right? So you as an employee, you are means to that end, right? So the more you understand sort of that reality, right, the more you can calibrate your relationship with an employer or whatever you're involved in, right? So that doesn't mean, however, that you stop caring about

your craft, what you do, right? The professionalism that you bring to your work, right? The passion that you bring to your work. That is a personal thing. No company is ever going to be able to take my level of interest, of passion, of wanting to do the right thing, right? No company holds sway over that, right? If you hire me for a job, I'm going to do that job because I'm a professional. That's what I do, right? You pay me, we exchange services, right? I give you what you're looking for and you pay me in exchange for my time, right? So that's a very professional thing. And I see clearly the nature of that relationship. The problem comes when you start adding things around it to make me feel a particular way

about your company. Like you don't need all that flowery stuff, right? I will do the job. So I think in this day and age, I think for me, I took founding mode to mean, okay, care about what you do, right? I will do the job. So I think in this day and age, I think for me, I took founding mode to mean, okay, care about what you do, right? At the deepest level. If you stop caring about maintaining a code for your company, or if you think, you know, your coworkers are annoying for whatever reason, or you stop loving going to work and stop loving that job, then maybe move on, right? Maybe your time there is over,

right? But don't sort of lower yourself to the point where you're just doing a crappy job because you don't like where you are. Just move somewhere else and be your best self, right? Gotcha. I did some Googling while you were talking there, just briefly. I wrote one thing into, I actually kind of enjoyed this about Google now, where you can just sort of treat like a prompt. And so I just said, summarize founder mode. So rather than going to chat GPT or some paid product, I'm just like, okay, let me just throw this into Google. And it's for the most part on par. They summarized it by saying that founder mode is a way of running a company that involves direct involvement and oversight or, quote, micromanagement.

And it says great founders have hired executives and it's not worked. This is summarized from Sam's newsletter on Substack, this part of it at least, is in summary that great founders have hired great executives and it's not worked. Instead, the thing that works is in quotes, founder mode, which is direct involvement and oversight of what would typically be called micromanagement. And then the lens for this mode is towards startups and scale up. So likely the founders should be directly involved in raising new funds or directing the product or micromanaging to some degree this user experience

or this developer experience, which has become all the rage the last several years. It's like, we are DX-focused. We are developer experience-focused, and not our friends over at getdx.com-focused, a different kind of developer experience, but cut from similar cloth. What's up, friends? I'm here in the breaks with Kyle Carberry, co-founder and CTO over at Coder.com. Coder is an open source cloud development environment, a CDE.

You can host this in your cloud or on premise. So, Kyle, walk me through the process. A CDE lets developers put their development environment in the cloud. Walk me through the process. They get an invite from their platform team to join their coder instance. They got to sign in, set up their keys, set up their code editor. How's it work? Step one for them, we try to make it remarkably easy for the dev.

We never gate any features ever for the developer. They'll click that link that their platform team sends out. They'll sign in with OIDC or Google, and they'll really just press one button to create a development environment. Now that might provision like a Kubernetes pod or an AWS VM. We'll show the user what's provisioned, but they don't really have to care. From that point, you'll see a couple buttons appear to open the editors that you're used to, like VS Code Desktop or VS Code through the web, or you can install our CLI. Through our CLI, you really just log into Coder and we take care of everything for

you. When you SSH into a workspace, you don't have to worry about keys. It really just kind of like beautifully, magically works in the background for you and connects you to your workspace. We actually connect peer-to-peer as well. You know, if the Coder server goes down for a second because of an upgrade, you don't have to worry about disconnects. And we always get you the lowest latency possible. One of our core values is we'll never be slower than SSH, period, full stop. And so we connect you period to period directly to the workspace. So it feels just as native as it possibly could. Very cool. Thank you, Kyle.

Well, friends, it might be time to consider a cloud development environment, a CDE. And open source is awesome. And Coder is fully open source. You can go to Coder.com right now, install Coder open source, start a premium trial or get a demo. For me, my first step, I installed it on my Proxmox box and played with it. It was so cool. I loved it. Again, Coder.com, that's C-O-D-E-R dot com. A while back I wrote this because I felt this. It wasn't called founder mode at that time,

but what I was experiencing and why I wrote this was a result of founder mode. Now that I have retrospect and that's why I pulled this up. So a while back on my blog, which I do not write too often, I'll link it up in our show notes, is I wrote a post called I'm a Cog. And this is in light of reading Linchpin from Seth Godin. And then in light of being pressured into this founder mode world where I've got skills, abilities, growth opportunities, but the organization was very hearing this and hearing you, it was founder mode. And we were a startup, we were a scale up. And so it makes sense why this pressure was there. And so I wrote, and I'll share more if you'd like, but I'll just share what I

think is probably the essence of how I felt at the time about being at COG. It was acceptance. As I'll say this, this is quote, I'm a very sharp highly specific purposefully purposeful cog as part of a much bigger much more grand machine i play a very specific part highly needed part so that others can do the same i serve the unit the team and its mission not myself i also have a military background so i came came from... That sounds like a military person speaking. Yeah, I have this military background too. So it was always team. It was never I, it was always we.

And so after reading Seth Godin's Linchpin, which I think is not really founder mode, but it's founder mode-esque. It tells you to be a linchpin. Don't go into an organization and just be a cog. Be somebody who is a change maker, somebody who could be leaned upon. A linchpin in the true terminology is back in the day, back in Hugh Glass' day, the wagon wheel had to be held on to the wagon via this thing called a what? A linchpin.

