0:53

How's it going , Dan ? It's great

0:55

to finally have you on the podcast . I think

0:57

that we've rescheduled this thing a couple times

0:59

now , but I'm really

1:02

excited for our conversation . I'm glad that we can

1:05

finally get together to do this thing .

1:07

Yeah , and I'm happy to be with

1:09

you today . And , yeah , I'm happy to

1:11

get this one under our belt here

1:14

. So open it up for questions

1:16

and let's get going .

1:17

Yeah , absolutely so , Dan

1:20

. I start everyone off with

1:22

telling how they got

1:24

started in IT , right ? Maybe

1:27

what interested you

1:29

in the IT world

1:31

that you were like , oh , I want to go down this

1:34

path . And the reason why I start everyone

1:36

off there is because I have

1:38

a section of my audience that are in

1:40

that situation , that are

1:42

trying to figure out if IT

1:44

is for them . Maybe they can make

1:47

a career change or something like

1:49

that . And I feel hearing everyone's

1:52

background , everyone's unique story

1:54

, just helps others to know that

1:57

hey , maybe I can do this thing too . I've

1:59

done over 150

2:02

episodes at this point and I haven't

2:04

heard the same background twice , so

2:07

that seems to be the case with information security

2:10

.

2:11

I think for me , my journey was

2:15

actually a state funded program

2:18

for low income families

2:20

where we applied

2:22

. I had a summer job at 16

2:24

. And

2:26

I was a part of a place called

2:28

Education Connection . It's been rebranded

2:31

, but in Connecticut it is a regional

2:34

educational system service center that

2:36

provides at the time

2:38

had provided educational technology

2:40

services to school districts and

2:43

I had that

2:45

program for the summer . I think

2:47

we built a website . I'd

2:51

be dating myself if I mentioned what we developed

2:53

it in but , it was a fun exercise

2:56

and at the end they asked if I could

2:58

stay on for part time hours and

3:01

I worked at that facility for

3:03

four years . They were fantastic to me and

3:07

from there it was all right . Well , I seem to be good

3:09

at this thing called computers . This

3:12

goes back to the 90s , right . So I'm

3:14

like , yeah , I'll stick with it and see what

3:16

shakes out of this . And

3:19

between that kind of getting in

3:21

, focusing initially

3:23

my studies

3:25

in computer science and kind

3:28

of just you know , technology just

3:30

became a part of the roles that I excelled

3:32

in and I kind of stuck to it from

3:34

that point forward .

3:35

So , so

3:38

back , you know , back in the 90s . You

3:40

know I mean I was a little kid

3:43

, right , so I

3:45

don't remember much . But you

3:47

know , back in the 90s , in tech

3:49

, what was the atmosphere like

3:51

? Were people excited

3:53

for the future of

3:56

it ? Was the skies

3:58

, the limit ? Was it potentially even limited

4:00

? You know in your own vision , like

4:02

, okay , I'll do this thing , and it's kind of

4:04

just , you know tech support and

4:06

that's what it is , that's where it'll

4:08

be , you know forever . Because you

4:11

know I look at it now and

4:13

with the , you know AI

4:15

evolving like it is , with the cloud

4:17

being as predominant as it is , I mean it's

4:20

constantly evolving , right . But was

4:22

that the same vision back then

4:24

?

