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and empower what's next. Start

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today at empower.com. Lauren. Mike.

0:18

If you could have any job in the tech industry, what

0:20

do you think it would be? I

0:23

think I would like to be an internal critic.

0:26

I don't know if anyone would hire me to do this,

0:28

but I would just like to be the person who says

0:31

you are not designing this for a real human being or

0:33

you need to treat both your

0:35

users and your staff better. The gadfly.

0:38

Yeah, the ombudsman. Is that how you say

0:40

that? The ombudsman. Ombudsman. What would you

0:42

be? I'd want to be the

0:45

barista on one of the swanky campuses

0:47

just so I could chat with

0:49

people all day and make them happy by giving them

0:52

something that they want. I would watch that

0:54

sitcom. Is there a character

0:56

like that on HBO's Silicon Valley? I

0:58

don't think so. Oversight. Mm-hmm.

1:02

Is there security in that job? Oof, I don't

1:04

know. The tech industry has been suffering a

1:06

lot of layoffs lately. I don't know if there's any

1:08

job security in the tech industry anymore. Yeah,

1:10

we should talk about this. Absolutely. Let's

1:14

do it. Hi,

1:21

everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael

1:23

Kalori. I am Wired's director of consumer tech

1:25

and culture. And I'm Lauren Goode.

1:27

I'm a senior writer at Wired. We're

1:29

also joined this week by Wired

1:31

senior writer, Puresh Daveh, visiting us

1:34

from the business desk. Hello, Puresh.

1:36

Hello. Welcome back to the show.

1:38

Thank you for having me. Of course. I

1:41

think the first time we had Puresh on, it took us,

1:43

what, 11 months as he pointed

1:45

out to bring him into studio. And

1:47

now there's no stopping it. It's

1:49

because I became your ombudsman. That's right.

1:52

Welcome back, ombudsman. Today

1:55

we are talking about tech jobs. In

1:57

the first seven weeks of 2024, tech companies. companies

2:00

big and small have been laying off significant

2:02

numbers of workers. Amazon,

2:04

Google, Discord,

2:06

Duolingo, Cisco, Instacart,

2:09

dozens of others, they all cut staff

2:11

in January and February. It

2:14

all adds up to tens of thousands of jobs

2:16

lost across the industry. Companies

2:18

often conduct layoffs at the very end or

2:21

the very beginning of the year, so these

2:23

workforce reductions are not particularly out of step

2:25

with historical patterns, but the

2:27

cuts that started last month are not slowing down and

2:29

that feels off, so we're going to talk about why.

2:32

Now in the second half of the show,

2:34

we're going to talk about what it's like

2:37

to interview for a tech job and how

2:39

that typically strange experience is getting even stranger

2:41

for job candidates. But first, let's talk about

2:43

the layoffs. So, Puresh, I'm going to

2:46

start with you. You've been

2:48

covering this along with our colleague, Amanda Hoover,

2:50

on the business desk at

2:52

Wired, and I want you

2:54

to tell us, is there any end insight to

2:56

the tech layoffs? No, absolutely

2:59

not. Google has said that they're going

3:01

to continue sort of cuts throughout this

3:03

year. I think we

3:05

can expect the same from Amazon and

3:07

Meta and these other companies that are

3:09

realizing that they're, like

3:12

you said, generating just as much

3:14

sales as before. They're doing great.

3:16

Profits are sort of skyrocketing, and

3:19

they're still able to do this while

3:22

they're sort of trimming staff. And

3:24

so they're realizing that they can get

3:27

rid of projects that aren't as interesting. They

3:29

can roll things out slower. And

3:32

then I'm sure you'd want to talk

3:34

about the AI and how it's

3:36

making workers supposedly more productive.

3:39

Can we just refer to the AI

3:41

as Steve, like Russi Foster does in

3:44

Today in Tabs? Let's just give it

3:46

a persona. Before we

3:48

get to AI, though, there's been this

3:50

narrative that part of this is because

3:52

during the pandemic, tech companies Hired,

3:55

their position might be that they overhired.

