Ep. 13 - A Baker's Dozen with Brooke Bond | Devs:After Dark

Okay, but in the real world, you don't have to be the valedictorian to still make a good life.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

I—

look at me, I'm living proof. If someone as dumb as me— the lucky 13, the baker's dozen.

Yeah, I was about to say that. I didn't realize I'm on episode 13. That's Hopefully, uh, um, my dad's birthday is on the 13th of February and he was born on a Friday the 13th, so—

No way.

Yeah.

Well, happy birthday to him. Fantastic.

66 years young.

Oh yeah.

Nice.

That's awesome though. That's fantastic. I like that. And also our guest— 66.

66.

Okay.

I know so much. Plus our guest is also a Two time, two time. Yeah, my pipes are bad, just in case anybody's out wondering. I feel bad for the people on audio. That's going to be the worst when they're not watching if they're just strictly like listening to this. And no, you know, I've lost my voice and I am not going through puberty as we speak. So it's just a bit of a little thing I'm getting over here. But our guest, two times. So no matter what people say about Dennis and AJ, our guest has volunteered to come back a second time. Which is just— it is amazing. It is amazing. But let me get through a couple things real quickly. Um, if you haven't already, anyone listening, if it's your first time, 50th time, 13th time, um, hit—

make sure—

Yeah, yeah, no one's keeping— then numbers are— it's all numbers. It doesn't matter. No one's paying attention. Um, but no, uh, sign up for the changelog, uh, at developers.hubspot.com/changelog. And also too, you'll want to check out. The reason why I bring this up is because you'll also find videos from our guests with pretty much like the latest one that I was actually watching myself because I was very interested was the Meetings API in 10 minutes to being able to master that, which I thought was pretty cool. But yeah, you got to go to our YouTube Developers channel and check out a lot of the videos. You'll find great stuff from our guests as well as all the back episodes of this show if you want to watch or if My voice hasn't already turned you off to the concept. Hopefully not. But with that said, let me introduce our guest and she can tell you who she is and what she does. Brooke, give it— take it away.

Hi everybody. Thanks for letting me be on the podcast. My name is Brooke. I am a developer advocate here at HubSpot, so I work with all of these crazy folks. You might see me on the developer YouTube channel a lot. I do a lot of our tutorial videos. I actually started at HubSpot in HubSpot Academy. So if you've ever did any like academy content that's developer related, you'll probably see my mug there too. Apparently I'm just like on every single like thumbnail for all of the developer stuff. So like I'm, my face is too much on the home screen of our HubSpot.

Yeah.

Look, look, we need to take some photos of you in Ireland when, when we go there.

We—

I know. Yeah. I need to, I need to get some new mug, mug shots.

No, not at all. The more the merrier because those videos are good. Like that's the, I mean, Between the Academy and between the YouTube channel, like, there is so much content there to learn from. It is absolutely fantastic. So we really do appreciate you doing that because it's not easy, right? You're putting yourself out there and it's, uh, you know, not a lot of people can do it, but you do and you do it well. So we definitely, definitely appreciate that. So that's a very fantastic thing.

So thank you.

Well, thank you very much. Yeah, no, I have a lot of fun doing it, and if my content can help you all code better with HubSpot, that's all that matters.

I was gonna ask you, what is, um, and it, it could be recently or it could be in the past, but, um, and it could be either, uh, Academy or the, uh, the YouTube channel just in general, but what are some of the more exciting ones that you've done where you've, you've done one like a video and you said, oh my God, that was really fun. Or you've like really got into it as like, um, 'cause like some of the stuff is instructional, right? So you don't wanna be too silly about it.

Yeah.

As opposed to this podcast where we can be a little bit more, um, loose with the comedy, if you will. I workshop, that's what I do. This isn't really, I don't take this seriously. This is just for me to workshop comedy, basically. But no, some of the—

Going for the Netflix special.

Right. Yeah, I'm pushing for it. I'm pushing for it. But with some of the ones that you've done previously, were there ones that really you found just to be exciting and fun for you because you really got interested in it as far as the video making?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. I don't know if this is actually out yet, 'cause I know it's in the queue. We've got quite a bit of videos ready to go, especially 'cause of the upcoming trip. We wanna make sure we still have coverage. But I made a video covering the Figma Design Kit, and I really love, like, doing design work. Like, I, before I was here at HubSpot, I, like, worked as, like, a UX designer, although I kind of just became, like, the overall web dev person there. It's fine. But so I really like frontend design. I like doing that. So like going through the Figma design kit and just showing people like how they can use the different components, the reusable components that are within Figma to like create mockups for the UI components, for the UI extensions and stuff like that. That was really fun to do just because I really enjoy that stuff. And so yeah, anything like frontend design related, I really like that. That's like kind of my bread and butter. I would say.

Was, um, was design the first thing you start? Because I, I mean, me personally, I started in like the design realm and then kind of moved over into development, whether that be coding or just DevRel or anything in particular. Um, is that how you did it too? Did you start in design first?

Well, um, so I guess this is a little embarrassing, but, um, I think I mentioned this in like the questionnaire that you all sent me, but I started, like, doing development work. Like, I had a Tumblr blog back in high school, like all, you know, 14-year-old girls did back in the mid to late 2000s. So, I had that. And so, from there, like, I learned, like, very basic CSS and stuff like that, because on Tumblr, you could create, like, custom themes for your homepage. And so, I would, like, find people's, like, custom themes that they already built, and then I would, like, take it and then I would customize it. And it was, like, very basic stuff. It was, like, changing the hex code so the colors were, like, what I wanted to be, and the font, and, like, doing, like, some fun, like, very CSS animation-like kind of stuff. So I don't even know if that Tumblr blog is still live. Please don't go in.

I hope it is. Come on.

Oh my God, no.

We're, we're Googling it right now. We're searching right now.

Uh, it was all about anime, so it was, like, for people who like anime.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna load that into Notebook LLM, and then I'm basically just gonna generate an audio podcast of Brooke's Tumblr blog.

Oh my God.

Well, I— because I would do like, I would do like reviews for like anime shows that I like to watch. And my sister and I, like, for a very short stint, we did like, um, we like to do like fan dubs, if you know what those are. It's like where people take like anime clips and then they like do English translations. Like, now everything is translated into English all the time for anime, but like back then it was really hard to find like English dubs of shows. And so we would like take it and we learned like very basic Japanese and use like Google Translate to like help us write scripts. And then she would like do all the editing, but I would like sometimes like be featured in her like thing as like one of the voice actors. So yeah.

Awesome.

No, there's nothing embarrassing about that. If you didn't have Like Tumblr or a MySpace page or, you know, like things of that nature in that time, then you weren't really living.

That's true.

Like, is this a generational thing? Is like, you know, it's, uh, a different generation when it's Tumblr and not MySpace where you learned how to, uh, do your coding?

I mean, I think Tumblr is like, you know, it was like a little bit after MySpace. So I think that's why. Yeah.

Because it was like MySpace Lite for developers.