4:25

You know back then you know , remember

4:29

vividly when we received our

4:31

gateway boxes of PCs

4:33

right , I had the cow prints , if you're

4:35

not familiar with the gateway brand

4:37

. We also received

4:39

what were the latest and greatest Macintosh

4:42

, the iMac , that that little

4:44

monitor kind of multi-colored thing

4:46

. That was like all the rage . And when we

4:49

talked about technology you had big

4:51

players , novel

4:53

as an example . We had a Novel infrastructure

4:56

, cisco household

4:59

name back in the 90s I

5:01

think . When you look at Microsoft

5:04

, even the MCSE was

5:06

the certification de jure , like

5:09

that's what you needed to have to have a successful

5:11

career in IT . And I

5:13

think when you look at the technologies

5:16

and really how businesses applied those

5:18

, you know

5:20

that the scope or

5:22

the vision was very much of

5:25

like oh , we have these tools and we're going to make us more productive

5:27

. Now that net is just casted

5:29

even wider with what is considered

5:32

, you know , business enabling

5:34

technology . So it was

5:36

, I'd say , a very different world . I think

5:38

back then the

5:41

focus is really on , especially

5:43

on the engineering side , understanding

5:46

. When you're in university you're going through understanding

5:49

microprocessors work and my program

5:51

was very specific for that . But a

5:54

lot of my coworkers

5:56

at the time I mean they just knew

5:58

through experience and education

6:01

how the really

6:03

almost like lower level operations

6:06

happened , how

6:08

to support hardware

6:10

technology at a very low level , and

6:12

I think that the main difference that we're seeing

6:14

today is that's become

6:17

very commoditized . Very hidden

6:20

below the scenes are certain individuals that

6:22

I work with at EDB that understand

6:24

just not a necessity

6:27

from a post-grist perspective

6:29

understand those internals . But you

6:31

know the economy that has built on

6:33

top of that low level

6:35

understanding has really grown

6:37

and I think you

6:40

know individuals have an opportunity

6:42

to excel in the field , technology

6:44

field in general , even without

6:46

that knowledge . Now , having that knowledge

6:49

only makes you that much more proficient

6:51

in understanding why things work the

6:53

way they work . But I think

6:56

, comparing the mid

6:59

90s and that ramp

7:01

up tocom , yeah , there was a lot

7:03

of web kind of growth there

7:05

. But I think you know

7:07

techies were more techie back

7:10

then , believe it or not . And I think , wow

7:12

, some folks would cling to the laurels

7:14

on whether they're as

7:16

hardcore as some of the old engineers . You

7:19

know you're not going to find many mainframe folks and

7:22

if they do , they're making a pretty penny these days

7:24

because it's just the

7:26

level of knowledge and just

7:29

institutional knowledge , especially

7:31

in organizations that have those technologies , just

7:34

can't be replaced . You

7:36

know we studied this at MassMutual

7:38

with the aging out

7:41

of specific talent that would

7:43

run our mainframe systems . We built

7:45

cognitive knowledge systems

7:47

that we're trying to solve . How do we

7:49

get an L1 to an L3

7:51

in terms of proficiency and being able to address

7:54

really hard problems

7:56

? By cognitively modeling

7:59

what a mainframe engineer kind of looks like

8:01

and how they think through analysis

8:03

. So this is kind of a large problem

8:05

. But in general , when we

8:07

look at opportunity and I think

8:10

you made mention your viewers often

8:12

have , you know , a

8:15

question is IT right

8:17

for me ? I think is technology the right

8:19

world for you ? I don't think there's

8:22

plenty of jobs that technology don't doesn't

8:25

play a strong part , but I think we're going to start to

8:27

see industries being changed that have

8:30

been isolated from that

8:32

. When we look at the

8:35

four or three prior stages

8:38

of industrial revolution , right

8:40

, we're going into a fourth

8:43

and this is what AI is driving . This

8:45

industrial revolution is going

8:47

to change the way we work in ways

8:49

that we're not even aware of today , but

8:51

also change areas that traditionally

8:54

haven't been in focus . So you

8:56

know , farming for a while has

8:58

actually benefited from technology advancements

9:01

, right , but where does AI take

9:03

a farmer of the future . Do you have

9:06

a love and passion right for agriculture

9:08

, but also have an act for technology , where

9:10

that intersection is going to become more interesting for you

9:12

right ? Or if you're , you know

9:14

, a post grad and you have these skills and you're like

9:16

, well , where do I want to work ? Well , there's going

9:18

to be these industries that are not

9:21

really saturated and when

9:23

we think of reskilling ourselves , it's

9:25

where do we want to work , where do we want to

9:27

apply ourselves ? And ultimately

9:29

, you know , we

9:32

want to be successful in our career , but there's

9:34

just going to be opportunity for

9:36

individuals to kind

9:39

of prove themselves and to kind of live

9:41

a , you know , I'd say , successful career

9:43

, but , you know , fulfilling life . I

9:45

think it's really exciting right now

9:47

and I

9:50

don't know that is technology or IT

9:52

. The right thing for me is like do I have a passion for this

9:55

and a passion for some industry ? Because

9:57

those worlds are colliding right now .

10:01

Yeah , I think you know , in the

10:03

near future or even right now , you know , we're

10:05

going to see IT

10:08

be involved into fields

10:10

and into ways that you

10:12

know we never , we never really imagined before

10:15

. Right , like you mentioned , how

10:17

AI and IT will

10:19

meet for farming right , and how it'll augment

10:23

, how farmers , you know , plant

10:25

crops and you know , maintain them and

10:27

things like that . I

10:30

mean that's a whole , that could

10:32

be a whole industry right there . That's

10:34

a consulting firm of tech

10:36

people that come in , deploy

10:39

an AI , set it up with a drone and

10:42

the drone does whatever In the

10:44

autonomous mapping of property

10:46

.

10:48

Some of these things likely exist today , but I think

10:50

the catalyst for the

10:52

more human aspects of how

10:54

they engage , when

10:57

you take a look at various industries

10:59

and I'm not going to call it farming , but various industries

11:01

right the

11:04

service aspect naturally

11:06

has this level of personal engagement

11:09

with customers

11:13

. Patients take healthcare . There

11:17

are ambient technologies to give a

11:19

really pointed example for healthcare , where

11:21

AI is able to , in the background

11:23

, listen . When you're walking

11:26

in , you're having a conversation with the

11:29

nurse prior to the doctor . You're having a conversation

11:31

with the doctor , but in real time

11:33

that conversation is being turned into

11:35

insights . Those insights are building a profile

11:38

of what could be wrong as the doctor

11:40

is asking more probing questions , really

11:42

getting into a potential diagnosis

11:45

for

11:48

the condition that you have and being able

11:50

to automatically type out and

11:53

have those notes being put into the EMR

11:55

. That's happening today

11:57

. You think about how that

11:59

experience can translate to other

12:01

industries . It's

12:03

going to enable productivity gains

12:06

across population

12:08

demographics , even

12:10

skill levels , bringing up and

12:13

allowing even entry-level

12:15

analysts

12:17

or whatever role it may be be

12:19

able to perform at much higher levels

12:21

than they are today . That's with the assistance

12:24

of these technologies . It's

12:26

going to be wild when

12:28

you look at the prior

12:31

stages or phases of these

12:33

industrial revolutions . This one

12:35

is

12:38

going to affect our families , our kids and

12:40

generations for much

12:42

like the industrial revolutions of the past

12:45

. It's very exciting , for sure .

