People-First Software Engineering - Interview With Hassan Habib

I have a very special guest in today's episode and I feel like it's really rare that you come across people that I feel like are really genuine and not only genuine but inspirational. They're able to teach. They've been successful in many different ways. Honestly, Hassan Hhabib is just someone that embodies all of these qualities. And when I got talking with them, I really got to understand that he is a people first kind of person. And it's not just something that he says, it's something that you really get to feel when you're talking with him. And for me, this is a super special interview. I'm very appreciative that he made the time to be able to do this. And honestly, it was uh just something that I, you know, don't really have words for. So, means a lot to me and I really think that you're going to enjoy this one. Hassan has tons of really awesome philosophical insights. He's very technical as well. And I think that if you kind of step back and look at what he's saying, there's tons of really interesting ways that you might start perceiving the world around you. So, sit back, enjoy, and I'll see you in the next one. Son, if you don't mind kicking us off, I guess uh do you want to give a little bit of background to the audience about some career journey and you can kind of start, you know, as early or as late as you want, but just to kind of >> set the tone. >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Uh my name is Hassan Hhabib. I, you know, I'm I'm living here in in Washington state. Uh uh I started this gosh 1997, right? And uh we started I started writing some PHP code. I started doing my own business. I sold uh do you remember DSL? Do you remember DSL connections like where companies? Yeah, it was before that whole um you know fiber fiber internet and that fast. I started building a system that helps companies manage that and I was only around 17 years old and you know I started kind of selling that to people. >> Uh I you got started like basically right into having your own business like right away. >> Yeah. Super cool. >> I got that from my mom and my grandpa. They they're like you know never be employed. Don't be employed. uh you know, if you're employed, uh you're basically getting and and this is going to, you know, ruffle some feathers like they say, but you're getting pennies on someone else doing half your job or even 10% of what you're doing and they're getting 10 times, 20 times, 30 times. They're drinking their pina colada on the beach and you're going night after night after night, right? So, never never do that. I didn't I didn't take that advice too seriously obviously like you'll hear in the in in the rest of my journey but you know I'm I'm getting back to it like I'm getting back into that zone but yeah I I worked in a lot of companies I've been to 22 countries around the world um I um I traveled a lot uh I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia originally and you know my you know the um the one thing I realized as I'm traveling is that it's not that like everyone in this world is basically the same APIs. They just have different UIs. You know what I mean? Like you and I will feel hunger and fear and love and anger exactly the same. Like if I describe anyone anywhere, what's what's angry to you? Be like, "Oh, my blood is boiling. I feel like that, right? It's just we have different interfaces and that's fine, you know, that means, you know, that means the system is uh working everywhere. Geor redundant, right?" Yeah. I I worked at I worked a bunch of some smaller companies and bigger companies. I worked at Wols Fargo, John Deere. We were building intelligent systems for John Deere. We were competing with German companies, right, for their tractors and whatnot. I remember taking down like like these tractors and sensors and these tractors, they sent so much data out of the like the the soil, right? I Yeah. early it must have been 20 2015 20 2016 we were basically sending tons of data to AWS it almost took down their entire cluster right because go ahead >> it's incredible because I don't think a lot of people realize like when we talk about software development and stuff it's like okay well there's finance there's like these these systems that you inherently are like obviously you need software for that you're talking about tractors and it's agriculture and if you like I Obviously, you've been through that, so you're well aware that there's technology there, but I don't think on the surface a lot of people realize pick any industry you want. >> And I would say if there isn't technology there like at that kind of scale or doing that kind of thing, like you probably have a crazy opportunity to pursue, but like it's everywhere. >> Yeah. If you if you can look at I mean this is going to sound crazy that I say that. I agree with you 100%. But you gonna sound crazy. I've spent the better part of my life, right, writing software, writing code. Up until this very moment, like an hour ago, I was just writing code, you know, for some project that we're working on. And technology is actually just a tool, you know, like what you're actually having a system design. If you can solve problems, right, as system design, right, that's that's better than anything. And that can be anything. It doesn't have to be software. Like a buddy of mine just bought a mat that says, you know, um if if you are selling me something, go home. I don't want to I don't want to hear it. That's automation. Even though there is no software involved, he just put a mat in front of his door that says if you're selling something, go home. I don't want to hear it. It's automation, right? >> Yeah. It is non-coded solution for automation. Like literally. Yeah. Yeah. >> Exactly. Yeah. I I worked at Microsoft obviously like a lot of people know we did a lot of fun stuff with mixed reality. I think I still have the the headset somewhere and you know we did um we worked with Xbox. I worked at this Xbox subscriptions and office subscriptions. Um but uh you know I evolved I'm I'm getting beyond that point that I'm trying to get into the mode of can I start my own business? Can I actually build my own software? I've been doing a lot of things like on the side over the years, you know, just kind of building a website here or an application there and whatnot. But I think like and this is the biggest challenge, right, for software engineers, they can build some really amazing software, but you just they just don't know how to sell it, >> right? They don't know how to talk to people, >> right? And and you know what I'll tell you quite honestly like a lot of products and a lot of software that I've seen in some of the bigger companies. It's not that the product is not working as expected. It's just the selling of it really sucked. Right. Yeah. So um uh that's the muscle I'm trying to build. Right. The idea of just sitting down with someone and convince them to put their hands in their pocket and pay me money for this thing that I built. Usually it's the other way around. Usually it starts with someone who doesn't know how to code a founder or whatever but they have an idea they go find the engineer and then they build it Steve Jobs Waznjak kind of situation right >> right >> but what if we reverse engineer this like where do we start from okay I can architect I can build software I can blah blah blah can you actually engage and I think this is a skill set that every software engineer should invest in this is just a brief interruption to remind