Engineer's guide to startup advising | Kelsey Hightower

Software Misadventures

#Tech #Guang Yang #Ronak Nathani #Distributedsystems #Softwareengineering #Technology #Ronak Nathani, Guang Yang #DevOps #SRE

35:00

The healing power of fitness goes far beyond physical benefits—for today’s guest, it’s a form of self-expression and a celebration of what the body can do. In this episode, host Nora McInerny sits down with fitness personality Ivylis Rivera, who shares her deeply personal journey of navigating life with Chronic Migraine while holding onto her passion for movement. Ivylis opens up about the struggle of staying active while facing the fear of triggering a headache or migraine attack and the resilience it takes to keep pushing forward—a resilience that carried her through the challenging journey of finding a Chronic Migraine treatment plan that worked for her. Join Nora and Ivylis as they explore the concept of “soft living,” a philosophy Ivylis embraces—staying active, listening to your body, and building trust in oneself. Click here for Product Information, including Boxed Warning and Medication Guide, or visit https://abbv.ie/prescribing_info See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

about a year ago 49:50

MP3•Episode home

We’re super excited to have Kelsey back on the show! Our last conversation was around his incredible career journey - from working at McDonald’s after school to starting his own computer store, to hacking on python infrastructure with the core developers, to meeting Satya Nadella for an interview.

In part one of this conversation, we dive deep into Kelsey’s experiences and expertise as a startup advisor:

How to break into advising when you don’t have a lot of connections
How to influence without authority
Passive vs. active advising
How to add value as an advisor
Setting boundaries and expectations
Much more

Segments:

[0:01:53] Being a "junior retiree"

[0:11:00] How Kelsey got started with startup advising.

[0:17:43] How to avoid mismatches in advisory engagements?

[0:27:23] How to influence without authority as an advisor?

[0:32:58] How to establish boundaries as an advisor.

[0:38:29] Actions engineers can take today to prepare themselves for future startup advising roles.

[0:42:55] How to manage the balance between advising and your primary job.

[0:44:32] How to cultivate perspectives beyond engineering.

Show Notes:

Kelsey on twitter: https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower
Our previous conversation with Kelsey about retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/kelsey-hightower-on-retiring-as-distinguished-057

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com

55 episodes

Software Misadventures

Engineer's guide to startup advising | Kelsey Hightower

Software Misadventures

30 subscribers

published about a year ago

MP3•Episode home

In part one of this conversation, we dive deep into Kelsey’s experiences and expertise as a startup advisor:

How to break into advising when you don’t have a lot of connections
How to influence without authority
Passive vs. active advising
How to add value as an advisor
Setting boundaries and expectations
Much more

Segments:

[0:01:53] Being a "junior retiree"

[0:11:00] How Kelsey got started with startup advising.

[0:17:43] How to avoid mismatches in advisory engagements?

[0:27:23] How to influence without authority as an advisor?

[0:32:58] How to establish boundaries as an advisor.

[0:38:29] Actions engineers can take today to prepare themselves for future startup advising roles.

[0:42:55] How to manage the balance between advising and your primary job.

[0:44:32] How to cultivate perspectives beyond engineering.

Show Notes:

Kelsey on twitter: https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower
Our previous conversation with Kelsey about retiring as Distinguished Engineer from Google at 42: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/kelsey-hightower-on-retiring-as-distinguished-057

Stay in touch:

👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com

55 episodes

#Tech #Guang Yang #Ronak Nathani #Distributedsystems #Softwareengineering #Technology #Ronak Nathani, Guang Yang #DevOps #SRE

All episodes

Software Misadventures

1
Podcast update and news! 13:41

33 weeks ago13:41

13:41

Some reflections on running the podcast and Ronak has some eggciting news to share :) Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Software Misadventures

