Threads, Talking with Humans, and Chatting with Melkey
You're gonna love our guest coming up. He's got a great interview coming up. Excellent guest. Really top notch. I'm just gonna say that so that can be in there.
Speaker 1:Chris knows what to do with it. I just got back from like a I went outside. I went and saw someone in person.
Speaker 2:I was very confused when you were telling me about that because you were like, someone hit me up and wanted to meet up. And I'm like, Nixa, Missouri, they did that?
Speaker 1:No. It's a friend that okay. So can you believe that I'm old enough to have been failing out of college seventeen years ago? I haven't seen this person in seventeen years.
Speaker 2:That's like a whole adult.
Speaker 1:I still don't think the math works. I know.
Speaker 2:You probably did the math wrong somewhere because that seems impossible.
Speaker 1:No. It's possible. 2,005 or wait. Was that did I do the math wrong? I did the math wrong, didn't I?
Speaker 1:Five, fifteen no. Eighteen years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. That's insane, actually.
Speaker 2:It's 2023. That's when you were a freshman?
Speaker 1:Yeah. In college.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I worked at the Geek Squad at Best Buy and this person worked with me at the Geek Squad. His name is Roger. Hi, Roger. He might listen to our podcast now because he knows we have a podcast. Because of course, when I when I see someone, they're like, how's
Speaker 2:life been?
Speaker 1:I'm like, I have a podcast.
Speaker 2:And then they never ask to hang out again.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. Right. Oh, you have a podcast. Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I actually gotta be somewhere. I had coffee, if you can't tell. There's no amount of substance in the world that could calm me down right now because I have so much caffeine in me.
Speaker 2:Did you like hanging out with a real human being outside of your house?
Speaker 1:It was nice. I mean, was checking threads the whole time. But like Serious. Other than that
Speaker 3:no. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. No. It's really it was nice. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say, well, that's a topic for the day, obviously.
Speaker 1:It really is.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For the day. Maybe not tomorrow,
Speaker 2:but for
Speaker 1:today, at least. Okay. Tell me what you really think. Because your your online persona is like, everything sucks and What? Do you really think?
Speaker 1:Basically.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, hang on. So a little bit of context because people maybe listen to the episode later. Threads came out yesterday, which is a new Mhmm. Twitter clone from I guess, they say it's an Instagram app.
Speaker 2:So from Instagram slash Facebook slash meta
Speaker 1:From Meta?
Speaker 2:From Meta, whatever they call themselves. It's exactly like Twitter except I guess, there's no except. It's it's exactly like Twitter.
Speaker 1:It's exactly like Twitter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I actually wanna hear your thoughts first. I don't wanna go first. Yes.
Speaker 1:So thoughts. One, Twitter's been around a long time. How how is the the Threads app so nice? And it's like, it makes it so obvious how the Twitter UX, even just like the mobile app on iOS, it's just so, like, not nice. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I don't feel good when I use it. So they nailed that part where, like, everything about it just feels more polished. Like, when I hit when I send a tweet or whatever they're called, it just works. I don't have to, like, go to the thing where I'm like, send anyway. Maybe that's my own problem.
Speaker 1:Maybe you can turn that off. I don't know. But, like, all the little animations and, like, you press buttons and they vibrate and everything just feels good. That's my first impression. I don't know if that's enough.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I just posted almost the exact opposite.
Speaker 1:Oh, really?
Speaker 2:Because okay. So I definitely agree from a UX point of view, it's much better. There's like not all this like clutter with you know how if you like open a tweet on Twitter, it's like a full like analytics dashboard below the tweet. It's like views, likes, but Yeah
Speaker 1:yeah yeah. Bookmark. There's so much stuff. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like there's like three rows of stuff there. Mhmm. So there's definitely a lot of clutter on Twitter. But I was using both the app side by side and I actually I expected the threads app to be like super polished and snappy feeling but at least for me, I'm using the iOS. Don't if there's an Android app but use the iOS app.
Speaker 2:Everything was slower, like refreshing for new tweets was slower. Tweets was slower. Even sending a tweet so these aren't I I I'm not gonna say all these are performance issues. I think they're a mix of some things are, like, literally a little bit slower and other things, they're not doing tricks that make it feel faster. Because I've noticed like when you send, when you like create a post on threads, there's actually a little spinner where it's like sending.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's not send immediately. It's yeah. Why did they do that? They could have just made it look like it did.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So on Twitter, when I post it, it looks like it worked right away even though maybe it takes like a long time to send the background. I have no idea. So there's like a a few small things like that where I'm like, actually, I think the Twitter one is faster or like feels snappier. But I think it's hard to tell because like I said, there's two dimensions.
Speaker 2:There's like, the shitty UX of Twitter and then those are the actual like what it actually performs like. I've I think that Twitter I'm surprised. I thought threads would be like super snappy and, like, really show what it look. Because, they have no legacy. It's like an it's a new it's a new app.
Speaker 2:So there's no, like
Speaker 1:I can't believe we have the opposite take here. I really felt like the app feels better. Maybe it's because on Twitter, I have the thing with Twitter Blue or whatever where when you send a tweet, there's a window where you can undo.
Speaker 2:I hate that.
Speaker 1:I hate that. I hate it so much. All the Everyone says you can turn it off. I thought I did, but it still doesn't. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All the
Speaker 2:Twitter Blue features are like negative features that, like, make everything worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So So I I have more thoughts. The UX, I thought felt really nice. I like that like when you're on the feed, can just tap the profile picture and add the person. That's been really great.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes. The UX is fantastic across the board. Yes. The the follow button on the feed is great.
Speaker 1:The my other thought is like, at first, it's like, oh, how is another Twitter clone? Are we ever really gonna all switch? But then it's like when you think about Meta and Instagram having a billion users and you think about Twitter never even getting there and how many bots are on Twitter, it's like, is the audience just so much bigger potentially that it make it makes sense to be there because there's more people to connect with? I don't know. That's my thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it's definitely of of obviously, they have the best shot because, you know, they just have this giant the ability to get, like, you know, millions of people to sign up very easily. Yeah, I don't know. Like I said, I think this one has the best chance of anything and it feels that way, especially I think they did a few early things right. I actually think this whole like invite approach that everyone just takes by default is actually a negative thing for stuff like this.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:Because I think it creates just fake hype and it also like kills momentum at the same time. If you remember like Clubhouse was kinda like that and then like Blue Sky Yep. Also did the same thing. So I feel like actually the whole like mindset around like create exclusivity within I feel like that's kind of like a data thing. I don't think that really makes sense anymore.
Speaker 1:Do they do it for that reason? I don't wanna interrupt you but also, do they do they do it for the hype or do they do it because they can't handle an immediate load?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think I think there's both. But for some things, there's definitely like people do definitely think about the hype. I think that's definitely an an aspect. I mean, the I think the clubhouse one was not for like scales.
Speaker 2:I remember clubhouse is very much like Yeah. You feel bad that you're not in
Speaker 1:here and everyone's hanging out Yeah.
Speaker 2:Having a good time, like the FOMO thing.
Speaker 1:Like like Abercrombie and Fitch or something. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Wait, what?
Speaker 1:Hollister. I don't know. Those clothing companies that like make you feel bad when you go in the store?
Speaker 2:They do?
Speaker 1:You didn't do that in high school? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I remember this school but I don't they make you feel bad when you're
Speaker 1:It's like you feel bad about yourself, like, at all these amazing people in on the pictures and it's like, I wish I were one of those amazing people. You didn't
Speaker 2:feel that way. Definitely I hear what you're talking about. Plus they had like the people saying outside the store that were like
Speaker 1:Yeah. They were jerks. They were literally like trying to be jerks to you. They were trained that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, exactly. It's like that. So so I think they did that right because now it's just like, yes, everyone's in there overnight and it feels it's a very special moment.
Speaker 2:Yep. I actually am wondering and the other thing is it feels and this is a pro and a con. So it it felt and this is what like all the other apps failed at, Blue Sky, whatever, you would go in and a few of the people you know would be there and feel kind of exclusive but it would feel totally dead because there'd be like no activity because, you know, if you only know 20 people there, how much content can they possibly be posting? So the pro on threads is they very intentionally made sure the app felt alive. That's why yesterday, I felt like, oh, they it's all alive, everyone's using it, like, you know, it feels like it's actually gonna go somewhere.