you that I do have courses available on dom train focused on car so whether you're interested in getting started in C# looking for a little bit more of an intermediate course focused on object-oriented programming and some async programming or you're just looking to update your refactoring skills and see some examples that we can walk through together. You can go ahead and check them out by visiting the links in the description and the comment below. Thanks and back to the video. I 100% agree and uh I would say that for you know especially for more junior folks that haven't had a lot of different experiences if you haven't been to a startup where you really need to like understand that like if the software is not being sold if it's not if you're not working towards acquiring more users growing the user base like that company will not exist and you need to understand that like delivering and shipping value to customers is going to be the thing that like from the software side of things that is what your respons responsibility is obviously there's going to be sales and marketing that has to go behind that but um yeah like that that understanding of like what the user actually needs is going to be a big >> super important super important absolutely absolutely yeah man I'm here I mean I don't know if if YouTube is a job you know or content creation is a job I' I'd like to think of myself as someone who creates content not a content because I I I definitely don't put the amount of time and effort you know, someone, you know, like, you know, the folks that are out there that put like I look at, you know, MKBHD, the guy that reviews like gadgets and and new phones and whatnot. The amount of effort that goes into the editing is wild, right? I just don't have the time for that. I'll just turn on the camera and be like, "Hello, YouTubers. Today we're going to talk about and I'm just going to go there for like an hour until I'm tired and just, hey, you know, don't forget to like and subscribe." Just >> sure. Yeah. Yeah. upload whatever went in there. Upload. >> And you kind of mentioned before we started recording though that you you leverage this like a tool for basically documenting, right? Like for like when I say this, I mean YouTube. So your content creation and I don't want to say this as it's like a minimizing thing but like it is a tool for you to be able to document uh like like values like experiences like uh concepts and >> and then the the side effect of that is that you have a lot of people that are looking at that being like this is super helpful I am getting value out of this but I I suppose that when and correct me if I'm wrong but when you're doing this kind of thing you see the value in doing that but it's not necessarily a thing where you're looking at that like well maybe I should stop doing the software side of things like I should stop building I should stop trying to sell because if I just put more time into this like that will just be the thing that I do like that seems like it's not the case >> completely out all the all the uh uh all the money that comes from uh I I mostly all my YouTube videos by the way have like this uh charity you know nonprofit uh ads here and there but also you know the the any money that that comes through these intentionally or unintentionally has to go to world central kitchen to kind of help people around there because the idea here is that it's form of charity charity of knowledge is to share it right so if you know something teach something right I the last thing I want to do is to you know to see the end of my life and I still know something that I haven't shared with someone that would bother me quite a bit um but yeah I mean it helps a lot like when I was at Microsoft a lot of people go and say Hey, you know, I saw you implementing this O data. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? I said, absolutely. Here's a prerequisite. Just watch this video. And it helps me scale across multiple people and multiple teams. Like at some point in time, I had 23 people reporting up to me. And I needed to scale. And if you spend an hour with each and every single one of them, it becomes quite a bit of effort, but it starts eating into your personal and family time and, you know, your own creativity and learning, which is super important. you still need to kind of recharge and rebuild before the next day at work, right? So, >> well, and especially I'm assuming, you know, if you're taking the mindset where like I have these people reporting to me, I want to help them. I want to do like the right thing. I know that's going to be look different for everyone, but you're like, I want to help them. I want to help them grow, help them be better. At some point, like to what you're saying, like, yeah, you cannot scale if you're trying to invest what feels like that right amount of time and effort into each person. like you need back to your automation story, you need something that's a system to try and and make that scale. So >> I I can see a future where you instead of sharing videos with people, you're sharing with them an LLM and they just plug it into whatever and it's you >> Yeah. >> talking to them and answering all the questions. So it's not this pre-recorded video anymore. I see a future where it's a clone. It's a digital projection of your digital self. >> Yeah. >> Right. and basically just say, "Hey, here's the LLM. It's going to teach you everything you need." I can see that as a product, you know, that will work. Imagine if someone like Einstein >> Yeah. >> had an LLM clone, right? We have a lot of answers, right? >> Yeah. And it's it's interesting because like that concept, it's not necessarily like, oh, we have an Einstein clone, therefore we can go get it to go solve the world's mysteries, but you could you could ask it things as if you were like really talking with that individual. But it's funny you mentioned that. We should talk about this separately too, but um I have a vlog channel that I've been kind of like what you've been saying where it's like just documenting things. I basically drive in the car, have it record, and I have a few hundred videos and I'm trying to take the transcripts and I would love to build an LLM that's just like go, you know, talk talk to Nick and it's like these are just things I keep repeating across videos. >> Um I think it would be super cool. Yeah, >> I I mean people are already doing it with the selfies and the vlogs and whatnot, right? People are already like like like taking hundreds of thousands of pictures, you know, on daily basis around the world, right? You already got comfortable with the idea that you want to put your face and what you're doing out there. Now, imagine if there's like a device or something connected and hears everything you say and it's just continuously creating an LLM clone of you. So you can live your normal life while the LLM is doing your daily mundane soul crushing tasks that you may or may not be interested in like you know like like work as we know it is going to I don't think the world really understand how much change is coming through this AI thing. Huh? Yeah. >> Well, and I think a lot of what happens is that like in the different industries, um, it ends up I I don't know if this is the right way to say it, but I feel like especially for programmers, the focus ends up being quite narrow. It's like, well, me as a programmer because the LLM can code, therefore, I am replaced. And it's like it's I think that's just too much narrow focus. I don't really agree with it to