146: Do Things & Tell People  🔗 **Source:** [146: Do Things & Tell People](https://share.snipd.com/episode/520d39d9-786e-40bf-a0af-84c19a339a69) ## Highlights - **First Business Class Changed The Flight** - Aaron upgraded mid-checkin from Economy Plus to Business and slept comfortably on the long DFW→Copenhagen route. - He emphasizes the huge drop in cognitive load and how business class felt like a small private space for work and rest. Transcript: Aaron Francis You know you taste to the high life one time never going back never going back no so i was invited to speak at laravel live dk for my first time ever um and was very honored to be there we can Go over the conference later um laravel live DK is a community run event. It is a nonprofit and they generously agreed to cover, uh, my economy fair over there, which in and of itself is not cheap. And so I didn't have to pay for the flight or the hotel, anything like that, which, um, a lot of conferences don't even do. And so I was like, this is amazing for a community run, non-corporate, non-sponsored conference. So this is back before I was a Laravel Holdings Incorporated employee. And so I told Sam Chavez, like, figure out what the price of the economy is, and then we'll bill that through to laravel live denmark then on our side on the try hard studios side put me in Economy plus so we start we start with economy plus right this is how we start you're like oh yeah if you just separate the expenses by enough time you forget about one or the other slicing It up yeah so i show up to the airport in dfw uh with my economy plus ticket in hand. And I have to go to the ticket counter because they need to confirm passport and stuff before they give me my boarding pass. And while I'm there, I'm like, hey, what's the deal? Y'all got any better seats available? Just like, yeah, we got better seats available. Of course we do. Wow. And so I pulled out my Try Hard Studios credit card. I wasn't going to I wasn't going to bill this through to Laravel Holdings, Inc. There's a small chance I haven't even read the travel policy for Laravel Holdings. That's unclear. But I knew that upgrading to business did not fall under that policy. Probably not. Ian Landsman You don't want to test it this way anyway. Aaron Francis Don't want to be that guy. So the good news is the TryHard Studios bank account has money that is not being deployed because, you know, all efforts have been shifted to Laravel Holdings, Inc. And so I thought, you know, what is the purpose of money if not to spend? I don't know. So I upgraded. So this is now my second upgrade. Ian Landsman So how much did this cost from plus to business? Aaron Francis I don't remember, but I think it was under 800. Ian Landsman Oh, under 800 is an automatic. Even if you did slice it three times, like you still have to do it. Aaron Francis And it's possible that it was that was the case because there were still like six seats open and they maybe do dynamic pricing or something. I'm sure. And you're at the gate. So it's like if they're not selling it like then, then they're not selling it. So I plonked the credit card down and was like, this is going to be freaking awesome. Turns out it was freaking awesome. ([Time 0:04:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e274d9b4-3e6c-4710-a8da-45ece0d139a7)) - **Food Trucks Turn Lunch Into Networking** - Laravel Live DK used an adjacent permanent food-truck court where attendees got vendor gift cards for lunch, turning breaks into open social mixers. - That setup enabled fast throughput, natural mingling, and easy hallway conversations outside the venue. Transcript: Aaron Francis Whole run uh big picture extremely well run well attended community conference i was i was what i figured very surprised um it was i want to say like 250 to 300 attendees the venue was unbelievably Cool it's like this like hipster warehouse converted to like part nightclub part you know art retreat or whatever so it was it was super cool um just outside the back door of the venue There are like there are like maybe 30 to 50 food trucks. They're permanent, but it's like a, it's almost like a, like a food court, but outdoors with independent vendors. And the way that the conference ran the lunches is, uh, as a part of attending, you get a gift card that works at literally every vendor. And so when it's lunchtime, they send you out into the wild, two steps away into the wild. That's huge. To mingle with, you know, other Danish people who are also there. Like that part wasn't closed off to the public. And you walk around and you're just like, what do I personally want to eat? It was great. I never even heard of anything like that. I hadn't either. That's fantastic. Me and Sam Sappenfield were walking around and being like, could we pull this off for a thousand people? I don't think so, but we should at least see if we could try. Because just the sheer like, not only the diversity of food, which means