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The TRUTH about building through a bear market in a Web3 startup with Evgeny Kot, VP of Engineering at Rarible
51 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, I spoke with Evgeny Kot, VP of Engineering from Rarible, one of the world's leading NFT marketplaces.
We talk about psychology, how as a manager you don't need to fix everyone's problems, Evgeny's career and how he achieved his current position, what it takes to be a good leader, working in Web3, building through a bear market and so much more...
Behind the blockchain is a series of conversations with technology leaders who have built successful products, teams and careers in Web3. You will get a chance to discover how successful individuals were able to accomplish their career objectives, the skills they have acquired, the mistakes and difficulties they encountered, and the advice they can offer you to help you reach your own career aspirations.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:00
Speaker
So hello and welcome to Behind the Blockchain podcast. Today I'm joined by Evgeny Cott, VP of engineering at Rarible. Evgeny, welcome to the show. How are you? Hi, Jack. Yeah, I'm good. Thank you very much. And it's a pleasure to be here to talk with you. We'll see how it goes. Great. Now, thank you for being here. So Evgeny, for people who don't know who you are, could you introduce yourself, please?
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, hi. I will look right into the camera. So my name is Evgeny. I am VP of engineering in Canvas. I've been doing this, all this tech stuff for almost 18 years, which is quite a long time.
00:00:45
Speaker
I started as just a normal C++, like a similar other stuff developer. For many years, I was developing actually like .NET, Java, JavaScript, front-end, all this stuff. But then, I don't know how it happened. Something happened and I went to management. It was probably in Dell Corporation. I was in this big enterprise.
00:01:13
Speaker
And then moving on, moving on, moving on. And for the last decade, I would say like almost 10 years now, I manage people, engineers mostly. So it's all stages now because I'm in wearable, it's web3 startup, it's not a big corporation.
Psychology and Management
00:01:33
Speaker
So I'm doing a lot of stuff starting from recruitment, ending with, it never ends, I don't know.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, what else? Maybe it's interesting about me at one point, like almost five years back, because I got the degree in computer science and I worked with the computers, all this tech stuff. But then when I started to work more with people, I thought, hey, like people, do I need some proper education? Do I need something to understand them?
00:02:12
Speaker
Maybe there is some some university or something so I decided to go to as my second degree to go to psychology and last December so now it's August almost September I got additional psychology education which actually
00:02:33
Speaker
It sounds strange for developers, for many people, but actually it works. It works. So I think that's all the stuff. I like music. If you know what this vinyl is about, you can post a comment below because that's my favorite band. If you don't know what's the band, you can ask in comments and I will answer. I highly recommend it. So yeah, I like cats. That's cool.
00:03:02
Speaker
So congrats obviously on your second degree. Any top tips or secrets you can share with us that you learnt during that degree that particularly resonated with you?
00:03:17
Speaker
Well, it's not a thing, you know, like you get some education and you know all the secrets of people and I can like use psychology, brain power to convince them. It would be nice, of course, but unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. But I would say.
00:03:38
Speaker
what actually it gives to you as a manager. There are a few funny and interesting things I can share. For example, as a manager, when I just began, I was always trying to fix some people. If someone has some problem, I have to fix it because I'm a manager. I should do this. I should help people.
00:04:04
Speaker
But when you, for example, a therapist or psychologist, you understand that some of the problems are shared not to you to solve it or like immediately rush and save people and give them everything they want. Some of the problems there will be there.
00:04:26
Speaker
Some people can be unhappy and it's nothing to fix. It will go eventually or persons should take responsibility to fix it or not to fix it. So not all the problems require your immediate attention. So that's the maybe first thing. Because as a beginner manager, sometimes we put ourselves in the position of
00:04:55
Speaker
parents or like father or mother which is not true like at the end of the day you're a manager which means that you manage people and that's it of course some of the friendship some of the like non-working relationship is really nice and it's really good to work with your friends but sooner or later you will come to the situation where you have to
00:05:24
Speaker
be a manager and maybe do some complicated decisions, which sometimes is really hard when you work with your friends. So that's the one. It's not a secret or something. It's just some observation that I discovered in this.
Career Highlights and Transitions
00:05:41
Speaker
That's good. I've definitely fallen foul of that before when you mentioned about the personal problems and try to fix stuff for people outside of work and that sort of thing. You get close to the people in your team, right? When you start to become friends and yeah, I've definitely fallen foul of that before. Trying to fix rather than listen quite a lot. I think my girlfriend probably tells me off for that quite a lot as well. I'm a solutions person.
00:06:10
Speaker
Sometimes she just wants to listen, wants me to listen and I'm trying to fix everything and yeah. Actually another fun part is that like for example if you have a meeting there are let's say like 10 people
00:06:28
Speaker
And it's, let's say, retrospective. You want to get opinion from people. You want to get their ideas or something. But some people are really shy. They don't, they maybe, they would probably would stop and not say anything until they get comfortable. But other people, they always have opinion. They always want to express thoughts sometimes. It's too much.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah. And what I've learned, I remember my first group session at the university. And I'd be like... And people were, because it was first group session, everybody was a bit shy. And as a manager, I was like, hey, guys, okay.
00:07:18
Speaker
Everybody, listen to me, you talk first, you talk second, like we can vote, we can do all this like management stuff and our teacher. He said, Eugene, could you please like stop and give people a room to do what they want, not what you want?
00:07:37
Speaker
And I'd be like, oh, yeah, you know what? It makes sense. It makes total sense. And same happens at the group meetings. You as a manager should, of course, create an environment that welcomes even most shy people to talk, to give them a room, and maybe sometimes moderate people who require moderation. But you don't force people to do something they don't want to do.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good, that's a good tip, actually. Yeah, I've been, I've been in a couple of meetings before where, you know, people have gone around the room and said, What's your opinion? What's your opinion? What's your opinion? What's your opinion? You can see some people shrink into, into themselves a bit in that situation, because they're just not comfortable in they might have an opinion. And it might, it's obviously a really valid one.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, but they might not necessarily feel comfortable in that environment. And they're more than happy to let the people who like to talk kind of take over in that situation. So now that's a good point. Sorry, go on.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah. Have you ever been in the meeting with like super, super high level boss? Like, I don't know, boss of the whole corporation? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's always a bit like awkward. I was in that meeting when I wasn't in Dell Corporation and I was an engineer.