12:48

I wonder . You bring up the

12:51

doctor's office and

12:54

I wonder how

12:56

much of a doctor's

12:58

, just a normal physician

13:01

, how much of his work

13:04

would be offset by AI ? Potentially

13:07

, because even with

13:09

telehealth and telemedicine , they're

13:12

not there touching you . Obviously

13:15

they're listening to what you're telling them

13:17

, they're putting your symptoms into

13:19

a computer , checking the

13:21

symptoms with an illness

13:24

and then prescribing you something . That's

13:27

all things that an

13:29

AI could probably do at some point

13:31

.

13:32

Yeah , I mean there are at

13:35

least two camps . I'll put it that way . There

13:37

is the camp that looks at

13:39

this , as there's no way a machine

13:41

knows more than me . This

13:45

technology I've done this for years

13:47

. I know when I see a condition

13:49

there's

13:53

going to be another camp . That's wow

13:55

. I have this assistive technology . I'm

13:58

still in the driver's seat for making decisions

14:00

, but it's providing me real-time

14:02

telemedicine , real-time information

14:04

that makes my job easier . When it

14:06

comes to compliance , oh , the

14:09

documentation and the potential

14:12

for miss billing and miss coding . That

14:14

is also addressed with the ability to leverage

14:16

these technologies . I think

14:19

practices that lean into this

14:21

are going to see much

14:23

more time with patients where they need

14:25

to , less time , which

14:28

a good portion of

14:30

time and overhead is spent on the

14:32

compliance and governance of ensuring

14:35

that records are kept . When

14:37

that starts to become just seamless , and

14:41

to the way this technology is being framed in ambient

14:43

, it's around you , your

14:45

work and what you dislike

14:48

about your job . It starts to be minimized

14:50

in a way that you get back to treating patients

14:53

and paying attention to

14:55

the actual patient

14:58

rather than worrying about . I got to go to the next

15:00

thing and figure out this next set

15:03

of tasks that I have ahead of us . I'm

15:08

bullish with the way that this is going to

15:10

change industries , but certainly

15:13

in the more regulated industries

15:15

where compliance and

15:17

regulation exists for protecting

15:20

patients and protecting organizations

15:22

and entities . That , overhead

15:24

, I think , is where we're going to see

15:26

a lot of initial gains , where we can get people

15:29

back to being productive and compliant

15:31

at the same time .

15:36

Yeah , it'll be a really fascinating

15:38

time and work effort

15:40

there . It's almost

15:43

like a compliance check while

15:46

you're doing it , while the new

15:48

information is being added in . That's

15:53

even offsetting some tech careers there

15:55

. It's

15:58

interesting how everything will shake out .

16:00

Yeah , yeah . I mean I

16:02

think the

16:04

replacement of roles will only go so far

16:07

, because there's going to be companies at different levels

16:09

and how they want to operate their business

16:11

. But

16:14

even in particular , like Chrome OS , when that came

16:16

out , everyone's like oh you don't need a desktop

16:18

anymore , you still . Yeah

16:20

, there are plenty of use

16:22

cases where that's valid , Even

16:24

to your point . Telehealth

16:26

is going to benefit and is benefiting

16:29

. There's a company called NABLA that

16:31

has this

16:33

. They just received their Series B With

16:36

a verified product . It's getting traction . But

16:38

embedding this in the conversation and

16:40

you can imagine we're having this dialogue remotely

16:42

today but imagine next

16:45

year your profile and seeing real-time

16:47

updates to what the

16:49

system thinks it might be in the areas

16:51

to continue to probe into for questions

16:53

, that augmented workflow

16:56

, I think is really the exciting

16:58

part , Whether it's doctor

17:01

, whether it's agriculture even

17:05

think of cooking chef . Maybe

17:07

there's other applications that we can't even

17:09

think about . It's

17:12

happening now . That change is starting to happen

17:14

. Now , If

17:17

an individual in your audience

17:20

does have some technical abilities

17:22

but really has a passion for some industry

17:24

that isn't technology-focused , that

17:27

intersection is going to be the magic mix , because

17:29

being able to bring those together are going

17:31

to make any business more efficient . At the end of

17:33

the day , You're going to have laggards that are

17:35

going to be left behind . Sure

17:38

, there's folks on the bleeding edge of things , but that

17:41

wave is going to crest . You

17:43

better be on the front side of that if you're a business

17:45

, Many of the careers that you're

17:47

looking for will be growing on

17:50

that upswing . There's plenty of opportunity

17:52

for sure .

17:56

You talk about how , back

18:01

in the 90s , it

18:03

professionals were a lot deeper in

18:06

the space . You really had

18:08

to know the underlying processes

18:11

and systems that are running and whatnot

18:13

, and what they're doing and how they're doing

18:15

it . Even

18:18

when I started out after

18:21

college talking

18:23

like 2010 period , it

18:25

was still like that to a good extent

18:28

. It wasn't as deep . I

18:30

know what you're talking about .

18:35

It wasn't as deep as reading the kernel and

18:37

understanding logic

18:39

gates and things like that .

18:42

That was not a part of it , very thankfully

18:44

. If it was

18:46

, it might not be in IT right now . Is

18:51

that method still

18:53

beneficial ? Where , early on

18:55

in your career , you

18:57

get this deep dive experience

19:00

into a platform , into a technology

19:03

, and you're learning the ins and outs

19:05

of it as you progress throughout

19:07

your career , you're going

19:09

to hire tiers

19:12

within the technology . You're not

19:14

worried about the processes anymore , you're not

19:16

worried about that app and things

19:19

like that . You think that there's still some benefit with

19:21

that .