begin with, but um, what you're saying is almost like zoom way way way out from that. Like this is like a paradigm shift for like for work >> or for like existence even like in society like it's not just my you know the tasks I have are being replaced. >> Yep. Exactly. And and and hopefully it doesn't like I mean it will it will backfire. There will be it'll be it will be areas where >> unintended consequences right like unexpected. But isn't that the case with everything? Like people used to ride horses, now they ride cars. Now there are car accidents, right? >> If we could we couldn't have cars because there's a possibility you could get in an accident. So like no no technology there. >> There was actually protest, you know, that was a here's one for you that not a lot of people know that people were protesting cars, right, when they were first introduced. There were protests in New York City, you know, about cars being a thing that people start using because of the car accident, the dangerousness and all that. And if you think about it, horses are still like, if you can put aside the speed, horses are way more advanced than a car. A horse will never just run into another horse. No matter how much you push it, it's just not going to do that, right? But also, it it gives you that emotional support. Like a lot of people think of horses as emotional support animals, right? they actually they love you right it's a living breathing thing right but um yeah things I mean with every with every step every evolutionary step right there will be things that you have to let go in order for you to keep moving forward uh I think if people from the past saw what we're doing today and what we have today they think of us as magicians right like how can you how can I talk to you >> yeah this is impossible this is no way this could work >> I I remember early He thought, "Do you remember a band, a boy band called Insync?" Do you remember Instinct? >> They had a song called Digital Digital, right? Digital Digital Get Down, right? And he was describing, "Oh, you're thousand miles away and I can see you and you also can see me." Like that's like a an imaginary thing. And now it's just Yeah, that's just like a team's call. What are you talking about? every >> even as a kid like uh like having dialup internet and stuff. The fact that we're able to do this right now, the concept of having a video call wasn't like the most insane thing, but the fact that I could support like a high quality video stream like that like no could could not imagine that. >> Just Yeah. >> Yep. >> Changes very very quickly. Um, but yeah, I think with AI, okay, so I have a couple questions actually before I totally switch to AI. On your career journey and all the things you've done, it see like it seems like you've done many many different things. Have you found that like you've is it more of like an exploration or have you found that you're being pulled in a direction or like consciously trying to be like I I want to switch to go do this because I want this different experience? I'm just kind of sorry for proddding too much but very curious because there's a lot of different experience. >> No, that's that's legitimate. That's a that's a fair question. So, first of all, uh I I never wanted to be a software engineer. I wanted to be an astronaut just so you know. >> Okay. For start, right? And then my mom was like, well, you know, being an astronaut may you may get through u that through being an engineer. So, would you be an interested like because do they need computer engineers? That's how my mom just described computer engineers. So, be a computer guy, right? And you'll get your way through that. There wasn't quite a clear program or guidance back then about how to actually become an astronaut, right? So, I was obsessed with space. Obsessed like there's there isn't something out there that is about space that I don't watch. And when I'm really stressed down or feeling like that, you know, it's very heavy. I'm dealing with some stress, I always look at space, right? Space videos. NASA has these live videos that you could just stare at and see how small your problems are compared to this big thing that's out there in the universe, right? So, so I I just like I got into software engineering. I wasn't really interested in like marketing or um interested into the domain that I'm building software for. I'm more interested into the experience itself, right? like the actual design and build of solving any problem regardless of what that problem is, >> right? So, I found myself with farming sometimes, with Xbox sometimes, with mixed reality sometimes because they're all problems. >> Same thing. To me, I'll tell you this, to me, it's the exact By the way, just one thing that not a lot of people know. I couldn't care less about demo day. Like demo day is like you you anybody working on that project can go out there and take all credit for all the work I already enjoyed. I already got my value out of the building process itself because that's where my focus is. That's what the standard is about. That's what all this work is about, >> right? Is about >> like think about it, Nick. Like engineers will work nine months on a project just for 20 minutes demo, right? Does it make sense to invest and find joy and entertainment and happiness in the nine months or in the 20 minutes? Right? >> Um I I recall, you probably know this, you know, you know who Johnny Dip is. He's a he's a famous actor. >> Yeah. >> One of the things that he says is that he never watches his own movies. He just enjoys the process of acting, >> right? As long as acting happens. Johnny is like one of those people I call like a a natural artist. He sings and on he he plays on the guitar, he paints and he acts. Anything creative, but he doesn't really care about the output necessarily >> because it's the process. Yeah. It's just the It's just the process. I'm very h like I'm talking to you right now, right? I enjoy this more than the actual video that will come out at the very end because you're a human being and I'm a human being and we're building that connection as we're talking, you know, over that white fire grid people call the internet. But it's such a it's such a uh I mean I think a really awesome philosophy to have because if you like for me at least I think about you know different parts of my career even um or like like I think it's great to set goals and work towards them and stuff like that but one of the things that I know that I don't do well is I anchor like happiness and success to the goal. >> Like for like we were talking about YouTube and stuff. I'm like, I feel like I'm not going to be happy until like, you know, I passed the 100,000 subscriber mark, but like that's a terrible way to look at it because like if I and it's not that I don't enjoy making videos, but if I didn't enjoy making videos and I just kept doing it until I hopefully hit a 100,000 subscribers, like that would be a terrible x number of years just to go, I did it. And then >> Yeah. >> And then what? >> And now what? >> And now what? I I just did. I just hit a h 100red,000. Well, now it's 130 34,000 subscribers, right? Yeah. >> And how fast was the that that extra 30 on top >> just just super f talk about AI? Someone someone just posted this on Twitter. He said, "Your conversion rate is unrealistic. It's 20%. 