WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.680
Now we're live we're live now. Yeah Hey float playing peeps. How you guys doing?

00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:10.200
We're only 17 minutes late. It's his good influence. This is pretty good for me. Oh

00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:18.160
I'm not usually that late, so I didn't know that was a subtle job or if that was something else. No, no, it's a jab at me. I

00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:29.960
Promised to do okay. Well No, we're actually very late if you think about it because I promised to do this in I think the first few weeks of your

00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:35.720
tenure. I told the float playing people that I would kind of sit down and interview you

00:00:36.440 --> 00:00:41.760
Back then I guess it was more of like a job interview now. It's more of a like, hey, you've been in this job for

00:00:44.760 --> 00:00:52.120
Six months. Yeah That's crazy. I either don't remember this conversation or you never told me so I don't think I ever told you

00:00:52.120 --> 00:00:56.040
Yeah, I had promised the float playing people that as a as an exclusive

00:00:56.040 --> 00:00:59.280
I would do like an interview with you so they could get to know you a little bit better

00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:04.600
Before you settled into your role and then August happened. Yeah

00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:08.000
So why don't we why don't we kick off with that?

00:01:09.080 --> 00:01:14.240
How did your first two months here compare to your first two months of any other job? I

00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:20.160
Think every role has sort of different challenges

00:01:20.720 --> 00:01:24.000
I'm not sure how much I should be talking about my previous role

00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:29.240
But when I was brought in they're like, hey, this is what you we want you to do and then so we went through

00:01:29.240 --> 00:01:34.440
a month of a Lot of time with consultants and just kind of discussing the business overall

00:01:34.440 --> 00:01:38.240
Yeah, I remember you telling me about it and it made a ton of sense to me at the time

00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:40.720
I don't know if we can kind of say what it was maybe not

00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:45.480
but I was looking at it going like wow that seems like a really sensible kind of

00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:51.440
Direction for for them. It sounded like a really sensible direction. And then once we did the analysis

00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:56.640
Everybody's like, wow, that was a great analysis. This totally doesn't make any sense. And then I was just like

00:01:57.600 --> 00:02:05.760
Really? Oh Is that the is that the conclusion that the conclusion was we we really don't want to be growing the part of the business

00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:08.080
Like you we brought you in to do and I was like, okay, this is

00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:14.840
This is slightly awkward It's not exactly why I signed up for but we'll we'll we'll we'll roll with it

00:02:15.760 --> 00:02:21.400
so it was it was Challenging from a different perspective and then obviously

00:02:22.040 --> 00:02:25.240
The first few weeks here were great. I hadn't met the team previously

00:02:25.240 --> 00:02:27.960
So I don't think there were any sort of major surprises on

00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:33.160
But then it was basically all hands-on deck and we have an existential crisis

00:02:33.160 --> 00:02:36.360
So it's just like well, this is a somewhat different as well. So

00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:41.180
Yeah, roll with it. That's my career advice for anybody watching this

00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:51.640
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think what's what's kind of funny to me is that a lot of the things that were were part of the

00:02:51.640 --> 00:02:54.240
Crisis were things that we had identified

00:02:54.960 --> 00:02:58.520
They were just things. I think we felt like we had a little bit more time to fix

00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:05.320
Yes, I 100% agree. It's not like some things that were brought up were complete surprises

00:03:05.320 --> 00:03:10.800
I think we had a plan in place and we're working towards things but again the runway seemed to be longer and

00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:17.520
I guess my hope and my dream was that this would be less than the public eye as we sort of unwind some of the things that

00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:25.200
You know, maybe we're not as happy with Make sense. We've got a bunch of questions from the audience as well. So

00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:32.040
Elijah was coordinating this. Oh, that's Dan. Well, the Elijah's shoulder was there. Hey, look, there he is

00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:37.080
Oh, there I am. All right. See you later Elijah. Um, so these buttons actually work. I shouldn't hit them. Oh, yeah, please

00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:44.600
Elijah was coordinating some questions with the community over the last couple of days with some help from Chewy

00:03:44.600 --> 00:03:47.800
So I've got some questions from them. I also have some of my own questions

00:03:48.440 --> 00:03:52.920
This one is can you tell us about your work history?

00:03:53.160 --> 00:03:59.560
I've kind of given bits and pieces you've talked bits and pieces like in our response crisis response video

00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:05.640
But walk us through it. What what have you done? I think I know all the different pieces, but maybe I've missed some stuff

00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:11.320
I'm probably dating myself for sure I came out of

00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:16.000
school during the Was it the Great Recession or?

00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:24.320
the dot-com bust The dot-com bust. Oh the dot-com bust. Yeah, because I think I joined the work force during the Great Recession

00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:29.920
Is that's what we call 2008, right? Yeah, that was probably slowly after I remember being on vacation for the first time and God knows how long

00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:34.640
and The world was melting down from a financial perspective. So I was like, yep

00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:37.920
Maybe I just uh, you know, stay here in Southeast Asia for the next

00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:41.680
Year or two while everything recovers just because it was a bit of a scary time

00:04:42.080 --> 00:04:46.560
But um, no, I came out during the dot-com bust. Um, so my background was

00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:52.640
Computer science, which was the hot booming thin back in the early 2000s and is again now

00:04:53.200 --> 00:04:59.440
But when I came out there were essentially no jobs at that point in time. Um, so I was sitting on the sidelines for a bit and then

00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:05.520
our friend sent me a Craigslist listing for a random job, which was

00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.320
Tech press I was like, hey, how would you like to review computer hardware and write about it?

00:05:10.400 --> 00:05:16.000
And I was like, yeah, that sounds right up your alley and I was like, okay This is sort of interesting and then that's how I got my sort of foot in the door

00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:21.760
um from there I went into product management at a local computer company

00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:26.400
um Then went into product management where I met Linus

00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:33.120
Uh, then transitioned to a sales role and then went back into product development product management. So it's been

00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:39.040
I don't know. What's the best way to describe it circular or non-linear in terms of the way that I've um

00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:42.800
Found myself stumbling their jobs. So I don't think that my

00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:48.160
Core aspiration ever has been oh, I need to be the CEO of a company or whatever, but here we are today

00:05:48.320 --> 00:05:56.960
Yeah, and I mean I he has no I shouldn't say no experience with media because you started in media but in terms of like leadership experience

00:05:57.840 --> 00:06:04.240
In a very different age and that was a very print focused I think engagement with media was very different at that point in time

00:06:04.640 --> 00:06:12.000
um So there was still some of the same dynamics. I think you see today to some extent. Okay, so then I guess yeah

00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:16.880
I am aware of everything. I didn't know you're with neoseeker. I guess you weren't with them for that long

00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:22.800
I think it was three four years actually was not really so then it would be pretty easy for us to find some stuff that you wrote

00:06:22.960 --> 00:06:27.120
Oh, perfect back in the day. Yes, um small form factor round up by

00:06:28.080 --> 00:06:30.080
I mean, does this link work? Probably

00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:34.320
Nice

00:06:36.080 --> 00:06:43.120
Evga hurricane relief fund Um wrote a comment it was wms. I'm much more. I'm much less

00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:47.680
Active on forums and posting nowadays. I know was back there in the past couple weeks

00:06:47.760 --> 00:06:54.000
We've taken a look at a good number of sff systems today We pit them head to head and look at the relative performance between the different implementations

00:06:54.640 --> 00:06:57.760
All right. Well remember soltech soltech was

00:06:58.320 --> 00:07:05.840
Was that a global thing or was that just a thank you for special? I never sort of figured that one out. I can't quite tell ncix sold a lot of soltech

00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:10.560
That one on the right. I still remember that one. I think that's the fec. It was actually a pretty cool design overall

00:07:11.200 --> 00:07:14.000
I think the thing opened up like a sort of a bread box to both sides

00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:17.840
Um, the big ones back then I think included shuttle. Yes as well

00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:22.800
But I don't know why we didn't we don't have shuttle inside this round up probably because we didn't have the leverage and

00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:31.520
Shuttle was super cheap Like they were extreme cheap case cheap cases cheap cheap cheap bums

00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:36.720
I remember that because um, I got saddled with the shuttle relationship

00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:43.280
Oh, that's not what I meant to do. Uh, there we go. I got saddled with the shuttle relationship when no one else wanted to deal with it

00:07:43.440 --> 00:07:47.840
So when I when I first started product managing, um, I don't think you were formally

00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:51.600
Like you were just like you weren't really like my boss, but you

00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:58.160
Sat next to me and so you'd hear me say dumb shit and then we were we were at one end of the office

00:07:58.320 --> 00:08:03.840
And this is sort of funny because I had a meeting with ces. Um, so we were at the end of the building. I had

00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:09.440
the crappy sort of Corner office is probably uh

00:08:10.320 --> 00:08:13.600
Does it count as a corner office if it's not actually the corner of the building?

00:08:13.840 --> 00:08:18.720
It's just the corner of the units you have rented. So there's a so there's a solid wall on the one side

00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:27.680
And then Linus didn't have an office. He was sitting out in the open area And then I did I called it the box office and because it was made of boxes and somebody pointed that out last week

00:08:27.760 --> 00:08:32.480
It's like, um, I think it was our old contact at ozz is like, oh, I remember visiting, uh, you know

00:08:32.560 --> 00:08:37.920
You and Linus and he had built him this office out of cardboard boxes. I was like, yep, that's uh, that's uh

00:08:38.880 --> 00:08:42.720
pretty accurate and

00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:46.000
I hope you don't remember stuff like this, but anyway, that was brought out specifically

00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:51.760
That's great. Sorry. I cut I cut you off. You're talking about how we were we were over in the end. Yes, and then so

00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:58.240
We had a call that management light style. I don't know. That's probably the best way to describe it

00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:04.000
There was a one gentleman who was the head of product management at this point in time. So

00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:10.960
you know, whenever You had the inclination you just calling the office to chat for an hour or yell at you for an hour

00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:14.960
And that was the management style back then Yeah

00:09:15.040 --> 00:09:18.720
I tried to be somewhat helpful. I think I'm pretty much

00:09:19.680 --> 00:09:27.120
um Okay, how about some people want to know what are some passions of yours outside of work anything that you've wanted to learn

00:09:29.520 --> 00:09:35.840
Anything I wanted to learn or anything I I do what is their distinction? How about uh, first one then the other

00:09:36.880 --> 00:09:38.880
Nice. Oh good interviewing

00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:44.160
I think I'm curious about a lot of things and then so I think what

00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:47.440
I mentioned earlier was I had a bit of a circular

00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:55.360
Sort of journey from a career perspective. So It's forced me to learn about areas. I don't know a lot about

00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:01.440
Whether that's through I guess internal mentorship or coaching or just you know, kind of personal research

00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:05.520
I remember the first time I put together a presentation

00:10:05.520 --> 00:10:10.160
at Corsair You know to kind of describe my power point skills at that point in time

00:10:10.880 --> 00:10:15.600
it was black and white and just Bullet points and there was very little else

00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:22.160
I um, I don't think I'd ever seen you really put together a power point at NCIX because I don't think that was ever the expectation

00:10:22.400 --> 00:10:25.920
basically everything was you know, you could

00:10:25.920 --> 00:10:29.920
As long as you can speak coherently for

00:10:29.920 --> 00:10:32.320
Well, let me tell you about after you left

00:10:36.400 --> 00:10:42.000
I'm not going to name any names, but certain MBA holding individuals were were brought in

00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:46.400
which You know, I think was a big part of

00:10:46.400 --> 00:10:49.600
um Our mutual discontentment

00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:54.960
Why certain people felt sort of Disrespected and and looked over

00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:03.200
For for you know, a leadership role within the company and all of a sudden, you know, they were trying to implement address code

00:11:03.760 --> 00:11:09.360
Um, I don't know if I've told you this before but I actually laughed this individual out of my office

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:13.120
When they tried to tell me to take off my earrings and wear clothes to choose

00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:16.320
Like are you are you kidding right now?