19:23

I'll make sure to clarify my position . That

19:27

background and that knowledge absolutely

19:29

still extremely helpful

19:32

, especially high tech Learning

19:35

. That depth is a skill set that is needed today

19:38

. I think the thing that

19:41

I'd probably call out is the

19:45

breadth of roles doesn't necessarily

19:47

require you to have that fundamental knowledge

19:49

because it's been abstracted . If

19:52

you think of it as an inverted pyramid , you can

19:54

start anywhere up above that , but for certain

19:56

roles you definitely need that foundational

19:58

pillar . To

20:01

your question directly , I would agree

20:03

and I would say , if

20:06

you're fortunate to

20:08

have work in

20:10

an environment where you're getting that exposure , that

20:13

you're understanding those internals , take

20:16

the time and really , really

20:19

absorb it . I think that

20:21

will pay dividends through the rest of your career

20:23

and allow you not just

20:25

operate at the operational level , but

20:27

if you're trying to solve a problem that's unique to you

20:30

, if your knowledge starts

20:32

at this and you need

20:34

to kind of Know about

20:36

the internals enough to solve your problem , you're

20:38

gonna be short-handed and you're you're gonna need help

20:40

, and that's it's

20:42

not wrong to ask for help . It just means you're

20:44

just less useful in your role and how

20:46

you want to solve a particular challenge . So

20:50

definitely that knowledge

20:52

is super valuable and

20:55

and if you have an opportunity

20:57

, you know comparing

20:59

different job roles like money is valuable

21:02

. You know the

21:04

, the culture of a company's valuable . I

21:06

would say also that the level of work

21:09

that you're doing in complex systems , that

21:12

that will pay dividends

21:14

throughout your career for sure .

21:17

Yeah , it's . You know , looking back

21:20

on my career a little bit , you know

21:22

it's always interesting , the

21:24

little nuggets of information

21:26

that have stuck with me . You know

21:28

that will randomly kind of pop up . You

21:31

know , like , like now . You know like

21:33

, for instance , you

21:35

know , a couple years ago I was deploying a web

21:38

proxy . It was the first

21:40

time I ever did it . Never touched

21:42

a proxy before , never really touched

21:44

network security anything . Before

21:47

and years prior to

21:49

that I had some experience with DNS

21:51

registries and you

21:54

know how it's stored and when it's refreshed

21:56

and things like that . And we ran into

21:58

an issue with the proxy . We're basically no one around

22:01

me knew what was going on . They couldn't really figure

22:03

it out . I'm like , oh , we need to reboot

22:05

, you know , three times because it clears

22:07

out this registry , that it's pulling this information

22:10

from , and once we do that , it'll

22:12

pull the right information , refreshes

22:14

itself . And everyone

22:16

thought that I was joking and I was

22:18

like , no , like that's literally what it is , you

22:21

know . And so we tried it out , one device and it worked

22:23

. And like even my boss

22:25

was like , well , surely it's not gonna work

22:27

again , you know , and it worked

22:29

again . He's like okay , I guess we need to do

22:31

that everywhere now .

22:35

But yeah , I think three

22:37

reboots is , you know , and that's

22:40

sure a lot above . Yeah , I

22:43

think you know when I worked at

22:45

Maskeet rule , you know

22:47

I saw a lot of problems in the kind

22:49

of personal computing , workplace

22:52

technology area and More

22:55

often than not you hear odd stories

22:58

. And it's

23:00

really when you , you know , when you get

23:02

into the troubleshooting aspect that you

23:04

realize it's almost

23:07

a miracle that some of these things work at all

23:09

. But

23:11

you start to appreciate , you

23:13

know , now I'm an old

23:15

timer but the old timers that are there and they're

23:18

like I used to run token ring and

23:20

you're like , all right , yeah , and I

23:22

removed plenty of that At

23:24

my day , but I was removing it , I wasn't responsible

23:26

for its operation and , yeah

23:29

, I was surprised at how many times during

23:31

my career that would surface when I was

23:33

on the infrastructure operation side where you

23:36

know it always comes back to some legacy

23:39

implementation or technology

23:41

implementation

23:43

that Was quirky

23:45

. And if you knew the quirks your life was much

23:47

easier . And you know supporting

23:49

stuff without knowing some of those quirks

23:51

and how , how we arrived to

23:54

now Major

23:56

, major role , definitely more hard . And

23:59

you know you start to respect some of the folks

24:01

that that you know Struggle

24:03

through the pre golden days

24:05

. Put it that way .

24:07

Yeah , yeah , you know , earlier

24:09

out of my career I did a little bit of work

24:11

with some government agencies

24:14

and you know my

24:16

, my company . They told me

24:18

before I went on site they're like , oh , this is a very

24:20

custom deployment , you know , you got to know

24:22

the ins and outs of it and everything else . Like that I

24:25

get on site . I started looking at our product

24:27

and like how the hell does this thing even work ? Like

24:30

literally , how is this thing running

24:32

right now ? And it was so

24:34

bad that it got to the point where I just had to , I

24:37

just basically had to start over . I had to

24:39

do a complete , you know , clean install . But

24:41

now they're actually on

24:43

a supportable product because the company

24:45

you know everyone at the company knows

24:48

how it's running . Everyone in the company knows

24:50

what should , what's the expected result

24:52

and things like that . Because I mean

24:54

, it was , there were , there was pointers In places

24:57

that should not have existed , there was

24:59

, you know , custom directories

25:01

with custom scripts in it running

25:03

and it was such a mess the

25:06

only option was to start over . But you

25:08

know , if you don't have that kind of experience , it's

25:10

difficult to move along

25:13

in your career . You know , because you're kind of building

25:15

on all of these different Experiences

25:17

and skill sets or whatnot , is that ?

