Episode 25- Developers:After Dark with Steve Laham

Foreign.

Beautiful. Hello and welcome to Developers After Dark. I am your host, Nick, with my co hosts, as always, Dennis and. And aj. Today we have a very, very special guest, someone who I've worked with since the day I got here and even got to talk to before I even worked here, which was an amazing thing, which just goes to show how comfortable HubSpot and the people here make you feel even before you get in the door. So it's, it's going to be a very, very good episode. But before we get into that, I will let our guests introduce themselves. Let me mention just really quickly because I, I just saw this on LinkedIn the other day and I thought that was really kind of fantastic. The HubSpot Academy turned 13. So that was excellent. Yes. And again, if you haven't taken advantage of this, because as I mentioned a couple times when me and aj, when we're talking with a couple of friends who are developers, they assumed that there was a price point to using HubSpot Academy that you had to pay to like use it. Like it was a subscription, like a, like a linda.com or a. Some of the other ones that are out there. And no, we had to tell them. We're like, no, just, just go there. Like there's, you know, there's courses for certifications. There's, you know, you know, you've got sales hub software, you've got content marketing and a lot more social media marketing as well. So you can just go there and all of those things are there for you so you don't have to pay for anything. So happy birthday to the HubSpot Academy.

Freaking birthday. Teenage years.

Absolutely. All right. Isn't that fantastic? And for those on audio, obviously you can go to academy.HubSpot.com and you'll find everything you need there. For anybody that, you know, really, really wants to watch really good podcasts, I mean, they can always go to our website as well. And that's darkpod.com you'll see every episode once it's published, it'll be right up on there and then also on the HubSpot Developers YouTube channel as well. And don't just go to the YouTube channel for us, although that would be fantastic. I would feel really, really honored. But there is so much more that you'll be able to learn when you go there. You've got videos from other developer relations, people like Hannah, Brooke, Bri. So much stuff, so many summaries, roll ups. Everything is all explained in videos. I've even got a couple of them up There where I. A couple of marketplace things, you know, a little near and dear to my heart. I throw up there as well. So, you know, go there. It's really probably one of the coolest learning tools because it's not only. It's not only this kind of thing where it's. There's short form and there's long form. So there's. There's like a. Just a myriad of things that you can learn there and then not just learn, but there's tips and tricks. Right. Of tools that you're probably already using a HubSpot that you probably didn't know you could do.

Yeah, I'm really excited about it, Nick. I just want to. I just want to plug this. BRI is putting up a series, I think, of four videos right now on the end and development of app guards. So from the authentication all the way to the deployment, which I am really excited about, I put the first one up yesterday and I think I'll have the next one up on Monday. So, you know, stay tuned for that.

That is awesome.

Yeah.

And then not to mention that that was one of the things we mentioned in the Spring Spotlight as well when we had Ricky on and we talked with a couple other people as well. So, I mean, there's just plenty of stuff going on right now and those videos are going to be remarkable in helping you learn and then catch up and just kind of know what's going on. So along that same pipeline, though, with knowing what's going on, you should definitely check out developers.HubSpot.com changelog. That's where you're gonna pretty much get not only what's going on now, but there's upcoming as well when it comes to things with regards to, you know, the developer and the developer community. So you're definitely gonna want to check that out. It's not. Doesn't hurt to stay up to date with everything. So. And I want to mention just really briefly, we'll probably go into it a little bit more detail in like, further episodes, but it is. We can officially mention that HubSpot launches its first CRM deep research connector with chat GTP. So, I mean, all you got to do is honestly, if you Google HubSpot and chat GTP or HubSpot and OpenAI, you are going to see company news on top of company news on top of coverage of said company news all over the place. You should definitely go check it out because it's one of those things where it was like, I believe it was mentioned that over 75% of users right now, HubSpot users are using ChatGPT already. So it was almost like, hey, peanut butter jelly, let's put it together. Right? So it's one of those things. But definitely go check it out. Do a little bit more, read into it a little bit more. Because I know as long as you have a paid chat GTP subscription, you'll be able to use it with your HubSpot tiers. So that's fantastic stuff. And that was I. Just a shout out to one of our other. Our HubSpot podcasts, right. It was the. I believe it was. Which one was it? There was the Daily Hustle or the Hustle, right? Yeah, yeah, they were mentioning that just not too long ago. So it was one of those really, really good, fantastic things that, like I said, something's happening new every day, so you definitely need to pay attention.

