Oxide and Friends

With some time passed, Bryan and Adam offer a non-hot take on Paul Graham's "Founder Mode" post. While there is plenty to quibble over, there's also the kernel of an important idea: how to balance experience, novel thinking, and limited time? Also stay tuned as they share a years old "ego con".

Your hosts were Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal.
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Creators & Guests

Host
Adam Leventhal
Host
Bryan Cantrill

What is Oxide and Friends?

Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form.
Join us live (usually Mondays at 5pm PT) https://discord.gg/gcQxNHAKCB
Subscribe to our calendar: https://sesh.fyi/api/calendar/v2/iMdFbuFRupMwuTiwvXswNU.ics

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. So this is not a hot take. This is a little bit of a cold take. Yes. In that, we are talking about something that was very hot 2 weeks ago.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

We we've been on a 2 week hiatus, and, you are our last episode. It was a RFT episode coming in from Italy, which is great. Or so so the image that you generated said so I got confirmation on that one. But the, and then the the Internet kinda melted down that next weekend over to this Paul Graham piece.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Founder Mode.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I I can confess, I was a little glad we had a hiatus, like, that that piece came out. You wrote a nice blog post. Other folks were chatting about it. I was glad for a moment that we'd have to talk

Bryan Cantrill:

about it. Okay. We're obviously in a safe space. I was glad.

Adam Leventhal:

No way.

Bryan Cantrill:

I was glad. I was glad. I thought, like, I was glad because I'm just like, I need to get on with my life. This thing has, like, this piece hit just hits a lot of nerves. Oh, boy.

Bryan Cantrill:

And it gets a lot of people talking about it, tons of comments on Hacker News. Normally, when you get that much comments, one of the things I like about Hacker News is when you get a lot of comments on things, if it when the comments exceed the up votes, a story gets more or less automatically killed. It it gets automatically removed from the front page, which I actually think is a great a great very simple algorithm.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Indicator of hot take-dness or whatever.

Bryan Cantrill:

Hot takenness. Like an indicator of like, we got a lot of discussion going, but people aren't actually reading the underlying article. I always thought that was like super elegant. And but this this case, it was getting a lot of like, a lot of comments, a lot of up votes. And so this thing is going and going.

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, I read it. I'm like, don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Still thinking about it.

Bryan Cantrill:

So I have to write a hacker news comment. Write a hacker news comment. Like, now I'm done. Done thinking about it. Still thinking about it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Still thinking about it. Gotta write a blog entry, and I've learned that it's just like, I can't fight that at that. By that point, like, I gotta get it's it's just gonna be faster for me to write the goddamn thing and be done with it. And, I wrote the blog entry, was kinda debating, like, is this on a personal blog or is this on the Oxide blog? But I'm like, you know, it was just be I I let me I need to get Steve's fingerprints on this and to get it on the the oxide because obviously I wanna and actually it was helpful getting the oxide blog.

Bryan Cantrill:

It actually helped me there's some things

Adam Leventhal:

I probably would Like dialed down a little bit?

Bryan Cantrill:

Dialed down a little bit. Yeah. Dialed that a little bit. Not, you know, not, hugely, but I think dialed that I mean, I also alright. So you're abroad when you read the piece.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. And what is your take on on the piece other than, like, thank God we're not recording tomorrow?

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, first I mean, first three reactions were thank God we're not recording tomorrow. And And they got

Bryan Cantrill:

our own brain next week.

Adam Leventhal:

And you're saying and you saying, like, you didn't want to talk about it. Man, I I was like, I'm just gonna mute notifications in case Brian DMs me or something. I'm just I'm off the grid. It it felt, so so Paul Graham's piece felt so non specific that it was going to be inevitably used as a justification for founders to do whatever they wanted. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

To rationalize whatever sort of like terrible decisions were being made or whatever cultural decisions had been made with very almost a justification for a lack of introspection. And I mean, that's probably what rankled you so much too. It's just like it that that's what grinds so much. The the these, these kind of little aphorisms that people say, I'm gonna do it my way because conventional wisdom is tautologically busted and, therefore, founder mode. Therefore, founder mode.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I and I I I think the one thing I will say in Graham's defense is he anticipates this a little bit. Okay. He indicates that be he's like the in one of the footnotes in particular, what I have I I have another less optimistic prediction. As soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, little did you know that this would happen within, like, literal minutes of this thing getting out there, people will start misusing it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Founders who are unable to delegate even things that they should will use founder mode as an excuse. I thought that was like that was a good moment of reflection for Paul Graham.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I mean, sort of. I don't know.

Bryan Cantrill:

I we're we're like we're in like the mirror neuron empathy preschool over here with Silicon Valley. You gotta be like, good job, Paul Graham. Good job. Can everyone be a little can everyone give Paul a round of applause for his active empathy? Okay.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. Sam, stop it. No. Elon. Elon.

Bryan Cantrill:

You'll get back here. Hey. Get back. I do think it's interesting that Elon did you see the the list of people that reviewed this place, including Elon Musk?

Adam Leventhal:

Reviewed the article before he before he posted it? Yes. No. I did not see that list.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. Thanks to Brian Chesky, fine. Patrick Collison, fine. Ron Conway, fine. Jessica Livingston, makes sense.

Bryan Cantrill:

Elon Musk Wait. Yeah. Alright. Good. And I like, what are Elon Musk's comments?

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I I mean Probably copy editing.

Bryan Cantrill:

Is it just it's like got another typo. Like, is there any is there anything substantive? Do you have any substantive complaints? It's just like, that's a very close read. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

I think we're thinking of our comments for one another

Adam Leventhal:

on any document.

Bryan Cantrill:

We're both guilty of it. That's right. That's fair. So, yeah, I was very surprised that that Paul that, that Elon Musk and I, again, I would love to know where is Elon Musk like, I don't know. Like, don't you feel it needs more Nazi in here?

Bryan Cantrill:

Just feels like

Adam Leventhal:

Just 10%.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'm just like I'm just like it's just a joke. I mean, that sounds those jokes are funny. It's that I I I who knows? I don't know. But so I I think that that was good that he anticipated that.

Bryan Cantrill:

But so we should so describe, like, the piece in terms of, like, what Graham like, what is the dichotomy that Graham sees? Because I mean, ultimately, this is reductive and it generates this galactic dichotomy between founder mode and manager mode. And there was nothing in the middle.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah, I mean, the term manager mode feels like so it's like, so easy. It's like, easily pejorative. You know what I mean? Oh, it's super easy pejorative. Yes.

Adam Leventhal:

Like managers are the enemy. So it's like, do you want to be manager? And that as much as founder mode is such like a great, mean nothing aphorism that you could use to, like, potentially justify behavior, management mode is such like a just just such a burn. Right? It is such a burn.

Adam Leventhal:

It's like if you were saying something in a meeting and and someone's like, oh,

Bryan Cantrill:

oh, nice management mode there.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Be like, oh, like, never mind. Like, I'm leaving.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, I'd say, hey. Let's go. I'll go into management mode here. Adam wants us to go into management mode. So everybody give a status update because apparently that's what we need to do.

Bryan Cantrill:

We're in management mode now. I know. It just it feels very dismissive. Yeah. And it feels dismissive, dismissive of expertise and which I think and again, it creates this kind of false dichotomy around expertise.

Bryan Cantrill:

That, like, expertise is tautologically not founder mode. Spot on.

Adam Leventhal:

And I think that, I'm sure you've seen this from VCs, like, there's so little, weight often put on experience and expertise and and and the past. And, like, I've talked to VCs who say, you know, I I only wanna work with founders who can kind of conjure things from first principles. And I think there is something valuable to that. Right? There is something valuable to saying, I'm just gonna educate myself on a topic, But it's just so dismissive of everything that came before.

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I there was a time in my career when I got hit up by recruiters for, like, for this one particular role. And the role was usually founder CTO who couldn't manage, you know, 10 people, now the team was a 100 people, and they wanted to bring me in, and the CTO wanted to to be fair,

Bryan Cantrill:

there's another pejorative that's in the kind of Silicon Valley VC Lexicon of the first adult.

Adam Leventhal:

No. That's totally that's that's right. Right? It was kind of first adult mold, but but the the almost to a person, the CTO would kind of describe the role as like, we've got this cake. I enjoy eating cake but mostly I like eating frosting so I'm gonna lick off all the frosting and then I thought you as the first adult would enjoy eating the rest of the cake.

Bryan Cantrill:

It would be like someone's gotta someone's gotta lick the frosting. Right? And someone's gotta do something with the rest of this thing.

Adam Leventhal:

I don't really and so

Bryan Cantrill:

is this like okay. I think this role is being foisted upon you. I don't think you're totally bought in to this role.

Adam Leventhal:

And, William, that that the buying in process was clearly them saying, like, you'll still be able to gorge yourself on frosting. Don't worry. Right. You only like the frosting. And I remember this one company in particular, Plaid, where the founders talked to me, young guys.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, God.

Adam Leventhal:

And no, they were great. They were fantastic. They were like, we want to hire people who can help us see around corners. Like, we don't wanna have to be like, encounter every mistake, the hard way.

Bryan Cantrill:

That is great. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Like, we wanna we wanna learn from the mistakes other folks have made, and I I just found it to be so like, so terrific.

Bryan Cantrill:

I would say the Collison Brothers are similar in that regard. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

They they were they kind of surprisingly like, seeking wisdom out of others Yeah. I think is actually an it's unfortunate that it is so unusual a trade, especially in a company that's enjoyed some early success. Yeah. Because they are being kind of implicitly and and there this is the dichotomy that's that's created of, like, what we should be encouraging people to do is, like, seek out that wisdom and then make your own decision. Instead it's like, find an adult.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right? It's like, alright, I guess that makes me the child. And which that's not I mean, it's the same dichotomy, but from the other perspective. Totally. Of like the founder is a child and the professional management is And so how did how did the plan thing work out?

Bryan Cantrill:

Did they wanna Jeremy

Adam Leventhal:

Grantham (thirty six:fifty seven): Well, I for me, it turned out very planned. Did did you know Actually, the way it turned out for well, well, Plaid turned out gangbusters. Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Exactly.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, put that in I I think I've talked about my poor financial decisions in the past. It turned out, as I thought about it harder, I was just not interested in the problem space. Every engineer I spoke with there was meticulous about personal finances, loved it as a hobby almost.

