It's a long & windy road

What are we talking about?

I was gonna ask you that…

[laughs]

I didn’t think we’d need a plan with this trio… I just thought we’d just talk.

Let’s just talk.

Yeah.

Alright.

Talk about anything.

Yeah. So we’re here with Shaundai Person from Netflix.

From Netflix.

At Microsoft Build.

I know.

Why?

Because I got invited by Scott Hanselman, who is an amazing – he’s a VP of developer community here at Microsoft, and they have… So one is the content creation side. So outside of my work at Netflix, I’m building a TypeScript course, and I am also creating content to draw people to that course. And I have established a community and I’m building a community of developers, so they wanted some input on some of the projects that they’re working on with AI, and how that relates to –

Hold on a second real quick… Challenge.

Oh, gosh…

…for the duration of this conversation…

“Don’t say AI.”

No AI.

[laughs] That’s gonna be tough…

You got your one in there. You’re creating some AI content. Fair.

[laughs] Okay…

Everytime you say AI, you have a drink some Aquafina.

What if I say the whole word?

Well, let’s just say that you can talk about it, but not directly about it.

Ooh. I like this, though.

Just because we’re a little bit overloaded here. It’s our final conversation…

We’re trying our best to curb the AI…

We’ve been very AI-heavy for the last two days…

As you should.

And I just feel like a challenge – and here I am, saying it over and over again. Dang it… Breaking my own rule.

[laughs]

So I just want to throw that out there… Continue.

Okay. Cool.

It’s just too easy. I’ve gotta make it harder on you. So. Now try to explain what you’re doing here.

Alright. Yeah. So… [laughter]

She can’t do it.

No.

Okay, with content creation they wanted feedback about what the developer community is thinking about and interested in, in these streets. And then the other aspect of it is that at Netflix I’m part of the platform engineering team, and so we’re building developer tooling… And there are a lot of parallelism, from what we’re doing on my team, with what they’re doing, the people who are building the platforms for other developers at Microsoft. And so there are a lot of learnings that we could share… I was doing more learning than sharing, actually, in this case, but also providing feedback on things that might be useful to us and our team, like how we’re using Copilot, and how… [laughs]

[08:10] That works…

…and how we’re using ChatGPT, if that, and different areas of opportunity that we can leverage some of the offerings that Microsoft has, in things like VS Code, and Copilot, to enhance the developer experience at Netflix as well.

Good job.

Gotcha.

Thanks.

Pretty good job navigating that one there.

She’s working hard.

That was tough. That was tough.

Mental gymnastics here. Not mentioning –

It almost makes it worse. [unintelligible 00:08:35.06]

The elephant in the room…

We’re almost thinking about it more now, yeah. So I don’t know if this backfires or not, but… Alright, is Netflix on Azure at all, or – it’s all AWS, isn’t it?

It’s AWS, yeah. So my big question was “How can we leverage all the things that you showed us if we’re AWS customers?” And I think, in general, my feedback was that – I guess I understand that there’s the push, they want to push folks to Azure… But part of the feedback is that you need to be able to enable people like myself, an engineer at Netflix, who is not probably even interested in taking the entire company and telling them “Let’s move over to this entire new platform…” Like, how can I integrate your new offerings with the things that I’m doing without having to have that huge lift of like “Let’s rip and replace something like AWS”?

So I do see some opportunities… I talked with some folks about the differences, and it’s still foggy to me, so don’t get me to try to explain all the details of it, but… One response was “There’s differences between the sizes of the language models.” There are small language models, SLMs, all the way up to large language models. So don’t think of it as something where in order to take advantage of all these new, sophisticated capabilities you have to replace things. Maybe you can stand up an app just – like, somebody made an app that quickly just cleans up their desktop. Like, they have all the different icons on your desktop… I can stand up a quick little app that automatically will look through my desktop apps –

Figure it out on its own.

Yeah. And sort things. So stuff like that is a quick win and easy way to get in. So there are a lot of opportunities that I can go in and dip my toes in the water without having to rip and replace everything.

So what did you learn? Is it an API call away, or is it beyond that? Do you have to be on Azure? Do you have to be sort of steeped into the whole kit and caboodle, or no?

Apparently not. Apparently, you don’t have to adopt the whole kit and caboodle in order to –

I’m glad you used my term. Thank you.

It was a good term.

Kit and caboodle.

Very Midwestern.

It’s the kit and the caboodle… Which - I never understood what the caboodle was…

It’s not a kitten caboodle, it’s a kit and caboodle.

I’m pretty sure it is.

Kit and.

Because it’s the whole kit, and caboodle.

Yeah, that’s right.

But I never knew what a caboodle was, so maybe it’s –

I think it’s the bag it came in.

Maybe.

It sounds like a candy.

It sounds like the backend of something… [laughter] The frontend and the backend.

Should I use these new and upcoming sophisticated technologies to find out about this?

Ask your phone.

[laughs] You should.

Maybe it’ll automatically know stuff. Oh, funny…

What does “kit and caboodle mean”?

You’ll have to share how it’s spelled.

“Kit and caboodle” is an informal phrase that means “everything and more.” Or “the whole lot.”

Specifically, what’s the caboodle?

“The term kit can mean a collection of tools or equipment, while caboodle is believed to derive from the word boodle.”

I was so close to being right on this one… [laughs]

[unintelligible 00:11:51.26]

It’s kind of like “everything in the trunk”, right? [laughter]

Give me your level of groundedness of that response.

How grounded is that response…? That’s like asking the kid how intoxicated they are. They’re not gonna tell you the truth…

Gosh, listen to this… “This response is quite grounded.” [laughter]

Of course it is.

“Kit and caboodle” is indeed an idiomatic expression in English, commonly understood –

[12:21] That’s what it thinks.

The very sophisticated technology has just slapped me in the face with being grounded. So this term we just learned is grounded. Right? Groundedness… At least I learned it here.

Yeah.

It’s groundedness. This measure –

When I was a kid, grounded meant something entirely different, right?

Sure, yeah.

But grounded now means “Does the response from the sophisticated technology - did it come from the context that it was actually trained in? Or is it hallucinating?”

Right.

Grounded in reality. It’s kind of like a new way of saying “Is it true or not?”

That’s right.

And that wasn’t grounded…

We’re not supposed to use hallucinating, actually…

Oh, really?

