Anthony Caiafa - CTO at SS&C Technologies

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we are talking to Anthony, the CTO at SS&C. We discuss the value of deep experience for technology leaders, takeaways from leading teams from three to 3,000 people, and the importance of staying humble as you progress in your career. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast. Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:23) This is the Modern CTO podcast. Hello, hello. Hey, what's up, man?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:39) There he is. Look at that hair. Is that some COVID hair?

(Anthony at 00:00:44) I actually put water in it today for you, truthfully. My wife was like, "So you're just gonna do that?" And I was like, "I guess that means to change it." No holes in the t-shirts. That's it, man.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:57) It went from, like, professional headshot that I was looking at to now I feel like you're a music producer or a snowboarder.

(Anthony at 00:01:06) Yeah, or, you know, exactly. So, like, could be a car salesman too with this. But yeah.

(Anthony at 00:01:13) No, I just haven't been going because I used to go to the barber, like, every Saturday, and then I just stopped. This was getting bad, so I shaved that. But yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:26) Are you guys still pretty locked down?

(Anthony at 00:01:28) Jersey's on the rise. The cases are all going up, and, you know, schools are shutting down all over the place. So we try to keep it, you know, because we have two little kids and then my wife's pregnant. So we try to keep it like, no thanks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:45) Yeah. How old are your kids?

(Anthony at 00:01:48) So five, three, and then, you know, a couple months.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:52) Yeah. That's amazing. This morning, I actually, like, right before the show, I was texting my wife because as I was getting ready, I went to, you know, throw away my floss into the trash and there was an empty pregnancy test box. And so I texted her. I said, "Hey, is everything cool? I saw this in the trash." And she's like, "Oh, I was just cleaning this morning." I was like, "Okay, cool." We've got two little ones. We've got three and one and a half.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:20) But I was like, she had a lot bigger laugh than me.

(Anthony at 00:02:27) Yeah. Okay. Because you're just like, "Oh, wait a second."

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:30) Yeah. What? I was like, I don't wanna be the sleuth, the investigator here, but I've gotta ask. You can't not ask when you see an empty pregnancy test box in your trash can, you know?

(Anthony at 00:02:41) I totally agree. I totally agree. Totally agree.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:44) So is this your first podcast?

(Anthony at 00:02:46) No, no. So, like, throughout the years, you know, I've done them. I've done talks. So not my first, but I think it's the first one in a little bit, I think, since I joined SS&C. Right? This is the first time I've done it just because it's just been so busy.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:05) Do you listen to other podcasts? Are you a fan of them?

(Anthony at 00:03:09) Yeah. Yeah. I like Joe Rogan.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:11) Yep.

(Anthony at 00:03:11) Right? I like his style. I like a lot of the stuff about it. I think it's, you know, after the whole thing, after the Spotify acquisition, I think it's interesting because his content isn't, it's random. Right? He doesn't really take sides that often. So I think it's interesting to see some of the stuff that's going on. And then other podcasts, random, like Barbell Shrugged. There's some tech ones that are pretty cool. So, you know, I just try to listen to as many of them as I possibly can at this point.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:42) Yeah. I did notice, to your point, after the Spotify transition for him, I just started seeing some guests that I don't think he would have on. Like, authors of books that, like, I didn't think he would be reading. And it's just like, I get it. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:56) But, I mean, lot of love to him. Way to land hundreds of millions of dollars as a contract and not have to run that sales process anymore.

(Anthony at 00:04:05) Yeah, it, you know, it's interesting. Right? Because I was reading Spotify is, you know, they're progressive. Right? So I was reading recently how they're starting to try to silence some of his content because they don't necessarily agree with it. And I get it. Right? You do whatever. But, like, I'm very curious to see how it shapes up over time.

(Anthony at 00:04:27) But, yeah, look, $100 million, like, I'm sure if someone came and said, "Hey, we'll give you $100 million for your podcast," you'd be like, "I think we could do that."

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:35) You could probably work it out.

(Anthony at 00:04:36) That all of my anger or, like, caring about it, it's interesting if you have a $100 million or a $300 million check in front of you. It's like your brain just starts figuring out every way why you could take it.

(Anthony at 00:04:50) Oh, 100%. Right? I mean, like, it's kind of, at that point, a no-brainer. So, you know, more power to them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:56) I haven't heard of Barbell Shrugged. Is that, like, a fitness podcast?

(Anthony at 00:05:00) Yeah, it's a cool one. It's just a couple of guys that they talk to different people in, like, the whole weightlifting situation, and they, you know, they just talk through different things about, like, you know, styles, methods, eating philosophies. But I think the recent one that was pretty interesting, they went through Tom Brady's, the TB12, which is interesting, his whole process. So, yeah, it's a pretty cool one. You know, it's, you just throw it on in the background when you drive and it takes your mind off of different things.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:35) Are you into fitness? Like, what do you do? Do you work out? Do you lift weights? Do you run?

(Anthony at 00:05:40) Yeah. So definitely run a lot. And then definitely, so I used to do strongman competitions years ago. Yeah. So not like, not like some of these guys are a little too much. But, like, you know, we used to travel around and compete in different small, different competitions, which was a lot of fun. So, you know, way before COVID, which I'm super happy about, I converted my garage into a full gym based off of, like, equipment that we've had from closed gyms. So, like, you know, the stones, the yolks, the farmer carries, the squat racks, all that stuff I have in there. So yeah. So usually, like, literally on the other side of this wall. So as soon as I'm done during the day here, I just pop right in there. Me and my wife swap, and then I'll cook or she'll cook. And then, you know, we'll both be able to get it in for a little bit.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:29) Nice. I'm pretty big into fitness. This past year, my big thing was, like, foundation. So I wanted to build a strong foundation after having the kids and such a crazy work schedule. I said, "Alright, I'm gonna give myself five years to build a solid foundation. I'm gonna start by just monitoring." So I started monitoring my, like, tracking all my in FitnessPal, like, all the calories, all the macros, understanding that. First couple of weeks, I did nothing except for just track. Then I started changing based on that. And then I started trying different macro splits to find the one that, like, gave me the most consistent energy throughout the day. And so I've been consistently tracking it for almost three hundred and sixty something days now because I started at the end of last year. And then I weigh myself every morning at the same time. And so I got to really understand, like, how my body processes food and how it works. And I'll tell you what, like, I gained weight and lost weight before, but you kind of just feel like it's happening. And when you actually, like, weigh all your food and everything you eat and completely understand the exact nutrients that are going into your body for an extended period of time, like, months, you just get this completely different understanding of how nutrition is. And I think that's important. Like, we could tie that back to, like, work and leadership because your nutrition is affecting your mood. It's affecting everything.

