Latest / #TheTechHustle Podcast 🎙 / Backstage with BobbyD featuring Bobby Allen

Transcript

Backstage with BobbyD featuring Bobby Allen · #TheTechHustle Podcast 🎙

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My wife really didn't get the chance to go into tech the way that we wanted to.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Intel funded our education and they were supposed to give us jobs and that whole thing kind of went away when the bottom dropped out of the market.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I was not a product manager before Google.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'd never had that title.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Just because you haven't had the title doesn't mean you didn't do the work.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Facts and you're like the second person that I've seen do this is create a title for themselves called Cloud Therapist.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: So do this is create a title for themselves called cloud therapist.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit about this title and impact that it's had as you've developed your career as a cloud therapist.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: My goal is I'm not there to be the smartest person in the room.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm there to listen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I'm there to see how I can add value.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: You might need to lay on the couch and cry first about the bad projects that happen, but there's also a lot of good and bad stuff that happened before I ever showed up.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I want people to see that we can work there too.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: We can work at the Twitters and we can work at the Googles and, honestly, in many cases there are smart people that work there, but they're not smarter than us.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: But I want to give some actionable things, three things what up d hustle?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: yeah, welcome, welcome, welcome to our audience.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: We out in these streets, we where we at d hustle you know, uh, I don't want to tell you.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Uh, not this time it's in houston.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, big shout out to houston, shout out to cj shroud out there, we enjoying ourselves in houston, texas.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: They say they do things big down here and definitely want to give a big shout out to the city, big shout outs to everybody we've been running to.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: It was at a conference the other day, bro.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we was at black is tech um yeah, big shout outs to black is tech and um our guests that we're bringing on stage very shortly also had a part in the conference itself and you know your boy was up there too.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: You know had a little bit of a conversation, but it's not all about me.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I definitely want to say thank you for tuning in and thank you for pulling up with us today, because we got a very special guest.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Let's bring my guy, bobby Allen, to the stage.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: What's up, bobby?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: thank you, bobby.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: What's up, bobby?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you, bobby.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Two Bobbies right, I got you.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: D-Hustle ain't know what to do with his self.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: But, bobby Allen man, thank you so much for pulling up, thanks for having me, and let me tell you I ran into you the other day and I told you that I've been following your journey and I want to.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: First of all, I'm so appreciative that you're out here giving us your light, showing us your path and things that you've done and achieved, because it only inspires people like me, and I know the next generations are definitely inspired by that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Thank you, brother, very much Likewise.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: So give us a quick introduction yourself.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Let us know where you're coming from, where you're from.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I know that you work at Google.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I look like you rock and Google already.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: You see that that.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but go ahead and kick the conversation off.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Tell us where you came, yeah, so.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So we got to talk about the origin story a little bit, right.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So I live in charlotte now, aka silicon south.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: We're not just country bumpkins sitting on practice we know how to get it.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of cracker barrels there, yes, but we gotta get it done, but uh, but bobby allen's story started in the dmv.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: That's what's up so.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Prince George's County.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: For those who know, pg shout out to PG.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Shout out to PG.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Prince George's County, did a college there at UMBC University of Maryland, baltimore County, which is known for two things we were the first 16th seed to be the number one seed in the NCAA tournament or the UVA right.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: But then also UMBC has produced the most black PhDs in STEM.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's what's up.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Bring that up a little bit amazing, amazing people Rhodes Scholars, dr Kizmiki Corbett, who actually helped come up with the COVID vaccine at Moderna Surgeon Generals all people that came from a particular program called the Meyerhoff program at UMBC so my wife and I were part of that there shout out to the wife, because a lot of wives get shout outs you know he's going to shine a lot of light on her, though.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to have to talk about my wife, because my wife is like my secret weapon.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So shout out to, to the, I guess just a little bit of advice, like I try to throw in some Bobby isms.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I've been married 25 years.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I just hit 25 years.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And what I'll say to any of the brothers that might get married the right or the wrong woman can be like Popeye's spinach or Superman's kryptonite.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: That's a gem right there.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: It's not addition or subtraction, it's multiplication or division.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: The right partner adds that much Juice in your tank.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So my origin story started again In B&B.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Went to UMBC for undergrad and true story I saw my wife coming down the hallway 17 years old.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I said I think that's my wife.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's when you see it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: I knew after a month I was going to marry this lady.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: And so folks are like man, like did God shine a light on her, like what was it?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, honestly, god knew I liked tall black women with long hair.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: And she was an engineer like I'm done Everything I did right there, right.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So we go through Undergrad together computer science, get married after undergrad, go away.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: To grad school at the University of Michigan To do computer science and engineering together.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But imagine being newlywed, being Graded on a curve so she does better, I have To do worse artificial intelligence, algorithms, operating system Databases.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So we did all of that.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: We were actually intel fellows at university of michigan.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: We're the two folks intel paid for in the department.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: And then my wife had the idea of like, yeah, like we should go to oregon of all places, or oregon I know you're looking at me, d hustle, because most people, most, most folks are like, okay, most black folks anyway, not to be stereotypical, but like there's California, canada and something in the middle.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Facts and so we go out to Oregon, if you can believe this and actually loved it.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So, Intel funded our grad school.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: We interned out there, ended up moving out there permanently.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I worked for Intel out there, had a great time, and so when we were out there we felt like it was time to maybe start a family and all that.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: But all our parents are still in the DC area.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So we're like we don't want to have kids that don't know their grandparents and siblings and all that.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So we're like we got to get back to the East Coast, but not necessarily DC.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So we're like, where can we do?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: And so that's where Charlotte came on the map.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Driving distance, short drive, pro football, pro basketball international airport.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: The important things right, but all the good stuff there, and so so I transitioned from intel to bank of america.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: There, uh, had done kind of six years roughly at intel as a developer slash project manager, kind of did a lot of hybrid roles.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I was cutting code, but I also wanted to kind of get a taste of kind of managing the direction where things were going yeah, yeah uh, got into bank of america, came on as a business analyst, transition into other roles there and, honestly, bobby got frustrated because I felt like I got passed over for promotions.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And there's a, there's a black executive there, a mentor of mine, and I said, man, this would happen.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And he told me.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: He said this time is their fault, next time is your fault.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Facts If you stay there and take it when they've showed you who they are, then that's on you.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And so I talked to another executive there.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I said man, if you were me, would you stay here?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: He said sit down, close the door.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: He said, honestly, you're strong enough.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: You should probably leave.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And around that time is when I got tapped for my first cloud computing startup.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I did before three years of Google.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I did 10 years of cloud startups, starting in 2012.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So I was doing multi-cloud in 2012.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: If you can believe that Didn't know what in the world I was doing, which, by the way, for anyone who looks me up on LinkedIn, I call myself a cloud therapist.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I see that.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Part of why I made up my own title is because I feel like we're making it up as we go along.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Facts In tech as well, so just be more honest about it, and so and cry first exactly right before I got there.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: But but did, did the, did the startup thing.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, three startups, startups or have like a 90 failure rate typically.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: All three of the startups I did actually exited if you can believe that, and that's just congratulations, congratulations, thank you thank.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: You learned a lot in that process and maybe we can talk more about that later yeah but uh, the startup thing was really cool and then uh got an opportunity to come to google and been rocking there for the past three years and love it great team, great products, that journey right there and this is like behind the scenes, and that's why we call it backstage, so that we can get the real deal.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: And and I mean the the eye opener is number one.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: You found a partner that could definitely ride with you, supporting you as you climb, because, you're climbing together the mindset in terms of being brave enough to go out to Oregon, right of all places, because like he said, it's California.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Canada and that in between right.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: The only thing I know in Oregon is Nike Corporation.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: You always think about sneakers D.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: And then finding your way back to the East Coast, and definitely something that I experienced too, because I moved out to san francisco for a while and I started to notice, uh, my kids when we moved out there my son was three and my daughter was about nine years old and they were missing that.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: That feeling that I had when I grew up with my, my siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa I was like, oh yeah, we got to find our way back and definitely very, very much mindset, wise, um, and I opened that you were thinking about that family's so important yeah, you gotta have those connections yeah, yeah, big shout outs to my wife what up, my love shout out we celebrate 18 years this year congratulations.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: D hustle got a few years too.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations, I don't have to kill him?
