Episode transcript

Ryan Burgess
Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to a new episode of Front End Happy Hour podcast. It is now 2022. And we are moving into our six year of recording episodes, which is actually really exciting. It'll be end of February I think was when we first launched six years ago. So that's kind of cool. But in today's episode, we thought we'd start the new year off by discussing some of the changes that happened in 2021. For us personally, technology, the engineering community, we're just going to reflect a little bit I think it will help us as we dive into 2022, which I still struggle seeing. So maybe this whole work my way into that. Let's give introductions of today's panelists surely want to start off.

Shirley Wu
Hello, I'm back. Thanks for having me back. Hi, I'm Shirley. I'm currently a grad student, and I have no idea what I'm doing

Ryan Burgess
Fair enough.

Stacy London
Stacy, Stacy London. I'm a senior front end engineer on Trello, Jem Young

Jem Young
engineering manager at Netflix.

Ryan Burgess
And I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a software engineering manager at Netflix. In each episode, the front end happier podcast, we like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. What did we decide? Today's keyword is

Stacy London
2022 2022.

Ryan Burgess
Wow. Cheers. All right, well, let's start off. I figured people over the years, six years now have listened to us talk a lot. And I thought like why not reflecting at the start of just some of the things that changed, which a lot has changed even for us all in our personal lives, careers. Let's start there in your careers and personal lives. What changed in 2021

Shirley Wu
I can start I decided to stop freelancing move to New York from San Francisco and go back to grad school. Probably the biggest change I've done in a while and I think there really is because of the pandemic that I was like, the first little break where it seemed like we could safely move about the country again, because like Alex, we're out of here. Yeah, you saw

Ryan Burgess
that window and you're like, we're out. We're no more.

Shirley Wu
I mean, it was much easier to convince him to because he's like wanting to stay in one place for a while and then but I think being cooped up at home with the pandemic I think like I really needed something new and he was finally like okay with something new that was that's probably my biggest change you know,

Ryan Burgess
fairly small but not you know, just kidding

Stacy London
I can't follow that you did like all the big life things in one year

Ryan Burgess
surely the only thing you did do is get a dog or have a kid you didn't you did the movie change like career you did like all the things but you didn't get a dog or

Shirley Wu
the only thing that we we were like there's no way we're having to

Stacy London
Yeah, I can't quite have that I switched jobs to Trello but that wasn't in 2021 That was like November 2020. So like tail end of 2020. So I feel like I was like settling into my new my new role and starting to work on some really complex and awesome stuff. And I had a lot of fun this year working on stuff for Trello really enjoyed the kinds of things that I was getting to work on which is like very fun front end type things other than that, we've got a puppy in June so we little Winston, a little Boston Terrier and we've been all of our time has been consumed with puppy things training and making sure he doesn't destroy everything and turning him from East he slowly turning into an actual dog from a land shark so it's he's starting to become very cute. That took up almost all my time pretty much everything outside of work was was was that so worth it stressful.

Ryan Burgess
benefit to write being at home all the time is like that's the great time with a puppy is like spending all that time with them.

Stacy London
Totally. I have no idea how people do that with when they work at a job outside of their home and trying to raise a puppy or kid for that matter. All those things. I don't understand how people do it.

Ryan Burgess
Firstly, kid you can't leave them either. Yeah, hoppy. It's tough to leave, but you can like you can be like alright, I'm gonna head out for an hour don't destroy the place.

Stacy London
Throw a minute. Throw that baby in a crate. It's fine.

Jem Young
Pick it up puppies. I was at the park the other day as I do now as a parent, you know, look around parks. And this is like one of the most bare things I've seen so far. I was I was looking and my partner's like, is that a puppy? And I'm like, Yeah, but I look closer. They're pushing and UPPAbaby, which is a very expensive bassinet for babies meant for newborns and they're pushing this puppy and probably like this $800 Baby bassinet in the park. And I was like, yeah, that's buried man.

Ryan Burgess
I hope that it was just like, you know, they're reusing it from they had a kid but that's probably not your dad. No kid in sight, did they? Gem?

Jem Young
No, there's there's no children inside. pushing their puppy around in a baby stroller, which is fine. Hey, I'm not here to judge you. I just question your use of money. If that if the, if the dog cares, your $800 bassinet. You know, each they're gonna roll in

Ryan Burgess
style. So Jen, that's your change was you saw babies in baby strollers?

Jem Young
I mean, that's not the first time. That's definitely the most expensive one I've seen so far. But definitely not the first time the barrier. So you know, people love their dogs here. That's okay. And I'm excited to see Winston by the way. So yeah, you all need to meet today not seen any pictures up?

Ryan Burgess
Oh, you know, you should get Instagram. I see lots of Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna win. So cute.

Jem Young
In the year 2022. This is not the year I joined in six years, two years.

