An accountability community - Mike Fisher

00:00

I see myself as a coach, and a mentor, and a people developer. And it's always the people first, and then a technologist and people who could help make technical decisions. But when I think about that as my identity, I could then place it in many, many roles, and still feel completely fulfilled. I can be an individual engineer and still fulfill all of those and feel 100% part my self identity has been fulfilled. I can be an architect, I could be a manager, line manager. I could be a CTO. And I think that's helped me on the personal level to really try to stay grounded. And think that this is a role. It's an important role, but is one of many roles at the company that are important. It doesn't define me. I don't want, again, I guess I don't want necessarily be defined as a CTO, but I'd much rather people remember me for a great talent developer, a great coach, a great mentor, an empathetic leader. All those things would be wonderful and how I'd love to see myself.

01:20

You took over as the VP of engineering at PayPal just after the acquisition from eBay. And you scaled your next company into it, was bought by AOL, and now you are at Etsy. At what point on that journey have you felt most uncomfortable?

01:45

I think people in technology, especially probably in all industry, but I'm most familiar with the challenge within the tech industry, feel an imposter syndrome a lot. And I think in engineering especially, because there are so many subspecialties within engineering, that it's virtually impossible to feel completely confident about all of them.

02:12

So when you're in a new position, especially one that's maybe outside of how you were raised, if you came up as a front end software engineer, but now you maybe oversee a full stack team or you start even getting into maybe some data engineering or something, it's 100% natural to feel this imposter syndrome. And I think I felt that many times coming out of the military, I had degrees in software engineering, but I had never done it in practice.

02:41

And so I entered into my first industry work with General Electric as a software engineer. And I felt a sense of imposter syndrome there about do I really belong here? Now at that point, I was about seven years out of college, which should have put me probably close to a senior engineer. But I hadn't had the seven years of industry experience. So I felt that.

03:05

And then jumping from GE into PayPal, same thing. I'd come from a more traditional IT background company into this product engineering world. That was unfamiliar to me. So that was a huge imposter syndrome. Do I really know enough to lead this team? And you've always got these feelings in the back of your mind. And I think I felt that many, many times. Yeah. It's very common I think, and I certainly felt it in many roles.

03:49

How did it manifest for you? What is that feeling, and what kind of behaviors did it trigger for you?

03:59

I mean think there was a general level of anxiety that that brings to everybody. Depending on your personality and things, you can feel it stronger or not. I think for me, one of the things I've always noticed is maybe a little bit of a hesitancy to speak up because of this, if you're not quite competent.

04:20

And I've often given career advice of if you go deep into one area and you really feel you're kind of an expert in that area, it could be in almost any discipline within engineering. It then allows you to always fall back on that. And you can say stuff, and I've said this times before, "Well I'm not a network engineer so I have a lot of questions. I'm more of a software engineer in my background." So you can fall back on that. Say, "I have a specialty that if you have questions about this, come talk to me. But I don't know your area." And that's how I can gain a little bit of confidence to ask those questions.

04:58

Because as a leader, that's one of the really important things is asking the right questions. And if you're worried about this imposter syndrome or not feeling that you have enough to contribute, that's when you can't be effective. So that's helped me is try to think about that. But I do have an expertise in an area that I've worked for many years in. So that's what I'm going to fall back on and use for my confidence.

05:27

It's interesting you touched on the expertise, because the practical use case for imposter syndrome and the reason why it exists is to stop us doing things that we are not equipped to do. And sometimes, the challenge is working out when should I feel imposter syndrome in this moment, and take the advice, and the coaching of others? And when shouldn't I? And it's so difficult to know where the line is.

05:53

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if I think of imposter syndrome as preventing us from doing something we shouldn't, or it's an indicator that we're outside of our comfort zone. And maybe that's good.

06:10

One of the things that I've kind of been known for at Etsy was shifting my leadership team in different roles. So traditionally, we were talking about you come up as maybe a data engineer, you come up as an infrastructure, you come up within product engineering, security. And I've often switched people around and said, "Okay, you were leading data engineering. Now go lead this product team." Or you lead product, try infrastructure.