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: how many years you got in d?
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I got 19 years, 19 years yeah yeah, man, we definitely, uh, understand a value around our family, um, and definitely, like you said, and I tell my son this, he's he's about to be 14 and I'm like yo, you got to be mindful of the woman that you have around you your mom, she rides for your sister, she rides for whoever you add to that circle.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Just be mindful of it, because it could set you one way or the other.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: So, a big ups to to the journey that you set and also the advice that you're giving, um, because our audience need to hear this for sure a lot of good gems out there yeah for sure.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: So you, you mentioned something um that you've been at the keyboard um and definitely got into cloud since 2012 how do you compare from when it was, when that first started, to where we are right now?
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: So there are a lot of things that are really similar.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: So cloud was just like it was so crazy.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: We were figuring a lot of stuff out and you know, when you're a consultant at a small company, the customer says they want to do something, you say yes and then at lunchtime you're rapidly reading through stuff and talking to the engineer, like, can we do this?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Can we do this?
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: No-transcript.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: We're doing these big projects and even things with cloud because we want to figure out debt, but there are different kinds of debt and I think we need to use our words right.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Kind of like if we were talking to kids.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So there's technical debt.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I don't like what we're running.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: There's data debt I don't like what we're running.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: There's data that I don't know what we're running.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And there's brain brain debt.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know what we want.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And I think we got a lot of brain debt right now because people have a lot of lego blocks and a lot of products, but don't know how to assemble those things to get the business value yeah that is very similar to what we saw in the early days of cloud.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Now cloud has grown up a little bit more, but it's not a grown up yet yeah I would say that cloud is the best of teenagers that just learn how to drive.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I like that right.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: So good analogy on that one thank you.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you, it's so, it's.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It's.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It's old enough to have some responsibility, but it still needs a curfew and can do some damage if you don't check it a little bit yeah and so cloud is access to all these resources, but then also lots of resources that maybe aren't harnessed the right way, and so you can still kind of make a mess, and so yeah we've grown up in some ways, but then in other ways we haven't.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: For example, cloud is not just a destination, it's a journey and a mindset, and so a lot of people take old behavior to new places.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: So I've said before uh, it's like if you eat fried chicken at the beach, that doesn't give you a beach body.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's a bar right so you gotta make sure that you're changing your mindset as you change up the venue.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So when you go to cloud, for example, you don't spin up the biggest, baddest thing that you need.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: The cloud is all about elasticity and on-demand resources.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: So you don't need a big Mac Daddy supersize type of computer database.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: You start with what you need and then it scales up and down if you're using it responsibly.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So again, sometimes the behavior is really really difficult to change.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: And so in cloud and we'll hopefully get into a little bit later.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: That's also something I'm super passionate about.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's a it's an exciting time, but it's a time where we still need to like make sure we're having some training wheels on.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure For sure, a lot, of, a lot of things we can do, but like, don't let it ride across the street, just yet without an adult, make sure somebody's holding his hand.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: And then, no doubt, especially when you start getting them bills and you forget what you're running.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: And I tell you, I've consulted a number of times and after I find out it was like yo uh, why are you running this?
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, I, didn't even know we were running this yeah, yeah.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So I think that the cloud bobby to that point would be like if I so I've got a son who's 15 and I feel like his job in life, his job description he feels like, is to like kill my grocery bill.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: He just goes in the pantry, shuts the door and I just feel the money his stomach right yeah, he does basketball, does track like eats everything in the world.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But he can only do so much damage in my house if I let him loose at like a ruth chris yeah and he just has an open tab right the cloud is actually more like letting a football team loose loose at ruth chris with an open tab.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: And what is that bill gonna look like?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: yeah, for sure I'm gonna be like uh check, please early exactly, and that that's what I think is you know back to your point about cost when think when we were in our data centers.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: There's what I think is you know back to your point about cost when think when we were in our data centers there's only so much damage you could do, it's like being in the house, but when?
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: you have all these like virtually unlimited resources, full buffet and all that, and you're bringing in all these hundred hungry applications that could burn up all this stuff yeah that's where you get these bills.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: That can be like someone is going to get fired.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I had a colleague who called that a resume generating event.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: We don't want to have those where you have that involuntary job.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure For sure, and the technology, like you said, has become designed in a way where elasticity is like the benefits of it, but we don't understand what it means.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Like hey, yeah, you can get it right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Versus do you really need it?
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: And?
