making the staffing industry cool, finding friends in raleigh, & ai’s role in your career | ep. 22

We're back at my second home, Nashville Airport. Let's go to Raleigh. I'm going directly to my gate. I'm gonna get a coffee. I'm gonna sit at my gate. Your boy's not missing this flight. I'm not gonna go 2 for 2 missing flights today. All right, we made it. We made it on the flight. I did not go 2 for 2. We're heading to Raleigh on time, correct airplane. You said everything but sorry. You said everything but sorry. Uh, so we're off to the Ronstadt Raleigh office. So I've been to Tampa, Boston, um, now I'm headed to the Raleigh office to meet up with Matthew. Who is on the panel tonight? Super pumped. So let's go make some new friends. Man, you just gotta love office buildings in Raleigh. Vibes are not immaculate. This is a bigger community than even I thought. You got 375 people that are coming.

Like that's pretty impressive. Oh yeah. Like of course.

Of course. I mean, Zach asked me for a favor. How many people have you guys hired? For— through Torque?

Yeah. 20-kosh.

That's awesome.

Probably.

Dude, this is so crazy. Like, literally, so like, I'm best friends with Todd who runs the thing.

Yep.

And yeah, how'd this all come about? So I spoke at All Things— so I've tried to get into All Things Open for 6 years.

Okay.

Uh, it's in Raleigh, it's in October, it's like 7,000 people down at the convention center. And, uh, you know, submitted, submitted. Last year I was like, you know what, I'm gonna submit it one more time. I got accepted, went to speak. We had to kick people out of my room. We had like 100 people. We had to like kick people out. Todd was like, okay, you may be on something. So Todd and I both went to South Carolina. Oh nice, yeah, both Gamecocks.

Yeah.

And so Todd, um, you know, we've been in touch. I'm speaking again October, Torque sponsoring. And, uh, and he was like, hey, why don't you come out? I said, sure, you know. And he was like, we have— we usually have pretty good responses for these meetups. I was like, sure. I mean, meetups usually they're dead. If you can get 50 people out, it's solid. The first week he put it up, there's already 200 people for this one. Yes, there's 375 people and it's live streamed. I heard this. Yes, my wife asked me like, oh, you're going to be famous. My wife asked me if I'm ready to go. I was nervous last night.

I was—

my wife's like, you speak all the time. I was like, nah, this is different. Todd was like, hey, this is that. And like, I can't think like 2— I mean, us guys, we can't really think more than a day ahead. Um, and so like, I was like, I was like, all right, cool. And like, I woke up last week, I was like, shit, we need to work with— and so, so Todd was like, do you, do you know anybody? I was like, uh, he goes, do you have anybody to speak? I was like, yeah. So I messaged Zach, I was like, hey Zach, can you speak? He goes, no, like I'm on no-fly 'cause of the baby. I was like, alright. He goes, but you should hit up Matthew, man. He was like, he's loud and he's got a lot of thoughts. I said, perfect! Catching my attention like a magnet. Alright, so I just got in my hotel room. This hotel room is like the biggest hotel room I've like ever, ever been in. Look at this, look at this, look at this. Also, great view, great view. Love a good suburban view. Look how big this hotel is. Like what? Look, also, also look. I don't know what you do in that corner. Uh, but I've never seen that before. So maybe I'll work there. I think that's what I'll do. All right, so just got done with lunch, man. I just want to say thank you. Uh, to the Raleigh crew, uh, Raleigh Ronstadt crew. Matthew, even though he's not, uh, he doesn't live here, Matthew's on the panel with me tonight. But Josh and Alexis, thank you. Uh, y'all are just great. That was just so much fun. So back at the hotel again, crushed lunch. Gonna go over my talk. Uh, I don't really practice talks that much, but I don't know, I've just felt convicted to really kind of nail this talk. Um, so gonna work on that. Matthew is staying at this hotel as well.

Again, the largest hotel room I've ever stayed in.