1
Uncrating the Oxide Rack | Bryan Cantrill, Steve Tuck (Oxide) 1:26:35

35 weeks ago1:26:35

1:26:35

Oxide co-founders Bryan and Steve are back on the show to give an impromptu peek at the Oxide server rack and to chat about writing their own manufacturing software, overcoming false summits before shipping the first rack, the #1 reason startups fail and more. Don't miss the full-circle moment on their "meet cute" story from last time, shared at the end of the conversation :) Segments: (00:00:00) The Oxide rack uncrating experience (00:02:40) The office tour (00:04:03) Challenges of shipping and unboxing hardware (00:11:04) Hybrid hardware company? (00:13:38) Custom designing a crate for the rack (00:18:12) Optimizing for time to value (00:20:43) Writing custom manufacturing software (00:23:25) Taking ownership of the customer experience (00:25:29) Buy vs build (00:27:46) The false summits before shipping the first rack (00:30:05) “Missing just enough context to be optimistic” (00:33:07) The #1 reason startups fail (00:38:49) Hiring the first sales role (00:44:53) The dangers of “happy ears” (00:47:18) The pitfalls of rushing to market (00:51:03) The “third VP of sales” problem (00:56:06) The value of a good sales leader (01:00:07) Curiosity and empathy in sales (01:03:41) Grooming sales skills as an engineer (01:07:33) Learning from current customers (01:09:13) Talk to prospective customers “that we have 0% chance of closing” (01:11:25) Actionable bad news (01:14:11) The role of GPUs in data centers (01:18:50) Cloud repatriation (01:24:23) Full circle to the “meet cute” Show Notes: Our previous convo: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/oxide-ditching-the-rules Bryan on Twitter: https://x.com/bcantrill Steve on Twitter: https://x.com/sdtuck Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com…

Software Misadventures

1
LLMs are like your weird, over-confident intern | Simon Willison (Datasette) 1:55:50

37 weeks ago1:55:50

1:55:50

Known for co-creating Django and Datasette, as well as his thoughtful writing on LLMs, Simon Willison joins the show to chat about blogging as an accountability mechanism, how to build intuition with LLMs, building a startup with his partner on their honeymoon, and more. Segments: (00:00:00) The weird intern (00:01:50) The early days of LLMs (00:04:59) Blogging as an accountability mechanism (00:09:24) The low-pressure approach to blogging (00:11:47) GitHub issues as a system of records (00:16:15) Temporal documentation and design docs (00:18:19) GitHub issues for team collaboration (00:21:53) Copy-paste as an API (00:26:54) Observable notebooks (00:28:50) pip install LLM (00:32:26) The evolution of using LLMs daily (00:34:47) Building intuition with LLMs (00:43:24) Democratizing access to automation (00:47:45) Alternative interfaces for language models (00:53:39) Is prompt engineering really engineering? (00:58:39) The frustrations of working with LLMs (01:01:59) Structured data extraction with LLMs (01:06:08) How Simon would go about building a LLM app (01:09:49) LLMs making developers more ambitious (01:13:32) Typical workflow with LLMs (01:19:58) Vibes-based evaluation (01:23:25) Staying up-to-date with LLMs (01:27:49) The impact of LLMs on new programmers (01:29:37) The rise of 'Goop' and the future of software development (01:40:20) Being an independent developer (01:42:26) Staying focused and accountable (01:47:30) Building a startup with your partner on the honeymoon (01:51:30) The responsibility of AI practitioners (01:53:07) The hidden dangers of prompt injection (01:53:44) “Artificial intelligence” is really “imitation intelligence” Show Notes: Simon’s blog: https://simonwillison.net/ Natalie’s post on them building a startup together: https://blog.natbat.net/post/61658401806/lanyrd-from-idea-to-exit Simon’s talk from DjangoCon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkRK2rJGB0 Simon on twitter: https://x.com/simonw Datasette: https://github.com/simonw/datasette Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
From "AI mid-life crisis" to the "time of my life" | Steve Yegge (Sourcegraph) 1:25:32