Yeah. Well, I was like, I was, I was too young when MySpace came out for it to like, Because I was, like, probably, like, 5 or 6, I know, this is, like, dating me, I know.

Oh.

But, like, and also— also, at that time— also, at that time, like, my family, we didn't get internet until I was in the 4th grade so when I was, like, 10 years old so, by that time, MySpace had already phased out and so we also only had dial-up internet so I would remember, like, having to, like, ask your parents to go online because my mom would be like, I need to, you know, use the landline. So I'd be like, Mom, I'm on the internet. Let me be on the internet for like 10 more minutes. She's like, I gotta call somebody.

We had that too, remember? And whenever me and AJ would piss each other off, we would just pick up the phone and be like, oh yeah, you busy?

You're real busy?

Oh, now you're not busy. All right, fine.

So I think that gives me street creds with like some of the older people because a lot of people are like, you're Gen Z. And I'm like, I'm not Gen Z, I'm still millennial.

That's awesome. No, and I love the anime stuff here.

I used to be Gen Z and millennial for sure.

Yeah.

No, that's fair. That's fair too. And I love the anime stuff too, because I used to watch for the longest time, uh, I'm gonna pronounce it probably wrong, but Inuyasha. Like, I used to—

Oh yeah, that's a classic one.

Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Constantly watching that. So, um, but no, that, that's really, I feel like you have to take something, even when, when, when you're starting to learn something, right? Like when I first started to just code in general, take something that someone's already done and just try to break it. Just try to destroy it. what makes it tick, watch what happens. And I mean, I did— unfortunately, I did this on the job when I had my first job. So it was like, you know, there's some choices there that I probably would have probably not done, you know, to break people's live stuff.

But, um, Friday, 5 o'clock, yeah, push it live. Why not?

Yeah, not that drastic. But I mean, it—

for the time that I was working— I broke the website and then my boss was like sending out like furious messages being like, it's down. And I like, it was literally down for like 5 minutes because I rolled it back. And I was like, I fixed it. It's fine. It's like a WordPress site. It wasn't like not that crazy. It was like, oh my gosh, it's down. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get fired.

There is like a general panic now more so than ever when like, because everyone's so used to what, like 99.9% uptime? Yeah. That when you get that like 5, give me 5 seconds of downtime, it is like, And I never realized it until like someone equated it to like money. When someone equated it to product and sales and things like that, I'm just like, it's 5 seconds, just relax. But I, I, I get it. But you don't really, as a developer, sometimes you kind of lose sight of that. And then you need somebody like in the marketing team or something to kind of be like, yeah, well, this is, this translates to that. So, you know, it's understandable, but I wanted to, um, kind of rewind back a little bit. Like, tell us a little bit about like how you first, I mean, you talked about Tumblr. But like, what other things as you kind of went along through, you know, your career started to spark your interest and kind of moved you and gravitated you towards like where you're at right now?

Yeah, so I went to undergrad for journalism. So I wanted to be like a straight reporter when I first started. But I quickly learned that reporting is not for me because you have to interview strangers and I'm not, a great fan of like doing that. And they, they like, one of my first assignments was like, go out onto the street and ask 5 people how they think about this. And I'm like, I don't want to talk to anybody. Um, so I was like, maybe being a reporter is not for me. Um, but then in the journalism school, they had this specific track, um, that was called interactive multimedia at the time. And, um, it was basically just like front-end web dev, um, but specifically like in a journalistic context. So, we, like, everything that we had to do was, like, story-based. We'd have to, like, create a website on, like, a topic and do the research and reporting and stuff like that. But most of it was like, here's how to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create the web experience. And so, that's kind of how I fell into it. And I really enjoyed those classes more than I enjoyed my reporting and writing classes because I just, I enjoyed Like, the feeling of taking code and making it look beautiful, making it do what I wanted, like, having— like, bringing in a JavaScript library and adding, like, some fun little interactivity to it. And when I, like, would be able to, like, help my, like, my classmates with, like, solving— like, they would, like, be like, I got this error! I don't know, like, what this error means! And I would, like— go in and be like, okay, let's sit down. Let's look at the error. Let's, like, try and understand, like, what is the error code saying? And, like, I would, like, help them through that. And I really enjoyed that process of, like, debugging and stuff like that, which is kind of, like, something that a lot of people, like, I feel like once you get good at debugging, like, you kind of are like, oh my gosh, like, this, like, makes so much more sense now. Like, once you're able to, like, solve your own problems.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, helping my classmates with solving their problems. really solidified in me like how to, how to, how to get to those solutions quicker because like it would be like, oh, I've seen this error like 5 times now, so I like know the right way to like fix it.

That's so cool. I, I, I never really thought about, you know, journalism and coding like as a, uh, a, a series you could do in college. Uh, did you do a lot with data, like trying to clean data and make it like just pretty and viewable to people for—

Yeah, so that, that was, that was like a whole unit for one of our classes. It was like a data visualization unit. So we had to learn how to like use the Google Charts API and also grab like data from, um, other open source APIs. So a lot of the APIs that we would call would be like, um, like government database ones.

Mm-hmm.

So like trying to get like census data or something like that that's like publicly available. And then we would take that and then we would, you know, render out that data using the Google Charts APIs to like make graphs and stuff like that. So yeah, there was a data component to some of the units that we did.

So cool.

That's, that's awesome. I mean, for me, I— Nick, you probably had the same experience because we both went to Eastern. It was just like, here's HTML tables, build a website for a business. And I was like, it's not pretty, but it works.

At first I was worried where you're going there, and I'm like, uh-oh, what are you— but no, it's— let me ask you, Brooke, like, did Did you also find too that with some of the stuff, and this is kind of touching on what AJ's talking about, um, it kind of not outdated itself, but it became very irrelevant quickly after you learned it? Because I've noticed that's been a trend with most people that we talk to, especially within tech-related industries. That's a great question, Jason.

That's really, that's such a great question. And I mean, I think that that's just gonna be true throughout our careers because of how fast things change. But like, for example, like one of the like units that we did in this class, and I mean, I was only in, um, college like 2015 to 2019. So this was like less than a decade ago. But like when we first started like learning how to do JavaScript and stuff like that, we were like being told to use Bootstrap and jQuery and things like that.

Right.

Um, and so I learned using like all of that. And then, like, by the end of my college career, my professor is like, jQuery's going the way of the dodo bird. You need to learn how to do vanilla JS and, like, learn how to just do it yourself. And then, like, then he was all like, and maybe, uh, throw in some React there. And I was like, what is React? I have no idea. Like, all of this. And so, yeah, things changed very quickly, even in that 4-year span. So it was like, I, I don't even remember, like, half the jQuery stuff anymore. So.

Yeah. And the APIs probably were hitting XML rather than JSON at that point, right? That evolved.

Um, I think it depended on some of them. I don't remember 100%. Um, I think some, I think most of them were still, were already starting to move to JSON-based, but there's like definitely no like GraphQL or anything like that.