Bryan Cantrill:

That sounds like a great fit for no wait a minute that's not a great fit for me.

Adam Leventhal:

Well I was like, I've never balanced my checkbook. I only sort of know what that means to do as an activity. I I so I just realized that the problem space was not like not a good match.

Bryan Cantrill:

So that you know that's a great that actually is really because that's actually, like, an honest story to tell yourself. Right? Because it's so tempting to be, like, god, I talked to those guys early. Like, they real we really wanted to make a connection. I walked away from it.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's a multi $1,000,000,000 company. I would be like a billionaire. It's like, well, no. Maybe you would be, like, bored, miserable, and would have left after 6 months.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Or

Adam Leventhal:

I would have fucked everything up. Or, like, actually, Platts on

Bryan Cantrill:

a multibillion dollar company because it's run by

Adam Leventhal:

a guy who, like, hey, like,

Bryan Cantrill:

the CTO doesn't know how to balance check plug. He only knows what that means in the abstract. Right? So, but interesting. So they were they were actually really actively seeking that.

Bryan Cantrill:

But I think it's a very unusual. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

You know, unusual, especially, like, I think these guys were in their late twenties at the time. Very unusual, I think. Yeah. Exactly. And I I was really impressed.

Bryan Cantrill:

We should be encouraging that a lot more because I think that, like, the the big problem I mean, I had a couple of big problems with the piece, but the non specificity is, like, first among them of this is too reductive. And it's very important to remember that Paul Graham has started a successful company. It is called Y Combinator. Like, ViaWeb I'm sorry, we're just not going down to ViaWeb as a as a model for what companies should aspire to do. I and I think that the understand that most of of his perspective comes from starting Y Combinator.

Bryan Cantrill:

And from so he is getting this kind of hearsay from founders, and then deliberately trying to be reductive about it. And as a result, you're losing a lot of nuance and detail. And I think that there's a there if for folks that are are interested, I think and one of the my my first kinda tweet on this, my first attempt to think about this only briefly was, linking to Tim O'Reilly's piece, How I Failed. Yeah. And I I mean, I think this is a a piece that I actually had read and then couldn't find again.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I actually DM'd Tim about it because I'm like, you know, you wrote a piece years ago and it had a real influence on me and I can't find it. And he's and it turns out it was a LinkedIn post. Mhmm. That's why I couldn't find it. And then the the he's like, it gave me some terms to search on and I think then O'Reilly actually kind of finally put it up as a but this I think this piece is is terrific.

Bryan Cantrill:

First of all, I mean, I think Adam, you and I believe this perhaps to a shared fault where I do worry that I focus too much on how companies fail.

Bryan Cantrill:

Do you know

Bryan Cantrill:

what I mean?

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Where it can inhibit your own action. Like, you need to be there's a degree to which you have to be blind to the odds. Yeah. Certainly in a start up. Totally.

Bryan Cantrill:

And you it's like this walk in this fine line between I need to know how things fail. But if I if I learn too much, I it it might inhibit what I actually need to go do to make this thing successful. But we definitely you and I both like to understand, like, how did things come unglued? And I feel like I learn a lot more from failure than from success. Totally.

Bryan Cantrill:

Success is just I would say success teaches us all nothing, but success certainly teaches me nothing. That's maybe a much more that's a more a more concise statement.

Adam Leventhal:

Well, it's so hard to to know that you're drawing the right lessons from success. Right? Like that Oh, for sure. Like that, you know, a couple companies ago, Delphix, we talked to lots of folks from VMware. Like, we were doing something virtualization related, and VMware was doing something virtualization related.

Adam Leventhal:

There are lots of folks who were early, but not super early at VMware who drew all kinds of of of, like, weird result, like, inferences from their success.

Bryan Cantrill:

Totally. Well and also, like, you don't want and as someone's saying in the chat, a lot of success is luck. And you it's hard for people to say, like, I was really goddamn lucky. Totally. I was in god, I was in the right place at the right time with the right idea, the right team.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, all that just, like, happened to come together, which is almost always the case. Like, there's always this kind of element that is out of your control, I feel. Yeah. And but I think that that part of the reason that the O'Reilly piece is good is it's, like, not a reflection on unequivocal success. It's a and obviously titled How I Failed, but it's getting into some of the specific things that Tim felt that he did wrong.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I know that, like, I think that this is another thing that's really important that even I think Tim is remarkably candid here. I think he's he's a terrific writer. He's also, like, telling a narrative that is kind of his narrative. And someone I mean, someone else at O'Reilly could very easily be like, that is not, like, consistent with my understanding. Like, you just it's so easy for different people to have different understandings.

Bryan Cantrill:

And for a founder to even not you know, they'll see some things and not see other things. Because I think it's it's always important to kinda to consider that you're getting kind of one narrative and that there are other narratives.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. There's a great line in in that piece from Tim where he was talking about a interview with Michael Lewis, where Michael Lewis said, you don't know the book you've written until people tell you what they've read or something along those lines. And Is this stuff

Bryan Cantrill:

a Sam Bankman Fried kind of moral to it? You know, I'd like to how is Michael Lewis, how is let's reflect back. So what book was that? What was the the

Adam Leventhal:

Well, let's go tell him.

Bryan Cantrill:

The the hagiography you wrote hagiography or hagiography? I started to know on that one. I think it's hagiography. I think

Adam Leventhal:

that's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Alright. The hagiography that you accidentally wrote on Sam Bankman Fried, which I guess readers are telling you that's the

Adam Leventhal:

the the the book you wrote in that case. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

But, yeah, that's interesting that, like, that you don't I think that's right that you don't necessarily know.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Even the culture you're creating, like, even the culture that we're creating here. Oh, for sure. Like, go go figure out how new employees experience it to understand, like, what what it actually looks like. Yes.

Adam Leventhal:

Because even that has changed and you lose track of it over the years, like, what and and how it's practiced.

Bryan Cantrill:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's very easy. So I think you gotta kinda keep that in mind when you're looking at Tim's piece. But all that said, I really like this.

Bryan Cantrill:

I thought there was a lot of specificity in here that was really important. Yeah. And some of that is just like and we do like failure number 1 of people only hear half the story, which I think it was kind of interesting, right, where he's trying to give tough messages with empathy. And people like, well, I'm gonna, like, I'll take the empathy and I'll kind of like discard the tough message. But that's like his perspective.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, maybe someone else, like, I I actually thought that

Adam Leventhal:

was true. The specifics on that one also tickled Mabler. I I think it was that he was, you gotta fill the car with gas, but a road trip is not a tour of gas stations.

Bryan Cantrill:

Which I really like, by the way.

Adam Leventhal:

It's delightful. And he was like, but people only heard that a road trip is not a tour of gas stations.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's right. This is it's like, this is great. So we don't need to stop we're not stopping for gas at all.

Adam Leventhal:

No. No. No. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. No. No. That's not what I said.

Adam Leventhal:

Listen to the whole thing.

Bryan Cantrill:

Listen to the whole thing. Yeah. You're doing that thing you do again.

Adam Leventhal:

And if

Bryan Cantrill:

you're only listening to half the story. Yeah. So I thought that was, was really interesting. I the the one I but I gotta say, and this is where the thing that was very influential for me, and this is like, I do think the positive of the founder mode piece, is his the second failure of that's not how it's that's how it's done, where he brings in a bunch of HR professionals Yeah. That and the thing it was essentially I and you might find this actually really hard to believe given the kind of the way the piece is written.

Bryan Cantrill:

When I read that, I I didn't think that was the failure. And I was kind of at a moment where I was beginning to question some of my more idiosyncratic methods, which you might already be like, I first of all, just don't believe that. That's not credible at all. But I really was. I was just like, god, maybe am I because I'm I'm doing things that are really differently than other people.

Bryan Cantrill:

You're like,

Adam Leventhal:

maybe we should be bringing in HR professionals like Tim says?

Bryan Cantrill:

I did I definitely was wondering on things like performance review. And so that that that where it's like, I don't know, maybe. And the and then he kind of like hit and so he says, I, you know, I complained, but I eventually gave in. Yeah. I literally what you I mean, hand on heart.

Bryan Cantrill:

So I I am speaking my own truth whether you believe it or not. Maybe I don't even believe it. I have a second. But when I read that, in 2013 or whatever, I'm like, maybe I should give in. And then the next sentence is like, no.

Bryan Cantrill:

I was like, no. No. You idiot. It was a disaster. And I thought it was and I think the danger I think I liked about this is it is very specific with respect to some specific policies that were, you know, on, you know, regular reviews and so on that were that were very, very specific.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I any kind of regrets not having, like, preserved the culture longer, that does not mean you discard all expertise, I think. Right. And and I think that's where you get into the false dichotomy that gets dangerous.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Totally. And and knowing when, you know, I think one of the dangers of just following expertise is that you're cargo culting, without understanding the rationale. Right? Like you are doing the things that are you're being told to do without understanding why whether they apply to your business, how they should apply.

Adam Leventhal:

And then, you know, I've also seen this in folks doing things at one company, coming to a new company, trying to do it the same way, and not understanding the the differences that made them successful Totally. There that then make them unsuccessful in the new company.

Bryan Cantrill:

Totally. Where you have something that worked well Yeah. And now is not working at all. Or, and not not understanding, like, why this thing worked so well. And it's like, well, maybe that was, like, incidental success.

Bryan Cantrill:

Maybe that maybe that thing wasn't work. Or much I think, probably more likely, it was implicitly dependent on a bunch of factors that you didn't necessarily see. Totally. That you didn't, yeah, I think it's, it's tough and it's complicated, but this, so that was, that was the bit in that piece that was very influential for me, and gave me some of the guts actually to be like, okay, I'm actually gonna it's okay to actually go my own way on this stuff. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

But I think you need to be really I do think you need to be deliberate because I think that the again, the danger of Graham's piece is that, like, oh, no. You just go founder mode, which to me, doesn't that what do you think of when you think, oh, you're founder mode?

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, I I think, like, something out of Silicon Valley, like,

Bryan Cantrill:

it does sound like an episode of Silicon Valley is is of HBO Silicon Valley is founder of I don't think you like Beast Mode and Marshawn Lynch.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean,

Bryan Cantrill:

is that, like am I the only one that, like, has a, like, a strong Beast Mode? Yeah. And I think that, you know, Paul Graham would dismiss that as a sports ball, so I don't think he would know who Marshawn Lynch is or who what Beast Mode is. But that you kinda have this idea of, like, founder mode is just not gonna accept any sort of negotiation or that That's right.