(Anthony at 00:07:47) It's also discipline, though. Right? Like, it's not like people think, like, "Oh, you know, you weigh," blah, blah, blah. It's hard. Right? Like, it takes a lot of discipline, especially with little kids. Right? So you know this just as well. They got snacks galore. Right? So it's super difficult to be like, "Okay, I know that if I eat this, it's gonna add, you know, X amount of macros for the carbs, the protein," and, you know, and it's just, it is, it's hard, especially going out. And, but that discipline really, it does help transition into a lot of different things. And, like you said, right, you also have to test. You have to understand and learn what works for you. And I think I'm very similar to the same. Right? So you talk to a lot of these guys that lift really heavy. They're like, "Oh, carb, carb, carb." But for me, that doesn't work. Right? Because my body does not accept it well. So, like, I get sluggish. I get tired, and they're like, "Well, you know, you need to eat, like, 7 billion grams of carbohydrates right before, like, a big squat day." And I'm like, "Well, if I did that, I'd be, like, super sick, and I wouldn't be able to do anything." So discipline is, and learning, and it does pivot very well into leadership. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:57) Did you always do this, or was it, like, stress from work? Just that you started to get a healthier lifestyle, or has this been all since you were in high school type deal?

(Anthony at 00:09:05) No, no. So, you know, throughout high school, I was, like, I was your typical, like, sitting on the computer for 100 million hours a day, not paying attention to anything else. So, like, health was not it. You know, smoked cigarettes, that whole thing. And then I think it was around, like, 20 or 21 where my doctor was like, "Dude, if you do this, continue this, you're just, you're gonna die." So he's like, "So have fun." And so at that point, I was like, "Well, I probably don't wanna die." So then I just turned everything around. Hooked up with some people that, you know, were similar mindset, made some friends, and then, you know, and that's kind of it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:43) So were you programming in high school?

(Anthony at 00:09:46) Yeah. Yeah. As a, in high school and even as a kid. Right? So I started doing a lot of this stuff in, like, fifth, sixth grade. That's when, like, VB was cool and, like, you know, online gaming was not as cool as it is today, but it was still pretty cool for us. And then that kinda got me into that era. I mean, the movie Hackers originally was it, and then I quickly realized, like, "Wait, it's not as visual as this, but this is still kinda cool." And then it just kinda took off from there.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:16) Nice. Did you end up going to college for this, or did you just go right into the market?

(Anthony at 00:10:20) So I went to school for a little bit, and then what wound up happening is when I was at the school, they didn't really have a good Linux program foundation, and their online school system was pretty bad. So I helped pivot into just building it with them. And then eventually, they were like, "Well, you can't really go to school here anymore since you're building the system." And I said, "Okay. Well, whatever." And then from there, I just kind of pivoted and took off. And then lately, I've been going through and just finishing out the degree, just not necessarily because I feel like I need it, but for me, it's more like I only live one time. So if it's just something that I wanna try to just get behind me, then it's, you know, why not? Right? I gotta try as many different things as I can.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:04) I was surprised you didn't, like, graduate with every possible degree the college could issue.

(Anthony at 00:11:10) Yeah. I just, my attention span is like, it, you know, I like being able just to jump in and be more hands-on and learn it. And, you know, sometimes I think, like, if I would have focused on it, where would I have been now in comparison to if I, you know, similar to not doing it? But, you know, I do wanna finish it, and that's what I've been working towards because it's just, you know, it's just something to do. Did you finish?

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:35) Or, no. But I was alluding for you. I was alluding more to, like, just you being in the database of their system, helping them build their systems and just issuing yourself, like, doctor of veterinary medicine.

(Anthony at 00:11:48) I feel like at some point, someone will give me an honorable doctorate, but I'll wait for that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:53) That is amazing. So you go through college. You build these systems. You get really into building systems farther and farther. And then what's your first, like, major job?

(Anthony at 00:12:06) Oh, so I had a bunch of them. Right? So, like, way long ago, I started in an internet cafe in South Jersey. Right? So that was, you know, and it was funny because we were just, we were helping people fixing computers, running, like, Counter-Strike LANs, stuff like that, and then it quickly pivoted into a babysitting job. So that's when I, you know, because parents just drop kids off. So then I left, went to a couple different tech companies. But I would say that probably I was at some internet scale startup long time ago called ideeli.com. And I think that would have been, well, maybe mypublisher.com was the real first tech job, and that was focused around, like, online photos that got bought by Shutterfly, I think. And then from there, it was just startup, startup, startup, startup. And then I think probably the one startup that gave the most, brought the most experience and was most interesting was DigitalOcean. I think everybody kinda knows that name. You know, we started that with next to nothing. And then now it's, you know, it's a massive player in that cloud market, which was cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:13) Yeah. I was a big fan when I was doing the prep, when I saw that you were a site reliability engineer at DigitalOcean. I was like, "Yeah." Because I was a huge fan of them for a while, and I was using them to deploy some Ruby applications. And they were super useful, and that was my introduction to sort of, like, the pipeline build deploy. That was, like, the first time I was doing that. And then I got into Heroku and kinda fell in love with that after. But there are, like, different uses. Right? However, I love the branding. And they, I remember that. I remember that good branding, and I remember it was, like, they were one of the only people doing that at the time.

(Anthony at 00:13:51) Yeah. Our, so it was a wild ride. Right? Lot of really smart people came through that place. And one thing that I will say that we did focus on in the beginning was simplicity and marketing. We're real good at that. Right? That was a huge, you, that UI/UX, you know, it was the key to that success because what was under the hood was just, it wasn't as glamorous as what everybody saw. But over time, obviously, it got better as we grew and just attracted more intelligent talent. But it was a ride, and it was a lot of fun. Right? We were in this tiny, tiny, like, little room with a bunch of folks just kinda hammering away on things. And it was, you know, sometimes my wife laughs at it because sometimes, like, I wouldn't come home for, like, four or five days, just sleeping in the office, just working on stuff. Right? Like, deploying code before, you know, going to, like, a venture event. Right? Like, it was just, it was a different, but different time, but it was a lot of fun. It's a massive learning experience to go through, you know, building, you know, thousand server data centers in, like, hours. Right? Like, it was a trip.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:03) At the time, was DigitalOcean, like, building their own hosting equipment, or were they using, like, a cloud provider?