Shirley Wu
I was gonna say in the barrier. I'm sure that dog is still cheaper than having a baby. As you both probably can attest.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, kids aren't cheap. That's true. I mean, for me, that was an addition to pandemic, baby, my wife and I had the baby girl. It's been awesome. But you know, keeping keeping busy. Thank you. What else similar to Stacey. I mean, I officially started my new role right at the start of January and 2021. I think I accepted the role right at the end of the year, moved into the new role. So I've been leading two teams in our productivity engineering space at Netflix, which has been awesome. Not as much front end work as of late. I mean, I do have some UI engineers on the team, which is great. I am still close enough to it. But it's a lot more on the platform side. So that's been a unique change. I recently right at the end of the year bought a new house in San Francisco. So moving and dealing with all that fun stuff. Yeah, it's it's been a busy year, but just to say the least. So Ryan, you

Shirley Wu
did all of the things the Get on your job. Yeah, you roll. Have a baby move.

Ryan Burgess
No pets, no pets, that that was I did not add a pet. And I didn't move like cities or anything. Like I feel like a lot of people are moving from, you know, like yourself Surely all the way like one coast to the next or they're moving to the Midwest, or like there's some big move that's happening. Mine was a three minute, maybe five minute drive. I don't even know if it's a five minute drive from my last house. So it wasn't hard.

Shirley Wu
But the big thing is like you still have to like go through all of your things. And pack. Yeah, unless you decided to just like, take everything shipped. Oh, you probably started packing, I

Ryan Burgess
still went through it. Virgin is great. Like forcing factor moving is awesome. As is much the hate packing and moving. It's good to kind of go through your shit and go like, I don't need this anymore. And maybe I should donate this. Maybe we should get rid of it. That's it's nice. Minimize your stuff. It does feel good. Do you

Shirley Wu
feel like this was something similar? And like, okay, so this is a question coming from someone that has not really been keeping up with all of the like, front end changes for the past year and a half. But do you feel like that's something that's happening in like, in tech in, in the kind of in the friend sphere of like, keeping there is a lot of changes a lot of like, kind of purging old things and then like getting in new things, or is it like, I'm just trying to ask, like, what have I missed,

Stacy London
joked earlier that it's all hype, and you've missed nothing?

Ryan Burgess
I think that's, you know, in some ways, Stacy's not wrong. Like, I feel like, you know, the pandemic has made a lot of changes happen, like it really really, truly has. I mean, we just highlighted some of our own changes in our lives. And I think people are looking for that change, I think surely you highlighted it really well, is that you were needing a change of scenery. And so people are doing that on the tech side. It absolutely is changing. But I don't think that it's changing faster or and like, I don't think there's any difference there. I'm sure there's people want to disagree with me out there. Go for it. But I feel like the front end community has constantly changed throughout the many years that it's been around. I don't think it's slowed down. But I don't think it's sped up drastically either. Sure. If you haven't paid attention for the last year, things have changed. Like there's new frameworks, there's, you know, web three, there's NFT world like there's many, many things that are going on and constantly being talked about. But I don't think it's any more rapid change than I would say like three years ago. Anyone disagree with that

Shirley Wu
new framework.

Ryan Burgess
I feel like the one I keep hearing about is spelt,

Stacy London
or remix run. We know that.

Ryan Burgess
I mean, that was, has been around while but I feel like Sorry, that is good clarification. I feel like it's just picking up steam. You know, in the past, like the last little while I feel like I'm just it's coming out of nowhere. I had heard about it for a long time, but now I'm seeing it more and more. Twitter just keeps telling me more about it.

Jem Young
So my theory on that is front of development still the same, like nothing's changed. I don't know, if people are more productive. I think the tooling has gotten more complicated. And it may feel like you're more productive, but I'm not sure like we're building at a faster pace than we were before. Granted, there are some really, really cool platforms and services like what's the good one, like next gen.

Stacy London
Deployment? Yeah,

Jem Young
that's exactly what oh, yeah, yeah. Next. And verse. Hell, like their whole? I don't know, philosophy is not surprising when you know, saying Rosh Terumo. Yeah, I fear who runs for sell, but really talented group of people over there and stuff. They're doing this fire turbo repo. Like you can get a website up and running so fast. Netlify was another Natla. Phi

Ryan Burgess
is one I think that is a pick like a few episodes ago. I love it. Like, it's just so impressive how quick and easy it is a

Jem Young
bit. Yeah, they just they released a tool like I want to say November where it's just like, you can take HTML, CSS and JavaScript, drop it into a folder and then drop it, drag and drop onto it. And then the websites built for you know, just like, that's cool that that is productivity there if you're making a lot of websites. But as far as running tooling goes, I don't know. But for me what 2021 was, and what we're feeling is the rise of the developer advocate, we never, we've never really got into that show. Because like, it's a really touchy topic for people who are either in it or peripheral to it. But what it is, is like it's a blend of engineering and marketing at the same time. So it feels like front ends moving faster. It's not really it's just because there's more people talking about it, because they're paid to talk about it. So it just feels like there's a lot more frameworks when they kind of always existed. It's more like that roll is brand new, because you know, engineers and marketing are like, have all the heads so like, this is the middle ground. I guess

Shirley Wu
I thought Deborah was hot. They're like the devil position. I thought how to peak like 2017 2018 or so.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I was even gonna say like, surely I was gonna put your like this 2017 to 2019 was like that, like the heart of it. But I mean, I think I've seen more I do think that there's like more. I've seen more jobs popping up reached out for or even on Twitter, people being like, Oh, I joined this team is doing that, or I guess maybe it's just continually growing. I think

Jem Young
it's for smaller companies who would have previously scoffed at like, why do we need developer relations? Now have that position and maybe a few of them open? And these are like small you know? 500 person companies versus deverill Historically, it's only been like very very large companies. So I don't know if you're feeling anxiety I think that's it. It's just there's more people shouting into the front end world not necessarily we're moving any more than we have been before.