06:42

And I think that puts people in very uncomfortable, but it's also when you learn. That's when you get the most learnings and you're really stretching yourself. And I think my role in this, you can't put someone there and then not support them. And I think that's really important as well in leadership and management development is having the leader that can step in and help support, and make sure they're going to be successful as they're going through that learning process.

07:11

And it sounds like in real time, you are choosing these different individuals to move into its different subset. And you're almost analyzing who needs more support or who needs less support, and who can take a certain level of un-comfort in a way.

07:31

All of those factors go into these decisions. I think about things like as a CTO or a VP of engineering, what are the skill sets that people need? And I do think at the higher levels in organizations, the broader your experience is, the better. Like I said, I really like for people to go deep in their early parts of their career, but then there's a phase where they need to broaden out. So I think about those pieces of this puzzle of where are people missing the experience.

08:04

And then I also think about the behaviors that they should display. For instance, if someone isn't displaying a lot of collaboration, but that's within our career ladder or our matrix for people that we really want them to be able to collaborate. But maybe they're on a team that doesn't have to collaborate much. Well then I really think about things like what role forces them to collaborate because they're supporting a bunch of other people. So that's another thing that I think about in this decision is how not only the experiences, but what are the behaviors and the skill sets that they need to develop.

08:45

And then the last piece you touched upon, which I absolutely have learned a lot about recently is the comfort or discomfort people have with change. And some people are very comfortable with the change, and are looking for it. They get excited about this new opportunity. And there's others that are not. And I've now learned to really watch for that, and to know that people who aren't coupled with change, doesn't mean they shouldn't have the opportunities. But it means as a leader, I've really got to support them through this. Got to give them the time. And I know that I've got to sort of work with them over whether it's a week or a couple weeks, to get used to this idea of the change. And so yes, totally that comfort is a factor that should be weighed

09:34

If we flip this the other way around, other than yourself, who has the highest expectations of you?

09:50

I would think my boss has, although I actually think my team, which is as it should be. When I think about the most high performing teams, their community is an accountability community. They hold each other accountable to each other. And those are the teams that perform the best because they will call you. They will call you on your logic, or if you're being intellectually lazy with a decision or with a thought. And that's how my team is today. And I really embrace that.

10:38

Etsy's a wonderful, wonderful culture. We're all very respectful. We're super nice. It's a great place to work. But, they will absolutely challenge each other and me on decisions.

10:55

I remember I brought a decision to a couple of my VPs about a month ago, and I spent 90 minutes defending that decision. And they challenged me every which way about it. And I loved it. I thought, "That's exactly what they should be." And all of them said up front like, "If you decide this and we're done, we are ready to disagree and commit. Or if you're ready for it, we'll challenge and make sure this is well thought out." And I thought that was just brilliant. It's exactly the type of culture that once a decision is made, everybody's on board. But they're okay to challenge it and I think it makes us better, it makes me better.

11:32

And they're getting to the truth that you're trying to find too. And it makes me wonder what narratives you've held about yourself at work that might have worked against you that you weren't aware of.

11:55

I think we all have our self-identity tied into work in some way. And I think that is the narrative that we tell ourselves. Oftentimes it's a title. I'm a VP or I'm a director. And I think that's why we see people when you go through a layoff, or a retirement, or a transition, that it becomes really difficult and challenging for people is because that is your self-identity. That's the narrative that you tell yourself. You say to yourself, "I am a CTO." And then if you're no longer a CTO, then what are you? I think you go through this time that your self identity's a bit taken away from you.

12:44

And I think that's the narrative that it plays in the back of all of our minds. I'm a whatever. I'm an engineer. I'm a staff engineer. And I've really tried to think for myself that the title is not me. I really try to think about myself as what do I want to be known for from a characteristic or behavior, not a title. I'd prefer people to think about me as Mike, people call me Fish. Like, "Fish is a coach and a leader/developer. Fish has super high integrity." And I try to think about stuff like that in my narrative much more than, "Fish was our CTO, our VP of vendors." Or something like that.