(Anthony at 00:15:11) No. We did everything ourselves. So we would buy whatever gear came in. So the way we kinda looked at it was very commodity-based. Right? So we would just look for cores, memory, and storage, and that's it.

(Anthony at 00:15:25) So if you came in at the best price for that different type of gear, we would just buy loads of it. And then we had a ton of automation behind the scenes that would help us stand up data centers, stand up racks. Like, you could stand up a full rack of a 48U rack in like seven to ten minutes. Right? Like, very quick.

(Anthony at 00:15:48) And then we definitely did some really crazy things on the networking side too. So that networking team was really, really strong. At first, it was nobody. It was me and a few people, but then we hired some real smart talent, and they kind of helped scale that up. It was cool.

(Anthony at 00:16:03) It was cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:04) How has site reliability engineering evolved? Because, I mean, that must have been at least ten years ago, DigitalOcean. Yeah. So what is it like now?

(Anthony at 00:16:12) Do you

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:13) follow it still?

(Anthony at 00:16:14) Yeah. Yeah. So I'm still—I still follow it. Right? And, you know, we hire them. Right? We hire a bunch of the different SRE types, but I think it's more specialized at this point. Right? So, like, we have an overarching SRE organization, and I have a ton of different writings about kind of how I feel that these organizations should be built. But, you know, we have people that at least have focus areas. Right? So we'll have the infrastructure side SREs that are, like, networking focused and database focused and big data focused or, you know, cloud focused and kind of different in that world. So it's evolved, but I think that people are still trying to form their own opinion on how they should deploy it. Right? They've gone through that, oh, yeah. This isn't as easy as the Google book says. Right? So, you know, it's not one size fits all. And I think people are starting to realize that, but, you know, the talent is there. So it's definitely growing still.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:13) I met this startup a few months ago that's doing something really cool in the site reliability engineering area. They're called Gremlin. I don't know if you've heard of them. Do you like what they're doing? I thought it was amazing.

(Anthony at 00:17:25) Yeah. They got some cool stuff. They have some smart people too. Right? So we have a couple of folks from DO that are over there and working on the platform.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:34) Oh, very good. It's a small world. Right? Like, all the great people kind of like collect together and then the relationships between them, especially even, like, between guests. I find out, you know, different people know each other or it's like it feels like such a big world, but then it becomes really, really small, and that just, you know, underscores the importance of reputation and being like a good person because whoever is your direct report today may be the investor tomorrow.

(Anthony at 00:18:02) Yep. Oh, it's—yeah. But so it's interesting you say that. Right? Because I do think that that is something that young engineers should really understand because I didn't know that as a young engineer. Right? I was very bullish. I was very argumentative. Right? Because you just want your opinions to be heard and you want to be in the front of everything. Right? So I think it's one message that when people ask me and we talk about it, they're like, what's one thing? That's be humble. You've got to remain humble because I've been in plenty of situations where, like you said, now that person that reported to you and you just weren't very kind, they're the one you're asking for an investment in something. So it's definitely a big thing to take away.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:43) So where are you at today? You're at SS&C Technologies. Right?

(Anthony at 00:18:47) Yeah. SS&C. So we are—just like a quick high level, we are a very large organization in the financial services industry. So publicly traded, 23 to 26,000 employees globally, 162 offices. We're a big organization.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:08) And what's, like, the problem you solve?

(Anthony at 00:19:10) So it's interesting. Right? We solve a ton of different problems. Right? So our product portfolio is massive. Right? And our goal is to make sure that no matter what vertical you're in in the financial services industry, we could jump in and we could help you from end to end. Right? So, yeah, we're essentially like the plumbing of the financial services industry. Right? It's a big, big focus and industry for us. That's why our product portfolio is so massive. And, you know, the services, they range from middle office, front office, and back office accounting, fund management, fund analytics, risk analytics. We do full BCPDRs, virtual data rooms, BPO automation, just everything that a customer needs no matter what—again, no matter what vertical they're in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:01) So who—I know you have so many. Like, who is the usual customer? Is it mostly, like, banks and funds, or do you get, like, small family offices? Or

(Anthony at 00:20:11) Everything.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:12) Everything.

(Anthony at 00:20:13) Yeah. Big investment banks, big banks, middle-sized hedge funds, small-sized hedge funds, high frequency trading shops, private equity shops, venture capital firms, small mom and pop shops, family offices. You name it, we are there. And we also have an entire health area, so SS&C Health. So we do a lot of the—yeah. It is really cool. Right? So we do a lot of the, like, the pharmacy transactions. So that's another big area for us and a lot of the automation for the different insurance providers.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:48) Oh, very cool. Yeah. I think I was talking—it's like a company called Change Healthcare a long time ago, and they were just—they were explaining to me this process of the prescriptions and the finance, the business model there and how this works. And for me, I just geek out over that type of stuff. Basically, it's understanding complicated systems. Like, I can geek out just as hard as understanding a code base as I can understanding somebody's different business model.

(Anthony at 00:21:13) And that's what's really cool about it. Right? Because they are—they're one and the same. At the end of the day, financial services and health care and most of these things that exist, you're just processing transactions. And you just have to do it at a high volume and reliably. Right? And you don't—and you, you know, especially in financial services and health care, like, you can't just drop transactions because that's, you know, either A, millions of dollars or B, somebody's life. Right? So that's something that we focused on for a long time. And especially since I walked in here, it's just resiliency and stability to make sure that we can process everything accurately. I guess it's a good word.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:52) So do you guys do—I had a financial software company before I did the podcast. And we were doing, like, retirement analysis, withdrawal strategies against tax bracket, like, everything. We were just putting tons of financial products and then model hundreds of thousands of scenarios for the best situation for the person based on how much cash they need to burn and, you know, where they're at. So looking back on it, it's like, you know, a three year blur. But when you see the suite of tools, it's like, this is unbelievable. It's so cool. So then I sold my interest in that and started the podcast. And I was curious. Do you guys, like, one of the big problems over there was getting access to, like, financial data from everything from the bank accounts like a Plaid would do now to stock market data. They charge you. It's basically free if it's a day delay. But as you get down to the millisecond, you're spending tens of thousands of dollars. Do you guys get into the data feeds over there or do you just provide services?