there are some options that even young Aaron might like, But the like, the throughput was unbelievable. Like I just walked up to a random vendor and I had my, you know, Danish burrito in eight minutes, six minutes, something like that. It was exactly what I wanted. And then people just kind of group up at picnic tables and then you can wander in and out of the venue if you like want to go sit and do some work or come back out and hang. ([Time 0:12:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a657a6bc-820c-4b40-8624-e72f0678af72)) - **Welcoming Culture Makes Community Sticky** - New Laravel employees reported the community openly makes space for newcomers, physically and socially, which lowers barriers to join conversations. - That warmth was a recurring theme and contrasted with more closed tech-community norms. Transcript: Aaron Francis Yeah, one piece of feedback I got, we have a new salesperson uh who lives in london this was his first week at laravel and he came to laravel live dk um by the way absolutely crushed it worked The booth the whole time was mixing it up with the community his name's dev unbelievably good so uh great new hire for laravel holdings incorporated but the feedback i got from him he Comes from more of the javascript world the feedback i got from him was like everyone at this conference is so nice like you you walk up to a circle and they they open up like they make space For you physically make space for you to join that conversation. And there's never like a, like, tell us your resume. What are your bona fides? Like, why are you joining our conversation? It was just everyone is genuinely like, oh, great. You're dev. Awesome. We were just talking about XYZ. Join us. And that made me really happy to hear because we hear that from people in the community. Right. But from, you know, a JavaScript, historically JavaScript person coming over to a Laravel side and hearing like, this is different. Yeah. That was like really awesome to hear. So that was good feedback. ([Time 0:18:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f42c0fac-0c19-45bb-9c21-478e986ad905)) - **Speak Locally Then Scale To Big Conferences** - Try speaking at meetups first as low-pressure practice, then scale to larger conferences to hone a repeatable talk. - Aaron and Ian recommend meetups and online Laracon stages as the path to big-conference slots. Transcript: Ian Landsman You should be trying to speak at conferences. Like just keep going. You're going to get rejected. That's fine. You just keep applying, refine the shtick you're working on because it's going to a conference when you're the speaker, it literally changes everything about it. Everybody, you never have a minute without talking to somebody. Everybody's coming up to you about your talk that's coming up, your talk you did, whatever. And you get to know everybody and then it's easier to get future speaking things or whatever so just a reminder you should be trying to speak conferences uh it's great for your career Aaron Francis And the denmark organizers had uh very good notes to the audience that i agree about is they're running they're running Denmark and Scandinavian meetups all the time and you should Absolutely try to speak at a meetup first like that is the lowest pressure lowest stakes way one to see if you enjoy it and then if you do to like hone your craft and then land that into or Parlay that into bigger conferences so which is exactly by the way what I did right like if you're like, oh, I could never speak on stage at Laracon US. ([Time 0:23:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2abf27fc-2a71-4a73-a21d-2e81ec1efa21)) - **DHH Called Out Aaron Onstage** - Aaron met DHH in the green room and DHH later praised Aaron onstage, calling out his content and name publicly. - That moment validated Aaron's work and showed how visible consistent content can become to leaders outside your circle. Transcript: Aaron Francis Meeting DHH was awesome. Okay. Just so cool. So, you know, he breezes in like 15 minutes before his talk. He's like, I rode a bike here. And I'm like, of course you did. And so he's in the green room, like, you know, taking off his backpack, getting ready to go on stage. And I'm back there. And so I just walk up to him. And as I, within three feet of him, you know, in the green room, he's like, hey. And I'm like, I don't know if he's, you know, so used to this that he just does this. And he's like very polite and media trained. And so I stuck my hand out and said, hey, I'm Aaron. And he goes, what are you doing? I know who you are. Why are you introducing yourself? And I was like, ah, that's the best thing that's ever happened to me. So, you know, we talked for, we talked for maybe four or five minutes. And he's just, he just knows how to meet the moment. Like he knows, he knows where he is at a, at a Laravel conference. He's always enthusiastic about whatever he's talking about. And so, of course, I brought