I, I just love how you said like in 2015 to 2016, and then thinking back like, so 10 years before that, none of that stuff was there. Yeah. Like, right. Like when I was there, it wasn't. I do think that that's interesting though, to see, like, if I were to go to school now, you know, how much further I could possibly be in my career than I would be like when we were in college. Like, you know, 'cause the technology wasn't there, you know, like Facebook was asking for EDU email addresses at the time.

Yeah.

You know, I just, I forgot who I had this conversation with yesterday.

I took oceanography. I took oceanography at Eastern. So I'm like, there wasn't really like, it wasn't a serious like curriculum to take actually.

Yeah. Like I still remember in high school, like when Cisco was coming around and they had like partnerships with high schools for like the Cisco program and you'd go right into programming afterwards. And I remember talking with a buddy and he went and did it and like got really successful and did everything. And I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna do it. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know if it's gonna really be a thing. And I'm like, man, did I make a bad decision? Yeah.

Yeah. But I, I think something really important to take away from this is that yes, everything's changing constantly.

Mm-hmm.

But you'll notice HTML's still a thing. CSS is still a thing. JavaScript is still a thing, right? So if, if you like get the core things down, yeah, then you can start thinking about these pretty things like React and Vue and all that good stuff.

Exactly. Yeah. Um, cuz like I am teaching a class this semester, all, all of you know that. And we, like, the whole class, like, I am, like, the dev design instructor. Hi, Carter! And so, I am, like, one of the things that has evolved, because I took the class when I was a student. And when we did it, that was the first time that, like, my professor, like, wanted us to use static site generators. So, we had to learn Hugo, which I thought was a pretty good static site generator.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but like the, the landscape has changed a lot. And I think one of the things that is different now about like the students who are in this class than when I was even in it was like, just like the amount of AI tools that are out there. Yeah, for sure. Um, so that they can like learn. I'm not saying that like all the AI tools are made the same and like they're great, but like, you know, like GitHub, uh, like Copilot Workspaces, like I've went, I've used that and I've also like used Cursor and stuff like that. And those can take you a good amount of the way to something that can be usable. Like, you know, you still have to finesse everything, but like, if the students, like, if they're like still in school right now and they're already learning how to use those AI tools to help them like get better at their coding, like, they're gonna be well ahead of people who never touch those AI tools.

Oh, for sure.

And so like, I think that's just like a really interesting thing just to like, See like what I can do to like teach my students like through the different things that are just like, everything's changing on a day-to-day basis. So it's like, I'm just like, look at all these AI tools that are like still popping up and that we can use to help us like as a, I use it as a learning instrument. I never use it. I definitely don't try to use AI as like a, this is an end-all be-all product. It's, to me, it's a learning instrument and I like to use it like that. I like to, one, I like it to reinforce like what I already know, but then I also like to use it to like stretch what I do know. And then like, you know, if I get, cuz like I tried to run something that I had like the GitHub, uh, Copilot thing play. And the thing is that a lot of the AIs are like already outdating themselves too because the documentation doesn't match. Like the most recent documentation doesn't even match up with what the AI was doing. That's a good point. Cuz I was like trying to have it do this thing. And it was using documentation that was like a few years old, cuz I like went to the doc sites and I was like, they don't even use this structure anymore. They completely changed like how it's written anyway. So, you know, there's like a lot of things with that where it's like, it's a great tool to like know how to implement properly.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it, it just can't do all the work for you though.

So your debugging really comes in hand at this point when you're looking at the outputs of the AI. Do you find that your students lean too heavily into the AI? Sorry, whoever I interrupted.

That's a good question. I want to say no. And I think partially is the university has pretty strict rules and guidances on like how you can use AI within your stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And I explicitly like put in my syllabus like stuff about AI and it— I encourage the students to use AI, but I also like was very upfront with saying, if you use AI in like a production environment or if you use AI in like any kinds of thing that's going to be like, you know, like user-facing that people are gonna see on the internet, especially on our website. Like, I was like, you have to tag that as AI. You can't just like put that out there and not tell people that this is AI generated.

Mm-hmm.

Especially in the journalism industry. I think it's very unique in the journalism industry because like I've seen like, you know, all those things out there talking about like, all of these like AI journalism sites that have like been popping up, and it's just like a bunch of terrible, like poorly written articles by all these bots that are like— it's just not good.

Right.

And so like a lot of these students, they do want to go on to be like journalists, even if they're like my coders and stuff like that. They want to like go on and like be like a developer for New York Times and stuff like that. And so like they have to have that integrity when they're going to work for these industry, like newspapers, because those newspapers are going to hold them up to that. They're going to say, we have to be truthful in everything that we do, even if it's like down to our code base.

Agreed.

Yeah, no, that was, Dennis, I was kind of going to touch on the question that you were asking, and that was, no, that's a really good question because the fear is kind of there where it's like, and I think, Brooke, to your point, using it to help you build off of what you're trying to learn. 'Cause my daughter, and she's in, what is she in? She's in 7th, oh no, 6th grade.

Oh, whoa.

She, it's just completely, oh look, this has been a long week, Dennis, okay? But no, she's, you know, they give her in ELA, which is a writing class, writing assignments, and then they ask them to go and like enhance it with like a ChatGPT or an AI instance that they use. Um, and it, that, that, that was always the thing that kind of crept in my mind was like, I'm hoping that teachers like that have the same mindset like you do as a teacher, Brooke. And that is to like enforce this as a tool to help you get better, not as a tool to, well, if you need to do these 5 paragraphs, yeah, just do it over there and then, you know, you're fine. Um, but no, yeah, so that's, that, that's that, that for me, that's like great advice and I'm glad that. You know, people think like that, especially people who are teaching, you know, 'cause it's gotta be like, there's gotta be a fear there too for teachers too, 'cause you have to, now that's one more thing you have to worry about, kind of like pushing the students in the wrong direction, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And that's actually where I was gonna ask a question of like, how, how are you guys checking for that? Like, like, do you find it hard to review? Like, I, I, I'm not sure exactly what it is in the class that you're doing, but I'm, I assume there's some kind of like code review. And like, yeah, so like things where like you run it through like, is this GPT? Or like you're just looking at it and going, that's not an API.

I mean, I don't, I haven't like done that specifically, but like the way that I, so we're working on a collaborative project. So like we only have like one code base that we're working out of. And we, I have them put it into a GitHub repository and I have access to that. And, you know, I'm telling them like, you know, everything that we put on there, like you're going to have to submit a PR to. you're going to have to, your other students are going to have to go in and approve that PR, and then we'll roll it up into the main branch and stuff like that. So there's like checks in there. Like, I haven't like seen any of my students like give me any like AI-generated thing yet, but I don't know if that's going to be the case. But I've tried to like put in checks where it's like, humans are going to have to look at this, so you're going to have to make it— Like, makes sense to a human and not just like the weird computer, uh, stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, that's something I never really, uh, learned when I was younger is being actual PR reviewer, like actually being the, you know, the, uh, the gatekeeper and going through and doing a good job of just reviewing all the code. Uh, yeah, took me a long time to get to that point.