Adam Leventhal:

Absolutist. Absolutist.

Bryan Cantrill:

Founder mode demands results,

Adam Leventhal:

and

Bryan Cantrill:

it demands them now. And, I mean, that that's so that's kinda what prompted me to be like, alright. Can we undo some of the false dichotomy here? Yeah. And which I feel Tim's piece does, but I wanted to I mean, part of the what motivated me to write that write the oxide piece is I I wanted to also, I wanted did you click on my link for traumaturgical dyad?

Bryan Cantrill:

Of

Adam Leventhal:

course. Thank you. I wanted to see which specific Thank

Bryan Cantrill:

you.

Adam Leventhal:

Simpsons reference, like, what what what frame of Oh, thank you. Of your Thank you.

Bryan Cantrill:

Reference. I I felt underappreciated on dramaturgical dyad.

Adam Leventhal:

Where did you expect to get that appreciation?

Bryan Cantrill:

I think right here, right now. So I

Adam Leventhal:

think I

Bryan Cantrill:

got it. I think I got it. Actually, yeah, because you were traveling.

Adam Leventhal:

You were out.

Bryan Cantrill:

So I was like, why? Yeah. No. I I just got it, actually. I got it.

Bryan Cantrill:

I don't think anyone.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I I was I I mean, it is a narrow joke. I mean, I just I didn't know. I didn't know.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'd appreciate that. I felt like it was an audience of like 5. And I don't know who the other 4 people are actually know who are the No, it's you and Dave.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. Dave. Steven. I mean, they're Who? I can think of who would get it.

Adam Leventhal:

I'm not

Bryan Cantrill:

sure they're gonna read the article. You know, they're not gonna read the article. Do you know who would get that? It's actually, my kids. Not Tobin, but but my my 17 year old and my 12 year old are are scholars of the early.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. And you're like, hey, kids. New blog post from dad.

Bryan Cantrill:

I knew blog post from dad. I, you know, I didn't do that. I but, you know, I haven't done everything wrong. This is one of those moments when they, when I think

Adam Leventhal:

did read it, they would get it.

Bryan Cantrill:

They did read it. Yeah. They will this is where I've done other things wrong that I'm not gonna read the blog entry, But I do think that the that Steve Jobs and like Steve Jobs and John Scully is the dramaturgical diet of Silicon Valley. Yes. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Absolutely. I mean, this is like the Tom and Jerry. Yeah. This is and I feel like that is really reductive.

Adam Leventhal:

Totally. Especially because as we know as we've talked about years ago on the show, like, Steve Jobs, I think is not fully understood or appreciated in in terms of, like, how he operated when when he succeeded and when he failed.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'd absolutely. And I mean, again, like, the question that I am dying to ask the dead Steve Jobs is what was the influence of NeXT on your return to Apple?

Adam Leventhal:

Absolutely.

Bryan Cantrill:

Because I feel like Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing was such an I mean, such an outstanding spotlight on this long period of history, 11 years. And, you know, I know we've talked about it before. I think it's an amazing book. I love the fact that that book is written when he's left for dead. Mhmm.

Bryan Cantrill:

Because it just like, there's no reason to, like, praise this guy. Right. And I don't I don't think it's, like, overly condemning, but it's just, like, yeah, definitely not, like, letting him review it or whatever. I don't I don't care what he thinks about it. Like, part of, like, this guy is down and out, and I'm, like, I'm I'm here to to tell the the story of the fall.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. It is not a fall and resurrection story, it is a fall story. And and I think that, like, the the problem with the I mean, I was shocked at the Isaacson because I, you know, we we talked about this on our Yeah. I think our first podcast, right? Or one of the early ones, went went back to the Isaacson's biography.

Bryan Cantrill:

And it's like, next is like 6 pages. Really? And like, man, I think it's so much more important than that. Yeah. Because this guy did not succeed at next.

Bryan Cantrill:

And how much did that and, like, Scully wasn't totally wrong on a lot of things. Yeah. And Jobs definitely wasn't right in that in that kind of that 1985 dramaturgical dyad. Just glad you get in there one more time.

Adam Leventhal:

Good. Good. Good. For all for all

Bryan Cantrill:

it's worth. But I I so I I felt that, like, we we kinda need to break that one apart. And I do feel that I mean, again, said it before, but, boy, mandatory reading on Jobs. You just can't stop with the with the Isaacson bio. You really you really have to dig deeper on that guy.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. In in terms of

Adam Leventhal:

what you were saying about experience, you know, I just feel like these reductive views of Sculley versus Jobs or founder mode versus management mode, you want founders who are thoughtful. And sort of also good at ignoring things, I mean, I think one of the spoke I think briefly to this kind of notion of paralysis. If you're like, I wanna get all of these things right, it's impossible.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. I can

Adam Leventhal:

get any of them right. So you need to take short hands for some of the short some of the short hands are, I'm gonna do it my way arbitrarily, I'm gonna do it the way that it's always been done arbitrarily. Right. Not that either of those is correct, but then focusing on the ones that are key to your business, and they're taking a blend of, like, what you think is right for your business, but then learning from experience. Totally.

Adam Leventhal:

And actually, this

Bryan Cantrill:

is where I gotta say, Paul Graham and Steve Jobs, I mean, I'm glad we're talking about them in kind of a single episode because they are to me, they are both they're complicated for me. Paul Graham is actually complicated for me. Paul Graham is not I I mean, Elon Musk is not complicated. Sam Altman is not complicated for me. Paul Graham is complicated for me because he's not always he's definitely not always wrong.

Bryan Cantrill:

He's got some he's got some really important insights. Yeah. And actually, I like one of his the important insights that again was very personally influential for me and for us at Oxide is, do things that don't scale. Do things that don't scale is a very good way to say, like, this is working for us now. You and I are having a disagreement about whether this can work for us in the indefinite future.

Bryan Cantrill:

We don't actually have to have that argument right now. Absolutely.

Adam Leventhal:

And I think yeah. I mean the other side of it of like this won't scale when we're 10 people, a 100 people, a 1000 people. They have been in those arguments. I remember one in particular where, you know, there was a cranky customer. They weren't getting the performance they wanted out of the thing we had sold them.

Adam Leventhal:

Like, well, what if we just give them enough of the thing that we sold them to meet their performance needs? Not at oxide, by the way.

Bryan Cantrill:

Cherish customers of oxide.

Adam Leventhal:

To be clear. And, also, like, it was a software product, so, like, giving them twice as much was, like, sort of, like, mine or whatever. Right. And and someone started freaking out about revenue recognition when we're a public company. This is a company, by the way, that never went public.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. This is a company that acquired got acquired, like, 10 years after this conversation by private equity. Private equity. Right. But, you know, you know, being able to say, like, yes, this doesn't scale.

Adam Leventhal:

Yes. When we are being held to certain standards, you know, by our public investors, we can't do this. Also, it's today, and, like, let's just get through the day.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. When I think and this is where it is really important to figure out, like, what are what what are the kind of

Adam Leventhal:

the hard rules of the road.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And and I feel like, you know, we have to spell that out very explicitly at Oxide in part because of our experience having not where that's not clearly spelled out. And where where founder mode moves into things that are, like, pretty shady. You know, where because you get things like look. I I understand what you're saying about complying with the law, but we'll and we'll do that.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, when we it's like, I don't think Paul Graham said do things that are sometimes illegal. I think there's something, like, sometimes legal. But I have seen that. You know? I've I've you get some really kinda gross stuff.

Bryan Cantrill:

So, like, where is that line too? Right? You wanna have, like, clear lines there, but still allow for a company that is young to do something that it wouldn't do in the indefinite future.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, like, when I was talking about re recognizing revenue, I'm not talking about, like, cooking the books. But there's a difference between, like, cooking the books and, like, how you're backdating revenue in a public fashion and, like, you know, the this was, like, all totally above board. Right. People were just Sorry.

Adam Leventhal:

Concerned about the, you know, what the future would look like.

Bryan Cantrill:

What the future would look like. Right? And also, like, what kind of precedent are we setting and so on. It's like, it doesn't actually matter. We've got, like, we need to Totally.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, let's let's let's make it another day here.

Adam Leventhal:

Let's make them happy. And, like Right. Right. Right. And how can we make these customers happy?

Bryan Cantrill:

So another thing that you had mentioned is, like, that it is kind of this funky dichotomy is that you, as a startup, you're being encouraged to kind of to do things that are iconoclastic. Yeah. And then immediately defer to, like, LinkedIn wisdom. Like, wisdom, like, from the resume. Totally.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I I remember at at at Delphix, you know, I joined this company. It was, like, 20 people at the time. At first, you know, it was the 1st startup, I'd been at. And what I found really startling was the degree to which when we were hiring people, we wanted to see people who had done that exact thing, like, 2 or 3 times.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. And, and I sort of thought, Oh, we're going to be this like scrappy startup. We're going to take chances on people. We're going to like, but it was it was clearly not part of the risk budget to find people who were just like hungry and we thought could do the thing. And I think there was some, you know, maybe it was just like where the risk budget was, but there and there was some strength to that thought.

Adam Leventhal:

There are also a bunch of downsides to it. We found people who had done it before and maybe weren't hungry to do it again or had, like, forgotten the drive that it took to do that again?

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. Forgot the drive that did I don't wanna do it again. Kind of bored by it. Also, like, I didn't do that. I was at that company when it was done.

Bryan Cantrill:

And yes, I was the EVP of sales when but, like, actually, I didn't actually grow revenue myself. I I was merely, like, in the building when that happened.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

And, by the way, like, oh, I need and I you know, we've talked about this in

Adam Leventhal:

the past, but definitely one of

Bryan Cantrill:

the things that we lived and I think a lot of startups live is where they are you take on this expertise from your go to market function in particular, and you take on an EVP of sales coming from an established company. Mhmm. And then they need their whole organization to come with them in order to be successful. And the all of that just, like, adds to the burn. And then you as a founder realize too late, like, wait a minute.