So, yeah, they demoed it. There's a. When they're doing the live thing. They did a nice demo of it too. It's great.

Yeah, no, so it's. I mean, if you're. I'll tell you right now, if you miss a day, like if you get food poisoning for a day, you're gonna miss a million things. Right? Say that from experience. But without further ado, enough about me. The reason why everyone is here and the reason why we're excited today definitely is because of our guest. Someone we all know very well, we've all worked with and let me let him introduce himself. Steve, why don't you tell everyone who you are and what you do.

Hey, Steve Laham, director of Devrel at HubSpot. Been here since 2019, so I've had five and change. Blissful years riding the HubSpot train and really excited to be here. I've listened to almost every episode and so going from a fan to a guest is very exciting.

So you can retire now. You can retire now. You did it.

Going on my resume. LinkedIn, this is. We've. We've done it. I've done it all at this point.

Dennis, could you please clip six minutes? I was going to ask you, Steve, I wanted to start off by asking because like you went from. And I wanted to ask if there was like a sort of like a mind shift that has to happen or like a thought process that has to change. But you went from as being the director of Devrel currently. But you were the man, you know, the manager and basically the director of the ecosystem quality.

Yeah.

Was there a shift like in mindset that you had to go from like managing a group of people to then a group of teams. Because I was always curious about that because I'm personally not.

And I mean, we've.

Me and you have talked about this personally. Like with myself, I'm just not. I'm more of like, I like to put my head down in the sand and like, I work with teams, like in a team. But like, managing multiple teams has to be different than just managing people in a team. Am I off on that?

No, no, you're. You're right. And you know, it's funny, I don't think there's like a moment when it's like, oh, yeah, like this is happening now and you have to totally shift the way you're thinking. Or even like when you think about anyone's career, if you're staying in the same company and you're kind of like following a linear progression, it's not a great idea to like jump into something, be like, okay, this is all new, this is all fresh. Like, I'm going to totally change my approach. My approach has been always kind of the same, which is like, I love jumping in and solving problems. I love, like, fixing teams. I love rallying around a mission. I love smashing groups together and like coming up with new amazing efficiencies. Like, that stuff's really exciting. And then slowly I actually turn from like, that mode to like, becoming a fan of your own team. And I would say that you know that things are going well when you work with people, yourselves included, where you're like, oh, I'm such a fan of that person. Or like, oh, wow, like what they're doing is so cool when that happens. Suddenly you realize, like, oh, yeah, like I, I don't need to really manage them now. I just want to clear the way for them and I want to clear the way for the work that they're doing and give opportunities. And so you, you know, some people say you have to like, pull back. I wouldn't say pull back. It's just that you're kind of like now focusing a little farther down the road. That's all.

It sounds like this is the ideal situation. Have you dealt with the not so ideal situation where there was a lot more of, you know, you pushing, present.

Company excluded, naturally, because, you know, yeah, these are all.

Don't look at my LinkedIn 10 years ago, but like, yeah, like, it's, it's hard. I think depending on the company, there are different types of appetites. So some companies, they have an appetite for conforming to a very rigid and Strict vision of the future. And for some people, I mean, that is awesome. I used to work with someone, I won't mention his name, but he used to come in every day at like 7am, read the paper at noon and leave at 3 and I would talk about promotion. I'd be like, are you ready? He's like, no, no, no, no. I'm the world where I am. And this individual did amazing work. And it was like, okay, yeah. The company really wasn't looking for that. And he wasn't looking for that. It's like, okay. But I think that gets old after a long time. If you are someone like me that loves new, loves innovation, loves change, loves to embrace career advancement, loves to help and mentor. And so you have to fit your sort of personal goals with the goals of the company and make sure there's a nice overlap. And when you have that, and I certainly have that at HubSpot, amazing things can happen and long term blissfulness occurs and good stuff goes on.

