00:00
This is the art of network engineering.  Where technology meets the human side of IT.  Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems, or shaping your career, you've got the insights, stories, and tips to keep you ahead in the ever evolving world of networking. Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast.  My name is Andy Lapteff,  and I have two  of some of my favorite people that I know. And I mean that wholeheartedly. I wish I had more of these people in my life.  Well, let's start from my left to right. Scott Robohn, how are you, Scott?

00:30
Hey, I'm doing great. It's really good to see you both. people living under a rock, Scott, what do you do?  Who's this guy? Internet plumber, 35 years plus in the industry.  I've been on the operator side. I've been on the vendor side. Don't hold it against me. Last three years, I've been doing my own consulting work, gave me flexibility to help found something called the Network Automation Forum and my consulting company. So I'm a pretty lucky individual. Okay. Mr.  Michael Bushong. Hi, Mike.

00:58
Hey Andy, hey Scott, nice to see you guys again. um Before you  have to ask me for what I do, I do data center things at Nokia. I've been on the vendor side for a long, long time. I spend most of my time  in,  I guess, strategy and product, and then most of that in operations and, I guess,  general disruption. But I think for today,  the part that's important, I've led large teams for a large number of years.

01:28
And so I have a particularly corporate point of view when it comes to  what we do, why we do it, and how we should communicate to the people who make it all happen. Mike stole my job for me. He's so good. So the segue into the topic.  If you listen to the show, you've probably heard me. I'm kind of going through a journey  of,  and I've been doing this my whole life, but  I'm always trying to improve,  question my assumptions.

01:58
and  be  better, right? I think that's what we're all here to do. uh This past  two years, I guess, last year I looked long and hard at my beliefs around network automation and my very public uh displeasure around network automation and I whined and screamed and mitched about it long enough  and realized that nobody cared  and it's an important skill  and it's here to stay. That's not true. There are people who cared  and that's how you really got on my radar.

02:26
You know the story, right?  When you were early on in your,  am I even bothering to learn this automation stuff? It's like, I need to get to know him. And there was a serpentine path that actually got us connected. And I'm really,  I'm really glad you complained about it. I really am. Cause that's how, that's how we got here tonight. So,  all right. So accidental lesson. If you have any kind of public

02:53
persona and you can complain about things. might come up on important people's radar, so take that for what it's worth.  I joke. So full circle, I've come around on network automation for very personal reasons that I'm actually going to speak about at Autocon 4, so I'm looking forward to that. um But where we are today is I didn't like network automation.  I cried and complained about it a long time. I learned some lessons, and now I am very much bought into the value of network automation.

03:22
three hours of work in 30 seconds with some automation. That seems pretty intuitive to me, right? But again, not why we're here. So  that's been a journey for me. And what I've been thinking recently,  another thing I'd like to look at personally, which I think  is common among the engineering folks  is a disdain for,  how can I put it? Company all hands, quarterly this,  town hall that, and this isn't.

03:49
only where I work now. This has been every company I've ever worked for for as long as I can remember.  And a couple of smart people, Yvonne Sharp being one of them, she's publicly said in quite a few places, the value of learning the business,  how the business people talk, what's important to them. As an engineer, let's say, if you want to get things done, uh you have to know the parlance  and their values. If you want to get things done, like  maybe automation or anything else. So anyway.

04:18
But I still struggle with this. I tune out.  Recently I've been trying to be more involved in these type of things because I see their value and I'm still struggling. I hop on and after five minutes I'm like, they're lying to me. They're full of crap. It's rah rah rah cheerleading stuff. I know everything they're saying. And just like when I was an engineer, just leave me alone and let me do my job. I'm out of here. So. uh

04:40
You two guys  are very  experienced in the corporate business side of things. You've led teams at huge places and a lot of people reporting to you. You've set strategies. um So I guess where we can start is obvious question. Do you think the attitude that I carry  hurts my career? Let's start there.  100%.  Right, right. To my own detriment. um I  had that attitude  and I think it held me back. Like so.

05:09
I hear you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, okay. So you can relate.  So because you got you. So here's an interesting dynamic here between the two guests.  I think Scott has more of an engineering  Opsie background where Mike is, think, more businessy. Although Mike was very technical, mechanical engineer, like so Mike, that surprised me when I met you that you actually have a really technical background. So maybe I'm  underselling your technical chops. I definitely am.  Mike, did you ever have that feeling early on of like, oh,

05:37
Corpora Cool aid, these people are lying, this is all nonsense or not really? Yeah, I think for me, I remember the first All Hands I went to as an employee of a company, I was working at Sybase, the database company that essentially made Oracle what it is today. We sat in an All Hands, I think, what was the guy's, I forget the CEO's name, Mitchell Herzner? I forget what the guy's, I forget what his name was, I probably should remember that.

06:07
uh He stood up and he was addressing the company and I remember I just got a new pager that'll give you that'll date it.  I sat there as a 23 year old playing with my beeper the whole time and then  and I was listening to him and then I got I was barely listening though I was kind of just fidgeting that's  for people who know me I I  Got a weird brain and so I just I need to have things to play with my boss called me out for it and then called

06:35
called me into her office and said, you weren't paying attention, you should pay attention. And then I recounted to her, I'm like, no, I was paying attention.  He basically said,  and then I went through and summarized it and I said, and then my conclusion was,  he wasn't really being truthful because he was simultaneously saying  that things were good while he was signaling we were weak in one area and then  we had layoffs a couple of weeks later. And so I...

07:01
to me that it reinforced a lot of what you're feeling. When you hear people talk, I think  you're skeptical. And then I went through most of my career, like early career,  being  some  combination of  bored or judgmental in these types of settings where  either I thought the information was irrelevant, bored,  or I was looking for all of the things that they were wrong about, judgmental.  And in being that way, I will tell you that...