Bryan Cantrill:

This this is I I made a huge, huge, huge mistake here.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I mean, it's a very expensive mistake. And it's like, it's a big bet. Maybe it's the right bet. But, you know, if that person and that team and that other company match things up really well, if it doesn't match up, if it's if it's sort of surface level similarities, then you've just onboarded a big team, And, you know, it's it's gonna take a lot of money to then undo that.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And I gotta say, when people talk about in particular, the things that they've done. So they, you know, I I it's on my resume. I was at this company for those years. And I can kind of make arbitrary claims that aren't really fact checked.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And there is a, I think, a gross inclination. And I think this is where the reason this is a problem is because this leads to the mistakes that Graham is identifying as people that are what it was not not not flimflam, man. What does he call them? What does he those that are misleading liars effectively.

Bryan Cantrill:

He has a he has a name for it somewhere. They're founders being gaslit, but he has a there's a specific return of phrase he has about people that are are misleading. And the and the problem is that people exaggerate what they've done. And they you don't In fact, we had someone, I mean, recently, who is like, Oh, like, let me advise you because I built this company. I I built this company to from a $100,000,000 in revenue to a $1,000,000,000 revenue.

Bryan Cantrill:

They can't numbers. And it's like, oh, that wow. That's wild. Right. And then you look at, like, when they were there, and it's like and actually, notice that they they it's they had claimed that they had built it from earlier than that.

Bryan Cantrill:

So kind of its first kind of $250,000,000 revenue. It's like by the time you joined the company, it was public company. And like the revenues were much higher than it's like in your in your are you lying to yourself right now? You know, and I think that like this happens a lot where people have kind of told themselves their own history, and it's kind of impossible to fact check. And so you take on this expertise as a founder, and then you discover that it's not happening for you, and you wonder what and this is where, you know, when when Graham talks to, talking to founders who had who felt gaslit, I think this is where that's coming from.

Bryan Cantrill:

Mhmm. Where they they brought in that expertise, they're not seeing the results, and then they're being told, no, no, no, you're not seeing the results because you don't understand the problem. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, I do think there is there can be for founders in particular. There's, like, there can be pressure from the board. The pressure from the board is hire someone who is an expert in this domain to derisk the company, this this thing that I'm I've put a bunch of money into. Part of that is the whole, you hire and retain search firm, they go and find the people, and plugging someone in. So then after you as a company have spent money on the search and money on an expensive person, then you feel really misled.

Adam Leventhal:

Yes. You told me to just like hold my nose and hire this person who and with faith in their expertise, and then it didn't pan out.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's right. And this is where Okay. I found the turn of phrase in Graham's piece. In practice, judging from the report of founder after founder, what this often turns out to mean is, hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground. So that's the professional fakers.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's this turn of phrase there. And the thing that I think Graham does a disservice to is he blames the fakers. Yeah. Fine. He does not blame the founders.

Bryan Cantrill:

He does not blame the investors that force that upon their founders.

Adam Leventhal:

Totally. To some degree, I feel like the fakers may be the least culpable.

Bryan Cantrill:

Absolutely.

Adam Leventhal:

Because I don't think faker I mean, maybe this is naive, but I think most people are basically honest, or try to be, and good people. I think there are very few people who try to represent themselves as one thing to get into a startup, get underpaid and get some stock compensation, and then try to tank the company. None of that makes sense. Like, I think the I think, by and large, although I can I can think of some examples?

Bryan Cantrill:

Right now, I'm like, I know I'm trying to get all of the many, many examples. I'm thinking of that. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Fine.

Bryan Cantrill:

Let's do it. No. Let's go with what you're saying. Absolutely.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I remember in particular, there's one example who was was telling me they could sell all this stuff, at previous company, and they were going to be amazing. And I, they I saw that they had worked with you when I asked I was clearly this person. This person doesn't tell a 100% truth, but I'm not sure it's 100% false either.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, yes.

Adam Leventhal:

And I think I think you told me it was like closer to 99.8% false. But you're right. There was like 0.2% true.

Bryan Cantrill:

It is 0.2% true, like,

Adam Leventhal:

but this is like a rare, a fairly relatively rare example of someone who's actually like a flim flam man. I think mostly people show up thinking that they that they did the thing, that they can do it again, that it's

Bryan Cantrill:

a good fit, and Because the the success taught them nothing.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Because they were there. They They were there when the success happened. Like, why would it not be due to their hard work? It's like, well, it's more complicated than that. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

And then you you end up the you end up with I mean, that's what Graham calls, the the most skillful liars in the world. I and, again, I think that that I think you're right. That is, like, a little bit on the one hand, that is that is too condemning of the of them because it's not necessarily dishonesty. On the other hand, it's maybe a little bit too generous because a lot of these people are lying to themselves. They just don't realize it.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Absolutely. Right. I mean, it is falsehoods that they're promoting. So like, maybe liars is fine.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. But like, they they don't they don't I mean, to to some degree, like, everyone believes their own story. And it's up to you, the founders, the board, the folks interviewing these folks to to figure out, like, what's true

Bryan Cantrill:

and what's not. That's right. That's right.

Adam Leventhal:

Especially, like, that's true of every hire to some degree. Like, everyone comes in, you know, sort of, like, with with some degree of divergence from from reality. Like, for for a lot of people, it's small. For some people, it's bigger, whatever. But, like, especially for a high leverage for, like, a key role in the company when you're hiring, like, VP of whatever.

Adam Leventhal:

You gotta be careful. Like, you gotta be just just faith and experience is not enough.

Bryan Cantrill:

Faith and experience is not enough. And I do think I mean, I mean, I've said this many times before. I'll say it many times again. Team formation is the most expensive most important thing you one does at a company.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

And you need to spend a lot of time. And I think too many people are like, wow, the recruiter handed me these four names. So that's those are the names.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's like, what's your rubric for, you know, you are hiring someone in a domain in which you currently have no one. What's your rubric? And, you know, one of the things that I've always found and again, this is like the specificity that Graham's piece is totally missing of, like, how do you add there are people who are superlative people who can help you out as a founder. You don't need to go to founder mode for everything. Like, you actually do need people who can add a lot to you.

Bryan Cantrill:

How do you find those people? What what chances do you take? Because I think you're right that it is surprising how conservative startups get. Yeah. Because they don't know the role.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, actually, I don't know what go to market is. I don't know what marketing is. I don't I've never worked in support. I don't know these things. So I actually don't know how to evaluate someone.

Bryan Cantrill:

And it's like, that's where you got to I think it's all coming on you as a founder like, Yeah, you got to ramp up, you got to figure out a way to go solve that problem.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I mean, that's what you'd hope that you can get from your board. And sometimes you can't, sometimes you can't, but some but whether it's directly or plugging you into other founders or other leaders to help educate yourself.

Bryan Cantrill:

And this is something again, I'm not sure people see it and it sounds like it's true to the Platt founders as well, but this is what the Colson Brothers did well. Like, I wanna actually I'm curious to understand. And like at one point, Patrick reached out to me. Dude, he was like, what should I be looking for in a VP of engineering? I'm not I'm not trying to hire you.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'm trying to, like, but, like, come over and have free food, which of course, there you go. As you know, I I I pretty much. Like, it's It's tough for you to leave actually. Could you please? And I think that like people don't do this nearly often enough is to is to ask for ask for perspective from other people.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, who should I talk to? Who's the best person in this role that, you know, I'm not trying to hire them. I just wanna know what I should be looking for. And I think and we still do that. I mean, I think it's it is, you know, we've always done that and and still do as we extend into kinda new roles, and it is really, really, really important.

Bryan Cantrill:

But I'm not sure we I don't think we've talked about it. I don't think we talk about it broadly as an industry, and we should. Like you like, look to other people, senior people to get their perspective. This is again the bit that Graham is just like totally missing, is like, actually, how do you get that wisdom as opposed to just discarding? Right.

Adam Leventhal:

Like, and not get it as the answer. Right? Like, what they say is not the answer, but it's it's part of what goes into the the calculation.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's a very good point. Because I do think one of the challenges is like, what of the idiosyncratic, iconoclastic things you're doing, like, how much of that is really important versus not? I'm gonna give you a very concrete example. We had a, an early investor in the company who, in an early conversation, an early board meeting, I might have brought up the podcast. Mention the podcast.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. And this is on the metal. Okay. The board member made clear in no uncertain terms that I was never to speak of the podcast again. That that is and I was just, like, embarrassed for bringing it up.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, okay. I'm not gonna bring up the pod and I'm like, what do we do? Like, do we should we not do the fungus? Like, I'm kinda like feels like the podcast feels like it's pretty cheap, and it's feels like it's pretty valuable. Do I and I was I didn't really know it.

Bryan Cantrill:

And another board member came up to me, took me aside, and be like, hey. I love the podcast. Podcast. Just ignore it. Podcast is great.

Bryan Cantrill:

I'd like I don't bring it don't bring it up around him. But just and the like, I think that, like, you will get conflicting point is, like, you will get conflicting advice. I don't think he was necessarily wrong. Like, I understood the perspective that he had, and, like, we do not talk about the podcast at a at a board level, but the podcast is the right thing is the right thing for us to go do. And I think there's a lot of things like that where there were in in other words, like that in terms of, like, I'm getting conflicting advice.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Someone's telling me, like, absolutely. Do not do it. You're out of your mind. And someone's like, that's a great idea.

Bryan Cantrill:

And you have to pick and choose. And you have to know your you you have to kind of know your own self and and have your your own sense of judgment. But if you but you need to seek out that wisdom though. Like, ask the question. I'd rather, like, know the perspective.

Adam Leventhal:

Totally. For sure. And I think that, like, too often we just kind of ignore ignore the perspectives. Especially as you say, when you're hiring into domains that were previously not needed at the company. When you're Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

You're hiring your first person in in support. When you're, you know, hiring your first program manager, your first product manager, whatever? So I think we talked

Bryan Cantrill:

I can't really talk about this on the hiring podcast or not. But, you know, one thing that we do is when we're hiring a new role, we go to the person that we know just in our kind of extended world is like, this is the person who I can't hire, but I really look up to in this role. And I want them to look at the materials that we're gonna that I want them to look at the portfolio. And we, a bunch of times we've gotten, I mean, just extremely good suggestions about things to add to the portfolio of work. It's been really, really valuable.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Totally.

Bryan Cantrill:

Because that's informed the rubric. Yeah. Also more than once, one of those people have been like, actually,

Adam Leventhal:

I might be working for you insurance.