00:11:17.520 --> 00:11:22.720
um I mean look you if you want to if you want to get into this with me you can but like

00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:31.200
I'm our star product manager right now So you can either piss me off or you can leave those two options right now

00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:37.040
Um, anyway, um, so poor power points were was my sort of mo so

00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:41.360
I think three weeks in the job. He liked power points. Sorry. That's where I was trying to go with that

00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.480
Okay. Well, yeah for us. It was a little bit more ad hoc

00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:51.360
Like I think we owned our numbers, which is good But it was never anything that was super formally documented just because we weren't processed heavy at that point in time

00:11:52.160 --> 00:11:57.680
um So I go into I go into this like qbr of course, sir and um

00:11:58.640 --> 00:12:03.760
I take a look at the time slots and everybody has like 30 minutes to present and then for me I had three hours

00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:07.360
I was like what I was like, yeah, is this a type of like on sales like it

00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:11.920
Yeah, this is like two three weeks into my job at this point number go up other number go down

00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:15.200
And that's a sort of funny thing. You just kind of took the arrow my sales

00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:18.160
I had the numbers going like this just because I had the most

00:12:18.560 --> 00:12:22.000
Recent quarter as the first column and the oldest quarter at the bottom one

00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:25.200
And then everybody was very appreciative of the presentation

00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:29.040
I think because I think the one thing I took away was this is really good. This is really insightful

00:12:29.040 --> 00:12:32.160
We never understood how Canada worked before and now this totally makes sense

00:12:32.560 --> 00:12:36.160
But one more advice is like yoga should be going the other way it should be up into the right not

00:12:36.880 --> 00:12:42.560
Down into the left or the power rails ended up so that's actually a pretty elementary error. I'm surprised you did that

00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:47.200
I think that was the way that reporting was set up or the data was that's my excuse anyways, but

00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:52.880
Whatever, but what can't you read an x-axis? Yeah, who cares what direction it goes in?

00:12:55.520 --> 00:13:01.280
Oh, yeah developing skills um developing skills over the course of your job is super important and just being professionally curious

00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:06.480
Okay, but what about outside of work? What's your outside of work passion outside of work passion? Um

00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:10.960
As a parent It's parenting

00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:13.440
I don't think you have a a whole lot of other choices are

00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:19.040
Um, so that's sort of the boring answer um before that

00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:23.200
I love my motorcycles. So I think so this is something that Linus knew we got one

00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:29.360
That was probably my big first purchase after entering the workforce. Yeah, you actually advised me on my first bike

00:13:30.160 --> 00:13:37.120
I yeah, I guess you don't remember that the sv 650. Yeah, you were you were sort of um, you were sort of um

00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:40.800
Terse and disinterested about it in your way

00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:45.360
But I showed you to be to be clear. I'm terse and disinterested

00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:49.200
At surface level about most things resting terse face. Yes

00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:58.480
I'll show another story after this which is sort of funny But I uh, I basically knew absolutely nothing and in my in my signature way

00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:05.760
I just kind of got really interested in it all of a sudden and I just I sent you this craigslist post

00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:11.440
And I was like, what about this one? Uh, is this one a good choice? Is it a good price?

00:14:11.760 --> 00:14:16.880
And um, I could I could practically hear the gears grinding in your head going

00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:25.280
Does he really expect me to go into a bunch of like market research on what this particular used bike is worth and its various states of condition?

00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:29.200
Sure. Yeah, it seems like a good starter bike now get out of my office

00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:33.520
Um, and so I I went and I could I didn't have my license yet

00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:40.000
So I went and I I rode bitch on the back while he took me for a test drive with the bike not insured

00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:45.440
Which I'm sure was a great idea And then I bought it and I think had it towed home

00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:50.960
Um, so I I owned it for like months before I actually was able to ride it

00:14:51.680 --> 00:14:54.800
But but in a way you got me into into motorbikes

00:14:55.440 --> 00:15:01.520
Perfect. Um, you were gonna tell me another resting terse face story resting terse. Oh, this was uh, this is my last role at doll

00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:04.560
So, um, I had gotten feedback that I had

00:15:05.280 --> 00:15:11.680
a bit of a Terse expression. Um, so they used the other word though. They did use the other word and then so this story

00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:17.280
so I was so self-conscious about that right just to make sure that I'm

00:15:18.800 --> 00:15:23.600
I have a broader emotional range than zero or one which sometimes seems to be the case

00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:31.760
on non-purpose So I'm having a conversation with my boss and there was something that was relatively serious and thing I I smiled at the end

00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:36.000
And then and then he says something like what's so funny?

00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:41.440
So I go into the story. It's just like look I've been given the feedback in the past that I just like stern

00:15:41.920 --> 00:15:47.280
Angry or whatever else so I try to make note of just, you know, lightning things up a little

00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:51.680
No once in a while just to make sure that everybody feels comfortable around me. I'm not

00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:58.000
Communicating the wrong thing. It's it's not intentional. I'm usually I don't think I'm that serious when people get to know me

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.480
I'm somewhat sarcastic and

00:16:01.360 --> 00:16:06.240
It's a dry humor. It's a dry humor My boss looks at me. This is over zoom

00:16:06.560 --> 00:16:10.080
And then there's just this awkward silence for maybe five or six seconds and he says

00:16:10.640 --> 00:16:16.480
So you just have resting bitch face And I was like, yeah, that's that's exactly it and then there was other you know

00:16:16.880 --> 00:16:21.360
Couple seconds of awkward silence and then we both busted gut. Um, but that was why

00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:27.360
Expressionless expression Yeah

00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:34.400
There are some icebreakers in here, I feel like we've kind of already gotten past that point

00:16:34.400 --> 00:16:37.920
But I also like gaming if we're talking about um things I do

00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:46.240
I just don't game a whole lot anymore because I have no time Yeah, I I tried to get you to add me to steam like way back in the day when I was your subordinate

00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:49.360
And you sort of very reluctantly

00:16:49.840 --> 00:16:55.280
um, we're like K I guess so I have you on steam

00:16:55.280 --> 00:16:59.120
But I think we've only ever actually played games together like once or twice

00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:02.800
We played a bunch. We played left or dead all the time. Did you did you join us often?

00:17:02.800 --> 00:17:07.040
I thought you only joined us a couple times. Yeah, that was probably for that two months period because again not gaming spurts

00:17:07.120 --> 00:17:11.600
I don't yeah, that's fair regularly anymore whereas we would play um, so

00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:16.560
Me one of the other product managers um

00:17:16.560 --> 00:17:20.080
A bunch of members of our forum. We would game like every night

00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:26.640
Yvonne would join us most of the time like that was probably the most intense like gaming period of my life

00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:36.240
Yeah, I don't think gaming was cool back then Well, no, I mean that's that's my whole handle like my my old forum handle closet gamer

00:17:36.560 --> 00:17:44.720
Yeah, because I was like, uh I thought it was really funny because the layout of my bedroom was such that there wasn't really a convenient place to put my computer

00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:51.760
Desk, so I came up with this idea of putting it literally in the closet so that when my chair tucked in

00:17:52.080 --> 00:17:56.240
It was just close because I didn't keep my clothes in my closet. Like why would I do that when the floor is right there?

00:17:56.800 --> 00:18:01.680
um, so I so I had my gaming setup in my closet and I was like, oh, yeah, and like

00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:06.640
I liked I would like to think aspirationally. I would like to think that at school

00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:12.320
I'm a little cooler than like the gamer kids with their like briefcases and whatever else I

00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:16.960
He's a delight. Um, and actually he came to the land at my house

00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:23.120
Um, but there was this guy in our school who was definitely a gamer and definitely didn't use a backpack

00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:27.040
He he carried a briefcase at school um

00:18:27.040 --> 00:18:31.760
Anywho, so I was like, okay, so I'm gonna be like stealth gamer the closet gamer

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:40.320
Yeah, I mean, you know not not anymore. I've other similar story. Um, I used to I used to be a part of the clan back in

00:18:41.040 --> 00:18:45.600
My university days and that definitely wasn't cool at that point. Definitely wasn't cool at that point. Yeah

00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:50.480
um What was sort of cool was we had really random people on our

00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:56.080
In our we played team fortress team fortress classic before tf2. The one was a little bit more serious

00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:59.920
Um, wow, did you see did you see that toxicity?

00:19:01.040 --> 00:19:07.600
You know when it was I I'm being I'm being judgy Do you have to is a gamer casuals now?

00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:18.400
Casuals with hats though casual hats. Yeah Um, no, but we had a lot of random people. We had a guy who was an engineer at GE. So he was like on the stealth bomber program

00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:25.600
um, okay So just really random people from run was a life. There was one guy though who was

00:19:27.840 --> 00:19:30.160
Cool in real life. Um, he was

00:19:31.280 --> 00:19:37.440
popular in school I think we started playing with him when he was high school and then you know, he was

00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:41.040
No, the president of his frat or whatever else when he was at uh,

00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:48.800
boulders boulders boulders state So like actually cool actually cool. Okay. So he was also a classic gamer

00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:53.760
So it was better to tell his friends that he had therapy sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we had

00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:58.160
Clan matches and practices rather than telling him that he had to go play

00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:03.040
Video games on the internet with a bunch of random strangers. I don't know. So that's

00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:10.080
I never told you this one. No. Yeah, so, um, yeah, that's how uncool gaming was back in those days

00:20:11.360 --> 00:20:18.960
And guys like it really was in 2003. I think it was I had my first exposure to esports

00:20:19.520 --> 00:20:24.560
Um, I was on a train and again, this was with a very eclectic mix of people

00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:30.400
But what brought us together was we were doing a french language exchange in kebac for the summer. So, uh, one

00:20:31.120 --> 00:20:37.520
One kid from each household switched households and it was a really cool program. It doesn't exist anymore. Um

00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:48.800
But the government would find you a job So you so the idea was that by forcing you out into the workplace in an anglophone or francophone environment

00:20:49.040 --> 00:20:51.920
You would be language immersed in a way that if you were just like

00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:57.040
Bumming around for the summer you wouldn't and what was cool was the program was free

00:20:57.600 --> 00:21:01.760
And you got to keep the money you made How's your french? Um

00:21:01.760 --> 00:21:07.440
A lot better than it was when I left for the exchange program, but a lot worse than it was, you know, 20 years ago when it finished

00:21:07.840 --> 00:21:09.840
It's a program being shut down

00:21:11.360 --> 00:21:14.640
It was cool it it was it was very cool. Um

00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:19.040
And uh On the train

00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:25.280
I was kind of doing the the get to know you with all the different people in our group and one in particular

00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:32.560
Stood out to me because uh, he he explained that, you know, one of the highlights

00:21:33.520 --> 00:21:40.240
Of his summer or whatever like basically he talked about like a highlight moment for him was uh, was land parties

00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:43.360
And I go, sorry. What's what's a what's a land party?

00:21:43.840 --> 00:21:50.320
And he explains that all your uh, all your friends carry their computers to your house

00:21:50.800 --> 00:21:54.560
And you set up a network and you all game with each other

00:21:55.120 --> 00:22:01.440
And I um, I don't know if there are many times in my life when I have laughed so long

00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:05.760
and so hard Continuously

00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:11.520
We ended up getting along okay, and in fact when we returned from the exchange he built my first computer

00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:18.720
in front of me And then I Took it home took it back apart and well it was still fresh in my mind put it back together

00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:21.360
So he actually got me started on this path

00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:28.160
um, but man when he explained to me competitive gaming and and and land parties

00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:31.760
I just I lost it man. I couldn't I I couldn't I'm like

00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:39.440
So you have a party Where you all have your computers you sit and you look at your computers and that's a party

00:22:40.080 --> 00:22:43.280
he's like Yes

00:22:44.080 --> 00:22:47.200
Okay, sure buddy, and you drink energy drinks

00:22:49.040 --> 00:22:55.920
I know that people travel super far nowadays It's but I know especially for LTX when we had during the summer because we were talking to people

00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:07.520
To me with the guys that I gamed with yeah, I Dragged my giant CRT back in the day just because you know there weren't lcds

00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:12.160
Again, I'm dating myself and nobody series would be playing with it lcd anyways

00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:16.240
Just because of how much ghosting there was back in the day. Yeah, um, so your luggier

00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:20.560
1920 inch CRT that weighed 60 70 pounds through in the back of the car

00:23:20.560 --> 00:23:25.360
I drove down to The bay area or Sacramento more specifically to hang with my gaming buddies

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:30.320
There was no GPS back in the day. So I had my pilot paper with my map quest instructions

00:23:30.800 --> 00:23:35.840
What turn by turn from where I was living seriously. Why wouldn't you just buy a road map?

