In this episode, Kelsey Hightower is the Count of Kubeyfisto. A Google and Kubernetes Deity, A Legend of Cloud Native, the minimalists minimalist. The absolute best advocate in the game, a trusted advisor, mentor and friend to many and most importantly his Mother's son. Stop reading and watch this Round 2 with Kelsey!
Kelsey Hightower
Timeline/Topic
00:00 - Opener (Thank you Sponsors!)
00:11 - Kelsey Hightower Round 2 Begins...
00:48 - How Kelsey changed his approach this last year
04:15 - Random Office Hours or how to effect the community in new ways
06:18 - Do folx try and take advantege of Kelsey's time?
07:28 - Value of Money and Wealth
22:26 - "I want to be the next Kelsey"
26:12 - the Hard way. why that name?
28:19 - R and B and Kelsey's courtship of his future wife
34:12 - Boyz II Men End of the Road.
35:00 - Since POPCAST Round 1 - What is Kelsey most proud of?
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Episode Links
Kelsey's Twitter - https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower
MLK's Income Inequality - https://www.investopedia.com/the-economics-of-martin-luther-kings-dream-speech-4584390
Three the Hard way - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_the_Hard_Way_(film)
Python the Hard Way - https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Python-Hard-Way-Introduction/dp/0134692888
Boyz II Men End of the Road - https://youtu.be/zDKO6XYXioc
Cassette - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape
Walkman - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman
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- [Announcer] This episode of the POPcast is brought to you by these sponsors.
- Hello everyone and welcome to the POPcast. I got somebody new to the game. I don't know if you all know him. Naw, of course you know who this is, right? My guest today, he's the Count of Kube Cristo. He's a Google deity. He's a legend of Kube Native. He's the minimalist minimalist. He's the absolute best advocate in the game today. He's a trusted advisor. He's a mentor. He's a friend to many, and most importantly, he's his mother's son. Welcome to the POPcast, Kelsey Hightower.
- Yo, I'm happy to be back. You know, this is round two, right?
- Round 2, bing! All right. Listen, we were talking last year, we were talking about conferences and we were talking about doing talks and all of that. And we haven't been able to do that for a while. And so I think the topics we're gonna be talking about today is how the game has changed, but also I'm gonna talk about another topic which is very near and dear to our hearts, that's R&B. So this year you changed it up a little. Let's talk about that. How do you have to change your approach?
- Yeah, there's a couple of things. Number one, I used to travel a lot to work with various customers, engineering deep dives. I also do a lot more executive work internally. I've kind of graduated over the years through various promotions. And when we can be with people in their boardroom settings or you go to their campus and you really get to look at them and build that relationship. I'm now meeting some of these companies for the very first time over a virtual event. And in many of the cases I'm presenting at their company town hall or all hands, and you just got to make some adjustments. How do you build a relationship with people you've never met in person? I know we do this all the time on the internet, but to go from a world where you're doing this 50 plus times a year to everything being virtual, you have to change your approach to some of this. I think for me, a lot of it has been trying to create that connection, without adding a bunch more meetings to people's agenda.
- You've been extremely, not selective, but you've chosen some new paths to how you've done that. And you know, I'm a fan of you. Again, game respects game, we've talked about this, right? And it's like this. I've seen you. I was like, "oh, he's jumping on Clubhouse!" And I was in that one. It was like a hundred people in that thing just in a matter of no time. But it was also though, you stayed that whole time, and answered everyone's questions and I'm like, I don't, how do you do that, man? I want to know that secret.
- I love platforms that encourage authenticity and participation. When you think about all of us, a lot of people that are watching this have been to a tech conference, right? And there's a big difference between what you do on stage where it's kind of a one-way conversation. "Hey, here's what I would like to talk about. Here's what I would like you to know." But for a lot of us technologists, the part we love the best, number one, is doing well on the stage. But number two is that hallway track. When you're just sitting in that hallway with like-minded people, maybe people who are new, maybe people who are more experienced, and just having that authentic unfiltered conversation. So platforms like Clubhouse or Twitter spaces, they remind me of that. Right? And even though it's audio only, there's something about that, that rises the participation level to make people feel like we're on an equal footing. You have to look at how sharp your camera is. Everyone has a smartphone. The participation just feels so different in those settings. So it's been bringing out the best in me, in terms of being able to answer deep questions and do it for longer.