3:57

And So this is a backlash to

3:59

that. Can you talk about that a little bit. Young

4:01

The Pandemic made everyone think that we'd

4:04

spend the rest are our lives on

4:06

line and ever go out into the

4:08

real world again and never I mean

4:10

a drop our phones and and stop

4:12

looking at them. Of course the didn't

4:14

prove true. We've all returned for an

4:16

on the lives we are spending a

4:18

lot of time, you know, online, but

4:20

maybe not as much as Peace Tech

4:23

executives were thinking. Ah, but that's only

4:25

part of it. I mean the other

4:27

issue is that. Money. Was

4:29

cheap. During the pandemic, they were

4:31

able to borrow money at low

4:33

interest rates. Has interest rates have

4:35

gone up? Companies can't do that

4:37

as easily investors are demanding dividends.

4:39

Mehta mean I'm just this month

4:41

announced that it would be paying

4:43

dividends on it's shares to investors

4:45

for the first time. You know

4:47

that's profits that could have been

4:49

reinvested in the company and gone

4:51

towards hiring by. These companies are

4:53

having to make different sort of

4:56

decisions in this environment where money

4:58

isn't cheap anymore. Which. Companies cutting

5:00

the deepest. While.

5:03

I would say irrespective of how

5:05

big the cuts, I think that.

5:07

Company. Where the cuts have been most

5:09

destructive as Google, you know, Google has

5:12

until last year hadn't gone through any

5:14

sort of mass layoff before and it's

5:16

cooked completely disrupted this culture where people

5:18

thought that there was this safety, this

5:21

sort of luxury of being and and

5:23

tech job where they could sort of

5:25

be there for the rest of their

5:27

lives that they really wanted arm and

5:30

Google over the past year Plus has

5:32

been cutting people who have been there

5:34

for fifteen years, twenty years. Ah, and

5:36

it's you. Know really sucks people to

5:39

their core. And I think

5:41

that sort of slowed to to sort of

5:43

other companies that are a little bit younger

5:45

like Mad and Amazon that also felt justice

5:47

sort of cushy. You could sort of stay

5:49

there has long as you are doing a

5:51

pretty decent job. And

5:53

that's distinct from let's say Microsoft where they've

5:55

been doing sort of these cuts for better

5:58

performance space or I B M that have

6:00

been doing these cuts their performance based sort

6:02

of annual A and people were a sort

6:04

of used to p bad to workers coming

6:06

and going but just wasn't the case at

6:08

a place like Google or or Matter. We.

6:11

Should talk about see is. So

6:13

yeah I am wondering if they I

6:16

is part of this story because tech

6:18

companies are using a I to do

6:20

the jobs or make jobs more efficient

6:23

that humans is to do. Or.

6:25

If it's because they just feel perhaps on an

6:27

R and D level, they need to invest much

6:29

more at those. Other

6:32

departments I think it's it's both those

6:34

anything. It's a third thing which is

6:37

a I and to sort of Gen

6:39

Vi boom that we've seen over the

6:41

last year. Is sort

6:43

of leading to companies. Throwing.

6:45

Stuff against the wall and like wanting

6:48

to like move quicker and and pivot

6:50

so it's it's that to ah, I'm

6:52

on the first part of it. Yes,

6:54

I mean I. I spoke recently with

6:57

the Ceo of of sort of a

6:59

large software company where they said that.

7:01

Their coders are able to

7:03

write thirty percent more software

7:05

code. Over the

7:08

past year due to get up copilot

7:10

which is this coding assistance. That

7:13

uses generative ai to help software

7:15

engineers finish their code. And I

7:17

mean that that seems like a

7:20

a huge number. And.

7:23

That. Productivity doesn't necessarily mean like lay offs,

7:25

it just means that they're able to sort

7:27

of build more towards and hopefully that will

7:30

lead to more sales. and then if it

7:32

leads to more sales than they can go

7:34

into more hiring. Ah, but they're not let

7:36

let him go those people because they want

7:38

to keep building on the second part. Ah,

7:40

I think you know you've seen as how.

7:43

Companies. Have been trying to

7:45

put these resources into developing.

7:48

Gemini. This new chat bot

7:50

right or recently near name chat

7:53

bot from google ah I'm mad

7:55

as been putting things towards development

7:57

of lama these other generative a.