00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:39.440
I don't know those way any better like you go to AAA

00:23:40.320 --> 00:23:45.680
Yeah, oh man. I was I was like king of having the map open on my steering wheel while driving stick, right?

00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:50.240
Still the king of driving stick with my chief of map quest papers and

00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:56.560
No burger king or whatever it was. Um during the five minute pit stops. So neither of us are um

00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:03.520
You know what? I don't think either of us get in a lot of accidents. No, I'm pretty good. Yeah, okay

00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:10.640
But our habits would probably make you a little nervous. Yeah, okay any who yes, so you were heading to the bay area

00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:16.480
Yeah, uh with the my nine or ten pages of map quest instructions and it was perfectly fine

00:24:17.760 --> 00:24:21.600
There's no internet back then, right? There's no mobile cell phones or whatever. Yeah

00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:28.480
Everything was offline be prepared. I was thinking it would be a really cool video for me to not have a cell phone for a month

00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:34.880
Just like How would we even sir? I can't even I can't even imagine like how did

00:24:35.840 --> 00:24:40.640
If you if you had a coordinated meetup point and one person wasn't there what you just

00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:45.840
You just waited forever or like I don't even remember how life functioned

00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:53.360
There's a lot of text messages and I think because there were fewer distractions. Um, I think people were more reliable back then in terms of

00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:59.600
kind of meeting meeting up That's my impression, but those could be my rose colored classes

00:25:00.560 --> 00:25:05.760
Um, oh Apollo the space fox asks. What's your favorite thing about LMG so far?

00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:11.680
And Conversely, what's your least favorite thing about LMG so far? Yeah, we're going there

00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:16.960
It's pass and answer Is what sorry pass and answer

00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:21.120
though um

00:25:21.120 --> 00:25:24.000
Favorite thing is learning new things. Um, so I know that

00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:32.480
being in The media side of things isn't necessarily always new but video production and how things all sort of work together is

00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:36.080
relatively Is not new to me. Um

00:25:37.120 --> 00:25:42.720
So that that's been a really cool learning experience just to see how I guess the magic happens behind the camera

00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:51.920
All the prep work that gets goes into Ideation before we get into the writing phase and how quickly things come together for things like shoots

00:25:52.320 --> 00:25:56.320
So I think the finished project is not necessarily a representative of

00:25:57.600 --> 00:26:04.080
Well, it should be of all the hardware that goes in the background So I think that that's sort of eye-opening there and I think that I've been very lucky

00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:08.800
with the network that Linus has and speaking to other youtubers and just kind of understanding the

00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:11.680
the trials and tribulations of

00:26:14.800 --> 00:26:25.840
What's the best way to put this how people Try to scale their sort of media empires as uh small business owners. So it's

00:26:27.280 --> 00:26:32.640
The trajectory of how that's happened and um, just you know, hearing everybody's sort of creation stories

00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:36.720
That's really neat for me. Just because I think that was something that was um, also

00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:40.960
That I've been professionally curious about especially in the IT industry

00:26:41.360 --> 00:26:45.360
A lot of the people that we had worked with in the past that had they had their own creation stories

00:26:45.360 --> 00:26:50.320
So there were refugees from you know, vietnam that have started, you know, large computer chains. Um

00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:53.520
The owner of n6 he was you know, china

00:26:54.240 --> 00:27:01.040
I don't know assembly line to Create a large retailer in canada. So there's been a lot of very influential people that have come out of

00:27:01.600 --> 00:27:06.240
I guess Nowhere. Yeah, we replace us. So just to hear some of these stories are sort of neat

00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:15.280
Yeah, that's something that I find is a common thread with almost every youtuber I I meet especially like the the old school ones

00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:18.560
Is I mean like look at mr. Beast. He literally just

00:27:20.080 --> 00:27:24.000
Kept throwing spaghetti at the wall absolute nobody said a goal

00:27:24.560 --> 00:27:29.680
Did it and I'm not saying that just because you follow the same path. You will have the same success. He's obviously

00:27:31.760 --> 00:27:34.480
Extraordinarily talented, um, but

00:27:36.320 --> 00:27:39.520
He didn't he didn't just like raise venture capital

00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:45.680
And and and just you know become a media empire. He was just a guy

00:27:46.080 --> 00:27:50.400
Um and almost everyone I meet who's like that their story is riveting

00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:54.960
um All right, let's uh

00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:02.960
Um greed asks um, what's your rig specs right now and what would you most like to upgrade about it?

00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:07.680
Is it bad if I say I don't 100% remember

00:28:09.600 --> 00:28:16.240
No All right, it's valid one of my old coworkers helped me build a rig just because I didn't have time to do it

00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:21.200
And he had a lot of spare parts. So I think I've a I'd like to say 3,800 x

00:28:23.360 --> 00:28:28.400
As a CPU, um, I got somebody hooked me up with a 600 x t

00:28:29.360 --> 00:28:33.680
32 gates of memory One or two terabytes of

00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:37.360
So basically your classic, um, you know 1080p plus

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:47.360
Yeah Your your your classic whatever whatever, you know falls off the the demo the demo track. Yeah rig. Yep. Got it

00:28:47.360 --> 00:28:50.480
I'm not happy with the case. It's it's hot. The airflow isn't really good

00:28:51.680 --> 00:29:00.640
So on that note We will be running another reddit poll this time not with questions for our ceo, but this time

00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:06.080
With suggestions for what kind of computer we should build for our ceo

00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:10.000
So this is going to be similar to the Linus needs a new phone poll

00:29:10.080 --> 00:29:14.480
We'll be asking you guys to come up with a style and theme for the pc

00:29:15.040 --> 00:29:17.760
That taren will use here at the office

00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:23.520
And it should be based kind of on you know, some of our conversations in this interview and also if you guys have some

00:29:24.320 --> 00:29:27.920
Fun ideas to be clear. We're looking for a theme or style

00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:35.520
Not the you know spec I mean be funny to give them an optiplex with like a first gen core i5 or whatever

00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:41.920
Um We're more looking for like what a theme of a ceo setup should be

00:29:42.560 --> 00:29:45.200
And then we're going to pick hardware that goes well with it

00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:53.440
We have a match max budget of xxxx. It is apparently undecided right now. Thank you very much elijah. These are good. That's good

00:29:54.480 --> 00:29:56.480
We'll put that in the reddit post

00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:02.880
But you know, it'll have similar specs to our standard hardware, but in terms of decorations or stuff

00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:08.720
Um, we want to stay within like a reasonable budget So we're not going to do like the hundred thousand dollar desk pc 2.0

00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:12.240
But I you know, I think you should have something you know, you know nice

00:30:12.800 --> 00:30:17.760
Um, and then number three is be appropriate. This is an office space and the video is going to go up on youtube

00:30:17.760 --> 00:30:24.640
So it's got to be safe for work and non political. Uh, we're going to pick the best theme after about one week from the posting date and

00:30:25.760 --> 00:30:29.440
If something that we can do and follow us the guidelines, we will build it for a video

00:30:30.320 --> 00:30:35.280
Oh, okay. No, if it's something we can do. Yeah, no, we're definitely going to pick something that we can build for a video elijah

00:30:35.280 --> 00:30:38.720
I'm not we're not going to pick something that's like too stupid to be a video

00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:43.680
So, yeah, that's something you can look forward to you'll come in one morning

00:30:43.840 --> 00:30:50.400
Um, you know, maybe after like a like a remote work, you know stint and then you'll arrive in the office and it'll be

00:30:50.880 --> 00:30:52.880
CEOed out for you

00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:59.760
And maybe you'll like it even maybe Um

00:30:59.840 --> 00:31:08.800
Oh, this is a good one From whizbiz o2 with LTT being so diverse in its products channels and

00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:14.480
general ambitions What struggles do you foresee with expanding such a diverse?

00:31:15.600 --> 00:31:18.640
business um

00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:20.640
Getting focused and making sure that we

00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:27.120
Know what brings us value over the longer term Um, I think that's been one of the things that has been

00:31:28.320 --> 00:31:31.760
Difficult, uh, just in terms of where we want to put resources. Um

00:31:32.560 --> 00:31:35.760
You know, the the cheesy line that I've told the team is basically we can do

00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:40.240
Anything, uh, but what should we be doing just because I think it's a

00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:43.200
sloppy answer to say, oh, yeah

00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:50.160
It's easy to run a business without focus. Um, and I think at some point in time you just stagnate and it makes it very

00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:52.880
difficult

00:31:55.040 --> 00:32:03.040
Um, so Just getting just getting understanding in terms of what the strategy needs to look like. Uh, we're people's

00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:11.840
Ambition and passions lie. I think has been a lot of the the groundwork that ideally we would have like to done in the first few months without

00:32:12.560 --> 00:32:17.600
All the outside distractions. So I think we have a good idea in terms of direction that we want and

00:32:18.160 --> 00:32:21.120
We'll start leaning in I think over the next six months or a year

00:32:24.160 --> 00:32:30.240
Yeah, I think that's a really nice way of saying that, uh, we were managed by someone with a severe case of ADHD

00:32:34.320 --> 00:32:36.320
I appreciate the tact. Um

00:32:37.680 --> 00:32:44.160
Uh Oh, this is a good one from techie taco if you'd been ceo of LTT from the beginning

00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:47.120
How different do you think it would be from what it is today?

00:32:48.320 --> 00:32:52.880
I Don't know if it would be

00:32:53.120 --> 00:32:55.360
all that different in some ways. I think, um

00:32:56.320 --> 00:33:03.120
for me, it's been good to have Been in several different roles because I think there's a lot of takeaways that you get from every sort of organization

00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:06.240
in terms of how things operate and it kind of helps you

00:33:09.760 --> 00:33:15.120
Understand or hone what's possible or how things should be done. So I think having come from fairly similar backgrounds

00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:22.080
I'm not sure that Things would be much more organized based off of not how we did things in the past

00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:29.840
So I think it's probably a blessing that I didn't immediately hop here. Um, I guess that's true. Our our work history is not

00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:34.240
Really that different no, I mean, um

00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:39.440
Like other than in between while I was doing LMG and kind of insulated here. Yeah, you were

00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:44.880
doing other things You know, one thing I I told a lot of my

00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:51.680
Old coworkers about was I In some ways, I wish I went to an organization like Dell much earlier in my career

00:33:51.760 --> 00:33:58.720
Just because it teaches you how to be Much more organized and how you should think about scale and how you should think about team structure and everything else

00:33:59.120 --> 00:34:02.480
So for me, that was a super super valuable experience. Even though that was you know

00:34:03.760 --> 00:34:06.720
A little bit shy of two years. Um, so I I think

00:34:07.280 --> 00:34:10.240
Yeah, make sure there are takeaways from every single role that you take just because um

00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:13.840
If you're not learning then there's probably a bit of an issue

00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:19.120
This question is one of the most common says the notes from Elijah

00:34:20.080 --> 00:34:23.760
How do you handle the shareholder

00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:28.160
minus an evan boss of ceo taran boss of

00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:32.960
employee Linus relationship. Is there a safe word?

00:34:33.600 --> 00:34:38.000
Do you just do you just escalate to evan when you have a problem with me?

