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On this weeks episode I interview Andrew McCallum. Andrew’s had a lot of success in technology including a successful exit from his time in Sydney.

Andrew and I talk all things technology, building teams and company culture as well as what he is currently working on as CTO at Compeat Nutrition.

Hope you enjoy the episode!

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Show Notes

Here you can source all the things we have talked about in the podcast whether that be books, events, meet-up groups and what’s new in the newcastle tech scene.

• Jira
• Trello
• Todoist
• 1password
• Exponent Podcast: Ben Thompson and James Allworth
• Planet Money Podcast: NPR
• Predictably Irrational: Dan Ariely

Find all local Newcastle Technology Events

• • Event’s Page

  Transcription:

  episode 37 new high-tech paper today we read your column well can be injured thanks for me thanks thanks right on you’ve been around you can’t attack say for quite a while in various facets different roles are mental ships different success stories but for those that don’t know you give us a quick overview do i you yeah well so at the moment I am working as CTO for complete nutrition also helping a few other projects get up off the ground my backgrounds in in tech in tech startups primarily most of my working time spent in Sydney but yes spending more and more time in Newcastle over the last three years really enjoying it right if you want to back the the Sydney times I know you’ve had a bit of success down there in the taxi make you pay for the don’t know you bit of an overview I think you’d be one of a very small number of people based in Newcastle had some success in the tech so you know a successful exit you kill I might give us a quick overview what’s that what’s happened today I guess firstly you’re like I my first sort of foray into innovation came when I was at cab charge yeah I was given the freedom to go on create what was certainly Australia’s first mobile taxi booking application yeah as far as we know probably the world’s first actually but that was and then from there worked in sort of lived the agency life in Sydney did some agency stuff and then into startups so I helped create oh when was it 2009 2010 I think we won best app at cbut created a digital foundry a venture studio effectively and fund created a few few startups out of that one of them was we listed on the ASX so we have the second best IPO of 2015 and yes sort of you know got out of all those businesses inside the last few years sigh area exited Sydney and spending less time on the train and more time up here very nice very nice I think it’s a story for a lot of people right you’ve had some success more family orientated now up I’m looking up in the car so you be more time with family a little bit more time in the surf yeah definitely they are is way more relaxed I love Sydney Sydney’s a great place but there’s nowhere I’d rather have for the family to Newcastle yeah yeah schools getting kids have schools are good kids are happy you say yeah doesn’t take much to get to the beach and spend quite a bit of time at the beach on that note you’ve uh you did like to spend a bit of time and surf you do like to Train quite a lot you’ve done a couple of Iron Man’s may year big big I guess push like to push that work-life balance I know you do you like to have people that in your team’s to have that proper balance get some training in or get some time to spare with the family everyone say it’s against the grain because there are more companies coming on board for that but what’s your where’s your experiences come from in you know really driving that that balance I guess like many people I’ve probably been developed probably definitely been guilty of pushing the envelope a bit too far and working too hard yeah I spent too many hours working and not enough time with family as a as a younger dad and you’re really trying to change it at the moment they’ve done a few other sort of one of the other things that’s been I guess a bit of an eye-opener for me is what got me into what sort of back into surfing as an adult is the wastefulness program so it’s a program created by a local guy Joel who and he’s getting quite a lot traction at the moment he’s got a runs in Sydney runs in Newcastle I think on Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast as well so that was very much about near gists I guess you know taking taking a little bit of time to for yourself you know using that that time in the surf just to make sure you know you’re not stressing about anything else or when you’re sitting out there in the surf or you’re worrying about is you know what the next waves doing you’re not worrying about you should you have made a phone call or what any males haven’t yet responded to or you know how are you gonna pay the next paycheck or whatever it happens to be so for me yeah the focus for for me and for my teams is always then you know you need to be for your own sake and for everyone’s sake you need to be you know a whole person you need to be a good person and it means you know not just effective at work but effective in your life there’s no point burning out and you’re going to either they’re not being able to back it up next year or the year after so and for everyone that’s different you know for me yeah I do like to to challenge myself and push myself you know I’ve probably never trained as much as I should for triathlons but certainly do a bit of training for that so you know it involved in surf and surf clubs and stuff so that takes up a lot of time as well but it is you very much take some time to to find that balance work out who you are and