Speaker 2:That's a pro because all other apps feel dead. But the con is they did it by filling your feed with garbage. Like, at least my my feed is all just like really random stuff that I do not wanna see.
Speaker 1:Hey, you're not the only person that said that. I've seen a lot of people say, like, the feed is just it's not the people I'm following. That's not the case for me. Maybe I just follow a lot more people, but all I see is stuff from people I'm following. Interesting.
Speaker 1:Like, it feels like tech Twitter pretty instantly.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Not like when I first opened the app, obviously, it was just, like, random.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I pretty quickly, after I followed, I don't know, twenty, thirty people, I feel like that's mostly what I'm seeing.
Speaker 2:I think for me, it feels like, their algorithm has no idea what to show me, so they're giving me like the stuff that works well on average. And it's just like, it it's it's like a ton of like random celebrity gossip slash like, like Instagram influencer, like thirst traps type stuff. Just like just just stuff that I like never consume. It was actually kind of interesting for me to see because I'm like, oh, this is like what the average person does on social media, the type of stuff they talk about, etcetera. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like constantly refreshing because I'm like looking for like the one out of 10 posts that are from someone that I know if I've Really?
Speaker 1:So bizarre. I feel like we've had complete opposite experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's interesting. So maybe I need to follow more people. That might that might be it.
Speaker 1:Well, now I gotta know how many people you're following. And I just gotta open the threads app because I've hit Threads app like a 100 times in the last twelve hours. Why why is it so like are we all just starving for something else?
Speaker 2:It's just like the first day of school thing, you know. It just feels like
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just like it it just feels good when we're all doing something together. I know you're not a big pop culture person, but I think I always go back to, which I don't think will ever happen again, was when Game of Thrones was airing and literally every single person, every single week was doing the exact same thing and we had this like shared topic Yeah. With literally almost everyone that you we could just talk about. It's like it's like the weather.
Speaker 1:It's like the thing we're all talking about on Twitter right
Speaker 2:now. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:These threads, which is funny. Yeah. It's like this weird moment. Is it just gonna fade though? Like, do you have any like, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Is it even interesting to talk about this anymore? Like, will this one make it? Like, does it matter? Is it just like it may or may not, but who cares?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I have I have no idea. I think they really need to introduce I guess because of my experience, like I'm like really craving a less wide algorithm like Yeah. I actually think that Twitter and people have different experiences with this too, but with the way that I use Twitter, the Twitter for you tab, which is algorithm feed algorithmic feed, works fantastic for me. I like mostly see stuff from people I know and then I see interesting stuff from people adjacent.
Speaker 2:And I think Yep. That's like the level of discovery I want right now. Like, mean, if I just open it right now, yeah, like scrolling down, I have, like, first 20 or so posts before I see, like, someone that I recognize talking about something in my bubble.
Speaker 1:So I have no idea how many people you're following. You don't even see that. I didn't realize it's not visible. I don't see anywhere where it says how many people someone follows. Just how many people follow there.
Speaker 2:I'm following 54.
Speaker 1:How do you know that?
Speaker 2:So if I open it up and go to the following tab, it like says it in really small Following tabs.
Speaker 1:There's a following tab?
Speaker 2:Did you like hit followers and then you can switch it to following?
Speaker 1:Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm following 64.
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's like, don't know. I don't know what it is then.
Speaker 1:Similar. Interesting. Oh, I forgot to say I I hate threads because you have more followers than me. I can't live in a world where you have more social
Speaker 2:influence than
Speaker 1:me. It just hurts me to my core.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I gotta make sure I stay ahead. I gotta I got you on this one.
Speaker 1:I just I just replied to one of your things, like, are people following you? Seriously, why are people following you? Because they love me, Adam. They love me more than they love you. When we start at the same time, there's this is a perfect measure of who is looking If we were starting at the same time, you would blow me out of
Speaker 2:the water.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. You actually have a consistent personality, even if it's being a jerk
Speaker 3:to people.
Speaker 1:Ever since I've established that, it's
Speaker 2:only been good. Like, I feel like it's only been positive because now I can say whatever I want and no one, like, takes it I feel like
Speaker 1:you are living your best life. Like, you've got this freedom I don't feel like I have.
Speaker 2:Definitely recommend it to everyone. Establish early that you're gonna be mean and that no one is surprised or expecting anything more.
Speaker 1:I can't even think of stuff though. I try to, like, think of mean replies just to channel my inner dax. I can't. I just it's not in there. Just give me
Speaker 2:your password for a week.
Speaker 1:Can we do that?
Speaker 2:Just switch and see if people notice.
Speaker 1:Can we please? Can I tweet on yours too?
Speaker 2:That's funny. Yeah. We can just switch and see.
Speaker 1:That would be so fun. Well, not everyone that listens to this is gonna know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But Yeah. That's okay. That's okay.
Speaker 1:That's okay.
Speaker 2:What was I gonna say? I think the maybe the other because I don't know what the algorithm takes into account like, because for me, it's possible it might be looking at my Instagram network, seeing the people that my Instagram network follows and then showing me that stuff because I don't I can't really explain this stuff otherwise, like
Speaker 1:I don't have so it's a brand new Instagram account for me. That's what it is.
Speaker 2:That might be
Speaker 1:I don't have any anything for it to pull from there. So it's just going off who I follow on threads. Yeah. Have like Interesting.
Speaker 2:I have like 50 Instagram people that I follow and they're all just like really old friends from high school. So
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I do actually have a private Instagram account where I've got like a little bit of like family friends connections. And I bet on that one, if I had started with that one, I would have a weird feed right now because it's from like fifteen years ago and I was a very different person.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Maybe I should have started fresh. I just don't like fragmenting stuff but oh, well.
Speaker 1:Why do I feel so guilty, like, mentioning threads on Twitter? I feel like there's this group of people that are like, we're not leaving Twitter and they get so hostile. Like, we can be on both. Can I be on both until I'm not on one?
Speaker 2:Are there people being hostile?
Speaker 1:Not hostile. But just it's it's kinda like the trope of like, okay. Just like you left for Mastodon. I didn't leave for Mastodon. I didn't leave for Mastodon.
Speaker 1:I did try Blue Sky a little bit.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 1:I left after like two days.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And I'm gonna try threads for a little
Speaker 2:bit. Yeah. I mean, the the last thing is, obviously, they have way more momentum than everyone else but they still have the fundamental problem of are the people typically creating the content, are they able to make the shift over? So one, they might not want to because they already have a big audience and wherever they are Yeah. They might not have it in that place.
Speaker 2:Two, even if you want to, living in both worlds is like such a pain because your only options are post the same thing on both which feels like really fake. I don't like, I don't I don't really wanna do that or come up with twice the amount of content
Speaker 1:you
Speaker 2:Yeah. Normally have.
Speaker 1:I'm honestly feeling a little overwhelmed this morning because just speaking specifically to the podcast, a little meta commentary here. Meta. It like, just thinking about posting, like, when we have a new episode, it's like Mhmm. Okay. We should probably we're posting the episodes to YouTube now, and then, like, we should do some shorts off the YouTube video, and then we should do like, we gotta tweet it, and now do we have to thread it?
Speaker 1:And then, like, we should put it on reels, I guess, and TikTok. It literally there's, like, eight places we probably should put stuff so people see it. It's just overwhelming, though. You'd have to have a a full time like, someone doing it full time to stay on top of all
Speaker 2:of it. Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:For more than
Speaker 2:one person. And that's just that's just like posting the same content across both and, like, genuinely make different content. So then it's like, have a good thing I wanna post. Do I post it on Twitter because I want a lot of people to see it or do I like invest it into threads because I'm trying to like do something there? It just sucks Yeah.
Speaker 2:To be split in this way. So I feel like unless it feels like a lot of creators are able to figure that out and move over and grow on threads, I don't really see it switching over. Because ultimately, all social networks are the same, like 99% of the content comes from a small percent of people. And that's the people you have to win over and that's there's like no no one's really it's like really hard to do that. Very difficult.
Speaker 1:So that's threads.