00:34:38.080 --> 00:34:43.280
Apparently a lot of people have asked this. Oh, um, I think I just tell you whenever a problem with you. Um

00:34:44.720 --> 00:34:49.280
It's Is that bad? You're you're sort of chuckling about the way you deliver that. Um

00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:59.840
I think there were there. I don't know. There were more concerns at the beginning I think part of why I took this is because I didn't think this would be a long-term issue. Um, and this isn't me brown nosing

00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:02.800
Um, I don't know that sounded like a threat to me. Yeah

00:35:05.840 --> 00:35:13.040
Okay, the thing I appreciate about Linus and evan is they're very pragmatic. So I don't really think there's any sort of conversation that's

00:35:14.160 --> 00:35:18.480
um You know the third rail that we we can't approach. Um

00:35:19.600 --> 00:35:22.560
And conversely, I think they both solicit a lot of feedback. So

00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:27.040
It's it's been fine. Um, I think it feels a little bit weird sometimes

00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:32.080
Just in terms of how involved both of them can be from a day-to-day perspective. Um,

00:35:32.640 --> 00:35:37.760
I don't know how well the audience knows about but she's incredibly detail-oriented and that's something I really really appreciate about her

00:35:38.160 --> 00:35:41.440
um, she can insert himself into a situation and

00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:47.360
Understand most of the indents out much quicker than anybody else I've met inside my career

00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:52.160
So that's something that's a massive massive skill that she has. Um, and for you, I mean

00:35:52.960 --> 00:36:00.720
I don't know dragon energy Dragon energy your quick to point out things. You're not happy about I think I can read you relatively well just in terms of things

00:36:00.720 --> 00:36:07.200
that are bugging you um And again, I don't think I really hold back when I tell you I don't think so tell you things that

00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:11.200
Don't work me or that I think it needs to be on your radar. So I mean

00:36:11.600 --> 00:36:16.400
I think this worked out the reality of it is that, you know, every problem taren identifies is

00:36:17.040 --> 00:36:23.040
um kind of you know For better or for worse, you know, I was I was the guy in charge

00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:26.000
You know when this whole issue developed, right? So

00:36:26.640 --> 00:36:31.840
Um, I don't think you've I don't think you've held back from just having honest conversations about that

00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:35.360
so And I I like to think I have

00:36:36.560 --> 00:36:44.160
You know on the one hand, you know been open to hearing it But on the other hand acknowledge that realistically, you know, the reason you're here is because I didn't know how to solve it

00:36:44.240 --> 00:36:47.760
So, um, yes, I'm glad we're having this conversation, but please fix it

00:36:48.640 --> 00:36:52.560
no hundred percent and um, I think the The

00:36:52.560 --> 00:36:57.600
The guardrails are pretty loose at this point in time. So again, it's been super refreshing and a little bit scary

00:36:57.600 --> 00:37:02.240
Just in terms of how open liners and bottom up and it was just like, how do you want to do this? It's like, well

00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:06.960
How much money can I spend? or something, uh, you know

00:37:07.600 --> 00:37:11.120
Equally in need from my side in terms of questions. So, um

00:37:12.960 --> 00:37:17.680
I hope that answers the question Um, okay. I mean there was a bit of a follow-up

00:37:17.680 --> 00:37:21.120
How do you handle saying no when someone comes up with an idea or a decision?

00:37:21.120 --> 00:37:24.400
I guess this could be this could be not just from, you know, me or evan

00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:28.080
But this could be, you know from someone internally. How do you how do you see no?

00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:32.640
Um, by making sure that everybody's aligned in terms of what the point of view is

00:37:32.880 --> 00:37:36.240
Um, I think that's one thing I also coached on in the past is like don't

00:37:37.360 --> 00:37:41.680
It's good to be forward with people but just don't say no and just kind of leave out that kind of like how I answer the

00:37:41.920 --> 00:37:46.480
Hey, you said read your new pc bill. That's good magically period office. I could probably handle that a bit better

00:37:47.200 --> 00:37:55.440
um But it's understanding where the person's coming from and kind of walking them through their thoughts and you know trying to

00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:00.320
For a lot of better term inception them into the answer that you want them to come through so it's

00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:03.360
That makes it sound a lot more evil than I think it is

00:38:05.040 --> 00:38:09.360
Inception them. Inception them. Yeah, I was just watching a lot on Netflix the other day. So that's why

00:38:10.080 --> 00:38:12.080
Um

00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:17.840
But yeah, I think what you're trying to say is reach a consensus reach a consensus

00:38:18.560 --> 00:38:23.200
next question We hear a lot of the bad about ncix and why they failed

00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:27.920
But is there anything at ncix that you thought actually worked really well and you would want to implement at LMG?

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:31.040
This is from zata 21. I think we had a really tight team

00:38:31.120 --> 00:38:38.800
I think that was the one thing that I really really appreciated Especially the the core team that we had so I mean obviously all of you are familiar with Linus

00:38:39.680 --> 00:38:43.280
I don't know if everybody knows that I didn't need a cameraman or we should just refer to cameraman

00:38:43.520 --> 00:38:47.040
He's respectfully asked me to not disclose his name

00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:53.280
So cameraman was also part of that group and you know the manager that we uh that we keep on referring to I think though

00:38:54.320 --> 00:39:00.080
One of the the ways I described him before is he's a person I learned the most from um back at the last stage of my life in terms of

00:39:01.280 --> 00:39:05.840
Things to do and things a hundred percent not to do both in a professional as well as the social setting

00:39:06.240 --> 00:39:11.120
Um I don't think he would object to that no that description

00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:14.880
I think I told him that to his face as well probably you've probably told him that to his face multiple times

00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:18.400
I think I've told him that to his face multiple times. I'm I'm still in touch

00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:22.240
You know, he's someone that I I you know, yeah

00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:31.280
Same thing um taught me so much Grand a lot of good things. Yeah, great pitch person. Um, you know the boundaries that he had uh

00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:34.560
when no liquor got involved that was when

00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:38.800
It was a bit of a coin toss. I didn't get as exposed to that

00:39:39.200 --> 00:39:43.840
I think just um, you know, because I I'm a bit of a I'm a bit of a dry

00:39:44.560 --> 00:39:46.560
influence like I I don't

00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:52.080
I I feel like it's it's harder to really, you know, get completely wasted

00:39:52.560 --> 00:39:57.440
When there's someone kind of sitting there not drinking at all just being sort of a wet blanket over everything

00:39:57.520 --> 00:40:00.880
Oh, it's terrible being the silver person with a bunch of drugs. Well, it's like

00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:07.040
I don't know. I mean the other way around as well Like it seems like it's not as much fun to drink around me because I'm just sort of boring

00:40:07.200 --> 00:40:12.640
But I don't know. Maybe that's just a vibe that I got and it was my own insecurities that I am projecting or whatever

00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:18.560
I think you're projecting. Okay. Yeah, sure fine Um, either way, I didn't get I didn't get exposed to that as much

00:40:18.640 --> 00:40:26.240
So maybe it was just less of an issue for me And I think it was a lot of things sort of not to do as well just at n6. Um, like no one where your limits are

00:40:26.880 --> 00:40:31.040
professionally and allowing people who should know better to sort of deal with those responsibilities

00:40:31.120 --> 00:40:34.480
I think um delegation is something that's incredibly difficult

00:40:35.200 --> 00:40:38.560
In organizations all sizes um

00:40:38.560 --> 00:40:43.440
so Yeah, I think that would be what we want here just a very tight core team

00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:47.920
I'm making sure that no, these are people that you like in respect. So one of says these kind of weird

00:40:49.120 --> 00:40:54.480
Projections about how I didn't want to engage with them or whatever else a problem annoying, but I don't think that was true at all

00:40:54.560 --> 00:41:02.160
or somebody that I thought was really good. Okay. I just I it's funny you um in your own way

00:41:02.240 --> 00:41:08.080
You taught me a lot of things as well Like I still remember our road trip when you made a comment to me at some point and it was like

00:41:08.720 --> 00:41:11.680
You know, you don't have to fill every moment of dead air with talking

00:41:13.040 --> 00:41:19.440
Because I was just sort of nervously Chattering and we were driving so much that it kind of went on forever

00:41:19.680 --> 00:41:24.000
um Wasn't tactful, but it was

00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:28.560
Something I hadn't thought about before I'm

00:41:28.560 --> 00:41:33.440
I'm more of an introvert than I'm extrovert. I can be social at times, but it takes a lot out of me

00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:38.240
so when there's expectation to fill the air with like small talk or whatever I just become

00:41:39.040 --> 00:41:44.800
withdrawn and awkward and Probably a little bit more snippy in there. I probably should be so that's my excuse

00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:51.600
Yeah, I I I feel like that's something that we see a lot in this industry is we have people who are gamers

00:41:52.560 --> 00:41:56.080
Tech enthusiasts. Uh, well, I feel like there's almost like two funnels

00:41:56.480 --> 00:42:02.560
Like there's the funnel of the business people who force themselves to learn a little bit of tech so that they don't look like complete idiots

00:42:02.560 --> 00:42:10.080
When they're talking to the people who come from the other funnel Where they're tech people who force themselves to learn social skills so that they can interact with the other people

00:42:10.560 --> 00:42:14.640
And I feel like we see that type

00:42:14.640 --> 00:42:20.480
A lot where I feel like this is something that I go through as well as people assume that I'm very extroverted and I

00:42:20.640 --> 00:42:23.680
Enjoy socializing when actually I'm not really a people person

00:42:24.160 --> 00:42:29.760
And I like the first thing I did once I had my own company is I stopped schmoozing more than I absolutely had to

00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:37.280
um Which is something he always he and our and our other and our boss, uh, rode me about was like

00:42:38.160 --> 00:42:42.000
you need to like

00:42:42.320 --> 00:42:44.320
Filled relationships with people. I'm like, uh

00:42:47.680 --> 00:42:50.160
I still think that's true. No, you're still right

00:42:53.440 --> 00:43:00.960
You're still right um Bob Martin asks would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:05.520
Uh, the one horse-sized duck really? Yeah

00:43:06.560 --> 00:43:10.240
Huh, I don't have the stamina to like fight a hundred hundred ducks are there

00:43:10.960 --> 00:43:16.960
Like what the hell? Okay. All right, that's fair um, you just have to line one lucky hit with the giant duck with

00:43:17.600 --> 00:43:21.360
This you have to be able to keep out for god knows how long um

00:43:21.360 --> 00:43:28.480
George asks when you look back on your career What decisions would you go back and make 100 of the time again?

00:43:32.160 --> 00:43:36.560
Um, I don't think a lot of regrets just in terms of the way that I've um, sort of

00:43:37.520 --> 00:43:39.520
Vote my career. I think the way that I've

00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:45.920
Again, you know, I sort of joked about um, how I was probably a little bit too

00:43:46.720 --> 00:43:54.240
Stone-faced or a little bit non-emotional at times. There was things I probably would have handled differently just in terms of um

00:43:54.800 --> 00:44:02.240
Engaging with my team Engaging other people the amount the way I push back, right? Uh, the previous question was how do you say no to people?

00:44:02.560 --> 00:44:09.760
um Without saying no and no that half joke was you know, make sure you understand their position. Uh, one of the challenges I had was

00:44:12.080 --> 00:44:18.000
I thought I knew the answer most of the time so I could keep things relatively short just because I think that one thing that

00:44:18.720 --> 00:44:26.080
also comes across with me is I It feels like a hurry through things. Um, and it's not intentional. I don't I don't think I

00:44:27.120 --> 00:44:32.800
Don't give people time But I also want to make sure that the conversation is moving on at a reasonable clip

00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:38.000
So I think I've been too short with some people in my life even though that hasn't necessarily been the intent

00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:41.360
um, but I think most of the decisions that I've made have been

00:44:42.240 --> 00:44:46.480
for the most part correct just because even after our vacated roles, um

00:44:46.880 --> 00:44:49.200
No, we would stay the course in that direction. So

00:44:50.080 --> 00:44:54.560
To me that sort of validates the the business approach in terms of how things were supposed to go

00:44:54.880 --> 00:45:02.240
But maybe not so much the human approach We got kind of lucky that ncix was leadership light. I think both of us

00:45:03.040 --> 00:45:07.680
I think so, um They gave us a lot of rope there as well just in terms of how to

00:45:08.640 --> 00:45:10.640
I guess run the business or to kind of

00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:18.160
No playing that sandbox the way that we will I I wanted more guidance sometimes, but it just uh didn't exist

00:45:18.640 --> 00:45:21.440
Yeah, I I remember talking to you about my first shuttle po

00:45:22.160 --> 00:45:26.560
and I was like Do I have the mix right like what comparable should I be looking at?