Do you think it's all. I'm sorry, Nick, I'm, I will always interrupt you with all these questions. Do you think it's always been that way for like a generation ago? Because I, I feel like it's more, you know, the, you go to, it's cookie cutter. You have like this process. You set by step, you step, step, you know, you follow that. The 7 to 3 guy probably was, you know, designed for the generation ago society. You think it's changed quite a bit?

Well, first of all, how old do you think I am? I'm like 25, so I don't know when I was like 15. That's weird. That's a weird, that's a weird question. But I understand what you meant by it.

The next performance review is going to be brutal for Dennis.

No. So like today again, I think this is like, if you are someone that loves change and you love innovation and you love to see things move down the pike and not sort of stay stagnant. This is your era, like this is the next decade, you, you are going to thrive. And so like I love, I love like the question, like, are we willing to change? And it's like, that's so funny. Like, are you willing to change? It's change or kind of like go away change or become obsolete? Change or not, great stuff happens. So it's not really the question of like, you know, should we change? Can we change? It's like, no, no, no change happening. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to react and so you're right, Dennis. I think like the. Certainly for me and I hope my team and, and I think HubSpot has embraced this in our sort of dynamic approach to work life balance and flex time. Um, you need to figure out how you can match your life with this like amazing era of change that we're in and figure out what works. And that could mean, you know, podcast on the treadmill, it could mean listening to something on your way to get the kids. It could mean you stop work early, you know, for a block of time in the afternoon and pick it up later at night. I think the 9 to 5 era is dead, personally. Yeah. And I just know myself not having. And so everyone knows I work from home most of the time I work in the greater Boston area. So by removing three plus hours of traffic a day, I do a lot more work. I'm not just, you know, and I think that, and I know that about myself. And so I can only assume what that means for other people that have younger children and have more dynamic families and more responsibilities and they could be taking care of a parent or a sick loved one or something. And so there's change in the way we work, which is awesome. And that perfectly matches to the innovation and technical change that's coming down the road to us all.

Good answer.

I couldn't agree more. If you've ever ridden the L in Chicago back and forth to work, and yet you get to cut that out of your day and work remote. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing, let me just say. But I was gonna, I was gonna say I, it's hard to argue with the 9 to 5, 7 to 3, however, like being, you know, it's hard to argue that, to try to keep it, you know, because I've always said to myself, like, okay, well, the work life balance is going to be. Shut it off, shut it off, shut it off. And it's, you know, as Dennis said, like a generation ago, maybe, you know, the nine to five person or the seven to three works. I think it's, I think it becomes like a double edged sword though because of like the amount of things from a technological standpoint that are happening. Because it's like, okay, if there was a new programming language that just came about that everybody was all abuzz about or however you want to phrase it, it's a little bit more different than right now in the stage we're in where it's automation and AI, where it's. Even if you don't work in the industry, you're being affected by it on a daily basis. Like we were just, and I was just in a doctor's office not too long ago where the, the doctor even said like, hey, do you mind, I'm going to start my note taking app while we do, you know, like the, for like a routine checkup. Is that okay? And it's like, even if you wanted to get away from it, like that's what, you know, we work on that, some of that stuff here at work, you, you're getting it in real life even when you're off the clock. So it's. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more and I'm happy that that's kind of dead. But then, you know, there's always that kind of, like I said, double edged sword where you're inundated with it. So it's a hard, you know, it's.

A hard, you can, like if that's your thing, right? Like if your thing is. No, no, no. I know myself, I need to be in the office, sitting in my chair at nine and I need to walk out at five. And for me personally that gives me the most connection. I'm the most productive. I'm the most, I'm the most, I'm the most at that time. Oh my gosh. Like, go for it. Absolutely, go for it. But I think again, it's all about sort of flexibility and fitting the right people to the right working model. And I have to say, in an age where a lot of companies are leaning into back to office, you know, HubSpot's one of those companies that's saying like, no, like we, we are committed to a hybrid model. We understand what that looks like for our employees and we want to make sure that works. We have awesome offices, by the way. They're pretty, pretty cool. And you should go in. I mean, they're awesome. And I do actually take them up on that offer pretty often. But yeah, I think it's just a different model right now. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with saying like, yeah, I need to be in the office nine to five. Cool, awesome. Go for it.