you know find a life where you’re happy with your life not just happy with your career great mate yeah the work-life balance routers that work becomes life for a lot of people and there is no there’s no clear you know one down the middle and a lot of people work you take that home with you with it where you’re actually doing it or not it’s that’s in your mind so it’s about trying to find that balance in making sure you’re actually enjoying it as well right yeah I think that’s you’ve probably touched on the really on the core there for me it’s we talk about work-life balance like I don’t actually I don’t look at it as work-life balance either there’s not a work self and a home self and it’s it’s really hard to have that distinction and draw that line so if you can’t be happy and hole with who you are in both places and then it makes it really really challenging you know to be effective in either place so rather than you’re drawing a line and saying I look you know I’m not at work anymore I’m at work now or anything like that day you know if you can fit your yourself and your life in to you know home into work and do everything that’s it’s much easier I believe then trying to draw these lines and separate things oh great I think it’s hotter and hotter to try to separate them anyway these days it’s not oh you can’t with social media everything’s just connected yeah that’s it social media it’s just telephones in general right the elephant’s watches the light right you’re always connected you’re always accessible fire you know from whoever clients only your work and we thought just employees so you’re always connected and there’s always an expectation that you like you are contacted all right so if you can find that and you can find some enjoyment in them I think it’s a lot easier than trying to draw a sample of imaginary line between the two yeah yeah well you know we I guess you know trying to get more and more away from using hours in the office as a metric for you know how effective you are um so if if we’re not drawing those lines you know if we’re not using that as a metric then yeah we need to be able to say well yeah maybe these lines aren’t strong and that’s fine but you know it’s then give and take but you can’t expect people to always be available and never look after themselves either okay so forgotten you actually turned that to practicality how using that in your team at the moment are we talking flexible work hours are we talking working different days of the week working from her how you practically you know doing on your current environment yeah so we’re actually going through a process at the moment of trying this four-day work week so breaking it up into two twos so Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday so giving people Wednesday completely to themselves that way comeback in the concept is at any rate seems to work so far you come back in on Thursday pre invigorated regenerated ready to kick on you know and it means again sort of Friday you don’t get to sort of midday Friday and yeah that’s it I’ve had enough it’s Friday though it’s still okay this is Friday let’s get stuff done having said that I I’ve always been a believer and one of the core values so I tried to instill in a lot of places a lot of sort of you know recent companies has been if you’re not late for something you’re not like and that sounds a bit like a throwaway line I guess but the for me it means you don’t need to and you shouldn’t need to be in the office at 8:00 everyday or 9:00 every day or whatever yeah if you’ve got a commitment and you’ve made a meeting then stick to it now I don’t like people being late to to anything they commit to it’s never been part of who I am and it’s not something that I I guess appreciate but having said that I also don’t expect people to have been in the office at 8 o’clock for no reason I’m not for no reason yeah if there’s a meeting make sure you’re there if you have jobs to do make sure you do them yeah but you know why stress about times when everyone’s got different commitments you know I dropped the kids off to school at least three days a week I pick them up and take them to sport you know multiple times a week as well and there’s yeah the this the we can’t have this sort of separation between work and life anymore and the result of part of that is I’m quite happy to you know once the kids are in bed put a little bit more time in if there’s something that I need to get done yeah if I do happen to have a weekend down they often I find myself sort of carried away with an idea and trying to push you that whether it’s work or a new idea or whatever happens to be you know it’s not there there’s never this concept that are yeah I’m not at work I’m not on the clock I’m not doing it yeah I can tell you great so tangibles you’re looking at four-day work week which is it started and take off there’s some success stories internationally and both in Australia yeah this having been a few articles over the last few years another one very recently about the very concept I mean I know up until a few months ago I was very much in the in the bucket of okay well four day Work Week sounds great if you’re going to do it definitely make Friday the day off so everyone has a long weekend but then you know you start to put it into in the practice and the the concept of of splitting it up into two twos I think works really well no I don’t I don’t disagree no and it probably comes down to who you actually play a tie right it said motivated and they’re everyone’s you know striving for the common cold and everyone’s all behind it and running in the same direction you’re not going to have to worry about you know productivity they’re