00:09:02
Speaker
Like and because corporations really huge and there was one guy I don't know how many levels above me 10 levels or whatever like 5,000 people 5,000 to play Sunday and he was asking the questions for some reason he decided you know to go down to people to like
00:09:22
Speaker
to the ground and asking questions to the engineers. But it wasn't like, hey, what's your opinion on that topic as an engineer? It was like, would you vote yes? Would you agree? And I'd be like, yes, probably. I don't know. I was looking at my manager. My manager was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, I don't agree, but I'm going to say yes, because I like my job.
00:09:54
Speaker
So why did you initially take an interest in technology in the first place? It happened just from as a kid. I was like, because back in the days, we didn't have, first of all, didn't have much of a, not everybody had a computer, like PC or anything like this. I started from the spectrum. I'm not sure that everybody knows it's, it's like,
00:10:20
Speaker
computer that you run on the cassettes, like audio cassettes, and you can play some really, really primitive games there. You can even code in BASIC. It was created in the late 80s. My childhood was in the 90s. Back in the days, the computers were, if you had a PC or computer, Windows-based or something,
00:10:50
Speaker
Nobody, no proper support or anything. If something broke, you just fix it yourself, or you go to your schoolmate who can reinstall something, or it was more less user-friendly, I would say. I liked reinstalling stuff, maybe basic programming, pun intended.
00:11:16
Speaker
So so it was more of a nature. I liked computers. I liked games obviously Yeah in the back in the days at least in my childhood games there there was no like steam or digital distribution you just go there and like There were a lot of at least in my child none license games so it was like like black market and they were
00:11:44
Speaker
somehow broken, but as a kid, you don't know, you just get a CD from like some strange guy from the streets because it was way cheaper. Yeah. And you had to have some knowledge how to install it, all this stuff, because otherwise there was no other way. I didn't have internet back in the days. And nobody had. Yeah, it was like 1992 or so.
00:12:13
Speaker
So, yeah, and yeah, it started as like, hey, I like games, friend of mine from school. I remember how I earned my first, like, not salary, but first money with that. There was a macromedia flash.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think now, of course, it's no more. So you could create some small cartoons, or it used for, actually, if you need anything animated on the web page, you could use Flash to do it. And back in the days of my childhood, I was like,
00:12:56
Speaker
I don't know, 10 or 11 or so. I started to do some super simple cartoons with that. And you can also code in this with some super strange action script. And a friend of mine, his father was director of some company, and they had
00:13:18
Speaker
shops all around the country and they they have a website with all the shops so you can press click click a like city name and there was like some some information like phone number and other stuff and friend of mine said hey my father they they open new shop in some part of the country but on the website there is no such shop because they need to change it and
00:13:44
Speaker
But the problem is that guy who created this website, nobody knows where it is. Nobody has anything from him. So can you like edit? I'm like, oh, it's complicated. It's super complicated. You know, man, actually it was two lines of code or something. Like, yeah, it's super complicated.
00:14:04
Speaker
He was like, you know, like, can you do it? And I'm like, yeah, I can. So I got my first 100 bucks. Back in the days, it was like a lot. It was a lot. So I gave half to my parents to support the family, because I should. And half I spent on, like,
00:14:25
Speaker
I don't know, some chips, some snacks, something ridiculous. So it was more or less natural to me to just go to university, get the computer science. Then I got a job in tech field and it wasn't now tech or IT. Many people go there because of the money, because it's more convenient to work because your boss is not yelling at you.
00:14:55
Speaker
So, but back in the days, it wasn't like that much of a money. It was just, just, just some job for geeks, I would say. Yeah. So, so, yeah, I would say I had no other choice. You forced into it.
00:15:14
Speaker
No, that's cool. It's cool that that company trusted, yeah, a lot of what, 10 or 11 to work on their company website and stuff like this. That's quite trusting of them. Yeah. They also had no other choice. I thought you were going to say that you made money because you were the dodgy bloke with the fake game selling them to kids at school. That's what I thought you were going to say. No.
00:15:45
Speaker
So then, so you got your first job in tech and then could you talk us through, you briefly touched on it, but could you talk us through your career journey up until this point? So you mentioned you worked at Dell for a while and things like this, could you just give us a bit of an overview of kind of how you reached the current position?
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I started, as I said, like 18 years back. Just a small company. We were doing some like a super low level programming. I was a student, second year student. But because actually, it wasn't
00:16:25
Speaker
Really, I hadn't again, I had no other choice just to go to do something because my family needs some money. And yeah, it's it was tough, actually tough days. So and I I got before I turned 18 when you can when can you you can legally work?
00:16:48
Speaker
I was working doing some delivery, some, I don't know, trash. Trash, I mean, in a sense, actual trash. I was a trash picker. How do you call it in English? When you go clean up the streets. Yeah. So yeah, but when I started in university and I got more of
00:17:15
Speaker
I already had some skills in the programming, so I got more...
Path to VP and Career Planning
00:17:21
Speaker
How to say? What's the word? I forgot the word. Ah, okay.
00:17:27
Speaker
So when I actually got to university, I got more confidence that I can do a programmer job. So I found this job and we were doing some low-level C++ programming for the university. The company was affiliated with the university.
00:17:48
Speaker
So yeah, it was like the salary back in these was 100 bucks per month or so, which was a cash. Then I...
00:17:58
Speaker
I was doing C++, low-level programming, then .NET. .NET started in 2004. And I started doing something .NET C-sharp related in 2006 or so. So I switched to .NET, then .NET like for five years probably I was doing .NET and C-sharp. And then I joined Dell Corporation.
00:18:24
Speaker
and back there I was first of all the two major turns in my career so I turned to front-end and it was also funny because we were doing some because Dell back in the days was doing
00:18:39
Speaker
enterprise backup solutions, at least my division was doing enterprise backup solutions for customers in .NET and C Sharp. But the UI was written in WinForms, so it wasn't a web or anything. Our manager came to us saying, hey guys, you are five backend engineers,
00:19:02
Speaker
Maybe could you do a front-end?" And he was like, oh, yeah, of course, because we're C-sharp. We know everything. Front-end is for stupid people. We can do it, of course. And it was awful, because it turns out it's completely different. And UX and UI, all this, it should be convenient. All the buttons should be in the right place.
00:19:24
Speaker
We didn't know about it. We were like, okay, let's code it. It's JavaScript. It's super simple. It was awful project because no designers. We did the design ourselves. It was funny. Then in Dell, I started to do some management. I got some team to manage.