Hmm.

And that's why I wanted to like instill that in these students now because, um, 2 of my students are seniors. So, they're, like, about to go into the workforce. So, I'm like, if you don't know how to, like, you know, do a PR, if you don't know how to make your own branch and, like, you know, have good, like, GitHub hygiene, I guess you could call it, like, people are going to, like, call you out on that. Like, if you become a software engineer, like, you're either gonna— you're gonna have to BS your way through it until you, you know, you, like, learn it. So, I'm like, just learn it now and you're good to go. One of my students, she was actually an intern at, um, GitHub. So I'm like, I'm jealous you get to work with the GitHub people.

That's awesome.

I did that, the GitHub 101 thing that they have, um, on their site is also really fantastic. I, I can't remember when I did that, but I went through that as well. Cause I was one of those people where it was like, I had done everything around that, you know, and then worked at places that didn't have, uh, repos or didn't have dev servers or didn't have any of those things.

Right.

And you'd be working live and. Yeah, people can tell right away the minute you're, you're not one of those people that is like, you can't, you can fake it for a little while, but it becomes, uh, evidently clear. Um, I wanted to ask you, Brooke, you, um, you mentioned that, um, for the journalism you didn't wanna talk to strangers, you know, out on the street. So what led you to teaching in front of a bunch of people that— Great question.

Wow, that's a great question.

How did you get over that then, if that, that was a fear? Because that's real.

You know, I guess like in my brain, I see it as like very, I see them as like 2 separate things. Like asking people like on the street, like their opinion about something for a journalism article is very different than teaching because in my mind, I see teaching as like an extension of like public speaking, which I feel very comfortable with public speaking because it's like a one-to-many situation. Whereas when you're like interviewing someone, that's a one-to-one situation. And that's where I get tripped up, is like one person to one person. But like, if it's like a group of people, I'm like, ask me anything, I'll tell you whatever.

No, that's awesome. Yeah, that's, um, plus random people are just strange in general. So, you know, that's very true.

You never know what you're gonna get.

Now, is there a, um, you had mentioned, uh, we had met, or I said, I should say we mentioned React, uh, a couple times now. You had just went to the React conference, right?

I did, yeah. So it was—

How was that?

Me and John and Bri. It was very fun. It was in this, like, really cool, like, science museum in New Jersey. So there's, like, a giant— what is it called? Like, the dome place where you can, like, see the sky? Planetarium.

There's, like, a giant—

it's apparently, like, the largest planetarium in North America.

Really cool place.

It's really cool. So it was, like, in a fun area. And we talked to, like, a bunch of interesting people. So I— and the topics that they talked about were really fun. It was an interesting conference structure. Like, I thought the structure was a little weird, but, you know, we had, like, good foot traffic at our booth, and people were interested in knowing about, like, what is HubSpot? And, like, we didn't even know that you could use React with HubSpot. So we were, like, telling them. Yeah, you, you can do the CMS, you can use our React, uh, stuff for UI extensions and stuff like that.

Mm-hmm.

That's fantastic. No, very cool. Um, plus too, I, I mean, I, I'm sure it helps cuz John is like, John and Bri are just really fantastic to be able to have, you know, as you guys as a trio there that, yeah, those, those are the kind of things where I think like, When you get to meet other developers, right, that are either have heard of, like, and then it doesn't have to be just because we work at HubSpot, but you meet other developers that have either heard of us or are using HubSpot, and then you get to get that interaction where you get to see like what they're doing, the struggles that they're having, right, or the successes that they've accomplished. And it really kind of makes you, you know, makes you feel like you're doing something. Not that people don't, but I mean, I think that added A little bonus on top is something fantastic. I mean, it's— yeah, I can ask. It's kind of the same probably experience that you would feel like when your students, like when, you know, like towards the end of their class, right? Start to show that that spark hits where they're starting to get things and they're starting to like implement and kind of apply what you're teaching them and really start to like, it makes sense, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a, it's a really, it's a really great feeling to, um, like see, you know, you can kind of see like the light bulb go on, I guess, like that light bulb moment.

Do you teach—

oh, sorry.

Yeah.

No, no, I apologize. I'm a freaking jerk.

I can give my voice rest.

That's okay. Go ahead. When you're teaching, are you, do you teach, uh, platform agnostic? Is it just like as vanilla as possible or you push some sort of a, you know, like a HubSpot or a WordPress or, you know, whatever it might be?

That's a great question. It's really kind of dependent. So I've done this class a couple of times. This is my second time. And the last time we did Gatsby, which I liked Gatsby. I thought it was really good, but I thought it was a little bit too complex for what they needed, 'cause, like, the site that they're building is fairly small, which is why we use static site generation.

Mm-hmm.

And we kind of, like, do, like, a headless CMS situation. So I'm always, like, trying to figure out, like, what is the, like, best thing. So I'm not trying to, like, say this is the best way. I'm just trying to show them, like, a couple of different ways. So this time we're actually doing something with Eleventy, which I've actually never worked with, but I've heard good things about it. It's really easy and you can, like, basically bring, like, any templating language you want to it. So it's very platform agnostic in that way. And then in terms of, like, the backend, I just had— on Wednesday, I just showed the students how to hook up the GitHub repo that we created to Netlify. So we're just using— I'm just trying to also— one part of this is I have no funding for any of these websites. So I'm like, I gotta keep it on the cheap. So we're doing on-the-cheap development.

Yeah, sure.

So I was like, the Netlify one, the free tier is pretty generous. So I'm like, you know, when we have, like, a website that has, like, 5 pages and that kind of stuff, like, I don't think Netlify is gonna be like, you need to upgrade! So I was like, I think that will be fine. And also with, like, I was telling them about, like, how the continuous integration CD pipeline works. Like, you know, we set this up so that whenever you build on the main branch, it's going to auto-deploy to Netlify and you don't have to worry about that. And so, like, talking them through that and stuff like that. So it's really just, like, I just kind of, like, am doing research constantly about, like, what is the best thing? What's gonna be, like—

Mm-hmm.

And the reason why I chose Eleventy is because it's just pure JS. So I'm like, they, they're like, they they've taken like up to the intermediate level, which is where they mainly focus on JS. Like they haven't gotten to React yet, which is like the advanced lesson. So I'm like, if I at least teach them like, um, through Eleventy, which is using just pure JS, then they'll learn how to like integrate with other like JS libraries. We're also like bringing in some Tailwind CSS. So I'm like trying to like, you know, use a couple of different things, but it's really platform agnostic. I'm not like—

That's really cool.

Touting anything specifically.

One of my biggest struggles always was I can, I can code HTML, CSS, JavaScript pretty, pretty well, but like I always got hung up on all the other elements that you can add to it. Like the preprocessors, the postprocessors.

Yeah.

All the integrations. And like I would spend hours like researching all these things and then I wouldn't build a site because, you know, there's just so much out there. So the, the fact that you're helping them get through this is pretty amazing.