39 weeks ago1:25:32

1:25:32

A Silicon Valley veteran and known for his writings like "The Death of the Junior Developer", Steve Yegge joins the show to chat about his "AI Midlife Crisis", the unique writing process he employs, and building the future of coding assistants. Segments: (00:00:00) The AI Midlife Crisis (00:04:53) The power of rants (00:09:55) “You gotta be able to make yourself laugh” (00:11:46) Steve's writing process (00:14:10) “I published them… and nothing happened for six months” (00:17:30) Key to perseverance in writing? Get pissed. (00:23:24) Writing in one sitting (00:29:05) The AI Midlife Crisis (00:35:04) Management to IC (00:38:35) The acceleration and evolution of programming (00:41:43) Picking up new skills in a new domain (00:43:40) The power of prompt engineering (00:47:27) Secondary hashing (00:50:47) The importance of context in coding assistants (00:53:56) “The future of coding assistants is chat” (00:57:15) The importance of platforms in coding assistants (01:02:30) The nefarious T-word in AI (01:06:32) The death of the junior developer and its consequences (01:09:35) The future of code understanding and semantic indexing (01:13:15) The power of context in AI platforms (01:16:21) Surprising capabilities of LLMs (01:21:04) Transferable skills in AI product development (01:23:53) Mental health and the innovator's dilemma Show Notes The Death of the Junior Developer: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/the-death-of-the-junior-developer Steve’s blog rants: https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/ Steve’s medium posts: https://steve-yegge.medium.com/ Sourcegraph’s blog: https://sourcegraph.com/blog Steve on twitter: https://x.com/steve_yegge Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Early Twitter's fail-whale wars | Dmitriy Ryaboy 1:08:46

41 weeks ago1:08:46

1:08:46

A veteran of early Twitter's fail whale wars, Dmitriy joins the show to chat about the time when 70% of the Hadoop cluster got accidentally deleted, the financial reality of writing a book, and how to navigate acquisitions. Segments: (00:00:00) The Infamous Hadoop Outage (00:02:36) War Stories from Twitter's Early Days (00:04:47) The Fail Whale Era (00:06:48) The Hadoop Cluster Shutdown (00:12:20) “First Restore the Service Then Fix the Problem. Not the Other Way Around.” (00:14:10) War Rooms and Organic Decision-Making (00:16:16) The Importance of Communication in Incident Management (00:19:07) That Time When the Data Center Caught Fire (00:21:45) The "Best Email Ever" at Twitter (00:25:34) The Importance of Failing (00:27:17) Distributed Systems and Error Handling (00:29:49) The Missing README (00:33:13) Agile and Scrum (00:38:44) The Financial Reality of Writing a Book (00:43:23) Collaborative Writing Is Like Open-Source Coding (00:44:41) Finding a Publisher and the Role of Editors (00:50:33) Defining the Tone and Voice of the Book (00:54:23) Acquisitions from an Engineer's Perspective (00:56:00) Integrating Acquired Teams (01:02:47) Technical Due Diligence (01:04:31) The Reality of System Implementation (01:06:11) Integration Challenges and Gotchas Show Notes: - Dmitriy Ryaboy on Twitter: https://x.com/squarecog - The Missing README: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-README-Guide-Software-Engineer/dp/1718501838 - Chris Riccomini on how to write a technical book: https://cnr.sh/essays/how-to-write-a-technical-book Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Discovering the power of story-telling in engineering | Adam Gordon Bell (CoRecursive) 1:02:28