00:45:26.560 --> 00:45:31.920
Can I get access to this other report so I can see the Intel AMD mix and chipsets and and what about price points?

00:45:31.920 --> 00:45:37.360
We haven't because because I was bringing in a palette of these mini PCs and we effectively have been selling like

00:45:38.080 --> 00:45:42.720
To a month on special order from distributors at terrible pricing. So we were going direct with shuttle

00:45:42.720 --> 00:45:46.960
They were gonna just we were gonna have better pricing. We were gonna have access to the whole lineup and

00:45:47.600 --> 00:45:51.440
You said something along the lines that I like gave you my whole spiel and you said something along the lines of like

00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:56.720
Linus, it's like $50,000. Who cares? It's fine. You'll sell through it. I was like

00:45:57.520 --> 00:45:59.760
Okay, but you didn't look at my product mix at all

00:46:00.560 --> 00:46:07.360
Good luck, everybody And so it what it did was it forced me to do the critical thinking on my own which

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:13.200
Works for me, but may not have been great for everybody else. Yeah, why did I bring you in here to lead after?

00:46:14.640 --> 00:46:17.680
I think you sort of stole the words out of my mouth in terms of critical thinking

00:46:18.160 --> 00:46:22.240
Just because there were a lot of things that I think we developed intuitively

00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:28.400
I know that people are probably You know cringering right now who have like a product management like a merchandising background

00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:32.560
Just in terms of how you do analytics or whatever else, but I remember there's a high degree of

00:46:33.520 --> 00:46:38.080
discomfort when we started No suggesting things like category management. It's like look we have

00:46:38.800 --> 00:46:41.200
10 different memory lines here. So it would behoove us to

00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:44.240
At least somewhat coordinate with each other rather than have this

00:46:45.520 --> 00:46:49.680
No, no modal gp or f1 approach where the first person you want to be is your teammate or whatever else, right?

00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:53.520
I think that was almost an environment that was fostered in some ways in terms of how we distributed the lines

00:46:53.760 --> 00:47:00.800
Just to make sure there was a healthy amount of internal competition It could be messy sometimes because if Taren did a big buy on like a Corsair

00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:08.560
ddr2 skew and then He's still got 90% of that inventory and we're planning to promo it on, you know x day

00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:11.280
And then one of the other p.m. Ah, okay. Let's say I

00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:16.240
Do a buy on an ocz skew that is, you know, slightly higher spec

00:47:16.320 --> 00:47:24.960
But probably more likely to fail at the same price And then we have to like go and put those up against each other if I went and I bought like 50 units

00:47:25.120 --> 00:47:27.120
And he bought 500 units

00:47:28.240 --> 00:47:31.040
And then I'm undermining his deal

00:47:31.680 --> 00:47:40.240
That's really bad. Um Because all of a sudden we're going to sell through my 50 and sell through like 20 of his 500 and then we're stuck with, you know

00:47:40.720 --> 00:47:45.440
Hundreds of units of inventory that are now harder to sell less is in disruption. So um, yeah

00:47:49.680 --> 00:47:53.760
So, uh, yeah, we did all right, but there were definitely some challenges

00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:57.280
Was taking this position a hard decision

00:47:58.800 --> 00:48:00.800
Asks paranoia 2k

00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:09.600
That's semi-ironic, uh, I don't know if it was a hard decision, but there's definitely, um

00:48:10.960 --> 00:48:13.120
No challenges, uh, I did the

00:48:14.080 --> 00:48:18.240
move from canada to the us maybe just under 10 years ago and you know

00:48:19.520 --> 00:48:24.080
It's much more simple early in your life to pack up things and unbox and move to a different part of the country

00:48:24.080 --> 00:48:30.320
Or to a different country. Um, I think I'm in a very privileged position where um when I'm moving, you know, there's a

00:48:32.240 --> 00:48:37.680
There's a job already here for me. So it's much less scary to do something about than other people who have to do it for

00:48:39.280 --> 00:48:42.480
I guess sustenance reasons if that's fair. Um

00:48:43.840 --> 00:48:49.200
I think that was something that there needed to be a lot of alignment with just because um, you know, my wife has her own career

00:48:49.920 --> 00:48:56.080
Um, my son was born in the u.s. Um, so it's just trying to figure out the trade-offs, right? What kind of environment that we want to bring out and

00:48:57.520 --> 00:49:01.760
Whether I want to deal with vancouver weather with our 10 fetus no outside and

00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:08.480
Bitter cold over the last week Um, or stay in sunny california. So, uh, I don't know what's a hard decision

00:49:08.560 --> 00:49:15.600
It's just kind of weighing where we want to be over the next Call it, you know 10 15 years or whatever else and what kind of environment that we want want to bring your kid up

00:49:17.040 --> 00:49:19.040
um

00:49:20.160 --> 00:49:23.760
Thermo Says, how do you think the company?

00:49:24.560 --> 00:49:28.720
Is handling the announcement of you joining and the transition

00:49:31.280 --> 00:49:35.840
So this is wow, you have to do like a like a self job evaluation. Yeah, we should probably do a poll

00:49:36.640 --> 00:49:43.200
A live poll to the company. It's like, hey Does what he say jive? Um, I think it's been good so far. Um

00:49:44.480 --> 00:49:48.560
Again, the the things I appreciated about my last couple roles was um

00:49:49.040 --> 00:49:54.160
you know Some level mentorship some level coaching and those are some of the things I want to bring in just the

00:49:54.880 --> 00:49:58.960
Different perspectives from the outside. So, you know, I've been billed as a corporate person or whatever else

00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:03.040
I'm not sure that there's a characterization that I would have on myself nor would that

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:08.320
Or would that be the managers that I have been reporting to over the last few years

00:50:08.800 --> 00:50:12.720
Just because I think that's one of the things is like you're probably a little bit too loose and you probably need to be a

00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:19.760
little bit more serious I think what I can do is bring in a different perspective and sort of challenge status quo internally. Um

00:50:20.480 --> 00:50:23.520
So, yeah, is there probably some moments of discomfort from

00:50:24.480 --> 00:50:27.840
The staff internally probably but I I think I try to make this as

00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:33.520
Accessible and understandable as possible in terms of the directional pushing in I mean it at the beginning

00:50:33.600 --> 00:50:36.320
he was mostly just to fly on the wall and it wasn't until

00:50:37.120 --> 00:50:40.080
everything hit the fan um a few months ago that

00:50:40.640 --> 00:50:45.040
he was kind of forced to Figure out how to

00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:49.600
And like I mean honestly, no no offense intended

00:50:49.680 --> 00:50:52.800
It it ended up following a little bit more on me to

00:50:53.200 --> 00:51:01.040
Guide things for better or for worse because you were like fresh on the job and I think the media side of it was too new

00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:04.800
And not to cut you off, but I think

00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:10.000
If you come in and start making changes right away without understanding the problem

00:51:10.080 --> 00:51:12.640
I think that undermines, you know, one's credibility

00:51:13.680 --> 00:51:18.960
Right away just because I'm not going to pretend that I understand everything today. I'm still learning at this point in time

00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:24.480
I think I've a I'm starting to form pains in terms of how things should be done or where there are gaps, but it's

00:51:26.160 --> 00:51:29.280
It's been sort of lighter touch to some degree

00:51:30.720 --> 00:51:35.040
For a reason just because um Before we do anything, you know

00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:46.160
Good or stupid. No understand what the problem looks like first Valkyr og asks what is something from your childhood that you still hold true to this day?

00:51:46.560 --> 00:51:49.360
Like whether it's like like a like a life lesson

00:51:53.680 --> 00:51:57.840
Um Loyalty to friends. I think that's something that's um

00:51:58.960 --> 00:52:04.880
That's very important making sure that know you uh associate with people that share similar values as you do

00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:10.480
just because uh, those are going to be I guess the grinding points later on in your life. I don't lose perspective

00:52:11.120 --> 00:52:14.160
in terms of where you came from

00:52:14.160 --> 00:52:18.160
I think that my no, um, you know, because he was a

00:52:19.120 --> 00:52:22.400
particularly difficult childhood or whatever, but um

00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:27.520
No, we had to work for things as a kid really hard just because uh

00:52:28.640 --> 00:52:33.280
being Why am I zero generation immigrant into canada?

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:38.880
Uh, I wasn't born here. So that's zero. So you were are you worried? I was not so that's first

00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:43.760
I don't I don't know exactly how the rules work. I actually didn't know you weren't born here

00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:49.600
I should know that I probably knew that at some point. I probably forgot. Yeah, so um, no making sure that you're

00:52:50.560 --> 00:52:57.840
You're making peace and making friends. I think that was one tough thing and uh, just having I guess different expectations from family versus

00:52:58.640 --> 00:53:02.480
I guess what you see externally if those were things that stuck with me, you know

00:53:04.240 --> 00:53:06.240
What's your favorite LTT merch?

00:53:07.920 --> 00:53:11.200
I mean, you're wearing the wan hoodie, but I'm wearing the wan hoodie. I really like the t-shirts

00:53:12.080 --> 00:53:14.080
Um, that's a good finger feel

00:53:16.640 --> 00:53:21.360
The technical term is hand feel but sure it has a good finger feel. That's uh, you know what we're gonna use that

00:53:21.360 --> 00:53:26.560
Yeah, that's comes that's that's top down. That's top down. It's now finger feel for the entire company

00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:34.640
I didn't deal. I didn't deal with garment the garment industry ever Uh, I'm proud of this. Yeah, neither did we well, we have people that have experience now

00:53:34.640 --> 00:53:37.520
But like like nick and I don't come from that background

00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:40.880
Um

00:53:43.040 --> 00:53:48.880
Yeah, I'm gonna maybe not do that one jacob welsh asks do either of you regret anything you said at the roast

00:53:51.040 --> 00:53:54.080
I get reminded about it, but I was like did I see that? Um

00:53:56.160 --> 00:53:58.800
I was a hard to manage to the roast. I'm gonna be the first one to admit this

00:53:59.440 --> 00:54:02.960
I think james was my point of contact at that point in time. I basically ghosted him for like

00:54:04.160 --> 00:54:07.680
However long that took like I don't know when you guys first emailed me. I said, yeah, I'll do it

00:54:08.080 --> 00:54:11.040
and then every every couple weeks or whatever it was is like

00:54:11.200 --> 00:54:14.560
Hey, can I help you review your script? And then I think I was making him really nervous because I had

00:54:14.960 --> 00:54:17.600
Absolutely nothing up until like the day before or whatever when I just

00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:21.520
Sort of did pen to paper. It's like, well, these are the things that I'm going to talk about

00:54:23.040 --> 00:54:26.080
What was sort of funny was uh the process in terms of what you do a roast

00:54:26.080 --> 00:54:29.360
So I watched a few roasts before that just to kind of understand what was

00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:33.680
permissible or whatever else and then it was like, oh, this is just opposition research

00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:39.520
You just go pick the worst things about every single person and exaggerate to some degree and that seemed to have uh

00:54:40.160 --> 00:54:42.480
You know hit some people the wrong way to put it mildly

00:54:44.800 --> 00:54:50.400
But no it was fun Yeah, we won't we're not going to talk about who may or may not have had their feelings hurt. Um

00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:56.960
I don't know. It's a roast, you know. Anyway, um to be clear. I knew none of those people except for Linus

00:54:56.960 --> 00:54:59.920
So it's just like I didn't think that my words would hurt

00:55:00.640 --> 00:55:07.120
So I'm I'm sorry Yeah, and apparently your your your b-face is more than just resting

00:55:08.080 --> 00:55:13.600
Yeah um No key though the one and only time stamp guy

00:55:14.240 --> 00:55:20.160
Submitted a question for us. Um, what's your favorite tech advancement? I assume kind of more recent

00:55:20.480 --> 00:55:23.040
That has rebirthed your interest in the field

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:26.000
Recent tech and yeah, what are you excited about?