Yeah. Yeah.

Who said this? Everybody’s saying this.

This is news…

This is new…

So take it up with Scott Hanselman… Apparently, because AI is not a human, and hallucination is a trait of a human. And you want to take out the personification of the – did I say the word? I did.

Yes.

[laughs]

That’s alright. Keep going. It’s a silly challenge… I knew it wouldn’t last. [laughter]

Hallucination gives it this air of like being a person… They use the term “fabrication”, or –

Well, people lie. They fabricate stories.

Isn’t that true? So I don’t know… I don’t know.

Alright. So this is a Scott Hanselman – we might have to take it up with him.

Yeah.

We personify things. I mean…

And that’s fine. I think.

I think it’s alright.

Grounding is human, too.

Anthropomorphize the [unintelligible 00:13:46.27]

Like, I’m ground. I’m feeling grounded. [laughter]

Well, I will still call it hallucination.

Well, I don’t know why fabrication is better, because to me, it sounds like “Well, now it’s lying to you.” Like, if somebody is fabricating something, they’re lying. But…

Hallucination sounds more like –

Hallucination is more like you think you’re right, but you’re actually wrong. Like, you’ve imagined something… So I think in terms of personification, I think it’s a better word. But if there’s a better word that’s non-human, I’m fine with it, because they aren’t humans. Let’s treat them like the robots that they are.

That’s right.

They’re less than human.

Be the bot.

That’s right. Now I can mistreat it, you know? [laughter] I need an excuse to treat it poorly. You always say please and thank you to your GPT… I’m just like “Just do it!”

[laughs] You do? That’s so polite.

Oh, yeah.

He treats it like a human.

Wow…!

He’d be like “Thanks, ChatGPT. That was really useful.”

Aww… [laughter]

No, I do not.

You do something like that.

ChatGPT, did you sleep well last night…?

Well, I’m also a podcaster, and I’ve gotta make good airtime.

That’s true. That’s true.

So sometimes I embellish a bit, but…

But then it comes back to bite you.

There may have been at least one or two occasions where I’m like “That was a good response”, or “Thanks.”

Okay…

You know, just being kind…

It’s kind of like those bots on Reddit… Have you ever seen the Reddit bots, where it does a thing, and it’s like “Hi, I’m a bot and I’m here to make sure that you use that word correctly.” And then you can give it feedback by saying like “Good robot” or “Bad robot.” People do it all the time.

Sure. Sure.

I don’t actually do it, but I see these comments on Reddit where it’s like “Good bot”, you know?

Oh, really?

Yeah. And I was thinking it’s like you’re petting it, like it’s a little robot…

Go, bot…!

But that’s good feedback.

Well, I think that ChatGPT does have memory now… So if he can remember that I’m not nice, it might be like “I can’t work with you, because I’m told to only work with kind people. My training says that if you’re rude, I’m done.”

Ooh… I’m paying you 20 bucks a month, dude. Like, does that give me privilege?

Is that how you work? “I give you money, I get to do what I want to you?” [laughter]

Well, not if you’re a human, of course…

Puts a quarter in, “Monkey, dance!” [laughter]

Well, if you’re a computer program…

“I own you.”

Or a service… It’s a service.

Yes. “You are my robot. I will not be nice to you, because I’m giving you money.”

I’ve heard people think that it’s going to eventually take over the world… So let’s be nice to it, so that when it takes over the world, it’s like [unintelligible 00:16:04.09]

Oh yeah, I’m in that camp.

Yeah, I can understand.

When the memory upgrade says “Memory upgraded in ChatGPT”, I’m like “You just remembered everything I just said… You’ve got more room in there now to remember what I said.”

[16:19] “Please, Master, I love you.” Right? I’m in the other camp. I’m like “No, we will not go quietly into the darkness… We will pull the plug.”

You’re ready for the rebellion.

I am.

He’s a plug-puller.

I’m a plug-puller. I’m gonna use it up to the point where I’m like –

Is that like cord cutter, but not –

Yeah. Plug-puller.

It’s less serious. You can just put the plug back in. But once you cut the cord…

I’m scooting over, though… Just in case.

You actually might be in trouble in the future, just because of your association to me… A known plug puller.

Yeah.

You know what, though? As nice as you are, the AI is probably trained on the fact that you have done so many podcasts together, it’s just like “Yeah, we can –”

Yeah. Guilty by association.

Yeah. But it probably is sophisticated enough to parse that… Like, “Yeah, this is a good cop, this is a bad cop.”

What did you call it again?

We’ve already busted it. She gave up.

I called it “the thing.”

The thing…? [laughter]

Break: [17:10]

How much are you using this stuff in your life?

I’m using it increasingly more. So I use ChatGPT for docs, I use it to try to eliminate anything that I just don’t feel like doing… I don’t really use it for code. And I like to code.

The dishes…

The dishes? No. I wish.

Laundry…

No, I have an automated – well, I have a dishwasher, so I have a system, I just press the button and it washes my dishes for me.

After you’ve loaded it… I mean, correctly, of course…

After I’ve loaded it, correct.

There’s a correct way to load it.

And I only know the right way. I don’t know how to do anything wrong. Like, I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, so…

I wouldn’t imagine that.

Yeah, yeah.

Are you guys just talking for the AI now? Are you auditioning to survive?

[laughs]

I’m complimenting her.

Yeah. And I’m telling the truth.

She’s a great dishwasher loader.

I am.

And she never does it wrong.

I never do anything, that’s what I said.

And we agree there’s one way to do it right.

I heard this part of the conversation… You’re just saying it again… [laughter] So it hasn’t quite done your dishes yet, but… It’s writing your emails?

No, not my emails. It’s fine-tuning my emails… So I’m the type of person who – it’s easier for me to start with like something, than to start with a blank slate. So I can put it in the prompt and I’m like “Write me an outline for a doc that will convince my manager to spend $150,000 on…”

This is hypothetical?

Yeah, hypothetical.

On a vacation.

Yeah. On a vacation for me. Yeah, yeah.

For sure.

Totally hypothetical. And then ChatGPT will just come out – or Copilot will come through… Because we have this Copilot license. It will go and give me all of the outline, and everything. Or I can run through and say “I just want to just write some words. Copilot, fine-tune all those words for me”, and then I’ll use that, and make it sound a little bit more human.

More human than you wrote it?

