Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome everyone to another edition of why it matters. I'm Tracy, Crohn's Zack
Speaker 2 00:00:13 And I'm Tim Lockie. Thanks for joining us. We're really excited for the guests that we have today. Um, and we're just gonna jump right in. Hi, Tracy, how are you doing? How's your week been?
Speaker 1 00:00:26 Yeah, I'm also super excited. We have a lot of stories to cover, so we're going to forgo our usual protracted intro where we poke fun at each other and get right into it.
Speaker 2 00:00:37 Yeah. Great. Uh, so this week we are joined by one of our really great friends. I would say, this is our stalwart guests. Would you, would you agree with
Speaker 1 00:00:46 Stalwart is such a great word, I guess today it really is like stalwart in that like rhinoceros kind of context, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:00:58 Did you know what that
Speaker 1 00:00:59 Means? Okay. Did you know the rhino was an early symbol of the LGBT movement because they are docile, however, extraordinarily vicious when provoked, and it seemed to make a good symbol for the early LGBT organizers in the seventies and eighties, particularly coming out of New York city. And I think that version of stalwart is what, what, what, uh, defines part of our guest.
Speaker 2 00:01:25 All right. Sounds great. Uh, yeah, I was thinking more penguin, but
Speaker 1 00:01:32 I've never thought of penguins once. I don't know where you're getting that from.
Speaker 2 00:01:36 I be either, it just came to me. It just came. So without further ado, we are very, very excited to have Ryan Ozbek from soapbox, engaged peak nets, Joomla like a like history upon history of Fon history, uh, joining us, Ryan, thanks so much. And welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 00:01:57 I'm stoked to be here. Thank you guys.
Speaker 2 00:02:01 We, um, we want to start with your history. Can you, can you give us, uh, just some of the high points because we do not have the amount of time it would take to really dive into your history, but so of the high points of your history with non-profits and technology.
Speaker 3 00:02:19 Oh shoot. Cause I was going to start with July 4th, 1977. And just from
Speaker 2 00:02:23 There,
Speaker 1 00:02:24 Wait, are you born? Are you born on the 4th of July?
Speaker 3 00:02:28 I, I can't be more all American than being born on the first anniversary. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:02:36 I saw that movie with Tom cruise. It was very,
Speaker 3 00:02:41 That's been my life. No, no. Luckily my life. Uh, yeah, no thank you guys for having me. And um, yeah, it's been a wild ride. I mean, you know, I, I tell folks, uh, so our company picnic has been around for, um, almost 21 years now. And people are like, wow, why don't you talk to me about it? Like that doesn't make any sense. Uh, and sometimes I think the same thing. Um, but yeah, the brief, the brief history is, uh, I did, uh, graduate school in public policy at UCLA while I was there. I was like, man, I'm paying my way through college and grad school by doing database consulting, which is like FileMaker pro old school stuff. I was like, oh man, this is great. I get to use the apple computers. I get to like make some money on the side and then try to in classroom actually paying attention.
Speaker 3 00:03:33 And I thought, well, wouldn't it be great if I could take like all this policy background and my passion for, um, technology and being somebody who was born and raised in Silicon valley, like do something with kind of the mashup of all of that together and back in grad school, me and one of my, my friends started picking that to be able to say, wouldn't it be fantastic to start a business that helped nonprofit organizations get the technology they need in an affordable fashion. So like go make the world a better place. And this was before, like there was a Twitter, there's a Facebook there's barely blogging. Like the web browser had come out,
Speaker 2 00:04:09 We're talking 2000, like, like right after the Y2K crisis. Right.
Speaker 1 00:04:15 I think that all we had was live journal back in that day,
Speaker 3 00:04:21 GeoCities, which obviously website like a home page somewhere that Yahoo gave you back in the day,
Speaker 1 00:04:29 Uh, earth link. And, uh, we also had Topica which yes, you know, Topica was great.