00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:29.840
Um

00:55:33.200 --> 00:55:36.960
I thought that vr was pretty cool um

00:55:36.960 --> 00:55:41.360
See you can tell neither of us were cool, right? Sorry because we think vr is cool

00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:49.280
you know, um, it's It was interesting. Uh, just in terms of just uh, I guess the gaming experience

00:55:49.280 --> 00:55:53.360
So just you can get from it and some of the immersion stuff. I mean, it's

00:55:55.200 --> 00:55:57.200
Someone feels a little bit a little bit, um

00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:03.840
Contrived I don't know if everybody remembers way back in the day when you first got your cd rom and then it's like

00:56:03.840 --> 00:56:10.880
Oh, look at all these all this Shareware shit that they give to you and then it's like, okay. Well, I could potentially see a use case of this

00:56:10.880 --> 00:56:18.320
Is a lot more polished. Um But you sort of understood the direction they were sort of they were going in. Um, I would say that

00:56:18.640 --> 00:56:22.000
vr is sort of like that where it's like, okay, this could be really cool if

00:56:22.720 --> 00:56:24.720
the scope and the breadth was

00:56:26.960 --> 00:56:31.360
More I don't know if aspirational is the right word, but it just it doesn't feel polished enough today

00:56:31.440 --> 00:56:35.680
I think something like half like alex. That was really really cool. Um

00:56:36.240 --> 00:56:38.480
Some of it was a little bit janky like how you moved or whatever about

00:56:39.440 --> 00:56:41.760
Um, you could see where they would be sort of going

00:56:43.040 --> 00:56:46.400
Yeah, there's um, there's a cool. Um, I forget the company

00:56:47.200 --> 00:56:51.280
Shift something, uh, I can't remember but they have these cool new controllers

00:56:51.760 --> 00:56:56.080
That you hold and then you just kind of flip back and they lock at the back

00:56:56.160 --> 00:57:01.200
So you can like take a drink of water and like take a second and not be in vr for a minute

00:57:01.280 --> 00:57:05.920
And then flip back so that it's easier to get in and out. That's is that the video where you look like star-lord

00:57:06.720 --> 00:57:15.200
Uh, uh, yeah, that's adam actually. So his face is so obscured that he could be any generic white guy got it racist. Um

00:57:16.480 --> 00:57:21.680
But yeah, super super cool. Uh, and I at stuff like that like one of the big things for me is the

00:57:22.160 --> 00:57:30.560
Is the difficulty of social experiences with vr. We actually did. Um, we had a really fun games night a long time ago

00:57:31.200 --> 00:57:36.560
uh, where we I Sometimes I get sort of too ambitious about things. Yeah

00:57:37.920 --> 00:57:43.200
It's a problem I have so it was supposed to be a simple games night and it was like, oh, let's play Pictionary and I was like

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Let's play Pictionary

00:57:47.840 --> 00:57:49.840
With tilt brush

00:57:50.960 --> 00:57:59.600
So, um by this point, I think we were already at the uh in the LMG office here, but maybe barely

00:58:00.240 --> 00:58:04.800
And uh, I had a tv in a computer in my living room with vr already. Oh, yeah, yeah

00:58:04.880 --> 00:58:10.960
No, we would have been here for sure because uh, it was with the vibe. Yeah, so it was set up. Yeah, so I was like

00:58:11.920 --> 00:58:19.360
I need to get another open space So I lifted up the light fixture in my dining room and put another vr pc there

00:58:19.360 --> 00:58:22.560
We put like some kind of barrier so that we could have a second vr headset there

00:58:22.720 --> 00:58:26.080
And I put a tv in my dining room and then we had two teams

00:58:26.640 --> 00:58:29.520
So the people on the chair watching you draw

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:36.240
Were on chairs or couches depending on which room they were in and then the tv was the vr view

00:58:37.040 --> 00:58:40.080
and then the person in vr had like the

00:58:40.960 --> 00:58:44.800
You know the wand and was and was drawing and it was super cool and it was really fun

00:58:45.840 --> 00:58:51.520
But the changeover like I basically just had to be you know that guy at the vr arcade

00:58:51.920 --> 00:58:56.800
Who helps people in and out of the headset and helps get me adjusted and stuff like that makes it

00:58:58.080 --> 00:59:02.560
Really challenging Look, there's a couple things. Um

00:59:03.760 --> 00:59:10.640
I still have a a quest one So it's a little bit heavy the the optics aren't super good. Uh just because you still have that

00:59:11.120 --> 00:59:19.600
Was it the screen door effect or whatever? So those aren't ideal. So they're still I'm looking forward to those like current generation stuff to see how much that's improved

00:59:19.920 --> 00:59:23.440
and the reason why I gave vr as an answer is sometimes I

00:59:23.440 --> 00:59:29.760
I taper grounded How good technology has gotten so I appreciate all the refinement with stuff, but it's not necessarily

00:59:30.560 --> 00:59:35.520
No transformative like I'm using earbuds. I'm most exclusive nowadays. I travel a lot of fly back and forth a lot

00:59:36.240 --> 00:59:40.240
I used to have I still do a pair of like a boast over the ear noise cancelling

00:59:40.720 --> 00:59:43.920
Headphones they were great battery life was good noise cancelling was awesome

00:59:44.400 --> 00:59:48.960
I've gotten to earbuds because I can get as good of experience without all the extra bulk

00:59:49.520 --> 00:59:52.160
Um, I have to carry around stuff and so I appreciate

00:59:52.800 --> 00:59:56.160
The convenience attack a lot more. Um, I don't know. There's anything I don't know

01:00:04.480 --> 01:00:11.680
So I think that In product management, um, you know, I like I still obviously kept

01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:20.000
A lot of my excitement and passion for tech But I think there is a propensity to start to treat

01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:23.920
every new skew as

01:00:23.920 --> 01:00:27.280
A skew and start to see it that way a little bit

01:00:27.840 --> 01:00:33.040
Um, and that's something that I definitely noticed during my time at ncix was like a new GPU

01:00:33.680 --> 01:00:38.320
Yeah, it was exciting to me, but it was almost also exhausting because it was a lot of work

01:00:39.360 --> 01:00:46.800
um So I take this stuff regretted now So I think having moved out from the manufacturer and where we're dealing with fears at least for my day to day

01:00:47.200 --> 01:00:51.840
I have fewer skews I have to take a look at so I would say that I get pleasantly surprised

01:00:52.480 --> 01:00:59.200
with Experiences now rather than say oh, this is completely magical, but it's like hey, this is a nice step up from where things were before

01:00:59.680 --> 01:01:04.240
Yeah, okay. That seems fair um

01:01:04.720 --> 01:01:08.000
Man the questions are kind of coming in pretty heavy now. Um

01:01:09.920 --> 01:01:12.400
Broadstroke asks top gear 1224

01:01:13.040 --> 01:01:18.560
Where do you see LMG in five years under your leadership? What long-term projects do you want to accomplish?

01:01:21.360 --> 01:01:25.680
Quality life making sure that we are still producing top-notch content and next five years

01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:31.520
figuring out where there are potential adjacencies So, you know to my point maybe this is a great lead-in

01:01:32.240 --> 01:01:36.400
I take a lot of things for granted in tech nowadays. I think a lot of things are iterative at this point in time

01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:39.200
Um, how do we continue to tell compelling stories in tech?

01:01:39.920 --> 01:01:46.480
No, I think one of our greatest strengths at LMG is our ability to story tell does that transform into any other categories?

01:01:47.600 --> 01:01:55.120
that's adjacent to Tech is it hand feel in terms of uh clothing or probably not probably not

01:01:55.920 --> 01:02:02.000
But like, you know automotive has been an obvious one You know, we've dabbled other tech youtubers have have dabbled or made movements into that

01:02:02.480 --> 01:02:06.240
One of the things that we had much earlier back at n6 was how do we grow up with our audience, right?

01:02:06.400 --> 01:02:12.080
I think that's um something that every company tries to articulate and I think that's one of the

01:02:13.600 --> 01:02:18.560
No strategic challenges that we have. Um Just in terms of where we go from a content direction standpoint

01:02:19.840 --> 01:02:24.480
All-time favorite game asks rendis all-time favorite game

01:02:24.560 --> 01:02:26.560
That's a hard one

01:02:27.680 --> 01:02:31.040
How do we define that number of hours played or it's just like wow that was so

01:02:32.240 --> 01:02:35.360
Awesome and transformative. How about first one then the other got him

01:02:39.600 --> 01:02:43.280
One of this something most time in I don't know something is boring as civilization

01:02:43.280 --> 01:02:46.960
That's just like I don't I don't know why I should be playing this but you know launching nukes

01:02:50.320 --> 01:02:53.920
In the midst of played a little discussions is um, it's always sort of funny

01:02:54.960 --> 01:02:58.080
Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, no, uh

01:03:00.080 --> 01:03:06.560
I was really surprised with uh, Horizon zeroed on that was probably one of the games over the last two three years that I spent

01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:10.080
A decent amount of time with I actually played not one completely through

01:03:10.480 --> 01:03:13.120
I think was a freebie on playstation plus or

01:03:13.840 --> 01:03:16.720
Whatever else during covet and it's like, uh, this seems to be a throwaway or whatever

01:03:17.120 --> 01:03:21.760
Didn't expect a whole lot from it, but it's like this is actually quite fun. I actually really enjoyed it too

01:03:21.760 --> 01:03:27.200
It's one of the few single-player games that I got absolutely sucked into I played it exclusive

01:03:27.280 --> 01:03:31.680
I played it exclusively on the steam deck as part of my review of the steam deck

01:03:31.680 --> 01:03:38.480
I I needed to pick a game. That was why I picked it up And it was like well reviewed and it was um, it was steam deck compatible

01:03:38.640 --> 01:03:43.600
But like AAA and so, you know, I wanted to really kind of I wanted to have a game that really pushed it and was not

01:03:44.080 --> 01:03:50.480
And it used the proton compatibility layer So these are all my reasons for choosing it, but the reason I finished it was because it was just really good

01:03:52.000 --> 01:03:56.960
Um I don't know that I'd pick it as like all-time favorite game. I don't know. It's all-time favorite

01:03:57.280 --> 01:03:59.360
That's one that sticks out all-time favorite game. I

01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:03.520
Okay, how about I how about I'll help contextualize it a little bit

01:04:04.240 --> 01:04:07.600
Relative to everything you had experienced up until that time

01:04:07.920 --> 01:04:18.960
So like for me a really big standout is far cry Would I go back now and say all-time best game or anything like that? No, but it was uh, the the open levels and the visuals

01:04:19.360 --> 01:04:25.120
um, we're very very Different at the time. I was super super overrated

01:04:28.480 --> 01:04:30.880
Are the are dumb's fighting words? Um

01:04:31.680 --> 01:04:36.800
If I was gonna say the most influential it'll probably be something like half-life too. Um, I talked about team fortress earlier

01:04:37.040 --> 01:04:39.760
That's probably a boring answer. Yeah, it is a boring answer

01:04:42.800 --> 01:04:48.320
I spent a lot of time with team fortress like we were talking about earlier just because I thought there was a ton of depth in the game

01:04:48.560 --> 01:04:50.800
Um, it wasn't overwhelming in terms of the number of classes

01:04:51.600 --> 01:04:57.040
You always had to make um trade-offs depending on how you wanted to you know, structure your offense versus defense or whatever else

01:04:57.120 --> 01:05:03.520
That's something I hate about team fortress too Is if you are not like balls deep in the meta