- You talk about the hallway track. We did that during KubeCon. That's something I felt was the highlight. They were like, "Hey, you want to do a set?" I'm like, "No, I'm staying right in the hallway." For that exact reason. I love that rapport. That's something like, again, when you're visiting customers, you have that rapport. They're telling you stuff about your technology that you didn't even think it would do. That rapport, I think, is the best kind of customer and user interaction. So, yeah. That's awesome. Let me ask you this. What would you say are the advantages, beyond just the normal kind of, "yeah, that's an interaction aspect," but what have you have you seen that's, "Wow, I might incorporate this going forward."
- You know, the thing I love the most honestly is, I've tried periodically throughout the last year and a half to just do random office hours. Look, I don't have time to meet with everybody, but recently, man, I've been spending a bunch of time with people just one-on-one. Whether it's 15 minutes or 30 minutes. And honestly just meeting people who can't necessarily make it out to the conference who have simple questions like, "Hey, I don't know you, but can you help me negotiate my offer at Company Y or Company B?" And this is part of the community thing we always talk about so much, but now I guess during this time, we're forced to all be on the same kind of channel. And so I decided to open it up a little bit, make myself a little bit more accessible to others. And the stuff that I'm seeing internationally, like I've done these fireside chats with the India community. Indonesia. These are places that are typically hard to get to and spend a meaningful amount of time. And man, those communities are dope. Brazil, South America. You just start branching it out a little bit, and what you'll find is that there's a lot more vibrant communities than are typically represented at a KubeCon.
- Totally agree. Civo is an alternative to the big hyperscale cloud providers. They've launched the world's first managed Kubernetes service, powered exclusively by K3S. With sub-90 second cluster launch times, a simplified Kubernetes experience, and predictable billing, Civo is on a mission to create a better developer experience. Get $250 free credit to get started. Sign up today at civo.com/POPcast. That's civo.com/POPcast. Go check them out. Totally agree. Let me ask you this. I'm gonna ask a Congress question. Do you see people taking advantage of your time?
- You know what, even if people have a use case that don't make a lot of sense, it's like, "whatever", you know. Some people don't even know what to do in certain settings. Like, I don't know what to ask everyone. So I don't ever look at it as a waste of time or abuse. Some people will start talking about random things they want me to know about. Like someone tried to get me into cryptocurrencies. It's like, I don't know. I mean, I respect the game, make money, how you make it. They saw that as an opportunity to convince me to join the laser eyes movement and jump on that rocket ship to the moon. But that necessarily wasn't for me. But I learned a lot, like what they feel about a particular technology. So for me, honestly, I wish when I was starting that the people who wrote the books that I was consuming, I always thought, man, what if I could just ask them more questions about, what do I do after the book? What were you doing before you wrote the book? All of that context, I think goes a long way. So look now that I'm in that position. Hell, why not make myself available?
- No doubt. Let's talk about that. Because you're talking about the crypto stock. The follow-up question to that is, what you've said, there's a lot of these "value of money" posts you've done. And I'm thinking this is probably on that crypto journey, or maybe just a journey in general. I want to understand that. What's up with those "value of money" posts you've been doing recently on Twitter?
- I'm going to preface this. I am not an expert. A lot of times people think, because you're an expert in one area, that you're an expert in another. That is not the case with me, nor do I believe that. But I am a human, that lives in the same society as everybody else. And from my perspective, we trade a lot of our time, our life for money. Luckily I'm successful. I'm in a good situation, but we still spend a majority of our time trying to make money. So it helped to understand it. Now my lens around money is around freedom, not the ability to survive, and my lifestyle is super comfortable, but that wasn't always the case. When I look back over history and I look at some of the leaders in our history, I'll start with MLK, for example. Even during the civil rights movement, there was a part where he talked about income inequality. He was in jail, and I think he was talking to one of the prison guards, "Hey, why are you all out here, marching and all of this other stuff?" And he asked the prison guard, "How much money do you make?" And the prison guard told him how much he made. And MLK said, "You should be out here marching with us." Because income inequality dictates so much of our life. How much you make, how much agency you have in where you live, school, the nutrition you're allowed to have. And that stuff is super important. So when I hear about money, access to opportunities is one thing, and access to capital is another. And a lot of us don't get to that part of the conversation. Most of our lives is spent, for a lot of people, is just surviving. But then what you see happens in these other realms, is that capital just works for itself. So it brings all of these thoughts to mind. And again, I'm no expert, but when you think about the way we reward people who already have money, we reward that very differently than people who actually do the work that generates that money. Now, some people are comfortable with this. Some people will say, Hey, that's the hierarchy of life. There must be rich people. There must be poor people. But the question you've got to ask is, how far should that gap be? Should it be insurmountable? Should it be a world where working is