up Omachi and his new, you know, this was pre $8 million announcement, so I didn't know. But I obviously I follow him. And so I was like, you're going on with Prime and Teach later. I'm so excited to see it. And that gets him off on the Omachi, you know, train. And he's just having a great time talking about it. And so really, really like fun to meet him. And I was just floored that he knew because we had done a podcast on Sequel Light maybe 12, 18 months ago. But this guy, this guy does podcasts with everybody. And so for him to remember me, like really like really made me feel special and I love to feel special and then we can talk about the whole Fireside but just on this note he had a talk too or Ian Landsman He was just in the Fireside? Aaron Francis No, no, no, he was just Fireside so him and Taylor only time on stage was together chatting and we can talk about the whole thing but during the Fireside Matthias who was the host of that Portion, said, like, what's something you admire about each other's frameworks or communities or whatever? And DHH, like, talked about the Laravel community and then said my full name, first and last name. Whoa. And he said. Ian Landsman Say what? Was it cursing you out or no? Aaron Francis No, it wasn't. It was the opposite. Oh, that's He said something like, I really admire. No, it's not even admire. I'm really envious of your community because you have Aaron Francis like putting out all this amazing content. And I wish that in the Rails community, we had people with such high whatever taste and putting out great content. I'm so envious of that. And I'm like sitting front row where he can see me and I'm like, don't throw up, don't throw up. But I was just, he knew my full name. He knew the types of content I'd been putting out. He knows what I do. I took a picture with him and Taylor later and he quoted it and was like, the stuff that Taylor's built and Aaron has evangelized. And I was like, who, how is this happening? Like, this is crazy. You can just do things. You can. It works even better than you think, though. ([Time 0:26:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/620f0246-3a19-4b0d-b4c9-dda4fdd9c3b7)) - **Stagecraft Turns Small Talk Into A Call To Aim Higher** - During the fireside, DHH used a soft question about cars to argue that success and visible rewards can raise ambition in open source. - The moment showed his stagecraft: turn anecdote into a call to aim higher and celebrate success. Transcript: Aaron Francis So Matias handed DHH one of the toy Lamborghinis. And he was like, DHH, what do you think about Taylor's car? And it's like kind of a softball. And, you know, DHH espouses some of the good things about like the actual vehicle. He's like, oh, Hurricane V10 with the inlets and outlets. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. But because I think he does have such good, it's like he has media training that has never been given to him. He's just a natural. But he also has like this deep well of passion for things that he cares about. And so he very deftly, it was incredible stagecraft. If it comes out publicly, you should all watch how he takes this like question that was meant to be like soft, like feel good. Let's talk about this shared interest. And he deftly turns it into espousing the nobility of being ambitious and aiming for success. And I thought it was an incredible turn because part of what he did was like talk about how it is good for open source to be seen not as like this downtrodden outcast like poor we work for Free and all we do is suffer to no it is it is good to like work hard and succeed and then show other people that you can work hard and succeed and like if you buy a fancy sports car from the fruits Of your labor because that's what you want to do as somebody who worked really hard and succeeded that is a good thing and that shows people that like it is okay to raise your ambitions It's okay to dream big it's okay to like enjoy the fruits of your labor and i thought boy that was an incredible that was an incredible turn Like to turn this little question into basically Like a call to arms for go out there and work really hard and then don't be shy if you actually become successful. ([Time 0:35:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/75885589-e1da-404b-aef4-1edfa82a924c)) - **DHH Warned The Current Moment May Not Last** - DHH predicted the current moment around frameworks and AI might be short-lived, calling it a 'beautiful moment in history that is completely gone now.' - He framed rapid change as probable and admitted his own views had shifted fast recently. Transcript: Aaron Francis Uh, and Matias was like, where do you guys see, you know, your frameworks in 20 years? Um, and Taylor went first and I don't even remember because what DHH said was so funny. But Taylor said something like, you know, I hope we're still out there helping people, you know, make a living and whatever. Yeah. I