42 weeks ago1:02:28

1:02:28

Known for hosting the CoRecursive podcast, which dives into the stories behind the code, Adam joins the show to chat about discovering that the great engineers he had looked up to are actually great communicators, his framework for building one of the best storytelling engineering podcasts, and the journey getting into DevRel. Chapters: (00:00:00) Highlights (00:04:23) The power of casual conversations (00:07:08) Taking the leap into podcasting (00:10:34) The hardest part of running a podcast (00:14:03) Learning to follow up (00:16:26) Storytelling in podcasting (00:20:36) The evolution of CoRecursive (00:21:19) What makes a good story? (00:24:48) Finding the right guests (00:30:26) Preparing for interviews (00:32:07) Favorite part of making a podcast episode (00:37:43) Learning from radio journalists (00:39:47) Overcoming self-doubt (00:44:27) Balancing passion projects with full-time work (00:46:38) The power of vulnerability in storytelling (00:53:29) Behind the scenes of developer relations (01:00:38) The great engineers you know are actually great communicators Show Notes: Adam on Twitter: https://x.com/adamgordonbell CoRecursive Podcast: https://corecursive.com/ Automating follow-up emails: https://www.followupthen.com/ Stay in touch: 👋 - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...…

Software Misadventures

1
Behind designing Kubernetes' APIs | Brian Grant (Google) 2:10:56

43 weeks ago2:10:56

2:10:56

As the original architect and API design lead of Kubernetes, Brian joins the show to chat about why "APIs are forever", the keys to evangelizing impactful projects, and being an Uber Tech at Google, and more. Segments: (00:03:01) Internship with Mark Ewing (00:07:10) “Mark and Brian's Excellent Environment” manual (00:11:58) Poker on VT100 terminals (00:14:46) Grad school and research (00:17:23) The value of studying computer science (00:21:07) Intuition and learning (00:24:06) Reflecting on career patterns (00:26:37) Hypergrowth and learning at Transmeta (00:28:37) Debugging at the atomic level (00:34:27) Evangelizing multithreading at Google (00:39:56) The humble beginnings of Borg and Kubernetes (00:47:10) The concept of inertia in system design (00:50:07) The genesis of Kubernetes (00:53:45) The open-source proposal (00:57:25) The Unified Compute Working Group (01:02:16) Designing the Kubernetes API (01:05:03) AIP.dev and API design conventions (01:08:02) The vision for a declarative model in Kubernetes (01:17:25) Kubernetes as a DIY platform (01:19:07) The evolution of Kubernetes (01:21:40) The complexity of building a platform (01:25:11) Style guides? (01:28:23) Gotchas in Kubernetes workload APIs (01:32:02) Understanding your thinking style (01:35:37) Reflections on Kubernetes design choices (01:44:08) The importance of getting it right the first time (01:48:13) Designing for flexibility (01:51:16) Collaboration and leadership (01:52:21) The role of an Uber tech lead at Google (01:56:33) “Giving away the Legos” (02:02:29) Picking the right person to hand off (02:06:41) Overcoming writer's block Show Notes: API Design conventions: https://google.aip.dev/ Brian’s blog: https://medium.com/@bgrant0607 Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Ditching the rules to build a team that lasts | Bryan Cantrill, Steve Tuck (Oxide) 2:06:29

44 weeks ago2:06:29

2:06:29

From building a new kind of server to building a new kind of company, co-founders Bryan and Steve join the show to chat about their "meet cute" and the origin story of Oxide, their unconventional recruiting process, transparent and uniform salaries, and their solution to the "N+1 shithead problem". Segments: (00:03:03) Bryan and Steve's "meet cute" (00:05:56) "the sun does not shine on me" (00:12:19) the dagger that went into sun (00:21:23) culture of exonerating yourself vs solving customer problems (00:23:25) the shared "error in judgment" of joining joyent (00:27:54) the origin story of joyent (00:29:44) reporting to the (physical) chair (00:31:26) the comically bad ceo candidate (00:36:23) the enterprise software shift (00:40:21) the importance of curiosity in sales (00:48:30) filtering for curiosity in hiring (00:52:26) oxide's unconventional hiring process (01:04:01) bryan's worst hire (01:05:21) the limitations of traditional hiring (01:08:32) the value of written reflections (01:10:28) "what were the happiest moments in your career?" (01:21:16) misconceptions about sales and go-to-market (01:22:03) trust and alignment in sales (01:30:24) building connections across organizations (01:34:23) how to do performance reviews when everyone's paid the same? (01:40:00) the power of transparency in compensation (01:50:14) validation through impact (01:53:14) origins of on the metal (01:55:45) transparency and open communication (02:01:32) the importance of storytelling (02:04:56) building a company differently Show Notes: - Bryan’s blog post on the transparent and uniform compensation model at Oxide: https://oxide.computer/blog/compensat... - On the Metal’s interview with Jeff Rothschild: https://share.transistor.fm/s/6fa1eaa4 Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...…

