Arturo Suarez Martin: Leadership, AI, and Career Wisdom

excited to have Arturo Suarez Martin joining us today on our podcast he is the senior director of customer success

and general manager at pater Duty Chile he has driven Innovation and scaled that

Chilean team to over 100 employees and he’s just an awesome guy so I’m excited to talk to him today all right thanks

for having me Scott excited yeah great great to have you um so you know you’ve

worked with a lot of great companies you’ve had a great career so far um with

every job I found that you know some days can be harder some days can be easier and I think we all need to find

inspiration for the work that we do um what are some of the places that you find inspiration how do you get excited

about what you’re working on yeah so um I’ve had the opportunity to to travel a

lot uh in for work and prior to that lived in you know few countries and and

travel right so is when you travel uh in a specific way when you get to know

people that way they are at home you you move out of the uh kind of mainstream

hotels Etc life that you get to know the reality of life in other parts of the

world and then gives you the opportunity to compare right so some of the things that are inspiring when you do that is

you start looking at um folks or meeting folks around the globe that have very

similar challenges than what you have very similar challenges that when what you’re looking to solve in know your

professional environment right and they’re they’re tackling those with different perspectives based on their

culture based on their background based on all of that so the fact that you get you know in different parts of the world

kind of the same or similar problem attack from from different angles trying to be solved from different angles that

inspires from a professional stand okay I I want to fix this and I know

what other folks feel about it what other folks have experienced with this

particular challenge or this particular problem and it’s Global right so that that is inspiring right find inspiration

in again being out there talking to people and and noticing their you know

how professional problems might affect their personal lives or might you know give them an extra benefit on on

anything right right yeah I I definitely agree with that I think uh just getting outside of our normal workspace too for

some for some reason it’s like when you go to the same place every day you follow the same path your your ideas are

not that much different sometimes it is you get into into this kind of uh uh the

groundh uh day right is the same thing the same kind of problems and you get

Numb by the the fact that this is always the same you I’ve experienced that

already yesterday right so just shaking a little bit and and getting different

inputs whether the and again the more the more different the better in in my

opinion right that’s what gives you kind of the the breath of of the you know perception of you know what’s what’s

what’s going on in the world right is there like a place that you remember visiting or walking into or I don’t know

Landing in a city and driving around where you felt like whoa just completely you know breathtaken yeah there there’s

there’s a few um every time you you get into a place where you cannot uh blend right the you know for me it be

places like Tokyo right where where it’s so different than everything else and then you cannot blend because you just

stand out because of obvious obvious features right uh that would be one of

the ones that that was like a woe uh because you read about it um but yeah

basically it’s it’s it’s a different like experience it the way everything works right it’s a it’s a it’s a nice

it’s a nice feeling and a lot to learn from from those type of places right the attention to detail everything kind of

uh cautiously measured so things work uh it’s a it’s a great society Tokyo would

be a place where you know I found that that experience yeah that’s I think that’s a terrific example so I I

actually uh I spent four or five years when I was a young boy living there in Tokyo from like five to eight years old

and one of the things that really my my my dad felt like he was working there he always reminded me as he was you know 6

foot one just much taller than everybody around him and he he felt like people

always came up and approached him and sort of asked like what are you doing here and he he felt both out of place but he also felt very welcome kind of

like you mentioned which is yeah which is that’s kind of not that I particularly like I like when when I I

just you know can blend and can just do my thing and just live and not kind of a

driving attention uh butting you know in some cases you know you can help right

yeah yeah absolutely so so like you know I don’t know if you initially you know

when you started your career you you thought I absolutely want to be you know head of customer success at pag your

duty or if there was like sort of some steps along the way but like what what where did you get started and then what

kind of like guided you to where you are today yeah a lot a lot of steps uh I ended up here just by I guess happy

accident or or however you wanna you want to call it so um I started again

this I’m GNA date myself here but this is back in the in the in the uh internet

like web. 1.0 era right when when if if you had a degree in science and you

could turn on a computer you would actually automatically be hired as a developer of some sort and people will

