CTO Wisdom with David Bachowski | Beyond the Program

Hey, listeners, Tim Winkler here, your host of The Pair Program.

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Enjoy.

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Eric Brooke: Welcome to CTO Wisdom.

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My name is Eric Brooke.

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This series will talk to leaders

of technology at organizations.

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We'll understand their career, what

was successful and what was not,

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and what they learned along the way.

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We'll also look at what the

tech market is doing today.

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We'll understand where they gather

their intelligence so they can grow

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and scale with their organizations.

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Welcome to David Bachowski, who

we'll be chatting with today.

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Hey David.

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Hey, how's it going?

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Great.

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Thanks, man.

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Tell us about yourself.

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What's your elevator pitch?

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David Bachowski: I am the CTO

at a healthcare recruitment firm

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called Trusted Nurse Staffing.

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We're about 140 people, 10

of which are technology.

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So we're essentially a services company

with technology embedded within it.

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And here I was the first technology

hire about a year and a half ago.

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Eric Brooke: Awesome.

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Could you tell us a little bit about

your journey to becoming an exec, like

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when you're an engineer or developer?

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David Bachowski: Yeah, so I went to

school for electrical engineering at

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the University of Buffalo, and during

that time I was playing guitar and

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bass in some popular local bands.

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And when I graduated, my girlfriend

moved to Chicago and I was kind of

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presented with the classic 90s movie.

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Do I stay with the band or do I

move, you know, do I choose the

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girlfriend in, uh, in Chicago?

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And I chose the band and a plot twist.

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But after about eight months,

um, I was like, all right,

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it's time to have an adventure.

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And I actually ended up moving to Chicago.

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In that process, I realized it was

super hard to basically start an entire

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teaching guitar and bass business.

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All the stores there were

already full of teachers.

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I don't know anyone, like, absolutely

no one besides my girlfriend.

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So I, like, brought out my

electrical engineering degree and

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dusted it off and I was like, okay,

gotta finally start using this.

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And I thought through it a little

bit and was, like, thinking

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through all the classes I took in

college and trying to figure out

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what exactly did I actually like.

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And none of it was the

electrical engineering classes.

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It was actually the programming

classes that were my favorite.

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And so I made it my mission.

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I'm like, I'm going to

get a programming job.

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And I applied to like 200

jobs on Monster and Indeed and

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stuff and got zero responses.

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Um, my wife or my girlfriend, who's

my wife now also had given me like

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one month to start paying rent there.

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So I was kind of like chomping

at the bit to find a job.

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And then a job listing came up that

was programming mobile video games.

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And all of my cover letters and

Applications prior to that point

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have been very professional.

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I was like using the standard professional

language and doing the things that you're

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supposed to do as a business person.

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And finally, for once in this journey,

I had actually been myself and I wrote a

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cover letter to the head dude in charge.

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Asking, like, I'll work for money,

free candy and soda and just, you

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know, like, give a chance, you know.

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Give a chance on me.

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And they actually pulled me in for an

interview and I ended up getting the job

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programming mobile video games, which was

my first entry into the technical world.

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Awesome.

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Eric Brooke: What, um, so like walk

us through the rest of your career.

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So you're an engineer now

you're working in mobile game.

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What happens next?

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David Bachowski: Yeah, so a large

theme throughout my career has

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been my personal core value.

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My number 1 core value is adventure.

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So something happens or triggers

and I want to go do something new.

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So like, that's kind of why I'm probably

in this position is because I get

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to do different things all the time.

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So after three years in Chicago,

about three and a half years, my

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wife and I were talking and we

decided we wanted to move to Europe.

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We had no idea how we were looking

into visas and her grandfather

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was Italian, but not from Italy.

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So we're just like

trying to figure it out.

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And we made a timeline for ourselves.

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We said, in 6 months, we're moving to

Europe and we're going to figure out how.

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And I was like, what do I do about my job?

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And my dad, I talked to my dad about it.