01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:06.800
You have no idea what like weird baseball bat

01:05:07.280 --> 01:05:11.200
People have or like what stat boost they get from like this hat or whatever

01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:17.120
And I I really I loved the game when you had the nine classes. Yep

01:05:17.760 --> 01:05:24.320
And that was it you you understood exactly what you were up against by the very easily identifiable

01:05:25.120 --> 01:05:30.720
Character avatar on the other side and yeah, I I could see I could have seen myself getting into team fortress classic

01:05:31.600 --> 01:05:34.640
If I had really been a gamer at that time. Yeah, and also

01:05:35.200 --> 01:05:38.720
also prioritize skill in the early days, um, because

01:05:39.920 --> 01:05:45.600
I played with a bunch of people who Were super hardcore in terms of gaming. Um, so, you know, they would have

01:05:46.160 --> 01:05:52.080
their own way files to help with no The timing of grenades so that you can no time your concussion drop properly

01:05:52.320 --> 01:05:55.120
Or how you do multiple zones with multiple grenades and how you

01:05:55.680 --> 01:05:59.680
Tile the stuff together. So the guys I was gaming with were super super hardcore at that point in time

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:04.240
So I really appreciated the skill that you had to have in terms of executing both

01:06:04.640 --> 01:06:07.680
Some of the personal things they had to do as well as no driving your team together

01:06:07.760 --> 01:06:11.120
So were you that good or were you more of a support class? Oh, it's pretty good. Oh, yeah

01:06:11.440 --> 01:06:15.440
Oh, okay. Oh where I started falling apart is when bunny hopping was a thing

01:06:16.240 --> 01:06:20.800
Oh, okay, and that's just like, okay. Well, this just totally breaks the game and this is just not that fun anymore

01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:24.960
I never quite mastered the weird hand motion. So it never

01:06:25.760 --> 01:06:27.760
Got it for me. Okay. That's fair

01:06:29.440 --> 01:06:31.440
um

01:06:33.040 --> 01:06:38.960
Chambers says would you be okay with diversifying into more regulated areas like food?

01:06:41.840 --> 01:06:43.840
um

01:06:44.960 --> 01:06:48.640
I'm not sure wherever we could be doing LMG burgers. I'll be honest with you

01:06:52.400 --> 01:06:55.600
I don't know if we have a I don't know if we have a kind of value out there, right? Um

01:06:57.840 --> 01:07:03.600
You know the the remunations on the previous question in terms of hey, why are our strengths? We're good at storytelling. We're good at no

01:07:04.880 --> 01:07:11.040
packaging I guess Media together. So that seems like a little bit more of a stretch to get into

01:07:11.680 --> 01:07:14.560
Adjacencies are kind of too far out from what we currently do

01:07:17.120 --> 01:07:21.680
Uh, we've got it just a handful more. Um, what do you think of the Labs initiative?

01:07:22.080 --> 01:07:25.520
Do you have any Labs projects that you look forward to being ready for use?

01:07:26.960 --> 01:07:29.680
I think the way that we we are trying to structure

01:07:30.240 --> 01:07:35.280
testing across Many different disciplines is going to be super interesting if we can get um

01:07:35.280 --> 01:07:38.240
I guess all the mechanics in the background um together so

01:07:38.880 --> 01:07:45.680
uh things like Automating like keyboard testing. I'm not revealing too much or is this stuff that you've already been talking about the Floatplane peeps

01:07:45.680 --> 01:07:52.320
Whatever got it. Um, and then you know how we are building like as robotics to do like most testing or whatever else, right?

01:07:53.040 --> 01:07:57.120
and not to sort of belittle what we're doing with like gpus or cpus or whatever but

01:07:57.840 --> 01:08:03.040
um That stuff is The way that we can automate it. I think is super super cool

01:08:03.280 --> 01:08:06.000
Uh, just to make sure there's not something that's just like can benchmark

01:08:06.560 --> 01:08:11.120
uh, so there's a lot of things that are going on in the background that I think would add a ton of

01:08:11.760 --> 01:08:14.320
value just in terms of the breadth of stuff that we can test in a

01:08:15.200 --> 01:08:18.880
repeatable structured and scalable fashion. So I think it's

01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:25.280
Sort of super cool because one of the things I was um getting on with Linus this morning about is I don't want

01:08:25.760 --> 01:08:30.160
Snapshots in time for just any one sort of thing I think that goes for benchmarking as well

01:08:30.400 --> 01:08:34.720
The way that we're setting things up allows us to take a much broader view in terms of

01:08:35.120 --> 01:08:38.560
over data and testing yeah

01:08:38.560 --> 01:08:44.560
Yep, I agree it's Been a long road and I think it will continue to be a long road

01:08:45.120 --> 01:08:52.800
um There's just there's so much work to do and I I think that um, you know looking at CPU and GPU kind of going

01:08:52.880 --> 01:08:59.520
Okay, you know fundamentally. I think the industry understands how to compare these things to each other pretty well. There are outliers

01:09:00.400 --> 01:09:08.000
Like we actually had a pretty I don't know if I would call it intense or but it was like it was um, it was a

01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:15.920
passionate debate Over how we can compare apple m silicon to to a pc

01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:22.560
Knowing that none of the same software runs across these platforms, you know, do we just only run software that has

01:09:23.440 --> 01:09:28.480
native Uh code that runs on both architectures and both operating systems

01:09:28.880 --> 01:09:35.520
Do we run software that is native on one and requires a translation layer on the other?

01:09:36.000 --> 01:09:41.360
Do we run Applications that are native for each but are completely different applications

01:09:41.360 --> 01:09:44.240
Like do we run two completely different video encoding applications?

01:09:44.720 --> 01:09:50.000
But that run native on each of them. Do we like do we just not compare them at all and and there was a lot

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:53.840
There's a lot of back and forth about you know, what's the best way to handle that and it's it's one of those things where

01:09:54.800 --> 01:09:59.040
No answer is obviously and 100 percent the only way to do it

01:09:59.440 --> 01:10:03.680
So you have to figure out what your philosophy is and given the early stages. It's it's it's hard

01:10:07.840 --> 01:10:09.840
What's your favorite snack from the snack area

01:10:11.840 --> 01:10:16.480
I'm a savory guy more than a sweet guy. So I have a thing for chips. So probably the Doritos

01:10:17.280 --> 01:10:24.320
nice nice Gamer answer game game answer and I I don't know about you a lot Doritos at home, but

01:10:25.120 --> 01:10:29.120
My son's gaming of football for whatever reason really. Yeah, and then so

01:10:30.320 --> 01:10:33.760
Must be the the the formative years in america or something formative years in america

01:10:34.080 --> 01:10:38.720
I was told I was racing in hooligan when he started chanting against la when we I took him to a hockey game a couple weeks ago

01:10:39.760 --> 01:10:43.760
But it's sort of weird because there's an expectation that there's a football game

01:10:43.840 --> 01:10:49.920
Especially the Niners are on tv every day. There's a football game and then when they're not my son just asks

01:10:50.320 --> 01:10:57.360
Are they resting? I'm eating cheetos. I was like Or Doritos. He's like, are they resting? I'm eating Doritos. I was like, what makes you think they're eating Doritos?

01:10:57.440 --> 01:10:59.440
It's like, that's how you get energy. He's like, oh

01:11:01.200 --> 01:11:03.200
Son, we need son, we need to talk

01:11:05.040 --> 01:11:10.160
Um, just completely random if you had to make a review video, what product would it be about?

01:11:10.320 --> 01:11:16.800
Uh, that's a good question. I don't don't know. Um, is it tech related?

01:11:17.680 --> 01:11:21.520
Yeah, I let's say. Yeah. Yeah Do I do?

01:11:21.520 --> 01:11:25.440
Do I go with vr since that was the theme from earlier? Sure pick one. Yeah

01:11:26.560 --> 01:11:30.000
vr the new uh, the new gargantuan thing from apple

01:11:30.560 --> 01:11:36.480
Oh, yeah, okay vision vision pro. Yeah, I I don't know if I'm looking forward to working on that video

01:11:36.480 --> 01:11:41.360
That one's probably going to fall to me. Um, uh adam and I might tag team it

01:11:42.160 --> 01:11:44.480
But I'm just kind of I'm looking at it going. Um

01:11:46.080 --> 01:11:55.920
Everything I say Is going to be looked at 10 years from now when we're on the apple vision pro 10 or vision sc or whatever, right pro max

01:11:58.080 --> 01:12:06.640
And it's going to be like put under a magnifying glass, right? Like how how well can I can I theory craft what the future of this category looks like based on what

01:12:07.520 --> 01:12:11.200
You know in apple's defense this makes sense, but what is essentially going to be a dev kit?

01:12:11.920 --> 01:12:20.080
Right, like it's it's funny to me. Uh, the way that consumers not, um developers, uh, Dan, do you mind turning off my headphones?

01:12:20.080 --> 01:12:26.240
There's a bit of an echo. Sorry. Thanks. Um, it's funny to me the way consumers will go and buy a first gen apple product

01:12:26.400 --> 01:12:29.440
as if apple doesn't have this long history of

01:12:30.160 --> 01:12:34.720
Bringing a dev kit to market and then promptly abandoning it like the ipad one

01:12:35.600 --> 01:12:42.000
Got how many versions of iOS like three two? I can't remember but they they abandoned that thing

01:12:42.640 --> 01:12:49.440
So fast. Um, they didn't even they didn't even give the first apple watch a proper designation

01:12:49.760 --> 01:12:53.920
It gets referred to colloquially as like series zero. I think because they just kind of

01:12:54.640 --> 01:13:00.320
Disowned it at some point. So this first vision product is going to be

01:13:01.440 --> 01:13:03.920
You know apple will never admit it publicly, but it's going to be like

01:13:05.200 --> 01:13:08.800
You know, yeah, that was a learning experience. Um, see you later

01:13:09.600 --> 01:13:15.200
I think I think it's sort of cool because there's a convergence of a bunch of different technologies, right portable computing

01:13:15.280 --> 01:13:19.040
So is this the next evolution of like a cell phone or a laptop or whatever?

01:13:19.040 --> 01:13:23.040
It feels like they're trying to position this as more than an ipad or more than a phone

01:13:23.360 --> 01:13:30.880
It should be almost like a PC in some ways. Yeah, like a visual computer visual computer. Then you have a super high res display

01:13:31.840 --> 01:13:36.800
Uh, which which i'm pretty excited for which i'm pretty excited about Yeah, um, I don't know how well that works

01:13:36.960 --> 01:13:40.800
Well, I can clean up a lot of my desk or if I start ripping out displays and

01:13:41.440 --> 01:13:44.480
I just don't know if I can wear this thing for like eight 10 12 hours a day

01:13:44.560 --> 01:13:48.800
I think that's gonna be tough based on some of the early previews from other media outlets

01:13:48.880 --> 01:13:54.160
People are talking about it being kind of uncomfortable after like 20 minutes, which which is not as a vr person

01:13:55.040 --> 01:13:59.840
Doesn't surprise me. Yeah big screen has a very forever alone, uh product developments

01:14:00.320 --> 01:14:07.440
Um philosophy But one thing that they nailed is that the only way to make vr comfortable is to make it

01:14:08.080 --> 01:14:13.840
Bespoke. Yeah Like yeah, we molded this thing to your face so that you can actually wear it for an extended period of time

01:14:13.840 --> 01:14:16.800
Because everything else i've just struggled with you have a buddy at opal

01:14:16.880 --> 01:14:21.200
Asked him his opinion basically is working on the headset in the background and then it was like

01:14:21.840 --> 01:14:25.520
Comfort is one thing that the person highlighted and the second thing is there needs to be

01:14:26.080 --> 01:14:31.760
The software experience To make this a success or for it to fall flat on its face. So I think it's a

01:14:32.560 --> 01:14:35.840
And falling flat on your face when you're wearing a vr headset even more painful

01:14:36.080 --> 01:14:40.880
Yeah Um, how often asks doe regard

01:14:41.600 --> 01:14:46.400
Do you find insane things that I did as ceo that you have to immediately correct?

