0:00:15 - (Matt): Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back, podcast. Awesome listeners. Today we're serving up the third helping in our series on building a workplace. It's more than just a place to work, but a place where people actually want to be. And our guest today, Dave Gandy, who has been our guest for this whole series, he brings the kind of energy that makes every meeting feel like a party and not the weird, awkward kind with questionable snack platters.

0:00:42 - (Matt): Anyway, we're chatting about the magical mix of finding a co founder that balances you out, the quirky reality of open source communities, and the wild idea that empathy is the real MVP in leadership. So if you've listened into the other episodes, we've touched on some of this a little bit already. But Dave goes into a little bit more detail. So let's dive in and uncover what it means to create a work culture that doesn't just work, but thrives.

0:01:22 - (Dave): Like, we're really, really lucky to have Travis here. That man is so, so much fun to work with. Right. This is not something you can just become. He just is.

0:01:32 - (C): Right.

0:01:33 - (Dave): But that's one of his unique things that he does well.

0:01:36 - (C): Right.

0:01:36 - (Dave): Like I am not always the most fun to work with. Right. This is how it works.

0:01:41 - (C): Right.

0:01:41 - (Dave): But if you understand how when looking for a co founder to find someone that balances you in certain ways, it's kind of amazing. But also like, man, some of life's just serendipity, some of life is just happy accident. And in fifth grade, moving a block away.

0:01:57 - (D): Yeah.

0:01:58 - (Matt): Right. I'm glad that you said that though too, because when we're talking about this may not be for everyone, this is not, there's no program or anything for this. It's just a set of kind of principles and philosophy and really. But you've got to have, you do have to have a, a sounding aboard a person that is different than you so that you can be rounded.

0:02:21 - (Dave): Yeah. Whether you're starting your own company or whether you're managing a team, you need someone to be able to talk to who is not sort of organizationally incented to have a different, like to give a different opinion than the one that you, the honest one you want to hear for yourself.

0:02:38 - (C): Right.

0:02:38 - (Dave): And so if you're managing you, you need sort of somebody, somebody who's maybe a mentor or even a peer from outside of the company that you can go to and get advice. Because sometimes when a 65 year old man, when you're 20 years old and a 65 year old man tries to fight you at 30,000ft in the air sometime up in an airplane. Sometimes you just need someone to tell you you're not crazy.

0:02:57 - (Matt): True story, right?

0:02:58 - (Dave): True, true story. Sometimes you need someone just there next to you to tell you you're not crazy. And the value of this in life, to have someone that knows you and cares about you that will also tell you the truth when you are crazy.

0:03:11 - (C): Right.

0:03:11 - (Dave): This is of, of infinite value in life.

0:03:15 - (D): Yeah.

0:03:16 - (Dave): Because sometimes we don't know what it is.

0:03:18 - (C): Right.

0:03:18 - (Dave): Sometimes we're the one that's wrong and we need somebody to tell us. Yeah, man, that's not a good choice.

0:03:22 - (D): Yeah.

0:03:23 - (Dave): That's like, yeah, you're, you're the one who's crazy here. But most of the time you just need somebody to be like, no, I don't know what's going on there. But no, good, good, good for. Good on you.

0:03:32 - (C): Right.

0:03:32 - (Dave): That was a good choice. Yeah. And you need that next to you. If you are founding a company, one of the reasons that you that I think you're going to do way better with a co founder is because there are going to just be times of uncertainty in life. And the thing that is going to make the difference in a startup with highly capable people who have a knack for these things. Right. If it's, if it's not you, you want to.

0:04:00 - (C): Right.

0:04:00 - (Dave): If you're the kind of person that you've got all the right ingredients here. You and your co founder have the right ingredients here. In order. What you need is to not die. You need to be around long enough that you can find product, market f and you can make it all work. That's what you need.

0:04:12 - (C): Right.

0:04:13 - (Dave): And someone next to you that's going to tell you when you are crazy or not is of such extreme value. And this is the thing we've seen, Travis and I over and over again is that when one of us is frustrated and down, the other person can talk reality to us. We can talk reality to each other of perspective.

0:04:33 - (C): Right.