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He's like, you cannot tell your job.

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Now you have to wait, you know,

you have to have a stable job.

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You can't tell them.

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And I'm like, I'm going to tell my boss.

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I just.

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You know, I feel that feels right to me.

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And so 1 night I stayed

late at the office.

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It was a video game company.

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So everyone stayed late most of the time.

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Um, but I brought over a couple of drinks,

stayed with my, uh, with the owner and

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chatted and told him I was leaving the

company in 6 months to move to Europe.

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And instead of being a problem, it

actually turned into a conversation.

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We end up spending a late night

at the bar, hashing out details.

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He had.

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A connection to the UK.

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And he said, why don't we open up a second

office in the UK and you can go lead it.

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And so we went on this journey where I

got a sole representative visa, opened

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up a business in the UK, moved there

without ever having been there, uh, moved

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to London, had to source office space.

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I got a new title, like VP of business

development, whatever that meant.

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It was just cool to have

a VP title in your 20s.

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Uh, but I ended up being basically

a lead programmer, a hiring

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manager, an office manager.

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I heard about 15 people

there started an office.

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I was also doing business development,

going to conferences, and trying to

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source a business, running a P& L.

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Uh, trying to create a profitable

business over there and just worked my

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tail off basically while I was there.

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Eric Brooke: Obviously, from my accent,

I've spent some time in Britain.

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Um, I'm kind of curious, what was it like,

um, like coming from Chicago, America, and

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then going over to the UK at that time?

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David Bachowski: It was a

culture shock in a lot of ways.

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Um, you know, you don't really

understand your own country and your own

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culture until you live outside of it.

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And so it really brought me closer in a

lot of ways to who, what an American is.

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Cause I grew up in Buffalo and, you know,

my family was part Polish and part German.

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And you're like, Oh, you

know, we're Polish and German.

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And the people over there, they're Irish.

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And you think that you're so different.

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And then you go there and you're

like, Oh no, we're all American.

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Every American that's over here,

you could just point them out

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because they're, you know, they're

on the tube being super loud.

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And you're like, oh, here

comes some Americans.

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But it also makes you super

fiercely loyal to yourself, too.

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You know, you're like, oh,

well, yeah, we're American.

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That's who we are.

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And so it creates this kind of love

hate relationship with your country.

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We're like.

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Certain things really annoy

you, but you know, they also

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endear you at the same time.

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Eric Brooke: Awesome.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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So you're a VP, you're in

the UK, what happens next?

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David Bachowski: Yeah.

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So it turns out starting a

business is really easy and

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running a business is really hard.

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And there was not really a

point to us being in the UK

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from a business perspective.

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It was cheaper to do things in Chicago.

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The pound was more powerful.

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It was like 1.

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65 exchange rate at the time.

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So after two years, we kind of

just like closed up shop and

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it wasn't really a good fit.

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And I ended up moving back to

Buffalo, my hometown, and got

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a real management position.

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Because up until that point,

management was just something that

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I did in between the other things.

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It wasn't a career.

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I didn't even think of it as a career

or just something to keep the lights on.

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So I wasn't doing one on ones.

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I wasn't thinking about

employee growth at all.

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It was get the business done.

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And at I joined a company called

Harris and I had a VP of engineering

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at the time Ryan lit and he was a

really great mentor for me coming in

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there and taught me about, you know,

like, how to actually have direct

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reports and step away from coding and.

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And project management got

certified as a agile practitioner

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and all kinds of stuff there.

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Learn got my project management shops

up and various management shops.

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Eric Brooke: Cool.

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What would you say, um, in the

transition from being I know you

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went from kind of engineer VP.

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Um, back to kind of engineering

management, but what would you

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say is different between, say,

an individual contributor as

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an engineer to being a manager?

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You mentioned a couple of them,

but what were the things that

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maybe you struggled with most?

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David Bachowski: Stepping away, I

think, you know, releasing control, you

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know, as a engineer, you have mainly

full control over what you deploy.