I mean, I think part of it too is like we have a very hard deadline. So, you know, that kind of spurs on the creation process because— so one of the things that is really fun about this class is that we have a final showcase of every work, all the work that the students have done. And it's like a really big thing. Like, it's usually like sold out. Like, it's a free event, but like the seats are always full. We have— we rent out this auditorium and we have like food and stuff like that, refreshments. And so, like, during that time, like, the students have to go up there and they have to talk about what they worked on. And so all of the students that I'm under, not only are we, like, coding the website, but they also have to build an interactive element on the website. So, like, they have to, like, make a timeline or they have to, like, do, like, some data visualization and that kind of stuff. So when we come to do this showcase, like, they have to, like, talk about, like, how they found the research for the interactive graphic that they did. And all that kind of stuff. So having that deadline kind of pushes you to take action.

Deadlines are cool.

Yes. I mean, okay, we can argue about that one later.

That's fine.

Yeah.

I mean, it's true. I am flying out tonight and I'm still working on the packing part of it.

So I, um—

Oh my gosh. You're one of those people, Dennis.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's, um, okay, let's, let's Let's take the gears a little bit and slow them down just slightly, because I want to ask you stuff about like, how do you, what do you do to like, because again, especially like, I can't imagine, like if I had to be in your brain for a second, I cannot imagine the amount of things that are going on at one time because like both with the academy, both with things on the YouTube channel and then just teaching in general, there's a lot of tech kind of being either thrown at you or swirling around at any given time. So what are some of the things that you do to kind of like take a step back and unwind and kind of D-Tech, if that's even a possibility.

It is now.

Oh, that's a good question. Um, I am a part of 2 book clubs, so I am a big reader. I've always been a big reader. And so, um, my friends from college, we've started like a virtual book club because we live all over the place. Um, and so we like meet once a month. And then I also started a more local, uh, book club with people from my church. And so we, in that one, we like to read a lot of like fantasy romance books. So that's just like a fun way of—

Interesting.

That's just a—

yeah, I know.

Don't mind the man behind the curtain. But so that's the way that I like to unwind is by reading. So my goal this year is to read 45 books. And last year I read 40 books. So hopefully I'm trying to beat that a little bit. I just like to— one, it gets me off of my screen because I have a Kindle, but I have like, like a super old Kindle that I got in high school that's like a Paperwhite, so it doesn't have a backlight or anything like that. So like there's no issues with like blue light and things, things like that. Um, and just like physical copies. Hey, look at that! I like it. Um, so that's like my main thing that I like to do is like to read, get into a fantasy world, and not think about What's going on with how our AI overlords are coming for us?

And to be clear, like, I'm all for that. It doesn't sound like Brooke's really into the AI overlords, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm here when you guys are ready. When you take over, you just remember, you remember the template marketplace guy. But, um, but no, Carter had a really good question, but I, I want to, I want to ask you. But before, uh, before I do that, I wanted to, um, there's this debate. It's as old as 13 episodes. When it comes to reading audiobooks versus normal books, I know where most people like myself, Jana, and others stand. And I also think, what was it, Justin Givens as well. Where is it reading? Is an audiobook reading?

Yes, I think so. I think whatever media that you consume a story in, you're reading, I guess.

I got it.

Because like, okay, all right.

We have our new favorite guest. All right.

Thanks everyone.

Appreciate you guys.

The thing is, I don't wanna gatekeep here because I, I've had, I have several friends who have, um, you know, difficulties with reading because they have, uh, gosh, uh, what is that? Uh, dyslexia. They have dyslexia. So like, you know, for them it makes it hard for them to sit and read a paperback book.

Yeah.

Because the words are like jumbled soup. And so like listening to the audiobook helps them. And I know that, you know, for other people who are neurodivergent in different ways, like listening to audiobooks is really helpful to them because it, it's easier for them to actually concentrate on it than like sitting and reading a physical copy. So to me, as long as you're listening to a book or reading a book, like you're reading, like it's, you're getting the story ingested into you. So.

Can we, can we clarify this question? Because I think it's misleading. Because if you're actually just listening, like that's all you're doing is listening to the book, reading, sure, I'll go with that. I'll stretch that far and say we're reading. But Jana was saying reading is even when you're in the car driving and, you know, listening to, you know, an audiobook.

Actually, I agree with that.

For me, well, for me, like, it's like, it has to be like a task that Is like very like low lift for your brain because like listening, you know, you obviously wanna listen to the story and you want to, you wanna take that in and you wanna know what's going on in the story. And for me, when I'm driving, like I don't think too hard about driving, especially like I go to like the same 4 places. Like I, I hardly ever leave my house. The other places I go to are less than 15-minute drive away. And it's like I don't have to like think about driving when I do it.

Like, yeah. I want you to think about driving when you're doing it.

I am thinking about driving. I want you to think about driving.

Sorry.

Sorry.

No, I am thinking about it, but it's not something— you know, you know what they talk— you know what they say about driving. It's like you kind of get into that trance and then sometimes you're like, oh my gosh, I'm already home. How did I even get home?

Yeah, yeah, but like if you're in that trance, you're not listening to your— I mean, it's—

No, but the audiobook makes me focus on something. It makes it—

Dennis, it's okay because she's not teaching driver's ed, so we're okay.

We might need a State Farm sponsorship. I'm just saying, like, okay, okay, I'm gonna preface this.

I have not gotten, knock on wood, I've not gotten a single ticket in my life so far.

I've gotten a ticket. I've wrecked a car.

I've—

You don't consume, you don't get the information as much as you do if you're actually like concentrating solely on a book.

Well, actually, I think it depends on the person because again, that talk, going back to that neurodivergent part or something, I don't, I don't want any of this anymore.

Okay.

Okay. But I mean, I mean, like, I also really love to listen to audiobooks. Like, When I'm cooking or when I'm cleaning my house, like tasks like that. So what's, how is driving not the same thing?

I guess it's, it's not reading. I don't, I don't think you're, I don't, it's, it's entertainment for sure, but I don't think it's, you don't get the same quality of, of understanding as you do if you're actually dedicating yourself to reading.

I don't know. I challenge that because I think it just comes down to how well you can multitask.

Yeah.

Like no one can multitask.

No one can multitask.

That's true. That's true. But some people's brain process at different speeds than other people's brains. And so, you know, there's that.

Um, I guess what we're coming down to is Dennis is an idiot and very slow.

No.

Oh my gosh. Here's a good question. I mean, that's going in the show notes, but I just, I didn't, I didn't want to, I wanted to surprise you, but that's, I mean, if you're gonna—

Is that the, is that the title of the episode?

Dennis?

No, that's not fair. I mean, I would totally—

That's so mean. I don't want to be— I like Dennis.

That's not fair to Brooke either. I mean, I would totally do that if it was just the 3 of us, but that's not, I mean, that was—

That's true.

That's true.

That one's a special one for Devin.

But let me ask you guys this though. So like everybody processes information differently, right? When you guys are watching videos, whether it be a Loom or YouTube, what speed do you watch 'em at?