13:36

Other than humility, why do you do that?

13:41

I think it's healthier. I know someday all of this ends. Everything ends. Someday this job ends, and someday you leave the company, someday you retire or go on to do something different. And I know that's going to come up. And so I think it's mentally healthier for people to think about the stuff that is much more long lasting. That I can be somebody who cares about other people deeply and helps them. I can do that for my life. I can do that every day of my life. I can be true to that forever. Even if I'm helping my neighbor, it still can be that's who I am. I can be helping 1,000 people today, but I can also be fulfilling my same mission tomorrow with an individual. I could do it by volunteering someplace. And it makes that consistent in my life. So it's not a sort of I was that at that one point in time. So I think it's mentally and emotionally healthy for individuals to think more about that stuff that they want to be known for. The characteristics, the behaviors, and much less about the jobs, the titles, the goals like that, that they're trying to achieve.

15:08

That kind of understanding is so hard fought, is so earned. How have you got there?

15:20

I think like most things, it's through negative lessons or lessons of mistakes. You really tie your identity to something and then it ends. And then you feel that existential struggle with what am I. I think I've been there, just like many people have been there. I think I've benefited from a lot of coaches and mentors in my life, friends and colleagues who like I was telling you about my team questioning, and trying to dig deep into things. And that's been very helpful to help me think through, and stay grounded, and come to this sort of philosophy of life and career.

16:10

You said though that one of the keys was it breaking almost. Having it get to a point where it's so tough that it has to break, and you have to look at what's inside. When's the most poignant example of that for you?

16:32

I think leaving a role. So one of the companies that I was at sold was acquired by AOL, it changed everything. It changed from me being the CTO of a startup, to now I took over responsibility for that division within this bigger company. And it all changed my title and my narrative of who I was.

17:03

And I think I spent a short time there after the acquisition. And that's one time that I really struggled with what am I? If I'm no longer this startup CTO, am I really this new role? Am I this new person?

17:23

And I think that was a time where it was a lot of self-reflection and realized ultimately, I started a consulting company after that. But that was my struggle of I really sort of saw myself, for years and years my goal had been CTO of a company. And we had that for several years. And then we were acquired, and things changed. And that title, position, all of that was very different.

17:55

And so that really made me think and I thought about the things that... what I really love about the role and the position as opposed to that title and things. And I realized that the parts that I loved were teaching, and helping people grow, and helping companies grow. That was what really energized me.

18:18

And that ultimately is why I started a consulting company with a couple of friends to think about we want to focus on these other startups that were struggling through that. Of the growth, the scale, the challenges with the people and the technology. So that was a big transition time for me to think about what I really want out of my life and what I want to call my purpose and mission.

18:45

And I guess we're motivated towards that purpose of mission often by either two things, the fear of something, or the pull and the love of something. And as you describe that, it sounds so clear that feeling of pull and love towards the work that you feel you naturally gravitate towards that you can be really great at. When have you felt the opposite and been motivated by fear?

19:31

A good friend of mine asked me once when I was transition, "Are you running to something or running away from something?" I think very similar to what you just said about there are times when you're just pulled to something.

19:43

And Etsy certainly was that for me. Etsy was a pull. And it's so mission and purpose oriented. Doing good in the world. And I had actually known the company for many, many years before I joined in 2017. I consulted with them. I had been friends with a lot of the people at the company. So I knew how great it was. So that was-

20:10

What have you run away from?

20:12

Yeah, the run away I think was in parts a little bit of everything from running away from my job in the military of, "Okay, I can see where this career is going." And in the military, there's obviously downsides. There's the constant moving, relocation. There are deployments and hardship tours away from your family. And I think definitely when I left the military I was not sad to leave that type of stuff behind. There's a lot of that I really loved about the military. The comradery, the individuals, their dedication. I loved all of that. But I think absolutely what I wanted to leave was some of those other aspects.