So you know what I did the other day? No, to answer your question. But what I did the other day was I asked ChatGPT, or Copilot - I guess it’s the same thing now; it’s kind of two sides of the same coin. I asked it to write a paragraph for me to a doc about – I’m convincing my team to move in a certain direction for a project that we’re doing… I asked it to write a paragraph –

Towards Azure?

Towards Azure, yeah… [laughs] And so I asked it to write a paragraph for me to introduce the topic. It wrote the paragraph, but it sounded very AI; it was all these big words… I don’t know if you’re familiar with T.I, the rapper… But he just uses big words for no reason. Like “Existential [unintelligible 00:22:53.10] It doesn’t go together. So it sounded like that, just like a whole bunch of buzzwords. And I was like –

Like [unintelligible 00:22:59.14]

Exactly, yeah. Like, you’re just looking for “What’s a big synonym for this word?” And so I ran it back through ChatGPT and was like “Can you make it sound more human?” And then I ran it through, and it started using more like colloquialisms, and smaller words… So it’s interesting that I asked AI to sound more human than it did, and it responded in that way. So that was cool.

But yeah, I use it for docs, for the most part… And we were just talking earlier today about leveraging it to do some dynamic things with our code. Like, to understand our users… I can’t go too far into it, because it’s top secret…

Proprietary information…

Yeah, yeah.

Recommendations on Netflix, no big deal.

Oh, yeah. You know, like, all of the –

A whole new algorithm…

The whole entire – like, rewrite the whole entire Netflix with AI. Yeah. Make it more modern.

She’s just given up on the AI thing, right? She just gave up, you think?

Well, we did… I let her off the hook.

I did, because it’s like –

Oh, okay. Actually, I was holding her to it still yet. Gosh…

Oh, man… You’re not doing a very good job, because she said it like 17 times already…

Well, I heard her say it, and I’m like “Why are you saying it?!”

And even though he’s looking at me, he’s just like “I’m counting.”

Everytime you say it, I’m like “Do you not know you’re losing points right now?” [laughter]

“You’re gonna drink so much Aquafina…

[24:23] You’re so competitive.

I let her off the hook… It was too hard.

I was winning.

That’s all we’re talking about.

It’s literally the topic of conversation.

Yeah.

So docs… Convincing.

Right.

Just teach it to make you a better salesperson. Right?

Well… Yeah… I’ve told you that I’m a pretty good salesperson…

Oh you were, weren’t you?

Yeah.

Well, maybe better. I forgot we have that in common.

This may be a good opportunity, actually… So I’m here with two salespeople, they’re both somewhat competitive… We’ve given up on the other challenge…

“Sell me this pen.”

This is why he’s keeping tabs… He’s like “You’re listening to me.” [laughs]

Let’s see who can sell a little bit better here… [laughter]

Oh, gosh… So I think you need to convince, me, of course, because I’m the judge…

You’re gonna make me lose no matter what.

Why do you say that?

Because you’re against me.

Because she’s a guest… Alright, you’re right. I’m completely biased.

Sure. Let’s do it though. I’m down.

But now you’ve actually just turned me back towards you, because I would show my true cards by doing what you just said right there…

It’s true.

Now we’re in the middle of a game of chance here…

We can say it’s no winner. We have different styles.

Just all losers here.

But I’m happy to sell something.

Well… Or how would you approach it? Yeah, I’m down for that. Every day.

Okay.

Let’s do it.

Let’s do it.

Alright. So hypothetically speaking, if you wanted – no, that’s too easy… I was gonna say, if you want to convince Netflix to switch to Azure…

Oh, gosh…

I don’t know why I would do that. It’d be like an ad for Azure. Let’s do –

I don’t even think I know enough about Azure to do that though…

What’s something that you know well? Barbecue?

I like barbecue.

You know barbecue very well.

Yeah.

I’m trying to find an equal footing –

Although, let’s say barbecue versus soul food. I like soul food better. Okay, good… Because he’s a barbecue guy.

Okay… Gosh, where are we going with this…? I’m gonna lose… I’m so scared…! [laughter]

Alright, so you need to convince me that I should have barbecue tonight for dinner, and you should convince me that I should have soul food tonight for dinner… And you both have a chance to respond, and then you can talk to each other as well and debate.

Sure, okay…

And you guys can see which I’m going to buy tonight. So we’ll let ladies go first…

Okay.

Shaundai, what is soul food exactly, and why would I be interested in buying ome this evening?

I’m happy to tell you about soul food, but what did you plan to cook tonight before we started to have this conversation?

Well, I’m in Seattle, so I don’t have any ability to cook… So I was probably gonna go out for something.

Mm-hm.

And I think we had discussed maybe having steak, maybe – I heard about this Korean barbecue place…

Marination.

I haven’t had sushi in a while… So we’re kind of like completely up in the air, but I’m actually not cooking tonight. I’m eating out. So…

You’re eating out. Okay. And did you have a taste for anything? Or…

Well, we had pizza. We had Italian, I’m sorry. Not pizza. We had Italian recently… So no, I’m wide open, I’m a blank slate.

Blank slate. Okay, cool. Yeah, because you did mention sushi, and that sounds like a good option. Korean barbecue might be good… You know, we’re on the West Coast, pretty close to Japan now, and… [laughter]

So close to Japan… So close.

We’re like right there… [laughs]

Just so close.

But something that would actually be really good in Seattle, as you think about it, is soul food. And why I say that… [laughs]

I’m gonna so win… [laughs]

Seattle, the home of soul food.

This has been such a long day too, so you just might… You mentioned that you didn’t really have a particular taste for anything…

No, I’m open.

[27:50] Yeah. So if I’m putting myself in your shoes, I don’t want to go to a restaurant where I’m just going to be bogged down with like one type of cuisine. I want to get there, and then in the moment I’ll be able to have the ability to choose, you know, do I feel like seafood? Do I feel like a steak? Or do I feel like some pasta type of thing? The good thing about soul food is that you don’t really have to choose until you’re there. You have the option of like fried catfish, or baked catfish, grilled catfish. And then a side of macaroni and cheese. So it’s something that’s filling, but you’re not like married to one particular cuisine, or taste.

Okay.

Yeah, not one flavor palette.

What are some other dishes?

So my favorite thing is now fried chicken. And if you’ve been to Atlanta, there’s lemon pepper chicken wings, and they’re the best in Atlanta. So hopefully, I’ll see you guys there…

I’ve never been.