0:04:33 - (Dave): So frustrated by this thing. This is driving me absolutely crazy. I don't know how this. Right. And you a, you need someone to be able to talk, to invent to who also knows the entire scope of who you are. To recognize this is out of norm for you and knows how to recognize that and to help talk sense back in, help bring reality back into the situation for them to see. Because a great friend is not just going to tell you nice things.

0:04:59 - (Dave): A good friend will tell you you're not crazy. A great friend will tell you you are crazy. Right now you got to stop that. That's a bad choice.

0:05:07 - (C): Right.

0:05:07 - (Dave): The best friends are the ones who will tell you that stuff and who have a place in your life long enough that you will listen to.

0:05:13 - (D): Yep.

0:05:14 - (Dave): We're 10 years into the company. Nobody's ever left. Some of that's luck, but not all of it.

0:05:20 - (C): Right.

0:05:21 - (Dave): And what are the things that aren't luck? If you, if you're the kind of person believes that that's a good thing. Great. There will be people listening to this that think I am a sucker.

0:05:30 - (D): Yeah.

0:05:31 - (Dave): That think I am a sucker. That nobody's left in a decade. Because this means that there are people here who might be just sticking around for the paycheck. What do you think everybody's doing, man? You know what? That, that whole logic is self rationalization to pay people less. We absolutely could pay people less. We have 500 people apply for an open job when like, yeah, we could pay less. We'd still get people. We could still hire people to do that. But we don't want to. Yeah, we don't want to run it that way. This is not the way that we want to run this workplace.

0:06:04 - (Dave): And that's the really funny thing. Right? Like this whole thing is also not for people who think I'm a sucker. That's fine, man. That's fine, man. You want to know why people are so angry at billionaires? It's the kind of stuff where you feel like you're only ever taking and you're giving the minimum you absolutely have to and you're keeping the rest for yourself.

0:06:30 - (Matt): Maybe we take this from the position of someone who is not a founder, but they're looking for a great place to work. Yeah, they've got a lot of. They're a good quality person.

0:06:41 - (Dave): Yeah.

0:06:41 - (Matt): What we're saying is like very much they're like, yes, yes, yes.

0:06:45 - (Dave): Yeah. There's a.

0:06:46 - (Matt): What should they be looking at?

0:06:46 - (Dave): There's a real skill as a, as an employee, someone who's looking for. Looking for an individual contributor role where there's. It's not a. It's not a leadership position from like a people management perspective, from a team management perspective. Everyone's always a leader wherever you are. Leadership is just doing the right thing and those around you noticing and being inspired by the behavior. That's actually what leadership is.

0:07:15 - (Dave): It's just making really good choices in an inspiring way that other people notice and want to follow. But for folks looking for kind of that for an individual and for folks looking for an individual contributor role, there really are a Set of things to look for. And here's the greatest challenge. Here's the real greatest challenge. The more someone in an interview talks about how great it is to work somewhere, the more skeptical you need to be.

0:07:51 - (C): Right.

0:07:52 - (Dave): So you've got to get good at asking the question without. Without asking the question. So, for instance, you want to know, are you going to try to work me to death? Are you going to try to attract, take, and extract every ounce of effort in my life and make me feel horrible if I'm not doing it right?

0:08:09 - (D): Yeah.

0:08:09 - (Dave): I'm going to need you to come in on Sunday, too. Thanks a bunch.

0:08:15 - (Matt): That'd be great.

0:08:18 - (Dave): Well, and that's. That's almost some of the most insidious ones. Because it's just so assumed.

0:08:23 - (D): Yeah.

0:08:24 - (Dave): That everything you have is theirs.

0:08:26 - (C): Right.

0:08:26 - (Dave): So there's a possessiveness. Watch how people talk about people who work there. Do they. Do they use possessive terms? Are these my employees? Right. A whole lot of things are going to subtly give away what somebody really thinks about the people they work with and around. That's. That's one of them. Another thing to look out for is you got to ask the question without asking the question. One of my favorites is what's an average workday look like for you?

0:08:54 - (C): Right?

0:08:54 - (Dave): Because you're asking, do you all work too much?

0:08:57 - (Matt): Right.

0:08:57 - (Dave): Who's going to know? No.