Speaker 3 00:04:37 Uh, and, and without going too far into it like this, probably some of our discussion today about community, uh, one of the things I did in high school in the bay area was actually take our high school newspaper and put it onto a bulletin board service in Silicon valley called the virtual valley, which was before the web. This is prior to the web. This is prior to America online. This is people. If you knew how to use a modem could connect to something and you go to the virtual valley. And I posted news postings from our high school newspaper, thinking that anybody care, I care, I thought it was the coolest thing that's ever happened. You know, the modem like that's, that's what I was doing. I was, I needed to make sure all the Moscatos high school students knew what was going on in the bulletin board service world. I don't think anybody
Speaker 2 00:05:30 Two years after the movie war games came out. That is, that is amazing. I think like, I want to just make an early observation that you have been a head of the curve, you know, since, uh, since being in high school and, uh, with, with your newspaper, that's just incredible.
Speaker 3 00:05:52 So it's, it's been, uh, it's been a fun ride to be able to like to take that apply the technology, apply some policy. Um, I spent a little time, uh, in the Clinton white house and the press office. I got to see what was happening over there. I said, well, why don't I go out to DC and figure out how to build a business to make this stuff happen. So I wanted to be the epicenter of where nonprofits were and bring technology from Silicon valley in California. Um, and S um, sitting in an office here with a bunch of penguins, uh, in Washington, DC, still across the street from the white house. So not a lot has changed in terms of geographic locations, but, um, it's been a crazy ride since then. So it's, it's a leader.
Speaker 1 00:06:35 I think that is the context in which I first met you back at the conference in, I think it was 2008. Uh, I can't remember where it was. We were hypothesizing that was new Orleans, but, uh, you've always been a person that technology delights in my observation. And even if it's like never to be used again, like Joomla, for example, who uses Joomla Ryan? I don't know. But like that context, that joy is so rare in humanity. Uh, I just want to say like, thank you for finding us in that world too, because yeah, I think when I first met you, I was like trying to figure out cause pic net was in the hard cabling business for a little bit. And I was trying to figure out how to wire my office and your observations were don't you dare let them put in cat three, you should only put in cat five or cat five E.
Speaker 1 00:07:37 And I was like, I don't know, man, cat five E or cat five, three is cheaper. And you're like, cat five E does nothing or cat three does nothing. It barely does, by the way, you might as well just put in like phone lines for what cat cat three does. But, um, and then you were also like, or you could do the whole thing, wifi. And I was like, wifi is like so slow and who needs that when I can plug it in? You know? And, and that's been my, you know, 14 years of friendship now, like those kinds of conversations and the topics,
Speaker 3 00:08:11 But as technology struggles, you know, we keep pushing through those and that's, what's creating the spread of innovation. That's helping us say for me, like hearing those stories, that kind of thinking about where we've been, just reminds me of that for me, the passion around technology, isn't about the gadget tree, part of it. It's about applying it to do something with it, to like to see a system that's broken and to know that there might be a way to do it better without having to try to rebuild the entire system from the ground up. Like what happens if we could apply something in a new way that people aren't thinking about guys. Um, and I just, I, I just loved getting genes to do that. So yeah, from wiring cables, uh, to, uh, everything else.
Speaker 2 00:08:58 Yeah. And you do have a long history of being like of ex of wide exploration around technology. Uh, it's one of the things that I was like when we get to just hang out informally and talk about what's, what's new, whether that's crypto, whether that's, you know, electric cars, they're like, what are you? You just always what's next, you know how to use it. I just think that that's really interesting. So
Speaker 3 00:09:22 I think we're, we're lucky to have found professions that is in an industry. That's constantly changing a lot of people. A lot of people want to know, like, I'm going to go into a profession. It's been there for thousands of years. It's going to be the same. We all get to know you climb up this ladder. Like, I'm just, I'm just not as interested or fired up about that. Like, I want things that are going to be changing a lot and figuring out how to put this for practical use is what really gets them going. And so I, I, I agree, like as there's new things happening, I want to figure it out. Like, what's the way in which we can use this to do some good in the world. And I feel like the, the two of you and other folks like us are kind of looking at it through that lens as well. Not just like, oh, this is gee whiz technology, but like, awesome. Now, how do we apply this to do awesome things? And I feel as though that oftentimes gets, gets lost because so many folks are like gravitating towards the shiny, shiny newness of the new technology and less about like, what's the pragmatic application of it. If you were to title this podcast or interview with a very pragmatic centrist technologist, uh, that wouldn't be far from the truth. That's, that's kinda how I feel about things.