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And you want to make sure that

everything that you do has a clear

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cut, you know, this is the input.

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This is the output.

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And I'm in control that I release

my code and yeah, maybe we have

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pure reviews and stuff, but for

the most part, I'm in full control.

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When you're dealing with people, you don't

have any control over anything they do

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beyond the fact that you're the boss, but

it's, it's less of telling them what to do

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and more of how do I convince these people

that this is the right way to do it?

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How do I prove my worth or have them

trust me that what I'm saying is

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actually something worthwhile to do?

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And so it turned less, uh, less of a

hard, I can make computer do what I want

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computer to do into how do I convince

a team of people that this is the right

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direction that we're supposed to be going.

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Eric Brooke: So you went from a control

journey to an influence journey.

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David Bachowski: Yeah.

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Eric Brooke: Yeah, that'd be

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David Bachowski: a

great way of putting it.

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Eric Brooke: Cool.

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Okay.

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So your manager, what was it like?

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Did you get to a point where

you're managing managers?

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David Bachowski: Not in that position.

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Okay.

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Uh, I said a theme of my life was

adventure after 3 or 4 years there.

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We decided we wanted to

move to New York City.

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Now, um, it was better

for my wife's art career.

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She's an artist.

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So, um, but like, let's

go to New York City.

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The big city, you know, can't

get any bigger than that.

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And in the United States, I ended up.

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A friend, I found a friend of a friend

in New York City that I started keeping

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in touch with who was a software engineer

and I think it was Sunday morning.

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He texted me or email me and

said, there's a job conference

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in New York City on Monday.

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I think you should go to and it's Sunday.

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And I'm like, okay, I just bought my

plane ticket and I called my boss and

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told him I need to take off the next day.

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And he was very understanding.

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You already kind of knew.

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Um, what was going on?

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And so I bought a plane ticket that day,

flew there, researched every company

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that was going to be at this thing and

found anyone that had a VP of engineering

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or director of engineering type role

because I wanted to take that next step.

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And so most of the positions

they were actually advertising

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were engineering positions.

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They were like, junior to senior software

engineers, and no 1 was advertising VPs.

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But I just researched and wrote down

the 10 companies that had VP roles

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available, and I went and go and talk to

each of those things at this conference.

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And got a couple interviews.

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So, uh, one of them ended up,

uh, interviewing me later.

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I think they actually flew

me out again that next week.

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And I ended up getting a VP of

engineering position at a social

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media analytics startup doing

big data, totally different tech.

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Everything was wildly different

than anything I'd ever done.

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I was used to doing like dips and

boops, 64 kilobyte mobile phone games.

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And now I'm dealing with Uh,

terabytes and petabytes of data in

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the cloud with distributed systems

and graph theory and data science

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and new programming languages.

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It's pretty cool.

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It was very intimidating, to be honest.

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Eric Brooke: How did you cope with that?

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Like, it's a huge technology

journey to travel.

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How did you get yourself to

the place you needed to be?

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David Bachowski: I dove in, you know,

like, if you put yourself in the

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fire, you have to kind of rise out

of it or you're going to get burnt.

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So, um, this was at this point.

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Now I'm managing managers.

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And the really interesting, I dove

myself into the problem that I think

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the company had, which was how do you

deliver effective software that meets

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the needs of your customers, right?

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It's like just the product, the

product journey, how do you, but

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how do you form teams and do it?

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And, uh, I didn't want to do the

typical scrum thing because scrum

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to me had a bad name at that point.

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I had not had a great experience with it.

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I felt it was very prescriptive.

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Didn't leave room for a lot of

creativity, at least in my experience of

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it and our implementation we had done.

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So I ended up moving to like,

I was in charge of product.

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Well, I guess I should include

the CTO after hiring me quit

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within a month of me joining and I

ended up getting promoted to CTO.

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So that was my 1st.

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Hey, you're a VP of engineering.