0:08:59 - (C): Right.

0:08:59 - (Dave): Because, you know, well, I'm already bought in here, and I've already made really bad choices, and I'm committed to a thing that's a really terrible idea. So in order to live with myself, I'm going to lie to myself and tell myself that this is a great choice. No, this is fine. Right. The little dog on fire. This is fine. Is it fine? Yeah, it's fine.

0:09:15 - (Matt): Right.

0:09:16 - (Dave): So don't ask the question. Is it fine?

0:09:17 - (C): Right.

0:09:17 - (Dave): Ask someone what it's like to be in the office. Are there flames around you right now? Is everything engulfed around you? And you're sitting there and being told that you need to sit in your chair until this is. Don't worry, it's. And everyone else around you telling you, no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. No, you got to look for what that looks like. And so easiest ways for every single person you end up chatting with in an interview when you're looking for a new role, find out what an average workday looks like.

0:09:41 - (D): Yeah.

0:09:42 - (Matt): When was the last time you had to burn the candle at both ends? How often does that happen?

0:09:45 - (Dave): Yeah. Well. And the thing is, right, you've got to ask that without asking that.

0:09:48 - (Matt): Sure.

0:09:49 - (Dave): Because that's a qualitative, that's a pejorative one. That it's bad. And they might think you don't want to be here. You're not really committed. Which honestly is actually pretty great. Don't be afraid to fire the interviewer in the middle of the interview. Do not be afraid to walk out of an interview when it's idiotic, when it's just idiotic and not worth your time anymore. Have enough respect for yourself to walk out of that.

0:10:09 - (D): Yeah.

0:10:09 - (Dave): But another, another piece of this is a part of the process of knowing what you're looking for in a workplace is. There's also a funny. You don't do this because of this. But there's a funny thing that often happens in an interview when you have really, really great questions and there's something that you know that you're looking for. You can only do this if you're confident in the skills that you bring with you.

0:10:29 - (C): Right.

0:10:29 - (Dave): And you can. And what happens is there's a psychology flip that happens in interviews where instead of them interviewing you, they realize that you're interviewing them and they need to deliver.

0:10:41 - (D): Yeah.

0:10:42 - (Dave): There's a funny psychology. This is the reason why don't. Don't send out a thousand resumes and hope for one. Find three places that you think are worth your time as a person to spend some years of your life to look for a ladder that's going the same direction.

0:10:58 - (C): Right.

0:10:58 - (Dave): Look for the company that's interesting. Try to develop relationships that maybe even start. They start online, social media start. Be a. Contribute interestingly to their discussions. Don't. And don't just do it for the sake of I need a job right now.

0:11:13 - (C): Right.

0:11:14 - (Dave): Do it for the long term.

0:11:15 - (C): Right.

0:11:15 - (Dave): A lot of. A lot of.

0:11:16 - (Matt): Learn something. You're going to build community.

0:11:18 - (D): Yeah.

0:11:18 - (Dave): Care first. Care about the person on the other end before you think about what they can give you. This applies here too.

0:11:23 - (C): Right.

0:11:24 - (Dave): We're talking about this for managers. We as human beings need to be treating people this way too. Think about it first in terms of, you know, what you're connecting with another person who you think is interesting.

0:11:33 - (C): Right.

0:11:33 - (Dave): That's worth doing.

0:11:34 - (D): Right?

0:11:35 - (C): Right.

0:11:35 - (Dave): That's worth putting yourself out there and then never replying and risking something along the way that's worth it. But try to never go in the front door of an interview process. Try to always find the person in the side door that lets you in. Right. This is always going to be. This is always going to work best. But the thing once you are in there, I think once you're in the room that you're looking for, is you are looking for human beings that recognize they're working with human beings. You're looking for people who don't just treat someone like a cog.

0:12:04 - (Dave): You're looking for how the organization listens to ideas. These are very, very hard things to suss out. Your best bet is to honestly, if they can, if they're willing to, is to spend some time working on a small project with them. And I don't mean a completely contrived whiteboard. I don't mean a dumb brain teaser that tells nothing other than how familiar are you with answering dumb brain teasers?

0:12:31 - (Matt): Right.