don't even know if that's right. That feels right. And then DHH was like, this will have been a beautiful moment in history that is completely gone now. It will not exist. We will look back and we will think that was a good moment in history and i think that will happen in the next year or two and everybody was like what okay he's like yeah it's not it's not gonna Last like it's it's not gonna last it's gonna be over um and i hope that we can look back on it and maybe i think this was the closing i think the closing line was like maybe the real framework Ian Landsman Is the friends we made along the way and it was like oh wait a minute that's the end of the show no we need that's the we got follow-ups on that one there needs to be follow-ups no that was the Aaron Francis End it was very it was You can't end on that. It was very good and it was very funny. But it was very DHH. She was like, we will look back and we will realize it was a beautiful moment in history that no longer exists. ([Time 0:39:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0423f4fa-c60a-42cf-98b6-de11483b9101)) - **Twelve Course Chef's Dinner With Synchronized Service** - Aaron attended a 12-course chef's tasting with Laravel leaders and described theatrical synchronized service and tiny, farm-sourced ingredients. - He enjoyed the experience but found many courses outside his normal palate, swapping plates and laughing with Abigail Otwell. Transcript: Aaron Francis So this was just kind of like leadership people. So it was me, Tom, Andre, Joe Dixon, Taylor, and Abigail. Okay. So it's like a Laravel Inc. Ian Landsman Dinner kind of thing. So was this a chef's course kind of thing or you selected from a menu or set the stage this was this was a 12 course meal okay all right you don't get to pick either courses right just one after Aaron Francis You don't pick anything you don't you just show up yeah yes um i don't know if it's been made clear on this podcast i am a man of the people right you're a meat and potatoes kind of guy i i am Blessed are the lowly I am the lowly. So I show up to this thing. I show up to this thing and they just start bringing stuff out. Right. First of all, very cool experience to just have stuff brought to you. And the like clear training and coordination that all these uh wait staff had gone through yeah so there were what is that maybe six of us maybe seven i don't know i can't do math right now It's maybe six um and every time they brought a new uh dish i i loathe to call them all food but yeah every time they brought a new suggestion of something you might eat, three waiters showed Up and they all like you could tell they were making eyes at each other. And then they all place the thing in front of one person, but offset. So there will say there are six of us. So every other person gets served by a waiter and then they step back and rotate. And then the next three people gets all in like pure sync and coordination. These people are coming out of nowhere. I don't know who we're talking to or like. And then they tell us, you know, this horseradish flower that's the size of a quarter. Yeah. Comes from this farm. Oh, dude, you've got to get Abigail Otwell on the show because she was dying. I was sitting directly next to her. And the whole time I'm like trying to peek over at her without the waitstaff noticing. And she's cracking up like this comes from this farm that's 30 kilometers. No idea. 30 kilometers due south of here. ([Time 0:42:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a7d28988-046e-4574-bb61-757b927febcc)) - **First Caviar Attempt Ended In Vodka Rescue** - Aaron tried caviar for the first time on camera, gagged, and was rescued by a sommelier who offered vodka to clear his palate. - Taylor filmed the moment; Aaron calls it a hard miss and a memorable Twitter clip. Transcript: Ian Landsman A caviar dinner i will this is like with the tattoos like you gotta get paid for Correct. Yeah. Aaron Francis So by the time I'm like, all right, I got to do this. All eyes are on me. And it turns out a phone is on me. Taylor's phone is filming. Oh, Taylor. Yes. There's live evidence. There's live evidence of me trying caviar for the first time. I'm like, all right, be a sport. You're 37 years old. You can do this. And so I take the tiniest little, you know, spoonful of caviar and some sort of crumpet or whatever it's resting upon. And I'm just like, totally hesitating. I'm just like, I don't want to do this. This is going to be terrible. And that's when Abigail hit me with, just pretend the spoon is an airplane. Ian Landsman And I'm like all right well that's really calling it to question your man my reputation yeah yeah they're like taking you down a few pegs there thanks for that um that didn't even work Aaron Francis You didn't imagine hard enough you should imagine so i got the spoon i got the spoon into my mouth, caviar aboard. Just horrifying. Just totally horrifying. Ian Landsman Was it