(Anthony at 00:22:52) Everything. So we have every data feed that you could imagine coming in from markets, coming in from exchanges, even—you know, we have a whole business called FIX that we host FIX infrastructures for customers. Right? So, like, live exchanges that people can transact on where they, you know, they place orders and such. We—you know, interesting you said retirement because we're actually one of the largest companies that host all of the retirement accounts for some of these large organizations. Right? So all of the account information, all of that stuff is housed within SS&C. And so the nice thing about it is that all this data is so rich. So we are able—and, you know, you mentioned analytics around portfolios. Right? So we do a bunch of things. We bought a company called Algorithmics that does portfolio risk assessments. Right? So it's feeding all that data into it and it looking at portfolio and portfolio information and able to calculate risk based off of what positions you're going to take and what direction you're going to move in. It's, yeah. It's definitely really powerful.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:04) Yes. I liked this one company a while back called, like, Riskalyze. They were doing some stuff. But they had—they had a cool culture, and I liked their branding. But that's, like, the basis of it. Pretty much branding wins me over, like, nine times out of ten. If something's beautiful, you want to look up to it and experience it.

(Anthony at 00:24:22) It's so—I love it. It's really important. Right? I've seen, like—you know, you could have the coolest technology under the hood, but I've seen these front end apps that are just like, what is this? Like, if it's this bad, it's probably not any good, so I'm just going to ignore it. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:39) So one of the things that caught my interest when you were talking about how large it is, and this seems like you have, like, a large product portfolio, and you're building this stuff because you have data and you're connecting things. Seems like if a new product were to come on the market that did something—how would you, like, how does the information flow given the size of the organization? Where does the bat signal go off or the bell ring that says, hey, our customers, we should build this product now because this is emerging in the marketplace. Like, how do you get that information? Is that a team? Is it—what is it?

(Anthony at 00:25:13) So there's so many different ways because of how large we are. But, you know, the way that our organization is structured and the way the leadership is structured is there's constant feedback. So we built something out called pods, and pods are—our pods are a way that these different folks from all the walks of the different business units can come together and share this information. So, like, as an example, you know, we have, let's say we have one large customer that uses one product set. And then we find out that, you know, through conversations through these pods or through different levels of communication, that they're looking at, you know, all these other four or five product sets that we have. So those groups come together, they talk, then they host meetings, they have the conversations. And then they'll start putting together additional feedback that they're getting from the customer for something new that they're talking about, kind of tie it together, and then just kind of build a strategy around, okay, how do we address this? And that's kind of honestly how a recent product around, kind of customer data platforms kind of came about because we have so many different customers, and everybody came together and said, hey. Everyone's asking for this particular thing. So, you know, we can get requirements and get just general feedback, and then we could start building it. But that leadership funnel and that way the organization structure is powerful, and it's key to kind of the success of a lot of these things.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:45) So it's happening amongst the executives. It's, like, baked into the culture.

(Anthony at 00:26:49) Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yep. It's, you know—because it's in everyone's best interest to make sure that our customers are happy. Right? So, you know, the more we collaborate, the more the customer feels that and they feel that, you know, we're one large organization instead of 50 small organizations.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:08) So when the idea comes up to build this new product, right, based off of the customer's feedback, what's the process they go through to get funding for that within the org?

(Anthony at 00:27:17) Yeah. That's a good question. Right? So, you know, in that situation, it definitely depends. Right? So it could be where we take one or two or three people off of any other given project and say, okay. You know, let's start scoping this out, and let's start putting together a prototype or an MVP of some kind, very small, very narrow scope. We'll get some feedback from the customers. And if they like that, then we'll start putting more teams and more people and more money behind it. Right? But a lot of these things, they'll—you know, you don't want to be in a situation where you just have a ton of these pet projects and, like, nothing ever comes to fruition. So we really focus on starting small, getting something functional out the door in a very small amount of time, getting customer feedback. And then if—again, right, if it takes off, boom, then we hit the races, and we put the money where it deserves to be.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:10) I love that day one mentality or this start. I heard Bezos in a number of interviews, and he constantly talks about how everything they do, they start really, really small.

(Anthony at 00:28:21) SS&C is—and this is one thing that drew me to the organization. Right? So SS&C is, like, it is such an entrepreneurial company. Right? It's anybody's ideas, anybody's, you know, any direction you think that you could take, any way that you could make the customers happier, it doesn't matter what level in the organization that you are in. You could bring that up and you could essentially start forming a product around it and build an entire ecosystem organically around your idea. Like, there's not many companies that offer that level of autonomy. Right? And the big thing here is that we are a meritocracy. Right? A lot of people say they are, but we truly are. So it's interesting. Right? So Bill—Bill Stone is our founder, and he is as accessible as any other person that's at this level. Right? Like, you could email Bill, you know, two o'clock in the morning. He may respond. He may not. But most of the time, I get responses. Right? And that's—you don't see that often. So I think that's really cool, and we're willing to try just about anything. Right? Because, again, it's whatever's going to help our customer.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:34) It's because his heart's in it. Yeah. He likes it. He likes what he does. He's living his dream.

(Anthony at 00:29:39) Loves it. And he stays on top of us. Right? Like, he—you know, he and our COO, Rahul Kanwar, they're really—they're just—they're so involved, and, you know, they're open to listen to just about anything. And I think that's what makes people really, really drive to kind of really change things because change could happen. It's hard—in a lot of big organizations, it doesn't happen that quickly, but here, it could happen at the drop of a dime. And that's what's really cool to see.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:06) Founders still being at the company is one of my biggest criteria for my personal investment strategy.

(Anthony at 00:30:12) Yeah. I agree.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:14) I mean, because I'm a founder. I have a company. I mean, we're under 20 people. We're small. But, like, I know what it would be like with a board running it because, you know, we have investors and we have a board, and I know what it'd be like if a board runs it. I know what it's like if a founder's running it, and it's never the same. Like, it's not.

(Anthony at 00:30:32) No. And it's smart. Right? That's a good way to see it because, you know, it's always one of the—like, it's one of those things. So if the folks that started it, they all bailed, like, then what's the point? Right? Like, you obviously don't believe in that mission. Right? I mean, sure. You know, maybe you made your money, and now you're just like, oh, I just want to go make more money somewhere else.

(Anthony at 00:30:51) But, you know, if you believed in your product, you believed in your mission, you stick around. And Bill's been in this since, I think, '86. Right? Yeah. Which is crazy.

(Anthony at 00:31:02) But more power to him.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:04) Well, it's a hard thing to experience because to really wrap your mind around it, you have to spend time doing something you don't love, and that's not rewarding. And then you have to spend time trying to find out if you're doing what you love, and then you have to actually, you know, not give up, keep going, persist, let years go by. And they're not short lessons. These are, like, long lessons that take three to five years type deals to learn. It's why experience is so important.