Bryan Cantrill:

I don't know you turkeys.

Adam Leventhal:

Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

So that that can happen too. But I think that that is definitely important to seek that out. And, again, this is what kinda Graham doesn't get to. The other thing that okay. Like, as long as we're can I talk about some other things that just drove me nuts in the space?

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean or do you want to just know? No. And the the idea of, like, the idea that he has created some new element in the lab. You know, the idea that he has discovered some heretofore unknown super alloy. Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

That it it will be incumbent upon future generations to study in detail that, like, books on founder mode, we don't know what it is. Books have never been written on founder mode. It's like, what are you talking about? It's like, no one's written history. Like, no one's no one knows what leadership is.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, you I mean, Paul Graham, you surely, you read more than this. Right? I hope. No?

Adam Leventhal:

The the the the sort of, like, mystical reverence that he speaks

Bryan Cantrill:

for. Exactly. Like and, you know, in the future, we will understand founder mode. But now, we just have a complete mystery. It's like it's a complete mystery to you, pal.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, the rest of us are out here, like, running companies. I've got some

Adam Leventhal:

thoughts on this one. Bro, it's not dark energy. Right?

Bryan Cantrill:

He's not he's really not. It is really not. So I think that was that was also a little bit ridiculous, that the it's like, okay. But I actually also feel that, like, there wasn't so I felt that was, like, annoying, but I felt there was little in this that was completely wrong. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Other than, like, the false dichotomy that it leaves you with. I don't know.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, I feel like the false dichotomy is fairly central. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

I am already realizing, like, I am over my skis, and I'm defending this piece way too much. But but I think, you know what?

Adam Leventhal:

I'm glad that, like, we we had this cooling off period. Right? To to not to not just go into the hot take of of, you know, founder versus management mode, but think, like, there there is there's, like, a a kernel of wisdom and certainly the kernel of a discussion here about, like, when do you value experience and whatnot. So And I think actually for that, I

Bryan Cantrill:

do think that so he references Brian Chesky's talk Yeah. That was given at Y Combinator. So that one we didn't see. Right? But Chesky was been on a couple of the other interviewed a couple of other places talking about his experience at Airbnb.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And I felt it was much more interesting to go. Did you did you listen to I I Yeah. You sent me a

Adam Leventhal:

link to, to that YouTube video. We'll we'll keep that in the show notes. And I watched, like, the first 45 minutes or something of it. I thought it was great. Like, I thought that, what I heard from him was he sort of, like, deferred too much to folks.

Adam Leventhal:

Like, he, you know, he absorbed in particular the wisdom of, like, hire great people and sort of like, set them loose. I'm like, let them do their job and don't mess with them. And then found that like a lot of the things that he cared about, about the business, about the health of the business, were not going well. Right. And then, you know, he drew this distinction between micromanagement and getting involved in the details.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. And in particular, you know, he he kind of made some very significant changes to the way they did product management. He got really in the details, understanding how these different functions operate. I would be interested to know if if the facts on the ground draw this distinction between micromanagement and being in the details.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. It's like, oh, he said he wasn't a micromanager. I said, no.

Adam Leventhal:

He was just in the details. He said he was just holding your fingers as you type. That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's not micromanaging you. You can move that finger. I think. Okay. Not bad example.

Bryan Cantrill:

I can't move that. I mean,

Adam Leventhal:

as long as you do it the wrong way. That's right. I mean, who knows how it plays on the ground? But I thought there certainly, you know, as a founder, as a leader, there's this fear of losing control, this fear of when I hire someone and I want them to feel responsible. I want them to be able to operate with autonomy.

Adam Leventhal:

Like they're I want that, like, I have trust, like, I wanna build that trust and I wanna hand over this and operate with trust. Yes. And that can be scary where you say like, and then tell me in 3 months or 6 months or 18 months how it went?

Bryan Cantrill:

Well, I think one of the things he says in that that I actually like, because I'm like, what would I do to Paul Graham's piece to make it less divisive, less of a false dichotomy? One of the things that he says there is like people want clarity. Yeah. And often that is what they I mean, that to me is what splits the difference. It's like, you've got terrific people that you've hired, you wanna empower.

Bryan Cantrill:

They do need clarity. Yeah. And I think that part of what he describes Airbnb operating at cross purposes, because he had stepped back from offering that clarity.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. That's a that's a great point.

Bryan Cantrill:

And and I think it is really important because I think that, like, also if you've got an organization in which you foster trust, that clarity is super helpful, I think, to people.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Where it's like, oh, we oh, okay. Our like, we really this sale to this customer is really important for our quarter, or, like, this feature is there is being weighed. Oh, I get it. Okay. That's why this is important.

Bryan Cantrill:

And this it that clarity can be can allow everybody to go to their own autonomy, find the right way to solve the problem. You're not telling people how to solve a problem necessarily. But giving them the clarity about what's important, I think is is because it's like, if you call this piece clarity mode, it would just feel like, I don't know, it feels like good. I don't know. Clarity mode sounds good.

Adam Leventhal:

That's a great point. Because like, I think there is a people like to provide autonomy, or at least it sounds nice, right? Like, I trust the person I can provide autonomy. But if you don't show them what true north is, yes, then everyone will try to figure it out, and they'll figure it out a little bit differently, and you're not gonna be happy with the results.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's right. And you kinda have to, like, show them what that's exactly right. And I do think that, like, autonomy is I mean, I and maybe this is where you get to, like, my own individual style or our style at Oxide. Autonomy's great. It's just in terms of, like, if people have that clarity because I think, like, how many times at Oxide have we seen something unanticipated that is delightful that happens Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

That you absolutely, like, want to happen? That it's like, I don't think anyone would have known to ask for this. Yeah. But because I mean, like, what I love I mean, these are and maybe I'm just easily entertained. But, like, when Augustus did this integration between Salesforce and the ability to provision a silo on the colo rack for a prospective customer.

Bryan Cantrill:

So you can so you made it really easy for Travis to go from a prospective customer to, like, spinning up their own silo.

Adam Leventhal:

So so our sales folks can, like, get off the call with the customer and create their own demo environment.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. And the and then using drop shot and and you're using all the things that we had built to go through this. I just like, that was great. Totally. And I just felt like that is where people were like, no, no.

Bryan Cantrill:

I can see that this needs to be done. And I'm just like, I'm empowered to go do it, so I'm just gonna go do it.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. No. I it was great. I I think that's great. I think the I think, when there's, like, autonomy without, as as strong a sense of, like, true north, you can get people unclear about prioritization, right?

Adam Leventhal:

Like, right, with so many things, especially at a startup.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. When

Adam Leventhal:

it's like, I actually for for any given task, there's no owner, right? Like, there's there.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. Like, there are lots

Adam Leventhal:

of It's not that everyone's standing shoulder to shoulder and like everything, everyone has their lane. Like, For any given task, there might be no owner. So knowing which of the 25 things I could do should I prioritize? And how does that tie to what the objectives are? And when objectives are changing as they will, like, how do I know, like, it's fine that I'm still, like, doing this other thing?

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. And I do think it's, like, it's really important that that leadership founders offer that clarity on priorities and are and then are gonna have to deal with some tough questions. I'm, like, okay. These 2 can't both be the top priority. Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Because, like, I'm sorry. I'm asking like, we we actually are gonna have to like and find a way to stack these. One of these has to be more important than the other. Sorry. They can't.

Bryan Cantrill:

Which I think is but if you don't and this is, I think, where when you have these startups, like, I need to go into founder mode because I feel like the right thing isn't happening. It's just easy to turn into a wrecking ball. Totally. And you you turn into actually, we have, some colleagues from a company that were describing the management style. And I'm like, wow, that is like one of the worst cases of Seagull Management I've ever heard.

Bryan Cantrill:

And and she was like, seagull management? I'm like, I don't I don't think I made that up. Have you heard the term seagull management?

Adam Leventhal:

I think I have. Yeah. I'm not sure that I'd be able to define it.

Bryan Cantrill:

That this is like a seagull like a seagull. It like swoops in, shits all over everything, and takes off.

Adam Leventhal:

And Feels your french fry.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And it it sues your french fry. And a 100% sues your

Adam Leventhal:

french fry or, like, my,

Bryan Cantrill:

you know, you've met my my sister's got that, like, that her hair looks like nesting material to birds. It's like, we're to the point where we just need to acknowledge it and, like, she needs to Wear a hat. Wear a hat or some sort of protective headdress because there's something about I don't know what it is. I mean, you know, I mean, obviously, she's my younger sister, so I kinda thought she was exaggerating. But, like, over the years, I've come to accept, like, no.

Bryan Cantrill:

No. You're this is happening to you more than it's happening to other people. Like birds are swooping onto your hair and attempting to attack your skull in a way that doesn't that no. This is not routine.

Adam Leventhal:

You're right. This is Does she listen to the podcast?

Bryan Cantrill:

I I wanna find out, and I don't wanna ask her about I She's so busy. I just don't wanna ask her, so I figured this is really the the best way to find out was really to just, you know, denigrate her on here and see if she listens to it or not. But, no, it's on no denigration at all. Quite quite quite the contrary. She has got she's got a condition that that that needs to be, I honor her condition or challenges in life.

Bryan Cantrill:

Other people don't have this challenge. And when we were at Fisherman's Wharf, I guess, like, she's kinda like this happens to me more frequently than other people. I'm kinda dismissive. And we go to Fisherman's Wharf, this is years ago. And the seagull that descended upon her was the size of a Cessna.

Bryan Cantrill:

That was like that was like a plane crash. I think it was gigantic. And, like, tried to, like, just like she he thought that she was the french fry. Just like tried it was it was really quite dramatic. I don't know if the Seagull was a show or not.

Bryan Cantrill:

Definitely made her point, like, very, very dramatically. But so anyway, I was showing this look like this idea of Seagull Management, and I think it was, like, life changing. It's like, I need to send this Wikipedia article to many of my former colleagues because this is exactly and it was an environment where senior technical leadership senior leadership, very technical, and would descend in on you know, people would be working on a problem for 2 or 3 weeks and would descend in and disrupt everything and take off. Right. Great.

Bryan Cantrill:

Exactly. And that is like and that is the worst. I think that is I really think that is it's really I'd I'd rather be in like command and control

Adam Leventhal:

than that.