That linchpin was not there. We still use them on trailers and all kinds of things. Right. The wheel was no longer on the thing that made the wheel purposeful anymore and so to summarize how i felt here i really felt like i was fine with being a cog i was i was cool with that that doesn't mean i want to be truly crap or be sure you know not treated well it was that i was okay with being not a linchpin. I said later on, I said, I'm starting to wonder if the concept shared in Seth's book, linchpin was a bit arrogant or self-centered. Aren't we all indispensable?

Aren't we all replaceable? Like, and so to like, to strive for being a linchpin was almost like striving for perfection. You know, like perfection is just seemingly unattainable and almost the enemy of profits and the enemy of done, right? We've heard that several times. And it's like, you know what?

I'm cool with being cog. I'll just recognize my purposefulness in being a cog and what role I play so that others on my team can do the same. So we all win. So let's carry that thought, right? Let's pull on that thread a little bit. If it meant you get laid off or fired or whatever, whatever term they want to put around it, right? In order for the whole to keep moving forward, do you also happily accept that? Man, how many times have I been laid off? Almost maybe once. I think maybe. I haven't ever really been fired. To answer that question, I would not be happy about being

let go, for sure. Let go, laid off. I don't care how you term it. It's never a positive thing. Right. You know, but if my experience there was positive, if the founder or founders treated me with respect and I was removed from my position in a, I finalized into Jared and my wife and I left Pure Charity. And I wrote this post when I was at Pure Charity. And so the founder was applied to me there that was later on penned by Paul Graham. I think that if I'm treated well and I'm removed from a position in order for it to move along,

I think I'd be okay with that. I would not be happy about being let go. But if I was treated with respect and let go properly, but I think if I was let go improperly or not treated with respect or kindness on the way out by my team or the founders, then yeah, I'd have a personal problem with that and not be okay with it.

But I mean, like if the mission continues, having been an entrepreneur and a runner or a leader I've had to share some bad news as you know Johnny we shared that early on and so I think that I can I have both sides of those coins in my brain when I share my sentiment back to you to respond to that question so they know I would not be okay with it but if I was if it was done well and with respect and kindness then I would be okay with it, but if I was, if it was done well and with respect and kindness, then I would be okay with it. And I would find a way to move on to the next thing. Disappointment, not resentment. Yeah, certainly disappointed. Like, man, I really want to be on that train. I was working hard to be on that train. I was purposely purposeful as a

cog, as I've written here, I was on my own personal mission. I'm serving the team, not myself. And so that's my DNA as Adam, when I apply myself in any organization, whether I run it or not, whether it's a volunteer group at church or my business, you know, I apply myself similarly. So I think, yeah, disappointment, not resentment. Right. I think some of that assumes that you are mission-oriented with the organization that you're in. For sure, yeah. Because you can be a cog and just be there for the paycheck,

and you're fine with, like, it's not against your morals what they do. You think it provides some value. Obviously, the marketplace appreciates it. That's why it's still a business. But you're just there to do your work and to do it to the best of your ability and to be a cog and to make some money. And in that case, I think for the mission to continue, I must be let go. Like for me, that doesn't hold weight anymore because, and the mission is the mission. It's their mission, not my mission. I think in a place like Pure Charity, Adam, you were very aligned.

And there are times where you are working somewhere where you're like, I totally believe in what we are doing. And so maybe there it's a bitter pill, but one that is worth swallowing because, yeah, now at least the organization isn't going to crumble. I have to go, but it will continue. But in cases where it's more about the money or maybe the relationships or you like the work you're doing, but you're not like, you know, it's Walmart or something where it's like, fine, it's a grocery store slash department store. Yeah. A much bigger mission than you can have an, an impact on as a, as a cashier. I mean, I guess you can actually do a lot as a cashier too. Sure. I'm just saying, I think in that case, mission oriented matters. If you're going to have that kind of, I wouldn't have that outlook myself. I've never been laid off. I've never worked in a large organization, so I have a very thin world view.

Yeah, always small. But I'm not exactly happy to be a cog. I want to try my best to be indispensable. I want to be the person where they're like, we're laying off 20% and we can't get rid of this guy because he's too useful. Jared. Sorry, 60%. I have a quote for you. Okay.

Ego is the enemy. Okay. Ego is the enemy. Ego is the enemy. You don't want to be indispensable, Johnny? No, I can understand what he's saying, though, too. I asked Johnny. I think, oh, sorry.

I can't respond to my bad. No, you can, but let Johnny respond. Sorry, Johnny. Go ahead. No, no, no. You can chime in, Adam. But what I will say is that- I'll wait.

I'll be patient. So in my 26-year career, I've been laid off twice, right? Okay. I've worked at very large companies. I've worked at very small companies. Right. So I've lived enough life as a professional to have seen all matter of ways, like layoffs are done well, or people are treated fairly or unfairly, kindly, unkindly.