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Now you're the CTO, which

changed nothing besides my title.

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Kind of funny how little titles

mean in some ways, but at this

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point I'm trying to figure out like.

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Let's broaden the time scope of how

we deliver into quarters instead of

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2 week sprints and I was hoping that

this would create room for creativity.

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And so we gave a problem and a

theme to a team that was like,

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okay, you're going to work on.

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Improving this aspect of the product,

like usability in our metrics, uh, go

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find the problems that exist in these

metrics, talk to our customers, talk

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to different people in the company,

find these problems and solve them.

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You have a quarter to do it.

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You know, this other team is, you

know, working on a brand new products.

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Go research how to do it, talk to

product managers and figure out

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what you're you're going to do.

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So we had 3 lanes of 3 different teams.

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Working on different themes, uh, problems.

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And so for me, that was really fun.

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Like here I get to now it's like one level

abstracted up from being an influencer.

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Now you're like influencing

and managing how a company, um,

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uh, deploys its resources to

accomplish its mission, right.

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And coaching managers on how

to then manage their people.

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Eric Brooke: So in that journey

from control to influence,

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you've taken another big step.

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Well, probably several steps at

the same time in terms of now

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you're managing through managers.

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Were there any kind of moments in that

journey that you either kind of figured

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out or that you failed and then figured

out in terms of managing managers?

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David Bachowski: Yeah.

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I mean, I think who you hire and

promote is probably the number

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one thing that a manager does.

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Now, unless you're a man, a CTO with, and

you're the only person in the technical

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company, and you haven't hired anyone who

you bring in really defines your culture.

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So promoting the wrong people

into a management role can

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really poison the team.

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But that can be a really big

issue and something I learned.

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But promoting the right person

can also allow them to grow and.

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Do great things for your company.

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So that was something that I had to

learn the hard way, other things.

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And at this, I think the next job I had

a light bulb went off at some point.

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I was working as the CTO

for a real estate firm.

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So it wasn't a technology company.

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Uh, again, it was, uh, this

one was, was a services company

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with a technology component.

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And I remember thinking to

myself, I wish that I had a team.

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To work on this problem And it

was, I don't know, some sort of

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data problem inside the company

and then something clicked and I

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was like, I'm the CTO like wishes.

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It's like that.

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No one's the owners of the company

are not going to come to me and

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be like, Hey, Dave, do you have

any wishes to spend more money?

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I heard in your thoughts that

you want a team to do something.

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And so, like, instead of waiting

for things to come to me now, I was.

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Something switched where like, Oh, I

have the power now to do the things

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the way that I want to do them.

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And so I put a pitch together to

the owners and then said like, Hey,

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here's the team I want to build.

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Here's why we're going to do it.

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Here's the business case.

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And let's basically start a new business

line inside of here and it worked and

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we hired a team and we started building

a product, which ultimately failed.

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But the good thing to me was

like, I started to think that it

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switched my mind to being more

proactive instead of reactive.

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And that was a, I had to remind myself

multiple times in my journey after that

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point, even that I had to keep doing that.

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I think I'm a little bit better

at it now, but I still have to

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remind myself sometimes that I

have the power to change things.

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Eric Brooke: Yeah, I hear on that.

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So what would you say success

looks like and what has helped

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you be successful in your journey?

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David Bachowski: Personally, um, finding

and recognizing your core values and

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sticking to those I think is probably

the thing that leads to the most success.

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Being an authentic self and finding

companies that share those core

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values, um, I've, I've worked in some

companies that do in some companies

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that don't, and the most successful

ones are the ones where, you know,

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like, they're the most aligned.

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And hiring people, so, like, you

want to hire a diverse talent.

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But I think at the core, you still want

some of those core values to be there.

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Like, you don't necessarily, if your

company is very tightly controlled,

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uh, you don't want to hire people that

are chaotic and need, need freedom

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to, you know, like break things

like that's just going to clash.