Speaker 2:Next topic.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about something else. Yeah. Anything else, please.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 1:wonder here's one thing. As I just got out of this coffee with Roger. It was a good time. And I realized halfway through that it devolved into a therapy session where he was giving me therapy. Why do I do that with every single person?
Speaker 1:What is wrong with me?
Speaker 2:Well, like, what were you telling him about?
Speaker 1:That's the thing. I always like, no matter who I'm talking to, haven't spoken to you in seventeen years, or I talk to you every day like you, I devolve into the same topics, which is like, life is hard. My it's hard to have a family in 2023. What is there a reason I keep jumping to that?
Speaker 2:I don't I don't know. I think it's like I don't know. It's probably easy to talk about because it's like the most relevant thing in your life.
Speaker 1:Okay. It's just easy. I'm just socially I think I'm socially anxious.
Speaker 2:Talk about the weather.
Speaker 3:Do you
Speaker 1:feel like you're do you feel like you're socially anxious? Talk about the weather. Do you feel like like when you talk with people that you don't talk with a lot, do you feel kinda like anxious inside? And you immediately jump to stuff you shouldn't probably talk about?
Speaker 2:That's not my reaction to it. But yes, I'm like fundamentally, I'm an introvert even though I've like trained myself to like Same. Get better at not being, like not letting that limit me in a bunch of ways. Yep. But in my core, I'm always gonna feel and everyone feels uncomfortable but I feel like I feel more uncomfortable than than the average person.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I definitely feel that.
Speaker 1:But I genuinely love, like I love interacting with people.
Speaker 2:Me too.
Speaker 1:I just it drains me and I do feel like I just wanna be in my like office alone Yeah.
Speaker 2:For a while. It takes me a while before I really feel natural with someone. Like, a couple like, have to hang out with them a bunch of times before I, like, can start to really be myself. Otherwise, I feel like I'm, like, thinking about everything too much.
Speaker 1:How you're coming off and what you're saying. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's like, I mean, I feel like my brain just goes blank. I feel like I don't know what to say and like I'm not as quick as I normally am and it just yeah, it just it just feels a little different. Here's a funny story though. So I read this book, I mean, we've all read it, think, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Speaker 2:Obviously, one of the classics. Have you read it?
Speaker 1:I've got it in my Audible, I've never listened
Speaker 2:to Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like
Speaker 2:a classic, it's like everyone's listened to listen to it. The the summary of it is it's basically just a bunch of stuff you probably already know but what's interesting about the book is, the author has very specific examples of people doing certain things and what crazy outcomes, came out of doing very simple things. So like, they just talk about how you how to interact with people and how to like make everyone feel good when you when, you know, they have an interaction with you. And it's really basic stuff like, like, really pay attention to what they're saying, like, ask them questions about things, like, the different ways to relate to people. So I read this book, so it was very top of mind and I was like, okay, whenever I go out, I'm gonna, like, try to keep this in mind, like, practice it.
Speaker 2:And the the weekend
Speaker 3:the
Speaker 2:the weekend that I was reading the book, Liz's sister this is before me and Liz were dating. She came to town for Liz's birthday. So we did, a birthday dinner. So I hung out with Liz's sister for the first time and like we were spending a lot of time together, throughout the night. And I was just using I was like every I was hitting every single bullet point in the book and I was like, wow, like, okay, this is this is working and I and I can do all this.
Speaker 2:You know, it's a funny thing for me. This is working. Yeah. And then and then, you know, I went home and I like didn't take much of it. And then next week, Liz messaged me and goes, she's like, wow, Dax, like, Mary and her sister's name, Mary.
Speaker 2:And she's like, Mary and like, really liked you. She like really she had like such great things to say. Like, she like she like went out of her way to tell me that, you know, she had a really great time hanging out with me and I was like, okay, I have to have something to have something to confess. So then I told her like, just used all these tricks on her and Marion actually just found it really funny.
Speaker 1:Like, it
Speaker 2:wasn't it was like a funny situation. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that stuff works and it is health wise. It's it's one of
Speaker 1:those things that they're all
Speaker 2:obvious but are easy to forget. So sometimes I like refresh my memory on on the things in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Have you used any of them on me?
Speaker 2:No. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:I I
Speaker 2:think to some degree some of that has been embedded in my head but if you like, if you literally read it, like the next week of your life is just gonna be like, especially good socially. It's like a mat it's like a trick because you just have all this stuff fresh in your head. But then like, know, you forget about it over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For a minute there, I started just like imagine imagining like our entire relationship is a lie and that you just like made me like you somehow by using a bunch of mind tricks. That was a fun little rabbit hole my brain went down like, did Dax just sucker me into being his friend?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, it's not yeah. I guess they are tricks. It's funny though in the the Liz and Marion situation because, they're very close. And Liz always says like, yeah, if Marion didn't have a good impression of you, like, I don't think he would have ever like me and Liz would have ever, like, gotten together.
Speaker 2:That would Oh, like, per her opinion.
Speaker 1:So that was big stakes.
Speaker 2:Very influential. Yeah. I know. Thank God for that book. Whoo.
Speaker 1:God, you're married now because of it. I know. Yeah. Wow. I'm gonna listen to One
Speaker 2:of my 10 books.
Speaker 1:I'm already married. But one of your one of your 10 books. Oh, that that reminds me. Liz is Liz is coming on next week. And that's a a good segue to say, like, hey, if you listen to this podcast and you would like us to have somebody on, We would love your ideas.
Speaker 1:We're soliciting guest ideas. I don't know if we are. We probably already have a lot of ideas. I just thought we could ask the audience who they'd like to hear from.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm the
Speaker 1:Also, if you're listening, you should give us a a review. I hear that's important. Would you please review the the podcast? No. I've never really asked for that.
Speaker 1:And I feel like 30 some in, you know, we should probably ask.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Please do that.
Speaker 2:Please review it. Unless it's gonna be a bad review. If it's gonna be a bad review
Speaker 1:Yeah. We don't want your bad feedback. Yeah. Yeah. We already we already know all the bad things about it, so don't tell us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and everyone else does too, so you don't need to inform them either. Right. We
Speaker 1:have some Maybe that's why we don't have any reviews. Sorry.
Speaker 2:We have a few people scheduled. So, Liz is I'm gonna I'm gonna do a thing with Liz, I think, on Monday. I talked to the Linear co founder and he's How are down to come on. I'm really excited about that one because I like incessantly talk about Linear all the time. It's like the foundation of the way I think about all software right now.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:I'm always like mentioning them on Twitter and I I wonder if they find it annoying. But yeah, I'm excited to have him on and talk about one, the history of the company because it's gonna be because like they built yet another project management tool. So I kinda wanna know like Yeah. They picked the least unique idea ever but they just focused on execution. So I wanna hear about that and two, I wanna hear about like the type of stuff they care about in terms of building a web app because my whole thing and we talked about this a bunch where I feel the stuff that us as a tech community care about overall is kinda irrelevant.
Speaker 2:And hearing from someone that's executed on a really good product and like what they actually care about Yeah. I think we just don't hear from that as much. I'm excited for that one.
Speaker 1:So I feel like Linear is like the gold standard in the community. Everyone just knows it's like this amazing app that was executed so perfectly. But I feel like as a founder, is he kinda low key on purpose? I didn't know who the Linear founder was.
Speaker 2:The whole company is super low key. Like, you don't Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know anybody that works at Linear. Yeah. I mean, they're probably pretty small, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. They are very I'm they're definitely a unicorn valuation, I think. Yeah. I mean, my whole explanation is they're just like way too successful to give a shit about anything else.
Speaker 1:I love that. Someday I wanna be so successful. I don't care about anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's that's my theme. But yeah, they're very low key. But I would love for them to be a little less low key because yeah. Anything they say should have a lot of influence.
Speaker 1:They know how to build apps. I think I should get to interview Liz. I think that should be a thing. You're not gonna be objecting.
Speaker 2:I was asking Liz, like, would it be funny I just would go by what's funnier. Would be funnier if I did it or would it funnier if Adam did it?
Speaker 1:I'm just teasing. But did she say me?
Speaker 2:You're so needy. You have your own wife, go be needy with her.
Speaker 1:I am very needy with my wife.