train you and whatnot right so I started off as a developer uh it’s a good thing

that I moved out because I was probably not going to be uh a good developer down the road uh and due to the fact that I

could you know speak languages and whatnot I ended up kind of transitioning to the to the business side my trade

would have had most success is in product right so you get this technical

background and then you start applying to okay how do you translate technical

Innovation into something people can consume right and and after product we

started building services around it and and motions and businesses that can that

can be that can be there um cataly Catalyst to adoption of those products

and and into all all those things right um the fact that I ended up in the post

sales world uh customer success uh customer support uh was just a happy

accident a transition from you know uh my company company I was working at was

acquired by P Duty for and change for years and changed ago and uh ended up

having this having this role everything I’ve done to that point just gave me all

the skills that I need to be able to do my job well right having been a consultant having been a customer I was

actually a customer of pay duties uh two or three uh companies ago uh and that

background that uh those skills those competences that you gain through being

part of different parts of the software process uh is what gives me a little bit

of an edge right because I know how the sausage is made I know how customers are consuming it just putting those two

things together so have nice nice bridge between you know our users and our product teams and our engineering teams

customer sixcess is a right place for me but it was all all an accident right yeah I think I think the idea of a happy

accident um to hear you say it I think a lot of people probably would think man

this guy he has it totally figured out he knows exactly what he’s doing wish wish right it never happens like that no

matter how much you you plan again it is me coming from my uh training in

unplanned work in customer support you can plan you know everything you want

right things still going to happen issues are still going to happen outages are still going to happen so yeah know

it’s just how you respond how you take those opportunities how you respond to those things right so but yeah this is

you know uh you kind of your horizon of planning gets shorter as you as you grow

older as well right you know 20 years ago I I I wanted to be whatever I had all my career planned but then as you as

you get there and the life takes you in different directions then you start like okay this is what I’m going to do this

year right this is what I’m going to try to be effective and and which is a good thing as well right for for the uh for

the roles you’ve had when it comes to customer support success um are there particular areas that you know you

mentioned having started with some technical expertise product Innovation are there things where you say ah it’s

incredibly helpful for me to have been developer to understand how to read documentation and so I know how to write

it what what are some of those things that you know come to mind for you that are maybe super super important yeah

some of the you know as I said I’ve lived through the big uh uh of them

shifts right so the the 1.0 2.0 and phone and whatnot and now ai you know

Cloud all all of that right and there’s a pattern the more the more Curious you

are the more you know about how it’s done right don’t be a user just move to

you of participate in the making of it in the process of of understanding how it’s done that’s what gives you the The

Edge and um helps you filter noise to signal and helps you understand

like what are the different motions that that you’re going to that you’re going to get so in general is participate in

how things are done like deeply right just scratch the surface don’t take any black boxes just go into the okay how is

this be curious right how is this done right and that gives you the

then back engineering that into okay how how do you present it to a user how you

present it to a developer how you present it to a an executive right it is going to you you need to know the

details of how it’s done and then translating into words or into into kind of a messages that are P to the audience

you you’re you’re addressing that gives you the power of you know being able to to speak across the spectrum of of

people and you know at this look knowledgeable if you’re even if you’re not like detailed you know or Hands-On

code you still know how it’s done right yeah I I I think uh you know it’s it’s

really interest I’m sure maybe you’ve either heard of it or you’ve seen it but the TV show Ted lasso he talks about you

know be be curious and sort of use that as a as a mantra I think you know if I’m understand what you’re saying the

curiosity is the sort of first part where you seek to understand something the new waves that are coming and as you

develop a learning around them you you you become more successful even if you’re not confident you can become

competent exactly and again there’s the other thing is is being humble there are things you don’t know and that’s and

that’s fine right again it’s it’s like a the process of how things are built without having the details you’re going

to always take a task that you don’t need to do it you need to understand how it’s done you understand the skills that

take to to perform that particular task right so you understand the value it has

when it when it it moves down stream to someone else is going to be consuming that service that product that idea that

you know phone whatever it is that’s spill right so it’s just G of that Curiosity and then being humble and this

you’re not going to be the best at every single stage of the process that you least understand how it’s done right

what it takes right absolutely um I I can think of you know just a maybe a little bit of a counter example but this

idea of learning and trying trying and and and kind of developing yourself I I had an opportunity when I was at