(Anthony at 00:31:32) Yeah. And then think about now. Right? Like, we're a 20-something-thousand-person organization that had to go 100% remote in weeks. Like, that's hard. Right? That's not an easy feat. That's not an easy thing to go through. So, and we're still releasing quarterly earnings, and we're still doing well. Right? We're doing really well. So, like, you know, it's just this time is crazy. And I feel like without somebody that's been in this and been attached to this for so long, like, I'm not sure if you would do as well. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:07) Yeah. I was talking with Harry, the CIO at Zoom. He was just so chill and relaxed when I was asking him about how they went remote and how they handled COVID. He's like, yeah, we did it. We just made it happen. And I was like, it was such a laid-back response. I want a better response. How did you guys do it? Like, what is going on? Maybe not how you do it. Like, what is going on in your mind when you're like, okay, I lead the technology part of this technology organization. We have 20,000 people, and now we have to go remote overnight.

(Anthony at 00:32:42) It was crazy. Right? But I would have to say that the team that I had around me, everything that we did for the past 18 months, it really had its time to shine. Right? We were upgrading infrastructure. We were adding new features. We were adding new processes, new procedures, new tooling. And, you know, it was definitely hectic. Like, we didn't sleep for weeks. It was about probably a week that we were just constantly online, constantly online. Right? And then into the second week, which is, you know, you're in a situation where you have folks that normally would just go into an office, and now you had to onboard them with laptops. That's hard. Right? Because you still need to ensure security. So I was out talking to almost every contact I had trying to source laptops. So I think that was the most difficult piece to this entire thing. And then, you know, my team that sat there and they built, you know, 15,000 laptops in two weeks, like, that's huge. And then Zoom was a big part of it. Right? So I know, I talked to Eric, their CEO, frequently, and, you know, I just thank him. Right? Because going on to this platform really helped us with our remote strategy. Right? Because you could just imagine the sheer volume of troubleshooting that you would have to do when you go into the situation. And we used, like, Zoom rooms, like, hundreds of Zoom breakout rooms where folks were able just to log in to, get their problem solved, and then kind of hop back out. And we would just leave it open because, you know, our call centers were just off the charts. So I would definitely say that our transition was really smooth, though, because of everything that we focused on previously. You know, not obviously not in anticipation of this, but, you know, the team came together and is just really talented.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:40) Yeah. Eric's fantastic. He's like the picture-perfect way for a founder to interact on social media because he's, like, on Twitter. He's on LinkedIn. He jumps into support questions. He responds to people, and it's actually him doing it. Right? And I think that that's just so cool. So you're at DigitalOcean. Right? And then now you're at SS&C. But did you meet the, like, when you left DigitalOcean, how did you meet SS&C, like, executive team? How did you end up there?

(Anthony at 00:35:13) So I was at Bloomberg before this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:14) Okay.

(Anthony at 00:35:15) Yeah. I did a bunch of different things at Bloomberg for a while, you know, SRE, building teams, building strategies, building platforms, security, security architecture. And then I got hooked up with SS&C through a mutual friend. And, you know, we had a couple different conversations, more than a couple. And it just, like, it made sense. Right? Because, you know, they really needed somebody that kind of had that financial services experience, but also had a completely different set of experience, like the startup world, like, you know, scaling systems in that way to kind of come in and have a fresh look at, you know, how we do tech, how we do engineering, and kind of, you know, just overall, you know, how to build these teams. Because I think that's definitely one of the bigger challenges of this role.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:06) So what's your takeaways from building these teams? Like, what have you learned?

(Anthony at 00:36:11) You know, every day is a different lesson. Right? And going through this whole thing is, it's just the emphasis on culture for us and for anybody, right, is just so important. And I used to just ignore it for a long time and always thought that it just, you know, whatever. We're engineers. We'll get through it. But nope. You know, you have to make sure that the people are happy. You have to make sure that, you know, you could accurately assess their skill sets so you could place them in areas where they can be successful. You know, you have to make sure that, you know, you're also, so daily, something that I do daily. Right? And sometimes the folks that report directly into me aren't the happiest about it, but I go down and I'll talk to anybody and everybody. Right? So I'll randomly message people on our chat software and just be like, you know, hey, whether they're, you know, a desktop support technician or whether they're, you know, I don't know, a principal engineer. I'll just talk to them, see how their days are going, get an understanding, see if I could help, if I can answer any problems. Because one thing I tell them, like, look. I've done all your jobs before. Like, I've been there. Like, I've done it. And so, you know, I may be, you know, sitting all the way up here, but I still know a thing or two about how to do these things. So please, you know, use me. Right? And I think that's been, especially during this pandemic, really valuable for them. And then a lot of the other things that I think were really important is I focused on putting together kind of like these internal collaboration and communication things. So, like, we did quarantine creations was really cool. So I let everybody kind of come together and show us something that they've done during quarantine that isn't necessarily computer-related. Everybody voted against each other, and, you know, they got, like, Secretlab and Oculus gifts. Right? Which was really cool. We did one for Halloween, and now we're gonna do one around, like, internal gaming teams. And, again, you know, you'll get a Secretlab chair and some cool prize, but community and culture is, I don't care what anybody says, it's definitely some of the most important things that you could do, especially in this role.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:23) Do you drive that initiative yourself, or do you have someone on your team that's, like, really strong in that area?

(Anthony at 00:38:29) So it's me. I drive it, but I take the feedback from all of the, from the group because some of these folks, they have been, I've hired my, the way that I kind of built the team is my whole vision for my directs has always been engineers first, but leaders after. Because I don't want somebody that's just a pure leader. It's just not interesting to me. Right? Because I need folks that could dive down into the weeds and understand the problem space instead of, you know, just kind of delegating to everybody for everything. It's just not interesting to me. I like to have good conversations also. But a lot of them come from so many different walks of life and so many different companies that they have really good opinions on culture, collaboration, communication, and how to build these things. So that's kind of where our pods concept came out of, right, which was lots of thinking, lots of reading, lots of research, and then kind of getting feedback from the team, the business people, and everybody, and kind of designing that system, which was really cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:34) Yeah. I like how you mentioned that the engineer-first is, is that, you know, they have that capacity, that mindset to traverse ideas in a specific way, to look at things, you know, like as if they're schematics almost if they need to. And, yeah, that's a really useful skill. And the first time, because I was raised by an engineer, the first time and then I was on teams, and I just hired engineers. The first time I ran into, like, a purely manager person, I was blown away because it was almost, and this is just one specific individual I'm thinking of, so it's not gonna apply to everybody. But they almost were like, I'm gonna take an optimism that'll all work out route. And I was like, that's great, but we actually have to do the work so that we can take the actions to make sure it does actually work out. We can't just say this is complicated and look the other way. And that was, like, my introduction to, oh, this is a new style of person. Now let's figure out what their strengths are or how I can best communicate with them because my communication style is not working. And then that stretching grew me a lot. Right? Because you gotta get along with everybody.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:43) Yeah.

