Episode 36: Jacquie Capur  🔗 **Source:** [Episode 36: Jacquie Capur](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9u-iN1tx4I) [00:00:13] [music] Hey everyone, welcome to Community and Code. I'm your host Chris Reynolds. So, quick question. What's scarier than speaking in front of your 300 plus person company? Speaking in front of 1100 strangers at Devrocon. But that is what my guest this week did to get over her fear of speaking in public. And it maybe worked out a little too well. Jackie Kapor started out as a music major, but was already building Neopets and MySpace profile pages on the side before deciding that these computer things she did was actually something that she could do as a full-time gig. She landed in DevOps and eventually found her way [00:00:56] into Devril at AWS, Hashi Corp, and now Nebius. And along the way, she ended up on a live coding reality TV show that was basically the great big British bake off with a compiler. We'll get into that, but we also talk about something I didn't really expect. Wonder. The feeling of opening a door and finding something new behind it. Jackie thinks AI tools might be giving some of that back. We also talk about what Devril actually measures these days, why a human still has to translate the geek speak and how she wrote an anniversary song for her husband. It's a fun one. Grab a coffee and let's get into [music] it. Welcome to Community and Code, the [00:01:39] podcast where we talk to the human beings behind the commits. And today I'm talking to Jackie Kapor. Jackie, you've been in Devril for like a really, really long time. Why don't you introduce yourself uh to anyone who might not already know you uh and talk about your background and and and what you do? >> Yeah, sure. Hey, what's up? My name is Jackie. Um I've been in Devril for a long time. Just [laughter] kidding. I've been doing it for more than five years now. I've done a couple companies including AWS and Hashi Corp and I currently work at Nebus. And generally I'm a huge fan of like live coding, building things in public and just trying to learn things together and you know seeing what we can do with that. Um background wise I was actually originally studied music and did a lot [00:02:22] of music before I switched into computer science and then um career-wise I have like a platform engineing devops background you know lots of infrastructures code orchestration pipelines. >> How did you navigate like how did you wind up uh in devril from doing devops and I mean for that matter music [laughter] how does that path work? >> There there's a couple options here. Um, so the original one was I used to do like like this is going to show when I started on the internet, but that's fine. I did a lot of like Neopets and like MySpace kind of like profile page editing >> and forum writing and you know like the HTML tables with you know you Photoshop the picture, you do the tables, you make it look all fancy. I did a lot of that [00:03:05] in like the I don't know early 2000s. Didn't really realize that that was a career option and kept pursuing music which was fun. And I had this conversation with my dad where I basically one day was like, "Hey, like I've been, you know, I've already been teaching music. I've been running like volunteer programs. I've been performing and >> I just don't think I want to do this anymore as like my career option." And >> do you know like those computer things that I do? Like do you think that could be like a career for me? And my dad was a math and science major. So he was kind of like [snorts] yes, that is an [laughter] option. You could totally do that. He was great cuz I never realized, you know, that maybe music isn't where the money will be or whatever. Like it was always very like pursue what you're interested in and what excites you. [00:03:49] >> Um, as far as like going from DevOps engineering to speaking, I actually started doing that because I was like terrified, like really scared of speaking in meetings. Like if the meeting had more than like my immediate team and like maybe like two stakeholders, I would like vibrate like I'd get so nervous and then I had to do like the you know what did your team do in the engineering all hands and sometimes spoke in front of the whole company which is like 300 something people and that was like I was always really excited to do it but also kind of like ruined my day like [laughter] the whole morning leading up to it can't do anything so I was just so nervous and then took like an hour afterwards to kind of like reset and I was like this is not sustainable. Um, so you know, how do you get over [00:04:33] something that you're scared of is you do something that's like significantly scarier. >> So I uh I did a I did like I think one meetup talk and then I did a mainstage talk at DevOps Toronto in front of like I think it was like,00 people. >> Awesome. >> Um and then that just kind of started me in this journey. I always find it interesting like there I've had a couple guests on on the show before who are specifically in Devril who had a have a very similar story where um go getting into speaking because it was the thing that that like they had a a block like that was the that was the hard thing and like getting over it by doing and I find it interesting because like we do like our [00:05:16] job is in in the open with the in front of the people like being the face of the company potentially like um so there's so much of of >> what Devril is that is that is public facing and public facing to you know a varying degree but not small I mean greater than 30 probably right >> yeah [laughter] right >> I I would hope so right um >> typically >> yeah so like I always find it interesting that that so many of us like started very introverted and but and then were still drawn to this really sort of extroverted uh role. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think I don't know. I think I [00:05:58] was always like the chatty engineer on our team like you know I like to air program. I like to talk to people. So nobody was I think particularly surprised when I did it. Um it was really sweet. Actually, one of my teammates at the time knew that I was so nervous and they really supported and encouraged me to do it and he actually gave me like a little um like a stress stone >> and I was just traveling for we were just on a TV show and we went for the finale and as I was packing and that was like 2018 2018 2019 as I'm packing to go to this finale I um found the stress stone again I was like yeah we're gonna bring that we'll just put it in my backpack you know it was a good luck charm then it'll be a good luck charm now And I think it's just important to have like I don't know like question [00:06:43] yourself, challenge yourself, see where you can grow and keep the people that support you close. >> Yeah. >> Basically, >> what was your sort of introduction? You know, you said you you did MySpace and Neopets things like what what was what like what prompted your your interest in computers in general? Like how did you get into tech in the first place? >> Yeah. in the very like even back before Neopets in MySpace, uh my dad was a vice principal at the school and sometimes he would go and work like evenings kind of late and I would go to the school with him and he'd be doing his paperwork and like I'd be I don't know playing on my Game Boy or like reading a book and towards the end when he would finish he [00:07:25] would always be like do you want to come sit with me and we'll play Wolfenstein. >> Okay. And so he would play video games with me and I'm like, you know, I'm like maybe like four. I'd be sitting with him and he'd be playing these games. And from there when I became old enough to sit at the desk myself and play the games, I started Neopets. And I think, you know, his interest in it kind of passed along to me pretty young and had like, you know, a GameCube N64 and I liked gaming and I liked being on the computer. So >> yeah, >> kind of just felt normal [laughter] like >> and like what uh how did how did you sort of shift from like into into DevOps specifically because it's a that's sort of like a [laughter] I feel like I feel [00:08:08] like that's kind of niche. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um I had I decided I was going to switch into computer science and um I did like a year of compsai and then I had a friend who had a friend who was hiring and the friend's friend basically was like we have two job postings. We'll interview you and you know we won't necessarily tell you which one's which. We're just going to tell you like the descriptions and then you can pick what sounds more interesting to you. And I think at that time um just going through the descriptions of it, I really liked the idea of like that full picture. Like I liked being able to, you know, touch something and see like where does the data come from? Like how does it hook into the pipelines? Um at the time it was, you know, we were doing [00:08:50] like backup tapes and >> we're like SCPing files over to servers and >> it was a little bit different than how it is today. Yeah. But I I mostly loved that big picture view that came with doing DevOps. And I liked being able to take something and make it feel a little more efficient or a little better. >> Yeah. Brought a lot of joy to me. [laughter] >> Yeah, that's awesome. Um, one of the things that you mentioned in in the email that you the intake thing uh was that you were on like a reality show. Um, and I I I I'm interested to know like how that came to be, how you got involved, what that was like, like [00:09:33] Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. So, it's through Code TV um with Jason Langdorf and Kelsey High Tower was the host for this one. And one of my friends reached out to me and basically said like, "Hey, like I heard one of our teams is working with Code TV and they're going to be doing a like live coding kind of series and I think you should apply." And I was like, "Okay, that sounds like right up my alley. Sure, why not? Let's do it." Um, sat down, asked my husband. I was like, "Do you want to like, you know, maybe go on a live show with me?" And he was just like, "Yeah." We were like, "Okay." So, we filled out the form and it was basically like, you know, like you have to say like who your partner's going to be, like why do you [00:10:15] think you'd be a good fit for the show? And it was basically like a hey, you know, I've been live coding on Twitch for a few years now and I think this would be a really fun opportunity to like just build stuff and see where it goes because I've never tried to build like a business from scratch or startup or product. Like I've always been on the DevOpsy side, right? So yeah, >> usually taking things make sure they get places safer faster. >> I'm not usually doing like the UI or the user experience. And so to me that seemed like it'd be a really great like growth opportunity. Um, getting on the show was crazy cuz then, you know, there's eight different teams. Every single week a team goes home. Like, it's like Great British Bake Off, but you're coding and building an app instead of building a cake or pastry. [00:10:56] >> Um, not to say that's not hard. That that is challenging. More just framing the [laughter] problem. But um it was yeah it was such an interesting experience