Facebook where I was asked to present to basically like five Executives of the company and you know 20 directors and a

bunch of employees and I felt so overwhelmed and lost I prepared but

ultimately I felt like I hadn’t prepared enough and ever since that presentation

I’ve never wanted to feel that way again um so so I want you know I was kind of curious like for you um have there been

projects or experiences that really changed that you can really think oh I I remember this one time that changed how

you approach your work that gave you New Perspective yeah there’s there’s one that was um a very defining moment of

the relevancy of what we do right so I was a uh two companies ago in a uh we

were building infrastructure right for telecommunications companies in in worldwide actually built clouds you know

private clouds in places like the Vatican and you know Nepal so it was everywhere literally obviously other

other less exotic places too right and one of these less exotic places right

that’s when I I came to the realization of the of the importance of what we were doing we were always in the TCO world

all very proud of kind of the 59 reliability right all these things need

to be up right and you kind of you know when you detach yourself from the problem you’re solving it’s like okay

this is kind of a mandate and you don’t pay a lot of attention to it right at that point that telecomunication company

we were working with told us why and is well my 991 one system is running on

this infrastructure right so this is no longer like if you’re down if you have

an outage things are you know it’s going to be costly your customers are going to

be you know you’re GNA be happy and what not it’s literally lives at sake right

you’re saving lives right and this well okay this is not a game anymore so all

all and I get it and now it’s it’s a little Doom like you know this is this is why these things are are thought

through and they are they’re rigorous and there’s a lot of txting and there’s a lot of it’s a very complex environment

that once again you don’t know how it’s done you kind of take for granted right you call l11 and it’s working and you

post whatever okay there’s a lot of work behind making that work that was a realization of okay what I do the

software I create the services I’m building are effectively right um saving lives or

potentially be saving lives right and and you know not not that I had to do anything differently because we were

building it already with kind of that uh attention to detail and making sure

everything was was right right but it gave me like okay yeah these are the things that are happening this is not

dollars dollars come and go lives don’t so that’s that was a a very defining moment and then instead like everything

we do now at P Duty that reliability we we like to bring to our to our users not

that we always compare to that it’s not that I have that in mind all the time right but it creates a habit of building

things that are reliable and there’s a reason that you might or might not know behind it and at the end of it you know

there might be those reasons might be that with that gravity right of of of

you know whe whe that’s dollars for a small company or a large company or effectively something even more personal

right did did you find that um once you found out that it was supporting the 911

system that you felt like an increase of stress or personal accountability or were you able to B manage that in a way

because again the the we we knew the system will hold I we knew we we were

doing all the testing so it was more of you know a uh yeah it it it didn’t

change the way we did things it changed probably the the way we felt

about it in a in a way right the way we okay this is you know this is as I said this is beyond the game this is not that

I can code and can do whatever this is you need you need to there’s a process for a reason and if you ever thought

about you know taking an short because this is why you shouldn’t right it’s kind of that that gravity so I don’t

think it it really you know uh it Consolidated an idea of okay the

work that you’re doing is relevant uh but yeah you know want to be thinking about that pressure every time

uh especially when when something’s not going right uh but create the processes

to make it right right just take the steps so you know you know it’s important uh so in a way it did kind of

wait on on how how I bu things right I I was talking to um he’s a head of

customer success at a company called deal and he mentioned that he felt like

um I think he said the quote was something like it’s not his quote but um he said that pressure was a privilege

and I thought that was great because you know when you’re working on something important it it aligns everybody in the

right direction you really care about what you’re doing and you know it makes your your work your role your your job

more important yeah you know what I I felt like you know the I didn’t feel

like oh something is going to go wrong right when because everything everything like the process of building this kind

of systems this kind of this kind of services are always are so thorough right that kind of gave me a validation

okay we’re good right because we we put the work right and and and again it’s

the validation of of the of the process how it’s built um but yeah you carry that over to