Bryan Cantrill:

You know what I mean? It's where this kind of like false sense of autonomy where you let me you let us together as a team develop a solution for this, and now you've descended in and like ripped it up. And now, it's like, boy, that's that corrosive.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. You you know, this is actually, almost exactly the pathology at my wife's last job for her that caused her to leave. And part of the what led to it Did she listen to the podcast? I guess we're gonna find

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, a 100%. Got

Adam Leventhal:

the answer

Bryan Cantrill:

on that one. Maybe 99.8 percent now. We'll see.

Adam Leventhal:

But, sorry, even the baseball one. But, that came about in her organization because of growth. Growth where

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Leaders previously did have the bandwidth to have the level of involvement that they wanted to be able to be comfortable with all these programs. And then as the organization grew, they didn't have the time to do it. They didn't have the bandwidth to do it. There was too much stuff going on, and they had not taken the lesson that that they needed to, like, change the way that they interacted with some of these priorities.

Bryan Cantrill:

This is a good segue to Camille's piece. Yeah. Camille Fournier wrote a piece that I that was a pretty interesting in in reaction to this, founders create managers, and I'll drop a link into that in the chat, which I think is I mean, is kind of what you're saying is that, like, founders created the chaos that created the situate like, founders are creating the situation

Bryan Cantrill:

effectively. And which I think, I mean,

Bryan Cantrill:

in terms of, like, they are you wanna be a details person.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. And you don't know the right way to let go of those details.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And it's and this is

Bryan Cantrill:

where, you know, see because I was and part of what kinda prompted the the longer blog entry too is I was noodling on, like, how do you do this? How does one do this? How do we do this? And And when he said this, what do you mean? I mean, how do you keep kind of a true north to an organization as it gets larger?

Bryan Cantrill:

How do you avoid the pathologies that Camille describes? How do you avoid the seagull management? How do you keep While at the same time, providing clarity, and and I think it is very important to stay detail oriented. I really I think that is extremely important. And I think that that leadership stay detail oriented.

Bryan Cantrill:

I think it's a real problem when and you and I have both seen this.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Where leadership gets divorced from the details, and all of a sudden, you you've got a great blog entry from years ago, I am not a resource. And to me, that is what indicative of this problem where it's like, these have now become a pick blocks that I can kinda move around and I've lost track of, like, why things are hard, why they take long, and I it's it's now schedule over everything. I've now over promised to a customer because I've lost track of the details that make this difficult. And now when my team doesn't deliver, I blame the team. And just like, you you you're in this loop that I think is a a loop that is really, really corrosive.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And so, like, how do you avoid this? How do you not get into that pathology? How do you stay detail oriented without being a micromanager? How do you how do you have autonomy while still having clarity?

Adam Leventhal:

You know, a buddy of mine, said of, like, as he was ascending the ranks at a bigger company, he said, you know, the more you get promoted, like, the roads tend toward CFO, like all roles of CFO, which I thought which I thought was such a great insight. And because his point was, you know, you you start losing the ability to be involved with projects at a level of detail that matters. Yeah. And all you really get to do is pull the levers of, like, who gets money, who gets staffing, like, those are the kinds of things that you have control over.

Bryan Cantrill:

Well, and what Jesse Jesse points out, I think rightfully, is that, like, in the absence of other things, especially where where influence is being used, and especially in an organization where people do value autonomy, like, things can get political. Yeah. When they talk about shadow hierarchy and things like that where and so the the thing that I as I was kinda like reflecting on this, I'm like, you know, how do we do this? And I do think like, man, the written word is real I mean, dovetails for our episode from last time on an RFPs, but the written word is really, really important in terms of broadcast. I mean, I I mean, god, I'm so thankful, and I should like, there's a bell I should ring every time this happens where a, you know, maybe a prospective investor or a customer, someone asks something about an issue that I'm not I'm not up to speed on.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. And, oh, thank god, there's an RFD on it. Yeah. And I spend 20 minutes reading the RFD. It's like, damn.

Bryan Cantrill:

I like, okay. This is great. Like, I now I didn't have to waste anyone's time.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. You know, the creative fire drill where you say, hey. Do I have to create a fire drill?

Bryan Cantrill:

Hey, everybody. I know exactly what our thinking is on this. I know exactly what we've thought about. Where I mean, it's like, boy, am I really, really, really grateful for it. And I think that, like, Amazon is famously does this too.

Bryan Cantrill:

I've never worked at AWS or Amazon, but famously has a writing intensive culture

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Where you're kinda sitting down and reading for the first half of the meeting.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I kinda love that.

Bryan Cantrill:

Like, where you I love that too.

Adam Leventhal:

Where I mean, first, my understanding is that, like, people write a memo of, like, 5 pages or something. I think that's, like, of of a fairly prescribed length. And then people sit down in the meeting. They read it. I guess they, like, raise their pencils when they're done or whatever and and discuss it.

Adam Leventhal:

Slowly, like, the hands go up. Like, god. My I got the slowest reader in here. Like, oh, boy. I know I had you come 15 minutes early.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. But I I I think it's great. I mean, I think it also, well, they famously, like, write the press release too. Oh, yeah. This is back when they were being innovative, by the way.

Bryan Cantrill:

I don't wanna sorry to Yeah. As one of our colleagues who was formerly of AWS, and I'm like, pretty sure the last innovative thing they did was Lambda. That was in, like, 2015. But I think that certainly when the Bezos led company Yeah. They would write the press release before working.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I think they're like, that's an interesting way to get ground truth and clarity. It's a press release, so but it's a you know, but in terms of, like, getting that true north and getting that on paper Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Okay. I'm gonna go to a deep cut here. Another place where we read about this.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yes. This is one of

Adam Leventhal:

our favorite books by Dave Hitz. Oh. Out of castrated bull. He talked about Does he? Writing the future history.

Adam Leventhal:

The future history. Now, dear listener, do not purchase this book.

Bryan Cantrill:

It is too late. How do you how do you pass this is like don't look up, but how do you tell presumably, people don't even know who Dave Hitz is.

Adam Leventhal:

Founder of NetApp. Anyway, terrible, terrible autobiography. I feel comfortable saying this now. But but we do we

Bryan Cantrill:

feel totally comfortable? Not fully comfortable. I think we should feel fully comfortable.

Adam Leventhal:

Alright.

Bryan Cantrill:

I I think we should feel fully comfortable. Alright. I think we should feel fully comfortable. I think this is this is a this is a great story. You know who I my sister does not listen to the podcast.

Bryan Cantrill:

I don't think she might. Your wife, you say a 100%, I think it's unlikely she listens to the podcast. Dave hits 0% listens does not listen to the podcast.

Adam Leventhal:

Okay. Says I. Let's go.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. So Dave Hits writes this book, How to Castrate a Bull.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. We were at FishWorks at the time.

Bryan Cantrill:

We were at FishWorks. We were at a NetApp competitor.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. We we were we were built we were, you know, trying to build a product to to compete directly with NetApp.

Bryan Cantrill:

So Yes. And what we had heard from customers is like, I love the product, I hate the price. Yeah. And I'm I'm kinda not in love with the company. Like, the company is very self important.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. But I do love the product. And, someone in the chat says, I have a signed copy of Dave Hitz's book. And and you, you are not

Adam Leventhal:

the only one with a signed copy. Alone. You are not I also have a signed copy.

Bryan Cantrill:

So so how what is

Adam Leventhal:

the genesis of this? So first of all, we we wanted this book. We we the team at Fishworks. Now, Oxide is thrifty. Fishworks was cheap.

Adam Leventhal:

And so we we were gonna pay, like, the $18 or whatever of those books.

Bryan Cantrill:

So and you're sure this is not the point of principle of not wanting to line his pockets by

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, it's like

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, we have said that I undercurrent of this episode is success teaches you nothing. The subtitle of this book is how success taught me nothing by Dave Hitts.

Adam Leventhal:

That's pretty much right. So, I contacted the publisher. I used true but misleading statements about how I might wanna teach a class.

Bryan Cantrill:

You feel like you're reading are you reading from a prepared statement right now?

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. I need my lawyer printed.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's right.

Adam Leventhal:

I'm not gonna go pro se on this one. So, we got a copy. And then, actually, you know, I don't know if you know this, but the, like, the FedEx got delayed or something, and I sent, like, a nasty gram to the public servant. So they sent us 2 copies. So we have 2 copies.

Bryan Cantrill:

I did not realize that. Yeah. Oh, god. It's like, wow, this person is very hot. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

You're saying your, true but misleading things, did they involve the fact that you'd be that you needed a review copy?

Adam Leventhal:

I think by this time, it was out, But I I I just I I think I I needed a copy of it.

Bryan Cantrill:

We needed a copy, obviously, and you're not gonna pay for it. Okay.

Adam Leventhal:

You're not gonna pay for it. Right. So, so I read it. I started reading it, and it was terrible.

Bryan Cantrill:

And And you're reading it out loud, reading passages out loud.

Adam Leventhal:

Right. We would bring it in. So what we started writing a

Bryan Cantrill:

fan block. I started writing When? Where's the germ of this idea? It's such a good idea.

Adam Leventhal:

I think I think first of all, we were,

Adam Leventhal:

it

Adam Leventhal:

was like a distraction from our ping pong variant. So we needed something else to do with that other than working on the product. So Great. I I think we felt like this personality was someone who was so susceptible to praise that Joshua

Bryan Cantrill:

Jay (zero fifty seven:fifty seven): That's kind

Bryan Cantrill:

of my recollection too, is that I feel that this is a consequence of us reading the Big Con. I'm sure

Adam Leventhal:

I read it. Joshua Jay (zero fifty seven:fifty

Bryan Cantrill:

seven): The No, the Big Con, terrific book. The sting is based on the Big Con, or the book

Adam Leventhal:

written on the

Bryan Cantrill:

thirties about the Argo of the grift. Alright. Oh, such a good book. And the Big Con, one of the things that it repeats over again is you can only con a greedy man. And I think I do recall us thinking like there is a kind of an ego con here.

Bryan Cantrill:

That if you praise someone who is already praising themselves, you're not gonna get fact checked.

Adam Leventhal:

You can only ego con a v in person.

Bryan Cantrill:

You can only ego con a v in person.

Adam Leventhal:

Yes. So so I as as my persona, Dave Lightman.