because you know week week one we come in and Kelsey High Tower is there and Darko Msos from AWS is there and Jason's there and they're kind of like hello teams like welcome like hope you're ready to build like somebody's going home today so [laughter] you know hit the ground running let's see what you do and it was like pitch week so it was actually like a no code week where it was like okay we just got to sit down build a business there's a lot of fun like mini games and challenges and yeah I think Overall, the experience was really fun. Like, we became friends with the rest of the cast because, you know, you're seeing each other like four days a week for six [laughter] six week up to [00:11:39] six weeks in a row and you're getting breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. You're you know, you're in this crazy experience together. But, um, it was really fun. >> Like the amount of times I was like, if you'd asked me if I could have built this in one day, I would have told you no. Was more than four more than [laughter] four times they said that. So, >> did you have to uh fly out for filming then? >> Yeah, we were going to Portland every week. >> Okay. Wow. Every week. Yeah. >> Flying out to Portland and then flying home and then flying back out the next. Wow. >> Wow. >> Yeah. So that that was a little crazy because you know that Monday Tuesday I was doing 12 hour days to try and stay ahead of my work and everything and then the Wednesday I think was another 10 hour days and then Thursday you know Wednesday was 12 as well and then Thursday was 10 and then some of that is [00:12:21] like on the plane some of it's in the hotel room after we get there and Friday Saturdays two 12-h hour days with the studio where you're you're coming in at 7 you're getting breakfast you're you know you're getting hair makeup camera ready um wardrobe was fantastic the whole like the whole it was very professional like you walked in there's a whole crew and everything. Um, and then I don't know I think it was like two sets of four hours roughly filming. It depended on the day and then come like come back with the team. We had it was cute. We had this spinner bus that the whole cast was on together for the most part. So you know there'd be all of us just in this bus on our way there for like 40-minute driveish. We'd all just be sitting there like so what do you think they're going to get us to do today? [laughter] never talking about like never talking about who's going home until the end [00:13:04] because good vibes. But yeah, it was fun. >> What was uh what was the app that you built or the the the business that you built, I guess I should say. >> Yeah. Um part of it was that my husband and I both he's he's an engineering manager for an SRE team at a security company. They do um NDR stuff. So for us, we were like we think it'd be really fun to play with agents. like we neither of us have really gotten to do that much agentic work yet. And some problems that I was kind of running into at the time was with Devra like you know you want to create a launch story, you want to have a new feature, have a new product, you want to talk about what a good like a good story after that looks like like the you know the full picture. So, we [00:13:47] built something called Launch Buddy where the idea is that you could just kind of take an idea and get a bunch of different like transcripts. Like I built like a I think it was like a 16 sub agent orchestration pipeline that would take your copywriting, you know, um compare it against like other posts in your space, see what's going viral, like what are other people talking about, do like some like come up with like 20 hooks, test those, do some evals, and kind of give you like a template of like so if this is a message you wanted to do, this is the way that you could approach it. And then we got challenged by Kelsey to make it even uh so we had like an intake form. So they were like, "What if it wasn't a form? What if like you could just give it a GitHub link and it could still do all that for you?" And that was that was fun to build. >> Yeah. [00:14:29] >> Yeah. I kind of wanted it to stop before the generated part though because I was like, I still want to be the person on my videos. I still want it to be my story and my voice, but I want to have that guideline that it's like, okay, here's my checklist. Here's like the most impactful areas. Stuff like that. >> Yeah, that's a really interesting point. Like I I keep running into these things uh recently like I was I was looking at a PR this morning. >> Um and the PR was fine. It was for a problem that that I also uh like was experiencing and so like parts of it so I was like you know I was like the code is fine but like you know when you read and it and like the the PR description it was long but that doesn't necessarily mean it was written by a robot although increasingly it does mean it [laughter] [00:15:12] was written by a robot. Um, and it wasn't it wasn't didn't have the little, you know, created by generated by Claude or whatever in in in the PR description. The the commit didn't have that. But like, you know, you read something and you just like there's a couple little minor things like not even the obvious tropes, but like a couple little minor things where it's like I think this was written by a robot. >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And so like I I mean like for this project like we uh like the only thing is like we need to disclose if AI was used to assist anything. So like you know it's not a big deal if it was. You just need to say it out loud. But like I keep running into these things where like um AI wrote the the the