So I've been exposed enough that. So I speak from that standpoint, I speak from a position of privilege because I've experienced all these facets, right? The one thing I think is like consistently that it wasn't always like this when I was younger and more foolish and more sort of hot-blooded. I mean, if somebody said, hey, you're not doing a good job, or we have to lay you off, or we have to fire you because of reason X, Y, and Z, and I have been fired once, the initial reaction is always visceral. No matter how stoic you are or try to be,

because it's disappointing. It's like a stat, especially if you know you've been doing a good job. To be told, it's like a good job, right? Like to be told, it's like a rejection. Nobody loves rejection, right? To be told that, hey, we're going to have to let you go because like you say, Jared, like you thought you were, you know, indispensable, but at the end of the day, really you're not, right? So at the end of the day, again, you, the business, a company doesn't exist to serve your needs, you know, or to cater to your feelings, right? It exists to make other people wealthy, right? Now, if you happen to also get some level of wealth by some definition, right, you know, relatively speaking from where you were and when you and what you've been able to earn at an organization, that's great, right? It just keeps you happy happy keeps you chugging along but ultimately businesses are designed to make a certain group of people at the top wealthy there's nothing wrong with it that i mean you start a business for that reason you you want to be well off you want to take care of your

family you want to have money in the bank you know you want yeah exactly there's absolutely nothing wrong with that right so you you get hired as a tool as that purpose. Now, when you get that, okay, I've been let go. I thought I was indispensable and I'm not. I've experienced enough of that to now, basically, if I'm going into an engagement with an employer or doing consulting, whatever it is, I have to go in. I have to check my ego at the door. I have to say, you know what? I'm going to go in here and I'm going to do as best a job as I can based on what I know the customer or the employer or whatever it is wants. And I know that at any point I could be removed from this position. This could be taken away, right? It's like that, you know, I believe there's an ancient Chinese

proverb or something basically that says, maybe it's not Chinese, but I'm misremembering. But it basically is the idea that a wise person gets given this beautiful ornate teapot, right? Very elegant, you know, very beautiful to look at, custom made and gifted to them. And then, you know, they have, you know, a child or a sibling or something like that, that keeps coming to them and say, hey, don't you love the teapot? Don't you, don't you, don't you admire it? He's like, yes, I do, but it's already broken. And the child is like, what do you mean it's already broken? Yeah, it's already broken. It is what it is, but it's already broken. I can't continue to have this forever. It's already broken. And through conversation, you come to learn that the way

that this person is able to sort of stabilize themselves, right? So that eventually when the teapot does indeed get broken, right? Maybe it's the child that knocks it over accidentally or whatever it is. The teapot is now broken. This beautiful, very enjoyable thing, right? Is now no more, right? That person is now, huh, okay. Because it was already broken in their mind, right? So they didn't lose, right? And their world wasn't shattered along with that teapot because they didn't invest so much of themselves into it. So I have to go into these things saying, hey, it's already broken, right? I'm here to do as best that I can do for as long as I can do. But if this thing were to be taken away from me, right, tomorrow, next week, next year, right, that's okay too. That's all fair and good.

I didn't say I am indispensable. I said, I want to be that. And so I don't think it's egotistical to desire to be that and to be more than a cog, fully knowing that at the end of the day, maybe I'm still just a cog and it's already broken. So you delusion. No, not delusion. Desire. Desire.

Yeah. Drive. I really feel like I should just read this whole blog post to you guys. Nah, don't do that. Like everything Johnny just said, there's like echoes of what I wrote down here. I'll read,

I'll read two lines for you. Okay. I say this, I'm going to read this to you, Jared, appreciating what I think is your, you're not desiring to be perfect, but you're striving to be an indispensable member of the team, if not, you know, owner of the organization kind of thing. So this is what I wrote.

To think that you can truly be indispensable is a farce. It's not possible. It's a trap of the prideful. What are you going to say about that, Jared? Maybe I won't show up to work tomorrow. I say that though, while appreciating, while appreciating the work that goes into strive for being indispensable. Not literally to be indispensable, but to strive to be indispensable-like. That's a great trait too. See, but being indispensable implies that others must see you as such. Now you're putting that level of self-worth in the hands of others.

To me, I don't understand where you're coming from, Jared. To me, the way I, and I used to approach it like this, right? I used to, because I like for people to like me, right? We all do. Like, it's like, you know, it's ingrained in us as human beings, right? We want to be like, we're a tribal sort of, you know, kind of entity, right? So we don't want rejection, right, from the tribe, right? We want to be welcomed and liked and say, oh, Johnny, hey, how you doing? Because, you know, by being that sort of likable, by being

the one that always delivers, always comes through, right? You're the one teammate, everybody can just call in and boom, you just solve all the problems, right? By being that, right? You get that sort of that little hit of dopamine, right? It's like, ah, I love when people love me, right? But you're putting that sort of self-worth in the hands of others. And nobody will tell you like a stoic, right? Nobody will tell you how dangerous that is than those who know how it feels when all that adoration and admiration gets pulled back for one reason or another,

because it's not in your control, right? What is in your control, right? Is how good a job you do, how well you deliver on the mission, the work, whatever you've been assigned to do, however small it might be, right? If you can deliver and objectively say, hey, I did a good job there. What people think of me as a result is not in your control.