07:30
I did not connect  with what they were trying to do  until  I was in middle management. And then for me, the light bulb wasn't because somebody said something that sparked interest or understanding.  I was forced to put together the material that showed on one of the slides.  And then I had to make the story and then I had to watch my story be bastardized on a stage  because what that person said was not.

07:58
what I had coached them to say. ah And so I sat there in  nightmarish disbelief as my words were twisted. And then I was like, oh, this is harder than it seems. And so then I, from there, I think I had a different perspective. And then, and I'll wrap my monologue here,  I've been on the other side where I've been the talking person who's had to deliver these things.  And I've looked  with anguish upon

08:27
you know,  70 % of the audience as they look at me with those saucer eyes and you're like, wow, they want to be anywhere but here. So I've come full circle, right? So I,  I, I, I understand why you have to stand up and say things. I understand what makes you more effective and what makes you less effective. And I understand  what it's like to listen to those things as  a brash young individual who knows everything like my kids.  Ah, payback.

08:56
And to be clear,  I have no recollection of ever having this feeling when Mike is speaking. And I mean that because,  and so I'm getting a little ahead of myself. You're such an effective,  you're such an engaging,  I know we all say storyteller, right? But you  pull me in and the rest of us in  with real stuff, I think, that resonates with people. So when you said earlier,

09:21
I wrote something down, said, trying, know, connect with what they're trying to do. And then you talked about the thing and like, what are they trying to do? Because I can't my, from my perspective, seems like um they kind of seem like cheerleaders and they're trying to get us  excited about something. But I feel like what they're saying is obvious. We all know like, oh yes, we have to do things and grow and work hard. And so when I go to those time and time again, I'm like, dude, it's why I'm here. So like, why do I have to get on these things and spend an hour and a half of valuable time?

09:51
listening to you tell me what to me seems obvious. We need to break down silos. They all say the same thing, right? So  what is the thing they're trying to do?  What is the thing on their side of the table that I'm like, oh, this is so obvious. Like, is it not obvious to most people, which is why they have to do this? Or is it just part of their job?  What is that thing that they're throwing at us?  The Kool-Aid thing? I have an opinion. I'll let Scott maybe. Let Scott talk first.

10:18
I'm going to poison the well here if I  jump  in. So there are important themes here.  It is  important to not paint with too broad a brush, right?  Some companies, some corporate cultures do a better job at it than others. ah I think the ones where we've seen it done well stand out because they are exceptional.  The  one thing that comes to mind from  the talk so far is uh

10:47
The time that you realize you don't really care about attending the company meeting that quarter, that's a sign. That your patience has been exhausted, that your respect, you have not been given the respect of being intelligent and being able to process what you're being told, right? And that's usually the sign of getting your resume together, right? When you're at that point.

11:14
And Mike and I have,  we have some shared corporate heritage. So I think Mike knows exactly what I'm talking about. At the risk of making this the Mikey B uh pile on hour,  I do want to  totally agree with Andy's comments, Mike. mean,  are Scott, we can't do this. We can't pump him up the whole hour. I mean, he deserves it, but I know what's going to happen here. So this is, we'll turn this into actionable feedback for anybody who's in a leadership position or wants to aspire to be a leadership position.

11:43
The reason Mike is an effective communicator is because he pays attention, very close attention to what he's trying to communicate and what's going to be heard, right? What you say isn't always what people hear. And so you need to craft what you're saying and how you say it in a way that it's going to hit with the majority of your audience. So, that is a skill. It can be learned. Some people have it more naturally than others.

12:08
So I was going to start  basically where you started, Scott. em I think  many people are just not that gifted at putting together the presentations. I think a lot of the speakers are up there reluctantly. They're there because they have to be. There's some expectation. There's some template.  Maybe some other team has crafted the message.  And they are up there to deliver. Typically, these happen around earnings. And so there's a set of  numbers that they want to  go and explain.

12:38
The explanation is usually some derivative of what's generated for um analysts in Wall Street and whatever. And so what they end up with is this kind of watered down um explanation of what's going on, what's the performance and  how do you  put that into  some context that's  usually crafted for a non-employee audience first. um

13:02
So the result is bland. I actually, it's not hard to imagine why it doesn't connect with the employees. You put together a message that's aimed for non-employees and then you're shocked when it doesn't land with employees. Like  that's kind of by design, right? And the things that Wall Street cares about are different than the things  that employees care about. And then I think when you go through a number of handlers, whether it's a speechwriter or someone who crafts the presentation and then someone who coaches you on whatever your speaking points are going to be,  if you outsource too much of that,

13:31
you lose the authenticity and then there's no connection with the audience. The thing that I do that's different and  all false humility aside,  when I get up, I mean, you're getting an authentic uh representation of who I am and what I believe.  And I've been mortified when I've been a speaker.  Being the with to deliver that message every quarter  is  awful  because it feels repetitive and it feels like you know that if I like, here's, mean, I'll tell you,  let me, I guess I'm gonna get personal on this.

14:00
I,  when I have to get up and present, like I have an eidetic memory. That's a photographic memory. So I remember everything. I uh everything's strictly speaking, but like  a crazy percentage of things that go on. remember blessing and a curse. And so when I go up and deliver a message and then I delivered the same message or some derivative of it again to an audience where they're like some of the people were there the first time it is mortifying to me because I'm like, I don't want to be the guy that says the same thing every time.