At least 1.5x speed.

Yeah.

Yeah. Minimum 1.5. I'm usually like 1.5 to 2 depending on the speaker.

Yeah.

No, that's fair.

No higher than 2 though. I can't go, I can't do higher than 2x speed.

Well, yeah, like, I mean, I love Alvin and the Chipmunks, but I can't listen to it, uh, you know, for an extended period of time.

And just to, just to help clarify, like, I mean, like, when, when I asked the question, it was to, in a perfect world, because Brooke, you bring up something really, uh, really, really important. Um, and I want to give a shout out to, uh, John McLaren as well, because on his website, he has a, uh, on his personal website, um, which I'm not gonna give out, I don't know if he wants us to, but he has a, um, it's not a plugin, I can't remember what it is, but it shows, like, it replicates as best as possible someone with dyslexia.

Yeah.

The lettering, because my daughter has it. And it is like, when I first saw that, because I can remember John was telling me about some other thing and there was an article on his website, I think it was about fonts, about the fonts they use. And I just happened to see that and I clicked and I was like, it just blew my mind. I was just like, so yeah, I totally like, from a neurodivergent perspective, yes, absolutely like the audiobook thing. But in a perfect world where if it was just like just You know, and there was no, like, issue in which that would need to be used, you know. Um, I still think, uh, I, I still think Brooke and Jonna are brilliant, and Dennis just doesn't really, really understand audiobooks. It's, it's all right. I mean, it's fine.

I think audiobooks can also, in my opinion, I think audiobooks can also help a poorly written book actually sound better because, like, when you have that person reading it They can kind of like make up for the, the poor writing through the way that they do their inflections and things like that.

I don't know. Phil Dennis is getting me. Like, I could see it.

No, I like audio. I have an Audible subscription. I, I, you know, listen to—

No, you should get Libro.fm. Don't support— oh, can I say that on this platform? I'm so sorry.

They were our sponsor, but I don't need those.

Oh gosh. Well, if you do Libro.fm, the only— Libro.fm, you can choose when you sign up for their subscription model, which is the same as Audible's, you can support a local bookstore in your area.

I love that. That's really cool.

That's nice.

That's cool. That's just my plug. I got my husband to switch because he is a big Audible user too.

Nice.

We're not going to have any sponsors left. Home Depot, now Audible. Like, they're just—

What are your feelings on Highlight Magazine?

Oreo Coke?

Oh, what a classic. Highlights Magazine. I used to love reading that.

There we go. Sponsor done.

But, um, Carter did have a question, which I thought was really, really a good one here. But, uh, what's the most important thing to keep in mind when going from teaching online to teaching in real life?

Oh, that's a great question, Carter. Um, so with online, you can go at your own pace, right? Like, so if like you don't understand something, you can pause the video and go back and rewatch it 5 times. When you're teaching in person, you don't have that ability to do that. You have to— and like, you know, there's always that like joke about like the professor who like talks so fast you can barely take notes in your class. And so for me, it's about augmenting how I talk and how I present my information so that it's more easily digestible in a real-life setting. Whereas on a video, I can just be like very matter-of-fact and go through all of it and not stop for any questions because you can go back and watch it It, you're, you can watch it as many times as you want to in order to get the information. You can pause the screen and literally copy paste what I wrote on my code and stuff like that. But when I'm in person, like I don't have that ability, so I have to be much more deliberate with the pacing that I go at when I'm teaching versus when I'm doing something that is for online consumption.

Excellent. No, that's perfect. How do you then Here's a question for you then. How do you keep up with then all of the things? Because like you said, we're— and I mean, this is— I mean, it's not that I'm not blowing any minds here. Like, a lot. There's a lot going on. That was a general statement, right? I should have made—

you know what, Dan?

I was going to tell you too. I keep forgetting when I'm on my other computer, I'm not signed in, so I can't throw up the banners where it's like, Nick's wrong and all that other stuff. Remind me. I got to do that next time because there's some timely things that I say that are just ridiculously dumb. Um, but the, uh, I, I guess the, with the way things are constantly changing, right? It constantly, whether it's code usage or new code languages, how does, and I gotta, and I'm not, and I don't wanna put any pressure on you because I gotta imagine as a teacher, it's even more harder to stay up to date with everything, right? Because there's that added, it's not just like if I'm just trying to learn something new, Right. And I don't kind of get to it. Oh, well, you know, I'll get to it. But if you're trying to teach another group of people, right, the best practices and the other, you know, and things along that nature, you want to make sure that you're not kind of like, like when AJ was talking about, like when we were at Eastern and we learned web, it was like, yeah, as before the class even was finished and had its run, it was already irrelevant, right? Because like CSS was like the thing and we didn't even really cover it in the HTML class.

Right.

You need to talk about it.

Right.

Uh, so what do you do to kind of stay on top of the game? Are there particular like newsletters that you might like subscribe to? Or are there, um, 'cause I know I've tried just recently, not a sponsor, but, um, Codecademy to like kind of brush up on some things. Or, um, I always used to, um, I think it's still Search Engine Journal, like for SEO. That's one of the ones that I personally like don't not read, right? Because most of them, like, I try to, you know, you try to sign up for like 100 things, right? Because you want to know everything all at once. But a lot of them just kind of become like your inbox asks you, is this spam? It's like, no, I just don't read it.

Yeah, that's true.

Are there ones that you've like come across where it's like that's a staple now for your education to help kind of further that on?

Yeah, no, that's really great. There are a couple of newsletters that I'm subscribed to that I like reading. One of them was actually recommended by Dennis, so shout out Dennis. But the Smashing newsletter, I think they have great content and it's always— it's like UX and frontend dev stuff. So, like, they always, like, talk about, like, the things that are, like, updating with CSS, and that's just a really great read. And it only, like, comes out once a week, so it's not overwhelming.

Yeah.

And the next thing is, like, following, like, I guess you could call them, like, code influencers. Like, I really like Wes Bos. Like, I've seen a lot of, like, I watch a lot of his stuff on LinkedIn, and he's, like, always, like, putting out new stuff about, like, newer technologies and, like, giving great examples of, like, how to do something with, like, the new CSS thing that came out or, like, Other stuff like that. So like, um, I get a lot of content through like those types of people, um, because, you know, that's kind of like they're, they're getting paid to do that. They're getting paid to like stay up to date. And so like watching their stuff is very, um, it's a very digestible way to like see like what's top of mind in the industry.

So.

Excellent.

No, that's good. Um, do you ever, um, Do you ever have, like, I was always curious, do you ever have like students that come up with like really good, uh, like places to go as far as like keeping up to date with stuff that, um, kind of help push you like as a teacher to like learn things out of that? Do you get a lot of that back and forth, you know? Because I mean, like, you're as a teacher, like obviously you're, you know, you're trying to like, like you said, I'm trying to give them options and show them things that they may not be aware of that Do you ever, do you get a lot of like the opposite where like they bring stuff to you where you're like, oh, I hadn't really even, wasn't really even aware of that?