gonna go what ain’t it get down in those two twos then they would in a you know a full five so I think it was again a product we live at a different age where we’re paying for output now know not just how many hours you spending that actually what are you getting done what are you delivering yeah he said is a value and how much value and you know is there enough value for in that exchange you know and and part of it is also give people then four days or to lots of two days and yeah everyone knows there’s no time to waste it’s not that you know we stand around the water cooler having long conversations or you know and you know I mean we’re sure we still take time to have lunch together which is a very important thing always try and share that meal together but you know also yeah it’s not that we get so you get to three o’clock on Friday and it’s okay it’s all stay on time for a beer which you know I mean it’s a very agency life that mentality and it’s um yeah breaking away from that I think yeah gives gives people the flexibility and may may also helping the the building off your team in attracting attracting paper to your team I think Newcastle in general extremely difficult to hire for quality tech talent at the moment once again let’s appoint a difference and that might help you at people just some parts of market yeah oh you know talent pills certainly very very well drained at the moment there’s a lot of great companies hiring I guess from for me and for my team for us it’s if this is the company that we’re building this is a culture that we’re building and that appeals to someone that that’s a good thing it means that we’re getting the right people in you know if that doesn’t appeal to somebody then they’re not the right fit for our team it’s not to say we want everyone like a you know it’s super important to me that there’s all sorts of diversity in terms of you know background and thought process and how you arrive at thoughts as well like last person last group of people I want there’s a whole lot of people that you know look and think like me sitting around the table having said that you know yeah you’re building a culture you do want everyone to be you know at leasts in some manner have a you know similar views on on what life should be like yeah how to get there how to do it how to execute always should be very different but you know what’s what what we’re striving for in life yeah that’s something I think that’s important that people share yeah once again I think that’s a breaking down the barrier between work and life right I think you can’t you can’t be a separate person or a completely separate person outside of work and then in life like on the outside of work and then in work so if you are if you live your life one way that’s out of work to completely flip that and be a different person at work it’s just it doesn’t work right it’s nothing taken don’t get you know get tripped up sooner or later and it’s it’s getting more and more challenging for you know people who so there are a lot of people came from a world where that’s the case and still live in a world where that’s a case where you you you can and maybe should have this difference between these two and you know if you go work in a busy city and then you go home to the suburbs then it’s very easy to have those two different sides and keep those two separate but with more and more people having flexible arrangements work from home remote work all of that you can’t do it anymore I mean when I first started doing some yeah some remote work way back when did I was guilty of trying to keep that distinction as well so yeah like I’d get a good rest I’d put my business pants on I’d put my business shirt on I did you know I’d go in the office I close the door that was it again because there was this work/life separation and at that point in my life anyway like you know I needed that and there was the expectation I think was was probably that that that needed to happen as well whereas now yeah yeah the more I look at you know effective teams it’s not that as a as a leader of a team or you know growing a team I want to be able to reach people all the time or expect them to be responsive all the time yeah it’s that I know that there’s you know there is life outside of work and you need to be able to access that and you know perform there as well yeah I think I’m significantly easier to teach somebody new skills and he’s try and change somebody’s personality I don’t really kind of change somebody’s personality or who they are and nor should you want it but if you can hire a person as they’re out person or personality fit for the company the tech skills or in this case we’re building tech teams can be taught as long as there was a base there you know there’s there’s obviously a you know how to continue on knowing you don’t want to be jumping from me you know dev with no experience to this 8000 but there needs to be you know some some core skills but a lot of that can be learned and that’s significantly easier than trying to trying to change somebody yeah there’s a discussion I was having with with Dan the of just the other day which was like I’d really I don’t care how much experience you have I want people who can think and who can approach things you know with an open mind unfortunately sometimes a reality of that is often that comes with experience yeah I don’t I don’t want to experience in a particular programming language I don’t really care how much experience you’ve got in particular language if you’re open to learning you’re open to thinking and you know you’re the right fit for the team and then awesome let’s go but are we talking about this tape from this team at the moment I