14:30
And when I was in the audience, I heard  and the thing that turned me off was that I acted like they were talking to me and I'm like, I've already heard this. I don't need you to tell me again. And then when I was  in that leadership position, I realized that my audience  isn't  the 30 % that heard it and remembered it from the first time. It was the 70 % who happened. And once I realized that I'm like,

14:53
Oh, I'm  actually not speaking to the people that know I'm speaking to people who either didn't put the time in or who are absent or who didn't care enough.  I'm trying to get them on board. Yeah. And so then then I was like, Oh, I became a little bit more forgiving and then repetition actually makes sense. And we've all heard the things you got to repeat it and number of times. I don't know what the current lore is, but like whatever the number of times is.  And so I started to kind of change my view. Now I don't just to be clear, I don't

15:21
I don't let people off the hook when they're not necessarily connecting with their audience. I still think that's like the biggest problem. But I the second problem is that,  you know, not everybody is the primary audience for every message.  And then what you got to do is figure out what are the parts you are going to take away, which then gets into like at some point we'll transition to some other set of questions.  like the big to me, the next thing you got to answer is  sort of what's the goal? Like  if you could deliver,  let's say you could guarantee 100 % understanding.

15:51
Like what's the outcome? And I actually think there's a uh disconnect or a disagreement or a lack of understanding of many people of what that goal ought to be. And the thing that makes me different  is that I have a very different point of view  on  what makes it effective versus like  reporting the numbers or explaining the stock movement or  walking through the corporate four pillars of

16:19
boredom or whatever. So why would leadership have the Wall Street conversation with the internal company audience where Wall Street isn't participating in the meeting? Is that a fair question? Like, it's a weird thing, right? I think it's a fair question. I will tell you, I think there's a fundamental disconnect between many executive teams and employees.

16:43
I think what executive teams are compensated extremely heavily on stock and they look and they're like, you know,  shareholder value. It's effectively, it's a scoreboard, you know, employees are participating in it. But riddle me this Batman,  who's really participating in that, in that stock? It's not like the average employee. That's not to say that employees don't have equity. They do, but it's not equally, it's not equitably distributed. Not not leverage like execs are. Yeah. Yeah. And so.

17:10
Like that message,  telling a set of people who are spending their nights and weekends working for a company and telling them that like the reason you do it is because our shareholders win. Most of that is us standing up here and then a group of nondescript people that drive budgeting decisions for the company. Like we have to  lay off some number of people. Like I don't actually, as an employee, I don't actually care.  They do well.  This isn't convincing me.

17:35
to join these calls. This is getting worse for me. is the disconnect though. So I think when you craft a message that's like the shareholders win, therefore we care, I just think that falls flat for an audience that is not huge shareholders. I think you gotta tap into something else. That's not motivating. I've watched senior execs at companies that rhyme with runiper talk about

18:02
Like, you the reason that you guys should be excited is that you're going to move the stock from this to that. And I'm like, like,  what's this so that you can make, you know,  eight million this year? Like,  like that's not the list that's on the list of things I care about. That's not super high. And so the audience tunes out because you're you're just at that point, you were so out of touch  that. so then, and then that's like the reactions you're talking about. Like that's, mean, to me,

18:27
If you don't talk about something that matters to me, then yeah,  if it's not intellectually interesting and reading out numbers isn't, so it's not intellectually interesting and it's not relevant,  then what am going to do?  Scott was trying to jump in there.  wonder, so  one of you asked why this behavior exists. Why do we keep doing it this way? Two things come to mind. um One, why am I using the material that I used to read out to the street in a company meeting? I've already prepared it. I'm lazy. Why not just repurpose  it? That's an oversimplification.

18:57
But there's something to that, right? um And then why the fixation on, hey, this is what you guys are going to do to move the stock price  up and to the right. Don't move it in the other direction.  I do feel like that's momentum  from the nineties and early aughts  where that is, and that's, that's how I landed at a couple of different jobs with, you know, big stock offerings, right? That, you know, again,

19:24
didn't make me, you know, as highly leveraged as a CXO, you know, into the early odds  that did motivate me. And that became less and less and less, you know, into the tens and beyond. But I feel like there's momentum there and what's the way we've always done it. And I think there's something to that too. I agree. think it raises a question though, like what ought to be the purpose of these?  So the question.  Yeah.

19:50
I think corporate communication is super important. I'm very pro, and I'm actually fine dedicating some percentage of the conversation to the things that, because there is a part of the population that cares about that stuff, sure, I think it's fine. I just don't think it can be the only thing that you talk about. In my mind, when I think about, when I'm addressing a large audience, as a leader, what do I want the behavior to be? Let me create two.

20:17
kind of competing cultures, right? There's many different versions, but I'm gonna put two up. One is command and control, right? Everything is top down. So  when I make a decision as a CEO, I'm gonna push that decision down. I care a lot about how that decision is  then  amplified through the organization. And so  my job is to give the order, their job is to then repeat the order, the job below that is to execute the order  and then we're good.  I think when you do that, right, then what you'll do is you'll signal at all hands meetings, know, essentially here's the order.

20:46
We're going to reduce our OPEX. We are going to  improve our customer satisfaction.  Essentially, it's top down. And then you're going to give the marching orders and then they're going to be repeated 25 times until  everybody  is on message. A different way to think about it though is where uh autonomy is distributed. Think of it, and here I think I've talked to Andy, I've shown you videos on this,  but  look up a video, like for everyone listening, go to YouTube and look up.

21:15
athletes doing the same thing at the same time.  And you watch these videos and it's crazy. it's like you'll get like a basketball clip and all five players literally take the same step exactly the same moment.  And the reason they do that, so it turns out in sports,  because things are happening at the speed of sport, you don't have the luxury of somebody calling out the play and telling you what to do.  So everybody has to have a common understanding of a couple of things. They have to understand situationally what's going on. And then they have to understand what did they do in that situation? Yeah.