Really?

I’ve been to the airport, and that’s about it.

Oh, we’ve gotta get you some lemon pepper chicken wings.

Yeah. There’s a big event in Atlanta… Render?

Render, yeah. That’s in June. So that’s in like two weeks, and I’m speaking there.

I figured as much. You’re at like every event. I was like “There she is.”

I feel like I am.

“There she is.”

Alright, so you’ve heard her argument… What do you think, man? Barbecue?

She kind of sold me on these [unintelligible 00:29:04.16]

You see? I sold both of you. [laughter] And he said I’d lose.

It sounds pretty good, actually…

No, I said I’d win. [laughter] Which implies you lose… Explicitly, I did not say that.

I don’t think Seattle is actually the best place to pitch either one of these cuisines… So you’re on level ground there.

Absolutely.

You can’t say Seattle’s great for this, but that’s okay. Let’s just assume.

I can’t reveal my secrets. I’ll just declare a loss.

You’re gonna take the L?

Yeah, you know…

Some days the best answer –

I can’t put my secrets out there. She’ll take them and try and use them.

I will…

To what? To beat you next time? She just beat you right here [unintelligible 00:29:39.19]

That’s true, that’s true…

Okay.

I’m just kidding around. I think I would begin with like – I know you already had steak, so that’s not close to barbecue, but it kinda is, because you can [unintelligible 00:29:50.09] It’s thick. And I know you’ve had Italian; we like Italian, it’s great stuff… I’m more for sushi, so I’m not really trying to advocate for barbecue; you threw me into the barbecue lane… But I think just so much good barbecue out there. And it really depends on how long it’s been since you had good barbecue. So if you have had good soul food recently, but it’s been a bit since barbecue, maybe it’s time.

So yours is all about timing, really.

Yeah. I mean, it’s up to you, really. I’m not going to convince you to eat it. If it’s good for you, you should eat it.

So this is how you approach sales?

Yeah.

You don’t try to convince me to –

No, absolutely not. I think if you want it, you should have it. I think it’s great food…

He says the option, and then he’s like “You pick.”

And I think catfish is amazing, I think lemon pepper… Probably smoked. Do they smoke them? Or direct fire over the grill?

Yeah, so there’s options. You could get the roasted ones, and then they’ll put –

Thighs, even? Are you thighs or breasts? I mean, like, thighs…

So these are like wings.

These are wings.

Well, wings…

Or you could do like the full wings. I’m thighs though, to answer your question.

Deep fried, or these are grilled, or…?

Either way.

It’s all soul food?

I’ve gone her way now.

You’re into it.

I love soul food, so it’s an easy sell.

By the way, though… All the things you’re talking about can be done on a barbecue. So we’re kind of in the same camp.

Ooh…

I know, they’re actually not that different.

They’re not that different.

Look at us, finding synergies. I like that.

I mean, you could totally do low and slow chicken wings for 45 minutes, you can also do them fast. 380.

Yeah. Soul food and barbecue are like cousins, pretty much. It’s not really a big difference.

The sides is what makes the rest of the meal soul food.

That’s it. Yeah.

Because if I give you big beans, versus… What’s a good side?

Macaroni and cheese.

That’s also barbecue. See?

Right. Or greens, collard greens…

Collard greens is not barbecue, necessarily… Well, traditional barbecue, like in Texas. We’re not doing collard greens.

Yeah, yeah.

But there’s a lot of different barbecues. [unintelligible 00:31:46.01]

Yeah, for sure.

Do you do okra? Like fried okra and stuff?

My wife loves it. I’m not a big fan. It’s like snot to me. It’s like something weird in there…

[31:56] Oh, man… Now I’m not gonna be able to get that out of my head…

Aww…

It’s kind of icky. Green beans, however - I’m down.

Green beans are good.

Macaroni and cheese, coleslaw… I mean, these are all soul food slash barbecue… We’re just cousins, basically.

That’s it. Yeah. That’s it.

You can’t go wrong, man.

You’re right. I’m buying both.

Okay, cool.

You guys both win. [laughter]

I’m fine with that.

But honestly, my tactic with sales is not at all about convincing. Zero. I want to lead and sell a good product, that I believe in, but I don’t want you to buy it because I think you should have it. I want you to buy it because you need it. And I want to find out “Can I actually help you?” And if I can, I’m going to convince you that I can help you, not that you need what I’m selling… Which is different. It’s like perspective taking. It’s not the same.

Yeah. I think my approach is similar in some senses, but also what I’ll add to it is that I want to find out first… And so you saw I started by asking him questions. So I want to find out where we’re starting from, figuring out what your interests are… And then I want to lead you to thinking that it was your decision to do what I wanted you to do in the first place.

So what my tactic was all throughout my career in sales is ask a bunch of questions… And I even approach conversations like this today. I would be a great podcaster, I think. But I’ll ask a lot of questions, and then start to kind of mold this shape of what I want you to be from where you are, and then I’ll start to plant little leading things, like “Okay, well, you said this was something that was interesting to you…” Or “You said you haven’t had this in a long time… So this is why if I were you, I would do the soul food, or I would do the barbecue”, or something like that… And make it feel like, because you said this, this was your choice.

Right.

Yeah. Anyway…

Valid techniques.

We’ve learned about sales.

That’s right. And what about closing the deal?

Oh, that’s the hardest part for me.

Is that the hardest part? I’m asking you, I don’t know…

Yeah, it’s the hardest part for me… But it’s easy if you’ve done the work ahead of time. Like, if you’ve done all the –

The deal closes itself if you’ve done the right work.

Right. If you’ve done the work up front.

Oh, yeah.

But you’ve gotta do something though, right? Like, you’ve gotta be like –

I think my keys my key phrase, honestly, when I want to know what the next step is - which is usually a close of some sort - like a good… It doesn’t have to be “Yes, I’m signing”, it’s “Yes, I want to”, or some sort of conviction, “Yes, we’re moving forward” is “What’s a good next step?” And you put it in their shoes, because they’re gonna explain to you, “Well, I need more information.” They won’t say that, obviously. Or something will come out in their response that will let you understand where they’re at. They might be like “Send me the proposal and agreement. Let’s get going.” Or it could be “I’ve got to talk to my boss. There’s two other people that need to help me with this decision.” I’m like “Can we meet with them together? Can I showcase how we work? What can I help you with to explain to them who we are and how we’ll help you?” And usually, I just make myself a resource. Like, I’m not here to sell you. I’m here to be a resource for you to get to where you’re trying to go.