So I'm like, hey, whether that praise comes or goes, it doesn't matter to me, right? Because at the end of the day, I know if I get laid off, it's not going to matter how much praise I got or didn't get. Because that too is outside of my control. The only thing I have control over is the work that I'm doing right now. And how good do I feel when I've delivered it and get up and walk away from this keyboard? How do I feel about myself? Yeah, I guess I don't need the other people noticing it aspect of what you're talking about. I don't derive my self-worth from that. And so I think if I was laid off in that

circumstance, if I was indispensable and they didn't know I was, then I would be like, this is a huge mistake they're making. And I would like for that to be true. Like then they, they, they go ahead and lay me off. I'm sure Johnny, you've left huge holes in whatever organizations you got laid off from. And they probably didn't realize what a big mistake that was. And I think maybe even though you are a cog, in some sense, you are an indispensable cog and that organization will never be the same without you. That's what I strive for is like, yeah, they're going to really regret this one. Not that they have to recognize me as the guy who fixes all the things and all that. That's not where I derive my self-worth. But my desire is to be as great a teammate as I

can be. Can I speak for you for a second, Jared, having been- For me? Yeah. Am I not doing a good job? No, I think you are. I want to layer it on, I guess, one more layer for you. Having worked with Jared for many, many years, Jared is not the kind of person that requires praise to show up and be effective and to be on mission, to be driven. None of his, to my knowledge, my experience with working with him for many years, he doesn't require praise to have his ambition. And I think Jared has a high standard set by himself. And it doesn't matter if you agree with the standard or not he's going to strive for it and he doesn't need you to recognize he's striving for it or reaching it to continue to show up and be effective that'd do a good job jared you can keep your job jared

yeah thank you well i mean i guess you know at a certain point it's probably why i've done the things that i've done which is i've stayed in small businesses. I've found, I've started or, you know, had ownership in companies that I work for because at the end of the day, that is where I thrive, I guess, in circumstances more, not as an employee for somebody else in founder mode, but I actually in, I guess, founder mode, you know, which I don't really, I try not to, I hate micromanaging people. So not that, but not like that tactical founder mode, but like basically I've been at the head of businesses, small business, very small businesses. Most of my career I have worked, you know, for other people as well, but usually with some

autonomy because that's where I thrive, I guess, probably because I have that self-driven thing going on. So maybe I couldn't make it in a large org. It's quite possible. I don't have the breadth of experience you have, Johnny. I have the same time duration, but I've been doing the same thing. I've done three. I had the advantage of being a contractor.

And so while I was my own boss, I had a lot of a broad experience of working with teams and different code bases and different businesses. You get a lot of experience that way, but not in a typical nine to five engineering team. I've never had a product manager. I've had customers. So those are like proxies for that relationship. So I don't have those kind of relationships just because I haven't had that experience that you have um in so many different roles interesting enough something you said earlier brought back a fond memory one of the

positions in the past that i got laid off from actually no that one was was i can call it a firing right because you know i got the it wasn't it wasn't uh oh we're making cuts because you know finances or whatever i mean that you typically hear these days. It was like, we didn't think, we were expecting something else, but we got something different. And which I'm like completely fine with, right? What happened though, I think maybe six months later or less than a year later, like to piggyback on what Adam was saying about, you know, never burning bridges. Like we parted ways like very amicably. Right.

That was not resentful. You know, we did the thing. We sat down from across from each other, looked each other in the eye, say, hey, I was expecting this. I didn't get that. And I was like, OK, like completely understand. We remain friends. Right. And this was back in Boston.

So we remain friends and everything. And six months later. Right. Or however long we actually go and have lunch together. Right. We sit down, you know, I'm going to say, Hey, how's the business? How everything, you know, how's, how are things going? Whatever it is. And, and literally again, the same experience sitting from across the table. It was like, yeah, we made a mistake in letting you go. Right. So when I heard that, bam, when I heard that, I was like,

holy smoke. Internally, I'm like jumping for joy. I'm like, I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. Totally. So you were indispensable, man. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I was. I just didn't hang a lot on it, but I understand what you're saying. Like feeling like when you leave, you leave a hole that is noticeable, right? Like, yeah, I love that. I mean, I'm not going to it's it's feeling that you have that kind of impact but the thing is the higher ups are probably never gonna feel it as much as your team or as much people you work with closely day to day and maybe the word indispensable is saying too much i like what you just said there like i want to be impactful like i want to make an impact and when that person leaves that impact is is now a hole. And to me, that's

meaningful. That means I'm bringing value in big ways. I'm a hole maker. I make some holes. Yeah, I can dig a hole, man. That's cool, though, that you got that. Yeah, man. That felt great. Yeah. Oh, it felt amazing. It felt amazing. I was in cloud nine. I was like, oh, man, I knew it. I think that people should do that more frequently too. Like if they know they, especially if the person kept thriving in the community like you have, circle back and be like, hey, you know, I don't know how this all panned out

for you. I can kind of see what you've done since then. But by the way, when you left, it really hurt the organization. It was a mistake. I almost feel like that could be like a good, just a good feeling to give people. Just something to say to people. I don't know.

It's certainly a good reconnection moment too. Like, hey, by the way. No, I think if that happened and you meet up with that person like Johnny did, like absolutely be the person that tells him that as long as it's true, right? Because it does feel good to know that. And it is validating. I think there was a

google engineer recently who i don't remember that i'm fuzzy on the details but like they either left or was laid off went and started and they're like a machine learning you know guru went and started a thing and google had to pay something like two and a half billion dollars to get them back onto the employee payroll uh basically to rehire this this person. So there's some validation of like, well, that was a big mistake, right? You should have just kept me around in the first place. The details are fuzzy, so that could be. Or they need to hang their hat on somebody, a patsy.