8:00

Models and so they've cut back

8:02

from things like google Assistant right?

8:05

Which. Is odd considering that assistant

8:07

was like the first real. You.

8:09

Know for Google Anyway, one one of the

8:12

first real sort of injections of a I

8:14

into our world from the thing you could

8:16

talk to and ask questions and with did

8:19

embodied computer so Twenty Ten assists as it

8:21

is for part of what they're cutting other

8:23

features that they realized users were not using

8:25

that trains and they're. Being.

8:28

I guess more judicious in a way that

8:30

they probably should have been earlier and saying

8:33

well this Google whole thing and met his

8:35

whole thing as like a thing needs to

8:37

have hundreds of millions to be no a

8:39

billion users to be worthwhile for the revenue.

8:42

You know the matter to them and they're

8:44

just. They'd. Let things may

8:46

be go on a little too

8:48

long. Ah, but then yeah like

8:50

that with thing the third, the

8:52

third piece to this is just

8:55

that's because they're so unsure about

8:57

where are the winds will blow

8:59

and what users will be interested

9:01

in and what their competitors are

9:03

doing. Things you just moving so

9:05

fast that they wanna kind of

9:07

be lean enough to shift people

9:09

around and so you sing. Layers

9:11

of management disappeared these companies which

9:13

is interesting and you're seeing. Me

9:16

know, maybe more contractors. Are contractors become even

9:18

more fungible than they were already, which is

9:21

kind of, you know, awful for someone in

9:23

that position, you. Have labor unions or

9:25

the attempts at building labor unions. It's

9:27

a nice big companies had any effect

9:30

on this. Certainly.

9:32

We'd seen like the Alphabet Workers Union which

9:34

is sort of hundreds of members, maybe a

9:36

little bit over a thousand And now I'm

9:38

to the small drop in the bucket of

9:41

Alphabet seen up. Hundred eighty thousand

9:43

employees around the world. Certainly

9:46

raised concerns about these layoffs.

9:48

the man sort of more

9:50

transparency. Demand more

9:53

warnings Better severance. I'm in

9:55

a makes making sure it

9:57

doesn't disproportionately affects minorities or.

10:00

The People of Color Women

10:02

by. He hadn't.

10:04

Workers don't have power right now. I

10:06

mean, they're just so many laid off

10:09

workers out there in the tech industry

10:11

and places like Silicon Valley that workers

10:13

just don't have a lot of power.

10:17

I. Think it's interesting that for a hot

10:19

minute there was a trends on social

10:21

media of people live streaming or making

10:23

tic toc videos of their lay off

10:26

experience. Or did you see any of

10:28

those? Yeah, you say it was a

10:30

trend. I think it's very much still

10:32

a trend. Although.

10:34

You know the looking on tic toc last night.

10:38

Hard to tell which which ones are like

10:40

real or not I feel like people or

10:42

maybe staging some of these things for the

10:44

views by. Yeah. I

10:46

mean, it's really taken the stigma

10:49

out of layoffs than a way

10:51

that is probably healthy for society.

10:53

Maybe not a healthy and the

10:55

fact that we're going through so

10:57

many you know, job cuts by.

11:00

These these videos where people are

11:02

like literally showing the zoom call,

11:04

where they're being laid off or

11:06

whether talking about how they felt

11:08

after finding out or or what

11:10

the circumstances were like one person

11:12

posts about finding out while they

11:14

were on vacation. And

11:17

I think it's is making

11:19

it's creating this camaraderie. this

11:21

community. you're not alone. They.

11:23

May and I have anything to do with

11:26

the fact of the fact of your performance

11:28

or like this. You know, whether you're a

11:30

good worker a good kotor, it can be

11:32

totally random. It could be an algorithm choosing

11:35

you could be a manage her ten levels

11:37

above you. Who doesn't know you're just using

11:39

a name and of hat whatever it is

11:41

and I think that's good. You know, does

11:44

it? It seems healthy that. That.

11:46

We can sort of be more at peace

11:48

and not think ah, our lives are ending

11:50

because we got laid off. So.