Speaker 2 00:10:32 Yeah. Um, okay. To, to be I'm a right-wing technologist.
Speaker 3 00:10:38 Sorry. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:10:47 All right. We're going to dig back into that, please go to him. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I know, I know people are going to want to know three, why questions here, but first it's going to be why penguins,
Speaker 3 00:11:03 Right? How am I going to answer these now? Or is there going to be a long list of these?
Speaker 2 00:11:08 I'll just, we'll just like, uh, we'll just, they're good for oil flash questions.
Speaker 3 00:11:15 They didn't hear, they didn't hear you didn't hear
Speaker 2 00:11:17 You that,
Speaker 3 00:11:19 Uh, so the brief reason for that, and man Tracy, and I could probably go off in ages on end time in TNCs and whatnot. But, um, you know, I'm a big open source proponent, which might be one of the other wide questions, but as a big open source proponent in the open source software community world, uh, uh, penguin has oftentimes been be the animals that represents or has been representing that kind of element of the software and technology world. Uh, so way back in the day, uh, I know that there was some folks out there like, uh, gunner and tech and some others that would have, uh, events like penguin days and way back in 2000 by 2006, I thought it would be great to be able to say, well, gosh, like we are big proponents of open source software. Be great to be able to have some sort of way to express this in a cute three foot tall inflatable manner. Uh, so the penguin from the open source community and encouraging people in the nonprofit space. So learn more about that and the opportunities around building communities around open source software, uh, led to the penguin, just being the obvious choice for, for pens and walks and English.
Speaker 2 00:12:28 Gotcha. Okay. Next, why is why open source then?
Speaker 3 00:12:32 Oh man, that is that's deep. That's really deep. Um, I think if we're going to be talking about technology and how and what it means and how it can be applied, I feel like I want to be able to democratize technology as much as possible, so that could be put to the best use. And that typically means getting into the hands of as many people as possible. And I also think that the more that folks are able to tinker with play with modify, adapt, and continue to create around the technology, the more opportunities we have to just make the world a better place. So for me, open source software has always been an opportunity for us to really leverage those, those key ideals of saying, what if we were to use this for good, what if we can get as good as in as many hands as possible to make as much change as possible, the more open, the more transparent, the more accountable, all of those things are just critical to making that happen. So for me, open source software is a, is a way to get into that. So I'm very passionate about that exact feel like there's a lot of wisdom that we can get from people using technology in ways we never thought before.
Speaker 2 00:13:49 Perfect. Um, that is a perfect segue into the next one, which is why non-profits
Speaker 3 00:13:55 Oh man. That's, that's really good. Um, you know, as a, as a young person, um, I was, I was raised with a, uh, a Catholic father that sent me to the Jewish community center in the summers and a Jewish mother that sent me to a Christian school as a kid and that mix of communities and getting a sense of like what, what people can do together and band together to just like do awesome things through these rural communities and the cross-cultural experiences of that just made me realize that I was really passionate about the opportunity for us as citizens of the world to, to band together. And one of the things I thought was really interesting these days, especially as it's been evolving for me, I'm passionate about was having nonprofit space because we're choosing as societies to, well, at least in the United States here, I say, we're choosing to move away from large federal state governments of doing things generally going down that path.
Speaker 3 00:14:59 And instead choosing to have other, have other entities kind of fill the gaps. And I feel like if there's ever been a time, no, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that viewpoint, but if there's ever been a time for the non-profit non-government sector to really step up, it's, it's now more than ever. Like, I feel like society is just at a challenge point where if we're having trouble agreeing as to how we're going to be govern and govern ourselves in a democracy that it's going to be the social sector, it's going to be non-profit organization. It's going to be engineers. It needs to lead the way. And I can't imagine a better way to spend our lives then applying things like technology to that sector. So we've got a fighting chance. Like there, we've got a fighting chance as a society to be able to do something right when we're just making a lot of, I think short-sighted decisions.
