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He fell in love with computers when he was just a kid. Few people had computers at home back then, but his Dad worked at IBM and gave him exposure to technology early on.
He would type and print his homework at home, which effectively made him a nerd. But a very proud one.
His growth was not linear. But, is growth ever linear?
He was an entrepreneur during the .com crash, he mastered cobol when everyone was forgetting about it, he taught himself how to build websites when there was no youtube to learn from…
He was a self-learner when the internet was still not a thing.Fast forward to today, and he became a Seasoned engineering leader with over 15 years of experience. He has led teams of developers as a tech executive, architected and deployed applications in the mortgage origination industry, founded, coded, and launched several start-up website companies, and learned practically every task under the sun in the tech industry.
Most importantly, he has a human centric approach to everything he does. Building products. Building relationships. Leading teams.
This is a story of growth mindset, resilience, and empathy.
Enjoy!
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Lauren Hannon was a very successful Account Executive in the technology staffing industry.
She had it all. A great pay, a proven system to build and nurture relationships, a great recruiting team on her back…
But she wanted something else. She wanted to own her own business. And so she took a leap.
Seven months ago, she left her job, and became an entrepreneur, to build her own staffing Company, Cupalo, an ethical, responsive, and customer-obsessed staffing partner who really cares, where specialty IT opportunities and uniquely qualified IT talent become friends.
It has not been an easy journey! She started her business right in the midst of a downturn in hiring in the tech world. She is responsible now for every facet of her business, and she is coping with the growing pains of entrepreneurship.
But she has a very clear guiding path and mission. Lauren builds relationships. She has a human’s first approach, and believes in treating everyone, clients, candidates, hires, as a real person. She knows that treating people well is the key to success.
This episode is about relationships. How to build them. How to nourish them. This episode is about emotional intelligence, resilience, and being vulnerable human beings.
Lots of valuable lessons to unpack here.
Enjoy! -
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Some people are very good at fixing problems. They are comfortable with chaos. They thrive in it and they are able to find and execute solutions.
Let me tell you, changing the direction of a medium sized company or a multimillion dollar technology program is not an easy task. There are various stakeholders involved, and there will be an adverse reaction to change, whatever that is.
But some people make a living out of fixing hard problems, like my friend Jayant Chaudhary.With over 15 years of experience in providing technology and operations rescue services to small- and medium-sized businesses, Jayant is now the CTO/COO of SURREAL Events, a first-of-its-kind platform that creates digital twins for physical venues and custom metaworlds for brand engagement.
I like to call Jayant “The Fixer”. His mission is to help businesses transform their challenges into opportunities, and he has a proven track record of saving businesses from the edge of failure. He helped clients like American Express, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, and Fiserv engineer their critical systems, and now he applies the same high level of expertise to create SURREAL metaworlds for smaller businesses.
We talked about Leadership in the technology industry, skills required to succeed, and the latest trends and the impact they will have on the future of work.
I hope you can enjoy this episode as much as I did! -
Ben and I share a special bond. We were brothers in arms during a very tough time at a Default Asset Management company in the Real Estate Industry.
Ben was leading Asset Management, and his job was to sell properties, fast. I was leading Property Preservation and my job was to get houses ready for sale, fast.
There were Leadership changes everywhere, results were lacking, and I had inherited a team in Dallas that had a bad relationship with Ben’s team in Atlanta.
I honestly have PTSD memories of that time… and so does Ben.
BUT, we both share great memories of the relationship we forged and how hard we tried to change the way our teams interacted with each other.
So I was very happy to use the podcast as an excuse to reconnect with him.
Ben Smith has 20 years of experience in the Real Estate Industry. He’s done construction, asset management, preservation, rentals, acquisitions, flipping, operations, customer service, and practically everything under the sun in the Real Estate Industry.He excels in operations. He really is a Tamer of Chaos and a Seeker of Simplicity. Most importantly, he is a generous human being with a very high emotional intelligence. He knows how to connect with people and get the best of them for the right reasons. If you work with Ben, you want to do the right things, because you feel that’s the right thing to do.
In this episode, we talked about his experience in Real Estate, the highs, the lows, and everything in between. We talked about operations. People, Processes, Technology. What matters most? Why?
Enjoy!
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Who are the best software developers?
What makes them the best? What makes them successful?
How can we measure their contribution and their impact? Do we look at the amount of time they spend coding? Or the impact on business? How do we measure “impact on the business”?
These are some of the great questions Jacob Crockett had in mind when he co-founded Perspect, a platform designed to reward developers for the impact they make, not just lines of code.