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If you're a chaotic freewheeling company,

you don't want to hire tight control

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people because they're going to freak

out, you know, like we're moving too fast.

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And so personally, like having adventure

and honesty and loyalty and like really

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caring about people really playing

to those has helped me in my journey

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and not being afraid to take risks.

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So like telling my boss that I'm

going to quit in 6 months ended up

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being the opportunity that brought

me overseas and like this amazing,

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cool opportunity to start a company.

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And so risk taking has always been

something that's been core to me.

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And I bring that to the business side too.

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We have a super small team here.

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A few engineers, product manager, some

designers, some folks, we can't compete.

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With really big players, billion

dollar companies in our space, but we

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can take big risks on new technology.

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So instead of trying to, for example.

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Replicate what Salesforce does or

replicate what our competitors do,

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we can instead find a niche and

push the boundaries in a small space

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and provide something that none

of our competitors are building

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to draw some of our new customers.

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And like, okay, well,

trusted is the only brand.

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That allows me to do this thing

or that provides this data for me,

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so I'm going to stick with them.

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Eric Brooke: Yeah, um, you talked

about your core values and, um, you

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talked about adventure, honesty,

taking risks and being authentic.

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Have you been able to bring, say, like

a venture to your work life as well?

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David Bachowski: Yeah, um, one

of my favorite quotes is by an

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author of The Little Prince, St.

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Antoine Exbury.

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I probably butchered his name.

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But he said something along the lines

of if you want to build a ship, don't

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drum up people to collect wood and

teach them tasks, but rather teach

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them the long for the endless sea.

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And so that kind of idea that

if you provide a vision over

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here, To me, that's adventure.

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You know, like strategy is adventure.

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Like, how do we get to this thing?

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And people will figure

out ways to get there.

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And so I try to hire people

that I don't have to push.

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I hate being a person who

pushes people into places.

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I like to, I love to hire people that run.

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And the only thing you're doing is

actually pulling them back and saying,

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like, oh, hey, it's in this direction

and then it makes it a lot easier on me.

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I have to do a lot less work,

but I can then focus my time

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on, you know, like, what is that

next adventure for our company?

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What is the strategy that we

should be pursuing to get there?

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And so a couple of times, or basically

every company that I've been in since

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that CTO role, I've tried to put

together roadmaps that are story driven

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roadmaps over delivery driven roadmaps.

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Because like, anyone can say, this

quarter we're going to deliver this

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feature, it's a technical debt feature.

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And this next quarter we're going

to deliver this feature, and

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it's going to help us do metrics.

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And this feature is going to

do this and you're just looking

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at a timeline of stuff, right?

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There's no, if the team working on metrics

looks at that, they're like, oh, cool.

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Yeah, we're going to deliver everything

in Q2, but it means nothing to them.

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Beyond it's going to make maybe the

product better, maybe increase in

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sales or something, but if instead

you reframe your roadmap into a story

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driven roadmap where every feature

that you're working on empowers you

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to make a new feature or capability.

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And then that new feature and capability

allows you to make yet another one.

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And you put the end goal,

which might be like real time.

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Notifications for so and so, you

know, like some pie in the sky thing.

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It kind of provides this roadmap into.

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What the end goal is and give

someone a person on the team, someone

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in another part of the company

access into your line of thinking.

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I'm like, where are we going?

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Why are we doing this?

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It's no longer what and when it's now.

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Why?

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And I think that why is

super important for roadmaps.

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Um, and I don't I haven't seen a lot

of people do that in my career, but

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people like stories, you know, and they

will gravitate towards those stories.

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So, even if I'm presenting to the

rest of the company at a town hall

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or something, I will try to present

things in a cohesive story of, like,

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this is why we're doing this thing.

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And this is where it's going

to lead in 5 years from now.

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Eric Brooke: Yeah, why is so important?

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Yeah, sometimes it's forgotten.