That’s interesting. So what were you selling? I’m sure it was a lot of things.

Everything. Everything. I’ve sold long distance, I’ve sold donations to the Cancer Society, I have sold podcast ads, and things like that, big ideas… And it’s not just like selling ads. It’s more like “Should we help you? Can we help you? How can we help you to get to this place with reaching developers that are hard to market to? How can we help you think about this differently than simply “Give us a script, and tell them how awesome Sentry is”? That’s not how we approach it, generally.

Okay. Yeah. Because what I’m getting at is for me it’s different, depending on the thing that I’m selling, and also who I’m talking to. So if I’m talking to somebody who is kind of indecisive, I’m not going to ask them – or they’re just kind of like all over the place… I’m not going to ask them “What’s the next step?” I’ll tell them, but gently, “I think a good next step probably would be this, this and this. What do you think? Does that sound good to you?” Or “It sounds like you need to get…”

[35:55] I like that style, but it sounds kind of like implanty. Like you’re planting your own idea. Which I don’t disagree with. I would probably say “What’s your goal? I see that you don’t understand, or I see that you’re hesitant in some way… What’s your goal? What are you trying to do? What’s your big vision here?” Once this is done, [unintelligible 00:36:13.13] for yourself. And you can kind of tell what their own dream is, in my opinion, of like how uncertain or certain they are of it. And rather than tell them what you think they should do, which I think is not necessarily bad, but in my experience has been intimidating. And we’re different genders, and so sometimes I could be more intimidating with like saying “I think you should do X, and so therefore you should do it.” I like to sort of like circle around it, rather. Like, your idea was “What is your idea?”, and my thing is “What’s your real goal here? What are you really trying to do? What are you trying to optimize for?” And they will tell you. And I’ll say “Well, that sounds like this is probably pretty good for you.” And I will lead to different things. That’s kind of how I get to the Yes. Versus “This is what I think. What do you think?”

I like that. And I like that you pointed out that we’re different genders, because that’s exactly what I was thinking… Part of our style is reflective of like who we are, and our position in society…

For sure.

But yeah, when I was younger - for those who can’t see me, I’m a black woman. So as a young person, when I was first starting out in sales - and I still have a young face, I think.

You do have a young face.

I’m pretty elderly…

I’m not gonna guess your age, but it’s young-looking.

I’m very geriatric. I’m up there…

So geriatric. [laughter]

Super-geriatric. And so when I was younger, I was selling to senior salespeople, like CSOs, Chief Sales officers, CEOs, CMOs, selling them advisory services… Which is basically telling them how to sell. And I’m selling them on our ability to tell them how to sell better. And they’re like “Well, why would I take advice from a little black girl?” [laughs] And so the way that I approached those conversations is like if I’m hands-off, and I’m like “You lead”, they’re going to run with that, and they’re not going to – they already don’t want to hear me, so I have to establish more dominance.

More assertive.

Yeah. So I have to show that I’m in a position where, one, I’m not afraid for them to walk out of the door. I’m like “Listen, you could take it or leave it. I’m gonna be good regardless.” Also, just establish an air of confidence in that, like, “I’m gonna lead this sale. I’m never gonna push you into something. You see that I’m interested in finding out more about you and your problem, and fitting our solution with your unique needs, and making sure that you’re all taken care of. But let me carry us. Let me show you how to do it with our company, and how we’re going to work together. I do this every day… You’re new to this, I’m true to this… And we’ll figure it out.”

That’s a good line.

I like it.

[laughs] Yeah.

I was gonna ask if that was T.I, but it was only like one syllable, so there’s no way…

No, it’s not T.I, for sure.

[laughs]

I forget what song it is, but it’s definitely a rap song. [laughs] I can’t take the credit for it. I take the credit for stealing it.

There you go. Great artists…

I use a lot of sales stuff still to this day… And that came up too in conversations at this conference, is like “Are you ever leveraging all of that stuff?” I was actually talking with – there’s Imagine Cup, which is a startup, and kids… Well, not kids. I shouldn’t say kids. But they are kids.

Younger than us.

Young adults.

Right. They’re college students.

There you go.

College students, doing projects…

Up and comers…

[laughs] …doing projects… And their question was “How do you know what tech to learn, or how do you know what bright, shiny thing to go into?” And the advice from me and the other senior engineers in the room was like don’t focus so much on what’s the big shiny thing, or doing exactly what’s right… It’s like, your life – if I think back on my life, going from sales, into engineering, or moving from this place to that place, none of it was a plan. None of it was like in high school or in college I had this exact plan of “I’m going to do this, this and that.” Everything was just taking up opportunities. Taking up whatever is interesting, and figuring things out. So… I forget where I was going with that. What were we talking about?

[40:21] You were talking about helping people make decisions…

How you helped her –

Leveraging your sales, and…

Oh, right. So yeah, every piece has been valuable. Every aspect of this very completely nonlinear journey has been so valuable. I’m taking a lot of these sales skills and I’m using them every day in my work at Netflix, writing docs, using ChatGPT to convince people like “Let’s move over to this software. Let’s go in this direction.” Or just in any day of life convincing people to let me speak at a conference, or…

It seems to be very successful, because there you are, at the top of every list.

Here I am.

It’s working.

Yeah. Well, thank you. [laughs]

Break: [40:58]

So my wife and I built a house. We’ve been there nine years now, so that’s crazy… We’ve been there a long time. And the process which - you just went through the process of building a house… It’s not a straightforward one. A lot of it is like building a career, in a sense. That’s why I’m bringing this across… And we had a geriatric builder…

[laughs]

No, he was awesome. It was like having a father figure as your builder… But we picked the best builder.

That’s great.

In fact, we wanted all of our friends and family to use him, and he actually retired, because he was elderly… But he took on this role of like – because we were young kids to him; he was basically old enough to be my dad… And he wasn’t just gonna be our builder. He was gonna like take care of us, like a father would. It was amazing. Anyways, I say all that to say this… What am I talking about…? I’m just kidding. I say all that to say this… He always said this, which stuck with us, and we say to each other now. And he said “It’s a long and winding road.” And he was referring to the process of building a house, because there’s so many decisions along the way, so many things that go wrong, and you’re like “Okay, we had to adjust. What are we gonna do, this?” And he would just say that. Every time we’re kind of like “Aaarrghhh!!”, he’d be kind of like “It’s a long and winding road.”