Jacob does not like the buzzword bingo, but he knows Perspect would do just fine in such a game. See for yourself: Perspect is writing developers contributions on chain (blockchain) & using machine learning to identify and recommend ways to improve (AI).
I had an amazing conversation with Jacob. He is a thoughtful leader, with a very clear vision of what he wants to achieve. He is passionate about data, and using data to improve the profession of software developers, to help them find more valuable flow time, deep work that will bring the best results.
Besides talking about measuring what matters, and helping developers find their best version, we contrasted perception (we did a few polls) with reality. For example: How many hours do developers spend actually coding on a daily basis?
Few people got this one right…Listen, learn, and enjoy. We all have a long way to go to focus on the right things to get the best results possible, and we can all start by knowing how we really use our time.
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I started this podcast one year ago.
I have released one episode a week, 52 episodes in total, since March 2023.
I talked to many leaders in the technology industry. And I am thankful to every participant, for being a part of the show, for sharing their views and opinions, their stories, their learnings.
We talked about various topics: Leadership in Tech, Proptech, Sales, AI, AR/VR, Art and Technology, Quantum Computing, Nuclear Fusion, Product Management… and many more.
I am now a better listener, and I truly believe EVERYONE has a story to tell. You just have to ask the right questions and create the right environment.
This episode is my first monologue. It’s just me, talking about the podcast.
Who am I? Why did I start the Podcast? Why do I keep going? What have I learned? What’s Next?Enjoy! and, reach out if you want to be a part of the show 🙂
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Sales is hard. You fail, just because of the nature of the profession, 99% of the time.
It takes a special someone to succeed in sales, and to do it for a sustained period of time.
You have to enjoy the process.
You have to become addicted to the process.
And you have to be ambitious enough to continue raising your game and the stakes as you keep evolving.
I’ve been doing sales for a while and I’ve gained a new respect for the profession. And I have been following sales leaders that continue to elevate the game and show the way for others.Scott Leese is one of them.
Or, let’s be more clear about it. Scott Leese is a HERO amongst them.
Why? Because he is good at what he does and he shares so much valuable content.
But also, and most importantly, because he is so original and creative about it.
Do yourself a favor: follow him on Linkedin. His CV is too big for me to do a snippet here. Let’s just say he has consistently crushed sales targets at every company he ever worked at, helping them grow and eventually nail successful exits, and he is now a Leading Voice and Thought Leader in Sales Consulting.
Oh, and, by the way, he is running the best micro conferences out there, mixing work and personal life like very few people in the world.
I mean, SURF & SALES??? Taking people to Costa Rica for a week of Sales Coaching and Networking and Surf Lessons in arguably one of the best places to surf in Central America?
Do you get it now? Yes, Hero is the word we want to use.
So… Scott and I talked about Sales, how to succeed in sales, the future of sales, and the future of networking, and why EVERYBODY should pay more attention to networking, now, and forever. We talked about his personal story and how he got to where he is, and how everyone has a story to tell, if you create the right environment for them to share it.
Go ahead, enjoy, you can thank me later.
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Flow in positive psychology, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time.
Finding your Flow is hard. It requires a perfect balance between challenge and skills, and a certain mental state.
Professional Athletes are seeking this state constantly. And, while some efforts can become gruesome and challenging for the body and mind, maintaining a clear mind in these moments, a certain level of focus, is key to success.
There are lots of lessons we can take from sports and apply to business. The resilience, dedication, discipline and determination. But one thing is different for sure. In sports, you get immediate feedback from your actions. In business, especially in technology and in product, you have to be patient and wait for feedback. And so staying in the flow requires a different type of discipline and mental stability.
These are some of the super interesting topics I discussed with my friend Mitch DeForest, in episode 50 of The Future Of The Future podcast.
Mitch is a Cofounder and Product Head at Ramped, a platform designed to simplify the job search, breaking barriers of bias in the job market and helping individuals get their dream jobs. Mitch was also a semi-professional Athlete during his youth, as a swimmer, and he would spend as much as 40 hours a week training in the water.He is still a waterman and he enjoys surfing and traveling all across the world. He doesn’t train as hard nowadays, but there are many lessons he applies on a daily basis to his business. Especially when it comes to perspective on hard work, input and output, resilience and determination.
I had an amazing conversation with Mitch. We talked about entrepreneurship, life, and flow... Lots and lots about flow and how and where to find it.Every time I listen to this episode I feel like picking up the conversation again.
Enjoy!!! -
They say being a product manager is like being a “mini” CEO.
Being a Pastor is like being a CEO, only it’s harder.
There are budgets. Websites. Receivables and Payables.