250,000 views and you're getting 50,000 out of it." I was like, "Okay, it's very simple. Talk about AI and don't be a parrot. Like, don't just repeat what everyone else on the internet is saying." Like, let me just tell you this. If you talk about dependency injection, >> yeah, >> right? There's a million videos. >> Stop. You know what? So, see, Mr. Manager at Mic, he know he knows more than that. He knows probably more. We probably knew it. But dependency injection, right? Or entity framework or Blazer or whatever, right? If you're just going to repeat what everyone else is saying, >> then you're just another clone, another copy. I don't do that. Right? I looked at AI and everyone is worried about how to do a wrapper around chat GPT open AAI or how to integrate with this NA8. I don't know how they say Nate Nate. >> I had no idea. I had this come up on a live stream and someone was asking about it. I'm like I don't I can't say that. I don't know what to do. >> So So let me So let me just tell you this the spot here to me. I'm looking at what people are saying and I'm like what's useful for me? Oh, you know what's useful? I want to program that little robot, that Victor robot, and I want to put AI in it in its head, right? It's all running on Python and whatnot. And I don't want to pay. I don't want to pay for a subscription. Not because I'm stingy or anything. I dropped 200 like subscription, $200 subscription on a chat GBT4 or or whatever. It's about actually um uh independence. It's about uh autonomous, you know, kind of fashion. If you just subscribe to every API out there, you'll never understand how the technology actually works. And then we fall back into this situation where you have big big corporations that have all the magic, but people don't have if you don't own your own GPT, your own LLM, right? You're missing out on a huge opportunity. That's that's probably why hugging face is out there, right? So people kind of put as much open open-source LLMs out there. super important because big corp a lot of companies out there I don't want to get you in trouble but a lot of companies >> a lot of companies I'm gonna sound like a hippie here for a second but a lot of companies out there okay they're offering you this exservice right and you don't know how to run this exervice local >> right what happens when the company goes bankrupt or they decide that this is not useful there's no value prop or whatever MBA term is being used right the service is going to shut down whether whether you as an individual enjoy it or not, >> right? >> So your benefit out of it if it doesn't scale to $30 billion, it's going to get shut down. But what if you owned it, right? What if you owned that service? What if you could clone it, run it, host it? That's what the internet was. That's what software open sources was supposed to be. >> It's supposed to be, hey, I build this operating system. >> Clone it. Build it. run it or just subscribe to the service where I can fix it for you. But closing it completely is is taking away a lot of because because here's the thing, Nick, I talk to a lot of people all the time from every corner on Earth. Like you can imagine all the way from Indonesia, Australia, all the way up in China, everywhere, right? We forget a lot about this unknown genius that can't afford to pay your subscription, right? Like when you say, "Oh, the subscription is $15 a month." You know, $15 a month in some countries around the world could feed a family for a month. I really mean this, right? And in this family, there's this smart dude that could invent something as big as electricity, right? will never have such an opportunity because of Yeah, >> they're at a disadvantage just because they were born in the wrong country with the wrong financial wrong the wrong wrong financial position and all that. >> So open source is more about giving that guy a heads up, giving that guy a leg up and telling man here's all the knowledge that I this is why I will never put my videos on some paid course and whatnot. Nothing wrong with it, the people that do it, >> but my knowledge will always be free because I didn't when I got it, I didn't get it for money. >> So why would I put money on it, right? When I I mean, okay, I'll buy a book for like 50 bucks, but you know, the information is still out there, right? >> Yeah. >> That's the point. That's the point about open source. Unless you own your own LLM and know how to train your own AI model and fine-tune it and whatnot. And I'm and this is an advice for all engineers out there. do this right now because that train just taking off as fast as you can imagine. Yeah. >> Yeah. And then trying to catch up is Yeah. It's going to feel like good luck because it's not slowing down. Um, so you've been you've been building out the standard and I'm curious like like where did where did the idea come from to start documenting this to start like when I was looking through it and I've read parts of it before and I mentioned to you I was kind of reopening it and going through it again. I'm realizing like there's there's so much like philosophy in it that's not um it like if you read through the beginning it's like it has it's like this has nothing to do with programming but that's I think part of the point is that you've already said in our discussion so far like talking about systems one of the first things you talked about was people being like APIs and having a different UI in front of them and I like I can very much see that in some of your writing for this standard. So it was just curious how it came to be an idea to be like I got to start writing this down. >> Yeah, absolutely. The standard is about decentralizing uh seniority in the tech industry. Democratizing seniority in the tech industry. How can I get you as someone who just started to be able to write code as a principal or even a distinguished engineer in the least amount of time possible? And the reason for that is you know this Nick, you you've been in the industry for a I've been in this before. There's a lot of bullying. There's a lot of mean mean comments that get dropped, you know, especially if you're a junior person. Um, you start in the industry and then people say, "Oh, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you know, WTF, you know that, you know, what is what is that? Do you even know?" I got some of that myself. Like I had a person come up to me and say, "Believe it or not, he said to me, software engineering is not for you, Hassan. Maybe you should find something else to do." Right? And then I thought to myself, why is it so complicated? Does it have to be so complicated? Like I look around me in the world. I look at the sun and it's a sun and I can't comprehend it. I can't understand. No matter how complex it is, right, as a chemical structure or physical structure, the sky is the sky, the sun is the sun. Everyone knows the sea is the sea. Even though they're very complex systems, somehow we all get it. We all get it. Even little children get it. They will point out, "Hi, son. Bye, son." Right? Why is software which is nothing in in terms of complexity compared to these systems is so complicated like that? Why is it so weird like that? >> We literally have structured rules that we wrote down. >> You know what I mean? And and then I came to the bottom of it. The bottom of it is that there are three reasons why software is so complex. First of all, you know, early in the days it was job security. Like I know software engineers that will write the most complex possible piece of code. So there will always be needed. That was early days software engineers >> on purpose. They will do that, right? Like it's just complex, right? That's number one. Number two, the person that's writing the software is