[44:20] And so the house has stuck with us, but even more than the house, is that phrase, which we now say to each other… And I say it to other people, like you guys. When it comes to your career, you can’t, just like you said, choose “I’m going to be a doctor” at the age of 16, 17, 18, and then – some people get this done, but very few of us… And then just like power through and be a doctor, and like that was your career. Especially in tech, because it’s such a moving foundation. You don’t just learn Java and then spend 20 years coding Java. Okay, some people do that, but not very many.

It’s a long and winding road, you know? And so the decisions are many, but each individual decision is relatively small. But when you’re young, you haven’t made very many decisions, and so all you see is like this big decision in front of you. And what us geriatrics can say to the kids…

I love it…

…is “Hey, it’s a long and winding road. Build, grow, change, make this decision, adjust, make another one… You’re gonna have a hundred of them by next year…” And that’s calming, that’s soothing, and it helps people take the next step.

Sure.

Right. That’s all you’ve got to do, just take the next step.

Take that next step.

Just the next step.

Or help somebody on their path towards the next step.

Frozen said – I think they said in Frozen…

“Let it go.”

[laughs]

That was Frozen 1. Frozen 2 was…

Ah, a curveball.

I did not see that coming.

Frozen 2 was like “The next right step.”

Very good.

I mean, when you’re stuck in paralysis, that’s the truth… What is the next right step you can take to get out of the paralysis. You can’t be like “Fixed.” No, you’ve gotta eject, next right step, next right step. Like the turns, right? Every turn is that next right step.

I love it. Yeah, that’s one of my favorite quotes, is “Every journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.” So yeah, take that next step. I have a friend that I’ve been talking to recently, she’s at an inflection point in her career… She was in sales, and she’s gone in and out of sales, and customer success, and things like that… And she’s like “I just don’t know what I want to do, and I just feel like dropping out of the workforce and not doing anything.” She’s like “I wish, Shaundai, that my life was like yours. You knew everything. You knew all the steps that you need to take.”

You’re so smart! [laughs] It’s like, “Excuse me…?”

Yeah [unintelligible 00:46:30.28] I was like “Never at any point –” I was like “What’s giving that energy? Because not at any point did I ever know what I was doing…” And I’m still scared to this day to take those steps. It just feels like you’re in this foggy room, and all you can do is you can see what that little next step is going to be. Even sometimes it’s even foggier than that. You don’t even know. You might be stepping off a cliff… Who knows? But you have to have the confidence and the faith in your own abilities to be able to take that next step.

Right. And sometimes the next step is a wrong step… And that’s why you take little steps, and then adjust, right? You don’t look back and be like “I’ve been going down the wrong way for 10 years”, hopefully. You’re doing more retrospectives than that.

Sooner, yeah. Gosh.

But Adam, when you graduated from podcasting school, back in the day, you knew exactly you were gonna be a podcaster, right?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. [laughter] I was like “This is just too easy… I’m gonna conquer the world.” 15 years later, we’re at the goal.

Right. We’re here at Microsoft Build, you know?

No, that’s not the case at all.

This is fantastic…

Nobody planned this… Nobody planned this deal.

That’s why I like “What is a next good step? What’s the next good step for us?” Because you put it in their control, they reveal all the information, they reveal their trust in you or their lack of trust in you… You can tell with their body language if you’re with them…

[47:56] What if they just say “I don’t know”? “I don’t know what the next step is.” Then you tell them?

You know, I might give them more to think about. “You know, I don’t know what the next step is here.” “Well, maybe you can think about this, or this, and how would that influence your next step?” The next step is like a key phrase for me, at least like lately. I feel like I’m repeating myself way too much. And I say it so often, and it’s just so good, that it works, that I just keep saying it, obviously. But it’s been a while. “What’s a good next step?” Because it puts it all in their court.

Another thing I do that puts it back in their court is when somebody says something to you declarative, and you don’t really understand, rather than react and act like you understand it, I say “How do you mean?” Because there is nothing you can say – you would just keep explaining in different words what you meant. And so you can never declare that you misunderstood… You can just get to understanding. Right? “How do you mean?”

That’s a good one.

“What’s a good next step? I’d love to help you. I can help you on your journey. I’m a resource to you. I am not here to close you. I’m here to help you.”

I like that. I like that.

I don’t like closing people. I like to help people.

I see how that’s disarming, too. And bringing it back to the whole gender thing… I would be kind of en guard if I felt like a man was telling me what to do. If anybody was telling me what to do, but especially if a man was telling me what to do… [laughter]

“I want nobody telling me what to do!”

Yeah, because it feels salesy at that point. It makes it feel more like a sale than an “I’m helping you” type of thing. And I don’t want to be sold. I want to be helped.

Yeah, exactly.

So you’re giving the people what they want.

And I say “Listen, if you have any questions, I’m here to help you. If I’ve given you this information and you go away and you have more questions, let me know. Happy to help.”

Disarming them. Yeah.

Yeah.

You got it. Good stuff.

That’s my style.

Yeah.

Helper. Not seller.

I’m a sales savage… [laughter] [unintelligible 00:49:59.29]

You’re like “Listen. Here’s the pen, here’s contract… We’ve spent 10 hours talking about it. It’s time to sign. It’s time to sign.” [laughter]

Yeah…

Now, there are times when I’m a bit more direct… But generally, my demeanor is that. If I’ve exhausted a lot of time with somebody, and I’m like “Listen… It’s not what’s the next step here. The only next step is yes or no. Because I’ve gotta go, if not. I’ve got elsewhere to be. More time to spend somewhere else.” Not in those exact words, but that’s my projection I’m letting out. It’s like, “It’s time to figure something out.”

Well, you want to spend the time with the people you can help… And some people who you can’t help, you want to get to that no quickly. Sometimes disqualifying a situation is the best thing you can possibly do. It saves both sides a bunch of time and a bunch of effort.