0:12:31 - (Dave): Because that's what that skill is. Yeah, that skill is just how good are you at answering this kind of question? That is that. Oh, if you're hiring me to write those, man, great. What, What a great question. Yeah, if you're hiring me to write dumb brain teasers. But if you're not, maybe those aren't the best questions to ask. And what's it like for someone to think on their feet?

0:12:50 - (C): Right, right.

0:12:50 - (Dave): Because the only way you really do that is to. Is to actually work with somebody on something for a little bit. Because you'll find out along the process in any reasonable amount of time. You'll find out how they treat you, they'll find out how you treat them. And it's really such a great way to de risk.

0:13:04 - (C): Right.

0:13:04 - (Dave): Because at the very minimum, you're going to spend six months of your life there. At the very minimum.

0:13:10 - (C): Right.

0:13:11 - (Dave): And so the faster that you can figure out, are these people sociopaths or not? And it's more than that.

0:13:17 - (C): Right.

0:13:17 - (Dave): But it's not less than that.

0:13:19 - (D): Yeah.

0:13:19 - (Matt): Right.

0:13:19 - (Dave): Because there are a lot of people who are drawn to leadership positions because of the power it gives them. And so in some ways, some of the interesting questions I think, especially for leadership in a company, is how did you come to be here?

0:13:30 - (C): Right.

0:13:31 - (Dave): Was this something you always wanted to be in charge and you always wanted to. What drives you as a human? Why are you here? Look for the answers behind the answers and who someone is at the core. And the truth is, this is also true, I think. Consider every interview as a. This is a human across from you who does something interesting. Find out who they are.

0:13:51 - (D): Right.

0:13:51 - (Dave): Because how else would you behave? You're interacting with another person. What else would you do but find out about them as a human?

0:13:57 - (C): Right.

0:13:57 - (Dave): Obviously you're going to do it in not a weird way. It's in a work context. Right. But what you're looking for is you're looking for a read and a feel on somebody else if you can. And this is also. This is a. This. Some people are better at this than others know. Know which part of sussing out who somebody is. Know which part of that you're good at and not.

0:14:19 - (C): Right.

0:14:19 - (Dave): And this. This can take many, many years to sort through. But keep track of that data in the same way that in your job, your 20s or four, figuring out what you. What you know better than others about the job. Same is true. Be watching for the same stuff with people too. What are you? Are you good at reading people? Are you not if you're not. Man, we're all different. And so find out a way to try to get that same information maybe through some more direct means or whatever. But whenever a job feels like this, these people might be the real deal who actually care about others and who really make that you call it work life balance. As if that's a bad thing.

0:14:56 - (Dave): You call it a life. The people call it a lifestyle company. As if it's a bad thing. I'm not sure if you know this. Every company is a lifestyle. It's just called being alive. What's the style of life you want to live? If this is not central to how you do these things, I don't know how to help you. You're really bad at making decisions in life. You're really, really bad if you didn't know it's lifestyle. If. When you.

0:15:21 - (Dave): If the pejorative nature of a lifestyle business is that it ain't just cash. Give me the cash.

0:15:26 - (D): Yeah.

0:15:27 - (Dave): Okay, man. Okay, man. Have fun with that.

0:15:29 - (D): Yeah.

0:15:29 - (Matt): You do you whatever.

0:15:30 - (Dave): Because when you're on your deathbed alone and no one gives two flying shits except the people you had enough money except for the people you had enough money to pay to be there until you're dead.

0:15:39 - (D): Yeah.

0:15:39 - (C): Right.

0:15:40 - (Dave): Hoping that maybe you left him something.

0:15:42 - (D): Yeah.

0:15:42 - (Dave): Hey man. That's one way to live it. That's one way to live life.

0:15:45 - (Matt): Yeah. We don't want to do that.

0:15:47 - (Dave): This is not for you.

0:15:48 - (Matt): Right.

0:15:49 - (Dave): This is not for you. That see life as a game. See people as marks did be taken from and it's. It's because of certain leadership now that's prominent in our country. This feels like the norm.

0:16:02 - (C): Right.

0:16:03 - (Dave): Your. Your qualification for leadership is not can you get things done and make money. The qualification for leadership is empathy.