21:45
And then if you can get an organization to operate that way,  as a leader, you can make them  aware of in these situations, we do whatever. And then here's the situation we're in now, then you can drive autonomous decision-making that's all coordinated. And so in my mind, the real goal and the reason that I talk differently at all hands,  the real goal is to get everybody aware, right? What do we do when? Like, why do we do it? Not what do we do? Why do we do it?  Because if they understand the why, then they'll always arrive at the same what, if you do it well enough anyway.

22:15
And then two, what situation are we in? So if you understand kind of why we're doing it and then you understand what situation we're in, then independently you can apply it to your individual role. And so I'm not telling you here is the thing. I'm telling you here are the conditions which you might not be always looking at. So one, it's gonna feel a little bit new. Then two, I'm not stripping you of your autonomy by telling you what to do. Like, hey everybody, we need to cut down travel expenses this quarter. Or it's really important that we stop

22:43
spending money on muffins for our morning meetings. And that was literally a message that I got in all hands one time, not even joking. I think I remember that. It was like, it turns out we spent a million dollars a year on muffins. Million dollar muffins. It was crazy. but instead what I do is I say, look, you know, here's where the market is. You these things are happening. When these things happen, you know, we have to go do whatever. And so then, you know, and therefore it's super important that we operate with

23:11
velocity or maybe it's super important that we nail customer experience and  that means these kinds of examples, then as an individual you can internalize that and you can translate it what it is you're doing.  I think that message, one, it's more interesting because it's not the normal corporate speak.  Two, it actually does tell you something you didn't already know, which is here's the condition and here's how we interpret that condition. And then three, you can apply it on your own. So you leave thinking, I know a thing that I can go use.

23:41
gap, this canyon, you know, between what someone's saying and then what I'm doing, you know, five minutes later when I leave. Like, that's the that's the gap. And in my opinion, that's that's where people should spend their time on corporate communications. You know, maybe you're not going to spend 100 percent of your time that way. Fair. But I just I think you can spend 80 percent of that time and you can still cover the numbers because you have to cover the numbers. think you just identified why I love your leadership meetings because like the sports. So I've

24:10
watch sports, you know, off and on throughout my entire life. And I never noticed that all people moving at the same time until you mentioned it. And then when I see it and then you translate it to business, like,  oh, and then I can see a little more clearly, I think what you've been doing over the years, I've known you, which is trying to get everybody to connect with the why singular mission so that we can move together and do things. Because if we're fighting each other in silo and blah, blah, blah, we're not going to be able to accomplish missions. But that's a very unique.

24:36
I don't know any four or five fortune, whatever companies I worked for attending these things. That's a very different, and maybe I'm working at the wrong places in the past, but uh most of it has been the, you know, what you've talked about,  talking about financial stuff that just doesn't resonate with me. Even if I'm on the employee stock purchase plan and whatever, like it just, it's not a huge part of my compensation. And yes, I want us to succeed, but  I, just, it just kind of, you know, drones.  I lose it.

25:04
What I'd like network engineers to walk away with or technical people at the end of this conversation is like, what is business value? And then how can they translate their technical work to business value? I don't know if that's the right framing for the rest of the conversation, but I'm looking at myself and I'm like, how can I, but see if the, see, here's where I get stuck. If what I've learned so far is true and that what the business values is  stock price, shareholder value,  you know, wall street stuff. And then me as a technical person.

25:33
It's not, which again is why I've resonated so much with Mike over the years is it's not even customer centric. It's not about customer experience. It's not about delivering outcomes. It's  how can we, I don't know. I'm a, I'm a cynic, right? Sometimes like, can we cook the books to look better for wall street, which isn't even real value. It's just nonsense. So  I'm probably not even saying things that are smart here for myself, for my career, but how can a technical person, a, what is business value? Because it has to be more than just, have to make the street happy. I know that's the system we're in and capitalism and, but

26:03
I mean, is that really it? should my whole thing be, I got to show them how we can push the stock price up? Because it seems so shallow. don't have all weekend to record, right? So there's only so much we can cover here. me throw this out. fruit, Scott, right? Like the average technical person, what is important to you guys when you're running organizations and how can we help? Well, so let me throw out the journey as an engineer.

26:32
um learning the hard way that the numbers really are important.  And it doesn't have to be corporate stock performance. It's really just kind of understanding bits and bytes along the way. And I'll tell a short version of the journey here  where, you know,  I early in my career, probably the first 15 years, I  really just chased the tech. That was what was most interesting to me. I did not want to talk to anybody about anything that was accounting related or cost related or anything. um

27:00
I  remember a pivotal moment, I think when I was a tech engineer, uh learning what COGS is, cost of goods and services.  And it's like, okay, somebody is really keeping track of uh what it costs to build and deliver something. And there's also a price that's paid for it.  And that gap in the middle is called margin.  So that was like, okay, I probably need to know more about this, but I  wasn't excited about it. uh

27:30
I'm going to say something that I won't say very often. want you to both listen very carefully. uh Being in a sales organization  really taught me  what the numbers are all about.  you know, as an SE, know, it's made you smarter.  Are you going to do this to me, Ben? Are you putting other words in my mouth? Like I'm anti-AI. Are we going to have that conversation? uh

27:57
It broadened my perspective at a minimum. Maybe it even made me smarter too.  But  I think for  many systems engineers or sales engineers, uh you want to feel that you are special,  that the rules do not apply to you. um I'm  not a sales guy, I'm an SE.  Well, guess what? You all are on the same team and you do need to learn  what the moves are together.