Speaker 3 00:15:50 And I, I feel as though non-profit space has a huge opportunity to step up step up and fill gaps where we're just not able to do to get our functionally and many democracies. Now that's a huge discussion. I know you didn't mean to go into that, but like, I am so passionate about that. I'm so tethered to that concept of, well, gosh, darn it. You know, if people in society are choosing not to do this through government, like we need to find ways as nonprofit organizations in the social sector to like make sure society has what it needs to, to be successful beyond just business success. And I feel like there's a lot of, um, there's a lot riding on the shoulders of the nonprofit community and no better place to be able to help out.
Speaker 2 00:16:32 Uh, I want to come back to, and I know Tracy wants to come back to two open source of business around that. Yeah, I know a lot. Um, so last question. Oh, tons there. The last question is why community?
Speaker 3 00:16:46 Um, yeah, what's the saying, uh, you could go, if you go to loan, you'll go fast, but if you go together, you'll go farther. Like I just, I, I really believe that there's, um, the such the such it's really weird as a, as a young person growing up, uh, with divorced parents, as I kind of pseudo only child from my early years, I became very independent and very adultish. And like, these are five, like way to like adult as a young kid. Uh, and I always felt a sense of independence is why I started my own business. It's why I did my own consulting gig when I was in college. Like just that independence part of me kind of, uh, a capitalist experience of saying, I want to be an entrepreneur. It was really important to me. Um, but I realized what was lacking was the, that sense of community to go the distance to go further.
Speaker 3 00:17:46 And I knew I couldn't do that on my own. I was passionate and I was self-directed and I was really, I could light a fire under my name and feet got so far, like you need a community along with you to make that happen. So it has been really natural for me to say, well, gosh, if I can get other people fired up, like if I can work with other people that get fired up, like you all, um, then we can do some really great stuff. And I would much rather do that in the arms of fellow community members then, you know, on my own. So I've, I've always been really interested in that as soon as I realized you can only go so far on your own so long. And after that, it's gonna, it's gonna take a crew of good friends to be able to take us the rest of the way.
Speaker 2 00:18:31 Um, and that's translated into how many NPSP events with how many people like just rough death. People don't realize that you've traveled the world, motivating people that you've never met that show up on a certain day and spend a day with each other, learning around sticky notes. I've seen that happen in Montana. I've seen it happen in India. I've seen it happen on both coasts and in the middle. Like I've seen it over and over this community that you create. And I think people just can't know that unless they've seen it, but just some of the numbers out there, like how many, how many NPSP days. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:19:13 And we've done almost 40, uh, for folks who don't know, uh, NPSP, the nonprofit success pack is part of the Salesforce, nonprofit community. Um, NPSP days are a community gathering and bringing folks together to be able to learn more about how to use us Salesforce technology for nonprofits and a way that it's open to everybody. Um, we've done at least 40 of them as we've served over 1500 organizations, I think almost 2000 individuals. And it's been everywhere from Cape town, South Africa, to India, to Vancouver, British everywhere in between. So it's got a global reach I think is, is fantastic. And I think the opportunity to be able to see things like that, growing goes back to some common tenants. I have, like, I believe knowledge should have no limits. Like we need to get information. We need to be able to help people be educated as they need from financial literacy to technology literacy, everything in between because the world needs all of it from everybody right now. And being able to do that and watch people light up as they, you know, the light bulb goes off over their head and they can say, oh yeah, I get it now. And you know, the next step is them taking what they've learned to do something to like go better themselves, their family, their neighbors, their communities, like that's just inspired. I'm inspired just by those people that show up to want to learn on their own as well too. I don't know. There's just not a lot of opportunity. That just feels really exciting. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:46 I
Speaker 1 00:20:46 Haven't like 5 million questions and follow-ups for you, Ryan. Sorry. I just let my dog into the, she has this routine where she must lay on the chair behind me at all costs. So like otherwise, um,
Speaker 1 00:21:00 One, I had no idea you had a master's of public administration and maybe that's just my own insecurity where I have that shit emblazoned all over my LinkedIn profile. So that was new information me. I'm like, you're getting every freaking dot title and thing that I get on LinkedIn because damn it. I need to be looking legitimate here. Um, two, can we tell the story about the booth bombing? Yes. Okay. So here's, and why I want to say this is because it does lead into a question, uh, and that is so the very first end tech conference where I actually met you, Ryan, that was also, it was like, okay, if you want to talk about like wiring stuff, go talk to this guy, Ryan and I did, and I met you. And then there were parties and stuff that happened. And so forth that night I came in at like 1:00 AM and you were piling inflatable penguins on the Microsoft booth.