Shirley Wu
I was gonna say trying to keep up with front end development like not development as in coding but like development as in like, what's new to me has always felt like a game of FOMO

Ryan Burgess
it's stuff it's always like you feel like you're behind right like you're you're working on the technology that was the latest and greatest but that was yesterday and then today it's something different you know, we've talked about that a lot too in like burnout episodes and things to where it's just you can't get too caught up in it but you want to you want to pay attention a little bit then bounce out of it you keep a pulse but it's not like if you're in it every single day it's it's exhausting.

Stacy London
Yeah, turn off Twitter. that'll that'll take you down down the rabbit hole of feeling like you're not keeping up thing remix run or remix Ryan Florence and Michael Jackson that's another new one that came out I think I think they like released this year. And that one seems to be getting a lot of people are talking about that a lot too.

Ryan Burgess
I've seen a lot of steam from that recently like definitely see see that it's a great call out

Stacy London
I actually don't know a ton about it. I haven't dug into it yet I from what a very like peripheral understanding of it is it trying to it might be kind of like like the next js for sell world like trying to make both the back end and front end of the client and the server make that a bit easier to like have those things work together more more seamlessly so yeah, more than more than say like oh you just have you know react which is this your you know view layer and while he still needs something to build out API's on a server you need data from somewhere like it's I think it's trying to like bridge a bit more than just just a front end framework. But someone someone listening can definitely correct me because there's I definitely don't know enough about

Ryan Burgess
it. Well, don't worry Stacy.

Shirley Wu
For me personally, like trying to keep up with the updates I'm a really slow learner it takes so long to understand how like something is working and how something is like working, how to use something and how something is working under the hood, and understanding well enough to like use it well, that if there's like the early adopter curve, and there's like the, you know, like the mass adoption curve, I'm like squarely in the late adopters. I wait until like, people have hyped it enough. But there's like a solid community behind it. And only then do I like, look into it. Because I'm like, if I'm going to put in the like, months of learning to, like, get familiar with something like I don't want it to get like, you know, go away in a few weeks. And so that's why I've always been really bad at keeping up with like the cutting edge, sort of like, just all of the things that are coming out. And I think that's always worked pretty well for me. And then this past year, the 2021, the first time I was like, oh, maybe that's not actually a good way to think about it. Like maybe it is good to like be listening to what are what like the early adopters are adopting was when is going on, and I like dismissed it also, because I was like, this seems like a fad. And I'm not sure how long it's gonna go for. And then it just kept on going. Now, I still don't know what to think about it. And I still don't know if it's worth looking into. Or, like one day, I'm like, there's all of the environmental things. Like, there's all of the, they're just like a lot of the bad and, and then the next day, I'm like, please do so. Like it's doing such great things for like the artists not even like the big artists, but like, all of the little like, the small indie artists and like it's giving them for the first time, a way to be a full time artist. And so just keep seeing like, both sides. And it's like, you know, eight months later, I'm still or nine months later, I'm still here being like, I don't know what to think of it.

Ryan Burgess
So I think we can save to say 2021 was the year of NFT. I think that's the same point. Like I feel like that's all was being talked about, or you know, shared similar to you surely, it's just like, it's hard to form an opinion on it. Like it's, you know, how much information do you go down? There's definitely some positives there. There's some negatives? I don't know, Stacy jam, what do you think of it?

Stacy London
I don't know enough about it. I think that's I feel like I need to spend some sort of significant time really, truly digging in, because like, I see disgust on Twitter constantly, because I follow a lot of people who are either vehemently like against it or or for it, and it's beneficial to them. And so I'm like watching both sides go back and forth on it. And I don't know that Twitter's necessarily a good place to watch that kind of debate, because that's not long one

Shirley Wu
that's not you know, like a tennis thoughtful long.

Jem Young
Twitter's not a good place. For discourse.

Stacy London
Yeah. Oh, like surely said, I think there's some artists who found it to be very freeing and liberating and helping them sustain themselves. That's cool. There's the other side of like, environmental consumption, you know, power and energy consumption being very terrible. There's others that say that there's an answer for that and doing things a different way. And I don't know, I just don't know what to think about it. Yeah, still forming, forming an opinion. I think it's a divisive topic. It seems like everyone wants to jump into a particular camp. I definitely don't, I don't need to like, listen and sit, sit back and listen for a while, I think I

Shirley Wu
guess I'll add to my previous statement of like, some days and like, all the environmental things, but also I feel like from my very, like, small, small, like investigation and research into it. Like the two things that I have come away with, like, listening to people talk about it and reading people talk about it is like it just kind of sounds like an MLM, just like, that's the first what is that you just need to get in a multi level marketing. Basically, just slammed up in some of the crypto. Like, it just feels like we just need to get in before it's like too late to get in. And then the other thing is like the whole thing, the way that like my husband and I have like summarized it is it's basically taking power from the people that were doing finance and like, it's like shifting power from people with money from finance, and shifting that power to and it's like, basically, how I view crypto not necessarily NF T's for crypto and the whole like web three and decentralization and all of that still the same sort of people profiting just moving from one industry to another, that's

Ryan Burgess
probably a fair statement.