Software Misadventures

1
Grokking Synthetic Biology | Dmitriy Ryaboy (Twitter, Ginkgo Bioworks) 1:08:51

45 weeks ago1:08:51

1:08:51

From building a data platform and Parquet at Twitter to using AI to make biology easier to engineer at Ginkgo Bioworks, Dmitriy joins the show to chat about the early days of big data, the conversation that made him jump into SynBio, LLMs for proteins and more. Segments: (00:03:18) Data engineering roots (00:05:40) Early influences at Lawrence Berkeley Lab (00:09:46) Value of a "gentleman's education in computer science" (00:14:34) The end of junior software engineers (00:20:10) Deciding to go back to school (00:21:36) Early experiments with distributed systems (00:23:33) The early days of big data (00:29:16) "The thing we used to call big data is now ai" (00:31:02) The maturation of data engineering (00:35:05) From consumer tech to biotech (00:37:42) "The 21st century is the century of biology" (00:40:54) The science of lab automation (00:47:22) Software development in biotech vs. consumer tech (00:50:34) Swes make more $$ than scientists? (00:54:27) Llms for language is boring. Llms for proteins? that's cool (01:02:52) Protein engineering 101 (01:06:01) Model explainability in biology Show Notes: The Death of the Junior Developer: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/the-death-of-the-junior-developer Dmitriy on twitter: https://x.com/squarecog?lang=en Tech and Bio slack community: https://www.bitsinbio.org/ Stay in touch: - Make Ronak’s day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Growing and selling an indie business | Michael Lynch (TinyPilot) 1:40:18

46 weeks ago1:40:18

1:40:18

Having quit Google in 2018 to bootstrap indie software businesses, Michael is known for writing very transparently about the ups and downs of his journey. After recently selling his hardware business TinyPilot for $600K, Michael returns to the show to chat about the misconceptions about running an indie business, the hardest part of selling a company, and why “hardware is definitely out” for his next move 😂 Segments: (00:04:22) The complexity of selling a hardware business (00:08:49) Why "hardware is definitely out" for Michael's next venture (00:11:57) The evolution of TinyPilot (00:16:29) Inherent risks of a hardware business (00:20:53) The most terrifying 10 minutes of 2023 (00:24:52) The pricing strategy (00:31:48) Building the team (00:35:32) Recognizing the limits of solo founders (00:37:22) What and how to outsource? (00:42:45) Tracking hours and managing expectations (00:46:50) High-level math and profit projections (00:52:17) Working with contract manufacturers (00:54:12) How to know when to delegate? (00:58:16) Misconceptions about running an indie business (01:03:56) The importance of value capture (01:09:26) Identity and purpose after selling a business (01:13:40) How Michael arrived at the decision to sell the business (01:17:53) The process of figuring out the price (01:20:36) Negotiation and the final sale (01:25:09) Why due diligence was so stressful (01:30:09) The importance of buyer fit (01:34:16) Michael's new course "Hit the Front Page of Hacker News" (01:35:17) The power of "Show, don't tell" (01:38:14) Sneak peek of the course Show Notes: - Michael’s blog post on the process of selling TinyPilot: https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/ - Michael’s excellent monthly retrospectives on building TinyPilot and beyond: https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/ - Hit the front page of hacker news: https://mtlynch.io/notes/htfp-live/ Stay in Touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Breaking distributed systems for fun and profit | Kyle Kingsbury (Jepsen) 1:23:17