fishy? Terrible. No? Aaron Francis I don't know. It felt a little fishy. Felt a little. Texture was awful. ([Time 0:48:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0d701401-41ad-4d40-8b8b-86e811ef083b)) - **Cancelled Toronto Layover Led To Sleeping On High Tops** - Aaron's return via Toronto was canceled after hours on the tarmac; he rebooked on American, slept on airport high-top chairs, and used lounges to recover. - He avoided the airline's 24-hour rebooking and booked a direct flight to minimize further hops. Transcript: Aaron Francis On the plane. What were they doing? So it was raining, and so there was lightning, and so they were hanging out at the gate for quite some time. They did turn on the engine, so we did have air for most of it. We were hanging out at the gate for quite some time, and then we finally taxi out to the runway, and we get there, and the captain comes on. He's like, well, hey, this is a captain speaking. And, you know, then he does it in French. And I'm like, what's happening here? And he's like, well, the co-pilot's radio's not working, so we're trying to fix it. We may have to head back to the gate so they can fix it there. And I'm like, does that get going to happen? Oh, no. Ian Landsman Ain't that in the pre-check? Why is that not in the pre-check? What are we discovering now after we've sat on the runway for three hours? Aaron Francis As with all of those things, Ian, why are we not in charge? We would have figured this out. We had three hours to figure this out. You got 10 check sheets up there. Ian Landsman One of them has to be check that radio. Aaron Francis I know. So we drive back to the gate, and now people are getting mad. People are mad, yeah. People are mad. I'm hearing screams from the back. Right, the cattle car back there. The cattle car. People are stacked on top of each other like quarters. Literally stacked on each other. It's not good. Somebody screams from the back, get us off the plane. And I'm like not to be a riot please don't kill the elites up here in first class oh my goodness little curtain we should have a door we did nothing wrong do not behead us um and so finally After i think it was a full three hours on the plane they said ain, ain't going to happen. We all like, and like maybe three minutes before he said, ain't going to happen. Everybody got the text from Air Canada. Your flight's been canceled. And everybody's like, well, we're getting, hey, it's canceled. And I'm like, yeah, guys, it's canceled. Like if the company texts you it's canceled, the pilot's not going to be like, ah, disregard. We're going. So it's canceled. By now, it's probably 11 o'clock at night oh wow yeah so we were we were delayed and then we sat i watched the full great movie atomic blonde any movie where charlie's there on beats a bunch Of people up love it love it old guard atomic blonde in some ways, Italian Job. Great movies. I love Italian Job. Great movie. I love movies. And so I watched the full Atomic Blonde movie. I watched two episodes of Parks and Rec. All without leaving the tarmac. ([Time 0:59:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d5463b4f-18c7-41b0-82f4-70e8badb236c)) - **Use AI To Draft Bureaucracy Winning Claims** - Use an LLM with internet and file attachments to draft formal bureau-level claims and cite specific passenger-rights rules when disputing an airline. - Aaron used Codex to extract regulations, prepare forms, and guide phone scripts, winning refunds and notes of involuntary cancellation. Transcript: Aaron Francis To figure out on your own. So in this day and age, what does one do? I guess you go to the AI. One fires up Codex. That's what you do. Right? That's what you do. So I know Adam Watham is screaming grok at this point. But I fired up Codex because Codex has computer use as well. And I have Codex subscriptions. Beautiful. And so just like when I'm building software, I fired up Codex and said, here's the situation. Lay the groundwork. Like what's going on? What am I concerned about? Like here's the situation. And over the course of literally the next hour, Codex and I are talking through all possible remediations. And so it's looking up, it's looking up EU passenger rights because my flight originated in Copenhagen. Yeah. We don't even get the baby socialists. We get the big dogs. We get the EU involved. Right. Let's do it. Yes. So it's pulling regulations from the EU. It's pulling regulations from Canada. It's asking me. I probably sent it 25 different files, whether that was screenshots of text messages that Air Canada sent me, original boarding passes, notifications of cancellation, receipts For my American Airlines flight, receipts for the American Airlines lounge. Oh, yes. Screenshots, screenshots of Air Canada's interface showing me that there were no hotel rooms available. It's talking about duty of care. It's talking about the APPR, passenger rights constitution and i'm just like you guys don't stand a freaking