25:19

is that what you found as as well , looking

25:21

back now as to see , so yeah

25:25

yeah , you know , I

25:27

think for me it was always

25:29

a Bit

25:32

of our how do I , how do I progress

25:34

in my career , and I

25:36

made it very much . While there's

25:39

opportunity , it's up for me to seize that , but

25:41

also me to be ready to kind of step

25:43

into a role or an opportunity

25:45

that Would require

25:47

. So I did a lot of self-study , right

25:49

, you know , first certification

25:52

was a network plus , I

25:54

think you know Was

25:57

fortunate enough , after

25:59

a little bouncing around between positions

26:01

, to get to , you know , desktop

26:04

position at a financial services company

26:06

. And you know we had this thing at the

26:08

time called Citrix , a presentation

26:10

server that was just released , and you

26:12

know we're moving to that and

26:15

building on Just

26:17

self-study . Moving on to more network

26:19

access gateways that they had in their product

26:21

line I always seemed

26:23

to look for when , where

26:25

next do I need to be ready to apply my skills

26:28

? And Well , virtual desktops

26:30

became a thing and a fad for quite

26:33

a long time . That was

26:35

displaced by this thing called mobile and

26:37

now we need some MDM , all right

26:39

. Well , now with MDM comes this challenge

26:41

of identity and traditional ways

26:43

of managing identity . We're slow

26:45

and cumbersome and we have this thing called

26:47

octa and these identity platforms that

26:50

make it really easy . And , of course , there was

26:52

new standards that facilitate that

26:54

, like with Sam all and open an

26:56

ID , connect right . But I think

26:58

the this , the salient

27:01

point here , is Technology

27:03

is going to change . If you want

27:05

to make this career , you have to

27:07

watch the trends and I always

27:09

was mindful where the trends were . What

27:12

could I bring value to my , my business

27:14

and organization and then continue

27:17

driving it ? And security being thought that

27:19

I would say the last stop because I'm still

27:21

on that train , but I Think

27:24

it was an opportunity . I spent close

27:27

to 10 years Deploying

27:30

technology that was used in

27:32

the enterprise fortune 100

27:34

, right , I now had to secure

27:36

it , but it gave me the advantage

27:38

of knowing how an end

27:40

user connects To

27:43

a system . How are you in remote access

27:45

? How are you servicing remote employees

27:47

when they're in the office ? What is the network

27:49

layout and how are you securing connections

27:51

on the network ? Are

27:54

we detecting threats and what's

27:56

normal , easier behavior ? Well , if you

27:58

work for 10 years supporting an enterprise

28:00

, you know there's a lot of abnormal

28:03

, normal behavior that needs to be baseline

28:05

. So you start to have a better appreciation

28:07

of the challenge . But you're actually in a much

28:10

stronger place than others , because

28:12

you understand how these pieces fit together and

28:14

ultimately how you have to secure them . So

28:17

I Think you

28:19

know , for anyone aspiring to

28:21

kind of make progress in their career , you

28:24

have to be motivated , you have to be a

28:26

self-learner , you have to kind

28:29

of realize where the trends are going . I've

28:31

seen a lot of fantastic technical

28:33

talent get stuck up on philosophical

28:36

preferences of how they

28:38

think the world should be . And if

28:41

we just use this Flavor

28:43

, I'm not gonna pick on Linux folks . This flavor

28:45

on Linux our users would be fantastic . I

28:47

know no one in an enterprise is gonna use Linux as

28:49

their primary device , except for handful of people

28:52

, right ? But there are

28:54

situations where I think

28:57

individuals

28:59

are shorting

29:01

themselves opportunity by clinging

29:04

to a philosophical view of

29:06

technology that they have no

29:08

control over . And as

29:11

much as you may love one technology

29:13

coming in , if you're seeing its

29:15

application struggle , well

29:18

, it's probably losing its

29:20

value at some point to the

29:22

business that you're in , right ? And

29:24

at the end of the day , you're there to support a business

29:26

, even if you're on IT or

29:28

there to generate revenue for an organization

29:31

, right ? And

29:33

I think that gets lost sometimes with

29:35

some really , really talented engineers

29:37

that I've seen over the years .

29:41

Yeah , that's a great point

29:43

that you bring up . It's very

29:45

easy as

29:48

I guess , techies right To

29:50

get attached to a technology as

29:52

you know it . You understand it so well

29:55

, you know , and it's like , okay , I can fix this

29:57

issue . You know it does this , whatever

30:00

it might be . You

30:02

know , and this is even recently

30:04

right , even recently in my

30:06

career , I recommended a technology

30:08

you know that is very

30:11

well-known . You know everyone expects

30:14

you when you talk about doing this project

30:16

. Everyone expects you to go to this

30:18

technology right . So of course

30:20

I involve them in our discussions and

30:22

everything else like that . And

30:25

I mean I was thrown

30:27

off guard

30:29

when they weren't really a

30:31

fit , you know , just because

30:33

of different variables in the environment and whatnot

30:35

. And

30:38

you know I could have taken these stance

30:40

of you

30:43

know , holding my ground right and trying

30:45

to force it in and trying

30:47

to make this thing work , when

30:51

you know in all actuality it's not going to work

30:53

for the environment , no matter how hard

30:55

I try . And you know if

30:57

I try and do that , it's actually going to

30:59

lower my own reputation

31:01

within the organization . You know people

31:03

aren't going to look at my recommendations

31:05

the same way . They're going to be like all right , well , there's an

31:07

asterisk there . You know

31:10

like we have to really kind of check on this

31:12

thing . You

31:14

know , it's interesting . I've

31:16

also experienced that from

31:18

when , you know , my direct

31:20

manager couldn't let go of a technology

31:22

that you know he loved

31:25

. He brought it in , he sold it internally

31:27

and everything else like that

31:29

, you know , and it's like , hey man , this thing does

31:32

not work . I'm literally spending 60

31:34

hours a week just making sure that it's up

31:36

. You know like , can

31:38

we go with the market leader ?