Something went wrong. Come back here and run this thing so we can fire you nine months later. It's a setup. Maybe, yeah, that's even a better story. Well, that happened in Silicon Valley. I hear that's a good show. It is a setup. Maybe, yeah, that's even a better story. Well, that happened in Silicon Valley. I hear that's a good show. It is a good show.

What's up, friends? I'm here with a new friend of ours over at Assembly AI, founder and CEO Dylan Fox. Dylan, tell me about Universal One. This is the newest, most powerful speech AI model to date. You released this recently. Tell me more. So Universal One is our flagship industry leading model for speech to text and various other speech understanding tasks. So it's about a year long effort that really is the culmination of like the years that we've spent building infrastructure and tooling at assembly to even train large scale speech AI models. It was trained on about 12 and a half million hours of voice data, multilingual, super wide

range of domains and sources of audio data. So it's super robust model. We're seeing developers use it for extremely high accuracy, low cost, super fast speech to text and speech understanding tasks within their products, within automations, within workflows that they're building at their companies or within their products. Very cool. So Dylan, one thing I love is this Playground you have. You can go there, assemblyai.com slash Playground, and you can just play around with all the things that is Assembly. Is this the recommended path it on our website, assemblyai.com slash playground. You drop in an audio file, you can talk to the playground. And it's a way to, in a no-code environment, interact with our models, interact with our API to see what our models and what our API can do without having to write any code. Then once you see what the models can do and you're ready to start building with the API,

you can quickly transition to the API docs, start writing code, start integrating our SDKs into your code to start leveraging our models and all our tech via our SDKs instead. Okay. Constantly updated speech AI models at your fingertips. Well, at your API fingertips, that is. A good next step is to go to their playground. You can test out their models for free right there in the browser. Or you can get started with a $50 credit at assemblyai.com slash practical AI. Again, that's assemblyai.com slash practical AI. And I'm also here with Dennis Pilarinos, founder and CEO of Unblocked. Check them out at getunblocked.com.

Unblocked helps developers to find the answers they need to get their jobs done. So Dennis, you know we speak to developers. Who is Unblocked best for? Who needs to use it? I think if you are a team that works with a lot of co-workers, if you have like 40, 50, 60, 100, 200, 500 co-workers, engineers, and you're working on a code base that's old and large, I think Unblocked is going to be a tool that you're going to love. Typically, the way that works is you can try it with one of your side projects, but the best outcomes are when you get comfortable with the security requirements that we have.

You connect your source code, you connect a form of documentation, be that Slack or Notion or Confluence. And when you get those two systems together, it will blow your mind. Actually, every single person that I've seen on board with the product does the same thing. They always ask a question that they're an expert in. They want to get a sense for how good is this thing? So I'm going to ask a question that I know the answer to, and people are generally blown away by the caliber of the response. And that starts to build a relationship of trust where they're like, no, this thing actually can give me the answer that I'm looking for.

And instead of interrupting a coworker or spending 30 minutes in a meeting, I can just ask a question, get the response in a few seconds and reclaim that time. The next step to get unblocked for you and your team is to go to getunblocked.com. Yourself, your team can now find the answer they need to get their jobs done and not have to bother anyone else on the team, take a meeting or waste any time whatsoever. Again, getunblocked.com. That's G-E-T-U-N-B-L-O-C-K-E-D.com. And get unblocked.

Speaking of Silicon Valley, Johnny, what's going on in Silicon Valley with these fake job postings? I mean, you've been onto this for a little while because I've heard you talking about it on GoTime, and then I covered it in news this week because there was an Ask Hacker speaking at Paul Graham. There was an Ask HN, which was posted seven days ago. Who is pretending to be hiring? And it turns out there's people out there with jobs that are not real jobs.

I mean, what's going on, man? It's just a hunch that I got. So one of the things that I do and have always done as a professional is I'm always looking at job postings. So while you have YouTube influencers saying, hey, this framework is the best thing or whatever, like people are, geeks

get excited, nerds get excited about technologies and programming and everything else. I'm like, okay, that's one lens. The other lens is what are companies actually hiring for, right? What list of technologies do you see on those job descriptions, right? So I'm always sort of looking at those job descriptions. Hey, what do SREs need to know these days?

Hey, what does a full-stack developer need to know these days, right? So I'm always keeping an eye out to see where the trend is going. Regardless of what the hype is doing, I'm looking at what people are actually getting paid for. So I started noticing the same job. I would literally bookmark it. I would take a screenshot of it. And I started noticing the same job with almost the same description,

maybe a word change here and there, often from the same recruiter, other times from a different recruiter, but the same job, again, with a word change here and there, asking for the same exact thing and i'm like seeing the same thing come up over again week after week after week after week after week right before i didn't pay any attention because we didn't have you know back in the heyday everybody had a job but yeah so less of that right everyone in basically companies were just tripping over themselves to hire people right like you know

you know we know at the at the start of the pandemic and everything else, when all the overhiring was happening, so to say. So you didn't notice it as much. But now that, you know, so many people are on the job market, right? You're seeing the influx of these job postings. And you're like, okay, how come there are so many job postings, especially on places like LinkedIn or Indeed or Dice or whatever it is, so many job postings and so many people are saying they can't find jobs going from six months, from three to six months before they find a job. Getting an interview is harder than it's ever been. I'm like, something is not making sense here. What are all these job postings? And I started seeing the pattern

repeating over and over and over again. Then I'm like, um, something doesn't add up here. Is somebody just training a model or something? It is when people just keep on sending their resumes into this void. Like, like what is going on here? So I have no evidence, right? No, no empirical evidence to say, Hey, this is like what's happening. Cause I don't know, you know, if anybody's going to, you know, sort of step up and says, yep, we do that. Right. I don't, I don't think it would be a bit in their best interest, but I mean, something smells odd. Something smells fishy here. Did you see the comment thread on that hacker news post? Because there's a lot of people validating, validating your intuition, the top comment. Now this is also anecdotal.