I know for me the flexibility time is great because I'm a night owl. So I've always been one of those people where at night I'm on it. I'm way sharper because I've just, I've had the day to go. So like there's times where like sometimes there'll be like a thing that needs to be done and I'll be like, I'm gonna work on it a little bit here, but I'm gonna take a break and then like, I'll, I'll come back to it at night. And then usually it's like a whole new, you know, it's like when you walk away from a project when you're frustrated, you come back with a clear, like, clear mindset. But yeah, like you said, like the, the work life balance of things. I want to say it's since like with, with cell phones and stuff like that and people being always connected, that's where we've seen that shift of this. You know, before the 9 to 5 was an easy thing because you couldn't get emails after work. You couldn't, you know, no, there was no, like, slack on phones, have conversations. And that's where I feel like that turn happened for a good thing, because it's like, cool, I can take care of what I need to hear. Like, there's been times where I'm like, hey, I'm walking the kids to school, but I'm still actively involved in conversations that are happening and like, you know, strategizing and stuff like that. And I just think that that makes it just much better working wise.

Overall, a good support system too helps. And I, and I bring this up because I believe there's been, at least correct me if I'm wrong, Steve, maybe a dozen times where I've gotten messages from you saying, like, why are you still on Go?

Actually, all of you. That goes for all of you, Steve.

Last night about that, like, why are you answering me?

Yeah, why are you answering me? Like, what the heck? And actually, this is like a good segue. So like, you need to have like two things in order to make the hybrid thing work. You have to have a team that you trust implicitly, which I do. And you have to have a team that is like uber responsible, which I do. And so if I was talking about being a fan before, like, trust and responsibility allows, as a leader and you are all leaders, like, it allows you to focus on other things rather than like having to quote, unquote, manage your team and talk about freedom. When you have that, you can focus on like the important stuff and you don't have to focus on time. You don't have to focus on all those other things. So if people are listening to this, like, geez, I really want to be like a leader and I want to like, you know, what quality should I look for in a team? Trust and responsibility go a very, very, very long way. And you know it when you have it and you know it when you don't. And so we have a pretty unique team at HubSpot, and I'm excited that. I'm excited that we'll be able to put together such a comprehensive group that's focused on helping such a great community of people and developers.

Let me throw you a softball question here. True or false? This will be easy. True or false. Devrel has grown over the last few years here at HubSpot.

That is true, Nick. That is very true.

Flav paid the big bucks.

You've done your research, clearly. Actually, AJ, you were here when I got here. 2019. Was Deborah like, seven, eight? No, I think.

Let's see. In 2019, I want to say it was. There are maybe five or six of us, I want to say, you know, and that. I think that included Elizabeth Rasuto at the time, who was director.

That's right. Yep. Yeah.

So there was. There was. Yeah, it was definitely like, it. It wasn't the size of the team we have now, that's for sure. It was definitely, I would say under, like between. We'll say minimum eight, maximum 10. 10. As we were going through 2019 into 2020. But yeah, like, it is just really great. I mean, Deborah as a whole industry wide has also started getting more prominence into the, like, the limelight of like, hey, like, this is the voice of the developer internally, you know, because, like, the, the role of advocacy was always like, oh, you know, rah, rah. But it's way more than that, really. Look underneath of like, what everybody thinks advocacy is. And that's where, like, we've seen that huge, like, just uplift of like, just everything that we're doing internally.

I, I agree. We're, we're, we're three or four times bigger than 2019. So we've grown now we're in the upper 20s in terms of people in Devrel. And it's not just the people. We've grown. It's like the capabilities have grown quite a bit in terms of what we offer our communities, our developers, our builders. As a lot of people know, we have a team focused on quality, and that means marketplace quality. So integrations, apps, templates, modules, a whole slew of other things. If there's stuff our community is building and it needs to be in our marketplace or in our ecosystem, like, we want to help you do that. We have a team focused on community. We have a team focused on sort of like partners and making sure that they have what they need. We have Solution architects. I heard a rumor we had advocates somewhere. I don't know where those.