Speaker 1 00:21:54 And I actually remembered why that was while you were talking. And it was because at the time there was some sort of like lawsuit around like documents, uh, and, and document accessibility from word Excel and PowerPoint. And there was like this thing that everybody wanted, and that was people wanted Microsoft office for Linux. Uh that's that's what that was all about was, you know, Microsoft office for Linux. Uh, and thank God we don't have that by the way, because limits as a giant user base, um, you know, globally that is deeply impacted by its absence. But nevertheless, um, so you know, the question I have truly, because I think Ryan, one thing I deeply admire about you is you have retained idealism where I have not, and that is just true. Um, and therefore, you know what I see in the power of community, I absolutely agree with you on I'm like, oh my God, if I had had no place to land 15 years ago, where would I be now? I don't know, but if I didn't have a place to land, then I know I would be in a different place than I am now. So I am just like really deeply touched to be reminded of that power. And at the same time I have to ask, you know, where where's the line between everything is wide open and freely accessible and the line between
Speaker 3 00:23:45 Making a pragmatic business out of selling software, like where, where does that land for you? Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like part of the premise of this is, uh, when, when would a private enterprise be more effective than hoping that the masses figure it out on the ground? Exactly. That is the premise you're spot on. And I feel like what's been interesting to me and this might be just dumb luck. Um, and it might be because I look at all of these crazy opportunities that I've been lucky enough to take advantage of and just say like, we've just got to make the most of this life. We have to have fun. We've got to smile. We've, we've got to like where like penguin very official pod chairs. Right. And I can't help, but think like one of the things that I remember doing early on the weed in the early days of our business, we are here in DC and it was, uh, soon after nine 11.
Speaker 3 00:24:39 And we had had in DC here a marathon, it was like the DC marathon. Um, and it was canceled four days before the marathon was run. I knew some personal friends of mine, Ben, who had spent like weeks months, like betraying their entire lives as a baby, like trying to run a marathon here. They were getting ready to do it was canceled. The reason that it ended up being like the business, I think behind the marathon, that's the issue. And so they canceled it, but they said, oh, it's because of like a security threat. There wasn't a security threat. So I said, well, gosh, like maybe there's a way in which me and my co-founder can actually use this technology that we're trying to figure out on our own, like the early two thousands, um, to like get people to still run the marathon. And so like we built a website, which was just weird.
Speaker 3 00:25:24 And then we like encouraged people to like go to this website and then to tell their friends that the marathon was still going to happen. Because we, as a community, we're going to put on the bloody marathon, even if the people that were paying, being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars as event organizers have bailed on the community. But guess what happened? Four days later? I think it was like 4,000 people, 3000 people ran a marathon, the only unofficial DC marathon that's ever been run with the help of the police department with the help of local community members with help, the little kids pouring lemonade and water, and they made it happen. And I feel as though what I've learned through all of my community experiences is that where oftentimes there has been a singular power that has failed the people, oftentimes a community. If they're passionate enough about it, if they get fired up about it, if they have something kind of like helping them get pointed in the right direction, uh, are able to overcome those challenges.