Bryan Cantrill:

Dave Lightman. I will will leave it to others to figure out the the Dave Lightman.

Adam Leventhal:

Genesis. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. It's not Dave Lightman. I mean, I feel I feel like that's a good homework assignment if you don't recognize the name Dave Lightman. I feel you should.

Adam Leventhal:

Not in the notes.

Bryan Cantrill:

Not in the notes.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. Not in the notes. That's that's a little that's a homework assignment. That's a good one. So Dave Lightman wrote a, chapter by chapter review, like overly praising, sort of, in embodying, like, much too much of do you have a link?

Adam Leventhal:

I will I will find the link. Can you

Bryan Cantrill:

find the link now? I can talk about something else while you find the link. That's like because I I just feel that we need to first of all, it should be said that you wrote the fan blog, but what so one of the things we figured out, I don't know if we knew he was gonna pay attention to it or not. It became clear that he was hanging on every word, every word. Like, he was commenting on the fan blog.

Bryan Cantrill:

So at that point, it's like, oh my god. We got them. Oh, god bless you. God bless you, Blogspot.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Oh. Blogspot. Sign of the times that it's on Blogspot.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. So the at what point do the lawyers

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, that's right. So the I took the design of the blog, like, from the NetApp blog. So like Gone. Gone. Yes.

Adam Leventhal:

So I made it I made it look exactly like the NetApp blog of the time,

Bryan Cantrill:

Like a NetApp fan blog. So he so he you've written the the first summary about, like, this book is awesome, and I cannot wait to read it. I'm really, really excited to read it.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right. And, and then we did I did get some sort of, like, email from the lawyers saying, like, you can't have a fan like, maybe it was like an email from Dave Hitt. I can't remember. You know, yeah, it looks like it looks like it was. So email from Dave Hitt saying, like, love the blog.

Adam Leventhal:

Gotta change the way it looks. Like, our our lawyers are pretty sure you can't just, like, rip off the look and feel of the NetApp blog.

Bryan Cantrill:

And when does our persona's mother enter as a kind of a I mean

Adam Leventhal:

Well, so pretty early. Chapter 1, Dave hits as I mean, spoiler for for everyone, but please, again, do not read this book. Like, he starts I mean, I'll give you my copy. Seriously. Just hit me up.

Adam Leventhal:

He starts the the the book, with the advice, like, never listen to your mother. Right. That was, like, chapter 1, I think it might have been the title of chapter 1 or something. Right. It was just like, God, that's he's just putting the ball

Bryan Cantrill:

on the tee for you.

Adam Leventhal:

Just just bait. So Right. So then, you know, I, you know, my, my persona here, like, talks about like, owning up his mother. Jay Gould (3seven forty seven): Oh, it's

Bryan Cantrill:

like, thank God, fun is some finding getting some good advice from an adult. That's right.

Adam Leventhal:

So, so yeah, and late, later, later on the big reveal at the end was like, sometimes listen to your mother or something. I think that was, like, in in one of the later chapters.

Bryan Cantrill:

When he at some point has, like, a comment on your blog being, like, god, I don't wanna, like, I don't wanna give it away, but don't take that. Because you made it very clear that, like, you've taken that advice very literally. And have have maybe said some things to your mother that you maybe you should maybe you might might live to regret. That's right. So okay.

Bryan Cantrill:

So at at at this point, so the then you got the yes that Dave hits where he reaches out to you. That's right. And the, from so he's coming, we are just having you should we were having the time of our lives.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, just euphoria. I mean, I don't know. I like, when you when I mean, it's so it's so sophomoric too, but just like- It's so great. We've launched this little piece of cheese out of the internet. The fact that the mouse is just googling away and just chopping And then

Bryan Cantrill:

the mouse is just pounding on the door, demanding more cheese. It's like, oh, god. Yes. Absolutely. And we, so then and so it's you got you've got the the the the NetApp.

Bryan Cantrill:

You've got trade dress, I believe, would be the term. May even be the term from the letter they sent you. That the that Print out that letter. So they send you basically a cease and desist.

Adam Leventhal:

That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

And then you have, which I just think is like, we're like, God, like, just another gift from these people. So you have your nonstop lawyer's log entry. Yeah. Which I mean, it was just, it was

Adam Leventhal:

it was delightful. I just I do wanna, yeah. I just wanna observe, like, you you actually wrote some of these entries, and I can't remember which ones, but, just to throw you into the bus with me.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, I will definitely be under the bus with you because when I

Adam Leventhal:

and like the Federalist Papers. Future generations will What what did John Jay write this entry? Right. Was it Alexander Hamilton? Was this a Madison?

Bryan Cantrill:

Was it Madison? We can't know. We can't know. For this for the for this entry of the of the nonstop hits dotblogspot.com. I can't believe the site is still up.

Adam Leventhal:

I can't believe Blogspot is still like a a domain that resolves. So, anyway, short story long, so I I did meet Dave Hitz. I I got him to to sign my copy of the book.

Bryan Cantrill:

Okay. Wait wait a minute. You get the note from the lawyers, and then you change the blog entry to be all NetApp trade dress. You remember this? That you change it to be like Oh.

Bryan Cantrill:

Just like the all like the Dave hits eyes. That's right.

Adam Leventhal:

It was just like his eyes everywhere. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

It yeah. So you got him to sign the book.

Adam Leventhal:

Got him got him to sign the book. I said, you know, my buddy can't make it, Dave Lightman, would just sign it for him. And he said, what's the name of his blog again? And it was I mean, it's it speaks volumes that this was sort of, like, the pinnacle of my pranking. I don't know.

Adam Leventhal:

Like, it was just it it was just it was so funny to me. I just, like, I could not stop. It is funny.

Bryan Cantrill:

And and anyone should be suspicious of a fan blog. I'm sorry. You should be like, I I would like to believe that we would not fall for this. Yeah. And but here it's like people are like, all those people pacing for the podcast?

Bryan Cantrill:

No. Give you all this or all this for Frankie. It was Dave hits. That was Dave hits. It was great.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Well, it's a miracle that's up. Alright. So we yeah, you what did you learn so non stop hits is, again, I do think this is the success teaches you nothing. But you're saying that we that's not

Adam Leventhal:

you wrote the future histories. Right? That that that one of the practices at NetApp that I remember from a very careful reading of this book was this book.

Bryan Cantrill:

There has never been a more careful reading of not of How to Cast Straight a Bull. A 100% true. I mean, we poured over it like a book club. Like Talmudic Scholars, we poured over that. Every diphthong, every syllable, we I mean, we were No one has read that book.

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, it's like in the end, Dave hits, when you encounter this this podcast and you're upset, should you be upset? No one read that book more closely than we did. No.

Adam Leventhal:

We were the biggest fans. We we

Bryan Cantrill:

we are the biggest fans. I still In in some regards, we are the biggest fans.

Adam Leventhal:

I still have that copy. It's got notes from at least half a dozen people in the margins. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's like, yes. It's our it's we're it's our ironic detachment. We're we're we're we're exers. What do you want? That's all we have.

Bryan Cantrill:

That's all we have. That's all we have. Leave us with our ironic attachment. Okay. But he's so he Oh, there's just

Adam Leventhal:

one one one post script I wanna mention on this. So, we were brought in for you and I, or rather, NetApp sues Son. Son sues NetApp. Yes. This is sort of a thing.

Adam Leventhal:

You may recall.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh my god. Yeah. Huge lawsuit.

Adam Leventhal:

And you were brought in you you you you had a delightful deposition. I was brought in for a deposition as well. And I confess that I was worried.

Bryan Cantrill:

I was worried that you were I did not know this. I I had forgotten that you were depoed in that case. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I was depoed on the case.

Bryan Cantrill:

Why do I I mean, they were depoing me for stupid reasons. Why were they depoing you?

Adam Leventhal:

I've been done a bunch of work in In CFS. In CFS. Like in and stuff like that. In fact, they they, they took my That's true.

Bryan Cantrill:

They actually should do it, but demo you versus me.

Adam Leventhal:

There you go. They took my notebooks and discovery and, like, like good luck with that. Right? Like that was literally page 1 of the notebook was this whole description about how we were going to do raid z expansion. So I'm like, Oh, dang.

Adam Leventhal:

Like if I just put

Bryan Cantrill:

it on page 2, you would have never found it. Right. Right.

Adam Leventhal:

So I'm in this deposition thinking, like, if they're like, mister Leventhal, do you have a blog? I'd be like, yes. Also, I need a break right now.

Bryan Cantrill:

I need a break. I used

Adam Leventhal:

to talk to my lawyers. Right.

Bryan Cantrill:

Mister Leventhal, is the name Dave Lightman familiar to you?

Adam Leventhal:

It is familiar to me.

Bryan Cantrill:

It is familiar. It is a pop culture reference as I understand it. That is great. So you were a little bit worried?

Adam Leventhal:

Well, you know, did you have a game plan?

Bryan Cantrill:

What we get what are we gonna do? Like, this goes to non stop hit stopblogspot.com. Like,

Adam Leventhal:

like fake a Hargan attack. Just just do anything like because you know when you go into a deposition You're talking

Bryan Cantrill:

to a lawyer. I'd like to declare the 5th. It's like that's not you can't do that. This is not a criminal proceedings. You can't declare the 5th.

Adam Leventhal:

When you go into a deposition, you know, you're supposed to basically tell your lawyer everything. Right? You should. They should, like, because they're your

Bryan Cantrill:

Tell Sun's lawyers? No. Oh, my god. You should have. No.

Bryan Cantrill:

Oh, you should have. They would have they would have died laughing. Of course. Oh, my god. They would have died laughing.

Bryan Cantrill:

They would have though though I loved working with the lawyers in that case. They would have loved it. Oh, they would have eaten it up.

Adam Leventhal:

Anyway, I I just I was like

Bryan Cantrill:

It's unclear if we had committed any like, I don't even know what we did wrong, actually.

Adam Leventhal:

Let's not go there. There we go. Anyway, did tell the lawyers I was waiting until the the lawyers needed to know, and then I was gonna tell them in a, you know, fake heart attack.

Bryan Cantrill:

In a fake heart attack. You're just like, hey. DM me with sunlight. It's like, I'm fine. I'm closer.

Bryan Cantrill:

I have a lot to tell you. I have a lot to tell you. Right. I have a fake block. You're like, what is going on?