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So is there something as a CTO

you're trying to figure out at this

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moment or that you've started a new

journey that you're willing to share?

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Yeah,

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David Bachowski: my current position

is my favorite position I've ever had.

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And, um, you know, if my boss

is listening to this, thank you.

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You know, like, I'm just buttering you up.

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But it's given me the opportunity

to do things in the business space

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that I've never been able to.

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So for the most part, I've

always been the tech person.

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And I'd be brought into like, I've

done sales calls and like, I'll go

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on sales calls and help be the, a lot

of times it's kind of on sales calls.

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I'm the, the, not the

play by play announcer.

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I'm the person on the sports caster who

like, someone's doing the play by play.

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And then the next person comes in

and describes what was happening.

443

So a lot of times I'll go into sales

calls and someone will do like, here's

444

what the data shows, and then I come

in and give like a couple examples of

445

like how that applies to their business.

446

And so I've been a little

bit involved in sales.

447

And the business, but here, um, Martin, my

CEO brings me into a lot of conversations

448

that have nothing to do with technology.

449

So, how do we structure a recruitment

org and the healthcare staffing?

450

How do we structure compensation?

451

Um, how do we, you know, as a,

as a whole business, what should

452

our strategy be going forward?

453

And right now we're looking at potentially

starting or acquiring a business line.

454

Um, we staff nurses and allied workers.

455

Thank you.

456

But we want to be able to staff doctors.

457

So being brought into that conversation

and, you know, looking at potential

458

M& A opportunities, looking at

financials, digging into like

459

business plans is something that I've

never been able to really utilize

460

in any positions that I've been in.

461

So, you know, it's, it's really

interesting being in these

462

conversations and being the tech

person and just being like, what's

463

your business development plan?

464

You know, but if I think if you approach

this stuff from first principles and you

465

just think like what makes sense, it's not

too hard to figure some of this stuff out.

466

And so, you know, like, I

don't necessarily want to be

467

sitting in tech all the time.

468

It's awesome that I can be in

these conversations and help with

469

the overall company strategy.

470

Eric Brooke: Awesome.

471

What does your interaction

with the exec look like?

472

What have you learned, not just

for this job, but other roles

473

where you've been an executive?

474

And what would you say is the difference

from, like, being, say, before you

475

became exec to when you now exec?

476

David Bachowski: There's a

lot of different personalities

477

in the executive world.

478

There are personalities where people, um,

I guess I'll call it more old school, um,

479

waterfall ish, like, I want a deadline.

480

I want this thing.

481

Tell me when this thing

is going to get delivered.

482

Uh, and I need hard feature sets.

483

And those are hard to deal with

in the software world because

484

everything has moved to this agile,

you don't know what you're going to

485

get until you get it type of world.

486

So being able to kind of.

487

Brain, what's your, your agile place

in a way where you can actually get

488

some deadlines that you can promote

to someone is part of a job of a CTO.

489

I think, like, just how do we manipulate

this information into a way that presents

490

it to you in the way that you want it.

491

And some people are just super cool

with, like, Hey, here's our roadmap.

492

We're working on this problem.

493

I don't know when it's going to get

delivered, but if you foster trust,

494

I think that becomes a lot easier

with those types of executives.

495

We deliver our software, we deliver

good features, people like it.

496

And then to me, it's very successful.

497

People are not asking about deadlines

because you've just engendered trust

498

that we deliver things on a regular

cadence and we deliver the right things.

499

So there's like multiple, I guess,

personalities that you end up

500

dealing with, um, but for the most

part, I think some of the, you're

501

always trying to frame what you're

doing from a technology standpoint.

502

Into a story that they understand.

503

Eric Brooke: So a lot of translation

from say, technology, technical to

504

financial, technical, business, technical,

505

David Bachowski: right?

506

Yeah.

507

The, ever since I was a manager at Harris,

like 15 years ago or so, we've always

508

tried to embed ourselves in the minds of

the customers and really foster empathy.