chance i got the power of the internet on my side yes so i call air canada because I can't i can't cancel my second leg without calling them presumably because it's a multi-leg trip and they're like yeah click here to cancel i click and they're like oh call us to cancel I'm like kind of checks out so i put in a call to air canada they're like our wait times are approximately three hours right and i'm like yeah it checks out uh do you want to be called back I'm like yeah call me back so in the meantime i'm scheming with codex um and i say like okay when the guy calls back what do i like what words do i use to convey in a gentle way that I am a serious Operator here? And it's telling me like duty of care, involuntary cancellation, equivalent, equivalent accommodation, noting it on your PNR, which I guess is like your your record locator inside Of the, you know, Sabre systems or whatever. Yeah. And so I get this guy on the phone, flawless, ruthless efficiency. Okay. I get literally everything I want. Wow. From him. I still have to, I still have to go through this other requisition form to get some other stuff, but from him, I get literally everything I want. And I'm, you know, he'll say something and I'm like, hold on one second. Yeah. At one point I said, hang on, I'm just reading my notes to make sure I got, we covered everything. And it's like Codex is thinking and I'm like, oh, sorry, I'm reading my notes, big guy. Fast mode, fast mode. So I got him to cancel my second leg. I got him to note on the record that this was an involuntary cancellation. Okay. That like I canceled because Air Canada had a duty to put me on an equivalent flight, the best possible one, and they didn't. So I booked American. And so I'm getting all these things noted on my record. I'm getting refunds for certain things. And then I had Codex via computer use go through and file my reimbursement requests for the American Airlines lounge because of the lack of the hotel, my American Airlines flight, and Then separately some sort of like $600 credit because they left me on the tarmac too long. Let's pull in like flight data from these other sources to check. When did the doors close? When did the doors open? It's using the text messages that Canada sent me as like supporting evidence. So if you're ever in a bureaucracy nightmare, fire up Codex and tell it, tell it we are going to win this. And I feel great about it. I would have done none. ([Time 1:18:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/57923188-148b-49cf-8017-d22120db7db3)) - **Email The Organizer To Avoid Event Photo Drama** - Ian hit a photographer policy snag at his daughter's horse show, emailed organizers, and got explicit written permission to photograph his child despite onsite pushback. - He emphasized asking politely and escalating to the official contact prevented confrontation with onsite photographers. Transcript: Ian Landsman Okay. So it's like the first like of these bigger horse shows. Let's just call it that. Okay. So I got my fancy lens. I got my fancy camera. I'm ready to take some photos of horses jumping things. This horse we bought. I'm jumping. I want to take photos of a jumping thing. Great The trainer woman tells Jamie, oh, you know what? Like this place, I've seen them tell people they can't take photos. And I'm like, listen. Thought this was America. That don't work for me. We're spending all this money. I'm taking the damn photos. So then my daughter's like, just leave it alone. Like, don't go making trouble, blah, blah, whatever. Like, don't bring your camera, blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, you know what? No, I'm not buying. So I email the company that owns the whole thing. I email them. And I'm like, listen, I had to say the parents can't take photos. And I was like, this is crazy. Like, I looked up on your website, which I did. Their photo policy just links to this form, which is for $1,000, you can become an accredited photographer for just one week. And you can take pictures of up to seven riders or something. I was like, I'm not paying $1,000 to become an accredited photographer for my own kid. Like, it's like, I'm going there and taking a bunch of pictures of other people and selling them. I get you don't want that. There's like an official photographer. That's fine. This is my kid. I paid the entry. I want to take photos. What's up with that? And the senior vice president of marketing wrote me back and said, no, no, no, of course you can take pictures of your own kid. It's totally fine. And I was like, that's great. I was like, just so you know, I have like a big lens. I look kind of professional, but I'm not professional. Is that okay? And she's like, it's totally fine. I'll email the photographer so they're aware of this conversation and you won't have any trouble. And I said, kids, look at that. ([Time 1:27:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/564898c7-86b9-4a7a-a734-a987532df25f))