Speaker 2:I don't know. We'll we'll talk about it because I think it yeah. Maybe we can even do one of each. But she had a it's funny, I don't know if you saw I don't know if you saw me say this yesterday. She said, oh, yeah, I listened to that podcast where you and Adam talked about being a founder and what it's like.
Speaker 2:It was good, but you guys didn't talk about anything important. Nice. I was like, well, okay. You wanna come on, then you can you can talk about the stuff that really matters.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Have you ever been in a stage in your career where you hate when everyone's on vacation? Like, all your teammates, like, you're just so excited about work every day that when people start, like, ducking out for the summer, you're just, like, frustrated because you just wanna be doing stuff with them. Have ever had that? I definitely had that
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:In some early status
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Because like, my work is a big part of my social life. So when it slows down like around the holidays,
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, there Yeah, holidays, same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I used to hate hate, the, like
Speaker 3:the
Speaker 2:December Christmas New Year holiday because Mhmm. Everyone would just be gone. I don't have a big family so it's not like I was doing like a bunch of family things for weeks. And I would just be like by myself for like two or three weeks. And then Yeah.
Speaker 1:Everyone will create Isolating.
Speaker 2:My work friends and my like normal friends, like everyone would just be gone away. Yep. And, that sucked. But now, I get to hang out with Liz's family who's like very stimulating, so I don't mind anymore. But there's a period of time where I was like, I hate it.
Speaker 2:I hate vacation time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How do you I mean, SST is just three people. Mhmm. How do you guys do like time off? Like, do you guys make each other take time off?
Speaker 1:Do you take off normal amounts of time? Less? More?
Speaker 2:No. We're super toxic. So nobody takes off. We have our Sunday meetings. Like, we we're like the worst people in
Speaker 1:Oh, the Sunday meetings.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Very we're trying
Speaker 3:to have the
Speaker 2:most toxic work culture possible.
Speaker 1:Well, at least it's just the three of you. You're not like putting that on other people.
Speaker 2:How second people be I wanna force people into our toxic work culture. Oh. I mean, that's Okay.
Speaker 1:When people
Speaker 2:talk about this stuff, that's how I feel. They're they're like, you can like force people into like feeling bad and so I think it was what do we do? So I mean, everyone's gonna kind of different situations like, Frank has two kids. So he's, he works a lot and he's always juggling his kids stuff. So they don't like really take a lot of time off off because it's just like a lot with to like, you know, take your kids for and they're they're very small.
Speaker 2:So they're not really at that stage of taking vacations. Jay will do trips but he it's kind of funny because like, I'll have no idea he's somewhere else. And then I'll randomly have a meeting or we'll have a good call and he'll have a different background and he'll be like, oh, yeah, I've been in Mexico City for the past week. And just like, it has no impact.
Speaker 1:I'll get one Some of of those nomads? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't do I get nothing done if I'm not in my office.
Speaker 1:I only work in
Speaker 2:my desk.
Speaker 1:Like travel and work. Yeah. I always take a laptop and I'm like, I'm gonna get something done. No. I just can't.
Speaker 2:No. Yeah. It's impossible. It's like I only get work done
Speaker 1:at my
Speaker 2:desk and I've been that way for so long and I'm not gonna change that. I don't care. I don't care what people say. I don't care about that nomad thing. I don't get working in coffee shops.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make any sense. Like, why do
Speaker 1:you wanna work somewhere
Speaker 2:where you're more cramped and you have a work setup? Not for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Not for me. And I I've seen this circulating a little bit on Twitter, like, that everybody buys MacBooks and docks them most of the time. That is kinda dumb. Like Mac Minis, Mac Studio, they're super powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1:You don't have to deal with all the people will say, oh, but you can just take the laptop if you need to. But like, again, I get nothing done.
Speaker 2:I think people just like the optionality. They're like, but what if I wanna go whatever even if 99% of the time they don't take advantage of it? But yeah, you know, just commit to something. Commit to working at your desk.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And commit to getting nothing done off your desk.
Speaker 1:I don't think enough people like invest in their their like home work setup or just like offices. I feel like I've gone really over the top with my office. But, like, I feel like there's a happy medium between people that, like, work on their bed with a laptop and, like I don't know. We all make pretty good money in tech. Not all.
Speaker 1:Okay. That was that was not true. People in The US make a lot of money in tech. So I feel like since spending, like, point 5% of that on a home office that you really like to be in, I love having a space. And so we've got the room next door is my wife's office.
Speaker 1:We're making it kind of we did mine and now we're doing hers. Just having a space in your house, it's kinda like your little sanctuary. It's nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I know. It's really important and you can like build it up over time. I've never felt bad about investing in that stuff because literally all my money physically comes out of the space.
Speaker 1:So Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Feels like a good investment. I hate using like ROI. Feels like there's a good ROI on investing in my office.
Speaker 2:No, like, yeah, people like have like shitty chairs they sit on and it's like it's you spend so much time there. It's, like, if you break it down by the number of hours, it's, like, it's, like, pennies that you're spending on it. But, yeah, and just build up over time. Like, my setup has been built up over over over so many so many years and it's super nice now. Everything just feels like a downgrade if I work anywhere else.
Speaker 1:Okay. You're gonna love our guests coming up. Excellent guest. Really top notch. Okay.
Speaker 1:So we got Melky coming on. But before Melky comes on, I do wish I was anonymous. I wish I had gone the Primogen route and like or the Melky route and just used a pseudonym. Do you wish that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:Feels like it's too late, but is it not? Maybe it's not
Speaker 2:too No, it's too late.
Speaker 1:Okay. It's too late.
Speaker 2:It's too late. I thought about this too and I kinda wish I did that. I like initially started to but when I first joined SST but it felt really I just felt kinda awkward that I was, like, anonymous but, like like, talking about a company. I think it makes it like, in hindsight now, like, actually wouldn't have been weird but we I think we're just kinda overthinking it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's, I guess it is a little different for you with SST, like but I I just I see these people who are, like, completely anonymous, like, don't even have pictures of them. Like, who's that AJ guy that made that card app? It's like this very mysterious figure that nobody knows who he is.
Speaker 2:The card app?
Speaker 1:He, like, has this whole it's like a whole, like, indie hacker kinda, but it's pretty successful, think. Like, it's a website builder. And he's, like, hired people. It's, like, grown enough that but he's completely anonymous. Nobody knows who he is.
Speaker 2:That's kinda nice.
Speaker 1:In Twitter, he's just AJ, and it's, like, some, like, cartoon avatar thing. I'm jealous. Yeah. And then do you ever think about, like, just making a second social presence that's completely anonymous and no
Speaker 2:one would know it was you?
Speaker 1:You know what mean? Like, you could completely well, they'd know from you because there'd be all these, like, derogatory underscore tweets. They'd be like, that's Dax for sure. Nobody else is such a joke. Sorry.
Speaker 1:I keep hammering home if that's, like, your online persona. But you kinda invite
Speaker 2:Like, keep keep keep keep doing it. I wanna really
Speaker 1:establish feed you.
Speaker 2:It just feeds I don't want anyone else getting in on it. You know, I wanna, like, I want it to be very clearly my zone.
Speaker 1:I can't think of anybody else that's as, like, abrasive as you on Twitter. Can you? I can't think of anybody. I think you got it to yourself.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1:So when we trade when we do the trade thing where you take over my Twitter and I take over yours, just don't get just don't say anything that's gonna get me in real big trouble. Okay? I feel like we need to lay some ground rules here. You could like do some things that would be damaging to me.
Speaker 2:I'm not participating with those ground rules.
Speaker 1:It's gotta be completely open for any I'm
Speaker 2:gonna get you a 100% canceled.
Speaker 1:Oh, you will.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be so easy.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. Anybody could get anybody canceled if they had control their social accounts. Like, it would not take very long. Like, two tweets max.
Speaker 2:No. But it's gotta be believable.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's the second tweet is this is not a joke. Like, just, like, say whatever and then is is Melky still coming?
Speaker 3:I think
Speaker 1:Melky's coming. The anonymous Melky.
Speaker 2:He's updating Chrome.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Riverside, you have to use Chrome. A that's a funny that's like how you have to you have to deploy, what, ACM certs and USC Swan or whatever. It's like weird arbitrary restrictions. The whole thing.