00:19:47
Speaker
in Zhuhai in China. It was also a really interesting experience. I would not say it was management management. I just started to give them some tasks and talk with them. Yeah, it was an interesting experience. And then I was working in Dell for many years.
00:20:11
Speaker
And growing and company was growing and our division was growing. And then I switched to Rike. Rike is a project management solution, I don't know, like Jira, Trella, Sanne. And we went from super small startup, like 30 people, to now it is like one and a half thousand people or so, or maybe even 2,000.
00:20:36
Speaker
I moved to Prague, to Czech Republic. We opened office there and I was there like one of the first employees there.
00:20:46
Speaker
And it was a bit of a journey to find people, to order toilet paper, all the stuff. So it was like a startup inside the startup, opening the lab, opening the office, hiring people, getting in touch with local market, understanding what's going on. So yeah, I was doing a lot of stuff in Rike for almost nine years.
00:21:12
Speaker
And then, actually, I joined Writeable half a year back. Everything is new for me. Web3, crypto. Of course, I used some of the crypto stuff before. I had some NFTs and other stuff. But yeah, Web3 and small startup is something. Even though in my previous teams, in my previous companies,
00:21:40
Speaker
all of my job was to join as a start-up in the start-up and then grow with start-up and grow a start-up to not a corporation, but kind of like a grow-up, grow, yeah. But yeah, variable is really interesting. It's completely different story because it's web tree, it's crypto, all of the people are really enthusiastic about the industry, so it's really different story.
00:22:11
Speaker
That's cool. Did you always know that you wanted to be a VP of engineering?
00:22:21
Speaker
I wouldn't say that I had really planned that I want to be a VP of engineering. It's more or less natural to me, because top five most stupid questions on the interview, whether you see yourself in five years or other stuff. And many people, they don't like it. But actually, there is some of the sense in that kind of question.
00:22:46
Speaker
You have your position, your skills, your education, background, experience, all the stuff. What is your end goal? Or whether you move in what direction? Do you want to be a developer and develop stuff? Or you want to be a manager and to grow? Because that's the kind of second part of the equation is
00:23:11
Speaker
Do you want to grow? I believe that our industry is pushing people to grow because we have all the machinery, all the bureaucracy around that. We have performance reviews, we have retrospectives, we have health checkups, we have all the stuff that is forcing you to grow.
00:23:32
Speaker
But many people are kind of afraid to say, hey, I'm really comfortable in the position where I am. I don't want to grow. Don't push me. I want to be a senior developer. I don't want to go to management, for example.
00:23:51
Speaker
And vice versa. Many people, they don't have a career plan, but they want to grow, but they don't know where. And the biggest problem here, biggest challenge is that most of the time, companies, they... Okay, not most of the time, but many companies, they don't provide clear path to grow.
00:24:13
Speaker
We know how to grow senior developers, like from junior to senior. We kind of know it because it's really like popular. But if you're a senior developer and they want to grow higher, it's really not all the companies have tech track, not all the companies have a management track. So actually answering your question.
00:24:37
Speaker
So yeah, I was comfortable in management track. I was kind of reflecting my background and thinking, hey, what is the best thing I can do? And where is the spot where I'm most comfortable on one hand and where I'm most efficient and other stuff?
00:25:01
Speaker
So, and eventually I started to develop my skills in the sense of like management and senior management, leadership, like strategic stuff because management is different aspects.
00:25:17
Speaker
So yeah, and eventually I went to VP of engineering and now I believe that's the most comfortable position for me because like being a CTO is more of a starting some technical stuff and coding all the stuff yourself. Like as usual, if you're a CTO, you're usually a first engineer.
00:25:39
Speaker
kind of or like second or so and you're just moving with the company and then probably you can jump off to other company but to become a CTO you should start as a CTO, right? Or something like this. So I would say VP of engineering is now it is more or less something that I want to do.
00:26:05
Speaker
OK, nice. Because I think there's still a bit of... I think there's still maybe stigma is the wrong word, but there's still something in the job market where people always think that they have to tell their employer that they're really, really ambitious and that their goal for the next five years is they want to hit principal engineer, they want to be a tech lead, then they want to manage a team, then you will be an engineer in management.
00:26:35
Speaker
And I feel like people almost say that sort of thing because they think that's what their employer wants to hear. And that's the type of person they might want to employ and stuff, which half the time I don't think is actually true. Obviously, it depends what job you're in. If you're in a sales role, for example, then you'd expect people to be.
00:26:51
Speaker
know, ultra ambitious and want to like reach the next level all the time and this kind of thing. If you're in an engineering realm, for example, you might just absolutely love coding and building cool products and stuff and have no desire to go and get into the politics of management, or, you know, get into the bureaucracy of when you get into leading people and this kind of stuff in larger companies and things. So
00:27:12
Speaker
I feel like there's a real thing around that. People saying what they think companies want to hear as opposed to what they actually want.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree with you. If somewhere in the space, floating big stone tablet with the scenes of the management or company scenes, I would say somewhere in the top 10, they're going to be one of the
00:27:51
Speaker
since is that, okay, we have good engineers, let's make shitty managers out of them. It's so normal in the industry that, hey, we have a most senior person, most senior engineer, let's give to this person some team and let's assume that if they are good engineers,
00:28:18
Speaker
They should be a good manager. It's completely ridiculous. It's not true at all. But of course, we see it often, really often, because it's kind of, okay, we would like to scale teams, scale company, scale revenue, grow everything. But actually, many companies are kind of afraid to hire managers.
00:28:45
Speaker
So they better give a promotion to some engineer, even though this person, so I don't know, probably again, talking about psychology, I see how many people like in their age of okay, if they spend 10 years in the industry, they
00:29:04
Speaker
like occasionally they for some reason they just look at the mirror and be like am I at the place where I want it to be or not and I had few examples when someone even at the senior management position
00:29:20
Speaker
They're looking at the mirror, looking at the calendar with meetings back to back, and be like, you know what? I always wanted to program. But now I'm in the position where I cannot just turn back, and this is really sad.
00:29:37
Speaker
Maybe my advice to everybody is just to reflect your career, reflect your choices. If you see how, I don't know, your company pushes you into a position where you don't want to be, it's always like people are afraid to say, no, I don't want to grow, I want to be in the same position. But you should because otherwise you can, okay, you are 40 and you are not happy.
00:30:05
Speaker
But in my case, I'm really happy.