confused themselves. Like like what you're looking at in the codebase, that's just how much confused they are. So the confusion reflects in the code itself, right? And then number three, which is the most important one, and this is the one that I've seen everywhere, right? Is basically I don't care. It's just a job. I don't care. I don't care. Right? Like I would sit down. So I'll be like, where's the unit test for this? Be like, what's going to break if I didn't write a unit test? Hassan, let's be realistic here. The business is happy. I'm getting promoted. I'm getting paid without having to write a unit test. >> Yeah. >> I just don't care. like we we saw the green light like in produ said it works right I don't see any reason why I need to test drive this or whatever right so I was like okay we need we need a standard right I mean everywhere they have a standard why doesn't the software industry have standards right I mean we're literally in everyone's pocket in the watch in the headset in the microwave I swear there. My microwave has software in it. You could start it and stop it from your phone, you know. So, so I was like, okay, if I write a standard and this standard is focused on people and it has love baked into it, like love for people >> and it literally has a section that talks about like, you know, people first kind of approach. Yeah. >> People first. People first. I worked with folks in the past that would say if you don't understand the software, the bug is in your head. The bug is not in the software. And I am the absolute opposite of that. If I tell you the standard is a product of it's an anti-s software engineering industry bullying. Anti-bullying, right? to make sure that everyone no matter who they are, what they are, no matter what their background is, they can understand simple concepts like there's a dependency and there's a purpose and there's exposure. That's it. Try nature of things. Everything around us is like that and then just take it from there. It's not simp. The standard itself is complex, but it takes it slow and builds it up instead of just dropping someone in the middle of a war zone and say, "Hey, look, Azure is on fire. Go fix it." >> Yeah. Have fun. But it's uh I think uh super interesting too because when I find when whether it's documentation of processes, other like sort of standards that we see across things, I I find that the way that they get written and I'm I'm overgeneralizing obviously like trying to say everything that's not your standard. Um but I find that like a lot of approaches are they're hyper specific to things. So you might say cool like I'm work I'm just going to make this up. I'm working with ASP.NET NET core and there's some different standard procedures to go follow. This is how you do it because there's a framework for it. But like that's not what the standard is that you have. This is like more of like a like a I don't know if >> it's a paradigm. >> Yeah, it's a paradigm. I wanted to say I don't just want to call it like a philosophical approach to software engineering. I feel like that's parts of it, but like it's it's more than that, but it's not just here is the uh you know the JavaScript framework and how to use it. It's like this is a way to approach software engineering. Yeah, absolutely. It's a spirit. It's putting a spirit. It's putting a soul, a heartbeat into what we're doing. And it's like like you said, it's a philosophy. It doesn't matter whether you're building a desktop application, a mom and pop shop with a simple front end. It doesn't matter whether you're building massive enterprise application. I'm telling you, I've seen 18 and a 19 year olds reading the standard and writing code like you wouldn't believe, Nick. like eventbased you know listen to the event test drive this oh handle the validations I can see it now because that's what the standard said one of the things that I met this um I met this lady at Microsoft and I started teaching her about the standard whatnot and I said to her hey can you write something about your experience of standard she said to me the standard turns you from someone who's being intimidated to being empowered and I love that she said that because that's exactly what happened right she went from everything is confusing I'm so scared impostor syndrome d right into this >> haven't heard that before >> right into this no I actually can design a system there's a broker there's a service there's a controller there's a component there's UI there's this there's that the one thing I fight with the standard all the time is of course you can't build an idea unless you live and breathe that idea you mix it with your flesh and blood and be the role model the person that actually implements ments that and that's what we do with the open source community but nothing is going to take off until you take it out to people and that's that community around that book it's not just the book anybody can write a book especially in this chat GBT days it's so easy now you could just blur >> chat GBT write me a book pages >> you can make movies today oh people have it easy these days like writing a book is hard to write a book and unless you have a community and a movement you know along with that kind of book that actually believe these words right I remember sending a copy of the I signed a copy of the sand I sent it to a friend and he was showing it to his kids like it's some some something outside of this world and I was like stop doing that it's just a book and it's in draft it's always going to be in draft but yeah like this just a long-winded way of telling you I want to make software engineering fun I didn't see engineers is having this kind of happiness and fun in the regular um uh software projects. They're always scared. There's always this bug that's making them even distracted while they're spending time with their kids and their wives and their family. And I was like, "Wait a second." You know, software engineering is supposed to be fun. >> I feel like the fun was taken out. How to fix it? How to fix that bug? >> Right. >> Yeah. And I feel like I don't know like I I reflect when I was first learning how to program, right? Like when I first got the experience, I was in like Visual VB6 or something, I remember being like, "Holy crap, I feel like I have like I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I feel like I just found a way to get unlimited Lego bricks. I love building Lego. I have infinite Lego bricks of any shape I want." Like, this is about to be the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. and >> going through building like you know obviously crappy software as someone who's just starting out like I'm building things I'm trying things out and it was just fun and like it didn't matter if it wasn't working because it would be like well now I have this interesting problem to go solve like the whole thing was this like exploration and problem solving and just being uh being creative. It was really fun to enjoy that process of just making things. >> That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah. By the way, just so you know, like I'll tell you something. Take take this with you. You're an engineering manager. You're gonna appreciate this, right? I saw like I want you to think about your team right now. I'll give you three categories of software engineers. And I want you to think about your team. >> Software engineers can be three categories. >> They can be math scientists. These are the folks that go down that rabbit hole and they don't want to get out of