Yeah. I don’t go and pitch in my menu. I’m not like “Hey, this is what I sell. Which one do you want to buy?” It’s “This is who we are…” And I don’t even like pitch that even. I really ask them a ton of questions. Who are you? How can we help you? What are you trying to accomplish? Those kinds of questions. And they just reveal everything to you. And it’s not like a negative reveal everything, like you’re being manipulative or something… It’s just more like “Now I know I can actually help you.” And if I know I can help you, I’ll be far more salesy about convincing them I can. It’s not like I’m trying to say “I can help you”, but I have conviction. Like “Listen, don’t walk away from this call, because I know the marketplace. We are the best people to help you. Please don’t go somewhere else. And if you do, it’s because we can’t really help you. And I don’t want you to spend your money here if we can’t help you.” I’ll tell people that. Like, “You’ve gotta go somewhere else to spend your money.” This is how it works.

That’s good. Because people feel like they can trust you more if it’s not like “Oh, I’m just trying to fit you into something just because I want your money.” It’s like “No, if it’s not good for you, then it’s not.”

Right. “And this is who we’ve helped, and how we’ve helped them, and we can do the same for you.”

I love it.

[51:56] If you pinpoint to somebody or something that’s quantifiable, and you helped, “I can do that, a version of that for you.” That to me is like saying “Will you sign?” without saying “Will you sign?” Because it’s more like “Obviously, you’re right. This is the right thing to do. I don’t have to ask you to sign.” It’s “I want to, because clearly this is the right way to go.”

Exactly. This is the natural next step.

Oh, yeah. In my opinion, that’s the best way to sell.

Have you ever used any sales philosophies or [unintelligible 00:52:21.07] any sales philosophies? The one that I use is solution selling. This is my favorite one.

Maybe… I mean, I think I’ve studied Brian Tracy over the years, lots of people over the years… I’ve probably borrowed things from them, in some way, shape, or form without knowing I’m selling a certain way.

Yeah. A lot of big company sales – so it’s like “Oh, we’re gonna train everybody on this gap selling, or solution selling.” But solution selling ended up being my favorite one, because it’s similar to a lot of the things that you said, where we’re not just like showing you the menu of things and having you try and parse all of this information, and we’re gonna fit you into whatever hole that you most closely align with… It’s first understanding your customer and what their needs are, and then pitching a solution that is meant to fit their needs.

Because a lot of the stuff that I’m selling, it’s not like a one package, like a McDonald’s menu, where you can have a hamburger, or French fries, or something like that. I could give you like a little bit of this, and then we can combine it with that, and we could put together this package for you that – it’s designed for you, because I’ve asked you what you need, and so now I can say “Okay, well, how does that align with the stuff that my company is offering, or what we’re building for you? Or is there anything that we’re gonna have to customize for you, or take out from the existing offerings that we have?” But because I’m doing such a good job qualifying, making sure, one, that you are a good customer of mine, so I’m not wasting my time by us talking, that we have something that fits your needs, so I’m asking you about the stuff that is important to you, and what matters to you, and what the low-hanging fruit are, and what the North Star is, what we have to work toward… Because I’ve done all that work to figure out what you need, now I can fit you with the exact solution to what you need, and nothing else. So you know that when you sign with me, it’s going to be a solution that’s tailored to exactly what we’ve talked about.

Question, question… So all that wisdom that you just laid out, translate that into a engineering team, where you have decision-makers above you; you have a solution that you think we should go this direction… Like, you’ve come across the technology, or technique, or whatever it is, a solution, like “This is the right solution for us.” But it’s not a small one, it’s a big one, right? And you’ve got to now convince - the power of persuasion, or sales, to a certain degree - that this is gonna solve our problem to your higher ups. How do you translate that in?

So is the question more of like the fact that they’re higher up, or is it the fact that it’s multiple people involved in the decision-making process?

Just assuming that you can’t make it yourself unilaterally. It doesn’t matter if they’re higher up; it could be the whole team.

The whole team. Okay. Because I can tell you what I’m doing right now at Netflix…

Okay.

So I’m trying – not trying, I’ve convinced them that this is the direction that we’re going to go with a certain product that we’re building. Now, to add some context, too. I am – the term is called informed captain, at Netflix.

Say what?

Informed captain.

What is that?

This is a role as a leader – are you laughing because it’s like buzzwordy type of thing? [laughs]

No, he leaned in. We have headphones on, there’s no reason to lean in. [unintelligible 00:55:43.14] better because you leaned in. That’s why we laugh.

[laughs]

I’m just human. I’m just being human.

It’s a human thing to do…

What did you say? Same level in the [unintelligible 00:55:51.03]

It’s a way of indicating interest, Adam.

I like it. Yes. Continue. I wasn’t laughing at you. I promise.

[55:59] Okay, informed captain is somebody who has – it’s like a lead role. It’s a lead role, but we don’t use the term lead… But you’re the person… Okay, let me take a step back.

I like it. I’m with you. Can I help you a little bit?

Is this a Peter Pan thing?

I wanna hear what you think it is.

Well, when I worked with Myreille on Brain Science - we did this show about psychology, essentially… It’s on our… Website…

Spit it out, Adam.

Changelog.com. I was like “What the heck is that thing?”

When he said that, he leaned in, but he didn’t have to…

[laughs]

I did. Changelog.com/brainscience…

There you go.

…she said “Name it to tame it.” And I bet you the reason why informed captain is better than “lead”, or “in charge”, is because it’s disarming. You have information, you have wisdom, and somebody needs to lead. Because if there’s four of us, and we’re all leading, we’re all going in our own direction, right? Somebody has to follow and somebody has to lead. I think that’s probably why it works, is because it disarms people from seeing “Well, there’s Jerod again, in charge… He’s the boss…” No, he’s the informed captain.

Is this like a tech lead position? Like a tech lead?

No… Kind of…

It’s probably decision-based, because it probably rotates.

It’s decision-based. So yeah, it’s more – we’re very flat. So we’re all at the same level hierarchy-wise. We all have varying levels of technical abilities, but some people are stronger at one thing, and then another person is stronger at another thing. So we’re very flat. But one concept at Netflix that we really lean into is farming for dissent. So I’ll raise an idea, but it’s everybody else’s job to disagree. Or not necessarily disagree just to disagree, but –

If they disagree, to say that.