There are no Sunday’s off. There is hiring and firing… and the people you fire? chances are they are part of your congregation, and you get to see them, and their families, every Sunday.In this episode, I interviewed my friend B.J. Hillabush, to learn the story of his incredible jump from Pastor to Product Leader.
BJ is an accomplished product and career coach, and his journey is a testament to the power of vision, versatility, and the deep impact of nurturing both innovation and storytelling.Listen to this episode and learn more about what it really means to be a pastor, and how we can learn more about how to deal with challenges in the IT industry, from BJ’s hard learned and earned lessons in life.
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At age 10, he was already an entrepreneur.
From self cleaning and sterilizing toilets, to shoes with interchangeable spikes, he was always looking for problems to solve, to invent and create solutions that could become a business.
His big brother, who eventually became a software developer and his partner, was always challenging him to build stuff, to solve problems.
Fast forward, just a few years, to the pandemic, and we meet the problem he is currently solving with his fast growing startup Blast Off Tutoring.
The Problem? Matching tutors with students. How would students requiring tutoring credits find candidates in times of stay at home mandates? How would students get help by older tutors?
So at age 16, Mitchell Meyer set out to reshape and elevate the education landscape. Blast Off Tutoring became a leading district-wide peer tutoring platform across the U.S., democratizing access to quality education and fostering community-driven learning experiences.
Mitchell is in College now. He is a Founder and CEO, yet he still finds time to advance as a student and learn from peers and professors alike. And he likes it that way.
In this episode, we talked about what it means to be an entrepreneur so early in life, how younger generations approach work and entrepreneurship, the educational system and the value of tutoring, and many other topics.I enjoyed our conversation and I got inspired by his energy and drive. I know you will enjoy this as well.
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She went from being the only woman in the room, to the oldest person in the room.
She was a California Girl in an Old Guys Club world of mutual funds and investments, and she conquered the North East with record inside sales for her team at Wells Fargo.Then she got married and moved to New York, and became a stay at home mom for 17 years.
But suddenly, things changed, and she needed to go back to the job market. Tough job for a single Mom with a 17 years work hiatus trying to make her way back to the Bay area, to get a leadership sales job at a tech company.
Oh yeah, she definitely found success. She excelled at various leadership roles in sales in top tech companies in the bay area, and eventually became a founder and CEO. But if you want to hear the full story, just hit play and listen to it.
It’s the challenges that make us stronger. And it’s the sales profession where survivors thrive and excel. Because they are resilient, they can adapt, and they know how to ignite their inner passion to achieve objectives, whatever they might be.I am very thankful to Elizabeth Andrew, for being a guest at my show, and sharing so much about her story.
Go for it! -
Labor arbitrage, alone, is not enough reason to outsource, not anymore.
With the rise of AI and automation possibilities, companies are thinking twice about outsourcing business or support functions offshore.
Lift and shift is out of fashion, and out of touch with the current tech scenario.
So how do you add value to outsourcing? How do you become an innovation partner to your customers? In the specific world of BPO and customer service support, how do you leverage agents in the best place and way possible?I interviewed Craig Crisler, founder and CEO of Support Ninja, to find out the answers to these questions.
Craig has over 20 years of experience in operational excellence and modern people management. He founded his first company at age 15, and he went on to become a serial entrepreneur founding 12 more companies with 4 successful exits. He is obsessed about leveraging technology to assist, enable and empower agents to do more meaningful tasks that provide more value to their customers. He will recommend ways to do work that might seem counterintuitive, because he might be automating work previously completed by his agents. But he is not concerned about the number of seats he is filling for each client, he wants to provide value, for customers and for his agents.
Craig is a proud parent, loving husband, and trusted business leader. He leaves and breathes an empathy-informed mindset, and I savored every bit of our conversation.
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We, as consumers of services and products, continue absorbing steps that used to be completed by humans working for the companies that sell us services and products.
Think about it. The Check In Process for your flight. Getting tags on your bags. Ordering your food through an Ipad. Filling information online for various processes.
Human interaction continues to get reduced. But, when that human interaction exists, we want it to be the best interaction possible. We might get it or not, but that is our expectation.
This is true as well for Real Estate and Proptech. Most of the process can happen online and various steps are automated. Real Estate Agents will continue changing the way they operate; what fees are transferred to buyers and sellers will continue changing; but the profession is not really going away. We still need some sort of human interaction, especially when we are completing the most important transactions of our lives.
How can we elevate the human interaction step of services and products? Is everyone aware of the importance consumers place on these moments? How can we differentiate ourselves in an era of so much access to technology and tools to build technology into our processes?