it, right? They want to basically turn everything into a science project. >> There's that type. And then there's the cowboys which they just want to deliver, deliver, deliver, deliver one way or another. I want to get that PR across and I want to make sure that feature is done one way or another. Oh, email validation. Let me just find something on stack over or chat GBT. I guess that these days that does that already. I don't want to think about it. There's that type. So they have mad scientists. >> You have the mad scientist rabbit hole people. You have the cowboys. And then you also have these uh spiritual leader, right? This is the person that energizes the whole team. If that guy takes a day off, >> right? The the energy is down. That guy could be a little bit of uh, you know, a little bit of design, a little bit of architecture, a little bit of math scientist, a little bit of that, but their main power and main capability is how they energize. This is the guy that joins your standup call and everything just goes lights up. Be like, "Okay, guys, we got this. I think this is great. This is the guy that wants to kind of lift up the entire team." team. Think about your team. Just close your eyes for a second. Think about your team. And I'm telling you, you'll see it, right? And you need all of them to have a successful engineering team. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. But it it's it's true, though. Um, and it's uh even though you kind of you call out some some types of people there that seem like they're very opposite, very different, it doesn't mean that um like it's uh necessarily like a bad thing or like one is perfect, one is terrible. It's like >> you need them. You need all of them. You need all of them. >> Yeah. And it's uh the same kind of thing if you if you slice and dice that from a different perspective of like personality types and looking at different characteristics like if you have a team that where everyone is the exact same. It's like I've had um like conversations with people especially with AI and people being very afraid of you know there's not going to be software developers. I'm trying to get into the industry and it's going to go away. I don't know what to do. And they're like you know there's not going to be juniors. And I'm like, listen, I can't like I am an engineering manager. I couldn't just go build a team of like only principal engineers or only distinguished engineers. It would not be okay. It won't work. Just would not work. Uh, and I I don't know if it's because, you know, I'm not not sitting here like I am the most experienced engineering manager in the world, but I don't know if people realize that until they try to sit in that seat or until they try to look at if I were to build a team that was just, you know, the best most experienced software engineers in the world. I'm like, sure, that team might be able to go look at really challenging problems and go solve them, you know, very effectively, but what's going to happen to all the other stuff on the like that has to get done that doesn't feel like it is at necessarily the same I call it like the same level um you know, complexity, the same. >> Exactly. It's not that that work isn't valuable. It's just like the the level of I don't know like experience that those people want to be operating at the different types of challenges complexity will look very different. Um, so yeah, it's building a team of all the same level would be >> it would be insane. >> If anything, the other way like I have >> the other way. That's right. >> Having teams where everyone was like when I worked at a startup, we were all like there was one guy who was like the senior engineer. He's like the only guy that had worked at a different company and everyone else was like fresh out of school and it was, you know, a bit of a wild west situation as most startups are. Like we had a lot of really awesome people that were just like we're going to make this work. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean I mean if you think about it, they balance each other at the end because a principal engineer is probably someone who can't afford to work 16 hours straight anymore because family commitment, you know, all that kind of stuff. And a junior, they don't have as much knowledge, but they're willing to put as much hours as possible so they find each other at the end. like the principal will put an hour to get a job done, the junior will put 16 hours and they're gonna get there eventually at the same point. But here's the here's the other most important piece. Like junior engineers are actually the only ones on your team that are guaranteed to bring you truly out ofthe-box ideas because they're not programmed by the industry and its limitations. >> Yeah. >> So they are the ones that will throw that crazy idea that will change the world. That's number one. Number two, you know, junior engineers are your guarantee that your code base is still intuitive. >> Yes. >> And your software is Yeah. If without junior engineers, you're going to go way up high on that tower. And when one of your principles or distinguished engineers quits, right, you're going to struggle a lot because you can't just do this and pick up a principal engineer that will automatically know the entire domain. So you need the juniority of your software to be high. >> Is that is that a new word? >> No, I just I just made it up. I mean, what what are we saying anyway? So, >> no, but it's but I think that's uh I think that's spot on. Like I fully agree with that and I I don't know. I feel like some people again, maybe they haven't gone through like what that looks like to to grow and shape teams, but it's uh yeah, I think absolutely critical. Um, I think I don't know where I want to dive into next, but I feel like AI is like just this. Okay. I don't know for the stuff that you're doing right now, how much you're able to kind of share what you're working. >> Oh, yeah. >> Love to hear more. >> Yeah. I I a buddy of mine and I are try, you know, we just kind of um trying to start this business where uh we sit at the services side of AI. like we're not super interested in building your next chat GBT or claude or whatever anthropic is doing these days. We're more like what does chat GBT needs? Oh, it needs data, >> right? So, let's go and collect actual real data from the outside world, not data that you find on the internet. So, you're basically turning analog into digital. Right? So, you see what I'm doing? That's number one. And and then the second thing that we're trying to do is to basically offer truly lowcost nocost servers and GPUs to help people train their LLMs. Right? So that's the second part that we care about. And then the third is is the most important part is to basically go and say, you know, you want to get up to speed on AI. You want to your entire engineering team to easily, you know, get into that world of AI. You know, we're willing to sit down and kind of bring you up to speed. We're going to start with with you from scratch, bring you up to speed. So these are these three main components like the software you know you have you have the data you have the servers the hardware and then you have the training right if you want us to develop a custom AI solution for you we're going to make sure that your senior engineer or your principal engineer is writing code with us a lot of >> yeah a lot of companies will be like no no no stay away let me do all the work so it's super vague for you so you continue to need me forever but that's not the