11:52

It's a way for some of these laid

11:54

off workers to find community through the absurdity.

11:57

Of tic tac human faces.

12:00

They're just trying to generate likes and get

12:02

some money out of that. Hashtag

12:04

influencers. All

12:06

right, let's take a quick break and we'll come right back. Empower

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12:57

now you've probably heard plenty of stories about

12:59

what the job interview process is like for

13:01

big tech jobs. Candidates being

13:03

asked to solve complex logic problems

13:05

or do silly brain teasers or

13:07

write code on the spot. For

13:10

a long time, these stories are pretty amusing,

13:12

especially because you knew that on the other

13:15

side of it lay a very high paying

13:17

engineering job. Tech workers are

13:19

pampered or they were anyway. But

13:22

the mass layoffs that started in 2022 have

13:24

now led to a glut of talent in

13:26

the market. Jobs are harder to come by

13:28

and engineers in particular are being put through

13:31

the gauntlet when they interview. Now,

13:33

Lauren, you wrote a story for Wired

13:35

this week about how the tech interview

13:37

process has changed in light of these

13:39

layoffs. Interviews have gotten absurd, but

13:41

in a new way. What led

13:43

you to this story? I was

13:45

starting to hear stories from tech workers

13:48

and specifically engineers about how absurd and

13:50

that is the word that was used.

13:53

These technical interviews

13:55

were getting engineers

13:57

are in kind of a unique position because as. pointed

14:00

out, they tend to be extremely well paid and

14:02

that's usually right out the gate, right? It's one

14:04

of those things where like people know that you

14:06

if you get an engineering job and you land

14:09

at the right place you could be fresh faced

14:11

out of school and you're starting with a six-figure

14:13

salary and maybe some options too. But

14:16

on the other hand engineering interviews are

14:18

interesting because they are so complex and

14:21

technical. You are not

14:23

only judged based on behavioral

14:25

interviews or problem solving

14:28

but also code this

14:30

thing for me. Code it the way

14:32

that I expect. Use this language and deliver it in

14:34

this time frame. And what

14:36

I was hearing from engineers is

14:39

that that part of the job

14:41

interview was getting particularly demanding.

14:44

I spoke to one

14:46

engineer who said that they

14:48

received a take-home test that was

14:50

going to require them to build

14:52

an entire app in a short time frame

14:55

and provide written documentation for how they built

14:57

that app. Whereas in the past it might

14:59

have been here's a

15:01

framework for an app, build a feature that

15:03

would work within this app. I heard a

15:06

similar story from another engineer who said that

15:08

they were asked on the spot during a

15:10

live coding test to build a to-do list

15:13

app. Once again not a feature

15:15

but builds an entire app. I've

15:17

heard that in some instances engineers have to

15:20

study or prepare hours and hours or

15:22

in one case someone said they had

15:25

to come up with about 100 pages of

15:27

documentation just to sort

15:29

of power themselves through the interview

15:31

process. And then in other

15:33

cases it's just a multi-stage process with

15:35

as many as six different interviews in

15:37

addition to a technical test that

15:40

just make it really difficult to carve out the

15:42

time to land the new job that you

15:44

want or need. And so I decided

15:46

to just dive into it. Right. So I mean engineers

15:48

have always had to take hairy tests like this

15:50

but these are just like extra extra hairy they

15:53

sound like. Things have gone extra. That's

15:55

a good way to describe it. Are people

15:57

actually completing them or are they saying in

15:59

the middle? when they're in the middle of the

16:01

interview, when they're asked this on the spot piece, I'm

16:03

out, like I'm not dealing with this. Yeah, a

16:05

lot of that is happening. The person I spoke to who

16:07

said that they were asked to build an

16:09

entire app in a short timeframe, said

16:12

about halfway through the process, after a full day

16:14

of coding and having not completed enough

16:16

of the project said, I think this

16:18

is a sign of withdrawing my application. And

16:21

that person has since shifted their job

16:23

search to include smaller tech companies that

16:26

they feel right off the bat could be

16:28

a better cultural fit. And

16:31

this is happening at big tech companies, but it's

16:33

also happening across smaller tech companies

16:35

as well, because as

16:37

you said, Prash, big tech companies

16:39

now have the upper hand again. It's

16:41

very clear that with all of these layoffs, there's

16:44

a lot of talent in the market and employers

16:46

now can be choosier. On the

16:48

startup side though, especially if they're

16:51

lean and capital is hard to come by,

16:54

one startup CEO told me that if she

16:56

only gets, 10

16:59

to 14 hires for engineering

17:01

to basically keep their entire

17:03

product running, she's

17:06

going to be really choosy about who

17:08

she hires because that's a limited headcount.