01:14:46.800 --> 01:14:52.800
Every day is that a good answer or a bad answer? It's just like how do we

01:14:57.760 --> 01:15:03.760
Somebody asked me Wasn't a similar question somebody asked me this uh, um, I guess c s and I don't think there should

01:15:04.320 --> 01:15:08.560
Should surprise you we both worked at del before and then um, the question was

01:15:09.520 --> 01:15:12.080
What's the most challenging thing and what's the biggest difference and then

01:15:13.040 --> 01:15:19.040
The comment I made was everything was just There was a process for everything at del which you sort of appreciate because of

01:15:20.480 --> 01:15:24.160
How structured things could be we were in a little more of an unstructured division within del

01:15:24.480 --> 01:15:28.240
But you could see the rest of the company being uh, there would be an answer for everything and everybody

01:15:29.040 --> 01:15:32.240
like if somebody if somebody disappeared

01:15:32.240 --> 01:15:38.800
there'd be Replacements tend deep to be able to do that job because documentation is dended to and they're just an execution machine

01:15:39.440 --> 01:15:42.560
And this person sort of cuts me off and I guess my side was well

01:15:42.800 --> 01:15:47.520
It's really weird to go from a very process heavy environment to a process free or process light environment

01:15:47.520 --> 01:15:52.080
Which is how I would sort of describe the first a few months here at LMG. It does some extent

01:15:53.840 --> 01:16:01.040
And the person sort of cuts me off. It's like well What you don't understand is del is best in class at operations. It doesn't matter where else you go

01:16:01.280 --> 01:16:06.880
Everything else will look shoddy can comparison. I was like, yeah, that's fair. So um, it's probably me being to uh

01:16:07.840 --> 01:16:14.800
I'm in my nose in terms of some of the things that we're doing. That's fair. I don't know if it's anything. That's particularly insane. It's just like, hey

01:16:18.560 --> 01:16:24.320
There are things that need to be more tightly managed I think that's probably my general theme that I've repeated in line as well as the rest of the management team

01:16:24.720 --> 01:16:33.360
um, it's not like it's Anything was a super terrible decision. It's just it's not being managed tightly enough and I think that's part of the growing up

01:16:34.240 --> 01:16:36.240
Um

01:16:39.120 --> 01:16:44.160
I have one to two more for you sure the first one is or maybe the last question is

01:16:44.640 --> 01:16:50.480
What would be a big piece of advice to someone that's starting a business and I'll be I'll be interested to hear your answer

01:16:51.280 --> 01:16:54.960
actually um

01:16:54.960 --> 01:17:02.160
I think you have to be all in to some extent. I think um, I think that's this is probably not a super popular answer. Um, but

01:17:03.120 --> 01:17:05.120
I think the reasons why

01:17:06.480 --> 01:17:11.840
Opportunities opened up to me within my career and like I know that I'm speaking from a position of privilege

01:17:12.480 --> 01:17:17.680
It's both hard work as well as luck to some extent, but I think you have to make your own luck

01:17:18.160 --> 01:17:25.040
I think in almost every single of my roles. I sort of went above and beyond what the job description was regardless of whether it was

01:17:26.240 --> 01:17:30.320
time or networking or whatever else, um

01:17:31.040 --> 01:17:35.360
I think it's really difficult to succeed

01:17:35.760 --> 01:17:42.320
If the mentality is no strictly, I don't know nine to five. That's fair. So as an entrepreneur or somebody's starting a small business

01:17:42.720 --> 01:17:47.440
I think you have to be Be prepared to make the sacrifices just because

01:17:48.320 --> 01:17:51.280
not proud to say there's uh more than a few social things that I've

01:17:51.920 --> 01:17:55.520
missed because um worked priority

01:17:56.320 --> 01:18:00.080
And so no trying to maintain any sort of semblance of balance is difficult

01:18:01.840 --> 01:18:07.520
Yeah, any kind of answer involving grind set is definitely going to be very unpopular these days. Um

01:18:08.480 --> 01:18:13.440
But I mean all we can really speak to is how we got to where we were if you don't like the answer

01:18:13.520 --> 01:18:20.160
Then you don't have to do it but I I think that grind set is a very sort of negative way of framing it right just because um

01:18:21.280 --> 01:18:25.920
I tend to treat Work and jobs as sort of hobbies, right? I think I'm naturally

01:18:26.720 --> 01:18:31.520
Curious about how things work and how things should work and that's what keeps me interested in my

01:18:32.080 --> 01:18:34.640
Various roles and allows me to dig deep. So it doesn't

01:18:35.360 --> 01:18:40.960
It doesn't necessarily always feel like work. Um, it probably looks that way from that side, especially from friends and family

01:18:40.960 --> 01:18:42.960
But I don't necessarily think that that's um

01:18:46.640 --> 01:18:53.040
Fair in terms of the way that that comes across I think the advice I would have is if it feels like a grind set then

01:18:55.200 --> 01:19:00.880
You might be in the wrong career Yeah, or you're you're in the wrong company. You're in the wrong job or whatever else just because the wrong boss

01:19:01.200 --> 01:19:04.000
You don't have the passion for it anymore, right? You have to have that passion

01:19:04.400 --> 01:19:08.800
I I think to succeed in any sort of role or organization and if you don't then

01:19:09.680 --> 01:19:15.440
You're doing yourself a disservice. I enjoyed NCIX. I talk a lot about the negative things. Um, but I uh

01:19:16.320 --> 01:19:20.400
I loved the team that that was a huge difference maker for me

01:19:20.400 --> 01:19:25.920
The fact that we were not all but a lot of us were gamers were actual enthusiasts

01:19:25.920 --> 01:19:33.040
You know people would come in and give a You know presentation on some new GPU or some new CPU and we'd all be kind of sitting there politely at the table

01:19:33.360 --> 01:19:38.880
Knowing way more about it than they did because we just had been following all the rumors and leaks leading up to the launch and stuff like it

01:19:39.920 --> 01:19:50.720
Like do be digital Um, there's one more potential question you can kind of decide if you want to want to talk about it at all

01:19:51.280 --> 01:19:53.600
Otherwise, I think we'll we'll cut it here

01:19:54.640 --> 01:19:57.040
Um, I know that we've been quiet on this front. Um

01:19:58.160 --> 01:20:03.440
I'll just say it. Um, there are a few important topics from the last year that never got answered including independent investigation

01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:09.600
Um Well has something out I think uh in relatively short order

01:20:09.600 --> 01:20:13.440
Um, in some ways, I think this uh, I don't know

01:20:16.400 --> 01:20:23.440
I don't Having not been involved in or not having had to deal with directly on stuff like this before. Uh, I

01:20:25.520 --> 01:20:28.400
I don't know what the length of time that I recently expected was

01:20:28.960 --> 01:20:34.720
I think this is probably taking a bit longer than I would have preferred. Um, and probably for a good reason. Um, but

01:20:35.680 --> 01:20:39.600
Uh, I think we'll be providing more clarity in short order just in terms of uh,

01:20:40.160 --> 01:20:43.680
No lessons learned and just to give everybody a bit of background. Um in terms of

01:20:44.480 --> 01:20:48.720
The allegations that were leveled against us um

01:20:48.720 --> 01:20:56.720
I think I'll probably leave it at that. Um dimitar rtx. No, it is not prerecorded. Elijah has been grabbing questions for us and putting them in the dock

01:20:57.600 --> 01:21:02.000
Um, because it was prerecorded then some of my answers that have been less cringy or a little bit more polished

01:21:02.240 --> 01:21:06.720
Yeah, we might have edited it a bit. Yes um

01:21:09.440 --> 01:21:14.320
So We'll take one last question Shubham asks

01:21:14.320 --> 01:21:21.440
How are you going to handle potential employee burnout? Um, I know work life balance is a core value of LTT

01:21:22.080 --> 01:21:25.760
Um, and it's you know coming back to the whole august thing

01:21:25.920 --> 01:21:29.120
It's been indicated that some employees may have risk factors

01:21:30.080 --> 01:21:33.120
And you know, how do you balance that with your own personal? I'm adding this last part

01:21:33.120 --> 01:21:35.920
but how do you balance that with your own kind of personal philosophy that

01:21:36.560 --> 01:21:41.360
um, you know to succeed you have to kind of embrace that work is a

01:21:42.480 --> 01:21:44.560
fundamental part of your life for better or for worse

01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:52.400
Um, I think there needs to be alignment. Uh, just in terms of again where passions are and what expectations are I guess from a

01:21:52.960 --> 01:21:57.680
Work environment standpoint. Um, I don't think that there's been any period in my life where there aren't both

01:21:58.320 --> 01:22:02.160
Periods where you have to sprint as well as where there's periods where it's a little bit more lax, right?

01:22:02.160 --> 01:22:06.400
so the whole thing is To me grind set in some ways is

01:22:07.200 --> 01:22:13.040
When you're expected for six or nine months or 10 months at a time to go into crunch mode. I don't think that's necessarily reasonable

01:22:13.600 --> 01:22:16.880
um but I don't

01:22:16.880 --> 01:22:20.400
There's also been no job where it's just where I can recall where

01:22:20.880 --> 01:22:26.480
There hasn't been some expectation in terms of hey, this just really needs to get done because there's a real deadline that's coming up

01:22:26.480 --> 01:22:32.480
so This might be you know, it's sort of a wishy-washy answer, but it's it's it's always balanced in perspective in my opinion

01:22:32.960 --> 01:22:41.200
um I don't think that we necessarily have structural issues and again, I might be off base and I might get flamed for this but um, you know

01:22:42.400 --> 01:22:45.920
We've added a lot of resources internally here over the last few years

01:22:46.160 --> 01:22:49.760
So I think that from a management and leadership perspective

01:22:50.160 --> 01:22:54.240
we're keenly cognizant of what we're asking for from people and

01:22:55.280 --> 01:22:59.360
I think in general we are No compensating people

01:23:00.320 --> 01:23:05.040
Well for a lot of better term so

01:23:05.680 --> 01:23:10.480
I don't know that It's it's always difficult. I I don't I don't know that's a sufficient answer

01:23:10.480 --> 01:23:17.440
But I think trying to give one one answer for all. I mean, we're not even a huge organization. We're only a hundred and something

01:23:17.680 --> 01:23:20.720
um, and trying to give one answer for everybody is just gonna

01:23:21.680 --> 01:23:25.280
Not go not work. So there has to be a little bit of um

01:23:25.280 --> 01:23:29.520
tailoring yep Just like I'm gonna

01:23:29.520 --> 01:23:34.880
Tailor this segue to the end of the stream. Thanks guys so much for tuning in. I'm really sorry that this took so long

01:23:35.040 --> 01:23:38.240
I really did mean to do it a very long time ago and it's just been

01:23:39.120 --> 01:23:44.320
um Just just keeps kind of getting kicked down the road as it's it's hard to

01:23:45.600 --> 01:23:48.960
It's hard to balance all the different priorities, right? It's like the community wants

01:23:49.760 --> 01:23:56.880
Higher quality the community wants us to you know, cultivate a work environment where people aren't

01:23:57.920 --> 01:24:06.480
Being pushed The community wants us to do side projects and and do you know set aside time for leadership to do interviews

01:24:07.120 --> 01:24:09.920
Community wants us to go do show coverage. It's like, uh, yeah

01:24:10.480 --> 01:24:15.120
We're we're we're gonna do all those things and it's it's always a tension between different priorities

01:24:15.200 --> 01:24:19.200
I think that's uh, maybe a better answer than I gave on just how do you balance the two, right?

01:24:19.520 --> 01:24:25.040
Yeah, we know the broke pros and cons. How do how do we do something that's acceptable for both sides? Yeah

01:24:26.560 --> 01:24:30.000
Hopefully it's acceptable if we cut it here and get some video shot today

01:24:31.120 --> 01:24:33.120
Thanks guys. Thank you