no longer valued, that if you go to work, and you spend your most precious resource, you can't even generate enough money to survive. And that leads to weird societal behavior. So I think crypto is a response, in many ways, to those kinds of things. I think the way people- you know, they said there was a work shortage. This is the first time in my life, I'm 40 years old, that I've heard that people don't even want the jobs that are available. It's always been, "there are not enough jobs for everyone." And now they're saying, "I'm not going back to that world where I'm going to work and I can't even survive." I know people who will pay more money to go to work, than they make. And of course, some people will say things like, "Oh, you should just..." You should just do what? When you don't have capital, you don't get to dictate these terms. So I think that's where, for me to really understand the next level of humanity, I have to understand where humanity spends most of its time and why they do it. So when you see me posting about money, I can care less about what the stock market is doing. Even though I benefit from it. I can really care less actually about what crypto is doing. But the question I have to ask is, if people want to change the money, if people want to take money and go in a different direction, if people want to turn what they call "retail trading" through apps like Robinhood to be the main way that people are growing their wealth. A lot of those people are not interested in governing. Meaning we have this public infrastructure, the earth, right? The earth is like the biggest public infrastructure we have. If you take all the Earth's resources and you put it behind a gate and you say, "The only way you get to drink water, the only way you get to eat, is if you return with some money in your hand," then that means at that point, you also now are responsible to figure out, how do people go and earn said money in order to survive? You've taken the thing, right? The thing was already here, you've taken it. Property ownership, sovereignty, nations, you've taken all of this public infrastructure and you hid it behind. You put a paywall in front of it, and then you haven't decided how people can now go buy back, in some ways, what was already theirs. So this is why I have to study what this stuff is, because it's very unnatural to ask human beings to go work all day, to buy back what was essentially theirs. So it's a super important topic to me, because so many people are struggling unnecessarily. Because we have this "grind until you die" mindset. And we don't even respect the fact that we're asking people to grind on something that doesn't have the same payoff. We don't talk about luck enough. We don't talk about the fact that capital attracts other capital. And since we're not having those discussions, we're leaving people disillusioned about their own trajectory and their past. Some people out here thinking they're failures, because they only have $1 million. Imagine that! Imagine a person who has become so successful in life, that they actually have reached what most people in the world, and I'm talking over 95% of the people in the world, will probably never save $1 million, after tax. Cash in hand. To feel like a failure? We have some problems. And so when I'm talking about that kind of stuff, I'm trying to get into the psyche of, we're grinding all this time. Then when you reach the mountaintop, the only thing you do is look around and say, "There's a higher mountain over there. I can't believe I've only come this far." So that's why you see me tweet about that. ♪ ♪
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- I think when I was at like 21, probably 20, I get out of high school and you got to make some decisions, you know? And one of the decisions was, "It's time to move out." Maybe a little early. Actually I left home when I was like 18. And you got to start paying for everything. Then you start to find out what "everything" actually means. A lot of people don't understand what "everything" means. So once you start paying for everything, I remember when I wanted to create opportunities for myself, I had to make some weird decisions that I don't think most people need to be making. I bought a car at 15 for $1000, an '86 Jeep Cherokee. And I kept that car for like 14, 15 years. I changed the engine in that car myself, because I couldn't afford to have someone else do it. I slept in that car. I slept in that car, behind the computer shop because I had to make a decision. Do I get an apartment or do I get this storefront? Because it seems like the best way to get into tech is to hire myself. That was the thinking. And I remember one night sitting in that car. I said, "I will never be broke again." Whatever this feeling was at that time, I don't want that anymore. Where I got to decide where this goes or where that goes. You have someone that owes you a few thousand bucks because you did a job for them. And you really, really, really need them to pay you. Like ASAP. And so that world, I never knew back then what underpins that kind of world. And then later in life, you get into different financial scenarios. You make more money. You're an investor class now, that's a thing that I learned about. The investor class. And then I can't help because of my background, to think about slavery. And I saw some posts and, no one should be comparing modern-time work conditions to slavery. That's not what we're talking about. But one thing that I learned was, a lot of slavery had a lot to do with economics. Property. Owning people at a very low cost to keep your margins high. And so when you think about that mentality, has it gone away? You have one group of folks who may not want to work, and this actually transcends race when you think about this globally. If a group of people don't want to work, then what do they have to do? They have to have someone else work, and then be able to capitalize on that work. This can create some weird scenarios for people. So my evolution is just thinking to myself, "How do you keep a system, where a large or small group of people want no part