Management Skills and Self-awareness
00:30:08
Speaker
I'm in the position where I wanted to be. I was about to ask if you missed coding at all. No, no. In my case, I think that's the thing that's a funny story. Fun fact, Henry Mintzberg has a really big name on the management theories, management books. So here in the 80s, I believe,
00:30:31
Speaker
There was a theory, not a theory, but kind of like conception that good managers, they have a good education, MBA or something like this, and that's it. You have to read a lot of books and bam, you're a good manager. But Henry Midsburg,
00:30:48
Speaker
said, no, actually you need three main points in this, three main parts of this pie. Is education, yes. It's really important because you don't want to repeat all the errors and mistakes. You need to read the books to understand how people did it in the past. But two other is experience.
00:31:11
Speaker
And I totally agree that it's really hard to be a good manager without proper experience, without all the things that you do yourself. And third one is your kind of natural skills. Some people are born with them, you know, like natural leaders. Some people can develop them.
00:31:32
Speaker
And the proportion is different. There are people who are really good natural leaders but actually not really good managers. I had this experience in the past when people are, you know, they can deliver best talk in the world. They can motivate people. But when it comes to Jira and planning, they're awful. They cannot do anything.
00:31:55
Speaker
And the same story, if you read a lot of books, but you don't have any experience and it's hard to expect people to be. So I would say if I put myself in this like triangle, I'm a more of a natural guy, like skills and other stuff I have just maybe born with them, maybe developed.
00:32:16
Speaker
And I have experienced books and other stuff. I'm not really, I understand that you should read books and you should, you know, like educate yourself. But sometimes it's really hard for me to focus on that. Because frankly speaking, business lectures are most boring stuff in the world. Yeah, I agree. I've tried to read, I've tried to read a few business books and management books in the past and
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've got to the first five or six pages and I just can't seem to get along with it, to be honest. But I've always learnt, I guess.
00:32:53
Speaker
I guess from giving it a go and from doing it and just trying and stuff, I was pretty lucky when I stepped into management for the first time. I had a number of really good managers and mentors around me, to be honest, to be able to bounce ideas off and really help me with that. So I was almost learning on the job as opposed to
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, learning from books then trying to implement what I'd what I'd found Really which for me that works that works. Well, you know people learn in different ways, right? I think part of yeah part of the skill you need to pick up is is learning how to learn I think is Is pretty key? Yeah books work for you great. But yeah now I'm with you. They didn't work for me. That's for sure
00:33:36
Speaker
So this is obviously apart from the things you just mentioned there, are there any other really notable things that you think you've developed over your career which have helped you in your current role?
00:33:51
Speaker
I would say, yeah, yeah. I would say there are several face shifts or points, breaking points in the career from developing from a developer or engineer or individual contributor.
00:34:09
Speaker
to a senior manager so basically first is when you go from individual contributor to manager and there are a lot of literature again books about that is that how you should rely on the team not to do everything on by your own not to micromanage and helping the team all this like there are a lot of stuff
00:34:35
Speaker
But you can read a lot of books, you can listen to many podcasts, but until you experience it yourself, when, for example, a lot of questions I got from my colleagues and my clients even,
00:34:58
Speaker
Okay, so now I have five meetings a day. I don't code. I don't write code. I'm really sad because I'm useless and I don't know what to do and my team can do all the stuff without me. So again, I'm useless. They will fire me. I will not find any job because as a manager, it's really hard to find a job, which is not true.
00:35:23
Speaker
So that's the one kind of phase shift point when everything is breaking apart and when you don't know what to do, because it's completely different. And the second, I would say, is when you are already manager, but you are more on the tactical side, you are an engineering manager for one team,
00:35:46
Speaker
But then when you have to jump over and to see it everything from a strategic view when you plan for like not two weeks but months and even Years, that's that's the second. So I would say like what things I Developed over the years is to and maybe that's the main kind of
00:36:12
Speaker
like quality or skill you need is to first of all to identify weak spots so where and now your attention is needed because I saw a lot of examples when managers they try to like to have all the stuff in their hands it's like you have I don't know five chainsaws three fried chickens
00:36:40
Speaker
five watermelons and you want to juggle it around with your two hands, that's not possible. So you have to put something down and to identify what is the most crucial thing. So it's the first step. And the second skill is to actually identify it in yourself.
00:36:59
Speaker
Because, for example, not only your organization, your team has some weaknesses or some strengths. You should understand what thing that you miss right now and what... There is a book... Let me just...
00:37:25
Speaker
It's a book, there is a book from Marshall Goldsmith. What Got You Here Won't Get You There. A really nice book for like managers because it's actually, the whole book is about, okay, you got to some point in your career, and you have some skills, some things, your like background, your experience.
00:37:49
Speaker
But it doesn't work now. So for example, when I jumped to like more senior position, I realized that I don't know what to do, because all of the skills, all of the stuff I did before, it's completely different. So I have to change the strategy. So a really nice book I recommend, one of the few good management books. Yeah. Yeah, you'll have to send it to me. Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I would say main skills is to identify where is the weak spot and where to put your attention because you are just like coming to the dark room with just one flashlight. You can look at the things, but only at one thing at the time. Otherwise, it will not going to work. No, that's good. That's good advice.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely think and agree with you around the self-awareness piece, that understanding.
00:38:50
Speaker
not just self-awareness, I suppose, but being able to analyse the team and find weaknesses and this kind of stuff. So I think if you can be self-aware enough to know your weaknesses, you know what you can work on, you know the best parts of your role to be able to maybe give up some ownership to certain members of your team that might be able to then take that on and that obviously then helps to develop their skills and stuff as well if they want to. But yeah, that self-awareness piece I think is massive really.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, but actually... Sorry for interrupting. But actually how... Who said that? Nietzsche or afraid? I forgot who said that, but that you can look at yourself without any distractions, without any... You see yourself clearly only before you die.
00:39:48
Speaker
A lot of things are kind of like messing with us because sometimes it's really hard to look at yourself with really clear view and see the clear perspective on yourself because
00:40:04
Speaker
We have a lot of things. I'm afraid to say that I'm maybe not a competent manager because I lack of something. Because if I say this about myself, then what? I should go and sleep under the bridge because, yeah, I miss that skill. Or there are a lot of things that kind of fear, anger, all this stuff, all these feelings are
00:40:33
Speaker
changing your perspective? That's true. At the recruitment company I was last at, we had a really interesting thing where they did almost a 360 degree view of feedback from a
VP Responsibilities and Web3 Challenges
00:40:48
Speaker
couple of people within your team, someone who's a peer at the same level as you within the organization and someone who's more senior like a director or the founders of the business and stuff.