0:16:11 - (D): Yeah.

0:16:12 - (Dave): That's your qualification. How much do you care about the people that are taking time from their life to work around you? How much do you care about them? That's your qualifications. This is one of the problems, is because that's almost never how somebody gets into this role to begin with. Both Travis and I, we fell into this thing backwards because we made an open source project that worked. It's kind of a neat path.

0:16:47 - (Dave): And you know what, my experience has also been with people who have started open source projects. They became popular. They're generally pretty neat people who care about more than just cash.

0:16:57 - (D): Right.

0:16:58 - (Matt): Well, they're. I mean, by design, they're giving a bunch of stuff away and they're working within a community that's like, hey, I've got an idea, or you've got a bug.

0:17:05 - (Dave): And they've already figured out because people have repeatedly told them by downloading and using their stuff that they know how to do this.

0:17:11 - (C): Right.

0:17:11 - (Dave): It's an awesome group of people. Open source maintainers are such a fun, awesome group of people. It's been one of the great joys of the past couple of years of my life to get to know Corey, to get to know. To get to know Leah, to get to know Zach. That's been so much fun.

0:17:28 - (C): Right.

0:17:28 - (Dave): I look forward to more of this.

0:17:30 - (D): Yeah.

0:17:30 - (Matt): This is new for me and it's been really cool to see behind the curtain a little bit like, wow, open source is really cool, man. It's a really cool community.

0:17:37 - (D): Yeah.

0:17:38 - (Dave): And wouldn't it be great if this community could thrive, not just be alive and survive and beg for money from others, but could, on their own merit, be able to create something? It's hard enough to get somebody to use something for free. It's way harder to get them to pay for it.

0:17:53 - (D): Yep.

0:17:53 - (C): Right?

0:17:53 - (D): Yep.

0:17:54 - (Dave): And the neat thing is most open source maintainers are perfectly capable of doing all this and thriving at it.

0:17:59 - (C): Right.

0:18:00 - (Dave): While still being able to give away open source. Right. Faunawass. And we give away a thousand times the value every year around the world more than we make as a company. Again, somebody might tell me I'm a sucker for that.

0:18:11 - (D): Yeah, okay. Yeah, fine.

0:18:14 - (Dave): That's okay. I don't mind that because I've got enough.

0:18:17 - (D): Yeah.

0:18:18 - (Matt): At the end of the day, you're like, wow, I'm able to, you know, we're able to create more, give more away, be around good people.

0:18:26 - (D): Yeah.

0:18:26 - (Matt): That's awful, Dave.

0:18:28 - (Dave): Well, it goes back to what kind of life do you want to live? And I think this gets to back to the, you know, who Is this not for. Who is this for?

0:18:35 - (D): Yeah.

0:18:35 - (Dave): Is by somebody who's decided that life really is about more than just what can you get for yourself. It's hard figuring out your life perspective on the universe and your place in it. There's a lot to that.

0:18:52 - (C): Right.

0:18:52 - (Dave): And that is a challenging pursuit. No matter what the answer you come up with, that's a challenging pursuit. But I think the only sane conclusion is that what makes life worth living is not just what you could get. So this is. This is ultimately, I think this kind of thing is for people who really genuinely care about others. But you kind of wonder, can I do this? Do I have permission? And I, am I going to get fired? Because suddenly I'm not able to deliver on what I'm what. What the job is. Right? Because every manager has to manage down and manage up. You got to manage down.

0:19:29 - (Dave): Do the people love being here? What's their work like? What's their situation in their world like? That's largely what we're talking about. But the managing up is, can you execute? Can you still get it done? And for us, me and Travis, like, I'm. I'm a terrible employee. I'm a terrible employee because I don't want to manage up. I don't want to climb somebody else's ladder that I don't have respect for as a human.

0:19:49 - (C): Yeah, Right.

0:19:50 - (Dave): And so this is part of the reason why I had to be a founder. I had to go and do it and let the only thing that the only judge be the people using the stuff. Did I make something good enough for you that you're happy to trade some hassle some time and make your website look a little bit better for some money? And not even that much of it.

0:20:06 - (C): Right.