body of whatever PR [00:15:58] description, blog post, whatever. >> And >> it's not like >> it's better than it was at the point where it's like I could read a single paragraph and immediately be like this is definitely written by AI. Like I I now like get a few like a couple paragraphs deep before I have that that but and it's and it's a lot more subtle, but like it's still there and I still like it still bugs the crap out of me. [laughter] >> I agree. >> Everything's an engine. Everything's an engine. >> Like I there was there was a blog post that like I was reviewing uh for our marketing team. Um, and I I got halfway through I'm like, "Okay, I'm either really dumb or I don't understand [00:16:42] anything that's being discussed here." And also, I'm not sure if it makes sense. Like, I don't even know. Like, and I think that I think that the audience is like really like three people who would be interested in this blog the way that it was written. So, I asked uh the person who sent it to me whether it was written by AI, and she said, "Yeah." I'm like, do you want me to just write a better article like by a human? [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Because like I feel like like I it doesn't like I'm definitely going to have I mean if I'm confused, someone else is going to be confused, right? Like >> definitely. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And I there's just there's just something about like like I feel like especially in Devril um I I I've I've said this a couple times. [00:17:26] I don't feel like we are at risk of losing our jobs to to AI yet. Um because there I feel like there does still need to be like a human translator like you know >> I I'm good at this job because I have always been really good at like taking the the geek speak from the engineering team and translating it into human English and then communicating with with people and whether I'm taking that from engineers or I'm taking that from AI like it still needs that human translation layer right? >> Yeah. And then there's that like you know that experience that taste layer where it's like I trust that you know maybe I trust that Jackie wrote it because Jackie's been in platform engineering for so long and also is kind [00:18:10] of vocal about making sure that we only see things that I believe in. Right. Yeah. >> So I think that layer um goes missing when you're just only relying on like an agent to do it. >> I I think my happy path is like it's very similar to DevOps like automate away the toil. I think when we take the toil out of the things that we do, but we enable it to like let us, you know, pursue our whimsy, pursue our like better ideas. I think that's where I'm happiest with using AI. >> Yeah. What whimsical ways are you using AI today? [laughter] >> Yeah, fair. Um I think there's a lot of demos in the last like we'll just say this year. There's been a lot of demos this year that I don't think I would have been able to pursue in the past without it because maybe that means [00:18:54] scaffolding like really cool like terminal visuals that I wouldn't have been able to do before. Like I did this cool little like lucky St. um St. Patrick's Day one just just for fun. I was like I don't think I could have scaffolded it together before cuz I think I got the buyin for that. >> Um but this one like now I'm working on like a you know take a picture of your dog, use different models to turn it into a custom video game and like get a sprite sheet and everything. Um, and just kind of show like, you know, it's I'm gonna have this one live probably in the next month or two, but it's kind of funny because I'm using like textto text models to draw an image, which obviously they're not they're not meant to make SVGs. So, you get some kind of wonky outputs and then I'm using like the correct model to actually judge the [00:19:35] outputs and then do evaluation loops and improve that. >> And I think it's just fun because I'm like, you know, I'm making this video game and my dog is passed out in the background apparently. I was going to see if Feed come say hi, but he's no, he's passed [laughter] out. But it's just it's fun like to kind of have these like silly little ideas and be like, can we turn this into like a real learning moment? Like um I feel like that that's the nice part that wasn't as easy to do before. Or, you know, some of my workflows right now around like taking short videos. Um, I used to spend so much time editing that like I didn't even necessarily want to film sometimes because like, oh god, this is >> like this is an idea that I'd love to push, but I just don't have the extra time to edit all of this and get it [00:20:18] published. And now I've got some different workflows where it's automating like cutting out the dead space. It's putting on like the, you know, lower thirds, title cards, um, adding animations. And it's just kind of fun. like it feels like this era of the early 2000s internet where everything's kind of new and shiny again and I haven't felt that way in a few years. So, it's it's exciting to just be curious and explore and see what areas I can fix. >> One of the things that I realized when I started using uh particularly cloud code uh because I've been using AI since chat GPT's first, you know, thing. >> Yeah. Um, but one of the things that I that I discovered when I when I really [00:21:02] started using Claude Code is that like the the bus factor for going from like a a weird idea in my head to actually completing that thing. Like I used to like I used to build lots of things for myself that were just like side project things like on you know I have this itch that I want to scratch whatever. And it's