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Or justifying the need is something that I've always taught my mentees is like hey, especially when you're proposing things, first of all, document, culture of writing, provide data, justification, and then execute.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Versus all, right, let's just execute and see where we go right.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Well, definitely one thing that I did want to step back to, because I think it's something that I want you to definitely enlighten us a little bit more, especially that relationship you have with your wife and the growth and development that you had.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Did you all both decide to go on different paths or you're still both on the same paths, as cloud engineering and stuff like that?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we went on different paths and I do want to park here.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: There's a little bit of trauma and challenge here that I hope can connect with the listening audience, so my wife really didn't get the chance to go into tech the way that we wanted to.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And that worked out.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: We believe everything works out for a reason.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: So she's in real estate now and has primarily been kind of at home.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: So our kids have never been to daycare.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: My wife has had a more flexible schedule but if you can imagine so, there are not a lot of black women that have computer science and engineering degrees from Michigan worked at.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: NASA, worked at Intel, worked at Lockheed, and then got out and couldn't get a job.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And so I remember going to Oregon.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: This is one of my toughest times as a husband.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We moved out to Oregon.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: There was a tough job market at the time.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Long story short, intel funded our education and they were supposed to give us jobs and that whole thing kind of went away when the bottom dropped out of the market and so they were kind of like, yeah, you're on your own If you can interview and something comes together, great.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: But there was no systematic program anymore.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So my wife got invited to interview and I didn't.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: These are on site in Portland.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: She got invited to interview but there was someone who got sick like the day before these interviews were supposed to happen and like, well, bobby's right here.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I got a job and she didn't.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: She was number 11.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: There were 10 slots.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: They said as soon as someone declines, we got you.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody declined because those were hot jobs at the time.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the low point for me, bobby, was when my wife applied to be a bank teller and they said you don't have.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So that kind of, I think, gave her a little bit of a bad taste in her mouth about.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Just, it doesn't matter what degrees I have, it doesn't matter what experience I have like people are still going to see me as someone who's not capable and so she went into other things.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: She actually went into working at an alternative school, really as a way to give back, which was an amazing way for them to for her to model for kids that honestly, this was like their last chance to earn a diploma.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Um, she, she did that and then, when we transitioned to the east coast, she got into real estate as a more flexible thing to do with our family.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: She's a real estate genius by the way.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Oh, I bet you so.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And that's the thing.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Exactly right, mindset wise, you knew she had it right.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: It's just that the lanes wasn't open for her.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: But whatever lane opener, you know she was gonna excel.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: So big shout outs to her.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Big, big shout outs to her, um, and and I'm hoping that, um, this just enlightens uh, everyone that's tuning in in terms of the challenges we have, um, first of all, being underrepresented in all kinds of lanes and then questioning our abilities, uh, it's like mind-blowing to me because, um, I'm somebody that always believed that you, you, you, first of all don't judge a book by its cover, because sometime and this happened to me, thinking that somebody's not technically inclined, and I'm going and I'm like, oh, you're more technically inclined to me.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: So it always made me humble.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: And then it's like mindset wise, it's like diversity on your team creates a better team.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, whenever I operate on a team where it's all, just all the same people, guess what?
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: It's all the same ideas.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: As soon as you add just a little bit of diversity, a little bit of changes.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: That's when innovation happens, that's what things happen in growth.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: So I don't want people to feel like those challenges that a lot of people that we've grown up with, hold us back, push forward, keep pushing and more or less just be mindful that the industry is evolving, but it's still challenging.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Can I jump in there for a second?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I want to take it to the Marvel Universe for a second.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Let's go.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite movies is Black Panther, but maybe not for the reason that people think, if you look at the movie and think about this next time you look at the movie, killmonger was physically bigger and stronger than Black Panther.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: T'challa won because he listened to the women in his life Facts he had a team.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Killmonger had no team.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Black Panther had a team.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: That's the difference in the story.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: He had women in his life who advocated for him when he couldn't fight for himself.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Facts and if that's not a metaphor for us as men to listen to wisdom and insight that comes from nontraditional sources, I don't know what is.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: So what I say to some of the guys I mentor is doesn't make you less of a man, but not listening to your wife and make you a less successful man.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, give him that at the gym, right there, for sure 100.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: There's no one in your life besides.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe your mom say it again, because they sometimes people don't listen.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're running back so so listening to your wife doesn't make you less of a man, but not listening to your wife may make you a less successful man fantastic.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: She can see some things that you can't for sure, and she may she may have insight into things, but, like outside of maybe your mom, who else is there that's as aligned with your success as your wife?
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: 100%, 100%, because we're moving together.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: I go left, we go left.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I go right, we go right Right.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, mindset wise, my wife and I honor her to the core because I tell a lot of people like when I walk into a room, she sees you before I even see you type stuff.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Right, it's just mindset wise, is that?
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Um, it's, it's a collective that her and I have created and when we move, we move together.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: So thank you so much for enlightening us on this and definitely giving us some gems on this of course, of course, of course.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Now, um, there's another thing that you mentioned.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Um, and I and you're like the second person that I've seen do this is create a title for themselves called Cloud Therapist.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: And I see somebody else introduced me to a title.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: It was like a VP of principal engineering and I was like, oh my gosh, I never thought about that.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: So, tell us a little bit about this title and definitely the impact that it's had as you've developed your career.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: So Cloud Therapist is a title that I made up, and part of why I made that up is because we're making up a lot of stuff as we go along in tech, as I talked about before.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: But what it allows me to do is it lets me define myself.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So when I walk into a room or I do an executive briefing, you don't know what a cloud therapist is, so you don't have a preconceived notion about that necessarily.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: So think of cloud therapists like Spider-Man.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Peter Parker is product manager.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: That's my actual job.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: We're kind of the real name, but a lot of product managers try to lead with product feats of strength.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I'm one.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Kubernetes, release away from saving the world.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Well maybe not quite that so as a cloud therapist, my goal is I'm not there to be the smartest person in the room.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I'm there to listen.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I'm there to see how I can add value.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: You might need to lay on the couch and cry first about the bad projects that happen, but there's also a lot of good and bad stuff that happened before I ever showed up, and so I want people to have that mindset there.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I'm there to listen, I want to help, I want to be empathetic, and if there are products that I can bring to the table that help you achieve your outcomes, then that's fine.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: But that's secondary.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: The products are secondary, you as the customer, and what you want to achieve is what I care about.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's up and let me tell you, I really like the idea of even when you're going into the conversation is that you're providing a service, different than trying to sell a service.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Right, and when you understand, when you're providing a service, you really understand the challenges they have, and then you're looking in your bag like, oh, these are the solutions we can provide and it definitely makes even you know, in terms of just engaging with companies, a more better interaction.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: So if people are into product management, I mean this is a great example of how you can support your customers and also present yourself in a way that's always helping, rather than just trying to force and push.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: That you know.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Bottom line per se.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah, that's what's up.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: That's what's up.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Can I?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Can I give a?