509

So I, for example, sit

with our recruitment team,

510

probably four hours a week.

511

And I just do my work next to them

and I hear their conversations

512

as they're talking to nurses.

513

They're more, they know my face now.

514

They're like, they're more likely

to come over to me and ask me

515

questions and talk about the product.

516

And I asked the same thing out of

all my staff as well to go sit with

517

people or have conversations with them.

518

And really get to understand their

business so that we don't constantly

519

have to pepper them questions or we

already intuitively know some of the

520

answers and it breaks down some of that

communication, um, friction because

521

you're already kind of like, like one

of my companies I did, uh, cold calling.

522

So I was like, I don't know exactly

what we sell that well, and the

523

best way for me to understand

what we sell is to go sell it.

524

And I actually, I picked

Buffalo as a city.

525

No 1 was covering it.

526

And I started trying to, uh, raise, uh,

talk to real estate developers to raise

527

money for their large commercial projects.

528

And I very quickly realized 2 things.

529

1 cold calling is very hard

and nervous and nerve wracking.

530

And two, I realized that I knew

nothing about what our business

531

was and I started to learn it.

532

They would ask questions and I'd

write them down very quickly, you

533

know, after the third cold caller.

534

So you're talking with different

people about the business side of

535

things and you're understanding

your business a lot better.

536

And you're making tools from a technology

standpoint that make your cold calling

537

easier, which will then make your sales

people's cold calling easier as well.

538

Eric Brooke: I love the, um, the

breaking down of boundaries between

539

you and customer service and for

sales because it really does.

540

Get us back to what we should

be doing, building product,

541

building things for our customers.

542

Um, and I hear you about the cold

calling that is, I've done it myself.

543

It's kind of like you learn a lot of

what you don't know pretty quickly.

544

David Bachowski: Yeah.

545

Eric Brooke: Um, and one for one technique

I've used is from domain driven design.

546

You know, the ubiquitous

language building a dictionary.

547

If the organization doesn't have a

dictionary when I'm doing fractional

548

work, that's the first thing I do.

549

Just what are all the words associated?

550

And you learn a lot from that journey.

551

David Bachowski: Right.

552

Yeah.

553

A bunch of acronyms that people

are throwing around and they're

554

like, Oh yeah, the SDRs.

555

And you're like, what does that mean?

556

Eric Brooke: Okay.

557

Um, Dave, what are you seeing in the

wider technical market at the moment?

558

at this point to give people

559

context, but what are you seeing?

560

David Bachowski: Well, I mean, clearly the

buzzword around the days right now is AI.

561

So I think AI is enabling our

company to do a lot of things

562

that we wouldn't be able to do.

563

We're taking, even me personally, I'm

taking some things that would take me

564

weeks and now they're taking me days.

565

To do with ai, you know, like just chat,

chat, GPT and like you can just create

566

custom courses or custom code for, um,

a Hello world and a different framework

567

that you would have to search for and

wouldn't give you exactly what you needed.

568

Uh, and we're starting to embed some

of that AI stuff into our product

569

as well, which you would've had to,

you know, hire hundreds of people

570

to create descriptions of cities.

571

And now you can ask chat GPT

to do it in, in an API call.

572

You know, you spend a couple of

weeks building that and now you

573

have a new feature in your app.

574

I don't think we've touched,

even scratched the surface of

575

what AI is going to bring to us.

576

So I'm really kind of excited

to see where all of this goes.

577

Um, I don't, I'm not a pest,

I'm not an AI pessimist.

578

I don't think that it's

coming for our jobs per se.

579

I think it's really enabling us to do

new things and giving us, it's like, I

580

think someone on my team Heard a podcast

where someone mentioned compared it

581

to power tools, like prior to power

tools, um, it would be really hard to

582

build a table, but now any Joe Schmo

with a, a power tool can build a table.

583

It might not look great, you know,

it might not be that best table,

584

but it's pretty easy to do that now.