Jem Young
That's my stance on NF T's. Honestly, I'm kind of the same. I haven't read too deeply into it, like just cursory stuff. But I'm like, I'm not 100% against them, or I'm definitely not for them. But I'm not 100% against them either. I think there are valid use cases, but there's just so many bad and icky things that I get from it, just like all of my years of experience, tell me like, this seems like a not that good thing. And the people that are promoting it are people that have like, there's a reason they're promoting it, not because they believe in it, but because there's money on the line. But at the end of the day, it's the same people getting rich, like I know, it's like, oh, it's for the people, blah, blah, blah, big corporations are gonna come up and they're gonna take it over. And then it's going to be as centralized as the web. It's just like, even worse than it was before. Because it's like, so fine grained control now. Yeah, I want to support the principle I do. I'm not a fan of Google and Amazon and everybody having all this power. And like, the web is like, more smaller and smaller every day. But I'm not sure there's the right way. And if there is the right way, like why is there so much money in like tangled up in this? Anyways, my I won't go into a long rant on NF T's. We'll save that for another episode. But we should do a whole, like web 3.0. I'm putting that in quotes. Yeah. But the end of the day, like, I don't know, it doesn't matter if I believe it or not what like that's the whole base of our financial system is like it matters if majority of people believe just like, why is the dollar worth so much money? Because we believe the government will pay that debt eventually. Do we have the 20 trillion or whatever, we recommend debt? No, that amount of money doesn't exist physically. But it's the belief in the system that keeps it going. So it's kind of like that's, I feel the FTS, if people believe, and that's it, then it will be a thing regardless of my opinion. So I don't know I'm trying to be more pragmatic in 2022, if you can't tell less.

Shirley Wu
Cheers. Cheers, Gem forcing the 2020 tears and cheers.

Ryan Burgess
You know, I think a lot of people to think that everything's so much more secure, like whether it be crypto or NF Ts, but like, I feel like constantly just hear of these, like massive security breaches happening for crypto or for NF T's. And so I think that's another thing, too, that's like, just makes me a little skeptical. It's like, because it's so early on is yeah, there's gonna be a ton of vulnerabilities because the technology is so new. And, you know, everyone's figuring this out all at once. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that are making a lot of money. But there's also a lot of people losing money, too. And so I think that's also something that just, I think I sit with all of you in the sense that I'm not like for gains, but it's just like, trying to be open minded, but also maybe a little bit hesitant to be like, all my money is going into NF Ts, you will not hear me say that.

Jem Young
Life Saving. I view it as like communism, in theory, communism is a good idea. And I know people are like, ah, outrage, but like, if you look at the actual political theory of like, everything is controlled, everybody's equal. We all have the same size house, we all drive like roughly the same car, we all have the same education, more or less. That's generally a good thing. Like I am disturbed by the growing gap between the rich and the poor in America, and like so on on the top end of that, like I don't, it doesn't make me happy to see like people and it's like such poverty in the wealthiest country in the world. So like, yeah, communism theory is a good, it's good in theory, but we've seen what happens in real life is powers for the people. And then like a few people like, hey, you know, we can corner this and then but we'll still say it's for the people. And like, that's what I see right now having an FPS and web 3.0 is like, yeah, it's open, decentralized. What do you buy your NF T's open C, which is like the main hub for buying NF T's now. And they're like now cornering that market slowly but surely, and like not, not deliberately. It's just that's what happens in a capital society. Again, I want to believe I really want to be optimistic, but old, cynical, Jeb, he always comes and says, like, I don't know about this,

Ryan Burgess
just in a short time jam has gone from his 2022 resolution back to his 2021

Jem Young
rolling back to 2016

Shirley Wu
I was gonna say that I feel like Ryan, what you were saying about it still being so new, and there's so many things that needs to be worked out. And I and I do feel like that goes back to like, if if I had any sort of new years 2022 Two years evolution, I do feel like maybe it is to be paying more attention to all of these new tech that's coming out and like trying to be more of an early adopter and trying to I think the hardest part is like trying not to jump on the hype wagon without understanding anything and this is like such a big topic that are so like they're like so into like NF T's aren't just NF T's NF T's is like related to crypto and blockchain and web three and metaphor I don't even I'm just dropping random words that I did not know, in the first half of 2021. And it was everywhere. In the latter half of 2021 Night. metaverse. Somehow I missed that Facebook, we miss anything.

Ryan Burgess
You didn't miss anything, just like a joke for one day.