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Uh, I guess one thing for your audience yeah, go ahead.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the mic is yours player, so you, anytime you want to do what you do, I'm in your house, man, but I don't want to.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I want to give just some transparency to the audience.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So you know, I don't want you all to think like man, you know, product manager, google cloud blah, like I was not a product manager before Google, I'd never had that title.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And my encouragement to your listeners is just because you haven't had the title doesn't mean you didn't do the work.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Facts I was a CTO before I was an engagement lead, program management, like all those things that I drew on, and so don't let people pigeonhole you because you haven't had the words when you've done the work.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: That's what's up, and I really enjoy that because you are right, and especially our culture we don't do just one time, we do five, 10 times.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: And what does that mean?
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: I'm doing two or three different roles just to make sure that I'm seen and or that I'm at least being considered.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: And I really do like the idea that even transitioning from engineering to product to product engineering is keeping that lane open, because one of the skill sets that I've always enjoyed about product managers especially if they were engineers before right, if they understand the code low key.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: When I was at Twitter, we used to have product managers write unit tests that they would.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: They'd be like, hey, I want this feature, all right, go write a unit test, it gives us the feature.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, perfect, now we're gonna go write the feature code and all that stuff.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: So it's always great to have those multiple skill sets, but I really like the fact that you're not pitch towing yourself and be like, hey, I can only do this because this industry is iterating so fast, so quickly, and definitely tell me about how you feel about the iteration speed that we've been on, oh man it's going faster and faster all the time.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: This is where it's really important for people to be grounded, because you can get imposter syndrome like crazy now because things are changing so quickly.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: But I think it's important to understand.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: This is what I say sometimes, bobby, in other formats.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: So everything new isn't good and everything old isn't bad.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: The key now is about mastering the remix about which new things to embrace with old things to retain.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: So you probably know some things that you can build on and then some of the new stuff is is a distraction yeah right.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So figuring out kind of what that right remix is, so like I gotta take it to hip-hop for a second.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So let's go old school, right tribe called quest and uh, midnight marauders to me like probably one of the best albums of all time.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And look at, for a lot of those tracks those go back to like jazz samples from decades ago.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: But then you know, they put their, they put their lyrics on top of that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: They came up with something that was really special, and I think that's the mindset people have to have is like I don't know everything, but I don't know nothing either.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: So I am bringing something to the table that I can build on, whether as tech expertise or domain expertise or life experience, like there's so many things where you have something that you can probably hook into and build on.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: You've got some sort of foundation.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: So don't come at this like I don't know anything about it like I don't know, maybe this aspect of that yet, but there are other things that I'm going to get into and I can probably work with that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: Oh thank you for them gems and bringing up old school jams.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you, music ain't like it used to be.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: D I mean, I'm still reflecting on it Still reflecting with the roots too.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt Cypress Hill.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: We was actually in New York a few weeks ago and we was in East New York and every time I go to East New York, the train stop that we get off is right before Cypress Hill and I'm like yo, this is how y'all moved out here.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: This is the area.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: This is the vibe and it's just the culture itself.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: You can really feel it and understand the rhymes and rhythms that they put together to really reflect where the journey is.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And let me tell you, for me, it's always great to reference back to it, especially how impactful it was.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I'm an 80s baby, so it definitely driven me and definitely an appreciative to where that culture has evolved over time.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So big shout outs to that, for sure.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Now, um, in terms of future, and then this is going to be something you you quickly mentioned, but I've always have an inch.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: I want to have an interesting conversation which, uh, technologists like yourself, because I have this, um, like binocular view, um, and I did this during my talk the other day, when somebody asked me about the future and I was like, oh, I'm looking on the horizon and I see, oh, tsunami coming and that thing is called ai and it's way in the cut, but just imagine, like, as it's approaching, it's like meters high, right, uh.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: So my question is is, uh, just the future of tech, future of iteration, how do you feel about ai and where do you think we're going with all?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: this.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So let me ground this, okay.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I want to give people some contrast and I want to tell a story and I want to just kind of weave in a little bit of like where I think things are where they're going, okay.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So for the ballers out there, so I would say cloud is to AI as Jordan is to Kobe.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Ooh give him a gem for that.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Say that again.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I'm about to take it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: You know I'm over here writing notes.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Now, right, it's all good.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: So cloud is the AIs, jordan is the Kobe.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Meaning just like Kobe built on Jordan's foundation and learned better because he had Jordan's trainer and Jordan's coach and Jordan's offense and he could ask them for advice.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Ai is absolutely built on the foundation.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: That cloud laid down the ability to build language models quicker and have less resources, and all of that.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So but I would also say, to put it in context, here's my executive summary for ai right, ai is not the thing, ai is the thing that makes the thing better.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: So if you think about this like food, ai is the sauce or the spice, is not the dish.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And so I shout out again I told you I grew up in prince george's county.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Anybody know about mumbo sauce out there?
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Mumbo sauce Mumbo sauce is.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: For those who don't know, it's like a sweet, it's sticky, it's a little bit hot, it's fire.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: You got to try some, but you wouldn't put mumbo sauce on the plate and call that a meal.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Now, if you put that on some chicken, you put that on some shrimp meat, that's still a nasty dish facts.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And where I think people are getting lazy bobby when it comes to ai is they're putting mambo sauce on half-baked dishes.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the application typically is the dish, or at least the use case of what you're trying to solve for the customer.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: So think about what I want to do for the customer, think about ai enhancing that, and then you have something that's a finished product, that's what's up.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: I like that mindset because I think it gives people clarity, especially when when you tied it with cloud and what it provides an elasticity in terms of computing resources and then AI, but then just the fact that you think of AI being that, that extra touch, that extra season, that extra like whatever.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: That is that right there is what makes that dish the next level.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So can I.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So let me give your audience something else to build on.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to because this is changing all that, there's always going to be something new, right?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: So I feel like the level of expertise is being pushed down.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: So before we were just computer people, then we became cloud people, then we became AI people.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: That's not even enough.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Now Is it like is it AI training?
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Is it AI inference?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Is it AI fine tuning?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Is it RAG?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Like what is it?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: And so what I think is happening is like ai can become a junk drawer.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: You can't.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: You can't do all of it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So you have to kind of decide what you want to specialize in.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: But here's the point, because things are changing a lot.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Career-wise, bobby, your listeners will not be kobe, they will be lebron they're not going to work for one team or have one skill set the whole year.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: They're going to be a franchise where they evolve from one thing to the other and they're going to like did lebron look, forget how to shoot a basketball when he went to miami?