47 weeks ago1:23:17

1:23:17

Well-known for his insightful and meticulous write-ups on testing distributed systems, Kyle (aka Aphyr) joins the show to chat about the origins of Jepsen, how he built a business around testing distributed systems, his writing process, favorite databases, and more. Segments: (00:03:29) From Physics to Software Engineering (00:07:47) The origins of Jepsen (00:09:41) Turning Jepsen into a full-time venture (00:13:14) Jepsen's testing philosophy (00:16:30) The consulting journey (00:19:16) Structuring a consultancy (00:22:32) Setting boundaries (00:24:32) Pricing misadventures (00:29:17) Pros and cons of being an independent consultant (00:32:08) Managing your time when working for yourself (00:38:23) Best part of the job (00:41:13) Early writing influences (00:45:25) LLMs and AI-generated content (00:48:17) “The period where you can trust what you read is actually very recent” (00:51:33) How to become a better writer (00:54:25) Developing a formal understanding of distributed systems (00:59:30) Common faults in distributed systems (01:01:17) The complexity of testing distributed systems (01:07:32) Communicating criticism effectively (01:10:26) Advice for distributed systems engineers (01:13:46) “Anybody trying to sell you a distributed lock is selling you sawdust and lies” (01:16:31) Failure mode documentation (01:18:52) The pitfalls of containerization (01:20:17) Lightning round - favorite databases Show Notes: “Anybody who is trying to sell you a distributed lock is trying to sell you sawdust and Lies”: https://martin.kleppmann.com/2016/02/08/how-to-do-distributed-locking.html Kyle’s excellent write-ups on testing distributed systems: https://jepsen.io/analyses Kyle’s blog: https://aphyr.com/posts Training courses that Kyle runs: https://jepsen.io/services/training Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
The 3 traps of open source funding models | Wes McKinney (pandas, Voltron Data, Posit) 1:08:51

48 weeks ago1:08:51

1:08:51

From creating one of the Python’s most influential libraries to co-founding Voltron Data, Wes joins the show to chat about why the book cover of the pandas book doesn’t feature a panda, open source pitfalls to avoid, the pros and cons of hiring engineers at a non-profit, and more. Segments: (00:02:50) Guang’s complaint about the pandas book cover (00:04:38) Quarto and Open Access Publishing (00:12:00) Convincing Wall Street to Open Source (00:15:31) Publishing the first python package over Christmas (00:18:01) Doubling Down on Building pandas (00:23:23) Personal sacrifices for the sake of impact (00:26:28) The Evolution of Open-Source (00:29:19) “Open source development started out as a very privileged activity” (00:32:40) The Consulting Trap (00:35:17) The Startup Trap (00:39:29) The Corporate User Trap (00:44:21) Avoiding the Startup Trap (00:46:54) Non-Profit vs. For-Profit (00:48:09) The Challenges of Hiring Engineers in a Non-Profit Setting (00:50:08) The Benefits of Remote Work for Open Source Development (00:52:15) Balancing Open Source and Enterprise Interests (00:57:25) New Funding Models for Open Source? (01:00:01) Getting into VC (01:06:19) The Future of Composable Data Systems Show Notes: - online edition of pandas book: https://wesmckinney.com/book/ - the new digital publishing tool that Wes recommends: https://quarto.org/ Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Impact Driven Development | Matt Klein (Envoy, bitdrift) 1:19:18