Bryan Cantrill:

These guys, you know, maybe I suffer in cheers. Okay. But so he talks about future histories. There you go.

Adam Leventhal:

Bring it all back.

Bryan Cantrill:

Bring it all back. And is this, like, this idea of, like, writing down what we have what we're going to do? Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

It's like, what do you want the press release? What what do you want success to look like? Right. Like, sitting here from the beginning, sitting here from the inception of the idea, what do you want it to look like at the end? What does what's the story you want to be

Bryan Cantrill:

able to tell? And writing all that down. Exactly. That is extremely valuable, I think.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Totally. Who knows if they did it? But it's a neat idea.

Bryan Cantrill:

It's a neat idea. And I do think, I mean, I think the the written I do think the written word is really, really, really important. Yeah. And I think that the because when you write, you do like, you have to get to a ground truth. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

You it does scale. Yeah. And like people who've come to Oxford, like, oh, this is great, so I can understand, like, why they made a past decision or they, you know Yeah. It it it's been, so I think that, you know, that is a very kind of concrete thing that people could do.

Adam Leventhal:

I think Here's what I'm gonna say, you know, a little Oxway critique. Yeah. If you'll forgive me. Like, I think there are some things that we don't write down that, oh, 100% down. That maybe that, like, not only should be written down.

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, yeah. It could be open for revision. Like, so, like, you know, like, I I don't want to do, like, performance reviews of folks. Like, I don't I don't think that's that's something I don't I've I've done had to do in my career and don't want to do in my career. There are people at Oxide right now who think that we should do that, and I'll tell you that because I've I've spoken with them.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

And I think even having the discussion, even having the rationale for why we do or don't do things Yes. I think it's important. And and Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I mean, the other thing I'd say is that, like

Bryan Cantrill:

I mean, god, are you are you trying to, like do you have a bet with some other oxen blades? Like, I bet I can get him to write an r f d on performance review.

Adam Leventhal:

Oh, no. No. No. No. No.

Adam Leventhal:

No. No. That's

Bryan Cantrill:

Mayday. Mayday. That's right. Wait a minute. Are are you having chest pains right now?

Adam Leventhal:

What's wrong?

Bryan Cantrill:

I need my lawyer. That's right. Come closer. Dude, that's interesting. When I think that we yes.

Bryan Cantrill:

In terms of, like, the the offering that clarity.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I and,

Bryan Cantrill:

Well, because I think I love it when people are like, I love this company because you've written everything down. And we're like, no. No. There's a lot that's not written down. Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

And I think sometimes it's like maybe sometimes shouldn't be written down because, like, you know, we talked about our discussion of which chat program to use. Like, obviously, that's way too volatile to write down.

Bryan Cantrill:

You can't write that. You can't some things you need to leave unsaid. Exactly. It's just too much of a lightning rod, but no. I think I think you're right in terms of like there are things like that.

Bryan Cantrill:

And actually, you know, I honestly I think there's some things, and this is where I've I've really benefited. I mean, this is where you kinda benefit from just the sense of collaboration anyway. Because, I mean, how many RFPs have you written because someone has said you should write an RFP on that?

Adam Leventhal:

Like most of them.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right. Where it looks like so in other words, you're thinking of something that, like, okay, I'm just like ideating Yeah. And I don't think this needs to be written down. That's you know, I'm just thinking about it that like, that concretely. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

But someone else is, like, I would actually like to see that written down, and you should write an RFT on it. I feel like certainly for me, like, most of my RFTs have come from because people are, like, I I would like to see an RFT on that. Yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. It didn't really occur to me that that's sure.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Absolutely. We can do that. Yeah. That's a great idea.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I but but it doesn't necessarily occur to you to write down something that you are already kind of feeling very strongly. That's

Adam Leventhal:

right. That's right.

Bryan Cantrill:

But those are maybe those are the things you should be writing down.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. And it's a good point that you make that that's the way we, like communicate those kinds of things. Like that's that that is how our culture gets codified. Yeah. And that's what's good for everyone, right?

Adam Leventhal:

Like that's it's like other other folks are gonna have their culture kind of work its way through the system in different ways. Yeah. But I do think that if you don't, I mean, the the less you write down, you're kind of immunocompromised as an organization. Interesting. Just because, like, you're you're too susceptible to things changing unseen or people not knowing what true north is or

Bryan Cantrill:

That's right.

Adam Leventhal:

Or whatever.

Bryan Cantrill:

Or people coming in being, like, misleading about or or, you know, I mean, you have I mean, certainly, you know, seen this in past lives where people are I mean, God forbid, you have someone who's telling different people different things.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Right. Where if you've got it written down, like, you can only tell one story. Right?

Bryan Cantrill:

You can only tell one story. And that is it's really, really important. And I think that, like and sometimes they're not even telling different people different things deliberately. They are don't or they don't or people are hearing different things, and and they don't realize that people are hearing different things. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

I I mean, so I think that that getting I mean, the question that founders are I don't think anyone should put in front of themselves is like, how do we how do we offer better clarity? Yeah. And then how do we promote trust? I mean, you mentioned it earlier. I I do think it's like, man, that is trust is everything.

Bryan Cantrill:

Trust is everything. For sure. And you've gotta figure out, like, how do I how do I promote it? How do I build it? How do I how do I when it's fractured, how do I repair it?

Bryan Cantrill:

And and I think that, like, part of the problem with founder mode at its worst is you have the opportunity to, like, do real, real damage to trust.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Yeah. And and you know what? Maybe it amended trust and clarity are everything. Because I think Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

Absent trust and absent clarity, you can spend a lot of cycles inefficiently. Yes. Worrying about whether you're doing the right things, worrying if you are how you're being judged by your peers, like working inefficiently. I think it it consumes a lot of of caloric budget as you might say. When you're unclear That's not

Bryan Cantrill:

a me thing. Some people say caloric budget. Do they not? No. This is like bought over the year.

Bryan Cantrill:

I, like, I assume everyone said bought over the year, and then I googled it and I'm like, no one's using bought over the year. There are no. There are that's just, like, just me. I'd how many things are like that? A caloric budget is like that.

Adam Leventhal:

I think so. People can people can correct it from a That one, I guess.

Bryan Cantrill:

But deafening silence, but there's no no real corrections forthcoming from the chat over here. Yeah. You're right. Damn it. Another intervention.

Bryan Cantrill:

Another podcast, another intervention. There you go. So, yeah, sorry. Clerk budget as I might say. As you might say,

Adam Leventhal:

no, I just mean people spend a lot like lack of certainty. I mean, I think it's one thing to say, hey, don't worry about all this other stuff. Just focus on this thing. Yeah. Like people worry about that other stuff.

Adam Leventhal:

For sure. If you've told them not to worry about that other stuff, like, yeah, I think, you know, and, you know, I mentioned that the RFP episode, one of the things I saw at Delphix was, like, everyone had really clear ideas about what we should go do. They're all different. Most of them were were terrible.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. But even just

Adam Leventhal:

being able to have get those out of their system, let them ignore them. Like, let them move on past them and and just kinda wash their hands of those ideas and move on to the things that did matter.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. Interesting. Well yeah. And I think if you called it clarity plus trust mode, it's like, I don't know. That feels like work.

Bryan Cantrill:

Yeah. I I'd I think I'd rather go into founder mode. Founder mode sounds a lot more fun. It sounds a little more like prince Adam becoming He Man.

Adam Leventhal:

No. That's right. You're right. Like, founder mode is definitely more like, you know, waving your scepter and zapping folks as opposed to, like, listening to them and wondering what they're about. And, also, I gotta tell you,

Bryan Cantrill:

I hear clarity mode and trust mode. I just feel slow, and I wanna move fast. And I wanna I wanna move fast, and I wanna break things. Makes sense. Like and trust in clarity mode.

Bryan Cantrill:

Take my money. Makes sense. But I think it it is worth listening to to the the the the Brian Chesky.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Because I think that that it was helpful to get that kinda from the source. Yeah. And then, like, get as much as possible from the source, I would say, is part of, like, even if it's Dave hits, as it turns out, like, there you go. Nugget of wisdom.

Adam Leventhal:

Right there.

Bryan Cantrill:

Right? A a a, as as Dennis Ritchie said in his anti forward to the UNIX Haters Handbook, it is an undigested nugget of nutrition in what is other otherwise a fecal pie. I just felt that was like, you wanna take for 8 a super. Oh, it's absolutely a keeper. Dennis Ritchie, rest in peace.

Bryan Cantrill:

But this this is something to be a good discussion, I feel.

Adam Leventhal:

Yeah. Turns out. Who knew? We we we get Paul Graham. Thank you,

Bryan Cantrill:

Paul Graham. We got to we got to not

Adam Leventhal:

in the pod probably.

Bryan Cantrill:

In the pod along with the yeah. Exactly. Paul Graham and Dave hits listen to this together. It's one of their, like, weekly things that they like to do.

Adam Leventhal:

They're, like, guilty little pleasures.

Bryan Cantrill:

What are their guilty little pleasures? Exactly. Well, the I this is it. I I know this was a cold take, but I know this is fun. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

That, Yeah.

Adam Leventhal:

I'm I'm glad we took a little more of a of a lukewarm take on this one. Because I I think, like, there there's something there, something worth discussing. And, like, you know, my knee jerk on this was, like, not as as helpful.

Bryan Cantrill:

And I think it's like it'd be and there is something there because I think that the problem is real and the question is, like, how do you how do you build how do you build trust? How do you offer clarity to a team? Like, that's the challenge. And it's like the way to do that is not to go into seagull mode. Yeah.

Bryan Cantrill:

Cantina mode. Alright. Well, this has been great. It's great to, great to be off for a little hiatus. Although, maybe this is a good little cooling off period we have.

Bryan Cantrill:

Maybe we should do this more often and do it, like, come back we'll come back to tweets that are 2 weeks old.

Adam Leventhal:

Good. I'll do more international travel. Sounds good to me. Exactly. It feels like

Bryan Cantrill:

we're more likely to read the tweet in this case too. Alright. It was fun, and we will, we'll see everyone next time. Thanks, everybody.

Adam Leventhal:

Thanks. Did not see nonstop itself. We're

Bryan Cantrill:

still here. It is.

Bryan Cantrill:

Adam, did not see nonstop that's coming up. I believe it.