Speaker 1:Or CloudFront what is it? CloudFront SSL certs? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Everything that's a global service is control plane is in US East 1. So you have to deploy it Yeah. In US East 1. Man, the cross region stuff is really really causing some nightmares for me.
Speaker 1:Oh, do do tell while we wait on the mysterious Malki.
Speaker 2:It's just it's a it's a tweet that I posted the other day. Regions is a great idea because it gives you control over isolation. Like you have very strong control over what runs in what region and it's good. That's like how you get reliability. If you have seven two regions, you know that there's very little dependency between the two.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I hate that all the IAC tooling to like spin stuff up in the correct way like CloudFormation CDK, whatever. Those also follow region restrictions. Like CloudFormation can only spin up stuff in its own region. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense to me because like that should represent your app and all of your infrastructure, which might go across one or many other regions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Which is how Terraform works. Like, whenever I bring up this topic, people are always like, that's impossible. Like, that wouldn't but this is just how Terraform works. Terraform lets you coordinate stuff across many regions, millions of companies.
Speaker 2:I don't know how what what their number is, like, at massive scale is being used and it's completely fine.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And like in the AWS version, you have always weird hacks where if you're deploying something in US East 2 and you need an ACM certificate, they like spin up a temporary Lambda to then like spin it up in the other region and they like pretend like it's in the same region. It's just like it's such a mess. Yep. And, yeah. It it it is not great.
Speaker 2:And with that fascinating topic
Speaker 1:With that. We went from the dumbest, driest topic ever to Milky's here.
Speaker 2:Taking a break taking a break from posting on threads?
Speaker 3:Yeah, dude. I went off last night. I was like I was posting every thirty seconds. I didn't I had no filter. I had no filter.
Speaker 3:I'm like, yo, nobody's here yet. Like, might as well try to It
Speaker 2:was get a great because, yeah, I was telling Adam earlier, like my feed was just complete straight garbage. What's your feed like? Is it is it garbage or is it good?
Speaker 3:No, it's garbage. It's frustrated. Like I see trash a lot. I'm like, bro, I hate this guy enough on Twitter. Like I talked to this man enough.
Speaker 3:I don't wanna see him on the new platform, you know? So I'm just like, I'm trying to avoid him. And it's just like a bunch celebrities Did and
Speaker 1:you have an existing Instagram account, Melky? Were you on Instagram before this?
Speaker 3:I have a personal account, but I do not tie any personal stuff to Melky. What you guys were talking about earlier, like the separation between, yeah, I have I have a personal account and I was like, there is not a chance in hell I'm gonna let any of these people know anything about my life.
Speaker 1:So I'm just making a separate one. So your name is not Melky. I just learned this today.
Speaker 3:Yeah. My so my name is Alex.
Speaker 1:Oh, you don't have to tell mocks. Hey. Woah. Are you okay with that being out there?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because I mean, have
Speaker 3:a lot
Speaker 1:of listeners. Like, a lot
Speaker 3:of what I'm just kidding. That's fun.
Speaker 2:You're not good. Alex Mox.
Speaker 1:I can't believe your name is not Melokey. That's blowing my mind.
Speaker 3:I think my name is dope. Oh, love it. That's cool.
Speaker 2:Short names.
Speaker 1:You're so, okay, you're the second person that's come on with that exact background. Did you steal that from Tiege?
Speaker 3:Did I steal it from Tiege? No. I think he stole it from me, man. I was
Speaker 1:so Tiege, for context, Tiege used a picture of Melky's background. Like, he's on a green screen. So he came on the podcast with a Melky background.
Speaker 3:Yeah. He did the same thing when he was on a I think it was, like, another podcast, and he just keeps using my background. And I'm like, bro, like, the Oh, I love this so much.
Speaker 1:And he
Speaker 3:doesn't even tell I literally had to see like, I just see the, like, podcast released. I just see Teej using my bashboard. I'm like Dude,
Speaker 2:he's about to steal your identity. Maybe you shouldn't give him he just needed your name. That was the last step. He's got everything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah. He got he got the aesthetics and everything, so
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, the pour over.
Speaker 1:Look at that, Kim X. I even know these things. The thing with the Instagram
Speaker 2:link is, is funny because now, I can go look at people's Instagrams and it's just funny as hell because I feel like the I think in Instagram, you like curate a vibe because you're always just posting like the best pictures. So you have like I think people have like a cooler vibe than what they actually are. But I know these idiots from Twitter. So then when I look at them on Instagram, this juxtaposition is so funny because like, all their friends think they're, like, super cool, but I know what they really like is their real self comes out on Twitter.
Speaker 3:Dude, it's so funny. I see so many people who didn't wanna go the route of, like, restarting a new Instagram account, and so their names are, like, the ultimate hype man. But, But like like, on Twitter, he's like that tech dude one seven seven. And I'm
Speaker 1:just like, bro. So like, there's too much
Speaker 3:of a cross pollination occurring.
Speaker 2:I know. It's like people's identities from ten years ago are showing up again. It's like the thing they were into back then.
Speaker 3:Dude, like even Theo, like his his Instagram is like fully skateboard.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's
Speaker 3:like faking Bigfoot. And then on Twitter, it's all like Theo. So I'm just like, okay. This is gonna be interesting.
Speaker 2:Knowing him, I know the the lack of it matching up is is frustrating. Oh, driving hell out of him. So I'm like wondering. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering what his plan is there. Let's move on to your address and like where do you work and Yeah.
Speaker 3:Social should I repeat my social insurance number too for
Speaker 1:you guys? Social insurance. What is that?
Speaker 2:Is that some Canadian shit?
Speaker 1:My bad.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 1:What's the I
Speaker 2:thought you were in America. We just had July 4, man. Come on.
Speaker 1:Wait. Are you actually from Canada? Yeah. I'm from I'm
Speaker 3:a two time immigrant, bro.
Speaker 1:Oh, you you've moved to The US? You live in The US now?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Immigrate to Canada, and then I immigrate to United States Of America, baby. Where
Speaker 1:did you migrate from or where you went to Canada from where? Russia. Russia? Like you born in Russia?
Speaker 3:Hell, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. How long did you live there?
Speaker 3:For like four or five years.
Speaker 1:Do you remember anything about Russia? Is it like cold? Lot of vodka at a four four year or five years? Cold.
Speaker 3:Yeah. All of that. I'm my parents are still very, very like, I grew up in a very Russian household. Extremely. Like, my parents are, like, don't like, know, they didn't really adapt too much to the Canadian.
Speaker 3:Westernized society, I suppose. But we've been here for a long time. But yeah, do I remember Russia itself? Sometimes. It's been a minute since I visited first year university, so I haven't been there much.
Speaker 3:But culturally, I grew up very, very Russian.
Speaker 1:And then how old were you when you moved from Canada to The US?
Speaker 3:This was last year too. So I just
Speaker 1:Oh, really? Wow. Wait. Do you live I I don't want you don't have to, tell us exactly, but you live in California, like Twitch stuff?
Speaker 3:No. I live in Seattle. I moved so I yeah. I grew up in Toronto, then I went to Vancouver. And then from Vancouver, I went to Seattle because there's, like, a three hour drive.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's close. Yeah. Gonna be pretty seamless. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Oh, you grew up in Toronto. The like, the other two founders of SSE, they're in Toronto right now.
Speaker 3:Oh, awesome. Yeah. Toronto's beautiful. I I love Toronto. The food there is absolutely beautiful and, like, the people are great.
Speaker 3:It's cold as hell, but
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's awesome.
Speaker 2:Is it even that cold? Because whenever I would because when when I was in New York, whenever I would check the weather, it was like two degrees different from New York.
Speaker 3:No. It gets cold, man. Like, Toronto def yeah. Toronto definitely gets really cold. Like, the winters are I mean, last like, last two years haven't been that cold.
Speaker 3:Global warming may feel like Hell yeah.
Speaker 1:Pollution or something.
Speaker 2:Gonna be a paradise in a couple years.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Dude, we're gonna get those beaches up. But yeah. No. I remember, like, I went to school a little bit north, like, universally, like, a little bit north of Toronto.
Speaker 3:And, like, we get, like don't I know what it is in American units, but negative 40 degrees Celsius, which is very cold. I think it's still negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit, actually. Think it's Can somebody
Speaker 1:can somebody calculate that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think it's actually the same.