So none of this is like journalism or anything like that. However, these are people who are working in these places. This is a person consulting with a startup in the Bay Area. They say, we have nine job openings listed on the website, but in reality, one position is really open, and the bar is sky high. By that, I mean that the founders would hire the right person, but the other eight positions are just there for signaling

and nobody looks at the applications we get. Yikes. Yeah. For when I'm asked, the CEO told me to say that we are prioritizing finding the senior dev first, and that position has been open for six months. So that's a situation. I mean, that's about as clear as validation.

At least one company is explicitly doing exactly what you think they're doing. has been open for six months. So that's a situation. I mean, that's about as clear as validation. At least one company is explicitly doing exactly what you think they're doing. Yikes. Yeah, it's smoke and mirrors. Right. And it seems to be the reason is because it makes them look better. Right.

That's what most of the people are saying on this thread is that because VCs are using, I mean, this goes back to Goodhart's law, right? When a measure becomes known as no longer a good measure is that VCs are now looking at company health, it sounds like, and they're saying, well, if the company is hiring, then that's a healthy company. And so it's an indicator of company health. And so then the company is like, oh, that's an indicator of company health. Let's act like we're hiring. Bam. Just no good candidates out there. Yeah, exactly. Don't measure up. We're holding out for the right one. We can't find any. Apparently no one's out looking

for jobs. I saw this video, I think it was on YouTube of that kind of thing. And it was one of those things where the person plays both roles, you know, they're're like they're like the recruiter and then they're like the person and it was like a company it was like an hr person at a company was one role and the other person was somebody who would go out and find the talent like a talent scout and they would say probably probably kind of like nodding to what you're saying here johnny is they would go out and find people and they would say those are all great candidates and all, but we're holding out for that one. That one. Now, those are ten great candidates.

Keep them on ice for us. Keep them on ice. Keep them interested. Let them know we're interested. I need you to go out and find me five more that are better than those folks there. But keep those ten on ice. And then they come back with the five and we're like, you know what? Those are good too.

But I really feel like there's like one, like there's, there's a winner out there. There's truly keep all 15 on ice. Let them all know we're still interested. And that, that might even like play into the whole multiple interviews, these song and dances that people, you know, and here you are on the other side in between siphoning through savings or ranking up credit card debt or whatever it might be to make ends meet and somebody's playing you.

Not cool. No. Not cool at all. Not cool at all. Yeah. This goes back to understanding the relationship between you and a for-profit entity. Fine. I want to be a cog then.

Okay. I'm fine with being a cog. Sorry. I don to be a cog then. Okay. I'm fine with being a cog. Sorry. I don't have any positions for cogs. I interrupt real quick. I wanted to throw that joke out there. Go ahead. We have nine cogs available, but they're all, I can't find any good cogs.

I'm a cog now. You are not a priority, my friend. You are a cog in the machine. And that's okay too. That's the thing. Like we all, I think in this market we all we've all accepted that it is what it is but you know what you know what though you know what as they say the pendulum will swing the other way mark my words the pendulum will swing the other way

right when it does right as a cog don't don't be a douche don't go and you know walking in this was a huge mistake This was a huge mistake. This was a huge mistake. I told you, mofos, not to do what you did. But you did it. And now you're going to pay the price. Don't be. I was indispensable.

Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy or gal. But again, this is not about them. Ultimately, I think it's about you as a person. And I keep throwing that term around, and it's one that takes your heart greatly, like being a professional. There's a way a professional carries themselves. There's a way a professional does things. You're a professional.

You get paid for money. Hopefully, you love what you do to get paid that money. But as a professional, you are always a professional. Good times, bad times, happy times, sad times. You are a professional. See? Let people go with respect. Hire with respect.

Show up as an employee with respect, right? Some care in the process. Not everybody's going to do that, though. They're not. Fake jobs, man. Fake jobs. Fake jobs. I mean, seriously.

So to your pendulum comment, Johnny, does the current crop of language models stop the pendulum for the developer? Is it swinging away from us, and will it continue to stay that way, or is it going to swing back anyhow? There's a natural thinning of the herd happening or that has happened with any innovation, right? Something that changes the way things have always been done.