the next the next problem up in this case you knew what was going on some

cases you don’t when you try to make assumptions instead of doing kind of a

or not making assumptions at all this okay this is just an another system that we’re building that we’re setting out what not you always think about okay

what if there was a a service like that 911 that was going to run in this in this system so once again learn from how

you build those and build them the same with the same you know reliability

consistency resilience Etc right I love that I think that’s really cool um we we talked a little bit about at the

beginning how you know you’ve helped grow and develop um the the team in Chile but also sort of globally um I

would I would love to hear from you you know because I I think we’re all some of us all of us are working remotely whether it’s hybrid full-time you know a

couple days a week here and there but like building a a strong team culture and working across time zones I feel

like can be quite a challenge unless you have some some good approach to it so

what what are some of the things that are key for you so for me um we we hire

as diverse as possible for starters right because that’s going to give you the it’s going to force you and your

team to incorporate ideas from different backgrounds when I say like where I’m

just talking about classic you know race and gender and orientation whatnot

generational diversity right folks that are older younger from backgrounds Etc

uh location Geographic uh diversity um even um studies or

competences uh diverse that strengthens the the core culture when you find that

common ground with people that are very different that Common Ground gets uh

it’s stronger right that core gets stronger and then you have the breath and the visibility into out of the many

dimensions that these diverse people will bring you’re going to take the the

range is stretched to the top of the person who has the highest you know

attention to detail that’s what’s going to drive what good looks like that’s what’s going to set the bar for your

teams right so we try to always hire as the ver as possible and then there are tricks here you know especially when

it’s you know uh time zones Etc it’s like it’s not always about work you need

to get to know the people that you’re working with you need to have the the open mind to talk to them in the same

language with things or on the language they they understand uh give you very

very silly example right um there’s a lot of analogies of football when we

talk here in the US right oh you I’m the quarterback of this account or I’m whatever right outside of the US

football is a complete different game it’s a complete different for right I

didn’t know what a quarterback was until I came to the one day I did but I until I came to the us when you force people

to talk in a in a in a in a broader uh um you know vocabulary or some or find

those analogies that holks will understand better broadly right that’s also something that you instill into

your Communications and you get dbes that culture as well like okay it’s inclusive it’s diverse the core is

always stronger and it gives you visibility into all the all the edges of the different dimensions of the people

the competences you’re you’re developing right yeah I I think you know going back to a point that you made early on when

we were talking about Tokyo I think when you enter a place that is is different enough that it causes you to sort of

almost like wake up yes I think when you’re working with teammates who have different perspectives that that aren’t

just exactly the same that they speak a little bit differently slower faster more intelligently sloppier whatever it

kind of adjusts how you perceive everything yes yes you feel it um I uh I

started to manage a team of support professionals younger than me there’s a lot of people younger than me these days

anyway uh and they would I’m getting there too I’m getting there they would communicate with Emojis right and I was

like okay I you know it’s I’m not gonna change anything it was it was fun it is

fun still you know still do it it is fun it is how they build that culture I’m

not going to be disrupting any of that I will learn i w put my Emojis there and you know I will try and I will I will

accommodate to that way of of thinking it is that perspective of that

idea of of you know uh it doesn’t need to work exactly the same for everybody

you will find naturally if you have the intention and you have the the the will and the people you will have you will

find the way you communicate and you you you agree no matter how different it is

you need to find that way because again this is what I told the other day some of my folks okay this is maybe my

customers are also communicating emojis maybe my customers are also communicating this other way right so

who am I let’s find way to okay how you like my tone what how you want my

communication to be and let’s let’s figure out how we can adapt right right absolutely I talked to a a customer

success manager support manager today her name was Laura and she mentioned that her team is they’re all quite a bit

younger and she herself is a millennial and and you know she was describing it all her herself this way but she was

saying she loves to include gifts or images in a lot of her replies and she

found that it just lightens the mood a little bit and she she really pointed out what I thought was very interesting is that most customer support teams do