You never hear from them.

Couple of those floating around somewhere.

Video guy, he really doesn't do much.

We have a lot of folks, and it's kind of interesting. Devrel, I think, is starting to change a little bit with AI. What isn't changing with AI, But I think the model that Devrel used to be was like, promotional. And so it would be like we would try to make sure that as an industry, like, we were supporting our communities and promoting what was happening and making sure that things were, you know, kind of out there. And I think it's just evolved into so much more. The stuff that is coming out of our group in terms of tooling, in terms of events, in terms of integrations, in terms of code samples, in terms of, like, there's just. I mean, there's a very long list that I can talk about. But to me, it just seems like there's a big shift happening right now and we're kind of riding that wave. Like, like everybody.

Where do you see it going? Because, like, I'll be honest, like, before I even got here, the, the. The concept of developer relations, I had zero concept of it, right? Like, for me, it was, you know, maybe a group of three, right? In my last. My previous job. And the developer relationship or the developer relations was, hey, you built this. Someone has a problem with it, or someone doesn't know how to use it, go tell them what to do. Like, there was no, like, structure. There was no programs. There was. Where do you see from where it is right now, which obviously is just exponentially growing. Where do you see it in the future?

I mean, it's kind of a. That's. That's the question everyone wants to answer, right? It's like, where. Where the heck is this train going? Like, everyone's like, white knuckled onto this AI innovation, the shift, this emerging technology, rightfully so, because it's changing so much. I guess I would say, like, I can see, like, two things. When I started my career, I was actually in qa, so I graduated with. Well, I'll start back a little bit. This is gonna be a very long answer, so let me short this. So, like, I went to college to study accounting. I flunked my first accounting course that I took, and my professor was like, you're not a good accountant.

No, hey, I did the same thing.

Okay, great. So I'm in good company, aj. So I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. So, like, I'll do finance and so I did finance. And then like right at the end of my education in college, like they offered this degree for management information systems. And basically it wasn't computer science, but it was like, how does computers back at that time, like how does that going to affect business and what do you want to do? And I landed my first job and it was in qa, which I'd never heard of. They didn't really talk about QA in college. They didn't talk about it even as a profession. And so for the longest time, for like the first two weeks, I would thought I was in like the question and answers department. That's like, yep, yeah, I'll admit to that. I just wanted a job. Okay. But someone's like, no, dude, you're, you're in quality assurance. Like, hello. Like, oh yeah, okay, cool. So that was a very manual job back then and you would have test plans and you would click and you would look and you would record and it was extremely manual. And that got boring after about two seconds. And so I became an automation engineer. And so what that meant was like I was writing code to check code, I was writing code to check the ui, I was writing code. So it was like that to me felt really great. Well, it was really interesting to me as I would progress through my career and change jobs. A lot of manual testers kind of looked like it was like the grim reaper coming because like, oh, this, this person knows automation. I don't. My job's in trouble because this person can do it faster and they can do more, which I could, I absolutely could. And it was repeatable and it was reportable and it was, it was awesome. But it came with a lot of fear. And that was a big challenge actually early in my career is like you'd get to a company and people wouldn't really want to interact with you, you because they were afraid of what that meant. And I liken that now to sort of what's happening with AI because as I would come into a company with a lot of manual testers in a year, they were all automation engineers. They all had their jobs and we actually grew the team even bigger. And so I might have started as a couple of people and then in a year it was five automation engineers and all those people were still there. And so I think right now. Let me get back to your original question, Nick. This is a long segue, but I think worth it. I think what's happening now is we're seeing this kind of wobbly adoption of this amazing technology, there is a little bit of a contraction happening around like, oh, should we be shrinking companies or changing? But I think what you'll see in pretty short order is I think you'll see an expansion of, of the workforce into areas that we haven't really figured out yet. An automation engineer wasn't really a thing a while ago and suddenly it is. And I think we're going to see something like that happen with AI. I do think it's going to be able to do things that people can do now and I think that's a good thing because a lot of that stuff we want to get out of, of get out of the day to day, especially if it's monotonous. Nobody wants to do monotonous things. That's the first thing. Then the second thing is I really feel like you asked about what Devrel looks like. I do think it's going to grow as I just talked about, but I think our focus is going to shift to. Right now we're working directly with developers, person to person. That is going to be there always. But I think what we're going to add is we have to add a layer of abstraction into AI where now we have to enable AI to enable our developers. We have to enable those components that make up AI to service them so that they don't have to come to us. They don't, they don't. We shouldn't be a deciding factor or holding them back in what they can develop. And the way we do that is by making sure that they can tap into every different component, every different LLM and every type of agent that's available so that they can get up and running faster without us slowing them down. So I think there was like, you know, some ratios changing around how much and where we help. But what I think you'll find is if we make that big leap to putting our energy into enabling AI, I think you'll see our developers be able to work much faster, much more efficiently. I mean, you saw what just we just released. I know, Nick. We were talking about this before with OpenAI. There's a new HubSpot connector and this is a massive deal. We are, I think, the first CRM to be included. They had a big live stream this past week. This is something that, that Karen Ng and, and Brian Gorbit and others have been pushing. Yamini talked about it. I mean, this is, this is really, really big. The developer product group had a massive hand in making this happen, as did Devrel. There are some folks on this very livestream that had a big hand in that. And so in my mind, I think you'll see more of this. And I think that was a really, really good litmus test into how HubSpot is going to be showing up. More and more is going to be in the fabric of what AI is.