Shirley Wu
He was trying to be like trying to be a quote for early adopter in the sense of just trying to like keep up with all of these things that are happening as they're happening. And not necessarily I don't think I'm even trying to make to join one camp or the other, but just trying to keep up with it the best I can and acknowledge that like, right now, there's so much gray area and so much debate back and forth precisely because of what Ryan said about like, it's still I really think it's all because I feel like we've been hearing about crypto for so many years. But like, all of these are such new concepts with like, it almost feels like maybe maybe with just the NF T's example, almost feels like it was like shoved into the, into the spotlight before it was quite ready. Like not like a lot of things are still like not smooth down and like things aren't figured out. And there's all these vulnerabilities and it's not the ideal that like people had in mind. That's that's one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about, like between the turn of 2021 to 2022 in this little winter break I've had since grad school where I couldn't think about anything other than my classes. But the other thing that I think is so interesting, trying to wrap up my NFT rant I think it's so interesting that like I don't know if I've ever in my short career in tech seen something demand so much moral like it's such a be like such a big morality question in that, like, I feel like it's the question for me is like artists getting paid what they're worth, after so many years of being taken that like hundreds of years of like being taken advantage of or however long. That shouldn't be a bad thing. But like what's happening with NFC and, and we can be like, well, there's all of these entities being sold on I don't even know what the right terms are. But like they're like proof of stake or whatever the whatever the was a tasty mousse or something. But the most profitable marketplaces are all the Ethereum ones that are proof of work or whatever. And so, if an artist wants to uphold their own morals, then they have to go with the one that's not going to be as profitable for them. So then it's like a question of like, Okay, do I want more money? Or do I hold my morals? Which I guess is basically what it means to be a human being? And a capitalist? That's like the same question with my

Stacy London
over aeons. Yep.

Shirley Wu
talked myself out of my

Ryan Burgess
when it comes to like anything tech related, Did anything surprise you in 2021? Like, I don't think NF T's was surprising or anything but it was there. Anything that stands out to you is like it was something surprising.

Jem Young
The Metaverse thing was surprising, like we knew is coming. Yeah, it's coming with tech, something. It's not a very big secret Facebook's been working on. Sorry. Matt has been working on this for a while. It was surprising. They're leaning so hard into it, though. I'm still not like this a harbinger of things to come. I'm more they had a PR problem. And the easiest cheapest way was to rebrand rather than fix like the many, many, many many quagmires they they've gotten themselves into, which like, with all respect, like running a platform where 2 billion people you're gonna have problems that nobody else has. I respect that. But they're leaning hard into VR, and the metaverse and all that, which is an interesting move, versus like Apple is building their own self driving car alphabets building, self driving car, that's more where other tech companies are. I don't know, to me, that was the interesting thing of tackles, like, where are the big players putting their money and putting their stakes in for the next 510 years? And that tells me like what's coming? Yeah. And also, I didn't go in beginning but yes, I switched careers to manager instead of a software engineer. And I switched orgs as well. So I'm now like, pure platform before I was like platform and be the product but indeed a manager I I, I'm thinking of things differently already. It's only been in about six months, but I don't know, I'm thinking more big picture and like, what's moving versus Oh, I don't know, the newest framework just came out version 2.5. Like cool, but like, how does that impact me in my day to day it doesn't. So I care more about like big, big things now. And I say this without without hubris, like it's just, that's just like a mental shift that I'm making and still in the middle of making so that's changed for me and my perspective in tech in 2021.

Ryan Burgess
That's a huge shift to Jeff even if you think about As the talk about a framework versus now you're in this like manager role is, as an engineer, you're probably paying attention to this like upcoming like, what would this buy me? What are some of the features that I would get? Which is good. As a manager, you have to think about, like, what's the longevity of this? Like? How are we going to, you know, support this? You know, what's the investment going to be like? Not that engineers don't think of that. But you're trying to think about it more holistically, what is it going to come at a cost of if we invest in this technology? Does that slow us down from shipping, it will absolutely like the minute you change a framework or do any migration, it is a costly thing. And so when's the right time? Ideally, investing in for a future is like, if you're shipping products, you're going to ship faster because SETT Framework is, you know, more beneficial for the team. And that's why you're doing it. It's not like because you're like, I want to be on the hottest thing, but your mind changes a little bit, you have to think about a little bit different, the same problem, but a little bit differently. So I think that's a really good way to highlight it.

Jem Young
Yeah, spoke Spoken like a great manager as you are. It's like, we're we're thinking about evaluating new frameworks, taking on new team, she's shifting directions, and the team is pitching me different frameworks and pitching each other different frameworks. And my perspective is completely different. It's just like you said, I need to make an investment that will probably take, we're gonna play that play out over five years. So we're talking millions of dollars in salaries, 1000s of hours, the on top of that, like the 80, something engineers that we support on the platform team, their productivity, how that ripples in the product. And it's like, the stakes are so high. And I think very, very differently about how we execute in tech. So in some ways, it's been liberating like, I'm, I don't care as much about the day to day on Twitter, like, you know, you leave Twitter for a week, and you come back and like, people are outraged about something or some, someone you've never heard of, you're like, What did I miss? I just don't care as much anymore. Like cuz it just doesn't matter in the in the big scope of things. So that's been pretty good. Honestly, I think it's been healthier for me.

Ryan Burgess
Interesting. Like that perspective.

Stacy London
Do you miss cutting?