49 weeks ago1:19:18

1:19:18

From creating Envoy to co-founding bitdrift to reimagine mobile observability, Matt joins the show to chat about being told to simply “write some proxy in Python” in the early days of building Envoy, early influences from building “shrink wrap” software at Microsoft, the process of spinning bitdrift out of Lyft, and much more. Segments: (00:03:10) Being a plumber on LinkedIn (00:05:00) Early influences from building “shrink wrap” software at Microsoft (00:10:44) Getting diverse work experiences (00:16:36) Setting high standards for the team (00:20:42) Lessons from failure of the first startup (00:22:02) Building a successful open source project vs. running a startup (00:25:25) Why not start a company around Envoy? (00:29:54) Why not open source bitdrift? (00:36:01) Mitigating the risk of big companies building in-house solutions (00:38:16) Co-founding bitdrift to tackle mobile observability (00:40:37) Applying lessons from the first startup failure (00:44:14) Why mobile observability is so hard (00:50:06) Open source vs source available (00:53:33) The software licensing strugglebus (00:58:03) How bitdrift was spinned out of Lyft (01:03:36) Achieving work-life balance through leverage (01:06:13) The early days of Envoy (01:09:20) Impact driven development (01:13:43) The crazy decision to build Envoy in retrospect Show Notes: Matt’s blog posts on why mobile observability is a hard problem: https://mattklein123.dev/2024/04/24/no-one-talks-about-mobile-observability/ The new company Matt is building: https://bitdrift.io/ Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Build the scary stuff | Bryan Cantrill (Oxide) 2:19:41

50 weeks ago2:19:41

2:19:41

From being a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems to co-founding Oxide Computer Company to build a new kind of server, Bryan joins the show to chat about being told that he’s on a suicide mission when starting Oxide, the moment he felt “I’m actually living HBO Silicon Valley”, and lessons from Sun. And much more. Chapters: (00:02:24) The Origin of Bryan's Nom-de-Guerre: "Colonel of Data Corruption" (00:04:02) What Debugging Performance Issues at Twitter in the Early Days Revealed About Silicon Valley (00:13:37) Value of Formal Education and the Experience That Everyone Should Have (00:16:02) Balancing Following One's Passion vs. Having Stability (00:21:14) What Shaped Bryan's Sense of Integrity (00:25:39) The Moments When Values Are Instilled (00:30:25) The Dark Side of Tech (00:35:12) "Economic Opportunities Attract Economic Opportunists" (00:40:35) The Origins of Oxide Computers (00:50:20) Building the A-Team (00:52:18) "Compaq Was the Most Successful Startup" (00:55:51) The Venture Capitalist's Dilemma (01:03:04) Being Told "You're on a Suicide Mission" (01:07:12) The Lifestyle of the "Lifestyle Business" (01:09:30) The Harsh Reality of Raising Venture Capital (01:13:12) The Challenges of Building Hardware (01:16:36) Why You Should Think About Not Only Gross Margin but Net Margin (01:19:14) Hardware and Software Co-Design (01:22:06) The Frustrations of Infrastructure Deployment (01:26:46) Finding the Right VCs (01:28:16) "Oh My God, I'm Actually Living HBO Silicon Valley" (01:33:12) Oxide's Principles and Lessons from Sun Microsystems (01:39:51) Sun's Unspoken Values (01:45:03) Sun's Legacy of Empowering Employees (01:48:53) Sun's Missed Opportunities (01:53:04) The Reason Why Sun Survived the Dot-Com Crash (01:56:21) "God Bless the Early Adopters" (01:57:39) A Tweet from Shopify's CEO (02:01:24) The Hard Thing About Hard Things (02:12:55) The Hardest Moment in Oxide's History Show Notes: - Oxide’s principles: https://oxide.computer/principles - Requests for Discussion (RFDs): https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/ - Toby’s tweet: https://x.com/tobi/status/1793798092212367669 - Bryan on twitter: https://x.com/bcantrill Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en…

Software Misadventures

1
Lessons from the early days building Kafka and Confluent | Jay Kreps 1:16:08

51 weeks ago1:16:08