Speaker 3 00:26:23 And I think it's just been one thing like that after another YC community, just stepping up to the table and they're doing the things that everybody else thought just couldn't be done, it wasn't going to happen. Um, so I, I feel as though those failures by larger institutions or by singular institutions present opportunities for, to ground that is, you'll see that throughout my last 20 years of professional history. But I think from a business perspective, what's funny is that we're big proponents of open-source software, but we ourselves that picnic don't necessarily contribute a whole bunch of open source software back to the community. And we contribute to the open-source community through running events, stirring up community discussions, getting people involved to make software better. Um, so for me it's less about should businesses always be defined by like the license type and the software that they contribute. That that kind of makes less sense to me in 2021 and beyond, as we're moving to this cloud thing, um, and more about it as kind of the underpinnings of those two, what are we doing? What's the best way to assemble people to get a job done? So Tracy, that's like a poor punch to your question, but it feels as though, like, it depends on what we're trying to achieve together.
Speaker 1 00:27:34 Well, I mean, I'm hearing two things in what your saying, uh, and I'm going to revisit one of my favorite quotes of all times this movie quote, stuck with me in, you know, 1997. And to me, it's just as relevant now, and that is Tommy Lee Jones, men and black talking to will Smith. And the quote is a person is smart, right. But people are dumb panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it right. So, you know, that is my reference for community. I don't always see people personally on Moss as a good thing. Um, and, and, and from my worldview, it's because I've experienced deleterious outcomes when people have gathered on MOS usually to make their point known about people like me right now that said, you know what? I actually am hearing you articulate. And, and by the way, half the time when we kibitz about this stuff, I'm just playing devil's advocate to get your IRR up. And I think, you know, that you
Speaker 3 00:28:47 Always do a good job of
Speaker 1 00:28:48 That too. I know I do. Cause you're like, um, but what I'm actually hearing you say is open source. The term that I think a lot of us are used to thinking about as a development repository on get hub, for example, that abides by certain preordained agreements regarding its availability, open source is an expansive term. That is actually a request for transparency, authenticity, community, and participatory engagement in the tools that are being purported to serve the people in the first place.
Speaker 3 00:29:32 Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that I, I used to say, so I was, um, I was the president of an organization called open source matters. I'm not kidding you, but that was the name it's still exists. It's actually doing pretty good, good work for, uh, some open-source communities. Um, but one of the things I used to say is that it was transparency, accountability, and empowerment. And the empowerment piece I feel is really, really important to me. Um, when you get to work in open source software communities, you begin to see that like boundaries like geographical boundaries just don't matter anymore. And the number of people that could be in India or Australia or wherever around the world, I want to contribute to the part. It it's important. So internationalization becomes important. Being able to take contributions from people around the world at different times zones become important.
Speaker 3 00:30:22 And if you're gonna think, if you're gonna think about that way, then the opportunity for us to really focus on empowerment, uh, is really critical. So I think that it's tougher to empower folks to, to be passionate, to feel that they've got some, um, autonomy, what they're doing to feel like they're gonna master something. Um, if you say, but actually we're going to hold all this stuff here. You get to see the stuff that we give you, but like it's up to us, the whole rest of it, and you just need to trust us. So I feel as though in the open source software communities, I've been a part of the more open, the more transparent, the more they're leaning into, how do we empower these folks to do great things. The more likely they are to be really successful. And I've just been amazed to see what people have done in the Salesforce world as Tracy, you and I way back in Google groups days. And even earlier than that, and Tim we've seen for the last 15 plus years or so, um, every time I've seen the ability of the community to, to level up, to be empowered, to be able to do things is the times where I see light bulbs go off or I see real creative juice where I see new things happen that are going to make the world a better place. So that's, that's where I really lean into the empowerment side of it.
Speaker 1 00:31:35 How do you govern that? I, and that's actually my legit question and I say this half tongue in cheek, and that is, I gave up on Mozilla Firefox about five years ago, because when I launched it, the lights would dim. Right. It was like any act, right. And you know, so there obviously has to be limits on this governance and it is my worry. And it is my sincere worry that when everybody has something to say, and everybody is equally valid, nothing gets done. Which to me is the role of private ownership of things because it's like, look, well, everybody can't say everything. So if somebody had to do something and we did this, so how do you balance that? Governance is my question.