not do this and so it’s one way of differentiating them um I think another

one that I I’ve seen recently and it’s a little it’s more of a cultural thing but I’ve noticed that with the teams that we

have that are more European um they tend to like to do direct messages more often

and some of the folks in America they’re often more comfortable with groups and more open communication and we kind of

have to like be like hey we really need to talk all together but it takes some coaching yeah it it does and again I

have a born in and raised in Madrid moved to the us about 15 years I’ve

experienced that very same thing right on the the way to communicate they say one of the dimensions of this

communication is directness or or or conflict um we are okay with verbal

conflict in my hometown right like you know I can I can say oh stop you do this

this way and what not I don’t need to involve your manager I don’t need you don’t need to involve my man I don’t need to let anybody go we will just

figure it out uh and again in general I don’t want to I don’t like to generalize

too much but in general that’s normal right and then in some other parts of the world it’s not right it’s it’s right

it’s even you know not not great not a great practice because it’s not common right so figure

that out before you actually need to exercise some of that communication and

it’s just like incidents right during during peace time is where you figure out how you’re going to be reacting when

things don’t go smooth uh uh because during wartime you just need to be

focused on or during a conversation that needs to you know be resolving an issue you’re going to have to exercise that

pattern of that you have agreed on right they up from contract on hey this is how we’re GNA be talking to each other right

right so so you Ed the word exercise a few times um I’m gonna I’m gonna go in a little bit of a different direction but

um you’ve you’ve worked at a you know pretty senior role at a high stakes fast

growing great business and you also presumably have a a life outside of work

I I’m not a big believer that it’s easy to have like balance like everybody talks about um but I think you can have

personal fulfillment as well as you know employment and fulfillment there what how how do you approach those kinds of things it’s a and and you you brought

out the the exercise a habit you you exercise right again work is work and no

matter how you know important or relevant again talk about you know the services that you provide the the

relevancy the the pressure that you get regardless of of where you are you’re going to have a degree of pressure

you’re always going to feel that pressure differently right how you are

engaged and involved in your work etc but you need to learn how to draw

the line right on okay this is this is me at work and this is me at home right

it’s a different type of pressure I have 17 year old 14 year old right it’s a

completely type of pressure you still get kind of the same the same feeling it takes 100% of your time as well right

but you need to be able to draw that line and you learned how to do it you need to exercise habit you create right

and and and again you need to force yourself to draw that line and to hey

you especially when you’re working remotely at home that your office and your refrigerator two clothes and

sometimes hey having dinner and then you go to the office and then you get out of the office and not uh so yeah force

yourself to kind of imagine you’re commuting right imagine you you you

leave work and you leave work and those Norms need to be respected and there’s

you know there’s something going on uh and you know don’t pick up a a

call on a at 10 p.m because there’s no need for it right this is you know

people would usually work and if you prepare your teams and and your kind of

processes in a way that that you can accomodate that then just don’t do it let the process run let let the process

be and if if the process doesn’t work then you’ll change it next time but you know in the morning you know or whatever

you don’t need to do it on a Sunday at 1 a.m. right that doesn’t need to happen

unless it’s by design that you are on C that you are working on those on those

on that at that time right so it’s an exercise you to you need to

continuously you know remind yourself that hey am I at work am I with my

family right this is and it can be both right I I have a 12 a 10 a an eight and

a six-year old so I I’m probably get after this call I’m gonna message you and say like how do I handle the 12 to

17 year old I bet you have some great experience yeah I don’t think there’s a there’s a one siiz with all that you

know gives give us enough for a you two or three episodes of of the podcast for

sure yeah yeah absolutely so okay so um how how about um in the world you

mentioned this much earlier there’s been these shift shifts I should say these emerging Technologies these kind of

bubbles we’ve described them in lots of different ways right now I think we’re in the age of AI oh yeah um so what are

you excited about in that category specifically when it comes to your everyday work your business what are you

looking forward to so the the the the key um no matter how cool the technology is

right oh this impressive are you’re doing this now what not is is the

outcome you’re trying to get right is is the the gift of time back to people

going back to the conversation we just had about okay this is work this is this is