business that we're trying to do. Everyone's competing on building the next AI app. We're sitting on the back end of that and saying, "Hey, do you need data? Do you need servers? Do you need training? Do you need what do you need so I can empower you to kind of build your next AI app?" Basically, >> and that's super cool that I really like that that point around because you see this all the time where it's like if we go build it for you, like you mentioned job security a little bit earlier, right? we can keep that job security. And I think it's interesting cuz I think there's probably people that maybe when they're like they don't really think about that like that's going to be an oh crap kind of thing later. And I think there's other people that see it at the surface and they're like well then I don't want that because I don't want to fall into that category. But um you know I just feel like that that model really sets you up to be like look we're going to deliver value to you. we're going to empower you. And that's even more reason that makes it like a really attractive idea because like we need help. Okay. Like help us. And um I've said this in a different context before, but I've always kind of had this idea that to be, you know, to do your own job really well, you almost need to like obsolete yourself. Like it sounds kind of funny, but if you can do that, then you get to move on to the next big challenge, the next interesting thing. And then you've made whatever you're doing, like whether it's a, you know, a task, a project, or you're creating a solution for someone else. You've given them what I feel like is ultimately the thing they really need. >> That's exactly you just you just hit the nail on the head there. That's exactly it. I was just telling someone, have people work with you because they want to, not because they have to. Like your value is in the thing, the thing that's immeasurable, right? The the thing that's immeasurable, right? Like, okay, you have two principal engineers. They are the exact same skill sets. They can build the exact same thing. and somehow you just like working with the first one rather than the second one because the first one maybe allows you to share ideas and kind of converse with you. Maybe it's easier to work with them. Maybe they always bring new ideas to you even though they do can't do the exact same job. And that's what AI is going to do. AI is going to get to a point that can deliver a senior and a principal level engineer software. And the one thing that is not going to be able to do is creativity. the creative aspect of it. Think about the difference between uh someone who tastes tastes food versus a factory that just prints out a piece of cake. B like that. >> Well, how much cake are we talking about here? Because they'd be like, >> let's just let's just get the cake quantity out of the way. So, the taste AI will never tell you will never be able to tell you this cake is needs a little bit of more sweetness, needs a little bit more this. is a little bit more that because to it it's a process. 1 + 1 equals 2. But when it comes to taste, right, that's not something you can measure. Like if I tell you, I mean, if you can ignore that I love you 30,000 Iron Man, Marvel movie stuff, you know that >> you can't actually measure love with numbers, right? Like how much does Nick like software engineering compared to how much Hassan likes software engineering? You can't actually quantify that. You can't put numbers in it. You can look at, oh, well, Hassan spends three hours on this, but Nick spends 10 hours on this, but that still doesn't really reflect, >> right? >> However you try to measure it, it's like you can look for things to measure, but like they don't actually Yeah. The the quantities that you use don't have the same weights or fit the same way. Yeah. >> Math math has no place in the world of creativity. It just won't be. computer is nothing but it's a it's a computer. It computes, it does calculations, right? At the very at the very bottom of everything, it's adding two numbers one way or another, right? It's an it's literally called an adder at the at the very end. An adder. Remember that from from assembly stuff. So So what can't be measured? And I think that's what made Apple very interesting because they continue to try at least the Steve Jobs Apple, not these ones that we have these days that release the exact same iPhone every day. Um, no. The ones that actually I was going to say, >> yeah, the Lisa Apple, the the people that would try to completely, you know, who does that these days? Nintendo. Nintendo are >> wild when it comes to creativity, right? You can't put computers can help you mirror and produce creative things, but they will never be able to understand how you felt and what made you do this. And that's something also in the standard like when I tell people the standard should be taught a person to a person man to man what I mean by that is that there is more to the knowledge of the standard than just the words that are being written and the code that is being developed. It's it's this connection that you have to build with the people that you're teaching which will inspire them to build great software as well. >> That's awesome though. Like yeah, I think it's it's very interesting that we keep like you the use of AI tools like I'm personally finding more and more ways that I can try to use it. I have part of me has this fear of like if you don't keep using even sometimes it feels very clunky. I'm like keep working through it cuz like it's going to get better. Um, I can't imagine a year ago having like any of these AI tools like producing code in my IDE aside from like the the autocomplete. And here I am like over the weekend like yelling at Claude cuz I'm like, "Hey, like I told you to do this." And like, "Oh, sorry. I only did like 95% of it like in two seconds and the last 5% like I it didn't compile." Like, and I'm like, "Yo, you're so dumb." Um, like it's it's fascinating that like it's progressing at such a rate. It's able to do such incredible things, but I think at the same time I like what you're saying where it's almost like we have to challenge it a little bit to be like what what things is it going to be able to do? I the creativity thing comes up a lot because like I don't know like again it gets a little bit philosophical like I don't how do I even define creativity? Like is it able to mimic creativity where on the surface it kind of looks like that, but is that just doing something like a little bit better than I'm able to do, but it's not truly creative? It's just like here's a bunch of ideas that I I didn't think about, but it just regurgitated them from something else. Like >> that's probably what's happening. Yeah, that's that's pretty much what's happening is that you know the whole encoder decoder guess the very next pixel guess the very next word you know no matter you no matter how advanced a strategy is they say oh there's an attention strategy where a token can give attention to another token even if it's not right after it you know but if you think about it we are a lot more than input output inspiration where does it come from Nick revelation just being completely doing something different like I don't know being in the garden you know maybe maybe maybe looking at the ocean and suddenly something hits you just out of the blue be like I know how to do this or what if we did that right I was literally talking to a friend of mine yesterday and he said oh I really hate it when people come knocking my