I definitely think sometimes, um, especially because, uh, you know, like I am not, uh, like an expert in Eleventy, the, the site static site generator that I'm having the students learn. So like they're bringing me stuff like, uh, that they've found about that. And when I taught the class previously, this was 2023, so, you know, like 2 years ago even, one of the students was like, oh, I just asked ChatGPT about it. And so I was like, at that time I wasn't a normal, I wasn't like an everyday ChatGPT user. And so I was like, I didn't even know you could like ask them like a code question. Because like I tried to like ask it to like write me like an HTML page and it was like, couldn't even format the HTML correctly. So I was like, It's really dumb, but it was like, oh no, I got this. And I'm like, oh, that, that's actually a pretty good answer.

Like when you ask build a HubSpot theme or something, right? And then it comes back with something completely off the wall.

Yeah.

Um, I know you said this was a harder question for you to answer, but, um, as a teacher, like to help inspire you, like mentorship advice, is there something that someone's ever given you as advice that's kind of stood out and helped you along in your journey?

Karina? Yeah, I think it's so hard because I feel like I have had so much information like dumped at me that sometimes it's like, whenever like someone asks you that question, you have to like wade through all of the stuff you're told to like find that one good nugget. And, you know, like my students on Monday, they were talking about like how they're like, really uncertain about the job market and they're like kind of worried about like how things are going because like, to be frank, it is very hard to get a job right now, especially if you're looking for an entry-level position. And so, um, you know, I just gave them the advice that I would want to hear, like when I was in that position. And my advice was like, you don't have to rush your life, which I know has nothing to do with like coding and stuff like that. But like when I was a senior in college, like I was like, I need to have a job offer before I, before I graduate. I need to have my internship for the summer lined up. I need to have like all of this, all of my ducks in a row before I'm even done with school. And the only thing that that led to was burnout. It led me to realize that I never took time off before I went into the working world. Like I didn't, I, I like literally the day, the day after I graduated, I graduated on a Sunday. I went to work on Monday.

Mm-hmm.

Like in the office full-time. And so it was like, I never gave myself that room to breathe and to just be like, hey, you know, you finished college. Like, that's kind of a big feat to do. And so like, I told them like, you know, there's uncertainty and stuff like this, but like, you don't have to like know exactly where you're going. Like when you, when you're done with university, like you have time. And frankly, I think it's good for them to like maybe give the job market a little bit of time to breathe as well. And try and work through some of the stuff that's going on right now with all the shifts and hiring practices and things like that. So that was the advice that I gave them because that was something that reflecting back on it, I heard that from people, but I didn't listen to what those people said. They gave it to me and I was like, nah, but I don't need to do that.

Yeah.

No one listens.

No.

No one listens.

No, similar boat. Yeah. I think that's I think that was one of the things, if I had to look back and kind of figure out, you know, what were some of the most like fast but stressful parts of just kind of the journey, if you want to call it that. It's similar to that where it was, I took the first job that was offered to me right outta school. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a, like Saturday or Sunday to a Monday. That's quick.

I'll give you that. Yeah.

That is, I think you've got the record there. But it probably was like a week or so. And then I just, I took it. The pay was awful. Like looking back, like you wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't think it cuz you're just getting outta school. But, um, pay was awful. Like it was just a basic like copy and paste code job. Um, but yeah, it was, um, it was one of those things where if I would've, I imagine if I would've waited, kind of figured out, you know, what was going on and maybe even done like, Because even at that time too, you could still— there was still a push for certifications and there were some outside of school things you could do.

Who knows?

But yeah, no, I feel like you get caught up in that a lot, right? Because you're like, one big part is ending, the next one is beginning, and everyone thinks, well, I have to— time is of the essence. I have to jump quickly or I'm going to miss out.

Yeah.

I don't necessarily think that's the case. I mean, obviously years of just living kind of gives you that experience, but like, yeah, I can imagine that is very real at the time for sure.

But yeah, 'cause I just, I think students are, especially seniors, like they're just so anxious and they're going into an uncertain job market. Like I, I just wanted to encourage them that like the first job that they take doesn't have to be their dream job. But it can, like, you don't have, and you don't even have to like have a position in place before you graduate in order to still have a fulfilling career. And I think that was what I was trying to encourage them in because like, at least for like where I went to school, like UNC, like everybody there is like super the high achiever students. So like every student in the school is like the ones who are like, I was like the valedictorian of my like little small high school of 300 people. And it's all like, okay, but in the real world, you don't have to be the valedictorian to still make a good life.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

I— look at me, I'm living proof. If someone as dumb as me— if I, if I can work it up—

That's not what I mean at all.

No, I'm sorry. If I can work it up, Spot, you can too. Let's, you know, let's put it that way, right? But, um, going along those lines of like the fast-paced and the feeling the rush of everything. What I think tends to get lost sometimes is— or not get lost, but you get— when you're moving that fast, you get surprised by more things, right?

Yeah.

What was like the first— when you first started your career, like, what was one of the things, or maybe there's multiple, that kind of surprised you with the role in general? That can be like the Academy, that can be DevRel, but Like when you first, 'cause you know, there's that point that people get where they're like, what I'm doing, this is gonna be a career. I could do this as a career, right? So like what surprised you most when you first started to get the ball rolling and you felt like, okay, I'm doing something that's going to be a career. What surprised you the most about it?

Hmm, that's a good question.

I mean, for me it was AJ working here at HubSpot. I was surprised they hired him. I was like, if they're gonna hire him, they'll hire me. It's gotta be, right?

Wow.

No, I think I was surprised that I could find fulfillment in something that people find boring, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

Who finds it boring? Come on.

I mean, I mean, I mean, what I, what I, I guess what I mean by that is like, when you're younger, like the only jobs they talk about is like going to be like a superstar athlete or like an amazing actress, actor, uh, being a lawyer or a doctor, those kinds of things. Like those like careers, like those are the only ones that ever exist in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And then it's all like, actually you realize when you get to be an adult, like that most people work mundane jobs. And like, you can find fulfillment and happiness in the mundane. Like, like when I, like I said, when I was younger, I wanted to be like a reporter. So my dream was to like live in New York City and be like this amazing New York Times reporter that's gonna win like a Pulitzer and stuff like that. I'm clearly not doing that, but does that mean that I feel like unsatisfied with where my life has turned out? No, not at all. Like, I am so much happier that my life went the direction that it did. Like, like, I didn't, I didn't fulfill, like, my 12-year-old dreams, but I just learned that my dreams can evolve as I get older.

Do you think that's changed over time? Because, like, um, like, a weird example, but, um, my 8-year-old, he's like, when, when can I have my own YouTube channel so I could stream when I game? And I'm like, never. I'm like, no. And he's like, well, yeah, but there's so-and-so. And he was like, There was a— I don't know, I can't remember what the commercial was for, but there was a gamer. I'm not going to name the name, but he knew who it was. I knew who it was, but I didn't think my 8-year-old knew who it was. It was just like, yeah, there's still the whole, I want to be an athlete, or I want to be a movie star and that. Do you feel like— I mean, personally, I kind of do, but do you feel like that's kind of changed the more and more tech has been ingrained in people's lives that they can be like, that's now a thing that they go after where it's like, yeah, I want to be a football player or a soccer player, but no, I want to be a gamer and I want to make my money playing Dota and winning tournaments. Do you think you've seen a change in that? Because I do, but I don't know.