00:40:59
Speaker
That was really interesting. Obviously you have to be open to a fair amount of criticism. Obviously it's all good stuff and it helps you understand where other people see your weaknesses because the perception that you have of your own weaknesses and strengths and things might not be the same as how other people would view you and your strengths and weaknesses and stuff. That was a really interesting thing to be able to actually get feedback from other people.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, some of the stuff you think you're good at, other people don't. And it's, yeah, you feel slightly hurt inside, but also it gives you something to work on, which I think is good. Yeah, it was interesting. So what does a day in the life of the VP of engineering at Rarible look like?
00:41:44
Speaker
So the funny story is that I think it's always, so let's say when, if you are a Java developer or I don't know, front-end developer, it is more or less not the same, but kind of like it is expected from you that you write the code. So it's more or less the same across the industry.
00:42:10
Speaker
But the more into the management, I believe that management is the most adopting people, adopting roles in the company. Because that's the whole point of managers, is to glue things together. If you have
00:42:29
Speaker
If you're building something, you have rocks, you put your rocks, and you need something to glue all the stuff that can be a shape of the rocks or the wall. So again, if I tell you what I'm doing every day,
00:42:48
Speaker
Some other VP of engineering can say, no, no, no, you shouldn't do this. Or I'm doing something completely different. It doesn't mean that I'm better than they are. Or vice versa. It's the thing. So you just end as a senior manager in the senior manager management position. It's true, like 200%.
00:43:09
Speaker
that you should identify weak spots and there is no such thing as not my business, right? So my day-to-day, of course, what things there are definitely there is communication, chats, messengers, emails, Jira, all the stuff. So that's always there, of course, it will be there and it should be there.
00:43:34
Speaker
meetings, but of course I'm trying to get rid of the useless meetings and have only useful meetings, but sometimes I know that many people are not really big fans of the meetings, so like everything that you can
00:43:51
Speaker
Say you can write down and you have like meeting glass companies I've read couple of articles about that, but I believe like as a human beings, right we have a lot of ways of communication when we talk to to each other and
00:44:09
Speaker
We have not only verbal messages, we have non-verbal, we have tone of voice, we have a lot of things. So, like, answering this question that nobody asked. Yeah, so meetings will be there.
00:44:28
Speaker
You cannot read of them, you should be really smart about them, but something that always will be there. So it's meetings, coordination, delivery, understanding what's the roadmap,
00:44:46
Speaker
how the strategic picture works. OK, we have a Q3 roadmap plan. Let's sync up on what are the deliverables. Let's react on the market, because one of the biggest, like I would say, it's areas for me to grow, is that in Web3, market is moving. In the morning, you got some tweet from some random
00:45:16
Speaker
guy in the Twitter or X. Sorry, how it's called. At the evening you should implement it and drop it because hype train started and you should kind of react on this. So that's kind of different from many other jobs that I worked is that like it's really hard to plan ahead of a time like
00:45:39
Speaker
quarterly plans they can be you can throw them into trash because like next week somebody will develop something or they're gonna be something else so you have to adjust really quickly yeah so that's the kind of big change yeah quite a big change to get your head around I would have thought
00:46:00
Speaker
Especially coming from a company like Dell, for example, I can imagine they're very big on their future planning of where things are going, being such a big corporate stuff. It's then coming into the startup world and yeah, fighting fires and being really reactive to the market and especially the Web3 market. I can imagine it was a bit of a change.
00:46:22
Speaker
But on the other hand, in Web3, I hear like, hey, it's Web3. Or like, Web3 gives you excuses for doing anything you want. But I always remember the story how I was a teenager. I was wearing some
00:46:41
Speaker
teenager stuff. I mean, like, not something really practical, but more of a fashion number. And so I went to my parents and my mother told me, like, sweetheart, you can wear that. Like, you can do it if you wish. But you can do whatever you want. But always have clean socks and clean underwear.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah, because it's the same with the web tree. Even though we do crazy stuff on the front edge of the technology and the hype train as all the stuff, you should always have a good engineering. It doesn't matter, web tree, web tool, you should have a quality testing, like delivery, all the boring adult stuff.
00:47:32
Speaker
that you should have, even though you do a hype hipster Twitter driven development on others. Yeah, but yeah, quality should be should should be in place, for example. That's, that's good advice. I think people from outside the industry looking in, do you think it can be a little bit like the Wild West sometimes?
00:47:57
Speaker
But I guess building software is building software, right? You still have to have the same kind of teams in place, as you said, around the testing team, quality and the engineering team and delivery teams and this kind of stuff, which is maybe the products that you're shipping is really cutting edge or solving problems you might not normally be solving, but they're underpinned by similar sorts of teams. People from outside looking in, a lot of people get put off because they think the industry is completely different to anything they might have worked in before.
00:48:27
Speaker
which obviously talking to you and talking to others, you know, people have told me that it's that it's really not. But what I was going to say, so what is it really like working in a Web3 startup?
00:48:43
Speaker
I would say, of course, you have to adjust. That's maybe a really good point. We were talking about career development and all these pivot points, and you should reflect and be self-aware. Same happens with the companies in Web3, for example.
00:49:03
Speaker
because there is an initial hype energy, so you can develop something like a hackathon style, you can have a really small young team, young in the sense of engineering seniority. And you can do a lot of cool stuff with that. And I was like this, I was looking at the industry web tree and like, wow,
00:49:28
Speaker
those startups, they rise and fall and nobody knows what's going on. But actually what distinguish one-day project from the like a project that will last for longer is that that's the thing. Yeah, you can build a house out of sticks and mud and well it will help you to survive at, I don't know, some one week.
00:49:54
Speaker
But on the other hand, you want to build something robust but something that can be changed easily because actually, yes, industry is changing, you have to rotate, look at the wind, look at the direction.
00:50:13
Speaker
it blows so on the other hand you don't want to build a huge castle and in the middle of building first wall after half a year understand that market is completely different so that's the i think right now that's the biggest like i would say it's even art how to build robust and um things that would survive and things that will
00:50:39
Speaker
Will not be thrown away in one day but on the other hand is how to pivot quickly enough to follow the things so that's the I would say that the biggest challenge for me right now and for maybe everybody in the in the industry is that
00:50:55
Speaker
Market will know it will not gonna stop.