0:20:06 - (Dave): Compared to how much, how much we get paid, how much all these things, it's not that much. Can I. Can I do that? I like that. I like my destiny being determined by that rather than somebody else's ladder. Somebody else's definition of, am I doing a good job? But the truth is management, right? You got to manage down, you got to manage up. This is primarily about how do you manage down. But the truth is you can absolutely deliver managing up. It's a different skillset that I probably can't help you with.

0:20:35 - (Dave): That's not a part of this. But what it is, but what I can say with certainty is you can absolutely accomplish everything you need to with the resources that you have. You can actually get more.

0:20:48 - (C): Right.

0:20:48 - (Dave): Even if you're someone that has no control of the membership of your team, that's hard. That's really, really hard. Number one, I would say start looking for another job. If it's your ass, it should be your decision. If you're responsible for what this team outputs, you should absolutely get to decide who is on and who is not on your team. Look for that in a job. Wherever you are in this process, look for someone that says I trust you, look for one. And it takes a while to build that trust. And maybe you start small and maybe you get more of this over time. And that's the nature of what a job is.

0:21:22 - (Dave): How well do you deliver on the things you've been asked to do? Right, that's the nature of what a job is. But there are places that actively keep you from being able to do that for some reason. There are places that like to have the control of all decision up in one place because they don't believe that you can make as good of choices as them. Now keep in mind there's a, there might be a good reason why they're there to begin with. Maybe they are good at making certain kind of choices and that's how they got there. Yeah.

0:21:45 - (Dave): But there's a good chance they're not good at making all choices.

0:21:47 - (C): Right?

0:21:48 - (Dave): So we all need people who can make these choices. Ideally. Also look for, look, when you're looking for a job, look for people who are trying to hire people, people smarter and more excellent than they are.

0:22:03 - (C): Right.

0:22:03 - (Dave): Who are not intimidated by someone who's better than them.

0:22:07 - (C): Right.

0:22:07 - (Dave): The best manager in the world is looking for people who are only better than them at the thing that needs to be done.

0:22:12 - (D): Right.

0:22:13 - (Dave): They're always looking for this. And if you're a non technical manager, I'm sorry, you're probably not going to be able to tell what that is. Yeah, that's the nature of it. If you can, man, that's cool.

0:22:21 - (C): Right?

0:22:21 - (Dave): There are plenty of non technical managers that can do an excellent job, but there are far fewer of those than the ones that came from that same technical background that realize that they have a knack for caring about people.

0:22:33 - (C): Right?

0:22:33 - (Dave): Because that's your qualification. Your qualification here is not the work that gets done. Your qualification here for leadership is how much do you care about others. Empathy is your qualification for leadership. And it's weird, but it sounds like such a dumb fluffy thing to say, right? It sounds so disconnected from all experience and all reality.

0:22:50 - (D): Yeah.

0:22:50 - (Dave): Because it's so unintuitive. But the truth is that's the secret. That is the secret to this. This is how you become great at this. And some people are wired to get more of that, to have more of that naturally, to understand this better. And that's probably, this is probably where you should be, right?

0:23:10 - (Matt): And that wraps up today's dose of workplace wisdom. We hope you're feeling inspired to build or to join a team that cares as much about people as it does about the bottom line. Whether you're a founder, a manager, or just somebody who's looking for a place to put down roots and find a good workplace, just remember, real leadership means showing up with empathy and investing in people. It sounds like a cliche, but it really is true. And if you've experienced that firsthand and the difference it makes, you know how true that that is.

0:23:47 - (Matt): All right, time to roll credits. If you enjoyed this episode of Podcast awesome and you think a friend or colleague might find it interesting, why don't you just copy the link and email them or send them a text with this episode right now, we'd really appreciate that. Podcast awesome is produced and edited by the guy that is talking right now, yours truly, Matt Johnson. The Podcast awesome theme song was composed by Ronnie Martin, the music interstitials were completed by Zach Maugham, and audio mastering was done by Chris Ends at Lemon Productions.

0:24:27 - (Matt): And maybe you're a podcaster yourself or, or you are interested in the work that Zach mom, or Ronnie Martin do. You can check out their information in our show notes.