28:26
You need to have the no look pass. You need to be able to read the defense and call the play inaudibly. uh I'll go there with that analogy, but had a couple  sales partners, three  guys come to mind in particular, uh one at Cisco who really taught me  what  a uh regular cadence of the pipeline looked like. We had calls on Mondays and Fridays  and the pressure was put on every individual account manager.

28:55
for their opportunities and where things are coming from.  And understanding that revenue side of things  really helps you  see,  the customer really has to be careful on what they spend.  They're  not just going to donate their funds because they love your routers,  right? There has to be real value in what you deliver. uh And I'd say the last point in that journey for me or the most recent point that's resulted in me running my own businesses  and now

29:24
Nobody's responsible for it but me  and all the mechanics of okay. What does the bank account look like?  How much do I have to pay quick books a month?  Why can't I get my money right away?  You know between that 30 and that 60 and that 90  and all these other terms that are mechanics of doing business  I think this the earlier you learn these things in your career even as a technical person The better perspective you're gonna be able to have you don't have to be an accountant

29:53
You don't have to be a salesperson,  but Mike said it made me smarter. Okay, I'll go with that. He actually didn't say that. He asked me if it made me smarter.  those have been some significant points for me as primarily a technical contributor  on understanding that other side of the business and learning that I shouldn't run away from it.  think um most leadership teams  would tell you that there's only like two roles.

30:23
in the company, you're either building stuff or you're selling stuff. um And so the question is like, you know, and if you're not doing one of those things and you're helping somebody else do that thing more efficiently,  I think people need to be clear about what your company's trying to do. uh You do need to have some idea of how it maps to you because some of those  things that are happening at a macro level, will,  they may take time, but they will work their way down into what you're trying to do. um Companies that are in growth phase, you know, will typically try to move with velocity.

30:50
And that means that you're going to have to execute things efficiently and quickly.  Dealing with growth is actually hard because  you never move faster than when you're growing.  You don't have time to do things.  Things break at scale and it's not always obvious.  When  you're listening and you hear your company trying to grow,  questions you might ask  are really around how are the systems oriented that make us go faster? If you're a networking person, it'll tell you  maybe you need to think through capacity planning.

31:19
Maybe you need to think through procedurally, how are we going to  handle changes inside the support lines of business?  Maybe the discussion is about one particular line of business over another, and you know that that's going to be a student body left.  You're going to shift everything to support that business, in which case understanding  what that  business is going through. Are they growing? Are they missing targets, in which case they're going to be  under a little bit more pressure? That's going to tell you that you need to lead with empathy.

31:46
If they're really aggressive, then you're going to need to lead with, you know, how do we close it? Right? If they're aspirational, hey, everybody, we're launching a new initiative around AI. You know, haven't quite figured out how to monetize it. Then you know that there's going to be pressure on top. They're going to say, let's get this move quickly. And then underneath what they're going to tell you is all they see is obstacles. And so if you're supporting them, you know, are you, do you align to the top? Let me feed into the art of the possible, or do you align with the bottom?

32:15
I see the same constraints and bottlenecks and obstacles coming,  but here's how we're going to solve them together. I think it can prepare how you talk, the questions that you ask, maybe even how you handle yourself in a meeting or across a deliverable. But I think there's  signals everywhere that are telling you  how people are going to operate,  what they're going to key on. And then here's the other piece. I think if you're in these roles, a lot of times you'll have ideas because you're closer to the specifics.

32:42
And many people have had like an idea that they wanted to be supported in some way. It could be a big idea, it be a small idea. But I just want it to be supported. Like I want to know, I want my management chain, I want them to think it's important. Well, if you want to make it important to them, then you have to explain it in terms that matter to the people that they have to explain things to. It's not about putting it in the terms that your boss's boss cares about. It's in terms that your boss's boss's boss cares about because that's what they have to plug into. And so if they're talking all about speed and velocity and you're talking all about, you know,

33:12
you know, I don't know, you  know, scale, like those are two different languages. If they're talking about, how do we become more efficient?  And you're talking about this is really technically cool. Like you're good. There's a disconnect. And so you're not going to get your ideas supported. And then here's like the real rub. And this is the reason Andy, I think it hurts people's careers  is like, chances are you're sitting on some good idea. You have some contribution to make and it's objectively a good contribution. The company is objectively better as a result.

33:41
But if people don't understand it, then you're not gonna reap the rewards of the work that you did. And part of this whole corporate agreement that we're in, I we should be clear, it's a JOB, man, it's a job.  Your company will not love you back.  But they will reward you as you feed into it, and so you should reap those rewards. But if you're  incapable of expressing your idea or your value or whatever in terms that  hit home,

34:08
then you're not, like you don't get your side of the equation. Like they just, take advantage of your work regardless, but if they don't value it, they're not going to reward it. Like I just think people need to get better at how they, how they connect these things. Cause at the end of the day, know, Scott said he was, you he joined sales for a bit. I'll tell you this, this is in a little cold water here for everybody. Everyone's in sales. You're selling an idea. You're selling your, your, thing you want to go do. You're selling your progress. mean, like at the end of the day, everyone is in sales and some people know it.

34:37
and other people don't  and simply saying that, I'm not going to play that game. That doesn't mean the game's not being played. And I'm not talking about over promotion and whatever else, but like,  but you do got to represent your ideas in the marketplace of ideas.  And if you choose not to participate in that, it's kind of on you, right? And then you can't complain if you don't get what you want, if you're  not advocating. Now, again, I want to be really careful though. Just,  I think people who manage up, like that's all they do. Like that's  annoying.