Surviving Market Fluctuations
00:50:59
Speaker
Now we are in the position where no one, we see a lot of signals that a lot of like governmental structures and like old world, they trying to adapt, they trying to understand what to do with NFTs, crypto, web tree, decentralization, authentication, all the stuff they
00:51:21
Speaker
They don't know what to how to react some of the people some of the like institutions They afraid some of the people they want to get control on that but you cannot stop it. It's like with AI stuff Many people afraid but it's something that you just it's not gonna stop because you put some ridiculous law behind it No, it will be there
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah. And what's been like building through a bear market compared to a bull market?
00:51:54
Speaker
I would say, as usual, in each coin, we have two sides. On the bright side, we have time. No, I would say I would stop from the obvious part. Market is not in the best condition. You should be really smart about source of income.
00:52:16
Speaker
like revenue streams, all the stuff you can imagine on the low market. It's nothing different from any other industry. It doesn't matter web tree or anything like this. If market is low, you should be really sensible, really smart about your resources and planning and other. But on the bright side,
00:52:38
Speaker
Competition is not so strong. And you get some time, as I said, market is changing like every day, but not so quick as in the bull market. And my best analogy to describe it, I believe each web tree company now looks like if you ever been watching Olympic games,
00:53:02
Speaker
when there are sports people who are jumping up high. And before they jump on ridiculous height, they have to squat really deep, really low.
00:53:18
Speaker
go low to have this like momentum, not momentum, but kind of like muscle to burst and to jump really quick. So I believe many engineering team, engineering and teams in general. Now that's a question how to be efficient with a really small team and how to get this muscle to grow.
00:53:44
Speaker
And then when it's time, who will jump faster and who will jump higher will win the market. So now I see from various companies that now it's a good time to make your, I'm talking about engineering, to make your engineering lean
00:54:03
Speaker
really effective, easily scalable. It's no time for just fooling around, getting some resources. Maybe it's a good time. If you have a lot of unused things, it's really hard to jump high. Same with the companies. You want to be as much effective as possible.
00:54:33
Speaker
No, that's a good insight. And how do you make sure that your teams don't get burnt out when they're working in that startup environment? Because I can imagine if you're, say if a company is trying to be really effective, they may have cut down their teams slightly because of cash flow problems and wanting to make it to the next ballroom, for example, where then there's more money flowing into the market and this kind of stuff.
00:54:59
Speaker
That can obviously put a huge amount of strain on the people within the teams, right? So how do you ensure, or in your opinion, how do you ensure that people don't get burnt out during that whole process?
00:55:12
Speaker
I would say the main word for me here is transparency. First of all, it should be transparent to team members because in lean teams and small teams, you're kind of closer to everybody. Again, you're showing like, hey,
00:55:31
Speaker
Now the company situation is like that. And the strategy is here. We want to be lean, but at the same time, we don't want to be too lean to not to have ability to produce what we're producing. And this is the strategy for the company because I believe
00:55:58
Speaker
Like bear market is really, it puts a lot of pressure on leadership and how to survive, what's the plan, what's the strategy and you should not even come up with this idea.
00:56:15
Speaker
but also transparently show it to people, hey guys, now it's maybe time for like do some extra work because it will help us to survive additional time and that's kind of...
00:56:30
Speaker
and not hide anything behind the hay, like it's not your business, we will do it ourselves. That's not the right position. So I would say transparency in all the aspects, starting from company strategy, company structure, because also, yeah, again, why I believe we see how in big corporations with layoffs,
00:56:54
Speaker
So it's not only Web3. We see how people really frustrated with this untransparent decisions. People don't know, am I will be with the company tomorrow? Will I survive? I don't know. Or tomorrow my manager come to me saying, hey, sorry, but you have to go. So this kind of strategy, this kind of transparency is needed. And the second, I think, is
00:57:20
Speaker
to be smart about resources. So there is, of course, threshold where you can stretch your team, but best thing is to be really focused on things that are, that's the other. Also, I said that I don't like books, but I recommend another book. It's called... Give me one second. Yeah, no problem.
00:57:48
Speaker
So it's a book from Richard Rummelt. It's called Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, The Difference and Why It Matters. Like it's self-explanatory title. But yeah, it's really about how to focus and because now, and I see actually what is a kind of like what can be marketing advantage for
00:58:15
Speaker
I'm being humble, I would say, or companies like that. In Webtree, we see how many companies are hype-driven, but they don't have any good strategy, any viable strategy, or they don't have strategy at all.
00:58:33
Speaker
So I would believe on the low market, you have to have strategy and coordinate your efforts, coordinate your resources together. Otherwise, you just will be wasting time, resources and that's it.
00:58:50
Speaker
And the third one, talking about people, how to not... It's, of course, personal touch. People need attention. As a manager, you always... We began with the list inside that not all the problems need to be resolved from your side. But on the other hand, other problems that should be resolved, they should be resolved.
00:59:15
Speaker
Right. So, so yeah, taking care of your people, like be transparent, being honest. That's the kind of like strategy for a good leader. Like, and it's really good for a leader to say, Hey, I don't have all the answers. I'm not, uh, like maybe I'm not even smarter than you are. I have some like skills. I have some, some vision, but let's work together. I'm just a mere mortal. Uh, so this is the plan. This is the assumption.
00:59:45
Speaker
Let's work together and that's
Adapting Leadership Styles
00:59:48
Speaker
it. So that's the story. I like it. And has your leadership style or your mindset changed from moving from a large web2 corporation like Dell into a small web3 starter? Has it changed at all?
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah, I would say yes. Because in a big corporation and when you work with a lot of people, the organization helps you to be more focused because on one hand, you are really... All the processes, all the bureaucracy, all the papers you need to fill, forms, documents, they're kind of helping you to work in some direction. So there is a rule, you follow the rules.
01:00:34
Speaker
But on the other hand, it kind of limits you, of course. So that's the question of a style and where you're most comfortable. In Web3 and in startup, we don't have much of a bureaucracy, which is...
01:00:50
Speaker
kind of my job to bring enough bureaucracy to support many stuff, to be transparent again, for example, but not too much to give people freedom to do a lot of stuff. So I would say
01:01:06
Speaker
I'm trying to find a good balance between chaos and startup when people... Sometimes it can be too chaotic. I mean, it's startup, right? The whole idea is to...
01:01:23
Speaker
I would say it's at home, right? If you have a lot of things to do, you don't want to label everything, label spaghetti each one by one.