family you will be bringing out time that you can allocate to something different than the toil that repetitive

task Etc right let’s get it right let’s fix those instead of the you thinking

about something you know important that that let’s not delegate that to the AI

let’s keep that kind of mind fresh and and do that ourselves as as human uh

people and then get the AI to do some of those repetitive pth that don’t add

value right and the give of screen up time is what excites excites me the most

out of the technology then again there are risks on you know using it wrong you

know perpetuating biases or making decisions or you know understanding

that’s why going back to the importance of understanding how it’s built

understanding how you know how you come up with a even if it’s the basic you

know use case chpts of the world where you know you’re going to come up with with a text okay how’s that done why is

that done that way right is that a better way always challenge the the process always be curious to don’t take

that for granted and understand that there you know there’s hallucinations and there’s all the types of problems

that are in the model and participate in building better models right so that’s

that’s kind of what what is but yeah definitely AI is not only kind of a a

shift similar to inside or in in relevancy similar to what we’ve we’ve

lived in the past but it’s always you know they always go much faster than the previous one right so the pace at which

we are adopting and innovating and making this happen is is it’s great it’s

great to see it’s great to witness it’s great to participate on um it’s not new

by the way people we’ve been doing this for some time machine learning Etc so so

it’s it’s like now it explod Ed but um the investment that has been going on uh

and ensuring this is done the right way uh it’s it’s actually like signing yeah

I I I particularly like the freeing up time aspect of things I I think so far I

found it’s able to help you know as an example like any video call that we do now it used to be that you’d have to

write notes now you can have an AI afterwards analyze it and pull out the best things anything I missed I feel

much more organized um I’m still not very organized but I can feel more organized I I think the area you know

going back to our kids I am hopeful one day that there is like a personal AI that can just schedule my Healthcare

appointments my sports for my kids and then I can just go and enjoy the sports rather than being worried that I forgot

to sign up for them I I think there’s a lot of these minutia details in our lives that that do distract and make

both work and personal that I’m excited about on the freeing up time aspect of things yeah that’s that’s the only thing you you mentioned right is is both

personal and professional right and and it will effect everything now uh is he

going to replay people and are we going to be working nothing at all just you

know enjoying what AI figures out of everything else like yeah know that’s

there probably not even something we want right as a as a race or a a as a

species right um but the fact that is yeah it’s taking all those things that

you you’re not good at like a human brain is not good at um taking those and

just you know making it helping you gonna be enjoy the moment right we need

to again be mindful that when we free up that time that time is allocated in

something that really brings us the value we expect otherwise invest like a return of investment right hey you free

out time to enjoy the sport don’t spend that time not in doing the sport doing

something else right so that’s just just doing more work right again once again it’s a ful uh is a is a is a conscious

uh you know investment you need to do it you need to you have time now you need

to do it there for folks who believed pre- Ai and post AI that might be easier

but folks like you know are born with AI they might not know you know what was

what was the prior so the value of that time might be might it’s not be different but we will see through and

and it will be it will be fun yeah absolutely let let’s talk about customers for a minute you know you

mentioned early on that you had a lot of experience techical with product Innovation talking with customers being

a customer of PAG your duty um I think building products that are really great is is actually quite a big Challenge and

I think we’re all trying to take you know either build new products or make the products we have better how how have

you learned to identify what could be great for customers and then to get the

feedback from them um the the one thing that I I’ve the the privilege of doing

is I I’m customer zero for my products I use my products I use my products I used

them in the past as a proper customer paying customer I would say not proper customer but paying customer and now I

use them internally for my teams right I use our automation S I use our our uh

you know operations platform um and my

customers again because I been in in this many different roles in the you

know the software industry understand what are the problems that we’re going through going back to the earlier part of our

conversation people have very similar problems regardless of their industry regardless of you know time is you know

is that toil that drives you know 57% of the time of a developer is invested in

repetitive tasks that could be avoided okay can we do better right can we free

up that time and invest in something that’s more meaningful from a professional standpoint to those

developers I’ve been a developer I’ve been there I know what is oh yeah again I need to spin up another virtual