I think AI is just, it's such a big help too, for people, because even those who aren't developers, they have a chance to build. You got things like lovable, right? And like V0 or for Versal, where it's just an idea and they can start building on it. Now, I think where we see a lot of people talking also is where they're like, oh, AI is going to replace, like developer relations. And I, I don't see that as a thing because you can have. And we've all done this, right? Like the vibe coding, as they call it. You can have AI generate something, but if you're looking at that code and you don't know what that code means, good luck trying to update, iterate or improve. Because that's where, like, I don't feel like it's a full replacement for a developer because you're going to have developer go, hey, that's great code, but you're missing accessibility on this, this, this and this. And you're not doing this and, and UI research show like it's going to take a developer way less time to get to the end goal using AI as like a supplement versus it as a replacement. And I think that's where a lot of people are scared that they're thinking replacement and not supplement.

I think this, the definition of developers is going to change. You know, generally speaking, it's, it's, it's me in a good way. You know, like, it's not going to be like, just looking here, it's more broad, you know, you're thinking a bigger picture than you used to.

I, I agree with you.

Yeah, I was going to push back on Aegis thing a little bit. I am going to create like a nickbot that kind of combines hey, Jen. With a couple of other things where I won't even be here. I'll just, I'll be watching myself host the podcast and then it'll be. I'll just, I'll be able to sit back and just, you know, drink, you.

Know, it'll be better. It'll be so much better.

Can we. Do we have that video handy of the one that you did with Nick and AJ where it's like, oh, no.

Please, no, it's so bad. It's like, it's, I'm literally talking and my hands are like doing things that have nothing to do with what I'm saying. And it was just like. But the bot will be food poison free, so we will be.

You could just like Photoshop like a Zoltar like thing around him and it just looks like he's like the robot in like the middle coin. It was great.

It was great.

But this is like the, that's the Will Smith eating spaghetti. What?

It was, it was fantastic.

So like you'll have to do another one in like six months and it's going to be flawless.

Yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty bad. It was, it was along those lines, but it was, it was a good attempt though. I did. So let me. Not really, it's not really a pivot, but because we're talking about like things with OpenAI and you know, combining with HubSpot or collaborating with HubSpot and what are some other. Because for me that's like a milestone or a pivotal moment right within a company. But specifically for you, are there any milestones or pivotal moments for you that, that have stood out? And maybe they're recent, maybe they're not, but just something where it's like, it's impacted like the way you thought or who you are at this point.