been a really long time since I felt inclined to pursue most of those things. >> But it's so much there's so much so much such a smaller bus factor now to like go from that idea to like a working prototype that it makes it so much easier to to create again. Um [clears throat] >> and like yeah like I I I got my start on the internet making geocity sites and [00:21:46] >> Oh yeah. Oh, I forgot about those. [laughter] Um, so that was that was how I learned. And like back in those days, like you just like, "Oh, I see like this cool thing on this website. I'm just going to look at the source and copy that and put it in my thing and tweak a couple things and then magically it's it's it's there." And it's like >> there's a little bit of that sort of like uh discovery and and >> dare I say wonder uh when you're when you're able to sort of make ideas happen um like very very quickly. >> Yeah. No, I think Wonder is the correct word for it. Like when I first took that original um DevOps internship job, basically it was a lot of like it kind of felt like you're like walking through [00:22:28] this castle and like every new door had a new exciting thing behind it. Like you know I open a door and I'm like oh configuration management. Wow, look what we can do with you know um salt. Salt is what I was using at the time. So I was like look what we can do with salt. Like this is crazy. Did you know you could just do these things? It just like I had just updated I want to say it was like 142 um like VMs like manually you had to go in things and >> took a while and then I discovered config management and then it just kind of kept being like that like you know then I learned about git and that was great that was awesome [laughter] you know there's a whole bunch of things in there where learned about pipelines and I was like whoa that's great I don't have to just script everything and hope it will >> work everywhere even if like the file changes or the user changes or [00:23:12] >> you I was whatever small changes might have happened. I just kind of kept feeling like that and then there became a point where suddenly there was so much of it and it just kind of wasn't as exciting anymore. So I was like well I like learning you know Kubernetes is fun. I like learning this but you know at some point I was like I'd like to either rediscover the joy and wonder or maybe take a to have a year to just kind of be proud of all the stuff I've built and maybe not always feel like I'm scrambling. I think that's something I've heard from a lot of people, especially lately with the AI stuff, too. But, um, yeah, I don't know. The join wonders back is where I was going with that. [laughter] >> Do you actually feel like you're not scrambling? Because I feel like I feel like like [laughter] yes, we can get stuff done. May maybe we can get I don't [00:23:56] even know if the answer is yes, but maybe we can get stuff done faster. But like the the desire for more results uh with the existing amount of resources uh or you know coming from like on high feels more pressing to me like I feel like I'm I'm being asked to output more with the same amount of resources. And I feel like that's a a sentiment that I've seen like kind of all across tech now. >> Yeah, I think first off I think that's a great question. Um I feel like that sense of needing to do more with less for me has already kind of been around since like [00:24:37] >> I want to say like 2020 2021. And so it kept being like how can Jackie scale Jackie better? and a lot of the answers were answers I didn't like like logistics or >> you know getting better at some of these other like business inside processes. Um whereas this time like the pressure is still there but it's the first time I feel like I have like shiny new tools that are at my disposal that are actually like really taking chunks out of that stuff I've got to do. >> Yeah. >> Like it's it's feeling a lot more like in my power again. Like before if I wanted to do video editing and I had to you know like I did it but you know there was a lot more manual processes. There's only so much so I could speed it up without hiring somebody else to do it for me >> right >> and now it's like I maybe [clears throat] it's my DevOps mindset [00:25:20] like I'm like now everything's a pipeline [laughter] just I'm so excited about that. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's there's definitely more pressure to release everything, right? Like there's, you know, with CLMs everywhere, across Twitter, across LinkedIn, across pretty much any major places we're posting, there's more pressure to post blog posts every day. There's more pressure to do everything faster. But I think we're also kind of hitting that point now where everyone's getting oversaturated. Like there's too many posts every day. There's too many blog posts every day. There's too much content every day. And so it feels like what I'm starting to see now is people are kind of pulling back from like the quickly or obviously scaffolded things and starting to look [00:26:02] more for like that human side where it's like okay sure like sure Jackie built a blog post but did Jack Jackie build a blog post that actually conveys her insights or her thoughts or her feelings or her opinions and I think those are things that are going to start getting weighted more heavily again. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like um I feel like uh brain completely just malfunctioned there. Um >> okay, it happens. [laughter] >> Um I had a thought and then it was gone. Um so I will move on. [laughter] Um yeah, completely gone. Uh that's cool. I hate it when that happens. [00:26:45] >> I know it happens. It happened to me so many times in my meetings this morning and I was like really hope that's out of my system now. [laughter] >> Um, one of the things that you you you talked about in in the intake form too is is [clears throat] uh the difference between Devril in in 2020 and the Devril today. Um, speak on that like what what have you observed in uh the like the time period immediately following COVID uh to [laughter] uh to how things are now? Yeah, I think it's interesting because kind of like being a millennial where you know I got that little bit of pre- internet the early internet and now the everyone has all the internet all the time by default [00:27:28] had a very similar story with Devril where I had a little bit of time right before the pandemic where I was speaking at conferences and doing meetups but still as an engineer I didn't start Devril until 2020 um so I came into that with it being suddenly now everything is online and like how do we make online spaces feel like real life which is obviously very difficult and challenging. Um how do we I already did a lot of live streaming. I started live streaming uh World of Warcraft in like 2011 like on Justin TV. So [laughter] um that was already something that's kind of in my kit but it was a lot of like how do we talk to people when they're not there? And so much of like your developer interactions are like building rapport and communicating with [00:28:10] them and make them feel seen and heard and that's just significantly harder to do online. >> Yeah. >> And then finally that transition into where we are now is it feels like >> like I think pre- pandemic it was very conference circuit meetups like face toface time above everything else. And then during the pandemic, it became, you know, live streams, podcasts, um, online workshops on Zoom and running into things like, oh, my Zoom workshop can only handle 400 people. Like we had, you know, 450 sign up, like how do we scale that out in a way that still feels good for attendees? Um, that became a challenge. But I think today what we're finding is now that we have again all these other tools and expectations, even if you look at like Devrilcon, like [00:28:53] everything is really moving towards like GTM side of things. It's >> like, okay, there's more, you know, we're trying to find more ways to measure Devril, like how do we do this podcast and say that this contributed to XY Z business insights and I think right now that's a little bit taking us sometimes away from that Kimmy aspect. Like I know a lot of people that really want to spend more time on it, but we're having to spend more time on just, you know, kind of being what's the word I want to use? >> Like content factories basically because, you know, you've got the agent factories and >> yeah, >> we're doing a lot of content. I found a pin from a conference I've apparently been playing with this whole podcast. That's fine. [laughter] But um yeah, I think there's a lot more just kind of it's not necessarily a bad [00:29:38] thing. Like I think I see the role maturing a lot and we're getting a better understanding of like when we put something out there, where are people coming from? What makes them interested in it? Like why are they sticking around or not sticking around? And I think that's kind of where I'm seeing it is a lot more heavily today. kind of like observability but for devro >> I've definitely I've definitely felt uh especially since becoming uh the manager of my devril team um uh I've definitely felt the uh the necessity or perception I guess that uh we need to have some sort of quantifiable numbers to show that we're doing things like and like I I still feel like uh so [00:30:25] much of Devril is vibes like >> you know like it's it's it's >> putting out into the world something positive to to earn goodwill and like support of the developer community and then presumably those developers will want to work with me right like or want to work with the you know um and how do you like put numbers on that and so I've been like I it's a problem that I gave to Claude uh and to build out a a dashboard of like stuff that we can measure because I felt like we needed to represent this. Um, but I'm curious because we're talking about GTM, we're talking about uh how to quantify the work that we do. Like what are what are things that like [00:31:09] you consider valuable sort of metrics to score devril efficiency or e effect efficacy? Yeah, I feel like that's like man that's tough like [laughter] because I think like if you'd asked me three years ago I could have been like GitHub stars and signups and you know the answer was so easy then and it's just not that anymore. Like now we're looking at that like second or third layer of things which are things like >> you know um it's not just how many people joined our community, it's how many non-emp employees answered questions in the Discord, right? it's >> like I'm I'm drawing a huge blank now. I'm like I have nice metrics that I like tracking, but they're uh not present. [00:31:53] [laughter] So, but you know, I think it's things like mostly what I think it comes down to is how much can we track that like our insight actually helps them solve their problems, help them stick with the product, help them do new features, and also how much it enable them to help others as well. >> Yeah. >> Because we can't we just can't do a onetoone anymore. Like we need to help like it just needs to be a little pyramid. Like we help these two people, they help two people. Pyramid scheme of helping. >> I was going to say [laughter] the pyramid scheme of Devrell. It's great. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to get quoted out of context. [laughter] But, you know, I think it's it's it's just harder to measure like that direct impact. Um, as far as like what I'm measuring right now, like I'm still playing around with it a lot because I'm [00:32:37] trying to figure out like, you know, I always did live streams and before it was Twitch for sure, but maybe Twitch isn't the platform anymore. And, you know, as >> as millennials go from being the main consumers and now it's becoming Gen Z, how many other things are changing with that? How do they learn? You know, like I think five years ago, it became a big thing that Tik Tok was getting more searches than Google and that's where people were learning from. And now that's pretty much what all my metrics are centering around. Like I've got like a I've got this like agent workflow where it takes all my meeting notes. It you know it spits out all the information like topics, deadlines, uh demo ideas I put in whatever else like other concepts or key priorities for people. And then it's also tracking like all my posts and my metrics and then putting that into [00:33:19] like a dashboard so I can try to see like okay are we getting growth? Is it going trending positively? Trending neutally I'll take them. >> Yeah. and what's like my strongest space because you know even even the written posts now like if I do the same post on LinkedIn and X it's not going to be happy. So trying to figure out that space where it's like okay what is the best way to share my thoughts and insights and meet people where they're actually learning. Yeah, I actually >> there's a lot of that's there that's a lot of like but the answer is I'm trying to figure out the correct answer to >> I mean [laughter] yeah it's it's sort of it's almost well a it's it's it's and it's not really a trick question but like yeah >> it's it's a obviously it's a challenging problem because I didn't have an answer [00:34:02] to it either like [laughter] before I before I talked to Claude about like here's the stuff that I do and here's the like my goals but like I don't know how to measure this stuff and it was like oh we could do this and this and like so like okay so like I I I understand it's it's a and it's also like it's kind of a moving target cuz like you said like the the platforms are changing the audiences are going to different things like it's not GitHub stars now it's like this thing over here like you can't judge anything by like that like so it's it's a combination of a lot of different things um but also it's a combination of a lot of different things that are that's constantly sort of changing and evolving um so yeah it's it's it's there's not a there's not a cut and dry answer that's why part of [00:34:45] the reason why I was interested in things that you were looking at because yeah, like I'm also looking at like how many attendees did I get on the webinar and how many people are looking at at like this blog post that I wrote and like you know how many podcasts am I putting out in a in a year and that sort of thing and like each one of those things is like a data point and maybe on the whole like there's a we can like measure like a trend or something but like I yeah I'm just throwing numbers at something [laughter] And like here look numbers. >> The more data you have, the more you try to figure out the patterns and the trends. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, I feel like it would be a miss to finish that section and not mention AEO. Of course, like, you know, we're moving away from Tik Tok. People [00:35:28] are putting their Google questions into agents and seeing how it goes. And that is of course something you need to track like how how friendly are we? Can robots read our docs? Like you're not just read writing for people anymore. >> Yeah. I I feel like I feel like I I remembered the thing that was that I was going to say a few minutes ago. Uh I I feel like the uh the idea that AI is going to solve all of our problems uh has kind of pulled back a little bit. Um and so there's and I I that's I feel like that's a super healthy thing because I don't think it's going to solve all of our problems. I mean, I think that it'll solve or maybe help with many problems, but it's not going to it's not like we're not at the [00:36:11] point where it hasn't cured cancer yet. So, I don't know what we're waiting for. Um, but but like also like in even in myself like whereas, you know, a few months ago, uh, I would have immediately gone to, uh, AI to with a question or something to search that I would have previously gone to Google. I've actually switched back to doing the actual search now um because I feel like like this is not a thing that I need an agent for. Like this is a thing that I can do with my actual brain. >> Um and I I >> I I feel like this is this is a thing that that we're seeing kind of trend as well. Like I feel like there's a little [00:36:53] bit more AI realism perhaps uh happening. Um, I saw a thing recently that was talking about um a bunch of Gen Z's were were uh surveyed uh and the uh the consensus was that well not only so Gen Z is is like the most critical of AI, but they also are the demographic that are using it the most. Um, and I actually think this is actually really good because to be able to be critical about a thing and and potentially make changes and suggest changes and policies and whatever, you need to be actually using the thing as opposed to like, you know, the the internet is is made of tubes. Uh, or like, you know, it's like [00:37:38] a dump truck. uh sort of like politicians in in uh Washington DC that have no idea what they're talking about and they're making policies for everyone else based on these