17:11

So it's happening on both ends of the

17:13

spectrum. Is that why expectations

17:15

are so high of candidates? Because companies

17:17

are being told to operate more leanly.

17:21

It's both that and it's both

17:23

a cultural shift. I spoke to

17:25

Laszlo Bach, who Prash

17:27

you might know from your years covering

17:30

Google, but was the SVP of People

17:32

Operations, AKA hiring at Google for about

17:34

a decade. And he

17:37

basically said, this isn't

17:39

a response to or an overcompensation

17:41

for that idea

17:43

of the coddled engineer. And

17:45

particularly during the pandemic when people

17:48

were able to work from home, maybe

17:50

carve out a more flexible work schedule for

17:52

themselves. And there

17:55

is encouragement in recent years to kind of bring your

17:57

whole self to work. And he said, this

17:59

is... In some ways a direct backlash to

18:01

that. And employers are saying like, no, come to

18:03

work, come to the office

18:06

and come ready to work and work

18:08

hard. And once again, that goes back

18:10

to employers having the upper hand. But

18:13

do these interviews, is there proof, from

18:15

Lazlow or anyone that they

18:18

actually lead to better engineers?

18:20

Like, where's the evidence

18:23

behind these crazy interview questions? It's

18:25

a really good question. And I wasn't

18:28

able to uncover any evidence of

18:30

that. What I did

18:32

learn from talking to one source

18:34

is that the bar

18:37

for a technical interview has gotten

18:39

measurably higher. I spoke to

18:41

this woman named Aileen Lerner. She

18:44

is an engineer herself who now runs

18:46

a company called interviewing.io. And

18:49

this is actually kind of an interesting

18:51

company. They're an interview coaching platform for

18:53

engineers. If

18:56

you're an engineer seeking a job, you sign up. You

18:58

pay $225 or more per interviewing session. And

19:02

you get paired with a mock interviewer who

19:04

doesn't know who you are, doesn't even see you,

19:06

because these are not done over video. They're done

19:09

over audio. And this person administers a test to

19:11

you, and you get to practice. And

19:13

then they give you a score at the end.

19:15

And they're scoring you on all kinds of categories.

19:17

But that includes your technical score. And

19:19

what Aileen told me is that over

19:21

the past two years, interviewing.io, with all

19:23

the thousands of interviews, they have data from,

19:25

they believe that interviewing

19:28

for a technical job has

19:30

gotten 22% more difficult, which means it has gotten

19:32

that much more difficult to just receive a thumbs

19:35

up on the technical portion

19:38

of the interview. Because

19:40

the mock interviewers are reflecting what

19:42

is going on in the market.

19:44

They're using a similar testing style

19:46

or set of questions that, say,

19:48

someone at Google or Meta would

19:50

be using, and that

19:52

it's just gotten that much harder. And

19:56

it's not that workers have gotten worse in some

19:58

way. Presumably no. That is not

20:00

the case. So. One of the

20:02

places that people are talking about this is

20:04

on the app Blinds is that right now

20:07

get all blind. Yeah, Tell everybody who maybe

20:09

doesn't know a blind is what it is

20:11

and then you know, tell us what the

20:13

conversations are. Blind as an anonymous up

20:15

for workers and as I said in

20:17

a story, it's a place where the

20:20

truth is elastic but some clear trends

20:22

emerge out each. If you're a journalist,

20:24

you can be. I'm blind to like.