cracked a local Newcastle success story but I got a great trajectory can Pete nutrition right for those of those of the listeners don’t know I’ve compete what does the company do and then how long ago you join what’s the plans going for so complete started out really as a as a way to provide extra tech or to enable dieticians and in particular sports advanced sport citations to to work with athletes with no pro athletes elite semi elite athletes and semi-pros even where they weren’t able to have regular face-to-face meeting so and consultations you know and typically like in any any field like that you know it’s that if you if you have the ability to speak to them more regularly than the once a week appointment that you have then you can be more efficient more effective it so that’s kind of where we’re complete started it’s it’s grown into a way to then expand the ability to to to deliver those services through a marketplace dynamic so that we can connect Advanced Sports citations regardless of where they are with athletes regardless of where they are now it’s so I joined compete in the second half of last year I want to say October ish but sick time it was September October and since then it all and part of the reason that I joined was because of that prior to that point the focus then became we can take these same capabilities the capabilities so these Advanced Sports citations have and we can deliver those to everyone from a health and wellness perspective so we can help to improve lives we can help to improve performance in life whether that’s you know athletic or academic or you know from a mental and emotional state we can help to empower and improve those performance through making sure that there’s a good nutritional base they have you know the right type of energy and enough energy to to access what you need to access now so our yeah our goal our focus for now is continuing to build out the tech to to deliver that and – I guess scale our ability to deliver that so that we’re not always saying to everybody looking hey you have to be working with this dietician and our goal is not to have people working with dieticians forever it’s to help it so use the dietitians one to deliver the that that top-class world-class capability to the elite athletes of pros and semi-pro athletes and everyone who really wants to maximize their performance but also to really cut through a lot of the confusion that exists around in nutrition and help people understand what good nutrition looks like and how to how to make sure that you know your nutritional needs are met within your situation whether it’s as an individual or a family or an athlete or whatever so that yeah there’s none of this sort of concern or stress or about food there’s so much anxiety around food at the moment here people who only eat you know poached chicken and rice or whatever it happens to be and if we can remove a lot of that anxiety and help people understand what what a good nutritional base looks like then we can really make a difference in people’s lives and how effective they are yeah especially our nutrition last week though ulterior motive a lot of the diets and things out there are out there to sell and then she show at a particular thing as opposed to the food pyramid for example was created to help drive industry right so to detach would provide advice and genuine advice for the actual benefit of the end-users it’s not quite Noble actually yeah well yeah it’s there’s also so if we act if you actually look at what you know what the nutritional needs are yeah like most of us far out most of us exceed a lot of the you know nutritional a lot of the intake of certain you know certain elements and I mean I know I’m not a Thai Titian so I’m not going to get into all the bits and pieces and I certainly don’t want to give any wrong information but you know the reality is if we if we’re better at fueling ourselves with the fuel that we need if we’re better at you know eating what we need rather than what’s in front of us and we know what’s there then you know we can also have a really positive impact on on the world at large you know we only wait too much meat yeah I mean there’s a book big push recently you know to reducing our yeah carbon footprint and via the intake of meat and the realities we don’t need to be eating meat all the time most of us at any rate yeah we why using way more protein than we need yeah definitely part off it sent me to like yeah and that’s that’s okay it’s not that not that we’re trying to get everyone to you know to go to some crazy diet or to you know make drastic changes just to understand what the what their needs are yeah that’s yeah okay okay where we talk from a tech perspective you mentioned the word scale before and obviously can pay would still be considered a start-up or a scale up they were saying they paid to start with that has evolved and now you’re in that phase of really building that up you’ve been involved in scalable tech before what’s what’s the key challenge for you at this period through a start-up or a scale up sounds like I prefer to say startup yeah personally I don’t like that term scale-up it’s a misnomer and people it gets people thinking about the wrong things it’s never that we should now just be thinking about scale in terms of tech which is why don’t like the words term scale yeah it’s now how do we scale our service how we scale the offering and you’re part of that stack and the tea and the underlying tech components and infrastructure and architecture but part of it as well is how do we take it to different markets how do we make sure that you know at scale where we’re not speaking to everybody personally we can communicate