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Or when he went to la?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: no he was able to build on a lot of what he had and change it and mix it up.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: We're going to be the same way.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: That's what's up.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: There's always going to be something new coming, so think about how to hook the old to the new and take that with you when you go play for the new team in the new city.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: That's what's up?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: You know I'm about to get a new jersey already.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: But yo I I really really enjoy the way you're able to connect this, because our audience are going to really understand this from jordan to kobe, to lebron especially the analogy for me.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's letting people know exactly how it looks, how it's going to be yeah, so yeah, shout out to you right now oh my gosh, this is why he's a therapist.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: You ever go to a therapist?
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: You'd be like man.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know how somebody could explain it to me.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: And they explain to me like my eyes just open up my whole world.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Just, I didn't think about it facts right and thank you so much for this.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Contributions that you're making, um, and this is, you know, um like groundbreaking contributions because it's going to impact the next ones that are coming up, because now they have great reference points.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: They may not have been around during the Jordan era or the Kobe era, but they definitely been around, lebron, and LeBron definitely gives them blessings and credits and their roses down to that.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And you understand why.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And then that motivates them to even push themselves even more.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Plus everybody knows Jordan.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: So it's like, yes, you don't have to be in the air.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah this guy's, mr jordan himself.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Bro, that's what's up.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: That's what's up.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: So one thing that I definitely want to uh, chop it up a little bit more about, um is, you know, one one thing that I've always admired about your journey is the, the impact that you've been making to our community, especially from you know, mentoring and definitely providing insights into that leadership space, because I'm somebody that always enjoyed being at the keyboard.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be a principal engineer, obviously help influence, but I never really want to move into that leadership.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: But just tell me you know how that journey has been for you in terms of, first of all, the value system that you create in the process and also that leadership mentoring that you provide.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Leadership is huge.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think, as a leader, there are a couple of things that I try to do the most for the people that consider me to be a leader in their life.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: The first one is just being present, just giving you their time, because we know time is a non-renewable resource.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Anyone who's giving you their time really deserves your best, and so I try to be present.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I also try to be vulnerable.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: So this is my personal revelation, bobby is that I've realized, the older I get, I am simultaneously a masterpiece and a train wreck sometimes in the same day.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: And if I can be comfortable with that, then I can talk to the people that are willing to confide in me like yeah, yeah, you did blow it up this time.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: It's okay, because you're going to learn from it right.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: We got to have those people in our lives who can say you did your best, but that wasn't your best.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about how to iterate better for next time.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about how to do better for that job interview next time or how to do this task differently.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But there's also a level of just investment right.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: So for the people that work for me or the people that I invest in, this is what I say Most of the time.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: When something works out, especially if you've hired somebody, I'd say I tell the folks that work for me or that I've hired, it's more my fault than your fault because I chose you, and so that means that I've got to give you room to fail.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I and so that means that I've got to give you room to fail.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I've got to give you room to mess up.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I've got to give you clarity, which is really really important, and I hope the listeners hear me.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Clarity is its own style.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Clarity is its own style.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Being clear matters so much more than being deep or so much more even than being persuasive.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Be clear about what you're looking for, be clear about what you expect, and folks will know, kind of what they can bring to the table to meet that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: So, be present, be clear, be vulnerable is what I try to model for folks.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And then just to I don't know if you know this, bobby, I'm also a pastor.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So just to take it to the face side for a second.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I think everyone, from a leadership perspective, needs to have three people in their life, three relationships.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: You need a Paul, a Timothy and a Barnabas.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: You need someone you're learning from, someone you're sharing with and someone you're walking beside.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: There should be someone who's not in your same season of life, who you're gleaning wisdom from right.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Someone call them an old head or OG or whatever.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: There should be somebody younger where you can say, man, don't do it like I did, or, lady, don't do it like I did.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Here's some landmines that I hit, and I think there's a level of humility to admit where you missed it and allowing that to be a blessing to someone else, because it shows you're invested enough in their success to have them do better than you.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Facts I tell my kids.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Someone said a long time ago this isn't mine, I forgot who said it but a foolish person doesn't learn from their mistakes.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: A smart person learns from their mistakes.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: A smart person learns from their mistakes.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: A wise person learns from someone else's mistakes.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Be wise and transfer that wisdom to the next generation.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: but then you also need that person that's right beside you yeah in the same season, someone who's like similar phase of life, maybe similar phase of career, and it's like, yeah, man, I'm in that with you too, like I understand what that's like.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So I've been really blessed, bobby, my, I serve as a pastor, but my lead pastor has known me since I was 14 years old that's what's up, since I was a child and I've grown up and he ordained me and it's just amazing having a man who's in my life who can get in my business, which is another thing I want to just impress upon your listeners.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Have people in your life who you trust enough that when they tell you something you don't want to hear, you know it comes from a good place and you won't dismiss it as a red herring.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: We put people around us we don't trust and when they say something and we roll out and break the relationship and then we take that same baggage and trauma to the next thing and keep doing more damage.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Who are those constant people like your role is going to change, your job is going to change, where you live is going to change, but there should be a certain number of people in your life who have permission to tell you man, you are blowing this up.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you are going off track, and so I love you, but you're wrong.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Everybody needs at least one person to do that, and, from a leadership perspective, I can't expect other people to do that if I'm not modeling that myself.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: So that's part of being transparent.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: That's what's up, bobby, and let me tell you, man, this right here is by far one of my favorite recordings we've done so far, because you are dropping gems and it's not just hey, let's go get this job, make this money and do this type of stuff.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: It's like real foundational things that if you get this right, all that other stuff just comes with it, especially with those that are around you.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yes, you should listen to that OG.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, you should give back to your, to the next one that coming up, and definitely the one that stand next to you, that knows you from day one.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, they're going to be the one that's going to get in your face and really let you know what's good.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's powerful.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: We need that.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: That is powerful.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: And and the other cool thing about this is that you bring this into your leadership strategy.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: In the way that you do leadership and that's something that I'm hoping that our audience can feel, as you're growing and develop these same skills that you're applying, especially your faith and the way that you are you you bring that to your workplace and you just keep it aligned and nobody can ever look at you differently.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: That's what's up I think one of the things that's helped me grow as a leader honestly is, uh, when you have teenagers, oh my goodness.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: So we both got a few, oh my gracious.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: So so my wife.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: So my wife and I have a really open relationship and we challenge each other.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: And uh, my wife said to me one time she said you know, um, x company is is getting rock star at work, but I don't feel like I'm getting rock star at home, brother.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that hurt there was something there that I need to listen to so similarly, my daughter has zinged me before when I'm traveling the whole lot and I'm and I'm missing stuff at home.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I walked in one time she said oh, mommy's boyfriend is home.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was like you're great, yeah, yeah, oh, oh.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: You live here now like we've been a family of three for some, so but you got to not take yourself too seriously and have people that can just kind of like poke the bear a little bit and it's like you know what?