(Anthony at 00:40:44) Yeah. And look, you're right. And it's really important. And I think for one of the big things for me is that if I can't have an in-depth technical conversation with you or I can't really understand how you approach problems, like analytically or anything in that kind of process, then it's really difficult for me to understand how you could be a technology leader. Right? And I don't knock people leaders. I think they're super important. But when you're in in-depth tech roles, you definitely need to be able to talk to a lot of the problems. Because, like, how do you, how do you translate what the business needs into a raw technical way of kind of what we need to do to actually accomplish it. Right? I think it's important. Although there's value in everybody. Right? And I think it's just really understanding how to, like, learn the person and read the person that's important.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:43) Yeah. And it's awesome. I mean, reading the scenario, knowing what each company needs, knowing what each team needs, it's gonna be specific. That's why, you know, when people ask a lot about team structure, I'm like, whoa. It's heavily dependent on business model for one, and then we can go up from there. But the two-pizza teams and the A teams and the, you know, whatever, however you wanna brand it, the Netflixes and the whatchamacallums of the world, like, uh, it's, you just have to do the work.

(Anthony at 00:42:09) You gotta dive in. You gotta dive in. And, you know, it's like, it's kind of, it's one size does not fit all. Right? There's so many different parts of tech and engineering. And but also, you know, especially when they're an engineer first, they bring a different perspective to problems. Right? You're never gonna have the folks that are just, you know, complacent with saying, oh, it's just always the way we've done it. But, like, I don't like that. If it's always the way we've done it, maybe it's wrong and you need to fix it and address it differently. And then, you know, you have to figure out a way to come up with a solution, but also get people behind you to kind of help you see your vision and build it. Right? It's important.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:49) Yeah. So tell me if I forgot, but we were talking a little bit about how you met the executive team at SS&C. Did we finish that story?

(Anthony at 00:42:59) I'm not sure. But I think, well, you know, as a quick thing on it, we, you know, we met through, they were looking for somebody with a big financial services but also startup background, and we had a mutual friend, Raul and I. And so what had happened is he was like, hey. You know, SS&C, there's this company. I never heard of them. And but, you know, he's a good friend of mine, and he's looking for a CTO to kind of come in and really shape the way technology needs to be at this organization. Right? But, you know, they don't necessarily just want a people manager. They want somebody that has the technical skills and technical abilities. And I said, oh, okay. Cool. Like, I'll go have a conversation with him. It doesn't hurt. And just, you know, Raul is the type of guy that when you meet him, you know, he runs such a big organization and very, very humble and very, very smart, and he kind of knew. And the biggest thing for me why I came over here was Bill and the executive, that executive group was behind change. They knew change needed to happen. And history, I guess.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:06) So where is Raul today?

(Anthony at 00:44:08) He is the COO. He is, he runs the entire business, and, you know, he's still engaged just as much as I.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:19) So what's like, if we were to take your current way that you're spending your time, your current day, and we were to divide it into a pie chart with three sections, what are the top three ways that you're spending your time?

(Anthony at 00:44:33) So I spend my time in so many different ways. So, you know, I think some of the big things for me, I would say, is...

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:42) You think of them like macros. Right?

(Anthony at 00:44:46) Yeah. It's hard. It's hard because...

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:46) It is.

(Anthony at 00:44:46) Because I will say that I traverse through so many domains all day long. Like, it's, you know, I can wake up, right, on any given day, and I'll be focusing on contracts, budgeting, you know, building out new data centers, figuring out all of the things that need to go along with that. We could be dealing with team planning, team structures, team organization, and kind of what we need to do to build out the different products and platforms that we're focusing on, getting status updates from groups, and then also going out and trying to find technologies that would help SS&C grow. Right? If we're, you know, potentially just M&A and buying it. Like, if you see our history, we buy a lot of companies. So I'm spread really wide. So I'll be with customers, and it's crazy. Like, my week to week is very variable. Right? Everything depends. Nothing is consistent.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:51) Yeah. It's like you're a founder. Right? Because...

(Anthony at 00:45:51) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:51) That's one of the things like, I was talking the other day. My wife, she's like, would you ever go work for anybody? And I was like, probably not. I was like, if they gave me a large bucket of cash and they said go do what you wanna do, then I would because I like being, I like getting to do that. Negotiating real estate contracts is actually kinda fun. You know?

(Anthony at 00:46:12) Yes. I love it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:14) Oh, yeah.

(Anthony at 00:46:15) We, I mean, you know, I'm negotiating contracts all the time. And, like, one thing to know is SS&C, with the cool thing, we own data centers. We own our data centers.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:26) Oh, that's great.

(Anthony at 00:46:27) They're 250, and I don't mean they're small. 250,000-square-foot facilities, like big 30-megawatt facilities all over the place. So, like, when I tell you that my days are very all over the place and they're very just busy and crazy, it's the truth. Right? So, you know, you have to run and you have to be able to understand so many different verticals in, whether it's business and technology and how to bridge them correctly.

(Anthony at 00:46:59) It's a lot of fun.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:02) Have you gone down the rabbit hole yet of DNA-based data storage into DNA?

(Anthony at 00:47:08) No. What does that mean?

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:10) Oh, it is the future, my friend. I have been watching this little market, this beautiful, polished little section of the market emerge over the past three years from an MIT project to getting out of MIT, to getting some external funding, to doubling and tripling. The one problem that they have is the speed in which you can read and write data to DNA. But the density is pretty interesting. I think I might be wrong, but I'll send you the video. But I think it's like a football stadium worth of servers can be condensed down to DNA data the size of your hand. Right? So they're using it for long-term storage. The business use case is long-term storage. So these, I learned this whole part of the market, these companies, they have backups on tape. Right? These large tape backups. And then those are only good for so many years because they degrade, and so they have to just recopy them. And so there's this money pit cycling, right, where they're just cycling it. And drives fail after a certain time too, so you're always cycling it. Well, if you had a persistent storage that was long-term that would last hundreds or thousands of years because we can find DNA thousands of years ago. Right? And so that was the concept. And then the barrier to this being usable was the speed at which you could read and write the data into the DNA. And so this spinout, they built all this technology, and then that's what the doubling and tripling I was telling you about. And now they can, you know, they wrote Wikipedia content in a very short period of time to the DNA. And then I just saw a few weeks ago, they got a major Fortune 50 company's CTO to leave that and then go work at their startup to take the product to market. And his entire background history is taking products to market in the Fortune space. And they're called, the company is called, I think it's called Catalog DNA. But they have the videos on their website and stuff too. So if you just scroll around the website, or at least they did a few months ago, they have the understanding of it. But when I saw it, I was like, this is the future.