585

And I think AI is kind

of doing the same thing.

586

It's democratizing the landscape

on what people are able to do.

587

And I'm just personally

pretty excited about it.

588

Awesome.

589

Eric Brooke: Um, what's helped you

grow throughout your career, um, or

590

helps you grow in scale now, like

podcasts, books, people, what are the

591

things that really, really helped you?

592

David Bachowski: Mentors

personally, I don't read any books

593

that I read or fantasy books.

594

I don't like to read nonfiction

and if it doesn't have wizards or

595

dragons or something in it, I'm

not probably not picking it up.

596

So, uh, to me, it's finding

people in the business world.

597

There's a pretty decent

startup scene in Buffalo.

598

So I keep in touch with people that

have run businesses and try to have

599

coffee with them and reach out to them.

600

Um, there's, there's a good, like.

601

Buffalo Open Coffee Club meets

every week and you can go to that

602

and just meet other founders or

other people in the startup scene.

603

I was very active in the startup scene

when I previously lived in Buffalo.

604

I was a volunteer for a non

profit Infotech, Western New York.

605

So I was helping to organize events

and like getting embedded in the

606

community and acting as kind of

like a profit shield for some of

607

these people that didn't have 501s.

608

And so just talking to people.

609

Is my favorite thing because

I'm a, I'm an extrovert.

610

I'm like, one of those, uh, I think

most people think of tech people

611

as introverts most of the time.

612

And I'm one of those people that's

just like, I need to talk to people.

613

Like, I'm just going to go

walk over to the sales team.

614

Hey, how's it going, guys?

615

You know, and probably love

to hear myself talk too much.

616

So, yeah, people.

617

Eric Brooke: Um, you've mentioned a

couple of things that you do for fun,

618

like you've talked about music, you've

talked about fantasy books, but what

619

else would you say that you do for fun?

620

David Bachowski: Yeah, I

have a life goals list.

621

And we put, I put that together

with my wife in my 20s, and

622

I continually revise it.

623

And 1 of them is to learn piano.

624

So I previously played guitar and bass,

and now I'm teaching myself piano.

625

A friend of mine had 1, and I ended

up getting it moved to my house.

626

I think my favorite thing in the world

right now is I have a four year old

627

daughter and she loves to sing and so if

I can just start jamming out some chords

628

in the piano and she comes over and starts

making up lyrics and singing to it, it

629

just kind of warms my heart because not

only is it an educational opportunity for

630

her to like, learn chord structure and

just like, it's super creative for her.

631

It's also just super fun.

632

It's like, yeah.

633

You know, as a parent, it warms

your heart when you see your child

634

doing creative things or having any

interest in any activity you do at

635

all is, is, uh, is a warming feeling.

636

Eric Brooke: That's great.

637

And are there types of musics

that you enjoy more than most?

638

David Bachowski: I've played in

bands that in probably every genre

639

I can think of besides country.

640

I don't think I played in a country

band, but I played in like a hip hop

641

band and R& B band, a big horn band.

642

I played video game music for a while.

643

I played in jazz bands.

644

I played in orchestras.

645

So like just tons of different

musical genres, which kind

646

of like I'm a generalist.

647

So, you know, like what I do at work is

very similar to what I do in music where

648

I'm not super, I'm not like the best

jazz player or the best classical player,

649

the best blues player or something.

650

But I can know enough to be

dangerous to fill in gaps or,

651

like, keep interest in something.

652

So right now, I'm going through

book one of Alfred's thing, and

653

I'm playing, like, chopsticks

and, you know, uh, random stuff.

654

And then I'm also playing jazz songs.

655

So I'm, like, going through

a fake book and learning.

656

Right now it's my Christmas tunes because

it's Christmas time, Christmas songs.

657

Eric Brooke: Dave, thank you very

much for your time and transparency.

658

It's been wonderful talking to you today.

659

Yeah, likewise.

660

Thanks a lot, Eric.

661

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662

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