20:26

We could go and post about our

20:28

own company if we wanted to. So

20:30

people are coming from companies across all

20:32

sectors on Blind, but it's a good

20:34

place to check out where people. Are talking

20:36

about the tech. Companies and workers

20:38

on Blind engineers in

20:40

particular. Are talking about instances

20:42

where. This feels like the

20:44

coding Olympics. Maybe that's a little bit

20:47

hyperbolic by just indicating that when interview

20:49

process they've been through is really difficult.

20:52

They. Say am! I Went through many rounds

20:54

of interviews at Matter and it turns out

20:56

at the end of the day they didn't

20:58

have a quote unquote Pm match for me

21:00

meaning they didn't have a team to put

21:02

them on. it even actually have have the

21:04

headcount. So. People.

21:07

Have been anonymously complaining about this as well,

21:09

and if you look hard enough, you start

21:11

to see some pretty consistent patterns. Do

21:15

think anything has changed with

21:17

the non technical portion of

21:19

interviews? That I'm not

21:21

aware of and it's probably worth

21:23

noting that he leans said that

21:26

of be over two hundred thousand

21:28

lay off that have been tracked

21:30

across the industry since Twenty Twenty

21:32

Two Diet, it's probably only tens

21:35

of thousands of those job she

21:37

estimated fifteen days and. That

21:39

were in. Engineering. Jobs So we.

21:41

Know that the bulk of the last

21:43

had been across other job categories like

21:46

middle Managers Matter had been laying off

21:48

a lot of middle managers marketing, admin,

21:50

support roles, And

21:52

I I don't know what those job interview

21:55

processes are like, but I wanna say just

21:57

because of how many people it is. Probably

22:00

also challenging to see get your foot in the door at

22:02

this point. New. At

22:04

so what point does an engineer show

22:07

up for an interview at a tech

22:09

company and. Just and A I

22:11

just conducts the whole interview and then decide

22:13

whether or not exist. As low, there

22:15

is definitely a screening happening at the

22:18

plane as application right now. In fact,

22:20

one of my former colleagues help the

22:22

So men to throw a whole book

22:25

about this. I'm and she's been on

22:27

that the book circuit talking about it,

22:29

but on. I. Think was

22:31

interesting. Billie. Through this

22:34

particular story is how job candidates are

22:36

using a I. I found a couple

22:38

of tic tac in you tube videos

22:40

although like per as said it's hard

22:43

to know how many of these are

22:45

stage just say illustrate a plane and

22:47

how many are real of where people

22:49

at engineering candidates. Are doing

22:52

a live coding test over video

22:54

and they're responding to questions based

22:56

on what's actually Bts spitting out

22:58

for them. So. Be

23:00

it is. It happened so fast

23:03

now and those are both coding

23:05

questions and something like the hiring

23:07

manager saying as. Can

23:10

you tell me of Java A

23:12

single threaded or multi threaded and

23:14

like the person just throw lives

23:16

transcript has. To. Put that

23:19

into chat Cbt inch actually produce. that's

23:21

about it with an explanation of what

23:23

that means and why I and so

23:25

yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty amusing to

23:27

see, but I'm one of the things

23:29

that this could actually prompt no pun

23:31

intended. It's for the interview process to

23:33

change if. The. Interviews really

23:35

have become sort of similar and

23:37

hiring managers are asking the same

23:39

set of questions and people know

23:41

they're going to get some of

23:43

the same tests. That.

23:45

You can just you can prepare

23:48

a chat gp tear way into

23:50

a completely wrote interview. And.

23:52

Then that's not really benefiting any one. So.

23:55

all of these changes in the market could

23:57

force and moment hope but slightly more creative

24:00

and maybe more meaningful interviewing

24:02

experience for workers. Yeah,

24:05

I fear what we're seeing right now

24:07

is just a pendulum swinging, you know,

24:09

right in the far, far direction on

24:11

one side where it's these crazy questions,

24:13

but we're going to come back slowly

24:16

as they realize there's nothing to this

24:18

and it's not leading to better hires.

24:21

Right, right. And hopefully it doesn't swing so far

24:23

in the other direction again that we get the

24:25

brain teasers of like, tell me how many windows

24:27

are on office buildings in Manhattan. Without

24:30

googling. Without asking

24:32

a chance. How many jelly beans are in the

24:34

jar, right? Piano

24:37

repair people. Exactly.