That'S a good one. I, I have to tell you, if you, if you like where you work, I think there's like a lot you take away from that job at different times of your life. And so if you, if you're walking away and it's like, oh, I didn't really learn anything. I think you're not looking in the right places. There's, there's so much. Even the bad jobs, you know, you know, quote unquote bad. I think, you know, over the last 10 years, I would say the one thing I've learned, spent a lot of my career sort of, you know, managing people in teams. I think one thing I would say is the phrase, like, there's no job too small. I think that that's a one to embrace as a, as a, as a leader, as someone who is serious about their career. I worked at a very small company not too, not too long ago. And you know, the phrase I like to use is like, yeah, we were like, you know, one minute pitching to executives and the next minute I was like taking out the trash. Because that's, that, that is actually like important.

Been there, done that.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so like, I think there's a tendency where you can get disconnected. The more people that you have, you know, the bigger team you're managing or if you're siloed in a particular area, I would say that's also kind of dangerous. I think, like, pick your head up, look around. So for me, you know, pivotal moments is sort of like those moments, those growth moments I've had in my career where you take a group from some dysfunction and like not really having a clear mission or path and suddenly like it's super clear, it's super impactful. And now the team is thought of as in like a different, a different light. That to me is so, so, so gratifying. I think it's what I like to do more than anything is like take complex things and make them simple. HubSpot is a very intimidating place to work, to be honest. And I, when I first got here, I was like, oh, I'm in the wrong place. There's like, everyone has a master's degree. Everyone's like graduated from mit. There are people here, like running circles around everybody. It's unbelievable, like, how many smart, talented people. And I'm like, well, you know what, let's just see what happens. And you know, it turns out that also some of the nicest and most generous people work in HubSpot and the most empathetic and kindest. And so that's a place you want to work. That is a place where you want to go to work every day and interact with people.

How did you find your voice? If you've all these smart, intimidating people, I know they're empathetic, but it's still smart and intimidating, right?

Yeah.

How did you, how did you find your voice?

I think everyone needs to have a mentor and everyone needs to sort of like have people that are guiding them through their career, informally or formally, either way. And you know, like, there's a phrase I hate, which is like, I'm a self made man. I hate that. I hate that phrase for so many reasons. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger actually does like a great thing about this where like someone was interviewing him and they're like, oh, you're a real self made man. He's like, self made man? What are you talking about? Like, I'm an immigrant. I had people help me get my first job. They loaned me money, I slept on coaches, I had someone pay for my plane ticket to fly out for Mr. America. Like, self made man. Like that, that, that's not the right phrase. And so I would say, you know, every time you enter a Company, look around, look who you can talk with and ask about everything without feeling dumb. Because that's the other thing is like, you know, when you start someplace new, it's like, it's just like acronym salad. And you're in a meeting and you're like, I literally don't know what anyone just said. It was just a bunch.

Like, the first week I was here, I had the amount of questions, I was like, what does this mean? What does this. It was like, it was like a whole different. Yeah, I still have this issue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, you've been here a while, Dennis, since you're like, I'm definitely not going to ask that question because I've been here a few years and it's like, nope, like that. That's bad. That is bad. So, like, it's very challenging, but like, yeah, you need to find that person that can sort of like pull you along and also find like, people that are, are, are like minded and that are generous in being vulnerable enough to be honest about their concerns and, and being generous and share their thoughts about problems and issues that they're having. We're all just like little kids in big people bodies, honestly. And like, everyone pretends that everyone's adulting, but like, when it comes down to it, we're all just like kids. And so I feel like if you kind of lean into the fact that people want to feel included and people want to make sure that they are enjoy who they're working with. So for me, getting the right teams together, solving hard problems, working on really cool, interesting things, and focusing on like, a lot of change and adapting to that change, I love that stuff. So any place to get to work that has that, I'm very, very happy.

Let me pull on the. You had mentioned having a good mentor, right? Let me pull on that thread a little bit. Is there any advice that you've been given at any, any point and. Or any juncture that's really stood out to you that's helped kind of shape maybe the way you are or the way you, your management style.

And Steve, I'm okay with you disclosing anything from a personal conversations.

Are you okay with that, Dennis? Yeah, I feel like that's free. It's really putting you out there.

And if you need to reference other episodes that I've done here, I mean, as part of that, that's, I mean, just we'll put in the show when I make the show notes, bot that that does my show notes for me.