like really flawed uh assumptions. [snorts] >> Yeah, [laughter] I don't know. I think I agree like it's hard to give feedback on something when you're not using it. And so I definitely think that's a good aspect of people using it. But um I don't have a more complex thought on that right now. [laughter] Like I know it's it's going to be like, you know, the original Ubers and Door Dashes where the price is going to be really easy and accessible and then you get used you kind of get accommodated to that lifestyle or those things that you now have available to you and we're [00:38:21] already seeing the price starting to go up. So I think it's going to be >> interesting what comes next. Um I don't have too much on like the policy side of things, but I do think we're going to see a resurgence of open source. like we're going to start seeing more open weights, open models. I think that's going to become more popular as we're seeing the, you know, limited notice changes that are being made to proprietary models. And you can't, you just kind of can't have a tool that may not be as available tomorrow as it is today because suddenly prices have changed or >> right, >> you know, these like 24-hour price cycles when it used to be months, quarters, years, >> right? >> It's interesting. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. [00:39:04] Yeah. Uh I think I think before we go I I want to um uh I mean you talked a little bit uh about this. I I I really liked the I really liked your inclusion of of building in whimsy. Um, I [laughter] I feel like I feel like so much of tech and so much of well tech [laughter] doesn't doesn't allow space for that. Um, and I so I I really love that. And I feel like I feel like you know what we were talking about before like the sort of being able to to create things faster helps, but like what what other what other sorts of things that uh do you [00:39:51] think of or do that that add whimsy to an otherwise potentially mundane and and kind of bureaucratic life? [laughter] >> Yeah. I think one of the ones that's been particularly fun for me lately is um like I said, I was originally a music major. >> Yeah. >> And I've been kind of rediscovering that side of my skills again. So, I've been playing a little bit with um Strudel with like either Claude or Codex and not really letting it generate the music so much as I have a pretty heavy theory background. So, I've been like very opinionated on things like, okay, like I want a walking bass doing these kind of chords and these like underneath these guitar parts and stuff like that. [00:40:34] >> Um, which has been fun. And then that kind of we just had our wedding anniversary as well recently and I um wrote and produced a song for my husband which kind of came out of I was dabbling with Strudel and then I was like, "Oh, this is really fun. I I really missed this side of things." And >> um that one wasn't with Strudel. That was that was me with a got a little MIDI keyboard over here and like straight producing the notes every chord I played myself. But I think there's that side of tech where early on like a lot of the technologists were hobbyists, right? Like it was something that we tinkered with. We had fun building. We did all these things. Like I think developers it was you were looked at a little as scance if you didn't have like a weekend side project or something you were doing [00:41:18] just for the sake of it. And I don't think that we should necessarily have to dedicate every waking hour to be considered a technologist, right? >> But I do like that this has made the lift to let me explore my hobbies again. Whether that's, you know, creating um stream countdowns for the live stream I'm going to be starting, or whether that's rediscovering my love of music theory and composition or all these other little side projects that come along the way that let you dabble and kind of play with things. To me, I like that aspect that bring a little whimsy back, bring a little character and flavor and fun. Um, it's really it's really easy to just get stuck in the day-to-day and lose months or years [00:42:01] after you've just been, you know, working and doing things and working and doing things and >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I like bring that stuff back. [laughter] Even if it's, you know, it's sometimes it's little things like I've got a bunch of keyboards that I love that are actually all three of them are the Magic Girl keyboards and been trying out the new switches and I think these ones are the melodics. They're they're very pretty. So, you know, just bringing back the little hobbies. Got like 60 plants around the [laughter] house like this makes life a little more colorful and vibrant. >> Yeah, I love that. >> Well, thank you for coming on. Uh, where can people find you uh on the internet should they desire to do so? >> Yeah. Um, my handle is mostly DevOps Jackie on Twitter, Blue Sky, etc. And [00:42:45] then I'm Jackie Kapor on LinkedIn. And I'm bringing back Instagram. I was like, which handle do I give? [snorts] DevOps Jackie. We'll keep it consistent. [laughter] >> Awesome. Well, thank you, Jackie, for coming on to the show. Uh, thank you everyone who might be watching or listening to this in the future. Uh, and yeah, we'll see you on the internet. >> Yeah, thanks for bringing me on. And if you watch this and you have questions, please hit me up with them. I'd love to hear your thoughts and insights. [music] Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. [music] [music], Episode 36: Jacquie Capur, Jacquie Capur (guest; the transcript captions spell the name "Jackie Kapor"), Chris Reynolds (host), 01m564fj7fyhd02g4h5gq6cnrh.