the value that we’re adding and help people on the journey towards a better and better life and better nutrition so biggest challenges for me that I’ve seen at this point in in a startups life culture and politics is a massive massive one and I’ve seen seen internally people kill companies not because they’re trying to kill companies just because the culture wasn’t the right culture that people weren’t the right people at for that time in their company’s life and the other thing is not actually knowing and paying attention to what the customers need and what the customers want it can be very easy there’s a lot of confirmation bias that comes into into early startup so yeah if you so say you’re a b2b company and you sell to five corporates you know all of a sudden there’s this reinforced belief that what you’re doing what you have what you’re selling and how you’re selling it’s correct and for all you know those five or the only five that are ever gonna buy it yeah so as soon as you stop listening to what’s actually happening as soon as you start to believe that we’ve just got to do more better yeah that’s where you know that death spiral for companies often can begin now I love that every day is day one mantra you know just because you’ve sold you know five people or five hundred people or five hundred thousand people doesn’t mean you’re gonna sell to the next 500 thousand yeah on the flip side then what’s here you said had to say through your experiences some commonalities between the teams or companies that you’ve been involved with that have led to that success is there any key commonalities you look for you mentioned the red culture before it’s a big one anything outside of that the I think whether whether you tired upping the in terms of successfully tired up in terms of culture or individual people and you can explain a lot through through passion and drive and dedication but for me where I’ve seen most success is where there is that real

  I guess push from everyone in the business to do some amazing things yeah and it can be quite I guess almost disrespectful about in terms of disrespecting incumbents in the industry in terms of how you try and accomplish that yeah but where everyone has that that really intense focus on trying to provide an amazing experience in solving the problem that’s at hand that’s where that’s where I start up so a tremendously fun and that’s where you know success it seems in my experience seems to come from and then the challenge is as you get as you get bigger as you scale once you get past so 20 people plus 50 people how do you maintain that yeah how when everyone’s not sitting together when everyone doesn’t know everyone anymore and know them intimately how do you continue to get that drive and that passion from people and make sure that when people do have their own own differences and own ideas on where to take things that ultimately it’s it comes back down to that customer you know we need to remove any sort of internal office politics about you who’s more senior who believes they’re better or whatever you know what’s the customer need what’s the customer want what’s the problem you’re solving and is this actually solving it yeah that’s the writers know who came up with said answer right that’s me yeah you actually all pushing towards the right they’re not non politics on who came up with Sarah and and often the right things not easy to see often the right thing looks like the wrong thing yeah and that’s really hard light particularly if you’re if you’ve got great people in the organization and you’re continuing to sell say it’s b2b yeah you’ve got great salespeople you’re continuing to sell you can be doing the wrong thing and if you’re not getting retention if you’re getting a lot of customer attrition at the end of your 12 month contract or whatever then you’re almost guaranteed to be doing the wrong thing but that wrong thing looks like the right thing because your salespeople still have their selling yeah yeah quite interesting identify we’re approaching it it’s awesome hey wait you’re right obviously the CTO no previous company you involved with blockchain big successful tech career let’s go with big successful bakery how I’m sure there’s plenty people have a much younger in their careers oh yeah my failure in the tech careers and would look at someone like yourself how do I get it you’ve learned blockchain along the way you’ve learned skills to become a CTO only I’m sure there’s various different technologies you’ve picked up up you know throughout that journey if you had to give some advice to people starting out that have an interest in startups or an interest in tech good to go attack grit how would you go about it or help what advice would you give to people to past who don’t be afraid to make mistakes and break things I think one of the biggest challenges we have in Australia is so we’d like to talk about how risk-averse Australian investors are yeah and everyone likes to everyone in startups likes to do but moanin the investors or they won’t invest you know they wanna they want this valuation they want to invest at us at as you know seed valuation but they want series a traction or but where everyone is is just as guilty of being this risk of us the reason we don’t have more entrepreneurs and more people in tech is that you know people are very happy and and safe in their lane whatever that Lane happens to be you know if you want to do something and you want to make a difference you have to it’s not not be afraid because it’s sensible to be afraid of the risk but you’ve got to do it anyway it’s a willingness to fail I think yeah that’s that’s not not being afraid because as he said you’re