21:01

So I think that's a time. I think when I leaving GE was a time where there was at the company a lot of bureaucracy to get things done. And there was always challenges to get any headcounts or any funding for projects. And that was tiring to do that for seven years. And I was running away from that and running into a world which was very different, where your work was the product.

21:30

Sp I think always for me it's been a mix. Consulting was the same way. I loved consulting, I loved the people that I worked with. We had a great team. I've been friends with the partners that I started that company with for decades. Loved working with them. But there's always downsides. The travel. We oftentimes would jump to a new company every week. And we said it's like having a first day every week. You don't even know where the bathrooms are. You don't know who the people are, their technology. And you're really in 24 to 48 hours trying to learn the people, the dynamics in the organization, their tech stack, what their challenges are. You can imagine trying to start a new job every week, every other week. So that gets tiring. But the flip side, it's rewarding as well. I saw probably 300 different companies in 10 years. It was an amazing journey to look across the landscape of technology companies and see what people are doing, the tech they're using, how they're doing that. It was a wonderful time for that. So I think in almost every part or phase of my life in my career, I've seen a sort of running away from something run into something else. Absolutely.

22:50

I'd love to dive underneath what happened before you went into the military. Because from the outside, someone looking at the military and looking at a modern day technology company looks at two completely different things, two completely different environments that fostered two completely different types of people perhaps. And you've moved from one to the other. What was the seed that took you to the military?

23:25

So I grew up in a household where my father was an Air Force officer. So he served for 27 years in the Air Force. So I grew up moving around with him and learning that lifestyle. So in high school when I was thinking about colleges, the military academies were really top in my mind. And that ultimately led me to apply for and be accepted to West Point.

23:58

Was that just a natural kind of desire to emulate your father there?

24:05

I think at the time, this is back in the mid '80s, part of it was certainly the emulation of my father and the desire to serve my country, and to be part of that. I was kind of raised with that spirit of to serve and to give back. And then I also think that was what I knew. This was a time when the world of information was not at our fingertips. And I knew a couple of different career paths from either my parents. My mom was an engineer at the telephone company. So helping with large installations, and for telecommunication. My father was military. So I knew those industries. I knew a couple others from friends, families, the medical sort of career. So I think there's a limited amount of knowledge as opposed to today, where kids in high school, if they have any curiosity whatsoever, they can go on and grab a video or listen to a podcast about a career. So I think in part, that's what I knew

25:26

Makes me wonder whether it was easier or harder. I'm not sure.

25:35

I do think we're face with this tyranny of choice in today's world. I think it was a little bit easier, although perhaps people have missed their calling in the past because of that limitation. If there's something they were truly passionate about, but maybe didn't even know about it, didn't know it existed.

25:59

I mean honestly, so my story about into computer science was a little bit like this. So my high school, this was again back in the mid '80s. We didn't have computer science as a curriculum. So we had a computer club. So they purchased a couple of personal computers, and it was a club. I took the manual that was hanging on the wall and taught myself to program. No one else had the program. There were just these computers there. I literally taught myself how to program. There were a couple of us that did this to learn what was going on inside of these machines. I remember I would play a video game in the arcade and come back and try to code that, sort of ASCII art.

26:47

So then I went to college. I actually didn't know you can major in computer science. I thought I was going to be an aeronautical engineer. I knew I loved engineering and math, but I thought that was... and then at West Point, again, this was the mid '80s. We were the first class to receive personal computers. So before then if you were going to program or do anything on a computer, you had to go to a computer lab. And there were terminals set up to program. Our class was issued personal computers.

27:19

So part of that new curriculum was everybody in the class had to go through a programming course. And it was very simple. And part of that, when I went through it, I of course, it was pretty easy for me. I'd known how to program already. And I of course loved it. And then I was like, "You can study this? This is what you could do? This isn't just a tool for other"... so I didn't even know and then I was like, "Sign me up immediately." And that was I think my first year, my freshman. And I was like, "That's what I want to do." And I knew from that moment. But before that, I just didn't know. I didn't know you could do that.