Speaker 1:It's the
Speaker 3:same Fahrenheit. Oh, really?
Speaker 1:It's the
Speaker 3:same Fahrenheit.
Speaker 1:Woah. Yep. How's that work?
Speaker 2:I don't wanna think about it. It's too complicated.
Speaker 1:That's so crazy.
Speaker 2:Haven't done math like that in, like, fifteen years.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We're programmers. We don't do math. We don't need that.
Speaker 1:Have we mentioned that Melky works at Twitch? I feel like we we should mention that Melky works at Twitch.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He's got a wrench. He always got the wrench in chat. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:This is before, like, I met any of you two, like, Adam, but, like so I started streaming way before I worked at Twitch, and I was just, like, some random dude just streaming that Prime like. That was essentially, like, the story. Like, Prime just liked me, and he kept raiding me, and, that was it. And then somehow I got a job at Twitch. So it was such a cool thing that I just became this random like bro making like shitty apps to actually getting the ranch.
Speaker 3:And everyone's like, how? Like, I remember the memes that came out of it. It's like, Yo, if Melty can get a job at Twitch, damn.
Speaker 2:You always a software engineer?
Speaker 3:No, I'm a self So I went to school for mechanical engineering and I hated it. It paid marbles and crumbs from a cracker. And I was like, nah, this can't be it, dude. I remember one discussion I had and it was like, I was talking to this dude, I was doing a co op in a mechanical engineering company. And he's like, Oh, if you work really hard in ten years, you'll be making 100.
Speaker 3:And I'm there 19 years old and I'm like, In ten years, only be making 100? I'm like, there's no way. Like, I can't that I can't do that. And I was saying, like, that's, you know, that's a great amount of money, but I just wanted to be a little bit more aggressive to hit that goal, I think. And last year, last semester, I just stopped.
Speaker 3:Like, I just graduated, and then I didn't do anything. And I just programmed. I just learned. I went straight to machine learning because I didn't have enough time to get into a proper backend or front end job because I had to pay off my student loans. Had to pay rent.
Speaker 3:I had to move quick. So I was like, what's the hottest field right now? That was machine learning. So before I could even write a class, like object oriented programming, knew how create a neural network. And I just went deep into, that's all I did.
Speaker 1:I just went deep into that
Speaker 3:and that was it. That's how I got where I am today.
Speaker 2:You went straight to Twitch?
Speaker 3:I went straight to a startup that hired me as their lead ML engineer. And I was like, this is such a bad idea. I was like, guys, this is like, are you sure? I was so open in the interview. I was like, I just graduated, No work experience.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna be kind of making it up as I go. And I was no, we like that. You bring this element to the game. And I was like, okay. Okay.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that startup got acquired. So then I moved to Twitch.
Speaker 2:They didn't get acquired by Twitch, did they?
Speaker 3:No. No. They got acquired by, like, a company older than the printing press.
Speaker 2:Is it IBM? Woah.
Speaker 3:I swear to God. I swear to God. That's not even I'm not even memeing, bro. Like, they they were known for some shit they did with the printing press. That's so random.
Speaker 3:I know. The company's older than Canada, and that was like a sign
Speaker 2:that So I'm getting at did you do the whole Fang interview thing? Like, you interview at Twitch or do interview at Amazon? How does that work?
Speaker 3:So I got hired at Twitch at the 2021. And at that time it was still very like Twitch esque. So I went through like a Twitch loop, but it was like, it's pretty much like a diff It's like a derivative of the Amazon loop. You know? They may not be as strict on certain things, and they may allow, like, you know, maybe not as strict on, like, tech stuff.
Speaker 3:And, like, if your personality shines, they'll hire you. Nowadays, though, it's it's way more influence on the Amazon loop. Like, it's it's pretty much a one to one to what an Amazon interview would look like.
Speaker 1:The leadership principles and
Speaker 3:Yes. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 3:We play co op, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:What is your what is your day to day look
Speaker 1:like at Twitch? Like, what are you you're an ML guy, right? You're data something?
Speaker 3:No, so my title at Twitch is ML infrastructure engineer. And I'm a tech lead for my team, which is called the personalization team. And what we try to do is use, we try to create services on Twitch using ML that personalize a person's experience. So obviously it's like recommendations, like things that you see, and also a branch of that that just kind of dropped in our lap was like fraud. So everything to do with fraud, we battle it.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of like, we try to personalize the experience and we do a lot of fraud prevention stuff. And so me particularly, my bread and butter is like creating new services and putting them out there. Like, I'm not really like, once a service gets made, I kind of roll off and I let someone else maintain it. And like, I kind of like facilitate the maintenance of it, I suppose. But my specialty is like, okay, we have this idea.
Speaker 3:So I created like the TDD, the design document, and then I implement it. So I get like a team.
Speaker 1:Oh, man.
Speaker 3:I get some people to, you know, execute kind of my architecture. And then I kind of just, you know, launch on production. And I do that, like, so every quarter it's like one big project and we keep kind of going.
Speaker 1:That is my dream job. I wanna just start stuff and not have to finish it.
Speaker 2:You literally have my job
Speaker 1:right now. Life. I I mean, kind of. Yeah. But I don't get paid to do that.
Speaker 1:Do whatever you want, bro. But, like, I don't get like, I would love to just be able to be, like, starting new things that that live on, not, like, new things that just die and then I wasted my time.
Speaker 3:The coolest service we I own, and I use that term very loosely because, like, it like, now it's under my my control and I it is my service, but it's called it's the but you know when someone gives you guys gifts, and it's like let's say someone gives you, like, 20 gifts
Speaker 2:Hang on.
Speaker 3:Or like
Speaker 1:Dax, has anyone ever given you a a gift? Do you know what that is on Twitch?
Speaker 3:I hope not. No one gives
Speaker 2:you on my leaderboard, Adam. You've given me 37 gifts right there. I forgot. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Adam, we're gonna stop. Continue.
Speaker 3:I was so mad when I saw all you guys give back subs. I was like, trying to stop that. Was like, yo. Stop. Stop giving to
Speaker 2:me. People are just going harder every time you said that. So
Speaker 3:I dude, I don't learn my lesson. I do the same with trash. I'm like, guys, stop giving trash subs and people keep doing it. I just leave them like, this is this always backfires. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's upsetting. Especially when it's trash, it's upsetting.
Speaker 3:It's so upsetting. But yeah. So whenever there's like a large amount of gifts, anything over 10 or five like 20, whatever, it's always like who gets those gifts? And it's pretty easy to think like, Oh, it'll just be people in chat or whatever. But really the purpose of the gifting system is to actually get a gift.
Speaker 3:And then we want that person to convert to being a sub themselves. So it's not all about hitting it to the person who's talked the most in your chat that day, or the person who's come up and said something funny. It's like, we try to actually use ML to determine who are the best candidates to be con to convert themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Most of them don't, just in my experience.
Speaker 2:You're doing a terrible job, Belky.
Speaker 1:Keep keep working on it because it's goddamn. Do you guys like build all your
Speaker 2:own stuff or do you like leverage all the Amazon services and things like that for ML?
Speaker 3:No. Don't we don't do any Amazon. Like, the only stuff we we use Amazon is like, obviously, there's a there's a suite called Amazon Builder Tools, which is like their internal tooling for their pipeline systems and their internal compiler and all that stuff. But in terms of their ML stuff now, we don't do anything like that. We just kind of build our own stuff in house and use existing systems and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Do they like want you guys to integrate deeper or do they not care?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they do. They do. They definitely want Amazon influence, especially do you remember that big do you get were you guys there when we got that big leak, the Twitch leak? Like all of our source code
Speaker 1:What? No. The source code?
Speaker 3:We didn't hear about that?
Speaker 1:Did I hear about this? I don't think so. Source code?
Speaker 3:Okay. So this yeah. So all of Twitch source code leaked at the 2021. All of it. Like there was a massive, massive leak.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. It was bad. It was it was it was really bad. So every code, every commit was out on GitHub and like it was a whole scramble to like get it out of it.
Speaker 3:You can imagine, right? But ever since then, there's been a more, you know, a change in thought by leadership that we want to get more Amazon tech to avoid anything like that in the future.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Why does that avoid it in the future?