Jem Young
I do a little bit I miss the the unambiguous correctness of things, where like something either works or doesn't building UI either displays correctly or doesn't. And it's it's very binary, leading a team, there is no right answer. There's a lot of wrong answers. And there's answers that are more right than others. But even those have trade offs you have to make. So yeah, I missed the very clear checkbox nature of coding. And that's, I think that's going to be something I'll be dealing with the next couple years. Not not like I'm saying, I have a personal problem. It's just like every good manager, every good leader I've ever spoken to has this problem. And the higher up you go, the more and more ambiguous problems that you're solving to the point where you're not sure you're solving any problem. And I'm just getting a taste for that. Now. It's totally true. Ask a VP of engineering, you're like, what do you do? And they'll describe like, oh, we talk to people and do this, but like, no, what do you actually do? And it's like nothing, really. And that's just the nature of leadership, which is like something really difficult. It's true,

Ryan Burgess
it is true. And I think it's like, the more when things are running smooth to, you're like, are they doing something and I actually guarantee there are things that some of the higher up leaders, the higher you go, when things are running smooth, they're doing something like even if they can't pull it, you know, out and call out those tactical things that they've done. They're doing something right, when shit is not going well, that's the leaders fault. Doesn't matter. It's leaders fault. It's so it's an interesting role, like, and I think you've called out a lot of interesting things for me is like, even Jem, you said, you're dealing with this for the next few years, or whatever. It's like, it doesn't get any better. Like, you know, you're always dealing with ambiguous problems. You're like, Am I doing a good job? Harder? No, maybe like, it's hard. It's less tangible. And like, at least when you're, you know, when you're coding, you ship something, and you're like, Yeah, I mean, I built that it had some bugs, I fixed that bug. And now things are running really smoothly. Customers are enjoying it or they're not it you get that feedback, and you can understand how to pivot on it. It's definitely a lot ambiguous. I like that. Do you all have any predictions for this year, things that are going to change like web web three is totally taken over? Right? Like that's, that's definitely happening.

Jem Young
I predict we will argue about NF TS at least five more episodes. In this year. Yeah, at least

Ryan Burgess
Yes. Our opinions may change like our opinions may evolve Right? Like that could happen over this next year is that gem starts to just hate the more surely might start loving them. It's gonna be really interesting.

Jem Young
Stacey becomes the Ethereum Kingpin,

Stacy London
I register the domain name, Stacy dot eth,

Shirley Wu
something that Jem said earlier stuck out about virtual. I think that one's really, really interesting, which is like, obviously, there's a lot of companies that put a lot of money into the virtual, like developing a virtual environment or developing like, I don't know, virtual clubhouses or like Hangouts. bots. And certainly in my program, it's like an art and tech program. And we talk a lot about emerging tech, there's a lot of students that do projects about like a dystopian future where we communicate with each other in from, like VR. And that's something I'm very curious about, because maybe I'm just always been really, really old fashioned. I feel like I've said this, a lot of times, I don't like VR. So I feel like I've said some things. And I just feel like there's something really special about like, actual, like, physical human contact and connection. Now, I personally don't think it will ever get replaced. But also, it seems like a lot of these companies think otherwise, that a lot of events and social gatherings might go online, and they're investing in those virtual spaces. So I feel like for me, that's, that's a big question. Because I've always wanted to develop like physical, real world immersive experiences, but like, physically bring people together. And that's just been a huge challenge in the last two years because of a pandemic. And, and we don't know, like, we don't really know how long this is going to go on for and like, we don't know, if there's going to be new ones that double up. So like, Will there ever really be big physical gatherings that are safe and responsible, not the ones that are. But we're just be taking them for five per school, which I'll be very sad about.

Ryan Burgess
I'm skeptical. Seriously, I mean, if if it's gonna happen, like, now's the time, right, with the pandemic, and all the world the way it is, I feel like if if virtual is a thing, we're gonna see more of it now. But I've just feel like VR is comes and go, I can think back to many years ago, there was like, you know, even when Flash was the thing, like people were trying to build immersive, you know, virtual, like worlds that you interact with an enemy, the technology was not great, then it's absolutely a lot better. But I'm still just, I don't know, I feel like it's like this thing that everyone keeps thinking is going to be a thing. And it just never becomes a thing. It's very niche. That's my thinking on it. But I do like being wrong.

Shirley Wu
I'm just gonna do a quick devil's advocate, which is, what if we're resistant to it, because we're over a generation that's used to like seeing people in person and hanging out in real in real life. And then there's a whole generation of children and teenagers where like, most of what they know, is, unfortunately from these last two years, and maybe a long time, maybe potentially for years, like all of their formative years, gonna be virtual going forward. And maybe that's what they prefer. And maybe that's so maybe it's not this coming year, but maybe it's like a decade down the line when they're the ones building a shipping product.

Ryan Burgess
Absolutely. No, I think like, that's what I mean is I think, like, if something is going to make that shift, like a pandemic, like this is absolutely good. I mean, I just said, like, I had a baby this year, like, pandemic, baby, you know, Jem son was born right before the pandemic, and this is the new norm for them. So I think that, yes, if there's a time that it would pick up, it would be now I'm still skeptical. But I think that there's there's certain things that when a world hits with a pandemic, big drastic changes happen during and after. So we've seen that through time. So maybe something like that does have legs now. So I it'll be interesting to see my prediction