35:06
There's gotta be some substance, like you gotta do the work.  But just because somebody abuses the managing up thing doesn't mean that  no one else should participate in making people aware of the value you're driving.  There's a space in between and I think people need to  find that space. I think you just hit it for me, which was  you gotta  understand the benefits of your idea in their terms. What is important to them, which is what

35:34
Yvonne has talked about in other places, you have to join these conversations, suffer through the drudgery of it, because that's how it feels a lot of times,  to understand what they value so that then you can align your ideas and try to get them to understand that. have failed at this even recently with some very good ideas that I know would move the needle and I haven't spent the time, been patient enough and advocated strongly enough for the certain ideas to convince the person on the other end of this exchange.

36:03
of the value, they just don't see it or they see it a different way. I know I'm right.  I know that this is going to be amazing. have proof, but the answer, you know, doesn't go my way. And I have to admit that I'm just not explaining it in their terms clearly enough to show them if they could see what I see. mean, Mike, this goes back to like the biases and all the stuff you've  focused on for years. Like they can't even, they can't even hear what I'm saying,  let alone. there's

36:29
There's a lot there. I wanted to circle back to one thing you said. We're either building stuff or selling stuff. What it made me think of is, know, software is rev gen network like ops is uh like a call center, right? So I feel like networking just kind of gets  the cold shoulder just in general, right? Like your software people you're going to. So I don't know.  I don't know if that's true because our network companies making money and good margins and all that stuff. But  like when you say building stuff, do you include?

36:57
Network infrastructure in that or are talking about software? Because I don't know if networking has been kicked to the curb because how cloud made everything push button easy and people just expect infrastructure to just be on like electricity and water out of a faucet, right? When you say build stuff, are we talking network infrastructure or are network engineers are relevant in the build stuff part? Depends on  the role, right?  if IT is mirror, so the way to think about it, if  the network goes down, does the company suffer?

37:25
If the company's not offering and you are an enabler and  just acknowledge that you're an enabler,  in that case, what they're going to be looking for is efficiency. They're going be looking for, you what they want is reliability. We've talked about this in the past. um You the thing,  you know, your thing matters if people are,  and like every network engineer, that when the network goes down, you all hear about it. It's not like it's down for three hours and then someone's like, oh my gosh, the network is down. Like we had no idea.  Like when the network goes down, it's critical.

37:52
a company  wouldn't suffer when the network goes down today. Like it is part of the ship, part of the crew, right? It's,  you know, regardless of the respect, right? I would layer on the, is it a cost center or revenue generation center? Right. That's kind of where I'm going. Like  the way we think about it is like, you know, is IT or the network part of the product? Right.

38:18
If it's part of the product, like if it goes, if the network goes down and the company stops making money, then like that has, there's one treatment. And if it goes down and everyone stops being productive, there's another treatment. And I think you gotta understand both those sides, because it's gonna tell you a little bit about tolerance for doing different things. If you're part of the product, then there's way less tolerance, like you don't want, there's no risk, because you can't bring the product down.

38:42
But if you can drive some incremental value, customer does something better, maybe you get a faster response on something, maybe things work better than they otherwise would have. You're going to find a very receptive audience, but you've got to put it terms that whoever you're talking to understands. On the enablement side, then it's going to be like, look, if it works, don't touch it. There's risk aversion, budgets matter a lot. if you can deliver some efficiency, because it's an allocation model, there's never enough money,

39:12
If you can deliver efficiency, like, oh my gosh, like that's worth a lot because it opens up like  a funding opportunity cost that  removes one. uh So things like that matter. just, gotta, if you don't know what side you're on, then you have a fighting chance to understand  how you position your ideas or what's gonna be important.  And then as you assess, I one of the things that we haven't talked about, but like people will use these  all hands meetings, they'll use the corporate jargon, they'll use all of this to assess, you know, is their role

39:41
important, right? Is my role safe?  And I think it'll, you know,  it'll tell you like if you're part of the product and your product is growing, you know, then you're going to be, they're going to, they're going to pour more money. If you're part of the product and your product is in decline,  then what they're going to do is look to pare back.  And so  that'll give you a feel for the health of the thing you're working on. If you're on the enablement side and the company is growing, like the company, not like in terms of people, then  the thing that you do is super important. Or if you're on the enablement side,

40:09
and the company is  contracting because the products aren't doing well, then what they're going to do is reduce the cost allocations.  And so then you should be a little bit worried. But I think you can actually read the signals in these all hands or in the corporate communications  to get a feel for which direction it's going. And then that'll  either  feed your fears or maybe remove them depending on where you are. But that's another reason I would pay attention.

40:37
I'm having like these self realizations as you're talking. I love these. I do these for me, I guess, because I learned so much and  I guess we pull other people along. But when I worked at an ISP, the network was the product. We were providing connectivity that was the product. When I went somewhere else, um the applications were the product.  And as soon as application connectivity broke or something went sideways, it was always, it's the network. And then it was our whole job. And that's the trope. It's,

41:05
It's not the network. That's our whole job is trying to prove it's not the network. I've never at an ISP, I felt like we were part of the product and maybe a little more valued even though it didn't pay great  and other places that paid better. The network was just an assumption like it should work and it should be fine. Even though trade-offs were made and I've been in those meetings where they may trade-offs financially because they didn't want to build in the resiliency that they could have  because of reasons that are usually dollars.  I,

41:32
I feel like people that I've talked to that are in operations,  I don't know  if we, they feel like the network is part of the product. It's an assumed thing that's there. It's like roads and it better fricking work. And if it doesn't, it's, you're in deep doo-doo. So  I kind of like what you're saying there, the framing,  I don't, I don't know. The network seems like an assumption  and I don't see places that build applications and charge access to those applications  valuing.

42:00
connecting the network and the product. It's just, so I'm just repeating myself. It's a thing. You know, there is some invisibility, right? That's happened over the decades, right? And it's not any less critical to service delivery and application delivery, but a lot's become assumed and a lot of new and career folks want to go be the cool kids. And there are other things that are cooler now.