Uh, so Matthew staying here. So we're gonna ride together to the event here in a bit. So I can't wait to document that. And it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a fun night. I'm pumped. My buddy Lawrence, he just tweeted this. I wonder if I can pull it up here. The way y'all at Torque make big corporate look cool should be written about in a book or white paper. So in full transparency, Laurence is a friend of mine, right? But, but tweets like that is exactly, exactly what I wanna do. My brother messaged me the other day. He was like, I feel like you're like the closest thing to a creative director for like B2B business. And I kinda thought about that, and like a lot of the people I follow, like George Heaton, Bruno Casanovas, like all these guys with clothing companies, like they're creative directors. And I don't know, it's just like for us, like I've always said, I feel that like I want to make staffing cool. And again, while Lawrence is a friend of mine, that is not a cold tweet. He also doesn't know, like I don't talk about that a lot. So again, Lawrence, thank you for that. That means more to me than you will ever know. But we're heading down the right path. I mean, another thing too, Is I was flying today, and whenever I fly, I try to get on Discord, our Torque Discord. I can't get on our Torque Discord as much as I want to, just because of just how busy I am. Man, so one of the things I'm really passionate about at Torque is welcoming everybody in on the Discord. So it's like, I tell my team, anybody who joins, please welcome them. So I try to welcome everybody, and I was reading through one of the questions we have on the Torque Discord. When you join, it's like, how'd you hear about us? And like most of the ones I responded to today were like, I heard about you from a friend. I heard about you from a friend. I heard about you from a friend that you can help with the job search. I heard about you from a friend. I'm struggling in my job search. Like, I don't know, like this, this, this idea I have, this idea that I've had for the longest time about making Torque the best community if you need help finding a job, like we're so early stages still, but like it's happening. Alrighty, we are off. Let's go meet up with Matthew downstairs. Let's get to the venue. Pumped. Torque in the wild. There you go, look at that. Boom! I love it. We love to see it. We love to see it. There's the guy. What's up, brothers? Good to see you. I love it.

I love it.

I love it. So Taylor, we appreciate you. We're very happy to host you. And Taylor's been a speaker at All Things Open. He's going to be a speaker at All Things Open this year. We're going to try to do some things focused on jobs at the conference this year. So be on the lookout for that announcement coming Talking to Taylor and his team at Torque Dev about that. Torque is a community. Shout out to Danny and my guy Pat over here. Raise your hand, boys. Raise your hand. Those guys are very active in our Torque Discord. Yeah, give it up for them. Yeah, there you go. They're very active. Basically, we want Torque to be your home base throughout your career, whether you need a job now or in the future, whether you want to meet some new friends, whether you need your resume reviewed, whether you need just somebody to encourage you We would love to have you. Again, scan— I have that QR code on every slide, so we'd love to have you. Angie Jones, Ken C. Dodds, Gant, all those guys and gals, they are constantly talking about what they're learning in AI or constantly talking about what they're learning in JavaScript. Listen, as a recruiter— and we'll have recruiters come up here in a second— like, the way we operate is, hey, I need a React person. In my mind, I'm like, who in my mind is a React person? Funny story, Pat Clark in the back, he was on one of our lives. One of the questions I asked is, do you like coffee or tea? And he said, I like Pepsi. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. But here's the deal, Pat now is known in the Torque Discord of about 5,000 members as the Pepsi guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's still unhinged behavior for the record. So again, you have to be known for something. If you are not known for something, You're not going to be top of mind with recruiters or hiring managers when they need somebody. All right, Tosh, how do you think it went tonight?

I think it went great.

Yeah, high levels of engagement. Everybody, again, the comments that we've received have been extremely positive. Yeah, but at the end of the day, we measure everything by value. Yeah, I think he's got a lot of value.

I love it.

Always important, always the most important thing. Absolutely. So Matthew, how do you think it went, big dog? Great first panel. You crushed it.

Excited to be part of it.

Was that really your first time? First time above 200 people. Yeah, that was nuts. I thought you answered everything was clear. Worked out, man. It was great. Hey, practice with your wife. I had to get that in there a little bit.

I loved it.

I loved it. Sweet, man. So we should do this again soon, right? Anytime. You tell me when. Hell yeah, let's go. All right, so we're off to dinner. It's like almost 9 o'clock at night. You see the humidity? It's so humid. So this is kind of funny. We're going to Angus Barn. So the last time I was at Angus Barn was in 2012 when I was interviewing at Vaco. They took me here when I was interviewing. Wow! What a whirlwind! That was unbelievable. Todd Lewis, shout out to you, my friend. You have built such an amazing community. I strive for the torque community to be like the all things. Open community. Everybody is just so engaged, so nice. The questions were unbelievable tonight. Shout out to Matt, my boy Matt from Ronstadt. Man, we just, we had a great time vibing in the office and then, you know, obviously being able to moderate, kind of softball some questions to him. And we just finished dinner tonight and just talked about the future and how really torque can single-handedly transform the staffing world and really helping provide top-tier candidates to our clients. But man, I've been running my mouth nonstop. What else? We gave away— I had about 15 shirts that I haven't given away. They were kind of older shirts. We're gonna refresh our merch here soon. But man, people were pumped for some t-shirts. They love the designs. The feedback was great there. I mean, just golly, there's— I'll try to think of some other stuff tomorrow. My brain's just dead. So It's time to go to bed. I'm tired. Dad's in tech tomorrow morning. See you in the morning. Morning, Raleigh. Let's have a good day. So one thing I like to try to do when I travel is do this Dads and Tech group. Started this Dads and Tech group I think almost a year ago. Been keeping it going. I mean, in full transparency, like the attendance has waned a little bit. Listen, it's hard. Like this is like, this is like the last thing on my totem pole that I have time for. But we still get, we still get a few guys show up for coffee. So gonna go hang with the crew. Gonna have some good conversations. Always something I like to do. do really to be intentional in building community with dads in tech. Because again, I know a lot of times like it's, it's about the moms and rightfully so, but I just feel like sometimes dudes just don't get around other dudes to be like, yo, how are you doing? So that's what we're doing. There it is. What are you guys buying already? I already got it. What's up, bro? It's good to see you. What I want to do eventually is like, with like LATAM knowing that they use WhatsApp, is like get them— so it's like in terms of like signup funnels, right? So we get Luca and Luana to get them onto the platform. I'm wondering if we should set up a WhatsApp since it's so ingrained where it's like join Torque's WhatsApp if you have any questions about what we do. Luca and Luana can Command that WhatsApp, get questions real time, and then continue to funnel them into the Discord.