Jem Young
for 2022 is, we see more of a balance, kind of like what you're saying surely, which is Yeah, virtual is not ideal. And this is totally a sidebar, I've been so impressed with the art you're making you post on Twitter, and like, I get so jealous of like the physicality of like, surely making something with her hands. And like, I get jealous, because you know, we send out a keyboard, especially as a manager, I just like write docs all day. And I'm like, not creating anything like you're doing something, which is it's fantastic and inspirational to see. So anyways, that's a sidebar, I think we're going to see the leveling out of remote versus in person. anybody's been back to the office, anytime in 2021 knows, like, one on ones or meetings in person are just more efficient. There's no lag, there's no like, Oh, are you gonna say something? Do you know you're on mute now? Like all that's gone, and I think a lot of us have forgotten how efficient we are communicating face to face. So and to back that up, I would say look at what every major tech company is doing. Google is still developing a very, very large campus down in San Jose down Silicon Valley. Facebook is still expanding their campuses and just bought more. So if you look at what large tech companies are doing, they're just they're still buying office spaces. So it doesn't really matter if people are like virtual is better. If the big tech companies are saying like this is what we're gonna do. That's what we're going to do whether you like it or not like they they are tastemakers of sorts. So yeah, I think there are companies that are out there. They'll be like, Hey, we're all remote. It's cool. We figured out how to work like that other companies be like, actually, remote part time is fine, but really face to face is where we want to be at. And we'll just gonna see that like a clearer picture rather than this kind of like ambiguous state we're in right now.

Ryan Burgess
I definitely agree with that.

Stacy London
I don't have any big prediction. So it's up to 22 We've been forgetting to cheer because I wouldn't know chairs. Oh, yeah, yeah, cheers. I wouldn't have predicted and FTS and web three era like I just I'm hiking in the woods. I'm going to predict them and do more hiking and go to the go to the ocean again. I'm gonna you know make sure I check out those Redwoods in visit all the beautiful things in California do my tech during the day but be in the it'd be in the real physical universe when I can maybe that'd be my prediction maybe a lot of people are gonna get burned out by being little faces in zoom calls and virtual this and that and crave actual experience outside in the in the real in the real world. I agree.

Ryan Burgess
I like that prediction. Stacy. It's a balance right? Like you do need more of that outdoor real world. All right, well, that's probably a good spot to jump into pics. In each episode the front end Happy Hour podcast we love to share pics it of really anything that we found interesting want to share with you all Stacey want to start it off?

Stacy London
Sure. So I have a pic that is a podcast mix that I just listened to deck meant mental deck mental is like a they do a lot of production in Europe for like music festivals and things but they also have a good podcast and this woman goes by sky high sky h one in the mix she did is really really good. Like kind of atmospheric breaks dub electronics like a lot of different genres mix together all in this long form mix. I took a lot of time over my two week holiday break, just like listening to tons of music and going into rabbit holes with music. So I discovered that and I really enjoyed it. So have a listen to that. And yeah, that's my one pick.

Ryan Burgess
All right, surely What do you have?

Shirley Wu
So I have a few picks from fabric joking around with my friends. I'm like, I go to art school. Now I'm an artist. So I have some pics from my cool our school. The first one is I got to see a show put on by Studio drift, which is a studio in I think Amsterdam. And they do all of these like really interesting, beautiful physical installations. And a lot of the theme is things that float things that drink and the exhibit we got to see was at the shed in New York. And I think it's the exhibit has ended. But I think it was called fragile futures. If it if it does a world tour, I don't know how to describe the emotional experience that we had were the big kind of insulation they had, or these concrete blocks that floated above you. And slowly and smoothly kind of like performs this like It's like this beautiful movement through the air above you. And it's like this, like 20 minute performance. I don't know how else to describe it. Other than the first time we watched it, we came out and we were like, I can't believe we just spent 30 minutes watching concrete flow above us. But it was a beautiful, beautiful emotional experience where I think it was mostly like, it's so cool that like technology can do something like that, like real blocks floating above us that technology can do that. So that's my first pick. The second one is actually one of the teachers I had this past semester, who was so chill and so cool. I forgot how amazing he was. His name is Daniel Rosen. And he is an artist that makes what he calls wooden mirrors. And so this one, what he does is he has like hundreds of wooden blocks that he lines up like a pixel and when you walk in front of the wooden mirror, you see yourself reflected in this wooden mirror and the way that it happens is that each of these wooden blocks they get tilted and depending on the angle that the wooden block is tilting the shadow that it's casting goes from like you know like full brightness to like full dark so then when you have 300 of these blocks all lined up, then you can form like then then they're forms a mirror image of you as you walk in front of it and and there's a beautiful physicality to it also because As the wooden blocks are like shifting around and rotating in the angles and like makes these really satisfying noises. And then this past semester, after, like 20 years of, you know, trying to figure out, he finally kind of completed his first mirror with colors. And so he has for each pixel, instead of one wooden block that like does, essentially the Opacity value, he has three panels of cyan, magenta, and yellow, that together form that color, depending on the angle of each of the panels. And like the aggregate shadow that's cast by those three panels and imagine like that multiplied by 300. So like now there's like 1200, somewhere 1000 of these little panels all like moving around to form a mirror image of you walking in front of it, and like is perfectly interactive, beautiful work. One of the main reasons why I was like so inspired to go to ITP. Oh, the program is called atpi New York University. One of the main reasons why I was so inspired to go there in the first place. And my final pick is a little bit late, but we find like we recently rewatched it on Disney plus. And it's chengchi. I don't know if I need to introduce Shinji, I think it did pretty well in theaters back when it came out. And I think September, but I think the reason why I wanted to pick it is I think there's tiny little things it didn't do quite well. But overall, I think it's just so beautifully done, how it took a lot of aspects of Chinese martial arts and kung fu films and then integrated it so well into the style and aesthetic of a Marvel film. And I think it just, I think he did a really beautiful job of blending both of those together. I do have a small criticism, which is that like 20 minutes in they ship the Asian American character main characters back to China, like as if they can't exist in America. And we've noticed that that happens in a lot of Asian American lead films, some criticism other than that beautiful film,

Ryan Burgess
right on my three picks, Gem What do you have for us? Do you have valid Filkins to start off the year?