31:40

finally , I think

31:42

that cuts both ways . But

31:44

when you can't let go

31:46

, it becomes a personal thing and

31:50

yeah . I think once it becomes

31:52

a personal thing to you and you're not making

31:54

mindful decisions based on context

31:57

, and managers sometimes

31:59

, especially if it's a seven figure kind of

32:01

price tag , like their career

32:03

is basically stuck . So there's some , you know

32:06

, I'd say unhealthy motivation , sometimes

32:08

at a leadership level , but

32:11

you know , certainly at an engineer

32:13

level , you know , clinging

32:15

on to something and making

32:17

it a personal

32:20

issue that you're moving off of it or your

32:22

philosophy because it's so

32:24

personal to you is

32:28

definitely a career limiter that folks

32:30

should just be aware of .

32:34

Yeah , that's a really good point . You know , I

32:36

wanted to ask you . You know , recently

32:39

, right , I've been talking to a lot

32:41

of different people and the

32:43

concept of saying , yes , I'm

32:45

figuring out how to do it later , you

32:48

know , comes up quite a bit , and do you

32:50

think that that still holds

32:52

true at the CISO level ?

32:57

Yeah , and it's

32:59

not bad . And

33:01

saying yes isn't bad as long

33:03

as it's followed with , but we'll have to see

33:05

at what expense . Right

33:07

, I think , especially

33:10

in the CISO role , we're balancing

33:13

balancing

33:15

depending on the type of company , right ? You

33:18

know , when you take a look at EDB Postgres

33:20

company , we're delivering it via

33:22

cloud . We have technology you can

33:24

install and print . Ciso's

33:27

role is both protecting the

33:29

environment , reducing the risk of a potential

33:31

future incident , but it's also enabling

33:33

sales . It's you can have a

33:36

sales pipeline if you don't have a SOC2

33:38

, you can , but it's very hard to

33:40

close deals . You know , you

33:42

look at PCI can't sell

33:44

into cardholder environments , environments

33:47

that have cardholder data . Hipaa

33:50

can't sell into healthcare . So in

33:52

information security , those , especially

33:54

in a tech company , you start to have other

33:57

pressures that when you're growing

33:59

business . That's where the risk calculus

34:01

comes in and there's always going to be trade-offs . We

34:03

can do this , but by this date you need

34:05

it by this date . All right , yes , but here

34:07

is the impact and

34:10

I think that's fine . I think people want

34:13

to at least acknowledge that you're hearing

34:15

them , that , yes , there's value in what you're

34:17

saying . You don't say yes to everything , but

34:19

if there's merit there , agree to the

34:21

point . This is a great

34:23

idea but where is it going to fall ? And

34:27

one of the things I've learned in even

34:30

prepping for my role and

34:32

kind of growing into it setting

34:35

expectations , especially with

34:37

peers and leadership , is very

34:40

difficult . But if you don't do

34:42

that , you get into a situation where a yes

34:44

but doesn't really

34:46

mean much , right , like I think you

34:48

really have to set expectations of the work that

34:50

you have ahead of us . So when conflicts

34:52

come , where changing priorities

34:54

come , they know all right , there's

34:56

going to be a trade-off we have to discuss . I know

34:59

I'm already asking these three other things . I'm

35:02

kind of smiling because we I work pretty

35:04

closely with our CIO and

35:06

it's very similar conversation . He

35:09

has dozens of commitments

35:11

across his teams , right for the business

35:14

areas , and I'm just another participant and

35:16

he's very skilled at saying yes . But

35:19

and I think that's a valuable lesson

35:22

there's no shame in saying yes . There's

35:24

no shame in saying no . But when you say yes

35:26

, it generally

35:28

should come with some conditions

35:30

and I think everyone appreciates

35:33

that thoughtful kind

35:35

of response , especially

35:37

when they're coming to you with a business problem that

35:39

needs to be addressed .

35:42

Right . So

35:44

you kind of touched on this a little

35:46

bit , but let's talk

35:48

about what EDB does

35:51

, what you guys specialize in , and

35:55

, yeah , we'll just start . We'll start with that .