42:29
You know, for a while  there was that giant sucking sound that was going to the cloud providers, right? um And now AI and, you know, attracting folks into that. uh These are the shiny objects that we've seen over the last couple of decades. uh So it's  not the same as it was when all of us entered into this. We won't embarrass anybody or call out gray beard hair anymore than anyone else.

42:56
I think it's worth pointing out that some of this stuff is cyclical. even things like power, know, previously were not thought about and today power is super thought about. So I do think  that  what people will pay attention to is the bottleneck.  And,  you know, when networks become a bottleneck,  then,  you know, it'll become interesting again.  I don't think networking is, when  people say it's plumbing, there's sort of this belief that it's,  you know,

43:23
It's unseen and maybe it's never going to resurface.  I don't think that's necessarily the case. think we're going to see in the AI space, for instance, I think you're going to see  distributed clusters, which is going to bring it.  And if you thought reliability was important for applications, you know, go and spend a few, a few hundred million on some GPUs and then let the network go down and, and see how people feel about it. So go ahead and really, really grok. What is our DMA remote direct memory access?

43:52
And when you think about what kind of network infrastructure do I need to fake this GPU out into thinking that memory that's in Oklahoma is really in New Jersey, the network's going to be important.  So I think some of this stuff, I mean, I guess, so people who listen to this and have an existential crisis because they're  relegated to the plumbing, I would just say, know, the, um,  not everybody cares about plumbing, but the people who do  really care about it. And so I do think it's a hot space.

44:21
And in the networking industry, frankly, we haven't had this much action in probably over a decade since cloud was being started. It's been probably 16, 17 years since we've seen this kind of movement. I throw a proof point out there? In the world of software eats the world, thank you, Marc Andreessen, Jensen has come along and made hardware cool again. So I don't think these things are unrelated, right?

44:49
as  the next really important piece of hardware. We don't have to get into the bubble or no bubble conversation.  I think technically it stands on its own that we've seen now that network hardware is important again.  And I think we're going to continue to see that bubble up like Mike said. So what I'm coming away with a bit, and it's where we started and it kind of made me sad, but  I think it's the truth. Well.

45:15
No sad Andy. We don't want a sad Andy. Well, no, it's the saying like follow the money. So I came into networking before cloud blew up. And then when cloud happened and everybody wanted to go to cloud, all my friends who went into cloud did well. They followed the money. They were paying attention to what the business valued, which was faster time to deployment.  And the cloud delivered that. And people that went cloud and learned all that stuff did really well in their career.  I didn't for reasons. um I think

45:44
I'm seeing that cycle now while we all are in AI, like to your point, Scott and Mike, the network is becoming more important. So if I was paying attention and a little more, I don't know, whatever, when I wasn't paying attention, like Mike has said things about seeing around the corner. So if I saw cloud coming, I probably would have jumped on it early and capitalized on it.  With AI, I think we're at a point now, if I were an operator, I'd probably

46:08
be digging into rocky V2 and RDMA and all the AI related bits because follow the money. I don't know if people know what CAGR is, I learned it from Mike, but like the annual growth rate and if data center is like 8%, whatever the hell it is, AI is like 55. I don't know if we've ever seen CAGR this high, but for what it means for a listener, and I might be misquoting numbers, it's like there's never been as much growth, at least that I've ever known in the past six years I've been in the business side for AI. So if we're following the money.

46:36
And AI is where the money is now and will probably be going for a while.  Maybe AI networking is what you should be studying and getting into. Like automation is going to be there. That's important, right? But like  some of these things are becoming assumed. Yes, you should know some cloud. Yes, you should know some automation, but AI networking is its whole own.  I'm still trying to learn it, right? It's its whole own set of things and it's super complicated. And that's before you even get to the UEC's new transport layer, which is an 800 page white paper. like.

47:05
None of this is easy, but we don't do it because it's easy. So  I was half joking, but like if you follow the money, maybe the AI networking is where you you said like people always ask me, you know, what should I do? I want to get in and like you throw some certifications around, you throw some skills around, learn Linux, learn Python, learn this, whatever.  I  don't know if we're at the point where I throw some AI networking type stuff in there, but like AI is not going away, right? You guys can see further down this road than I can. This is like the thing for a while.

47:32
It's durable and here's the  important part. The money that's being made right now is actually not on AI.  The money that's being made right now is on  the shovels for the proverbial gold rush.  When cloud took off, it wasn't  the huge moneymaker until  seven or eight or 10 years later and then there was a cloud economy that came up. um When internet, you know,

48:02
You can't argue that, you know, the dot com was the peak of internet. No, it wasn't. It was  the rise of all the cloud and all the social media companies that came after the money.  Yes, there was like this pop of money, but then there was a  durable, you know, multi-decade run after that where  people became  even, know, crazier well off without having to necessarily be speculative.

48:27
And what people will conclude now  is that all of the AI money's been made and maybe they take the comment, AI network, can we go join a startup? What I'm saying is  participate in the startup economy if you want to. That's a  different decision. But the skills and the technology are going to be durable and they're going to feed the next  40 years of technology.  so an investment you make now isn't measured, the worthiness of an investment in time.