Right. And to make sure – and then I as the informed captain am making sure that I’m farming for dissent. I’m asking people for their buy-in, because it makes no sense for me to make a decision in a silo… Especially on my team, where my customers are other Netflix engineers, and I have the ability to get feedback… But in any tech, you don’t want to just build the thing that you think is cool. You want to build something that you’ve actually validated with your customers and made sure it solves a problem for them.

So informed captain is the person who’s responsible for being kind of the quarterback of the project, and organizing all the resources, the human resources, and the tech resources, making decisions about what kind of tech we use, helping to coordinate with the PMs… And they might be PMs themselves, but helping to coordinate with everybody on what are the priorities, what’s the direction of the project, and how it moves.

So the reason that I give you that background context is that I have this unique position of being the person who’s like “This is our decision. This is the way that we want to move.” But before that, I want to make sure that we’re all aligned on this decision. So in this scenario, my goal in selling is to convince everybody that the direction that I think we should go is the one that everybody should agree to, instead of everybody dissenting, and then we have to move in a different direction.

Right. So how do you do that?

So you ask ChatGPT to write you a guide. [laughter]

Oh, that’s right. I forgot.

“Help me, ChatGPT… Gosh…!” [laughter]

That’s where we started.

Yeah. No, the first thing, just like I said, in any sales scenario is to figure out what the needs are. One of my biggest things as a tech person - and it comes from my sales background, and I’ll explain what I mean by that - is to get feedback from the customer, even before we’ve put a line of code there. So I want to find out what the problems are. I’m asking all the questions to figure out what the big problems are, and I’m putting that all into a doc. This is the doc that I’m writing… It’s putting all that together to say “Collectively, this is what you said, customer.” It happens to be other Netflix engineers. “This is what you said is the problem. And this is what you said are the highest priorities. So I’m grouping those together.”

[59:57] Going back, the reason why that’s so important to me is because as a salesperson, I’m the first line of contact for the company. I’m the person that the customers are coming to and saying, “Wow, this product worked exactly as I expected.” Or I’m the person who loses the commission, because they’re like “We don’t want to buy this, because it doesn’t serve any of our needs, and we told you that we wanted this feature prioritized, and nobody ever cared about that.” I take all that feedback and I bring it to the customer success manager, who brings it to their manager, who brings us to the product manager, who brings it to the design or the engineering manager, who brings it to the engineering team, who puts it on the backlog, and never looks at it.

A lot of engineers have this problem where they’re afraid of someone calling their baby ugly. They have this idea in their head of this cool thing that they can add to their product, but they’re not actual users of the product, or they never actually talked to actual users of the product, so they’ve never gotten that validation. And they waste so much time building these tools that nobody uses. And that’s how it leads to layoffs in companies, because you spend all these expensive resources, human resources, and buying tooling to support initiatives that haven’t been validated.

So all that being said, we’ll get all of this validation from our customers, I’ll go back and then I put it all together, and I say “These are the three big problems that you have identified, or in my conversations that I heard from you”, and I’m outlining this in a way that is very “This is you, this is you, this is you. Does this sound familiar?” And they’re like “Oh my God, yeah. This is exactly what it is.” “Okay. Now that that’s said, is there anything that I missed?” “Nope. It sounds like you have a comprehensive view of it.” And I’m adding in quotes from actual engineers, actual customers, screenshots of things or videos of existing workflows where it’s just like really clunky, or I’m taking multiple steps to get to the next – something that should be very easy, or I have to get to this very granular level of things, where there’s a way that we could easily abstract out all of these parts of the workflow.

And that’s what I put in front of the manager, or the team, whoever is responsible for making this decision, and I’m like “This is what we’re experiencing now. This is my proposal for a solution. And I addressed these problems, which we all agreed that these are priorities… And I’m addressing them in this way.” And there’s no way you can argue with that. I’ve done my research, I’ve asked everybody. Everybody has already been bought in because, from the beginning, even before I put a line of code, even before I put a line in that doc, I asked you. I asked you what you said. So there’s no dissent, because we came up with this basically together. All I did was I just put it in a doc.

[01:02:39.26] Organized it.

Yeah, yeah. So you’re selling yourself, basically… [laughs]

Which is the easiest thing to do.

Yeah.

You can’t really argue with that… And if you did, you’d have to have a really good argument. So if you are wrong, which means that they didn’t reveal everything they could during the interview process - which is fine, too… Right? It’s all about getting to the right solution, not my solution. Because that’s what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to organize a solution, because you’ve got a job to do, right? They’d better have a good reason why, that that argument is true.

That’s right.

And then it’d be like “Well, why didn’t you reveal that before? Because now you’re wasting my time… I put this presentation together, I’m the fool here… What’s up with that? Get it together.”

Right. And another key is don’t – it’s always iteration in tech. It’s not like “Okay, I heard the problem, and now let’s just go build”, and never talk to the user again. You start from there, and then you get the agreement that “Okay, yes, this is exactly what we captured. Okay, so now we’ve got the Go-ahead. Let’s start building.” Build a little bit. Start with an MVP. What’s the smallest amount of work we can put into this just to get like a proof of concept out there, so that this is in front of somebody. So now there’s a product; now people can start playing with it. And they’re like “You know what? Now that it’s built… I don’t know. Actually, I think there’s a bigger problem that we need to solve.” And then you pivot.

So now you go to the next iteration. There’s MVP 2, where you solve the new problems that came up. Or you start to realize “Technically, we don’t have the ability to do this just yet. Or this is like blocked by this other thing that we need from this other team.” And then you iterate from there. So you’re always keeping that customer in the loop. They’re never out of it. So all along the way, it’s just like, you’re still working together.

You know what that sounds like?

A long and winding road… [laughter]

Full circle.

So what would be a good next step? [laughter]

That’s right. Where do I sign…? That’s good.

I win.

You do win.

You win.

Well, it was actually a win/win/win.

It was a triple win. Yeah. I agree.

What is this, the AI thing? Did I say AI again?

[laughs] No.

Did I say it too much?

No.

We’re just counting up life points. We all win.

Oh. I win.

We all do I win.

Yeah, you win.

Okay, good.

You’re here. You’re our guest.

As long as I’m not a loser…

And we like you a lot. That’s why you’re sitting here. We like you.

That is winning, I think.

That’s winning.

I like you a lot, too. Yeah. I am winning. I am winning. Okay, thanks.

Thank you, Shaundai. This has been awesome.

Thank you.

It has been awesome.

Bye, friends.

Bye, friends!