28:00

It's funny how it almost sounded too good to be true, this type of play. Almost as if we're all on this route back to our childhood state and you're like, "I can be a kid for the rest of my life."

28:15

I not only do I agree. I still program because I love it. It hasn't been part of my job for many, many years. I love it. It takes me back to being a kid. I love it because it's a puzzle. It's a problem that you're solving, it's a puzzle. And to me it is play, because it's that fascination. It's not always easy, but it's that fascination of how do you solve this.

28:45

And I love especially math, and physics, and chemistry are interesting because I find those similarly have these problem type of puzzle. They have a little more strict rules around them. Right or wrong. Computer science is that. But it also offers the flexibility of you can do it many, many ways. You can solve it, and I can solve it. And they can be completely different ways, but we've both solved it.

29:16

That's the part that I really like. It combines this puzzle problem with the flexibility of bringing creativity, and art, and craftsmanship into it. And that's what's fascinating. It's always been. It's been that way for many, many decades for me now.

29:37

I don't know your parents, but for whatever reason, I can so see them in the way that you express that. On the one hand, your desire to lead, serve your country, motivate people. Almost complete sense, CTO of Etsy, of course. But there's also this engineer that loves tinkering, and playing. It's like wow, that is the job. They're two such clear north stars. Getting to the very top, not many people get there. How does it change the way that you view status?

30:29

I remember a CTO or CIO at the time, many, many years ago. He was nearly promoted, and he was just sharing some anecdotes with me and some other people. He had to buy a tuxedo or rent a tuxedo to go to this very fancy event. And he was telling us that he told his wife, "Someday this will all, and I'll be a software engineer. This is a role that I'm playing. It's temporary."

31:06

And it's always stuck with me a little bit that it is. I'm super proud of this role. But I know it's a temporary role, and that like we said, everything ends at some point. People move on to different roles. Companies change and need to change people. So I've thought a lot about this role as I want to embrace it every day, enjoy that, be honored. I am so, so honored to lead this team of fantastic engineers.

31:50

But I see it like this is one of... we've got almost 1,000 engineers now. This is one job of those 1,000. And every person's job is important. And I just play a different job than everybody. It's in part because I've just spent a lot of years learning a lot of different things and a lot of different scenarios. So I've got a lot of this, I hate to even call it wisdom. But I've just got a lot of experiences to rely upon to help with decision-making. I've got a lot of management and leadership experience to rely upon to help the team guide them, and help develop people.

32:31

But I do very much view this as just one of 1,000 roles that needs to take place. Just like we've got to have an SRE handling something, we've got to have a front-end engineer, we've got to have a data engineer. We all play valuable roles in the company. So I've tried to think about it at that.

32:50

And then the other pieces that I think is... I think people watch and pay a lot of attention to leaders. And more than most people think, they're really perceptive of what people talk about in meetings. "They've talked about that two or three times now. It must be something they're thinking about." They're met with so and so a couple times. "They must be talking about something." And I think about that a lot that what I say, how I behave, how I ask questions all is under a lot of scrutiny, as it should be. The decisions I make could impact a lot of people, and so it's right for them to hold us under a bit of a magnifying glass.

33:46

So that's how I've thought a lot about this role. And the importance of it. Again, I try not to get too much to say it's a role like everyone else's role at the company, they're all equally important. But I also think it's a role that happens to be under a lot of scrutiny, as it should be. And I try to think about that and behave in a way that when people see that or think about it, it doesn't frighten them, it doesn't scare them. It gives them confidence. The consistency is really important in my book, that it creates a common effect for people if they know how Fish thinks or where Fish is likely to come down decisions. It just helps the team. Yeah.

34:36

I'd love to dig into both sides of that. Because you see status, it sounds like both from a personal level and its impact on you and how you handle it. But also in its true state insider system, and what its role plays, what the role is in this wider part.