I mean, I Definitely think for, like, younger people, because they see that you can make success on, like, TikTok and, and, and, and Twitch and things like that. I think they see that. And I guess the thing that, like, yes, anybody can make it big now, I guess, but there's still, like, it's still a small fraction of, like, all of the channels that exist out there, of all the people that try to make it big on these social media platforms. So it's like, Yes, there is more democratization in the amount of people who can do that, but it still is not, it's not sustainable for everybody to be a Twitch streamer. Like, you're gonna have, like, there's gonna have to be people that work in operations and all they do is make sure that your HubSpot data's clean. Like, there's always gonna be people who are gonna have to do those mundane tasks. And I think it's more about becoming, um, this like, mm-hmm. It's more about becoming satisfied in yourself and satisfied with knowing that you don't have to achieve and be at the top 1% of society in order to still enjoy your life, enjoy the people that you, uh, surround your life with, that kind of stuff. So I think, yes, I do see like people, like, like, like children wanting to do that, like say, I want to be an influencer, but it's still like going to be a very small minority that is going to actually make it. Like they can try, like anybody can try. And I think that's where it changes.

Right.

Like, it's really like for other things, like back when we were younger, like if you wanted to be a movie actor, you had to have like a lot of like money to like even get into that industry. Um, or like if you wanted, if you want to be like a doctor or lawyer, you have to go to school for a really long time to do those kinds of things. And it's like, for those, you have to have at least a little bit of capital to get that started. But like anybody can open up their computer and their webcam and film a video and put it on YouTube. So it's like, I think, you know, there's democratization in who can start that, but it's still never going to be everybody can make it.

Right. I think the ease of use gets more highlighted, but yet the failure rate, right? Because it's so easy, then you have almost an exponential growth in attempts. The failure rate still gets buried and no one wants to talk about the, like, you know, that I was going to give an example because I just had seen something I was watching. There was a channel that I was just randomly flipping through and I was like, why is this even a thing? Why are you even making this? Do you not understand this is ridiculous? Like those types of situations where that doesn't really get highlighted with, you know, with the 2 thumbs up and like 1 viewer type thing, like for the entirety of the entire channel. So, um, yeah, no, but I, I think, um, I think that's a good point that The availability's there, but the failure just doesn't really— the realistic expectation.

I will say there was a video that I watched recently that I thought was really interesting. And it was talking about if the only way that that could be sustainable is if you had what is known as the creator middle class, where you had these people who had a medium-sized following and could make you know, $70,000 a year off their YouTube channel, but everybody wants to be that person who makes $1 million a year. Um, but it's like, maybe you could be happy just being the person who makes the $70,000 a year and is able to pay your bills.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great point that like happiness is mainly mostly the key there. 'Cause like, I mean, if, if, if I were to go back and tell like a younger me, hey, you're gonna be like all in on data and it's gonna make your life like you're gonna light up just Seeing a bunch of spreadsheets and data, I probably would have looked at that person and been like, "You are out of your mind. Like, go away. I don't know you. You're a crazy stranger." But it's the truth. There's some things that you just like. Like I love data, and if that is where my career ends up being, where like I work more with data or like processes and operations, like that's fulfilling for me.

Yeah, for sure.

So that's I think that that's that's a huge thing that you said there was like it's it doesn't always have to be the the top one percent. to be happy, to, you know, be fulfilled. Like, you can be like middle management or just an IC and still have like just as much fulfillment and continue on and a great work-life balance.

And let's, let's not forget that that top 1% isn't necessarily happy. You know, who's the creator of Minecraft? Yeah, who's like terribly depressed after like, you know, he sold everything. It's— yeah, you're not guaranteed happiness. Through success.

Yeah, definitely not at all. And to be fair, if someone would have told me that I'd be working with Dennis, I mean, I might have, I might have, I might have continued to do psychology. I don't know.

I mean, fair point, fair point.

But now you can at least pathologize about Dennis.

Yeah, thank you. I need that.

I workshop my psychology sessions through working with Dennis and AJ. That's how I do this.

That's right.

It's going to be a comedian or a psychologist, so I'm trying to do both.

So So this is kind of like your CEUs on the side by just hosting.

It's all right, it's all right. I have a dream. It's okay, don't worry about it. We've— I'll put this out, we'll be good. Um, but no, um, we're kind of running up on time here, you know, like Dennis's beard. We do have to go. Um, but boom, like that. Yeah, but no, uh, Brooke, I wanted to thank you because, um, when you When you get to talk to people that like are this inspirational, right? And they're, and they're making a difference because you're, I mean, you're like, I'll be honest, like I wish I, there were courses and classes, you know, taught the way, like with your frame of mind, right? Like when I was going to school, because I, I really like a lot of the ones that I kind of sat through. I felt like this was just a checklist. And, and, and it's nothing against the teachers too. I mean, everybody has their own situation, right? So I'm not like.

Yeah.

Passing judgment there, but like, as a student sitting in some of these classes, like the tech-related ones especially, right? I felt like these were just like, this was just a class where at the end I had to like tick off these boxes and then I move on to the next thing where it's like, there's actual, and listen, this is just my opinion, but like when talking with you, there sounds like there's an actual, there's an intent there, right? There's this passion to want to teach and empower People to be able to do, right? Not just to be able to go to ChatGPT and throw in a prompt, right? Sure, use it if you need to, to help you better yourself, but better yourself is, you know, being the thing. So I just, I want to thank you because that's— and of course, for the, for the, uh, the videos on, on, uh, the, you know, the developer channel as well as the academy are fantastic, right?

Oh, you heard it.

I've consumed some myself. I'll be honest, like, there's things I don't know. Shocking, I know.

But, um, always be learning. Always be learning.

Yeah, I just want to thank you because that's, um, that is absolutely fantastic and we all appreciate it. And now you're on our team, so we get to appreciate it even more. So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I mean, uh, and thank you everybody for, um— oh, and Dennis, as, um, we just— for people that didn't get to attend that yesterday like me, who was a little under the weather, um, The, their, the debug for the Elevate for the React will be, um, it is presently on, on the webs.

If you go to the YouTube channel, you go to debug, there is, uh, it's the latest, uh, video up there.

It was great.

Everyone, yeah, I recommend everyone go check that out. I'm, I'm going to check it out because I'm a bad friend and I honestly didn't feel good, so I just—

Whatever.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm, yeah, it's, I don't know, but Um, either way, uh, you know, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here unless you work from home, then you technically already are home. But either way, you can't stay here. So, but thank you everyone for watching, and we really appreciate it, and we'll see you next time.

Later.

Bye everybody.