right to be afraid but it’s our willingness to do that and fail anyway with the the knowledge out you know and want it’s not gonna kill you you know he’s no I did not I put 19 times you know it’ll hurt I might hurt your ego more than or heard anything else my hey you know balance a little bit maybe there’s an opportunity cost he didn’t take a job because he had a crack of the start off or something like that maybe there’s some short term but the lessons learned with that failure shouldn’t that knack you were shouldn’t that come beyond ahead I think oh and you know if you build on that then that’s where growth happens it’s a nose whether it’s the same as training now if you’re doing physical training and particularly for an endurance see ya at the end of a session if it’s a long session your muscle will be hurting and that’s fine you can let them hurt and you can let them recover and you can go to another session but you build muscle by training on damaged muscle so you know if if your legs are hurting its packing because yeah because of yesterday then you know you’re still but you don’t not train today if you want to get better you only get stronger you’re on you’re faster it’s like you’re anything like a curry now you make a mistake you don’t just if you want to really learn from it then you need to get back up and and learn from it and keep building and keep going I know you said willingness to fail I think that’s it makes a lot of sense that term I don’t look at it like that willingness seems a bit too close to a desire to me yeah I have no desire ever to fail I fail plenty I don’t I don’t look at I rarely look at the the idea of failure as a realistic option I know it’s there there’s a risk there and I know what I’m giving up for whatever opportunity I’m taking it on but it’s it’s not a I’m not looking at failure as as part of the the equation yeah I I’m looking at the upside I’m looking at the benefit of the the success by you design a success more than its a willingness to fail correct but you acknowledged that that is an element there and it’s a possibility oh I’m sure she’ll go forward with it anyway yeah yes that’s probably the angle oh yeah maybe that terminology wasn’t right but I think it’s acknowledgement that failure is an option yeah yes it’s not something I’m gonna be going forth and it’s important to weigh that up it’s important to understand and not go in with blinkers on not going blinded and think that you know fairly is not gonna happen because it will and you’ll get knocked to the ground you know more times in your care to believe it’s it’s yeah whether you let that that understanding you know direct your or how much you let it direct your judgment and then the outcomes purse say I guess where we’re going with that where we’ve come from that your careers been built on a bunch of learning experiences um you have found throughout that time but the objective to get back up again and you’ve learned a lot through those lessons when if we talk educationally I you haven’t done a degree was there he jumped into tech through like this admin Tyrol wasn’t it yeah yes yes around hey getting into technology why do you make the decision to go that way let’s start there and then go yeah that’s a interesting story I

  so I at school I was always good at school in computers and computer studies and things and I never had any problems getting good marks at school say I have finished school and I went and did some things I felt I worked in different places and then kind of got to the point I’d eight months later where I realized I needed to do something you know mom said yeah you’ve actually got to go and do something you can’t just keep you know playing piano and working in the ski fields and that sort of stuff you’ve got to got to do something it’s like okay well yeah and she mentioned now I your cousin he’s doing like programming at TAFE maybe we should go and do something yeah well I guess it’s a thing that was always easy and so I kind of I guess fell into tech that why I always kind of go to uni and study astrophysics and pure maths and philosophy and all tremendously interesting amazing things that I’m sure would have led me down to the path of getting a job at Cyro or maybe nowhere else in the world that it was which is why I ended up then not not going to uni at that point in time yeah I I think what I want to see people get from education is a an understanding of how to think and in that I mean sitting on the other so if you’re sitting on the other side of the table or someone you want to be able to think about what they’re going through you know what they’re experiencing what they want to achieve out of something what their approaches and what their their path might be if you can understand other people’s sides to the story then you can make a more informed decision around what the best path this path forward is going to be I I do have a I guess a philosophical problem with people going through education to get a job because I think that our jobs in part are changing so very quickly have done for the last over the last 20 years 25 years and will continue to do so so if you’re learning just to get a job without thinking about why I think you’re potentially backing yourself into a corner I want to see people learn to think I guess yeah hey it’s not too dissimilar a lot of answers I’ve had from people I think ability to think the ability to learn I’m probably the two most common analogies are good base understandings probably another commonality to say hey you had a good solid knowledge base for preaching and build but the key is to build upon that because as you said things change so quickly but I think that and probably my opinion