34:59

On a personal level, it sounds like almost by not holding onto it and by recognizing that it's temporary, that gives you an advantage somehow because you know that it's not going to last forever. And so you are in the present moment as if the opposite would be just I guess trying to hold onto it so much that then it slips away from your grasp.

35:27

Yeah, absolutely. It goes back to that self-identity, and really trying to make sure that the title and the role isn't my self-identity. And it's much deeper than that. That it's about the behaviors and characteristics that are my self-identity. And hopefully those intersect in a very large way that I see myself as a coach, and a mentor, and a people developer. And it's always the people first. And then a technologist, and people who can help make technical decisions. But when I think about that as my identity, I can then place it in many, many roles and still feel completely fulfilled. I can be an individual engineer, and still fulfill all of those, and feel 100% my self-identity has been fulfilled. I can be an architect. I could be a manager, a line manager. I could be a CTO. And I think that's helped me on the personal level to really try to stay grounded and think that this is a role. It's an important role, but it is one of many roles at the company that are important. And it doesn't define me. I don't want again, I don't want necessarily be defined as a CTO. But I'd much rather people remember me for a great talent developer, a great coach, a great mentor, an empathetic leader. All those things would be wonderful and how I'd love to see myself.

37:10

And you spoke about the other side of status and the way that naturally your actions or the way that your actions are perceived, holds a large amount of value. And it sounds like what you're almost doing there is recognizing the system and the structure that you're working with. And that must be a huge advantage. Are there other ways that you've been able to distance yourself and recognize yourself inside a system that have helped you at work?

37:51

I do love the way you've thought about that of inside, because it is absolutely a system. We typically think of the system as the technology, but the company itself is absolutely a system.

38:04

And one of the things, the frameworks that I've thought a lot about within systems is there's always unintended consequences of change. That these systems are, whether it's our marketplace and our technological systems, or the organization, the company at the departments, they're so complex that no one can possibly understand how a change is going to affect everything. So I think an awful lot about from that systems thinking of whether it's a decision that I made, an org change, metrics that we sign up for, metrics that we monitor. All of those have second, third order effects, or what we would consider maybe unintended consequences. So I've really tried to think about that in a decision-making system. And I love the way you phrased that. My role is in the system, just like a class or a module would be inside of a larger engineering system. And it affects lots and lots of other things, and almost impossible to see what a change is going to make in everything. So that's a way that I've definitely thought about the role.

39:38

And that system feels, it's not trickled down, that's the wrong way of phrasing it. But there are certain things that are more important than others. And if you change them, you're going to have second order, third effects like you said, that go all the way out. It's interesting to think about our working life in that way and ask, and I think it's different for everyone. What pillars are at the center of your working system then have those second, third, fourth order effects? What would they be for you?

40:12

When I think about it, you're absolutely right that you can think about your career as a system in which you have these unintended consequences. I think there's a couple areas that really are these pillars to that. One is education. You get a degree in something or you decide to pursue graduate school in a particular subject area. That certainly is a pillar that is going to influence your career.

40:44

And that's probably what most people are thinking about is I either did or didn't study computer science, and therefore I can or cannot. The nice thing about today's world is you don't have to had a computer science degree to be an engineer. We see it all the time. And I think that's lovely and amazing because these are amazing careers. Not only from the joy that people get from being an engineer, but certainly from the compensation, the opportunities, the super low levels of unemployment. All of these are great. So I love that we can take a non-traditional approach to this. But education is one, however we get it.

41:27

I think the other is experiences. That if you think about the skills that you develop through these experiences, they become what you're capable of next. If you've never had any role in managing a budget, or a finance class, or read a book about finance, then in a role that requires you to manage a large budget, you're going to be at a disadvantage, if you're even able to get that. If that's a large part of the role.

42:05

And oftentimes even in our tech jobs, that is a large part of it. We manage really large budgets for spins with hosting, and vendors, and so forth, personnel, all of this.