Yeah.

Because that's, that's really good what you said. I didn't realize like WhatsApp's so ingrained.

Oh yeah, I mean, that is like, like my wife here in the US gets pissed off when, when, when you have to not use WhatsApp.

She has to text people instead of WhatsApp. Yeah. All right, so we're off, me and Danny, to Little, uh, torque lunch. We're just all the food, all the food, all the food, all the coffee. It's my 3rd cold brew of the day. Feeling great. Don't love this rain, uh, but yeah, we're just gonna break—

You need to learn to pack a raincoat.

Yeah, I, I really, I need, I need to pack a jacket. These airports can be cold. So anyways, we're gonna do some, uh, lunch, gonna break some bread with some friends, and, uh, then your boy's gotta hole up and get some work done before his flight tonight.

You know that, uh, kids book Flat Stanley?

No.

Flat Stanley, the idea is it's a flat little guy.

Yeah.

That he wants to travel the world, so they stick him in envelopes and he goes everywhere. And like, you are Torx Flat Stanley.

Yeah.

You are everywhere.

Yeah.

Right? So they stick you in an envelope, next thing you know you're in Amsterdam.

Yeah.

You're meeting with people. They stick you in another envelope, you're in Valencia, Spain.

Yeah.

Building community and talking to people. Yeah, you're a repeat visitor. We love you in Raleigh, and you know, yeah. Um, Guadalajara. I mean, eventually you're gonna become a Spanish speaker. I don't know how we're gonna do that yet. Yeah, but we're gonna make you a Spanish speaker.

We'll figure it out. Yeah, yeah.

Um, and so you are like Flat Stanley, like wherever we need to send you to, yeah, you're there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. And, um, you know, it's It's purposeful.

Yeah.

And we know that, you know, whether it be because you're giving a talk or you're at a conference to, you know, help spread the word, you're gonna accomplish whatever the mission is.

Yeah.

Of that, because at the end of the day, you know, it's like If I have these big tech events like Render, I'm gonna expect you to be at Render.

Yeah.

Because it's, it's the hotspot.

Yeah.

It's where everybody's at.

Right.

And I expect you not just to be there, but to be a big player there.

Yeah, yeah.

Same thing here in Raleigh with All Things Open or whatever event, even if it's a super niche event.

Yeah.

I expect you and the team to be there. and to help grow the community. Because I guarantee you next year— or I'm assuming not next year, this year— when you go to October to All Things Open, you're gonna have a bunch of people who are gonna come up to you and say, hey, when you gave that last talk, I was there, and let me tell you about what has happened in my career as a result of what you gave me.

Yep.

And I guarantee you, you're gonna have that.

Yep.

The next time you, you, um, There he is.

Yeah, what's up, brother? Alrighty, we are back at the hotel, um, going to really hunker down and work for the next 4 hours or so before I head to the airport. Amazing 24 hours here in Raleigh, um, very impactful. Just finished up a lunch with James, founder of Unkey, Ryan, who's at PayPal, my guy Danny, who's at ServiceNow, and then Sai, who came out actually from the meetup last night. So he's in college trying to break into his first job. Had a great lunch, just talked about just finding a job in today's tech market. So great conversation. Again, last night was just very special. The future of what we're doing is bright. Obviously, I captured a little bit of what Danny talked about on the, on the car ride to lunch. You know, he asked me a question, he goes, that we didn't get quite on camera. He goes, are you happy with where you're at after a year of doing this? And I thought for a second, and I was like, you know what, I am. I'm very, very happy. Torque is a part of conversations across the country. with developers. I know this because they message me on how we are doing things the right way. I think we are setting the stage on what's to come on how staffing companies should treat candidates in their job search. We're doing it the right way, and I'm so thankful for Ron Satin-Tork for believing in me. So, uh, very excited. I'm off the road, uh, for the next few weeks, actually probably for the next 6 weeks before we head back down to Commit Your in Dallas. So I can't wait to drop this blog— vlog, blog, vlog. And, uh, Raleigh, you were great.

We'll see you soon. Peace.