35:57

Yeah , yeah , born in

36:00

one of the primary , born

36:02

around the Postgres

36:04

SQL open source project

36:07

, but have grown

36:09

into an enterprise focused

36:11

product that solves quite

36:15

a few challenges that the open source project doesn't have . So

36:17

we follow a similar advantage . We submit

36:19

significant amount of code to Postgres

36:22

over the 18 years that we've existed

36:25

. You know

36:27

recently , in the last three , four years

36:29

, we've taken the technology and the know-how

36:32

and developed the cloud platform that

36:34

delivers true Postgres as

36:36

a service versus Postgres compatible

36:38

databases that you'll find in Azure , aws

36:40

and GCP . And

36:43

then we're building in really high value

36:45

capabilities when

36:47

it comes to encryption , active-active

36:49

clusters distributed , you

36:51

know , in different geos , and

36:54

are starting down the path of including

36:57

AI technology and

36:59

really making this intelligence

37:01

systems economy of the future a

37:04

possibility using our product , and

37:06

there's going to be more to share this year . But when

37:08

we think about the value that we provide

37:10

, which is what companies exist right

37:13

, we're allowing really heavy

37:15

transactional platforms

37:17

some of the largest names , household

37:20

names that you can think of

37:22

that operate and leverage EDB's

37:24

Postgres offering advanced server

37:26

offering . The

37:29

sheer volume and scale of

37:32

the processing on

37:34

open source can be

37:36

challenging for some companies and

37:38

we provide that net of support , bug

37:41

fixes , even performance optimization

37:44

, where you can get the most out of the platform and

37:47

do so in supporting our customer's

37:49

journey , of kind of making Postgres

37:52

the de facto database which , depending

37:54

on your sources , you know is the number one most admired

37:56

database Postgres for 2023

37:59

. So it's an exciting period

38:02

of time . I wish I could share a little

38:04

bit more of the roadmap , but that

38:06

will come in near time . We

38:09

have recently landed on the Gartner Magic

38:11

Quadrant for the first time for

38:13

our cloud managed database offering

38:16

and you know

38:18

I'll say very quickly , we'll be

38:20

climbing up that ladder into

38:22

the leader's quadrant over

38:25

time . So I have faith in that

38:27

.

38:29

Yeah , it's a . It's

38:32

really interesting . There's

38:34

so much to Postgres in

38:36

and of itself . And then

38:38

when you factor in

38:41

trying to manage it right

38:43

, like if you have an internal or

38:46

an external facing application

38:48

that's running off of a Postgres database

38:50

, right , and you have to manage it for different

38:53

customers and whatnot , I mean that

38:55

is a feat in and

38:57

of itself . And then

39:00

when you start thinking about the fact

39:02

that it's open source , you know

39:04

, and it's you're using

39:06

this so widely and it's so widely used

39:09

, it's a really impressive

39:11

piece of technology , I feel . But

39:13

personally , you know , I've always had

39:15

, you know , kind of a . I've

39:17

always been a little partial to Postgres ever

39:20

since I experienced it , because

39:22

it's just so versatile , you know , and there's

39:24

so many things that you can do with it and

39:27

it's a lot easier to maintain

39:30

in terms of you know

39:32

, that individual solution . It

39:34

gets complex when it's , you

39:37

know , a lot more servers or whatnot

39:39

.