01:01:38
Speaker
You know, like do some ridiculous stuff people sometimes do. On the other hand, if you just put everything in the middle of the room and when you need some, I don't know, coffee pot, you just go there and try to find it. So you should have enough bureaucracy, enough order to do things properly. I suppose that's quite a hard balance to get right.
01:02:04
Speaker
to be able to be really agile within a startup and change direction quickly and that kind of stuff and then also have the processes there to support the
01:02:15
Speaker
team and support the growth and support the business and stuff. I can imagine it's quite a tricky thing to get right. Yeah. If you ask me, yes, if you ask me how to do it, I would not answer because that's also kind of like that. The thing that's like, you know, before before going to some leadership positions and joining this circle, I thought that people up there, they they like 10 times smarter than I am. They are they know everything.
01:02:44
Speaker
But actually it turns out that no, same people maybe with some experience, maybe with some skills, but it's not like they know everything how to run multi-billion corporation. I believe if you go to, I don't know, like Apple, Steve Jobs, whatever, Elon Musk,
01:03:05
Speaker
you will see the same meeting, same story, maybe, yeah, of course, something different and something is more scalable, but still, it's not like completely different humankind.
Advice for Web3 Enthusiasts
01:03:21
Speaker
No, not at all. No, it's interesting. And you've only obviously recently joined the Web3 space, right? Did you say six months? Six or seven months?
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Have you got any advice for someone looking to get into the web3 space? If you could go back to the start of your web3 journey when you were looking to get into the space and that kind of stuff, any advice you could share for anyone?
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, I see like two ways how to join this industry, preferably both of them. But first way is to, well, as we discussed before, Web3 is like in the sense of, for example, engineering or other stuff, is maybe the same, maybe a bit like more of a chaotic, but it's the same. So if you're a good, in my case, engineer,
01:04:16
Speaker
or a manager. Yeah, we need people like you, right? We need good engineers. We need good specialists. We need good people who master in something. So that's one way. Another way is to be really enthusiastic, because I see how, like, if you're a really good engineer, for example, but I see how many good engineers they like, oh, web tree.
01:04:45
Speaker
it's calm or it makes no sense, it will die in a few years, all this stuff that prevents them to join. Maybe they're good engineers, but they don't believe, they don't believe us. So second way is to just believe, to dive in, to listen carefully to, I don't know, be subscribed to all this stuff because Web3 is about context.
01:05:14
Speaker
As I said, in the middle of the night, someone posted some tweet. In a few hours, it's just across all the industry, and you need to release something tomorrow. So being really passionate about the industry, it helps a lot. It can be two ways, but I believe it happens. Some people are really good at the old tech stuff,
01:05:42
Speaker
but they don't believe, so they will not join, they will not come. Other people who are really, really, really, really passionate, but they don't have any skills, I would say they still can join and it is more easier to learn tech than to have a belief in something that you don't believe.
01:06:07
Speaker
So I would say yeah, to join in, be passionate about it, at least have some interest in that. And then it's not that big of a problem. No, I don't know many people who have joined the space and then leave.
01:06:27
Speaker
I see more people who join the who think, oh, you know what, I'll give it a try, join the space and then get so far deep that they never want to do anything but Web 3 and blockchain really get the very, very odd person here and there that.
01:06:41
Speaker
you know, wants to doesn't doesn't believe in it after working it for a little while. But yeah, 99% of the time, once people get into the space, they they never want to leave really, which is nice. You know, it's a good thing. And if someone was stepping into a leadership role for a first time, then any advice that you could kind of sum up and give them? I would say,
01:07:06
Speaker
Maybe, well, it's really hard to give one advice about leadership and other stuff. I would say is to reflect a lot and like what can help me is to have
01:07:25
Speaker
everything that goes on in the company, in my personal thoughts, I have summary around it. It might be off topic, but yeah, I have all the notes, all the structures, diagrams around this, and I return to them.
01:07:45
Speaker
every week, sometimes every day, just to reflect on new stuff that I learned or new stuff that needs to be done because why it's important. Because when just jumping in into leadership position or actually any new position,
01:08:03
Speaker
that you never tried before, you will be overwhelmed with new information, new stuff, and it's really hard to focus. It's really hard to find, okay, today I should focus on that, tomorrow I should focus on that. So that's the kind of... It can be overwhelmed, overwhelmed, and start to doing many things at once, which is not possible.
01:08:26
Speaker
Just focus, reflect on things that are important, adapt quickly. And if you don't know something or you may be lack of skills, don't be afraid to admit, admire this and to say, hey, I don't know.
01:08:45
Speaker
It happens with me, actually. I joined Web3, had no idea what that's about. And each and every meeting with the team, I asked, what's that? And what's that? And how does it work?
01:09:00
Speaker
Because otherwise how I can pretend that, hey, I'm senior leader with the serious stone face and I know everything, but it doesn't work. I would not get any better if I would pretend it. So yeah, don't sit with the serious face, ask a lot of questions. You are junior in this position, right? And juniors, they should ask a lot of questions. So be curious. Yeah, that's really good advice.
01:09:28
Speaker
Really good advice. And what were some of the biggest challenges or is there a biggest challenge that you faced when you first moved into leadership for the first time? Anything that springs to mind?
01:09:41
Speaker
I think, yeah, biggest challenge is to get this skill, get this gut feeling what's important now because it's with the meeting. Sometimes I got several overlapping meetings or you have to be on the five calls at the same time. Well, it happens.
01:10:09
Speaker
It can be a system, it can be a formalized system. I saw some examples in my colleagues that they formalized everything and they have weight of each meeting, so it's easier. Some of people like me, they are more of a natural, some conscious gut feeling, okay, this is probably not that important and that is important.
01:10:33
Speaker
So the sooner you develop this skill and yeah, in the beginning I was really struggling to understand, hey, I have to, today I have to complete 50 tasks. What should I do? So yeah, that's the biggest struggle. Okay. And did you learn that from mentors within the business or from reading books or just trial and error as you went along?
01:11:04
Speaker
In my case it was more of a trial and error and maybe my teachers, coworkers, colleagues because actually you can learn a lot of stuff from just your colleagues and it's for free because in leadership coaching and other stuff is really expensive
01:11:26
Speaker
the higher you get the check is the bigger the check. So sometimes we should go and ask your fellow like CEO or CTO or people around you because it's for free.