I'll obviously, the first Thing that's impacted my career has been developers after Dark. That's the first and probably most important thing. Everybody should go back and watch every episode. Not on 1.5 speed, on 05 speed. Really enjoy what you're listening to slowly.

Especially the first episode. All I did was talk about real estate the entire time. Maybe not. Maybe not. The first one. That was. That was the. That was the rough pilot. I don't know how that got off the. You know, but it's. Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you, like, I've made a career out of not staying in the same career. And I have. I love that. I, you know, generally, I want to work in technology. I want to work for great companies that are doing great things, and I want to make a big impact. And so, like, if you set that as your foundational element, I think it's easy to find great places to work and do your best work. But to answer your question, I want to relay maybe something, and I don't know who to give credit to. So I'm just saying this is not something that I came up with. This is something I heard on the Interweb somewhere. But the story goes that there's this company, I think, in Switzerland, and they make inner tubes for extremely expensive professional bicycles. They're very expensive, and it's like, pretty much all they do, but they have, like, a real loyal following, and it's kind of like cultish. And every year there's this huge cycling race in Switzerland somewhere, and this company shows up and it's like, okay, cool. So they want to make sure they have fresh inner tubes, bicycle tire tubes for the people that are racing. And it's actually like, no, they. They barely have that. They actually show up with, like, sandwiches. They show up with, like, sports gel. They show up with, like, fresh water. They show up with shade for the families that want to come and watch. They show up with, like, a food truck. Like, they show up not to pedal their product. They show up because they love their community. They love the cult that they've grown. They love the brand of people that love their brand. And that really stuck with me in terms of how I want Devrel to be at HubSpot. And I hope we are. I hope our community thinks that's how we want to show up is that we're not there to. To pedal anything. We're not there with such a, you know, some, like, you know, secret agenda. It's like we are literally there to help our developers in any way we can. And that is Expanding like as we, as we just talked about, like a developer, as Dennis says a decade ago, like, is not a developer now. Right now anyone can develop. You need to be able to use your voice and tell AI what you want to do. So the definition of developers changing, the definition of how you show up for community is changing. And I want us to be able to show up in a way that is really obvious how passionate we are to help our community reach their goals, which are solving for our customers goals.

Love it. Love it. Steve always shows up to my family events with shade for us.

It's hot out there, Dennis. Someone's got to do it.

Just imagine Steve pulling up in like a Kona ice truck like every time there's like a family event, just like passing out snow cones or something. Are there any now because you have Devrel that's ever expanding and then you have not. Not just from a calorie standpoint or a workforce standpoint, but also from a visibility standpoint as far as like conferences, workshops, and things of that nature. Are there any for you yourself, personally? Are there any. Any of those that you've attended or been able to go to that have really kind of not. Not that you would need like re. Energizing, but like for me, those type of things that. That really does that. Like when we went to Inbound, like the last few times I've been to Inbound, it really, like, not that I was ever like kind of like downtrodden, but like it really kind of like my. It gets, you know, like you've heard me and AJ talk just to each other and it gets like the conversation, mind racing stuff. So has there been anything that you've attended recently that's kind of done that for you?

I. I'll tell you, this will be like a shameless plug bud. When, when our product team gets together for our summits, it is massively energizing. So yeah, like, it. It's, you know, so. So in terms of like staying connected, I've been listening to Lenny's quite a bit lately. That's a great podcast for those that. And I think there's like a pretty cool deal going where like they give you subscribe. I'm plugging Lenny. But like, if you subscribe, like you get access to all this AI stuff. I don't know, man.

This podcast over. Wow. Fail, Steve.

No, no, this is a win, Dennis. We're there to support developers. Like, come on, let's live. Live to the true words we've spoken. So like audio, I'm trying to take in as much as possible. Probably now more than ever, I feel like everybody is just from, like, like, how do I get this stuff into my brain fast? I think audio is big. I think we've scratched the surface on audio in terms of what's capable. So I think that's one. The other thing is, like, I really think this is a time of doing rather than listening. So I think in the past there's been a lot of level ups in terms of innovation and technology and course of.