24:41

All right. Well, thank you both for an invigorating

24:43

conversation about the tech job market of all things.

24:46

Sure. I don't feel super confident. I will be

24:48

hired as an oat buds man anytime soon. Good

24:51

luck with your barista applications, Michael. Thank you.

24:53

Oat milk, sir. All

24:56

right. Let's take another quick break and we'll come right

24:58

back with our recommendations. All

25:07

right. Puresh, as our guest, you get to

25:09

go first. What is your recommendation for us?

25:12

Well, since we've been talking about jobs,

25:15

I figured we'd talk about the

25:17

workplace. And my recommendation is if

25:20

you're aware of someone in

25:22

your, um, workplace who's disabled

25:24

or has accessibility needs, maybe

25:27

reach out to them, uh, in the next

25:29

couple of weeks and ask whether you're collaborating with

25:31

them in the way that they prefer the most.

25:34

Uh, it could be as something

25:37

as simple as sharing presentations ahead

25:39

of time, uh, before you present

25:41

them at over a Google meet

25:43

or zoom or whatever, and, uh,

25:46

allowing them time to either digest it so

25:49

they can sort of focus on lip reading

25:51

maybe during a meeting, or they can, uh,

25:54

prepare their questions ahead of time and send

25:56

them electronically, whatever it is. Um.

26:00

And I bring this up because we

26:02

often sort of overlook people's needs. And

26:05

I don't think this

26:08

only applies to people with disabilities. I think you

26:10

can reach out to all your coworkers and

26:13

sort of say, are we collaborating in the

26:15

best way possible? Are

26:17

we really sort of managing this relationship?

26:19

And this seems like a good time

26:21

to check on that. And,

26:24

you know, it is Black History Month, you know,

26:26

especially check in on your people of color colleagues

26:29

and people who you just

26:32

might not always interact with, and

26:35

but do occasionally and sort of see how

26:38

can we sort of have a better working

26:40

relationship. That is an excellent

26:42

recommendation. Yeah, it's very good advice. Really thoughtful. I

26:45

don't know if it's more practical or philosophical, but you

26:47

can make it a little bit of both. I

26:49

mean, much better than galad sliced lemons. We

26:53

do prefer the recommendations, the straddle line between

26:55

practical and philosophical. So thank you for that.

26:58

Lauren, what is your recommendation? I

27:01

was going to recommend a John Lecare podcast,

27:04

which is not a podcast featuring an outlet,

27:06

John Lecare, but a podcast with his biographer.

27:08

That was really good. I'm going to say

27:10

that for another week for

27:13

the John Lecare fans out there. I'm

27:16

going to recommend a documentary that I

27:18

recently watched called Eternal Memory. It's

27:21

it was Oscar nominated in 2023. It's

27:24

fair warning. Very sad. It's

27:27

about a couple facing

27:29

Alzheimer's disease. One half of the couple

27:31

has Alzheimer's and his wife is who's

27:33

a little bit younger than him is

27:36

trying to support him through it. The

27:40

male character in it, Augusto,

27:43

he's really interesting because he was a

27:45

journalist and he was kind

27:47

of a force during the Chilean

27:49

dictatorship in the seventies and nineties.

27:51

Once a traditional media was sort

27:53

of taken over by the government. He was finding

27:56

all of these ways to get the word out

27:58

about what was happening. He was a. really

28:00

passionate journalist. And he

28:02

is now the one who is suffering

28:05

cognitive decline. And the

28:07

documentary really gets inside their home, part of

28:09

it takes place during the pandemic and inside

28:11

their lives and inside their relationship, which is

28:13

very touching. And it's

28:15

so it's a little bit about personal memory and

28:17

the decline of personal memory, but also about

28:19

shared cultural memory in a way

28:21

that I found to be, yeah,

28:24

really, really, just really touching.

28:26

So I recommend checking that out if

28:29

you're in the mood for

28:31

a tearjerker. I was watching

28:33

it as part of another story I'm doing

28:35

for Wired, which will come out

28:37

shortly. Awesome. Eternal memory.

28:39

Eternal memory. Yeah, you can watch it. I watched it on

28:42

Amazon Prime. Okay. So it's like

28:44

rentable. It is rentable. Okay.