(Anthony at 00:49:14) That's pretty cool. Yeah. These types of businesses are pretty awesome. Right? You know, there's not many, that's pretty cool. I'm gonna read into it because there's not many things in our generation that are overly awesome. Right? You know, this is cool. Obviously, some of the stuff that SpaceX is doing is really neat. You know, some of the other ones aren't really that interesting. Right? Facebook.

(Joel Beasley at 00:49:42) Yeah. What do you think? To your grandparents, it's interesting.

(Anthony at 00:49:46) Exactly. Yeah. My grandma really loves Amazon. Actually, my son the other day, I didn't even realize it. So Alexa, he just, he now knows what my wife orders him for Christmas. Right? Because he'll go, "Alexa, show me the delivery." He said, "Mommy, what's this toy?" And I was like, oh, boy. We gotta unplug it. Just throw it out. They're smart.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:08) They are. They are. The Alexa stuff. Really cool guy, David Isbitsky. He's one of the evangelist tech leaders over at Alexa. And I've talked to him a couple times. My one of my favorite takeaways from him is you can ask Alexa, "Why did you do that?" and she'll actually tell you. Really? Yeah. It's like one of the utterances that isn't very commonly known.

(Anthony at 00:50:32) I'm gonna do that. Yeah. I'm gonna try that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:35) Yeah. "Why did you do that, Alexa?" She's like, "Because I love you." No.

(Anthony at 00:50:39) And that whole thing, it's funny because, you know, the Zoom thing is new. Right? So we've been doing Zoom birthdays, Zoom this, Zoom that. And we had a Zoom birthday party right in the middle of this pandemic. And I was just like, oh, everybody, it was like 30 or 40 different family members. Everyone, I wanna be quiet for a minute. I just wanna tell everybody something. And then I think I said, like, "Alexa, order me a thousand batteries." And you hear everyone's Alexa going off. "Which batteries for a thousand would you like to order?" It was pretty funny.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:11) I love it.

(Anthony at 00:51:11) Try that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:12) Yeah. I will.

(Anthony at 00:51:15) Piss everybody off.

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:16) That's crazy. So alright. So I wanna get, I've got a couple more leadership things that I was really interested to hear from you because I have these, we do these prep calls, and I come up with these questions. And then for the whole week and then sometimes after I get to know you, right, after we've been talking for a little bit, I'm like, oh, okay. I wanna hear what he thinks about this. Right? So I'm curious, what are you learning right now as a leader?

(Anthony at 00:51:44) From tech or a leadership perspective?

(Joel Beasley at 00:51:47) Leadership perspective.

(Anthony at 00:51:49) Leadership. Especially during this pandemic, I think one of the biggest things that I've been learning is, you know, to make sure that checking in on people is really important because the mental health of individuals, it's something I never thought about. And now knowing that, you know, there's people that are just stuck inside their homes, they're not going anywhere, they don't have anybody around them. Those are the types of people to kind of check in and focus on. Being able to just change somebody's day even the slightest amount is monumental. In kind of, maybe it's small to me, but to them, it's really important and big. And I think, you know, being more personable, getting down, and really letting people know that they could come and talk to me and be there and focus on them, I think is one thing I would say I've learned big time from this. Right? We could talk about all the other, you know, different things like, oh, you know, to be an inspirational leader, blah blah blah, all that crap. But I don't think it's as important as making sure that, you know, you have to realize that you put your pants on or, you know, shoes or whatever it is the same way as every single person. So, you know, nobody's better than anybody else, and you just, you should make sure that people know that you're there. I think that's really important, especially as a leader.

(Joel Beasley at 00:53:17) I love that you say that too because, you know, I was thinking a lot about that. Spending time with somebody, how you mentioned earlier, you reach out and talk to people, and caring builds up trust. It builds relationship, and then it's like a bank account because you can spend that. Right? Like, I noticed, one of the things I was learning recently because we do Slack and we do our morning stand-ups on Zoom, and then we do Slack. And I noticed that there's this currency you build with people, even people that are in your normal everyday life where you can't Slack on, like, sometimes I'll be Slacking or going to type them a message, and I'm like, I don't have enough social currency to be doing this with this person right now. We need to get on a call because it's been five days since I've had a personal call with them. And I know that they're gonna interpret this the wrong way because it's text and it lacks context and everything.

(Anthony at 00:54:08) Yeah. And you know, I hear people like, "Oh, well, you know, I do office hours." I'm like, it's not the same. Just because you sit on a Zoom and you answer a couple questions, it's like, you know, people are struggling. Right? And so that's why I've done, you know, I do those little things, and that's why I reach out. And that's why I do these little competitions for the group because one thing pretty cool now that I'm doing, and it's, you know, I'm just completely on the side, is I'm trying to work with our different vendors and source a handful of PS5s and a handful of new Xboxes. Right? Because that's cool. And if people can find a way to compete for those things internally, like, how many places are handing those things out? Even if I have to go buy them myself, like, I'll go buy them myself just so folks know. Like, hey, we value you. Right? And so I think it's really important.

(Joel Beasley at 00:55:02) And it's one of the best investments you can make too because I always like to look at myself. Right? And because it's the shortest distance of communication. But when I'm on, the quality of work that I'm doing, or when I'm taking care of myself, the quality of work that I'm producing at the rate I produce it is vastly different than if something's not working at home. Because I didn't get sleep three nights in a row, and then I didn't, you know, I left the wrong way or I was in a rush out or something. And then just things that day are not going well at home. That just completely affects your entire life. Right? And it affects your output. And having relationships that are healthy and good at work can definitely help you get back in the zone or just, you know, realize that everything's gonna be okay around some people who care about you. It's just, it's so important.