door to sell me things or advertise for things I was like you know what if your doorbell which has camera in it could have an AI model that talks to the person that's at the door, try to understand what they want and determine based on what they say, whether they should be welcomed and they should let me know or just send them away. You kind of put the whole door thing on auto auto answer. You're like, you know, you basically have a, you know, >> high tech solution to the to the mat, right? So there you go. There's a software solution for autonomy. >> Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember that mat with the matting? Yeah, that's right. So, so where did that come from? Right. Where did it come from? No idea. He's talking about a problem and I'm thinking, "Oh my god, you know, how can I help my friend?" So, there's this love. I love my friend. I want him to be happy. See how it's coming here, then here, then coming out as words and thoughts and ideas. Um, AI will never understand. If you're Do you remember the movie The Matrix? The Matrix, right? Neo and whatnot. Do you remember when the guy says tasty wheat? What is tasty wheat if I tell the machines this tastes like chicken or tasty wheat? They don't know what that means because they don't have that ability. They don't understand it. >> And he's like, "How do I even know like if I've been eating it and it actually tastes like chicken just because that's and I would never know the difference because that's what's been programmed." >> Exactly. Exactly. >> Yeah. You know, it's it's super fascinating because well, and the like I don't have enough understanding of the technology behind these systems, but um like we're talking LLMs like is there something that comes later? Is there a different type of technology that that does do something like that? I don't have no idea what that would look like, but like if we keep iterating on LLMs and we have this technology, is there something else that needs to be pursued that that is able to do that? I'm saying that as in like not to not to challenge what you're saying. I'm saying that as in like I don't know what that would even be, but I I don't know. I feel like it's not an LLM if it were to exist. So >> true. True. And and I don't think we've actually as humanity, we have actually evolved a lot since the creation of computers because we're still limited by the compute. Like we think of everything as compute, right? under the hood, how these microprocessors work and whatnot, but the greatest living, walking, talking machine on earth is made of components that are completely different than computers. It's us, right? We're not made out of cords and wires and, you know, hardware components and whatnot. you know, the longevity and the ability for humanity, our ingenuity is is like it's so sad when people say, "Oh, if you look at videos right now be like, oh, you know, our robotic overlords will take over humanity." They forget the part that matters the most, which is um our ability, our spirit to kind of find solutions in the darkest moment with no data at all. It's this inspiration, this thing that bang hits your head. You don't know where it's coming from, right? But it just hits your head and suddenly you have this light bulb, right? Going out >> there. There is a path forward of some sort like don't know where it came from, but something triggered this >> and and I I see a scenario for us just for people you mentioned earlier and I really want to kind of I want to talk just for one minute about this is that the people that say, "Oh, AI is going to take software engineers job." Software engineers are actually the only deterrent that we have today against AI going rogue. If AI goes rogue, and it will go rogue, it will go out of control because there are places around the world and companies around the world that don't have the regulations and they don't have the same restrictions that some of the companies here in the US may or may not have. Right? And when these folks just sit this thing loose on the internet that it can self-replicate, you know, and all that, the only people that will actually be able to shut this down, not electricians. A lot of people say, "Oh, just pull the cord." What are they talking about? Right? If >> electricity to the world, >> if if AI did and will find its own source of energy, right? However that may be even from sand right uh because it will be so smart and so advanced it can ta turn water into energy can turn any material into energy because that's what the universe is it's just energy uh the only people that ha humanity only has a chance to shut AI down once it goes broke because of software engineers because software engineers will be the only people that know at heart how this darn thing works Right. So you will always have a job. I mean all the jobs will be automated except software engineers will still be there. I mean Bill Gates just said that that he said AI is not going to be able to replace engineers not even in a 100 years because you still need software engineers to develop AI that you know even self-developing AI is limited by what the original engineers allowed it to do. >> Right. Yeah. There I thank you for for sharing that. I think that's a probably probably a good thing to close on because I think that's a really good reminder for folks. But um uh it's absolutely changing what software engineering looks like. There is no doubt it's changing everything about every role everywhere. That does not mean that like you know you have no purpose. It does not mean that like you know there might be some roles that like you you say sure like based on what is being done AI could fully do that but to be able to say like a whole like class of like a particular role just is not needed anymore I I just feel like that's yeah I don't know it doesn't doesn't sit well with me because it feels like there's it's assuming far too much. Um but yeah I I think it changes things. It doesn't totally like you know eliminate them. So >> that's right. >> Very cool. Well, Assan, thank you so much for this conversation. Um, I just want to give you a moment. Uh, and I'll collect links and stuff from you after, but uh, if people want to reach out, they want to check out the standard, they want to see what you're up to, where are the best places that people can go find you? >> Oh god, I'm everywhere. Find me on LinkedIn, Hassan Hhabib. Just type Hassan Hhabib in Google. You know, I should come, you know, definitely YouTube. Check out my YouTube channel. Please don't shy away. Don't say, "Oh, this guy might be busy." Please, please, please reach out, send messages. I'll be more than happy to set up time with you and kind of help you with whatever you're doing. Uh, that connection is a lot more important to me than a thousand software and a thousand projects. So, uh, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Masttodon, I'm everywhere. Like, literally, I'm everywhere. Facebook, just find me and add me, you know. I don't have like a personal account, you know. I don't I don't put anything personal personal on social media. I'm just using it as a vehicle to deliver knowledge and software. So definitely LinkedIn, YouTube, uh Xplatform, Masterone, all of it. I'm there. Facebook, everywhere. >> Xbox. Let's play Xbox. Let's play on Steam. Everywhere. >> Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate all the information and I'm sure people that, you know, watched and listened through had a lot to take away. So, thanks again. >> Thank you very much, Nick. I appreciate you.