These are some of the questions I asked to Phil Huff as I interviewed him for this episode. Phil is a good friend of mine. We worked together for a few years, and he has become a Mentor, answering many questions as I continue to grow in my career, and opening many doors. So I am very glad and thankful that we got together to talk about these questions and so many other topics.
Phil has over 25 years of experience in the real estate, property, and mortgage technology sectors. He is an accomplished Sales, Marketing and Business Development leader. He has constructed and guided high-performing sales and service teams, in prominent entities like Rocket and Altisource, as well as smaller yet impactful organizations such as eLynx and Platinum Data.
Surrounding yourself with people you can trust is key to any endeavor. I loved hearing my friend talk about his story, and why this is so important.I hope you can listen to this episode, and I trust you will enjoy it as much as I did.
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In the technology world, Product and Sales are very much intertwined.
Feedback needs to flow between the two. Product needs to be enabled to talk to customers in a direct way, to have a different type of conversation that sales would. Sales needs to trust the Product team, and what they are building, and understand it, to be able to communicate this to prospect customers.
But things can get ugly very quickly. Why did you promise this thing we don’t really have? Why are you so late on delivering this thing you told me was almost ready so long ago? And so on…
I happen to know two guys that have an amazing career in Product and Sales respectively, who are also Cousins, and first generation Americans from Afghan descendancy.
They are not only great at what they do, but most importantly, they have a duo dynamic going on that should have earned them a sitcom a long time ago.
The Sekander Cousins, Nake and Yosef, carry a name that means Alexander the Great in Persian. And that’s more or less how they feel about each other and themselves, their heritage and their family.I’ve known Nake for a while now, we worked together in the past, I work with him now, and I enjoy his friendship. And I met his cousin Yosef, when we all got together for dinner in San Francisco, a city Yosef has called home for the last 10 years of his life.
We got together to enjoy a superb chinese food dinner. A few hours (and various green shots) later, it was clear, 100% clear to me, that I wanted to get them together for a podcast episode, and just talk about life.
So that’s really what we did. The excuse? talk about what it means to build a career in tech in the US as a first generation American. The result? A fun, honest, informal and real conversation abound random topics ranging from tech, to moving around in the US and in the world, to the best way to cook Afghan rice, to the ideal all time soccer team, and much more.
It’s a very random conversation, but those are the ones I enjoy the most.
Listen, have fun, and enjoy. -
A lot of people have a desire to do good, but they don’t even know how to start.
So many non profits out there. Where do I start? Who can I trust? How can I keep it simple and still make the most impact out of it?I interviewed my friend Andy Choi, to learn more about the non-profit industry. What’s working and what’s not working well? How can we bridge the gap between nonprofits and individuals seeking to make a difference in the world?.
Andy is the Founder and CEO of Do Good Points, a digital platform that’s working to do just that. Bridging the gap between non profits, and individuals that want to be as efficient as possible at doing good.
An entrepreneur at heart, Andy started his first business at 14 painting address numbers on sidewalk curbs for homeowners across the Bay Area. Within the first two years, the business was operating in three cities, with 21 employees. Since then, he’s led multiple ventures including two separate retail food & beverage businesses, an international eco-manufacturing company, multiple e-commerce lines, and an international business development consultancy.Before starting Do Good Points, he worked at a global market research company, partnering with top blue-chip brands in travel, retail, and digital marketing industries on customer loyalty, affiliate marketing, market research, programmatic marketing, and monetization.
Andy is an optimizer. He wants to improve the way non-profits go about their business, to maximize their impact, and solve big problems that affect our world like hunger, homelessness and education.
He has a passionate and clear message, and he got ME thinking. What am I doing today? Am I doing any good? How can I get started? How can I make giving an aspect of my daily life?
Listen to this episode, and you’ll learn it’s easier than you think. You can thank me afterwards.
Enjoy! -
The best product leaders are a bit like time travelers. They can pick up trends and feedback from users, but they also have a sixth sense that allows them to tune in into what's coming next.
My guest for this episode is a hyper energetic, New York based (and raised) Product Leader that is so dialed in that he can never stop channeling thoughts into paper.
Post-it notes, emails, Word, Google, Notion, and any sort of physical or digital way you can think of to put ideas into writing, are only the start for him. Then comes design, drawing. And through that design, choosing the best ideas and executing on them.Rob Petrozzo has 15 years of experience as a digital designer, experience lead, creative director, and product specialist. He has worked with a broad spectrum of content in a variety of industries including music, publishing, and bio-technology. His most recent position allowed him to contribute hands-on to the growth of an industry leading hardware/software startup, and was the precursor to the founding of his newest venture, Rally Rd.