Jem Young
I do. You know, I like to say this for

Ryan Burgess
all right, no, sorry. I'm jumping ahead. People interest Yep.

Jem Young
I got distracted because I looked up studio drift that surely was discussing that evening. I would love to see that in person. That is mind blowing up. My first pick is a movie that I happen to watch over holiday break. It is not a holiday movie. It's just a movie I happen to watch over holiday break. It's called Black Sea. It's a movie on it's now streaming on Netflix in the US, but it's pretty much a good submarine movie. I don't know I like a good submarine movie under the sea you know, the stakes are high, etc etc. It's got a Jude Law and Scoot McNairy who you probably remember from Narcos Mexico, which I also binge over the holiday break but yeah, it's just a good action movie. very atmospheric, suspenseful, etc, etc. Yes, good all around movie. My second pick is this website. But it is called commercially available chairs and Star Trek. And like this is a part of the internet that I love is someone dedicated however many hundreds of hours to going through all the Star Trek episodes and be like, Oh, wait, I recognize this chair. And here's where you could buy it. And like I don't know, it's just that's just so cool. Like that's what the internet is supposed to be is like find your find your hobby and find your passion. I hadn't be a fan of Star Trek. I think it's cool like futuristic chairs that you can actually buy that were based in like some episode of Star Trek. It's just interesting. My final pick is my first le silicon pic of the year. As a as a reminder, please send me your Valley silicon pics using hashtag Valley silicon on Twitter. Even if I don't share them on the podcast I find them personally interesting and I will probably get a chuckle out of it. So you'll make my day this one is a I won't do the usual preamble where I say how much would you pay for this because it's just so ridiculous. It is an Xbox by Gucci which I again they don't make Xboxes so I don't know why you would need a luxury branded xbox but you can get one for the low price of $10,000 and for $10,000 that is I don't know what's the Xbox costs now 500

Ryan Burgess
probably four or 500 So

Jem Young
you know it's 10,000 it's close it doesn't do anything special it just comes in a Gucci carrying case and doesn't come he strikes it does not come with Winston unfortunately

Stacy London
get put a puppy and

Jem Young
I don't know I don't know who's buying these but I'm sure they sold out I'm sure if I tried to buy one now for some weird reason. They're probably sold out. I really don't know if you know someone that knows someone that bought a cheap Xbox. Please introduce me so I would love I'd love to talk to them and ask how they made all their money. Probably at that FTS crypto,

Ryan Burgess
we record an episode interviewing that person I sound. I feel like that'd be amazing.

Jem Young
I don't know. I just love people sometimes, like I make text and people argue with me on Twitter like, no, Jem, this $1,000 Ice Cube maker is life changing, you don't even know. I'm like, Cool, man that works for you and your disposable income. Yeah, but this one, I just, I don't see a compelling argument on why you'd need an Xbox made like Gucci. It says

Shirley Wu
Gucci will sell 100 Quantum consoles at their highest profile brick and mortar stores. Wow.

Ryan Burgess
I always find it hard to you know, follow the valley silicon pics. But I have three picks. To start off the new year one is probably like a very niche thing. I saw a new documentary called rolling like thunder. It's a documentary on freight train graffiti. It was on Showtime. I really enjoyed it. It just brought me back so many memories of painting trains, and just being around a lot of that it was it was cool. I thought it was really well done. So I highly recommend checking that out. I realize it's a pretty niche thing. But someone out there is gonna probably find it interesting. Another cool holiday show that I watched was School of chocolate on Netflix. It was so cool. It just impressive and interesting. It was a reality show where the chocolate makers are making like just the most impressive sculptures out of chocolate I've ever seen. And then there's this famous guy should probably know the chef's name, but he's known for making them and he's running the school. And the thing is, nobody gets eliminated. There's contests. But nobody gets eliminated. It's really it's an interesting concept. I really enjoyed the show, it's worth checking out. It's kind of one of those ones are just mind blowing what they create. And then another thing that happened in 2021, and it's kind of still happening a little bit in 2022, or everyone's still feeling with it is the log 4g vulnerability. And I saw this shared today log for j means it's a website all about the memes. And honestly just scrolling through that it's maybe a little too soon for some people that had to deal with it. But some of these memes are hilarious, so I highly recommend checking that out. Thank you all for listening today's episode. We'd actually love to hear from you. I know we've we've mentioned this a few times throughout the episode, but help us kick off the new year. Let us know what you want to hear from episodes in the future. Tell us on Twitter, send us a message we'd love hearing from you all. Any last words for the panelists today. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Cheers