of the labor game?" And there's nothing wrong with investments and capitalizing, building businesses and hiring people. That is not what I'm saying, but we also need to value work. We have to value the work. So for the majority of my career, I grind, I slept under those desks to be on call. I've been in those overnight change windows. And sometimes the thing that hurts the most, I'm at a point now where I am financially independent. That's not a problem folks. And some people think that now I'm unqualified to talk about the struggles in the game. You're not supposed to be poor forever. That is not how you get your stripes or your qualifications. I think it's important though, that when you do get out of the struggle, you share what you're learning. Because I never stopped learning. Everything I learned from sleeping in that car, to where I am now, I believe all of that is worth sharing. And so now I'm in a world where I understand money, in a very different way than I understood then. A tool for survival is now a tool for wealth. And it's just very different and I'm a minimalist. So I don't care about Ferraris and all the jewelry. That's just, that is not interesting to me. The most important thing that I ever want to buy is my freedom and my wife's freedom and my daughter's freedom. And if that money is big enough, it'll buy some other people's freedom. Because I think there's more to life than trading it simply to survive. So that's just kind of my views on it. And I know I'm not an expert on it, but you just got to respect that I also live in this particular world and I actually do care about my own wellbeing. And I see other people in the same light that I see myself. So it's only- you have to understand. That's why I really think about this stuff deeply. It's not just for you. It's not just for me. I just see us all in the same category.
- And again, it's why people respect you Because it's not just specific to your path. It's also, these are universal things. It's that struggle every day. It's, I'm getting up and working. I don't get to see my kids. I got two kids, right? And so, you know, it's like, what am I doing? I'm here. I'm doing this podcast and doing work and all these things, then maybe I should go. That's what I'm working for. And then when you get to that mountain we talked about earlier, it's what happens then. Okay, they're going to be too old for me to enjoy them.
- I can't help but try to get to the core of some of these problems. I just can't ride the surface and cheer my wealth growing and say, it's all good. You need to get yours. That's not who I am. From the technology to life, I'm always trying to break down, "Well, why does it work? Does it work for everybody? And if it doesn't, why?" That's what continues to drive me.
- And that was one of the things you posted recently, was, "Hey, we got to think about that first entryway into a software at some point, is probably the point where people get frustrated and walk away from it. I totally agreed with that one. It's just a fantastic tweet that you did. So that being said, again, when you come out with these quotes, these talks and all of these things, somebody can come to you and they're going to say, "You know what? I want to be the next Kelsey." What's the response? Now? I've said this in the past, like, "You know what? I want to be the Kelsey of, blah." And then I'm like, "You know what? There's only one Kelsey, and there's only one Pop." There's only one of, you know, the people out there. Shouldn't be used to advocate that you're with this person, or this person. But what do you say to those people that say, "I want to be just like you."
- I mean, so the first thing is, thank you. Because typically what they mean by that is, "I like what you're doing. At least the parts that I can see." That part is very important. The parts that you see, you think you like. And so when people say that, the first thing I try to do is say, thank you, because these are the people who support you. They help you be or get to where you are. So that's the first thing. But then the second thing, it's a deeper conversation, is to say, but you're the first you. There's only one of you. And I get it. We should be taking inspiration from everywhere. But I think we've got to make sure though, is that we don't just glorify people who have the biggest follower accounts. We don't glorify the people who have the most views on YouTube. Those aren't the only people deserving of respect and to be studied. Because if you want to play the money game, most of the historical figures didn't have money. And I bet while they were alive, people probably didn't have the same amount of admiration that we do for them today. It's who we think they are, is what we admire. And so I tell people, there is something about you that is super special, because there has to be, there's literally only one you. And I think you got to make sure that you figure out who that person is, because honestly you got to respect that person too. I don't want you to have more respect for me than you have for yourself. That's the part that's dangerous to me. It's not just about hero worship and all this. There's so many people who study the psychology of this. The thing I would worry about the most in that equation, you got to respect yourself more than you respect me, because then you'll eat right. You'll sleep on time. You'll do what's right for you. Forget what Kelsey says. If Kubernetes is dumb to you, because you have a better way of doing something, please do that. And honestly, if you do that, then we have something to discuss. You can say, oh, Kelsey, I know you've been talking about this, but let me show you something different. We need that. So I would encourage people to make sure that you find a way to admire yourself. There's nothing wrong with that. Now this is very different than having an ego, and walking around like you're much better than everybody else. I don't know who said the phrase, but I heard it from time to time. You're no better than anyone else. And no one is better than you. And if you keep that, then I think you can then grow and have balance.