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: There was some comedy there, but there's also some truth there, because my daughter's saying she misses me.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: My wife is saying, like you haven't been as present, I would encourage anybody listening who's married to ask your partner this question how often do you get my undivided attention?
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Listen to what they say and don't be defensive, and it may be stuff you don't want to hear, but you got to be able to check in like that, to say, like, are we missing each other?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Am I so focused on chasing the bag, getting a promotion, getting these shirts or whatever that they're like like?
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know you anymore.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: And that's some powerful words right there.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Because if, mindset wise, the house is not healthy, how do you think it's going to work when you go out?
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: And then you don't want the reverse part, right?
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: They say work-life balance.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: No, I said I want life and then work balance.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Right, and that's the way that I've always felt like is that the household needs to be taken care of.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I got a daughter like that too.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: She's 18 now and she's one of those she cracks that whip so quick and I'm like what?
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: And I was like, all right, don't take it.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I was like, listen, what she's trying to say I'm sorry about it's a sunshiner what's up?
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: sunshiner, yes um and in general.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Uh, these are.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: These are really foundational um mindset shift that I'm hoping our audience are listening and tuning in.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Remember that that sound.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: Give them the sound so that they can rewind the, the gym sound yeah, there's a button on there that when you rewind, d hustle has been marking them and gyms that bobby allen has been dropping my brother, this is something that's really, really impactful.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: The other thing that I wanted to jump into is I haven't seen you on these streets, public speaking, conferences and stuff right there.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: We're here at the Blackest Tech Conference here in Houston, but tell me what really you know helps, drives that.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: It is that you pastor and doing speaking there and it's just another avenue for you.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: But tell me a little bit about that.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the public speaking thing for me is I.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: It's not about me.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I want to encourage people that come to these conferences to be able to see us in these places.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: So, when they see someone black on stage that works for Google, for example.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I want them to know that, like, you can ask me questions.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: We took live questions from the audience yesterday.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I talked to folks after the session.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I want people to see that, like, we can work there too.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: We can work at the Twitters and we can work at the Googles and, honestly, in many cases, there are smart people that work there, but they're not smarter than us.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we just don't have the opportunities because we don't live in Silicon Valley or Seattle, new York.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: But I don't want us to doubt ourselves and I want to be the person that says like, yes, I was working at a startup that didn't have VC funding in Charlotte, and people are like you, country bumpkins didn't come up with something this good.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: But I had to learn how to represent and use that to my advantage, and so I want people to see, to be able to see themselves.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: So I remember my daughter was struggling with math one time.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: This was in elementary school.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: She was struggling with math one time and we sat down as a family we elementary school.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: She was struggling with math one time and we sat down as a family and we watched the movie Hidden Figures.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: And so in my house when I ask my kids if they're ready for a test, ready means you're going to get an A, but it really means you feel like you've got a chance to get a hundred.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: That's what ready means she had been struggling with some different things and even though I work at Google and my wife and I worked at NASA and all that kind of stuff, sometimes you need to see another example for it to get through.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: So I remember asking my daughter uh, there was a test coming up after hidden figures.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like baby, you ready?
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: She said dad, I'm a rock.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: That test Like I'm there we go.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: She saw herself in these these black women, these the and did putting men on the moon and bringing them back safely with like slide rules.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Essentially, they didn't have a I mean I'd be scared to do it with, with with the computer facts.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: The stuff that they did was amazing, like they had vision that went further than the tech.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I think we've got the opposite problem now the tech goes further than our vision.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: That's a different conversation, maybe for another time.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: But she was able to see herself, so I want people to see themselves when someone like me is on stage, that we can be in these spaces and that we can also be excellent but accessible.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: We can be killing it, but we can be humble, we can give back and we can do our best to use our platform charitably to encourage the other people coming after us.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Like I didn't get up there and pull up the ladder behind me.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I want to lift as I climb to make sure other people can benefit.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: That's a bar right there.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Lift as we climb.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh bobby, this, this right here.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Uh, hidden figures is one of my movies too.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: I I only dreamt that I could have seen that when I was growing up, because the thing that even got me going is when in the movie they were like hey, we need to go to, to the computers and the computers were individuals.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: They were doing the mathematics and using these massive formulas and and and.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: There was even one scene.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: She was like, oh, I remember an algorithm, but let me go look it up and like encyclopedia type stuff and find all like.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: For me it was like so impactful to understand that that happened, um, let alone who they look like, where they came from, their experience, the mindset, and I'm just so grateful that this next generation gets exposed to that and big shout outs to like, uh, the whole squad over there, uh, making that type of movie, because it's something that's going to change the lives of the next ones coming up 100 and and you're going to change the lives people.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, like I said, I did my research on bobby allen.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, all right, right, google.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: I was like, all right, but let me dive a little bit deeper.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: I was like, ooh, dive deeper.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Ooh, and I even seen you were doing a report with, or a podcast with, the Cube, and it's when you go to conferences and stuff like that and I'm like, oh, you featured on the Cube.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: I was like oh let me tune in and let me listen to that, because, because those type of things are things that I used to look at and never even seen anybody that looked like me and I'm like, oh, bobby Allen was there.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, I need to listen to this episode, thank you.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Oh man, congratulations and shout out to the folks on the Cube too, because they've done a great job of giving platforms to diverse people.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I've actually been blessed to be on the Cube, I think five times now so for those who don't know I want to give on ramps to the people that are listening.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Think of the Cube as like ESPN at a tech event Facts Right.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a live show floor and you've got like the commentators and the guests on there, but there might be thousands of people walking by when you're talking.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: So I've been blessed to be able to do that.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: The folks at the Cube are super cool, great people a lot of insights and they're pulling guests from the honest about tech stuff.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, big shout outs to them, because we definitely need allies like that that understand the value of providing a platform for individuals like you to be seen, and definitely the high level of conversations that you're having too.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: It's not like we're just talking, talking, no, we're really talking, going deep.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: That's what's up.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: That's what's up, awesome man.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: So the last question I have for you is like, what I'm really hoping for is that you can really give, and you've been giving advice the whole day the gyms, the conversation is is on point, but do you have any advice for, like, the future, those that are just thinking about getting a tech or those that are in tech, but in general, just the future, with the technologies that we're exposed to cloud, ai and any advice that you would have for our community?