His mind is always on, and you can notice that just by the way he talks and connects concepts and experiences, with unparalleled energy and passion.
How do you stay dialed in as a Product Leader? How can you predict what’s coming next? How do you execute on ideas? When and how do you listen to user feedback? How do you navigate back and forth from analog to digital and how do you know when to choose each one? How do you get insights from younger generations? What role does your city play into how you are able to stay dialed in?
These are just some of the questions Rob answered during our 40 minute conversation.
Listen to this episode, you’ll get more energy and ideas from it than you can imagine.
Enjoy! -
Besides doing the Future of The Future Podcast, I run a software development company out of South America, called Xseed.
One of the reasons I started this podcast was to be able to talk to technology leaders from different places of the world, about cutting edge topics that would add value to my network.
As 2023 comes to an end, I wanted to talk to some of the experts and leaders that work with me at Xseed on a daily basis, about trends in 2023 and what’s coming next, in the world of UX, Mobile and Front End Development, Backend Development and QA.These are my colleagues and friends. I could spend hours just listening to them talk about their trades. So much passion, so much knowledge they want to share.
We talked about technology trends, leadership, growing in your profession, and so much more.
Our participants are:
- Aarón González - Product Design Lead at Xseed.
- Stiven Suarez - Technical Lead at Xseed.
- Nicolás García - Software Architect at Xseed.
- Diego Castro - QA Automation Lead at Xseed.
I hope you can learn and enjoy as much as I did!
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Nuclear Fusion. Combining two light atoms to form a larger atom, releasing energy in the process.
Clean, renewable, safe energy.
The stuff of Science Fiction… right?
Even if some experiments exist, a technology that is at least 15 years away from any sort of commercial adoption… right?
Well… Think again.
Hunter Bjork is here to tell us about the reality of Nuclear Fusion today, and the future of energy it will enable.
What is nuclear fusion? What's the difference between fusion and fission? Why does it matter? Are there any functioning nuclear fusion reactors today? What types of nuclear fusion exist? What are the potential applications? What do people know or think they know? How are different global players reacting to these new technologies? Why?Hunter is the Founder and CEO of ISA, a collective of entrepreneurs and engineers who believe that all energy should be inherently sustainable, affordable, and decentralized. Hunter is focused on the re-imagination of how we power our world, and the commercialization of breakthrough clean technology.
Are we closer to nuclear fusion than we think? Listen, and embark on a never ending learning path.
So much to learn from this episode, I hope you can enjoy it as much as I did! -
Layoffs suck.
The era of remote work is not making them any better.
The way layoffs are being communicated seems to deteriorate by the minute, with grim stories of badly coordinated zoom meetings, improvised messaging by leaders, and immediate and clumsy access removal for remote workers.Is there a better way?
Sara Seabourne says yes, definitely yes. And she has been talking about “compassionate layoffs” for a while.
I asked her to be a part of the show, and I am glad she said yes.
Sara is a People and Culture Executive who has worked in global HR and leadership roles in the tech industry for over 15 years. She has a proven track record of leading successful leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives (DEIB).
She’s done multiple layoffs and she was affected by a few herself. She knows how to communicate better, how to provide time and support to those affected, so that everyone can get on their feet as soon as possible.
In this episode, we’ll talk about what it means to be an HR Leader, how she got there, and how we can elevate the HR function by listening to hard learned lessons from leaders that have walked the talk, like her, and how she is now helping other Leaders through her Fractional People Executive role at Cascade People Partners.
You can’t miss this one. And you’ll love Sara’s energy and clear message.
Enjoy!
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Leading large teams requires a LOT of energy, and passion. You can’t possibly be effective at leading large operations, if you don’t like the people side of things.
My friend Aaron Kuney, leads a team of dozens of professionals and technicians, and a vendor network 4500+ strong, dealing with property services, for one of the biggest property management companies in the US.
You know what gets him out of bed every single day? The chance he gets at elevating and developing people in his team. Watching them learn and grow, and solve challenges they didn’t think they could solve.
In this episode, we talked about what it means to be an Operations Leader, the Real Estate industry’s current status and where it’s going from here, technology and its place in the industry, and many other interesting topics.Aaron is a Real estate investment and operations executive with extensive experience in investment management, capital markets, asset management, portfolio management, brokerage, construction management, and property management in the single-family and multi-family asset classes. He has a proven track record of innovation through the use of data and technology as well as building and leading top-performing teams within the institutional single family rental (SFR) space.
I worked with Aaron in the past, and I learned tons from him back then. But I learned even more as I got to interview him for this episode.
Enjoy!
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