42:19

So I think the experiences that you have that build those skills, it could be within a certain type of architecture. It could be within a programming language. It could be within development methodology. It could be as I mentioned, financial. The skills is the second piece.

42:36

And I think the third thing that I think about as a pillar of this system of your career is your people and your network. And I had mentioned to you I think briefly before, early on is that that scenario that, I think I've done pretty well with my education. I've been very thoughtful about it. I think I've thought a lot about the skills that I need to build up, and I've had the advantage of time to have a lot of experiences.

43:07

But that piece that I feel I haven't built that pillar as well is the networking side where I've had some amazing professors, bosses, coaches, colleagues. And I really feel that I should have stayed in touch and built that network with people better, especially my younger days. Since I've seen it's a weakness over the past decade, I've really tried to be better about that. I've tried to keep the connections. I've tried to reach out to people and stay connected, because that's important.

43:47

We lose ties. Granovetter was a researcher who initially introduced us. We've seen this many, many times, reproduce it. The power of these weak ties, which is your network. It's not your close family members and best friend. It's really that the hundreds of people that you know throughout your career, the teachers, professors, coaches, mentors, colleagues that you've met. There's a lot of power in that. There's power in we know it from getting to your next job. The network is really, really important. Because the opportunities come through that, the recommendations, the back channel, all of this. But it's also really important for career advice, sounding boards for decisions.

44:35

I'm fortunate enough to be part of a New York CTO club, which is a couple hundred CTOs that have been around New York, some for decades. And the advantage of having that network is it is really amazing that people reach out all the time about everything from career advice, people in their network that are looking for jobs or looking for opportunities, opportunities that are looking for people, technical decisions, vendor recommendations. And that's just one of many, many, many networks. But I think the network is really important for people, and I've overlooked it in my time probably to my disadvantage. And I've really thought about that over the last couple years of how important it is, and tried to build that up and keep it up.

45:24

I think that's absolutely fascinating, because there'll be so many people listening who wouldn't have expected the CTO at seat to say that. "Surely Fisher is really well networked and has always been great at this."

45:43

I've absolutely had the benefit of meeting a lot of people. I know a lot of people. But it's really only been I'd say the last couple of years, call it the last decade that I've really thought about keeping this network going and really actively working on that.

46:03

Treating it as its own system, I guess.

46:05

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

46:07

What are you optimizing for at work now, truly?

46:14

So I am in my transition out of this role at the end of the year, and into an advisory role for the company. So literally today, my focus is optimizing the next individual. So we've chosen one of my VPs of engineering Rachana Kumar to be my successor. Cannot be more excited for her and the company. I'm just stoked that she's taking over. She's wonderful. She's such an empathetic leader, and great technologist. So I'm really optimizing for this transition. So she has been shadowing me for the last couple of weeks, and we're going to get that opportunity.

47:00

I've been a part of transitions before, but often it's a couple week, which the person's wrapping their stuff up, they're saying their goodbyes, and they're gone. And I just really think the approach that my boss Josh and his team have put around this was really, really thoughtful. To give both the incoming CTO and myself time to overlap.

47:26

Now Rachana and I have worked together for five and a half years, so we know each other very well. But still, there's her day-to-day job and my day-to-day job separated often. So this eight week period has given her time to ramp down her internal duties, and start shadowing. So it's given her a nice time to watch what goes on in areas that she just wasn't used to. So that's what I'm optimizing for is a really great transition. And I think the way they set this up was really, really thoughtful. So kudos to them.

48:03

And there are two things that I'd love to touch upon here, on both sides. On the one hand, how you come to a decision like transitioning out like you are. And second, how you go about evaluating what's important for whoever comes next, and managing that transition. How did you come to the point when you knew it was right?

48:39

Yeah. I think there's a personal side to it and a professional side. The personal side, I mentioned my career... so I consulted for almost 10 years, traveled extensively. I then transitioned straight into this role out of that for five and a half years. I've been working with Etsy. So I've been very, very busy, and oftentimes traveling away from my home here in Ohio.