01:11:41
Speaker
You don't have to pay anything. But all people are different. Some people are really good at reading books and kind of like putting all the knowledge in some of the, they formalize it, they got a system out of it. Some of the people
01:11:59
Speaker
really good as this just getting the picket it from the ground you
Public Perception of Web3
01:12:05
Speaker
can call it like this so i may be a second type of of the people again same story you just should know your limitations and how which which works for you because you can
01:12:20
Speaker
You can try to read thousands of books, get bored, it really doesn't work for you. But then you go to one meeting with one person, ask one right question and all the picture like a puzzle will be completed. Yeah, you're right. And do you, looking back and if you could go back, do you say 18 years you've been in the engineering game? If you could go back and give your younger self
01:12:51
Speaker
piece of advice is there anything you'd say yeah of course buy bitcoin well answering seriously i don't know it's it is always the same with the with the psychology or therapy if you why for example your therapist shouldn't give you advice because it's your life it's you should like learn you learn your mistakes you should learn your own
01:13:21
Speaker
failures and Yeah, if I return back to myself like 18 18 years back and give myself any advice Probably younger myself would say like freak off old man. I will learn everything myself and I will be right Okay, I like that that's good That's good say well
01:13:46
Speaker
So as you bought it up there, Bitcoin, why did you take an interest in Web3 and blockchain in the first place? Was it Bitcoin that kind of got you interested in stuff or what?
01:13:59
Speaker
So I would say tech is really interesting because I see how like blockchain, Bitcoin, yes, of course, Ethereum, it's a lot of really good engineers are behind tech. So that's probably what I miss from old tech. If like 90s, 80s were hackers,
01:14:26
Speaker
created a lot of things that we use now, so really enthusiastic people. And then again, this web one, web two, things when profit and money, they kind of like started to be at first at the beginning, not the tech. And I see how in the blockchain and web three,
01:14:51
Speaker
It's good old days where tech is the king, where we see how enthusiastic people, like doing things in a garage, they can create really interesting stuff. So maybe it's like a nostalgia when hackers or small groups of enthusiastic people could achieve a lot of stuff. It's really...
01:15:20
Speaker
It's my dream when you have a small team with really efficient engineers and they can achieve a lot of stuff. You don't need 9,000 people actually. It's ridiculous. I don't know. You can cut it off. But I read that Diablo 4 team was 9,000 people.
01:15:40
Speaker
I was like, what? To develop a game. And like that's a lot. Yeah, of course, that's not only developers. There are like designers, voice actors, and other stuff. But still, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like 9,000 people. And what I like about the industry so far is that you can be really lean and achieve a lot of results. We don't need 9,000 people to create an NFT marketplace.
01:16:11
Speaker
No, not at all. That's good. And if you could change something about Web3, would you? I would. It will come eventually. I believe in that. I believe that sooner or later retail market or like normal people, they will maybe come to the industry and it would be normal because now I see some of the, you know, like undertones of
01:16:40
Speaker
I know Web3 or like crypto, it's almost a label or people put a label on the whole industry. It's like crypto or whatever. And of course there is some like black market or some of the not nice things, but it happens with all
01:17:00
Speaker
Young Industries, so it happens with everything. So what would I change and it will it will be changed. I believe it's Just a question of time. Is that? this maybe undertones of something shady something that is really like Not good. It will eventually went away will will go away and we will see how like
01:17:26
Speaker
Maybe as we see in the NFTs, they not NFTs, they like digital collectibles because it sounds less NFT-ish. We'll see. So yeah, maybe that thing.
01:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's definitely a common theme that's come out of a lot of the conversations that I have. People would love to see the space, or I guess see people's perception change about the space, which I guess does come over time. There's all the user experience stuff to fix, maybe some of the languages you just mentioned there to fix as well. But I also think it's a big
01:18:09
Speaker
education piece that a lot of people think it's a scam because they might have bought Bitcoin at the height of the last bull run not really understanding about market cycles and and how it all works they've bought it right at the very top and then obviously it's dropped uh so they're like oh i've lost a load of money it's a scam i'm never going to touch it again but that's just an education piece that they might not necessarily have thought about right so yeah completely agree with you i think um i think perceptions will change over time
01:18:35
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I just hope no more, uh, there isn't any more massive projects that are doing anything shady to ruin the reputation of, of the web free space. Right. That definitely doesn't help. Um, yeah. Well, I think it's, it will be there and a shady business will be there. It just, it happens with, uh, like there are thousands of people, um, uh, can, okay, let me rephrase it.
01:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, so for example, if there are a lot of alcoholics there, it doesn't mean that you cannot... No, let's cut it off. It doesn't mean that you cannot drink your favorite whiskey in the middle of the night, but yeah, it's maybe a bad analogy.
01:19:23
Speaker
So to wrap up then, if you could summarise a lot of the insight that you're given today and a lot of the advice, as a leader in the Web3 space, what advice would you give someone who's looking to follow in your footsteps?
01:19:38
Speaker
I would say, as we discussed, first of all, be self-aware and to understand what is your personal goal in your career development or in your skills development where you want to be in five years is a good question, maybe not at the interview.
01:19:57
Speaker
But to ask yourself, hey, what's my plan? Because otherwise, you can be just moving in different direction. At the end of the day, you can ask yourself, where am I? Why am I here? Second is to maybe talking about web tree and like all this crypto blockchain stuff. Don't be afraid.
01:20:24
Speaker
I wasn't a crypto-native person before. I wasn't super convinced. But now I see, yes, you said it's a lack of education and you can do a lot of cool stuff inside of it. A lot of interesting projects. And maybe talking about leadership and talking about self-development is don't be afraid to ask.
01:20:50
Speaker
Being a leader or being a manager doesn't mean you have to know everything. It's a question of asking questions and learn quickly, but it's not about sitting there on the meeting knowing everything and like answering yes, yes, yes.
01:21:10
Speaker
That's great. Be cool. Well, that's good. Well, yeah, Jenny, thank you very much for taking the time to have the conversation today. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. You shared some brilliant insights, some great advice. And if anyone watching wants to reach out, can they reach you on places like LinkedIn, Twitter, this kind of stuff, if they have any further questions or anything? Great. Yeah, yeah, great.
01:21:37
Speaker
Cool. Well, yeah, thanks again. And I'll speak to you soon. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Please subscribe. Press bell button. Link in the comments below. All the things. Yeah. All the stuff that, you know, like you should say in 2023. All the stuff that I should be saying that Evgeny is saying it for me. Thank you. Yeah. Bye.