Speaker 2:Because Amazon stuff is more locked down?
Speaker 3:Yeah. More locked down. There's a little bit more provision. There's a little bit more steps to, you know, get things in production.
Speaker 1:It's just Definitely a lot of more steps. Like, do you use, like, CodeCommit? Like, the actual, like, git replacement or GitHub replacement? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, man.
Speaker 1:So if it leaked on there, no one would know because nobody goes to to CodeCommit.
Speaker 2:This is a
Speaker 1:Like, this is
Speaker 2:the reason I oh, look at that.
Speaker 3:Old is
Speaker 1:this? How old he now?
Speaker 2:11. This
Speaker 1:is the new What's junior Mike the dog's name? Do you actually know this dog?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's a dachshund.
Speaker 1:You just act like you have a relationship. Like, how oh, how old does this dog's
Speaker 2:It's titled Prince of Darkness, but I forgot the first part of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's Honeydew Prince of Darkness Mox.
Speaker 2:Honeydew Prince of Darkness.
Speaker 1:You're really good at naming things. Melky
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Honeydew Prince of Darkness.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I want to go Honeydew Prince of Dark Darkness Mohamed mocks, but Wow. That wasn't. I got lucky with the prince of darkness. I didn't wanna push my leg.
Speaker 2:They approved it. They approved the prince of darkness.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's on his insurance too. It's literally like his legal name is prince of Darkness. All his legal dog
Speaker 1:can Wow.
Speaker 2:That's funny. That's amazing. My dog has like a legal passport. It's it's funny though.
Speaker 1:Dogs can get passports?
Speaker 2:There's like a canine passport. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They have to have it to travel?
Speaker 2:I I think I've told you about this before, but I'm gonna say it again. So he was born in Serbia and I knew that. They, they brought him over here when when he was a puppy. But, European airlines don't fly Dobermans. So it's like, it's just a Oh, you have told me this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The racist racist European airlines.
Speaker 3:I didn't know your dog is from Serbia.
Speaker 2:Where is? He's like kinda Russian.
Speaker 1:Is that close to Russia?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Nearby.
Speaker 1:I know that because of Goldeneye double o seven. Like, isn't that like something's in Serbia? No. It's Siberia. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Continue.
Speaker 2:Alright, it's on the other side. So they, he has a passport but it's like a fake passport, because it has a different breed name and it has a Manchester Terrier, which is when they're puppies, Dobermans I'm sorry?
Speaker 3:She should be leaking this information, imagine.
Speaker 2:The the the the cops will come to my house and take Zuko.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Like, hey. We heard, can you check his passport for a second? Because I'm pretty sure there's a fucking doldrum right here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it says Manchester Terrier. And and as puppies, they look the same. But Manchester Terriers are like 30 pound dogs as adults. But as puppies, they look exactly the same.
Speaker 2:So he's got like a fake he's got a Serbian passport with like doctored breed information on there. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like one of those pictures that's like six four in like little league. Like, let's see that person 13. Yeah. I'm 13. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The breed's like a
Speaker 3:little poodle, then Zuko shows up with a giant Doberman. Dad's like, yeah, what's up? Is there a problem? It's like
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, we were we
Speaker 2:were talking about that, because me and Liz are like always toying with the idea of getting a second dog. And we can't get another Doberman because it would just be ridiculous, like two giant dogs in her house and like on her bed and all Two Doberman. Yeah. But we wanna get a dog that kinda looks like a Doberman. So we're thinking about we're talking about getting a dachshund potentially because they got the thing
Speaker 3:They're the best. Dachshunds are the best. Because tidy. That dynamic seems a cartoon. Like, it started like a Disney movie or something.
Speaker 3:Like, a big a big Doberman and a little, like, dachshund, but I highly recommend. They're stubborn, man.
Speaker 2:Tell me more about dachshunds. What's their personality like? I don't know anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm a huge dachshund fan. My favorite animal is the long haired dachshund. Like this guy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So look at I think dachshund, told you, like my my family dog, the one I grew up with was he was an 18 year old long haired dachshund who who passed away in October. But 18 years old, like this guy was like the man, you know, the alpha of the alpha. But their personality, like, they're super stubborn. They eat a lot. They can be they can be dicks, man.
Speaker 3:Like, I want that. They can be like they can be dicks
Speaker 1:for sure. I mean, little dogs in general. Little dogs are kind of more high strung. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They are. But, dude, I don't know. They're they're an incredible companion and, like, they'll always have your back. Like, this morning, me and Honeydew fought the fought the vacuum cleaner, and he was right there with me.
Speaker 3:The whole time, he wasn't be like, me and him, it was like, me and him are doing this, and we we defeated the vacuum box.
Speaker 2:Dude, those little dogs yeah. Whenever there's, a big dog and little in the same house, the little dog's always the one that's in charge. So if we get a small one, we know that Zuko's gonna be Oh, yeah. Number two, not number one.
Speaker 3:Dude, you make Zuko look so hard with the vest, the chain, like, picture you take of him. I think of this guy as, like, a mafia, like, boss, just, like, smoking cigars and shit. That's the
Speaker 2:whole purpose we have him. We need to make sure that people just think he's scary as fuck and no one, like, messes with their house. So it's all it's all fake. It's all fake. It's a persona.
Speaker 2:He's not.
Speaker 1:The grass is fake.
Speaker 2:The dog is fake.
Speaker 1:It's all Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's, he's he's starting to get a little bit more turning a little bit more into a guard dog, like, kind of like watching around and like barking at people outside and things like that. But he's like so gentle and like, I don't even if someone attacked me, to be honest, I don't know if he would really do anything. I think he would like be overwhelmed emotionally. I don't know if he's like gonna kick in and do anything. But on on pictures, like, yeah, we gotta scare people away.
Speaker 3:Do you think you could take him on, a one v one?
Speaker 2:I can take, like, wrestle him.
Speaker 3:Just, like, yeah, one v one.
Speaker 2:You guys
Speaker 3:are, like, locked into, like, a UFC ring.
Speaker 2:I mean, we wrestle a lot. We we wrestle a lot. And when he starts to get really amped up, yeah, it's, like, it's, like, too much. He's got he's got so many sharp points. He's got his, like, teeth and his, like, claws are super sharp.
Speaker 2:He's got, like, little dewclaw thing on the side. That shit, like, comes in out of nowhere and then and makes I got, like, scratches all over my body from wrestling him, so, definitely could not take him.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I have again, Honeydew is, you know, comparable to Zuko.
Speaker 1:It's similar size.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Similar look look look at this guy. But, yeah, he he he bites and I have, like, bite marks all over my arm, just scratched up everywhere. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:The So cocky teeth are so sharp.
Speaker 3:They are. They are. And this guy just loves biting. He's he only has two moods. It's a cuddle, which is this one, or biting.
Speaker 3:There's nothing in between.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So go have that phase too. But, yeah, he's like he's like kinda becoming an adult now. He's like pretty chill and just hanging out most of the time.
Speaker 1:You should get a kid. I mean, you should have a kid. We
Speaker 2:we have He's got a kid right there on his lap and mine is looking in one accident.
Speaker 1:Saying, like, I used to have a dog and we have all the pictures. Like, we dressed them up, the whole thing. You're very into your dog. But then you have a kid and you don't think about dogs anymore. I'm not saying your dogs aren't important.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying you should try having a and also you just said they were expensive. You should have a kid. You'll you'll learn.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna have a kid after Dax has a kid. That's like the the age lineage thing. So, like like, yes, you it, and then I'm like, I'm next. There's all of you guys have them, you know, like trash, prime, Adam, you guys all have kids already.
Speaker 2:There definitely is an order and I do feel like I'm next. I'm definitely I
Speaker 1:mean, the ages match up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm I'm like
Speaker 1:You're 30.
Speaker 2:I'm in that group of, like, they're called the old man group. I'm like in that group, I don't have kids. So I'm definitely next. And then one day Mhmm. These guys.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm picturing like all of the people on Twitter like having children. Like imagine like Theo having children. I'm just like, what the hell is that gonna be like?
Speaker 3:I hope I'm not still on it when that happens. I hope I'm like I've retired from from the game at that point, you know? No, dude.