39:39

but the scaling

39:42

aspect , you know it

39:44

works fine . I have a server

39:46

you know you might have . You know

39:48

the web app and the actual

39:50

database on one server , and that could be fine for

39:52

most environments . I think when you start scaling and

39:54

running into performance , transactional

39:57

performance issues or application

40:01

experience issues , where you have

40:03

folks on each coast and they need to have the

40:05

ability to write to the database , that's

40:08

really unlocked with what we're able to provide

40:10

to customers . But

40:12

to your point on its extensibility , you

40:14

know you'll see a trend

40:17

in . Anyone that's

40:19

familiar with Postgres knows this . They can

40:21

go see the extension model . Postgres

40:24

, though , and is extensible

40:26

, and every time there's

40:28

a new fad database that seems to creep

40:31

up , it gets the attention . Dollars

40:33

are pumped into supporting a vision and

40:36

Postgres creates an extension and , from

40:38

the majority of use cases for customers , that's

40:41

gonna solve it . So , when you look at transactional

40:43

kind of SQL based workloads , yeah , that's out

40:46

of the box . You take a look at graph

40:48

database well , you know there's a graph

40:50

extension . You take a look at vector databases

40:53

with AI well , there's PG vector that

40:55

satisfies that , and there's

40:57

a handful of other extensions

40:59

that we'll be bringing to the market

41:01

that start to enable

41:04

customers in particular

41:06

, you know , business organizations to

41:09

get the benefit out of the mixed

41:12

mode database . The

41:14

reasons why Colomer database technologies

41:18

exist is for analytical purposes . The reason

41:20

why there's graph is to understand relationships

41:22

between entities . You can do all

41:24

this on Postgres and , rather

41:27

than having a portfolio of 10 different

41:29

database vendors , you have one , you

41:31

have one you need to support , you have a trusted vendor

41:33

that you can go to and you have a

41:35

performance profile that is

41:37

scalable , that you don't need to worry about

41:39

how a vendor implements . You know

41:42

Neo4j as an example Great

41:45

product but when

41:47

you look at the majority of use cases that

41:49

I've come across , the performance

41:51

profile isn't anything you need . That is

41:54

overly . It

41:57

requires or demands a high performance . So you

41:59

start to see especially the vector databases

42:01

being huge Pinecone , maybe , eight things

42:04

like that . There are definitely add value

42:06

, add features there . But for those that just

42:08

need a vector database , need

42:10

the ability to tag metadata and

42:13

they'd be able to query that at scale

42:15

, postgres still

42:17

enables you . So

42:19

it's a really interesting technology . But

42:21

yeah , it's something that we see , you know

42:24

, every four or five years when there's some new database

42:26

trend , eventually an extension

42:28

will make its way into Postgres and

42:31

everyone will be like . I will just use Postgres at this point

42:33

. It's rinse and repeat . It's

42:36

kind of entertaining , kind of to

42:38

kind of like see the trend . But

42:41

you know , when you look at the

42:43

strain , bringing in four or five

42:45

different database technologies on an IT

42:47

organization , you get the train

42:49

everyone on Postgres you have

42:51

the ability to , you

42:54

know , not have to have a specialist

42:56

skillset in one technology

42:59

or another . You can have a set of

43:01

Postgres generalists really handling the

43:04

various needs that the business is gonna toss at

43:06

you . And I don't think people

43:09

recognize the value in that , especially

43:11

with attrition and retention

43:14

within engineering roles you

43:16

may bring in someone . That's kind of the best . I'm

43:19

not gonna pick on Neo4j because I actually like them , but

43:21

Neo4j architect

43:24

or DBA , they move on . Who's

43:26

gonna support this thing ? Well then you have three , six

43:28

months where you don't have coverage for an expert

43:30

, where you can really minimize the risk

43:32

to bringing in technology into

43:34

the enterprise . So you know there's a

43:37

lot of indirect value that

43:39

I think organizations many

43:42

understand but many should kind of

43:44

start to think about .

43:48

So does EDB

43:50

act as like a management

43:52

plane for your

43:55

Postgres databases ? That can be

43:57

, you know , across a

43:59

geolocation or across you

44:01

know , several regions , and

44:03

it will , I guess

44:06

, replicate and submit the

44:09

data that you submit to it across

44:11

your databases . Is that

44:14

what it's doing ?

44:15

Yeah , so a big animal has

44:18

two kind of key technology

44:20

. I don't wanna say components

44:23

, but the architecture has a control

44:25

plane and a data plane . Now that control

44:27

plane , as it sounds , is

44:30

managing , you know , users

44:33

, accounts , access permissions , kind

44:36

of largely leverages the Postgres

44:39

native structure for

44:41

access management , but

44:43

orchestrates the creation of projects

44:46

, creates projects and orchestrates the creation

44:48

of clusters . Those clusters could

44:50

be AWS , gcp

44:53

, azure , wherever

44:55

you have a cloud account . And

44:58

we actually have two models . We have the ability

45:00

to host database for the customer

45:02

. So I'm a customer , I'm

45:05

an indie developer and I just wanna spin up a Postgres

45:07

cluster . I get my

45:10

trial account , you have $300 of credits

45:12

, you're able to spin up accounts and

45:15

we host and can host the

45:17

database instances in our

45:19

environment . We also have a model called bring

45:22

your own account , where you provide

45:24

us an account , the infrastructure

45:26

is deployed and orchestrated and

45:29

managed in your cloud account and

45:32

you're getting the billing through your cloud service

45:34

provider of choice . So wherever you want

45:36

to run your workload , go

45:38

at it and you have the ability of setting up

45:41

networking rules to ensure security

45:43

and the like . We're moving

45:45

towards some interesting models on

45:47

how we might manage Postgres in general

45:49

, but those are roadmap items that

45:52

I think I can share , but in

45:54

general you can think of that control plane being

45:57

kind of that , that one pane of glass for

45:59

a DBAs to be able to kind of manage their

46:01

state and performance and

46:05

secure their data . At the end of the day

46:07

, yeah

46:09

, it's really fascinating .

46:11

I feel like we could talk about this

46:13

for a couple hours .

46:15

You know something like that it's

46:18

fun area for sure . Yeah

46:20

, I think keeping an eye out for EDB through 2024

46:24

, a lot of exciting

46:26

changes coming and

46:29

really wanting to support the

46:32

development of intelligence systems

46:34

that are gonna change the economy . I'm

46:37

not just drinking Kool-Aid , but I'm

46:40

actually seeing industries

46:42

being changed and I'm

46:44

100% certain the technologies that

46:46

we're gonna bring to the market this year are

46:49

gonna really start to enable

46:52

a lot of organizations that have made

46:54

that investment in Postgres , that are poking

46:56

at the edges of these vector databases

46:59

, maybe playing with PG Vector

47:01

and wondering how do I get to scale ? How

47:03

do I do this the right way ? Yeah

47:06

, there's some really interesting things that are gonna be coming out

47:08

this year and it's just everyone

47:10

just keeping an eye out . But

47:12

sure to that , trials are free

47:14

. Go ahead , big

47:17

animal . You'll

47:19

be able to kind of sign up , get a trial

47:21

$300 of credits

47:23

decide what works for you and

47:26

give it a little bit of a try .

47:30

Awesome . Well , dan , when

47:32

you're able to finally talk about those new things

47:34

, I'd love to have you back on and

47:37

we can dive into this a bit more

47:39

. But before I

47:41

let you go , how about you tell my audience where

47:43

they could find you if they wanted to reach out and connect

47:46

, and where they could find EDB ?

47:48

Yeah , yeah , so I'll start with EDB enterprisedbcom

47:52

. For me , I'm

47:54

on LinkedIn , so Dan

47:57

Garcia I think it's

47:59

the handles Dan J Garcia for

48:01

those that just want to shortcut but EDB

48:03

and Dan Garcia will bring me up , happy

48:05

to connect , just say hey , listen

48:07

to you on the show and happy to

48:09

make the connection . And we do share

48:12

developments both on LinkedIn . So feel

48:14

free to follow EDB as well on social media

48:16

.

48:18

Awesome . Well , thanks , dan , and I hope everyone

48:20

listening enjoyed this episode

48:22

. Thanks everyone .