- No doubt.
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- Well, listen, Kelsey. I want to move on to something and that's the R&B. But before we do this. Since the last interview, it's been eating at me. Okay. I have a question for you. We all know the Hard Way, everybody talks about Kelsey and the Hard Way and stuff like this. Look. I love me some Jim Kelly, Fred Williamson, you know what I'm saying? Did you name it after Three the Hard Way? This was eating at me. I had it on my thing. The list of questions to ask you. When you said the Hard Way, there's this movie called Three the Hard Way. And this is where, right here, it's going to show. I'll have a flash up that shows that. Did you name it after Three the Hard Way? Or was it something else?
- Actually, there's a couple of things. So yes, I saw that movie. If you haven't, there's a whole genre of these, seem like Kung Fu pit movies and they fall in this category and they're fun to watch.
- Black Belt Jones? Remember that one? Fantastic.
- Exactly. Dolomite. There's a bunch of these. And you know, these are pretty fun. It's like, Hey, can we have some fun in some of these movies to try to, you know- some of them were just spoofs on Kung Fu films back in the day as well. But that was also kind of my mind. But actually, and I forget the person that did them. There was a person who did something called Python the Hard Way. And we should go figure out his name. But I remember, I thought that was the coolest way. Because back then when I was learning all of this stuff, there were books you could buy at the store. There was this official documentation. But what he realized was that, you know what? People really need to know everything. There's more detail here. So he made this thing called Python the Hard Way. And I remember going through that, I was like, oh, this is the stuff no one ever talks about. It was like a living document, right? He was very careful not to just say, Hey, here's the book and call it done. He just kept evolving it. And I think there were others, like C the Hard Way and other things the Hard Way. And I'm pretty sure that was in the back of my mind when I named it Kubernetes the Hard Way, because I wanted to make sure- Everybody focuses on one click and the easy way. But sometimes I think the best thing to do is show people how it really works.
- And I'll link to that again, but we'll have a link to Python the Hard Way and all the other ones, when we put the episode up. So Kelsey, we talked about this last time you were on, we talked about rap and we segued a bit into R&B, right? We talked about SWV. We talked about some of this, but listen, I was thinking about this. I was like, what's the lead thing I want to talk about first? I was thinking, here's a song, remember Ghetto Jam by Domino? How good was that song? Let's talk about our favorites from back in the day, in terms of R&B. Let's talk about it.
- I was in Long Beach, California. And you brought up Domino specifically. That was the first time that I ever heard, what I thought was a rapper doing R&B. So this would be like Drake today, back then, right? So you hear this smooth vibe. These songs used to drop in the summertime, right? So that way you can just be out chilling, slow down, relax and enjoy the world around you. But the thing that's special about R&B, and again, all music tends to put us in a different mood, right? That soundtrack to our life. I remember I moved from Long Beach, California to Atlanta and my now wife, we met in high school and we had a break in between, but I met her in tenth grade. And I remember, I just thought I was the best thing since sliced bread in tenth grade, you couldn't tell me nothing. I remember I had one of my friends. I said, Hey man, go get her number. I can't even say it with a straight face! And then I remember he walks over there. I don't know what he said exactly. But you can see the lips moving. It's like, Hey, Kelsey wants your number. Like I'm some underboss or something weird. And he comes back with the number. And so now this is my girlfriend. Her name is Clarissa. And I remember we were dating. And I'm a sentimental person. So I used to make these little, you know, I don't know if y'all remember this in high school, they had the school store. You can go in there and you can send flowers to someone. You can buy a few pencils, you know, you can do something to make someone's day pretty special. It's just run by the students. Right there, connected to the cafeteria. And I remember I was like, that stuff is like at inflated prices though, Kelsey finna go to the Walmart and put together something. So I remember buying this little gift bag and I put in her favorite candy, got to put the little bear and you got to put the little balloon, but I said, You know what? I'm about to switch it up 100%. So it was 11:00 at night and I'm in Atlanta. And this is when, I think it's called, I don't know, like the Quiet Storm or something like that. So this is when you can call. Because number one, ain't nobody really listening to the radio at that time. So the disc jockey is talking, and you can do call-ins. Now you gotta remember we're still in tape decks. This is '97. We still got the tape deck. Some of y'all don't know about the tape deck. We ain't burning CDs yet. At least I wasn't.