You know, whether it's in tech or in farming or, you know, you name an industry, right? There's innovation that comes and disrupts the way of things. And that should be expected. I think tech, for so long, we were so comfortable with the fact that basically we were untouchables, right? No one could do. What we did was magical, right? It was-

Absolute gods. Yeah, literally. We have memes and movies and things. you know, magical, right? It was, it was absolute God. Yeah. Literally like, you know, we have, we have memes and movies and things like, like we were, we, we, we were, you know, hailed as, as these powerful beings who own, who they only were the ones who understood how to make the computer do things, right. That mere mortals couldn't even aspire to. Right. And, and we went through that, you know, and that And that whole notion was sort of amplified back in the Obama era when we had all these learn to code,

everybody should learn to code, like that whole thing. Remember that whole push towards everybody? Left and right organizations were spinning up to run workshops. Heck, I ran GoBridge workshops. I would go in my local community in Baltimore. I would find people who wanted to learn how to code. I would get them in a room on a Saturday

or Sunday, you know, work with local businesses to get people into the room to learn how to code. Like, because I truly believe, and I still do, that a career in tech, right, is a life-changing generational, you know, sort of impact generational impact skill to develop. So we went through that phase. Now you barely hear about these workshops happening anymore, dev boot camps, and you barely hear about those things anymore because the market is not suitable for these things.

So all that to say is that now getting into tech is going to be a little harder. You can get into tech, but getting a job in tech is going to be a little harder because there are different skills that are not expected that you need to bring to the table. Understanding what an LLM is and how to work with them. I'm not saying you need to go get into you know, the machine learning math of it all, right? I'm not need to, you need to become, you know, a data scientist, but you need to work, you need to know how to understand, you know, what an LLM is and how to use it, how to, how to build a rag system, which is like basically the hello world of AI development. You need to understand how to build a rag system, right? So like these things need to not be foreign to you. So the skill sets you need

is just changing because there's new innovation. So I think there's always going to be room for software engineers. It's just the skill sets are changing, right? Will there be fewer jobs? Fewer jobs because those jobs now, the skill sets required for them, like the bar is a bit higher, right? So some of those things that you used to hire a junior for, you can then now outsource to an LLM or a Gen AI, some Gen AI technology. So people are becoming more productive. So it just changes the bar a little bit. But I don't think, I don't know, like people are generating a lot of AI slop that, you know, people like me are going to have to come in and fix anyway.

So I'm like, hey, I'm OK with that. Yeah. I said it probably a year ago now, but I said, I'll say it again. There's never been a better time to go buy that domain. You know, AIrescue.io. Oh, don't get the.io. Get the.com. Maybe that leads us into our final topic.

Right, right. You know, if you want to start an AI, I remember when there was Rails Rescue companies. Like, they were going to rescue you from your heaping pile of Rails app that your team created in a in a hurry and then left scaffolding yeah exactly and now they'll be like hey i got this unwieldy thing that was written by an llm and i need someone to save me from this and so you know get the domain now that way the google juice will be there when people are searching for you yeah yeah by all means everybody if you're out there you want you want let you want to ai generate your your initial initial app, you know, thing for you, please go right ahead, go right ahead. Like make more of those things, please. No coded all day long. Get to it. No,

no coded all day long. It's fine. Just go right ahead. Because the only thing you're doing is making sure that I and my, and people like me are going to have me are going to have jobs. So that pendulum will swing. Yeah, for sure. 100%. Well, I mentioned the.io. Let's call this chapter.io no more because due to geopolitics, I mean, this is a crazy story.

Speculation, though. It's not guaranteed. It's possible. Here's what happened. We got all these fancy tlds some of them are country code tlds that we've just co-opted to be domain hacks for our websites one of those is called dot io you probably have heard of it and uh that one might be going away because it was given to, it was used for the Chagos Islands. IO stands for Indian Ocean, I believe.

And according to a piece by Gareth Edwards called The Disappearance of an Internet Domain, the British government on October 3rd announced that it was going to give sovereignty up, give it up. It has ownership, I suppose. It's giving it up to a small tropical atoll, which I'd never even heard that word before, this article. Apparently it's like a small island or something. A ring-shaped reef in the Indian Ocean known as the Chagos Islands. The islands would be handed over to the neighboring island country of Mauritius.

Mauritius, thank you. Apparently more well-versed in these geographies than I am. About 1,100 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa. Long story short is that IO is for Indian Ocean. Now it's going to be Mauritius. And.io may be going away due to some people getting some sovereignty, which is always a nice thing to have. Who would have thought that your tech startup with a.io domain name as its identity

would now be impacted by a 99-year lease coming up? Yes, exactly. What would make it go away? It can't exist anymore because the relationship doesn't exist. And so the.io, I i mean i get how it's applied but like what makes it go away that they can repurpose it so the the io domain is technically going to be within the you're going to call it the jurisdiction of basically the the the mauritius right now i would imagine that if they decided to get into the TLD business, right, they could become the administrators, right, for such a thing.

More than likely, I think they will probably outsource the thing and, right, bring it to one of those registrars, right, who would be more than happy to take that over and manage it and, you know, having the cost because that's going to be business for them. And people register that IO domains. Us developers and startups love the IO domains. So that's good business right there. So, and then yeah, they can just have a partnership with some sort of registrar and sort of outsource the whole thing

or get into the business themselves. But it's too much of an opportunity. There's too much money there to just let that go away. I don't think it's going to go away. And there's precedence for this, right? There's the.su for the Soviet Union, right? Which is around the dot yu for for yugoslavia right these things are still around right so there's that's precedent for this i don't think it's going to go

away honestly dot es espanol uh is that is that at risk i think that's still around well i think it's out there as well i'm just like just i'm just joining your name in them now just throwing some throwing some stuff in the bucket with you.co.uk so here's one that I have familiarity with because I thought it'd be really cool speaking of domain hacks

to have san.to so I went out and tried to find the.to TLD stands for Tonga and maybe that's an 8-hole

I don't know it's a small island or series of islands I believe somewhere in the South Pacific. And somebody has taken san.to. They have this like small little website. They run it themselves. It seems Tonga's running this website. And every year for a long time, I finally give up on it. I had a reminder to email Tonga people again and see if I could get that domain because they're not using it. They're just camping on S-A-N dot T-O. And I really wanted it.