(Anthony at 00:56:01) It is. You know? And I think also understanding that it should go without saying, but I don't think it does in most cases. But everybody's a human. Everybody has their own problems. You know, nobody's problems are bigger than somebody else's. Right? So, you know, you have no idea what somebody's going through that given day. Right? So as long as you're literally, dude, even dropping a hello or hey, it changes for people, but, you know, especially people in these big roles. You know, you get a CTO that manages thousands of people that just says, "Hey. How's it going?" It's important.

(Joel Beasley at 00:56:42) And it's hard to remember that too because, you know, people will get excited, you know, because we get to have a lot of awesome people on the show. And one of the things that I'm realizing is everybody's just a person. It's like you and I, we get off this, and we go and do the rest of our lives and it doesn't stop. We're just doing our next activities until we come back again next year and have another conversation. But it's just one of those things where you kinda sometimes forget that you are the CTO and you can go, or you are in a leadership position and you can go talk to somebody else and they think that that's kind of a cool thing. And because it's hard because if you were to think about yourself like that all the time, you would be somebody nobody wants to spend time with. Right?

(Anthony at 00:57:32) Yeah. And that's that opens with being humble. Right? That's why, you know, we went from talking about, you know, the macros and the working out, pivoting into leadership and discipline, and then you could pivot back, right, to focusing all that humble. Because you walk in, you know, a gym where you go outside and you run, you know, 150 pounds, 135, whatever it is, that's how much it weighs. It doesn't care if you're a CTO. It doesn't care if you're, you know, Jeff Bezos. It doesn't care about any of that. It's just there. Right? So, again, it's just being humble and understanding that at the end of the day, we're literally all just a billion cells trying to figure it out for a little while. Right? That's it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:58:10) Preach. I love it. No. And that's, to me, that's why I have such a high respect for discipline. So when I see people who have discipline and that's why I like being at the gym, and I like being around those people because it's like we are doing the difficult thing, and it's equal to all humans. It doesn't matter if you're a girl and you're five foot three or if you're a dude and you're six four. The discipline is the discipline and it's hard. And you can see how long they've been doing it too. Like, I've been doing it for a year, but I go to gym and I look how big that person is. They've been doing discipline for ten years.

(Anthony at 00:58:47) Yeah. It's, there's so much motivational things to listen to around it too. And it was funny because, talk about discipline yesterday. So my wife, you know, she's pregnant. So she comes to me because she's like, "Okay, just like, it's time for me to work out." I was like, "Alright." She's like, "Or we could just go to Chick-fil-A and eat Chick-fil-A." And I was like, "Damn."

(Joel Beasley at 00:59:06) Let's just work out.

(Anthony at 00:59:07) And then eat Chick-fil-A, though.

(Joel Beasley at 00:59:09) There you go. It's that compromise. Yeah. But it's important that you don't shut it down and that you kinda play with it and have, oh, maybe, but we should probably do this versus no. Because then they'll just, my wife would just cry and hate me.

(Anthony at 00:59:26) Basically, you gotta cater, man. Gotta do it. Gotta make sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:59:28) Know your audience.

(Anthony at 00:59:29) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you what, though. It definitely pivoted quite a bit after I had kids. Because you, you know, you just, I think that you look at things really different. I think it really happened after I had my daughter because it was just like, you know, what happens if somebody talked to my kid that way? I'd be super pissed off. So, you know, you start to grow some sort of, your compassion definitely grows and your patience grows also.

(Joel Beasley at 01:00:04) Your patience grows tremendously. I have noticed, I mean, trying to get a three-year-old dressed or to eat dinner or something, it's just like, and the most beautiful thing is how raw, I like to compare it against, they're like computers of the 1960s, where the size of a room, you can see the transistors and you can touch everything. Like, it's just so obvious what's happening. And then as they get old, they become these microprocessors and you can't really tell what's going on. You just know they have a microprocessor. But, man, the emotions that come out, the negotiation, everything, it's amazing.

(Anthony at 01:00:40) That's crazy. Right? They don't know what I do. So, you know, and it, you know what? And it's great because it just doesn't matter to them. They're like, "Man, okay. Well, that's cool. I'm still gonna throw this macaroni at you." Like, it's not, I'm like, "Alright. No problem, dude."

(Joel Beasley at 01:00:56) That is one thing that's interesting that I didn't know when I was younger and that I know now is famous people are not famous in their everyday lives. Like, when your name's on the marquee and you're on the stage and you're talking to thousands of people, in that moment, you're experiencing that, but then the event's over and you drive home and you just go to the grocery store. It's just life.

(Anthony at 01:01:22) And you just get in your car and you press the pedal the same way that everybody else does. Right? And that's why you gotta be humble. And I, you know, I've met some people along this way and just in life in general that are not humble, and it's very irritating to sit around and hear people talk about themselves for hours on end. You know, who knows? Who knows what'll happen. Tomorrow's not a problem.

(Joel Beasley at 01:01:49) It's becoming, well, the good thing, and I think you can appreciate it because we both have gotten to see it in our careers, is that became unpopular. It used to be kinda popular to boast and to command and control and all of that. And we've literally seen over the past two decades that go to unpopular.

(Anthony at 01:02:06) Yeah. And what's actually really cool also, right, is that what I've been seeing over this evolution is a lot of the tech talent and the technology people are required in almost any sales conversation. It's no longer just hitting golf balls at the course anymore. Right? Like, people want to make sure that your technical team, your technical chops exist.

(Anthony at 01:02:32) So your high-level engineers and all that stuff, they're in the conversations more. You see what AMD did where they promoted their CTO to the CEO. She's brilliant. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 01:02:42) Who's awesome?

(Anthony at 01:02:44) It's Doctor Lucy. I think it's the CEO of AMD.

(Joel Beasley at 01:02:50) I just talked to Mark Papermaster the other day, who's the CTO. Mark's a cool guy.

(Anthony at 01:02:53) Yeah. Mark's a cool guy. Yeah. So, yeah, she was from AMD.

(Anthony at 01:03:00) I think she was originally their CTO for a while, or CIO or one of those things. And then they promoted her up to CEO, which was really cool to see.

(Joel Beasley at 01:03:14) Nice. Yeah.

(Anthony at 01:03:15) I just think the same thing.

(Joel Beasley at 01:03:17) Just really bright people who care and who have some subject matter expertise in the area.

(Anthony at 01:03:24) Yeah. Which is cool. Dude, I appreciate it, man.

(Joel Beasley at 01:03:27) Thank you. Have a great day, buddy.

(Anthony at 01:03:29) Everybody also, thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 01:03:30) Yeah. Thank you, team. Yes.

(Anthony at 01:03:32) Bye.

(Joel Beasley at 01:03:36) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.