Speaker 3 00:32:23 One of the things I've always leaned into is being part of an open source community is a community that's focused on gift giving. And a lot of people don't get that and they
Speaker 1 00:32:35 Found Ryan. I like,
Speaker 3 00:32:37 That's really important to me. And, um, if you're in the act of giving a gift, hopefully in most cases, you're doing it for the benefit of somebody else. Uh, you're doing it hopefully without expecting something in return. So for me, people that are contributors, true contributors back to the community, like I think they're the ones that get to have a say. And I'm very, I'm very interested in some of the latest like blockchain communities and, and cryptocurrency communities that say those who contribute, those who give those who are involved at their financially or from a code perspective or writing smart contracts. We don't have, that may be like, they're the ones that were willing to give the ability to be able to determine the fate of where this community is heading. And governance is based on contribution now that isn't always the most democratic way of handling and there's other ways to deal with that.
Speaker 3 00:33:29 But I think it's interesting. The technology side is that it is not impossible, but sometimes it can be difficult for people to say, that's great. I'm going to fork this community to try to do some things similar, but different because what's happening over here just doesn't make sense anymore. So that threat of making it easy for our community to then be forked and then something running parallel, um, means that the folks building the strong communities, like they need to be on their best behavior, they should be doing what's best for the community. Um, so bringing that all together from a government's perspective, it makes me feel like we've got to go back to those tenants, like how our being, making sure everything we're doing is transparent. How to make sure that the people that are in charge are accountable for what they're doing through that transparency. And then how do we make sure everybody's got an opportunity to contribute and be empowered? I think we've got more of an opportunity to do that in a blockchain world than we've ever had before. And I wish we had these tools a decade five years ago. Um, and I think there was some, some good innovations that can come from it as well, too.
Speaker 2 00:34:29 It's interesting that both of you, I don't remember exactly what you asked to Tracy, but it was something like, okay, what about like private business versus government or whatever. And both of you had like, when I hear private business, I think profit maximization. So I know that's because I'm in my, I'm an economist, but your perspective, both of you is like rad. I think your answer to it was like, oh, well it's whichever one is best to meet that need. Like, that is, that's the weirdest way of thinking about that. Like, let's, let's look at it the best way to meet this need and then, you know, and then do that. I, it's just such a different way of engaging and it runs parallel to what you're talking about here. Right. Which, um, if your perspective on the world is that people will come and offer something too.
Speaker 2 00:35:22 And everybody, including them, get something back in return from that that's not altruism. And I want to be really clear here. I think in the non-profit world and in the open source world, there's an assumption of, you know, I'm only that to the goodness of my heart and I, I just don't buy, like, I'm very suspicious of altruism. I'm not suspicious of it's good for more than just me. And so a co-operative cooperativism instead of a competition model actually makes a lot of sense in, and so Ryan, I mean, one of the, one of the mysteries you are to me is how are you open source and a business leader? Because I'm used to open source being like developers who have this idealism about the world. And then, you know, and I'm like, good luck with payroll, you know, and you like it isn't good luck prepare lead, had some people on payroll for over like 15 or 20 years, like your succeeding at things that other business owners are failing at, and you're doing it with this perspective. And I just think it's important to hold both of those together, um, because we don't have that many models of it. Um, so modeling that,
Speaker 3 00:36:38 No, I appreciate that. And um, sometimes I feel like I'm just, uh, I'm following a very pragmatic approach that tries to keep into account my ideal. So Tracy has always, it's always nice to hear somebody like you reflect to say, like, you're the type of person buying that as like kept true to some of these ideals and then have conversations with Tinder about like, it's just about making payroll. It's just about making dollars. It's not that Tim is just worried about that, but like, has the economist does
Speaker 2 00:37:07 Please help me? I said not to say that ,
Speaker 3 00:37:18 I guess I felt that like it's it's somewhere is trying to make that it's trying to walk that fine balance in the middle. Like, how do you keep a business, a going concern, but at the same time, recognizing like, what, what are we we doing? Like, why are we doing Italian? I mean, this from a philosophical perspective, I just mean like there's other things that we could be doing. Like, what are we doing here? What makes, what we're doing together? Special land places like picnic matters and other places. Um, and I, I think it's, it's challenging for me as a small business, we need to be able to like, keep the revenue coming in and we need to make sure that we're providing great solutions for our community, but we're not necessarily going the same capital routes that you would see some of our peers or competitors doing.