Speaker 1:I wanna
Speaker 2:I wanna see I wanna see a world where we're all just talking about our kids and and it's just like I just can't imagine at all.
Speaker 3:Making contact content, our kids are just like
Speaker 2:Are your kids already like
Speaker 1:that, Adam? They don't no. They don't know what I do. I mean, they don't have any idea. My my son, my eight year old has been coming in the office and doing his homework, like his schoolwork.
Speaker 1:He we're homeschooling him. So he, like, sets in the corner and does his little workbook. And he's just now at eight started asking questions like, what exactly is it that I'm doing in here? He really likes my office. It's a fun place to be, but, like, he's never really put thought into, like, I'm actually working in here.
Speaker 1:So no, not not to the point where he has any idea that I, like, turn on a camera and talk to people.
Speaker 3:We're talking about, like, the kids knowing what you should do. Like, do you have friends or, like, your close friends? Not like your obviously, like your Twitter community, whatever. Obviously, they know what you guys do, but do you actually, like, friends' friends know that you guys are, content creators on, like, Twitch or Twitter, YouTube, whatever?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean, they definitely must come across some of this stuff. I don't really know what they make of it. I think a lot them find it funny because it's, obviously, when you know someone, like, you've known them forever and, like, suddenly they have, like, this different thing that they're doing. It's definitely funny.
Speaker 2:My so my close close friends, a lot of them are engineers so they're like in our circle. So, they obviously know and and they get it. But the transition has been funny for everyone, I think, to witness.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've got I mean, like, my closest friends, I've thought maybe had like two friends. Like not like I'm not looking for was badass.
Speaker 2:And we're
Speaker 3:here with you. It's me and Daxter. We're here.
Speaker 1:No. Like, friends that aren't in tech. The closest ones definitely know what I do. I don't know if they, like, consume any of it. They probably don't.
Speaker 1:But, like, my neighbors, like, the people around me physically, because even my friends aren't really here, they have no idea what I do. Like, I would never try to explain. Like, I try and explain that I'm a programmer. Like, I write software, but I would never say like and then I do it on Twitch and I show other people that I write something like that's just never happened.
Speaker 2:The funniest for me is still Liz's friends. When they come over and they like walk by my office and they're like, what the fuck? What is all that shit in there? They do not understand at all. Even like my normal job, being like a software engineer, that I think they get that vaguely.
Speaker 2:But then this stuff, it just doesn't, it's just like, it is they don't even comprehend it as a thing. It just seems super weird to I'm super
Speaker 1:super embarrassed every time, like, the cleaners are here and they clean in my office. And I just know they're thinking they never say anything, but I just know what they're thinking. Like
Speaker 3:That's so embarrassing when your private cleaners come to clean.
Speaker 1:I just mean, like, a lot of people have their house cleaned. That's not, like,
Speaker 2:too uppity, Use is plural. Use a plural. So for me
Speaker 1:Well, because different people work at the company.
Speaker 2:Cleaner that comes. Like, I have a cleaning lady that comes.
Speaker 1:One person is cleaning, but they that's a rotation. Different people Okay. Know?
Speaker 2:I pictured when you say cleaners, I immediately pictured, like, a van with a bunch of people in all white, like, with all
Speaker 1:this deer that come out,
Speaker 2:you know, like just
Speaker 3:dusting everyone. I picked the yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised you don't have that, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Does that exist? Because it sounds kinda nice. I mean, if
Speaker 2:To be honest, if you lived in, like, a real place and not in Ozarks, and Ozarks is real place, you probably could go in even crazier. I feel like there's
Speaker 1:I wouldn't be able to afford it. Like, if I lived in a real place, my senior tech money salary would not cover any of this. It's just I live in a very cheap place, so I have a nice house. You know? That's that's the the trick.
Speaker 1:Just gotta live in the Midwest.
Speaker 2:I think you are definitely bottlenecked by like, you definitely have desires that you're bottlenecked by because I know you want this this private chef concept and you just can't find someone.
Speaker 1:I would love that. Yeah. Can't find yeah. It's hard. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is tough. We're we're limited here. And I don't know. I've got people to do my lawn. I've got people that water my plants, and I've got people to clean my house.
Speaker 1:I've been able to find those people. Nice. But if anybody knows a private chef in the Ozarks, I would love a recommendation because that's the one area. We spend so much of our life. Maybe when you have kids, maybe that's the thing.
Speaker 1:When you have kids, half your life is just preparing, eating, and cleaning up food. That's like basically your whole life. So if we could just automate that, that's the last frontier.
Speaker 2:Just give them Soylent.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. It's so funny because you actually did the Soylent thing. So I love
Speaker 2:now knowing that. Soylent thing.
Speaker 1:You did the Soylent. You told me it fell out of your backpack. What was it doing
Speaker 3:in there?
Speaker 2:I I had it around because sometimes I would have for breakfast, and sometimes I'll be in between meals and be hungry. Soy yeah. I wasn't, like, replacing all my meals with soy lint. Okay?
Speaker 1:Melky, do you even know what soy lint is? Is that,
Speaker 3:like No.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Doesn't even know. Melky Melky was 13.
Speaker 1:We're, like, old millennials. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know what that is. I I just eat meat, man.
Speaker 2:That's I love your pictures. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was like you're like Ken Wheeler in training is with the the meat pictures.
Speaker 3:I I've said this before. Ken Wheeler is, like, my final evolution. Like, I I can already see what I'm going to be. So
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, it looks great.
Speaker 1:Soylent was, can you explain it, actually? You're a consumer of Soylent.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just like a protein drink, but it was marketed in this, like, very, like, tech bro way where it was, like, it's made from genetically modified algae and the bottle was, like, completely white and all minimal and it was, like, a bunch of, like, tech people were just, like, drinking it for every single meal and, like, shitting, like, a brick of poop. It it wasn't good.
Speaker 1:You don't have to waste time thinking about nutrition anymore. Don't waste any more seconds of your life.
Speaker 2:People that are so busy and so focused on programming, they can't make decisions like
Speaker 1:You can't make fun of it, Dax. You consumed it. You've you fell for it.
Speaker 2:I didn't fall for it. Goddamn it. I regret telling you that story. I regret telling you the story. Story I told you was I fell I was on my electric longboard.
Speaker 2:Okay. Check number one.
Speaker 3:Dude, okay. This is great. Thank you.
Speaker 1:It's a really good story.
Speaker 2:I was in New York and I was riding everywhere. I hit a pothole and, I fell and I was also wearing a backpack, check number two. Herschel And then my By the way, Herschel backpack exactly because this this was 2,015.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 2:My backpack opened and my MacBook flew out and two bottles of toilet flew out and this fucking like macho construction guy saw and, like, he helped me up and, like, he, like, bandaged me. I just felt, like, such a loser. Oh. This could be a scene in Silicon Valley, like, a
Speaker 3:He's like, going you up. He's like, I got you.
Speaker 2:Uh-uh. Not good.
Speaker 1:Milky, thank you so much for coming. This was so good. I think it's really good to just have people in chat that just pop in. This is fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thank you guys for just being so open to it.
Speaker 1:We were struggling. I'll be honest.
Speaker 2:We were
Speaker 1:not having we had nothing
Speaker 2:to talk about. Ben didn't really wanna talk to each other today, so
Speaker 1:Yeah. We just kinda don't like it. Yeah. Talk too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We literally talk just on this like like four three or four hours every week.
Speaker 1:I guess it is just here. Yeah. We don't, like, do calls that we don't record.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm happy about it. It's just kidding. Sometimes it's hard to come what's up talk about?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm more happy about it. I'm the most happy about our relationship. So
Speaker 3:You guys have a dope podcast. I'm glad to be a part of it for a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Is awesome. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Milky, Whose name isn't Milky, that we won't say the name of again. Milky.
Speaker 3:Just Milky.
Speaker 1:We're gonna end
Speaker 3:it. Alright.
Speaker 1:See you. It's been good. See you, Dax.
Speaker 3:Alright. Do do I, like what do I just leave? Like, is
Speaker 1:this Yeah. I think that's this is the part we haven't nailed yet. We haven't nailed the landing. We're not so good at exiting. We just kinda say bye.
Speaker 3:Bye.