is definitely aligned with that the ability to learn all there’s ability to think as you put it I think University does a good job in helping push that and provide an opportunity to sort of further these skills in that area definitely not the be-all and end-all yeah I did and I think it probably depends on the individual as well so yeah like what well I did know degree outside of school I then I did go on later and do business segments with a view to doing an MBA for me and maybe it was the time in life that I was doing that but that yeah like I guess I’d I’m probably well I’m sure I learned more through that then I give it credit for but I don’t remember it as being a terribly enlightening time or period in my life yeah and it was it was designed you know their course was definitely designed to have you think to apply then that thinking but even that and maybe as saying maybe it was just me at that time in my life thank then I get in there’s a time in life for everyone right yeah different people different stages and to get different things out of it so outside of them they wave hey formal education you can take it or leave it depending on the individual a lot of learning learning from mistakes willingness to try pass out that is there anyhow they you know you picked up blockchain you’ve picked up new technology consistently how do you pick that up for you individually like how have you gone through and learned these new technologies these are books is a podcast is it other forms of online education in terms of learning no it’s it’s playing and breaking things it always has been from when I was young playing with electronics and – yeah it’s you know – looking at different programming paradigms and challenges and through – you know the architectural components yeah for me typically it’s it’s playing with stuff and breaking stuff yeah this yeah in terms of learning yeah hands-on yeah we don’t write student now that might that hey everyone’s differently right so is there is a lot I think it actually I think there is the right answer is what works be right there’s no point sitting through universe grief you don’t learn in that fashion sure but if you learn in that fashion you know that practical hands-on break it up person well unless you’re right no wait we’ll wrap it up real quick but if we go down there day to day if you one of the facility if you had to give up a Productivity tool tools the years on day-in day-out basis to help many of your date help you be effective seat here is there a tool or tools slacks still one of my favorite tools I hate a email email surely a mails dead yet yeah we do use JIRA and Trello are great to to us is a good to do us is a good tool for you know task management but now I’m probably not a probably not a particularly tool focused sentience right there though if they’re they’re babies you know legitimately through the business like you know they are really good cornerstones mmm biggest tool for me for productivity is a password manager LastPass or one password something like that none of this same password thing for everyone no using a single password make sure the passwords privacy is a massive thing and security is a big big sort of bugbear of my answer and growing and growing from an educational perspective do you listen to podcasts read books yeah yes to both any favorites you would like to share with anyone yeah so so podcasts for me at the moment I’m actually listening to a podcast called exponent also also love the planet money podcasts and you know some of the freakanomics stuff I do is expand it about exponent is just two guys talking about the world in technology and strategy and economics I know it’s it’s a really interesting dynamic one of the guys is an Australian living in Silicon Valley and there was a Yank living in Taiwan I believe they have some interesting discussions where they sort of push and prod each other to dive into you know topical matters you know whether it’s around dub dub you know sorry yeah apples dub dub DC when that’s on different announcements there or you know different mergers and acquisitions and thoughts yeah it’s it’s a sort of business strategy time you know that’s quite interesting earnest I’m always interested in yeah the podcasts and books and people read the outside of pure tech orientated I do because I think as he said before we started this podcast out there’s such a overlap or integration work and life that it’s really hard to have that separation so educational or things you do for enjoyment and they they find a way to influence your work right yeah absolutely and books probably most recently probably two most recent books I’ve really enjoyed have been predictably irrational by Dan Ariely I think it is and the culture code is a really good book yes yeah they’re very nice who probably picks recently awesome maybe if I if people came to have a chat with you to learn anything from you you obviously available on the new East slack channel this outside of that anywhere else easiest way to exactly yeah I mean yeah people can always hook up on LinkedIn you know I do try and get to sort of startup events and meet up some things or they do a worse job of getting to those and I used to as do i yeah but yeah the newest tech channel is a great way to start I mean it’s a great resource that I think is we’re fortunate enough to have because of the size of New Castle it’s big enough for it to be something the new cast is still small enough for it to not be overcrowded and you know like the Sydney startup Facebook quote for instance and guys just yeah I think that yeah that new lease like channels are great advice okay but I think if you talk all right thank you funny thanks mate.