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: So one don't try to boil the ocean.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: You can't do all of it Like you won't know it all.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: You can't do it all.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: You can't be at all like pick something, start there and then build on that.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: If you try to do all of it, you're going to feel like you're failing at everything.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Number two training doesn't age well.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: So if you take training practice right, don't just look at the video, do the lab like, try it, see where there are things and some of these labs actually have little known fact.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Some of these labs are stale or some have mistakes in them purposely.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: That trip you up, and finding those is actually part of the learning Seeing how to get past that stuff.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: So try stuff out, which, with the cloud, that's what's beautiful, bobby.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: People can start up a free account and be spinning up databases in Germany in like 30 minutes, like you can do stuff now that you didn't have access to before, which is amazing.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: So try things out.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I would also say, think about people that you want to watch, right, like, listening to programs like this is great, right, so shout out to you for starting stuff this yeah but also youtube man.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Youtube has some amazing stuff, like just in general there I call it youtube university.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I've met several people that have transformed their life from listening to people in there.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: And again, youtube has so many different things.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Um, people that were not in tech that got an attack.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: People that have level up in tech.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: People that were not in tech that got into tech.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: People that have leveled up in tech.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: People that were in homeless shelters that taught themselves skills.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I know women that are at Google and Meta that transformed their lives from stuff they saw on YouTube and from things that they did online, so super cool stuff there.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I would also say when it comes to technology, don't pigeonhole yourself.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: So let me back it up.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: There's something in your background that you may have done or be passionate about that you can tap into.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: You might have worked at Chick-fil-A in high school.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Why can't you go work in tech at Chick-fil-A and redesign the app for the drive-thru?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Because you know what needs to be better you know how to drive-thru works.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: So what people need to think about Bobby is.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: So what people need to think about Bobby is think about operating at the intersection of technology and domain expertise.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: What is it that you know?
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Like, I drove for Uber, now can I go work in tech for Uber?
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I used to work in insurance.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Can I go work in the back end for insurance?
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Like, can I work on the opposite side behind the curtain of something that I know really well?
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Right, I used to work in a commercial kitchen.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Now I kind of work on the supply chain stuff for how the ingredients get to the restaurant.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: There's so many things that we can tap into that we know.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Just knowing tech by itself is often not enough.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to know how to apply it, and I think if our audience leans into what are you passionate about, what do you know, what excites you, and then I think you got to be able to see someone's face, right yeah so in corporate america we talk about people process technology all the time.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I actually don't like that.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I like people process problem and technology is almost like under the surface or behind the scenes.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Correct, Technology is like the electricity behind the wall.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: We don't say man, come over here and look at my new 110 wire Look at my new TV or my Tesla charger Right.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Technology is going to fade away and it's going to be about what you're doing with it, but you've got to know what to do with it, yeah, and I think that's going to be the key.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: So I would also encourage people to be creative.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: So I love food analogies.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: I got to be one more.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: My daughter is like the air fryer princess.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: So one of the people that was at the conference, angie Jones, is the air fryer queen.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: My daughter's a big shout out to angie jones, shout out to angie.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Got to meet her in person.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: She's super cool.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: So my daughter, my daughter, like exclusively does chicken nuggets in the air fryer.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Like that's her thing, right, I do um, by the way, for those who are into potato, uh side dishes I hate to tell your readers that they may be, or your listeners that may be wrong.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Tater tots are the superior potato, don't talk about hash browns or fries it's about the tater top yeah, but the thing that blew my mind, bobby.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: So tater tots, chicken nuggets and air fry great.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I was home one time in maryland and I was at my mother's house and she put a croissant in an air fryer.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Brother, let me tell you it was moist, it was crispy it was just right word.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I said, mom, what is that the point is?
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: sometimes you are taking something that you know like an air fryer and something else that you know, like a croissant, and it's just putting them together, marrying them together.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: So sometimes your audience has the different pieces.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: They just are coming up with a new combination, almost like a remix on a hip-hop album yeah you're taking those different elements and combining it in a different way.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: So I hope the people listening feel like they can just be super creative, because there's so many different things that we're doing.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: It's going to take all of us bringing our best ideas to solve a lot of this.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Pit stop for a second.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we need people to look into, for example, is the planet.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Let me park here for a second.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: So natural language processing was one of the early precursors to ai.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Correct training one nlp model is the equivalent, environmentally, of 125 trips between beijing and new york facts.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Facts think about all the resources that are going into cloud and ai and all these models.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Like we need people that are trying to uh, you know, build the next generation, build the, build the star trek transporter, but also save the planet.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Facts we need people that are thinking about the legacy we're leaving our kids.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: That's not just about the tech, but like are we gonna have a planet that we can actually live on?
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: So we need all of these folks leaning into creatively looking at things.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: So let me give you one specific thing that I do see coming, though for kind of a prediction.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: So we've been focusing a lot on training ai.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to move a lot more into inference yes, yeah, so let me come get the listeners who may not know what that is.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So training ai is ai on the practice field.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Inference is ai in the game, thanks.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: So this is where you're actually using ai for insights in a car, on a phone.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: You actually want to leverage the model to do something versus just training, training, training that's what we a lot of what we've been focusing on.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: You're going to see a shift to from training to inference, I think, going into 2025.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: So if you want to start to look at things, understand the models, but most people listening won't be creating models.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: They'll be using my correct.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: So think about how to use the models to get value out of those yeah, yeah, 100 man, bobby, you're dropping some gems my brother inferences is next up, because you are right.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: The amount of resources they need to train the models are massive it's crazy it is like and I I was doing some research on this um, because I have some partners that I'm potentially working with down in south florida and they're like, hey, we want to go do this, do this.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: I was like, first of all, you know, do you have enough power?
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: Do you have enough cooling?
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Do you know how much heat comes off of those gpus, like y'all think it's?
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: just trivial yeah right but in general um the mindset that you're giving our audience, I want to say thank you so much.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: This is definitely on top of my list of podcasts and there's been so many gems now, um, we're not going to end yet, because this part of the segment of our podcast is you get to ask me a question.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: So this, this is an opportunity If you had anything to come up.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: If you don't, it's all right, but in general, I'm definitely want to give you the chance to throw something my way If you had any questions that you want to ask.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I guess my question for you is and I'll leave with where I'm going with this so I had a mentor.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: One of my earliest mentors was kind of an old retired master sergeant and he just talked to me about discipline, about etiquette and to this day, because of that gentleman, I carry a handkerchief with me all the time.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: He just always talked about a man having a handkerchief in case you need to wipe your brow or give it to a lady or whatever.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: My question for you is who can you remember in your life who invested in you, maybe even before you believed in yourself, that taught you something that gave you some insight, like back into your origin story?