Cause that was back when URL shorteners were like all the rage. That would be cool. Having your own personalized shorteners, which is too cool. So yeah, I've, I've, I'm well aware of like countries that are running their own little,

you know, registrars on their own little TLD. And so I agree with you, Johnny. I think this is a fun fact of history and an exchanging of opportunity to these people. And that's awesome for them. I think that they're going to have an opportunity to make a decent amount of cash just by proxying this thing

to somebody else who can run it or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And the British legacy, I guess, gets smaller a little bit. Gets smaller and smaller. Gets smaller and smaller. It's no longer the British Indian Ocean. It's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?

The British Indian Ocean. I know, right? But hey. Yeah. It is what it is. I couldn't help but look up nomo.io. Because I was thinking if that's available. That's a pretty good joke, isn't it?

It'd be kind of cool to use that as a drum to beat on to petition to not let IO go nomo. Right. Right, right. Maybe you list out all of the companies that use, you know,.io and say, hey. Sign the nomo petition. Sign the no-mo petition. Sign the no-mo petition. Or it could be one of those websites that just says yes or no, and the question's like,

is there still a.io domain? It just says yes. As long as no-mo.io responds, there's still a domain. See? We are indispensable. Oh, man. That's indispensable right there. Yes. I mean, an an llm could never be that witty and fun you know maybe eventually maybe oh good stuff oh man all right well that is all we

have for today johnny this was so much fun man we gotta have you on more i miss you johnny i i can't wait to see you in person man it's been It's been too long. We need to make it happen. We need to make it happen. You coming to All Things Open, man? It's nearby. When is that? When is that? How near is it?

It's in Raleigh. You're in Baltimore. Yeah, that's not too far. It's not too bad, right? While we're at it, let's give away 20% off. If you're thinking about going to All Things Open, you can go to the registration site and use the code MediaChangeLog20. And then we have some free passes, Jared.

Yep. Are they gone? Have we given them away yet? I think we have a few left. We've got one reserved for Johnny if he's going to come. You've got to join Zulup, which is our new place. It's the new Slack. Zulup's the new Slack. Sign up today for free. ChangeLog.com slash community. Hop into Zulup. Say, say hey I want a free ticket

we'll hook you up as long as we have some left it's probably less than a less than a single hand's worth but we'll be there let's get rid of them we need hugs high fives and handshakes

and we can't do that unless you acquire the free pass and come to the conference and come to the conference there you go that's the two requirements is you got to acquire the free pass or pay your own way

if you're that kind of person except a 20% off and then show up. That's right. And we're booth 66. Oh, it's official. 66 is our booth. Nobody knows what 66 is.

So this is like a big deal. Like booths and everything? It's going down, man. We don't mess around. Have you been to All Things Open before, Johnny? No, never. Oh, it's a great one.

Oh, yeah. You should be there, Johnny. It's kind of took over the OSCON. It's like the biggest open source conference. If you come, we'll buy you some steak at Sullivan's. Oh. Just you, Johnny. Not everybody listening.

Is that to all of our listeners as well? This is just to Johnny. Just to Johnny. As in, I'm sorry. As in, I'm sorry and welcome back officially. Six, seven years later. As in, I'm sorry from a decade ago. Man, seven years later. I'm sorry from a decade ago. Man, man.

Wow. I don't know. If you throw a scotch in there. Oh, there's scotch too. Oh, there's scotch. There's scotch involved. Smoked scotch. Oh.

All right. Johnny's booking this. Would it be a flight or would you drive? How would you get there? Oh, I'd probably fly. I'd probably fly through the nearest thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Oh, man. You're making it hard to say no. Why say no when it feels so good to say yes? Absolutely. Absolutely. Audience, if you're feeling the same way Johnny's feeling, you know what to do. Media, change log 20, get 20% off, or come into Zulip and get a free pass from Jared.

While supplies last. While supplies last. Very limited supply. We love all things open. Todd and team run an amazing conference. It's worth going to. All that good stuff. That's all for today. Bye, friends.

Bye, friends. We've heard from quite a few people who are heading to All Things Open at the end of the month. Most of those free tickets are gone. So if you want one, act now. Head to changelog.com slash community and join. It's totally free.

Then send yourself a Zulip invite from your changelog homepage and holla at your boy. It's your boy! Thanks again to Johnny for hanging out with us. Go listen to Go Time already. Even non-Go devs like me love that show. The latest episode is a roundup and ranking of a bunch of unpopular opinions. That'd be a good starter for you. Thanks once again to our partners at Fly.io, the home of changelog.com.

And to our beat freak in residence, Breakmaster Cylinder is the GOAT. Finally, thanks again to our longtime sponsors at Sentry. We love Sentry. You might too. Use code CHANGELOG. Save $100. Why not? Give it a shot. Have a great weekend. Leave us a 5-star review if you like our shows. And let's talk again real soon.