48:57
is not measured as, you know, did my company get acquired? Did the stock go up 6X? The measure is going to be, did you generate a 20 or 30 year career using those tools? So the conclusion that people should reach is yes, invest the time now. Because regardless of your tolerance for risk or whether you're in the right place, right time, there's going to be decades that you're going to monetize those skills once we get through this. And those skills and those shovels

49:27
that  built the internet allowed cloud to come into existence.  The reason,  not just because of networking, but networking allowed the aggregation of lots of disparate, geographically dispersed resources  to come up with this thing called the cloud. And now  that 55 % CAGR, that's happening so quickly because of connectivity and

49:54
not just cloud physical resources, but business models.  So this layer and everything is additive, like it's super fascinating, right? And uh I have a buddy, Lenny Giuliano,  you might remember his name. uh know,  forget how he says it exactly. We should be proud of our profession as networkers, because look at the things we've been able to build, right? uh

50:20
And then whether or not Mike stops by your cube and pats you on the back or anything like that, we're doing good work. And it's something you can really take home with you. You can really be proud of it, and you should be. That would have been a great closing, but I have one more question. So where's all this money going? We know that Nvidia is making most of it in hardware. So has anybody figured out how to monetize AI? Because it just seems like it bolt on to products that already exist.

50:49
So how are people making money? Nvidia has figured it out. Because they're selling hardware, correct? Correct. There are... Well, okay, so for the rest of the bajillion people on the planet that aren't selling Nvidia GPUs, where's the money? We need an entire other hour to...  Yeah, I just... I will say that the  AI is a tool. It's  a uh vehicle. It's not a destination. the people... It's a how, not a what.

51:16
Yeah. And the people who will make money off of AI are going to be people who have fairly narrow proprietary data that provides  unique value when looked at carefully. I'll give you just, I'll give you two examples.  The two examples I love and I use over and over again, so apologies if you've heard them before.  I was at Fujitsu years ago and they were, um they had done some work with GE. GE makes the engines on airplanes.

51:41
and they had built up a microphone and they would listen to sound behind engines at Heathrow and they could based on a baseline of sound, they could detect anomalies  in the sound and then use that to identify potential issues in the engine that were otherwise unobservable. Like  that's a crazy good use case. Super like hyper-focused.  No one else has that data. Very real use case. Like we want people to be alive when they fly. Like that's a great use case. Another one- And after they fly.

52:10
We want them to do live after the  live.  Indeed. then the other one I love is that John Deere is one of the most uh impressive technology companies in the world.  People think of them as tractors. I think they would describe themselves as a technology company these days. This is the reason there was all those debates  over the last few years about like who owns the like, because they want to, they own like the software that goes into these big tractors. They're making

52:35
They're using computer vision to make uh individual plant by plant watering decisions. So they look and then based on what the plant looks like, it gives it a  unique amount of water.  This drives crazy improvements in water utilization, which is really important right now,  but also it gives you way better crop yields.  that's technology narrowed, like they have a uh kind of a unique set of data, given how prolific they are in that particular space.  And then that allows them to make better decisions.

53:04
Those are two examples where they're going to make money off of AI because they have a use case that's important. They have proprietary data.  It's not the big foundational models. It's going to be, you know,  get to a narrow use set. You don't need something to be generally useful. You need something to be specifically useful.  So far they can extract  meaning from proprietary data, I guess is  right.  that's specialized model training.

53:32
Data engineering will be cool again, because as  enterprises figure this out and they realize  how dirty their data is,  right? And that's not a content viewing comment. uh That's, you know, the 17 versions of that one word doc. Why did save as dash SFR,  you know, my initials  where there's minor variations in that document. I don't want all 17 of that going into my training model.

54:02
Right. I probably don't. There's a lot of data cleanup that needs to happen. And I think to get to where Mike's talking about, um, that grooming, shaping, fixing, cleaning, uh, business is going to be important. And, and it really is data engineering. It's not data science,  right? It's going to be the people who are boots on ground, you know, doing the stuff that the data scientists probably figured out.  Um, but like he said,  longer episode for another time.  Gentlemen.

54:31
Thank you. It's always a pleasure. um think the takeaway for me is, know, if you  work any capitalist democracy, which we happen to, um maybe find out what's important to the people running the companies, which is probably making money, generating revenue, and however you can help them  do that,  communicate in a way that they understand that will compel them to go, oh, that's a good idea. oh

54:59
Again, not to make it about automation, but I worked at a place that wanted to move faster. The cloud paradigm pushed that initiative there and they wanted to have self-service stuff that the old school was like put in a ticket, wait six weeks for a VLAN because we had to put it in a spreadsheet and look into a maintenance window and a change request. And they just wanted somebody to put something in ServiceNow or whatever we were using  and have a self-service portal because they knew that speed.

55:25
When you're trying to bring up a new application, you can't wait six weeks for a layer two.  Like VLAN is just insane, but that's how we were operating. So  in a networking context, if you can help your company move faster, maybe that's it. um To Mike's point, if you want to get rich, create a software company that has access to proprietary data. It can leverage AI to do some really cool stuff. I'm to look into that GE Boeing thing you were talking about. That sounds really amazing. um Guys, thank you so much for sharing your experience here. I always learn great stuff  when I talk to you too.

55:55
For all things Art of Network Engineering, check out our Linktree, linktree.org slash artofneteng. Two things I'd like to point out. One is our community. uh It's all about the journey Discord server, up to about 3,500 people. And again, it's just a place you can go. You don't have to trudge this  road alone. uh Working in tech isn't easy. It's stressful. You have to learn a lot and the learning never ends. So it's a community of people that help each other out and just hang out and check in with each other.

56:21
And I've been talking about this for a long time, but I finally got our merch store updated. We now have polo shirts, water bottles, a mug, a polo glass. I will probably be sending these two gentlemen one or two things. I'll be seeing them soon and maybe I'll bring you some gifts. Not that you want some crappy podcast merch, but I'm going to bring you some stuff because what else am I going to bring you? I try to give Mike a Phillies ball cap, but he'd probably throw it in the river. uh So thanks so much for being here, guys. Thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next time on the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

56:52
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