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Who was it that invested in in the early version of Bobby D that you can remember?
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for that question.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: And, um, I'm gonna tell you a story real quick.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: When I was younger, um, I remember I had one of those book reports that you take home and they say, hey, you need to write a story about your hero, um, and for me, I'm following along with all my friends and they're like, oh, michael, jordan, or, uh, this person, that person and I get home and I'm talking to my pops and he's like, oh, so, so who, who do you feel?
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: And, um, before I could even say it, the tears are dropping from my eyes because it's my father, that's my hero and I'm like in my mind, like um, I could not really understood how impactful was it until he asked me and that situation happened and it was really like.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: And it even gets me going a little bit now, because my family are first generation haitian american.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: They came to this country in the 80s and my mother and father met each other in the fields picking and my father had my mother early in terms of getting pregnant and he has stuck out from day one.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: They've been together for almost 45 years and when I think of my journey as a child, I always regardless of the job that my dad had.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: I always looked up to him and understood his hustle, his drive, and he instilled so many things in me, so many things such as what do you want to do after high school?
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: He was like yo, you're good at this, don't go spend all this money, go and get certified, go and get this vocational school and get into the industry quick.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: So when I look back somebody that, yes, he was an authoritative figure and definitely somebody that was leading in our family, in our household, but I can't say nobody else but my father, because this man, he really has really shaped me to be a king in my own household.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: And I tell my dad all this time I'll be like my mom's, my pharaoh, but my dad's my king Right.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: And when I look up to my mother, it's my first love.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: But my father oh my gosh, he would tell me to go left.
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: It didn't matter.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't even look, I would go left, and that's who was really impacted my life from day one.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: So big shout out to my pops.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I can relate to that there's.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Uh, just to be transparent a little bit too.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: So my, my dad, my parents were divorced but my dad was absolutely in my life and he was one of my biggest supporters.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: My dad has dementia now and so he knows who I am but doesn't really know how old I am and a lot of other things.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I think he kind of knows my name, but it's just, it's tough because I feel like I'm losing my dad a little bit yeah, and what I would say for the listeners combining my story with yours is give.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Give people their flowers while they can smell them, not just while they're alive yeah but when they know that you're giving them their flowers and that you respect them and don't take for granted those relationships we have with the older generations and the wisdom that comes from One of my favorite memories.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Bobby was sitting with my great grandfather eating peanuts, listening to football, because he would tell me we don't need to watch it on TV because the commentators on the radio are better, because they have to paint the picture with their words.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: It slowed me down and gave me patience.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: So when you have these older men and women in your life, value them, treasure them, let them know that you celebrate them.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: So thank you for sharing that.
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for asking that question, and you're talking about painting words that right there is like one of the most effective ways for your imaginations to trigger and get back on is being able to listen to a football game imagining.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's definitely some good, good advice there.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for that question.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Anything else you got lined up?
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: um, I wanted to give, I guess, maybe, uh, some takeaways to the audience.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we're going to land a plane soon, but I want to give some actionable things oh 100 the runway is right there, player.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: So I want to give you so three things, and this is how I finished up some of the session at the conference yesterday.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: So one in terms of health advice a bad workout is better than a good excuse.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Give them that gym right there so we can put so much energy into pursuing the bag and chasing titles that you neglect your health.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Health isn't everything, but with everything and not your health, you you got nothing, so we got to invest in that.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: So trust me, when you start, when you want to, if you get the money to take your family on these trips or whatever.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: These international airports are no joke.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: You want to be able to travel under your own power, not be rolled through, if you can help it.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: So you want to be able to enjoy those things and so invest in your health consistently.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Right, no one else can invest in that, but you Do it consistently, and you know I'm a little more seasoned than some of the other folks, you still look young, though.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you, man, I appreciate it.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I'm 46.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: I'll be 47 soon.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: That's what's up.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Congratulations, my God Grace.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I can still throw up about 325 in the gym.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Look at him Run 20 miles.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: I can get it done now, so I'm the black captain of America.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: There we go.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I can do this all day, but I'm thankful.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: But I will say this in terms of the workout thing, just to be transparent.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm 200 pounds, I'm 6'1".
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I can still wear a size 34 pants, which is what I wore in high school.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Congratulations.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: But I work, thank you.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I work out three days a week, three days a week.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I've been doing three days a week for 20 something years.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I go monday, wednesday, saturday.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I do an hour and a half those three days and that's all I do.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: That's it, and so you can have a sustainable pace that is not crazy.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: So you come up with a plan that works for you.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about chasing what everyone else is doing yeah never done.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Creatine never done.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Supplements watch what you eat.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Get in there.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Consistent consistency beats intensity over time.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Every time, facts, every single, every single time.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: So that's the health advice.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Tech advice real fine point.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Serotercom S-E-R-O-T-E-R.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Richard Seroter is Google's chief cloud evangelist.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: That's the guy that hired me into Google.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Amazing guy, great ally.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: He puts out a weekly I'm sorry, a daily newsletter.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: That's what's up.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Go to his site, subscribe to the newsletter.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you you will get smarter about tech development, ai leadership from the stuff he puts in his newsletter every day.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Sign up for it, hit it.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: And then the life advice.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: You know so many folks.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Bobby, you're concerned around how many folks are listening, the audience, the platform, and this is my advice Make sure you have people in your life who are investing in the depth of your character, not just the size of your platform.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: A small platform means we don't know you.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Shallow character means we can't trust you.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Some of us have smaller platforms because I believe god is giving us a chance to work out some of those chinks in the armor before everybody can see it.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Character, character, character.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: The platform will come if it's supposed to, but if it doesn't be consistent where you are be excellent, no matter the size of your platform, and just treat people with respect, man, that's what's up and yo I'm writing this all down because he's speaking to my spirit right now.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: I got a lot of gems going in here.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: Well, D Hustle, I think we're getting close to the end of our conversation here turn that music up a little bit.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: I want, I want to hear it.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: Come on, come on, there we go, there we go.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: First of all, I want to say thank you so much, my guy bobby allen man, it's so nice to meet you in person likewise it's so nice to be in your present.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: Your spirit is beaming and I'm so grateful to accept your rays and your knowledge.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: Uh, because this life-changing, not just for our audience but for me, d-hustle and all those that are around us.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: So, number one, there's this button that you press, that rewind.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: You better rewind and listen in, because we're building a community, we're building a platform and we're talking to minds that I guarantee you, it's one in a billion chance you get to hear from him and you get to hear from him here at the Tech Hustle.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: So definitely, thank you all so much for tuning in with Backstage with Bobby D Holla at your boy, it's Bobby D.