28:47

Yep, it is. Mike, what's your recommendation? I'm

28:51

back on my BS, as you would say.

28:53

I'm going to recommend a piece

28:55

of music, the new

28:58

Ty Siegel record. Tell us about this.

29:00

Okay. Ty Siegel, T-Y. This is a nice palate

29:02

cleanser, by the way, after a impression I both gave

29:04

very serious recommendations. Mine is also very

29:07

serious. Okay. Ty

29:10

Siegel, S-E-G-A-L-L, look him

29:12

up. He's

29:14

a rock guy. He's a rock and

29:17

roller. He plays guitar. He sings. His

29:19

songs are a little bit on the

29:21

heavy side, but they have a dash

29:23

of sweetness and a very strong, weird

29:25

streak, which I love and appreciate. Ty

29:27

is extremely prolific. He lives in Los

29:29

Angeles. He used to live in San

29:31

Francisco. He's from the same part of

29:33

the world that I am in Southern California,

29:35

so I've been following his career for a while. And

29:39

this album just came out and he

29:41

just launched a tour behind it. It's

29:43

called Three Bells, and it has sort

29:45

of a new band playing

29:48

with him on stage. I saw the show last

29:50

night. It was the first stop

29:52

here in SF, and he's going all around

29:54

the US, and then he's going to Europe

29:57

in the summer. So if you

29:59

listen to it and you like it, check

30:01

them out live because my god what a

30:03

show. I was floored for like an

30:07

hour and a half. It was really amazing. Yeah,

30:11

lots and lots of guitar. So if

30:13

you're like a guitar person and you like your music

30:15

to have a lot of like good guitar playing in

30:17

it, not like show-offy guitar playing,

30:19

but just like good, powerful, emotionally

30:22

charged guitar playing, then like

30:24

you should be listening to Ty Siegel. That

30:27

sounds like a nice thing to listen to after a

30:30

crazy job interview. Yes, yes,

30:33

or to let off some steam if you

30:35

perhaps maybe have recently lost your job or

30:37

if you've fed

30:39

up with the interview process. Yeah, it's

30:42

very cathartic. Ty Siegel, Three

30:44

Bells, Drag City Records, Double

30:46

Vinyl LP if you're a vinyl

30:49

person. So yeah, check it out.

30:51

Bring earplugs. This is so on brand. I

30:53

really appreciate it. Absolutely bring

30:55

earplugs. Dude cranks those

30:57

guitar amps and you will feel it if you're

31:00

anywhere within 50 feet of the stage. Bring

31:03

earplugs. You said

31:05

Ty grew up near you. Did he

31:07

also surf Doho? Yeah, I'm sure.

31:09

I mean, yeah, I'm sure. He's

31:12

from South Orange County. So yeah,

31:15

probably. He's

31:18

way younger than me, but yeah, probably surfed

31:20

the same waves, rode the same waves growing

31:22

up. I didn't know you were from

31:24

South Orange County. Yeah, I'm from Laguna, Dana Point.

31:28

He was on Laguna Beach, the show. I

31:31

was not. Your cliffs are fallen. Yes,

31:34

unfortunately, the part of the world is suffering

31:36

right now. So my heart goes out to all

31:39

them brethren in the OC.

31:43

All right, that's enough. Okay,

31:48

that is our show. Puresh, thank you as

31:50

always for joining us. I appreciate

31:52

it. I'll be sending some critical

31:54

feedback in the coming weeks. I

31:56

appreciate that and look forward to

31:58

it. Say hello Your your lovely dog

32:01

cause you for us. Of course.

32:03

A thanks to all of you for listening. If

32:05

you have feedback you can skate all of us

32:07

on Blue Sky. Just checked the show notes are

32:10

produced. There is a Boon Ashworth We will be

32:12

back to the new show next week and until

32:14

they did. And.

32:20

Thanks all of you for listening to the So if

32:22

you have feedbacks you can. Assess

32:26

Assess. Assess. Assess the.

32:29

Of this impact that that

32:31

sweet. Baby Ray's feedback with a seventy.

32:36

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