49:08

My wife and I have one son who when I started consulting was three. And when I started at Etsy, was in middle school. He's now a senior in high school. And as many parents do, they can see the end of the time with their children as they head off into the world of university or work. And I can see that. I saw that last spring is when I started talking to Josh about this. That I really wanted to take advantage of the last six or eight months with my son.

49:45

So that was the personal side of this is that I've not ever taken that time. I went straight from one role into another. In fact, I thought when I left Quigo and AOL and started consulting, that I would probably have some downtime. It was two weeks, and I was back traveling, working. So I didn't have that.

50:07

And I thought also, someday I'll stop consulting and I'll take a downtime. And I did. I was actually consulting for Etsy. The transition happened so quickly, I literally this day still have my visitor's badge from when I was consulting to when I became full-time CTO. So I've not had any downtime. And I really want that time. I know it's fleeting for all this. So that's the personal side.

50:37

The professional side is we have done so much in the last five and a half, almost six years. The improvements to the product, the team growth. When I was there, there was 250 engineers I think when I joined. We now as I mentioned are closing in on 1,000. The team's grown immensely. All the features that we've done to improve the experience, we migrated out of data centers, into the cloud, into GCP. We've opened offices in Mexico City. We now have 130 engineers out of that office. We've done so many wonderful things. There's still more challenges, but it's just a perfect time I think to transition to someone else who can bring new ideas, creative ideas, who's seen different experiences than I have. She actually opened the office in Mexico City, Rachana did. So she's got this really wonderful experience and perspective that I think is going to really lead the company well into the next series, chapter of the company's life.

51:47

And what is it that you optimize for in the person that comes in now? There are so many different qualities that we can identify in someone else at this level. How did you narrow them down, and what did you narrow them down to?

52:16

The decision was really my boss, Josh. He was the hiring manager. It was his decision. But we did talk quite a bit about what I thought the next successful individual skills, behaviors, characteristics would have.

52:33

And the very first thing that comes to mind in almost any of these big roles is leadership. That you really need extremely solid leadership. And at Etsy, that often comes from an empathetic leader. And I think that, it comes because of the culture that we have and the people that we have. And so that was top of my list. I wanted someone who was a very empathetic leader and had demonstrated really great leadership over the years. And it comes in many, many, sort of manifest in many ways. Certainly that comes in coaching, mentoring, career development of others. And that is an important part of leadership. You're going to be in charge of, or people that are very senior reporting to you and being able to develop that I think is important.

53:27

And then making good solid technical decisions. And oftentimes, that's not the decision maker. It's the questioning. We talked a little bit about as a tech leader, a lot of times it's not your decision that matters because you shouldn't be making all those decisions. Ideally, you're pushing those down. But you're questioning. You're asking the right questions. You're asking the probing questions about how much does this going to take to operationalize? What is the true cost of this in maintenance and over years? How do we support this? So that's the most important things that I thought of

54:09

The engineering culture and the standards at Etsy are well known. But I wanted to say thank you Fish, because my partner during the pandemic, she was working at a company. But she had a sewing machine at home, and she started making masks for my family and her family. And they were amazing. And they got so good that she quit her job and sold them on Etsy. And that's what she did through the pandemic for a year and a half. And it made the biggest world of difference to her. And she's gone off on a completely different path now. And just through Etsy, she was able to pursue what she felt was meaningful to her. And she was able to give so much to the people around her. So thank you so much.

55:09

Well thank you. And thank her, your partner for doing that. I'm so appreciative to all the sellers that did that. And I do think they made such a world difference to many, many people. And it's awesome that I've been able to be part of this company that can do that for people. When I met the company in 2008, they were just a startup. And I remember thinking they've got such this beautiful mission. So thank you for sharing that story. That's truly awesome.

55:37

And thanks so much for today. I've loved every second of it.

55:41

Awesome. Thanks man. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you so much.

55:45

All right, man. Have a great weekend.

55:45

Take care. You too. Bye.