- We'll have a link. We'll have a link in the description about what cassettes are, everyone.
- Got it. So I'm listening to the radio and I call in and I'm like, Hey, I want to hear Aliyah's "One in a Million". And I want to dedicate it to Clarissa. And I had hit record before I'm on the phone, just waiting. And when they picked up, you can hear yourself coming out of the radio, you know, while you're on the phone. So I hit the button and I'm recording and I'm having this conversation. "I want to hear Aliyah's One in a Million and I want to dedicate it to Clarissa." And he says, all right, we got you. And they played a song and I keep the recording going. Then I stop. I take the tape deck out and I put it in the basket, and I bring my Walkman to school. So in the morning, you know, you get to school, everybody's in the cafeteria waiting for the bell to ring.
- We got to sidebar. Everyone who doesn't know. A Walkman is where you played cassettes.
- So it's like an iPod, but for cassette tapes.
- God, we're old.
- We're old. So I go into the cafeteria and she's there. If you know, everyone's been to high school, but hopefully you had some friends in high school, and we did. And you had these little cliques. And she was sitting down with her friends at the table. So I brought her the little gift bag, and I brought the Walkman out. I was like, you know, I want you to listen. So she put the headphones on and hit play, and you could suddenly hear my voice. Like you hear the radio station. So everyone was excited. Like, oh my God, Kelsey was on the radio! And you hear the disc jockey talking to me. And I was like, I want to put a request in and I want to play "One in a Million" and the song plays. And that became our song. So she just walked around all day. "Girl, you got to hear this!" and people said, "Oh my God! Kelsey's on the radio! And he taped it for you!" So I was like the man for a month. Everybody else's boyfriend was like, yo Kelsey, you raised the bar. And so R&B is just this thing where you get to express how you feel. And typically most R&B songs zoom you back to that place where you just want to feel love. You want to feel happy. Because I think sometimes in our normal society, practicing love is awkward. You know what I mean? Some people are like, yo, I don't want no hugs. Or, you know, it sounds too cheesy. But when you throw that R&B on, you have permission.
- Yep. Teleport allows engineers and security professionals to unify access for SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, web applications, and databases across all environments. You can download Teleport right now at goteleport.com. That's goteleport.com. I was thinking about it. I think we talked a little bit about this too. It's like Boys II Men, you know they got over-saturated a lot. We all know that, right? But though that album, like "The End of the Road" went on it. I mean, that was literally, like you said, the soundtrack of my youth. That was constant, constant. Like just incredible.
- And it's about getting dressed too. Like for that school dance, you know it's tomorrow, you laid a whole outfit on the bed. You put the shoes underneath, even. You'd be like, "Aw, I'm gonna kill 'em." All so you can get that dance. All you wanted was that dance. And when that song came on, like "The End of the Road", oooo!
- That was it. The night was it.
- It's over, you're married now. If you dance to that song, that's pretty much an engagement.
- Kelsey, I'm gonna ask you the last question, man. Since we last talked, what are you most proud of?
- You know what? I am most proud of recognizing my own growth. When you're in the thick of this, you don't realize how far you've come. You hear the comparisons. People will write positive stuff about you. Sometimes people write negative stuff about you, but at some point you get to stop. And I think the pandemic for me offered me a lot more time. No flights, no where to get to. You're still busy, but it's amazing how much time you get back, not being inside of an airport. And so the biggest accomplishment is understanding who I am and who I want to be. Because just like the earlier question, I also have people that I was looking up to and wanted to pattern myself after. And looking back on this reflection, I think I just want to pattern myself after Kelsey. I know who I am. And people will give you all kinds of advice. "Kelsey, you should be... Kelsey, you should be doing..." The truth is, I wouldn't be me if I only follow everybody else's advice on this. I can't even really put into words how empowering that is. Because at that point now, I had pretty good confidence coming into this year. Coming out of it, I really feel like this is the thing that's going to give me the next boost. It's going to be my key to sustainability in those next chapters that I've yet to write. So that's my biggest accomplishment, right? Because everything else is transitory, right? Every product feature we ship, there's a roadmap full of additional ones. The thing that's going to help me get those things done, all of them, is this part, this reflection of self. And so that's what I'm most proud of.
- Okay. I'll say it again. I'm honored to have you back. You're the only, and this is the only person who's been asked to return on the POPcast for very specific, very special reasons. You're very special to me. You're special to everybody in the community. And I appreciate you coming back to be on the POPcast again. Thank you so much.
- Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. ♪ ♪