machine somewhere and I need process and you just go through the the list of things that you need to do time is that

so I’m able to kind of have the conversation about not the product and the

features but the problem we’re trying to solve right and that usually spans across you know all the domains of okay

how you manage people okay how you you know transition from one software to the

next how you make those those migrations Etc so it’s a matter of talking to peers

around common problems that I’ve seen and we’ve experienced and I’ve solve with my products and Sol them might you

know I might be still to solve with any any products right so is is that

peer-to-peer conversation uh where we get most of the feedback and then you end up talking the

same language because you’re still kind of suffering or or or experiencing the same challenges that that than than our

customers that gives at least I think it gives me a little bit more credibility when I go in there and I know what I’m

talking about because I’ve been an operator and I’ve been there uh and and it’s a it’s a more honest conversation

as well like you overselling product does what it does configuring it and

then surrounded it with the right processors the product is just the part it’s the process of the people that also

matter and you can’t really sell those right you need to build those around that right yeah I I definitely agree and

I think what really resonates is this idea of like finding and identify the pain the problem with the customer and

then and actually just talking to them about it understanding them and hearing them you know goes back to that sort of aspect of uh you know the diversity of

team if you have a diversity of ideas you talk to different potential customers within a maybe a small group

or whatever you’re going to probably find a great product to build there and then you just have to work with them right oh yeah and and in this case you

know we talking to like large Enterprises in the world you know this is this is a partnership this is not

like a a transaction that you know you use this and you know it’s like okay how

we grow we have plans and strategy built in large organizations for the next

three to five years right okay how we partner that’s kind of what the real feedback is if you tell me oh I want

this blue or I want this this other the color again sure right we can we can make it flexible but is it really

solving a problem right yeah yeah or are we trying to anticipate together what

are the problems we’re going to have in the operations world and how we’re going to be mitigating outages and reducing

the time to health how we going to be using AI for instance to okay can I fix

a problem before it becomes a problem can I fix it at symptom can I fix it at

at alert and I anticipate hey this is what’s going to happen because hey you you’re you’re having the symptoms and

you’re going to have whatever is going to happen in the next range of time can

I anticipate all of those things we need to partner with our customers to be able

to make that a a reality and that’s that’s a common that’s a beauty of of the of the kind of the conversation it’s

not that transactional anymore it’s like okay where where we want to be in five years right and there’s be an alignment

there that that’s that’s always going to be obvious right um one final question

for you um it’s more along the lines of uh you know I I know you mentioned you’re you know getting up there in age

uh you still have many at bats uh opportunities games matches whatever ahead of you but uh when you think about

like a piece of advice that you’d probably give your son or one of your children as they enter the workforce or

they look to find their first path into their career what’s that one piece of advice that you think is super important

so and I think we we touched on it right don’t lock yourself into into a decision

you make right you make a decision today that looks clear few years from now

might not be the right decision you might rethink it so be open to revisit

your decisions and change gears right go somewhere else do something different

take risk right do you know side movements doesn’t need to be a promotion

all the time you can try different Industries different places Etc because that’s how you build kind of your your

competences that you define what you’re G to like at any given time and that goes for you

know as long as you as you you’re working or even Beyond just you know try

different things as you feel them uh without going too crazy but try the different feel things as you as you feel

them and then the other thing I always say is put yourself in a position where you can choose where you’re not forced

to um be in a company that you don’t like be in a role that you don’t like be

like you know always put yourself in a position where you can choose is what I’m kid is now but to start college and

that’s what I’ve been telling him for the last few years okay you know you need to apply to colleges put yourself

in a position where you can choose where you go rather than I only can I can only go to one right so that’s that you know

goes on in life and and it’s a how to get there it it ties with a lot of the

things with stand okay be curious understand you know grow in different competences meet different

people have an open mind talk to people from different parts of the world understand the problems that Curiosity

drives that uh putting yourself in that prision too awesome those those are great uh

closing thoughts uro thank you for spending the time with us today and sharing your great thoughts absolutely

thank you again for having me and you know it’s a it’s it’s been a great uh great time