Speaker 3 00:38:00 You know, like we were one of the very early B corporations benefit corporations, like way back in 2010, 12. I remember how long it's been now. Um, we've got a hundred year business plan. Uh, we've never taken any venture capital money. We've never taken any like rounds of funding. That's just never been part of our business plan or our model. Um, and that has meant, like we get a term, all of our attention to the people that we get to serve. And that, that community around us that we serve, like is the only thing that really matters to us. And like the bigger picture of what we're tethered to for, for big ideas for, for the world as well, too. So it always seems to somehow come back for me to what's the community that matters most. And the more that I can be accountable to a lot of people, rather than just like one or two folks, um, makes me feel more comfortable with the direction or businesses heading where I'm heading up for myself. Um, and I, I really, really like trying to walk that fine line, but you're right. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a balancing act. And I think we're, we're trying to do our best to make that work.
Speaker 1 00:39:01 Well, I think something, I also heard Ryan and what you were saying, and honestly you are what you said about open source being a community of gift giving. You've told me that before, matter of fact, you've told me that 10 years ago or more, but, you know, the problem is I think that the ordinary pressures of the world get in the way, right. You know, you talk about narrow time horizons, you know, nothing is narrower than next quarters ACV goal, right. And you know, you're not the only business owner. I know who's thinking about a hundred year plan for a business, right. Which is a very different way of thinking about the decision-making framework in which you operate. And I think one of the things that really stands out to me in everything that you said is, you know, connected to Tim's observation, and that is this isn't altruism. This is creating a different economy and it is creating an economy where good acting has been incentivized. Right. Um, now my crypto portfolio that you've, you know, advise me on is currently crashing a negative. So we're just going to ignore that for the moment, but
Speaker 3 00:40:22 Even a shorter timeline, by the way, A half day,
Speaker 1 00:40:29 We're talking three and a half minutes, but nevertheless, like I think, you know, there's the follow up question I have for you, Ryan is how does that change from the lens of small business to large business? And why I'm asking that is because as you know, I've stared deeply inside of the guts of large software platform business. And I can tell you that the calculations do change, but I'd love to hear in your words, how these things hold up against each other.
Speaker 3 00:41:09 Yeah. You know, I think one of the things I would say, uh, as might be timely where we are in politics in America these days, but I, um, I'm open source infrastructure guy. Like I want to make sure that the train tracks while riding on the bridges were driving across the internet where we're using, but the technology that we're running, everything on top of, but that has as much transparency and as much as accountability as possible. So for there, the open sourcing, this of it matters more than most other places. And as we become more singular, more focused to the individual, I think the open source in this of everybody's private lines makes less sense to me. So I feel like there's definitely a range there. And I think what we're seeing now in very large corporations that are running technology stacks is that probably open source matters more than ever before.
Speaker 3 00:41:57 Um, and being able to have that transparency and accountability is, is really critical. Um, and I think that a lot of these larger businesses make hefty profits in a good way, uh, by providing technology, stacks and infrastructure that will lower the costs for innovators that are smaller businesses, to be able to get up and running with things like it's not just tracing Ryan building two GRC webpages, and nobody will ever go to like entire businesses are being made in months because these technology stacks are powerful enough to be able to do it. And there's been the economies of scale for large corporations to make that happen. So I feel like there's, again, this sort of balancing act there, and for me be open sourcing, this of it matters mostly from the infrastructure from standards. I want us to be able to agree on the width of the train tracks. I want us to be able to agree on the opportunity for people to have access to high speed internet. Um, those things really matter to me, making sure that there's accountability around that makes, makes sense to me, but from a very small business perspective and moving up the chain from there, I think the equation is probably different. You're right.
Speaker 1 00:43:00 All right. I have one follow-up that I want to turn it over to Tim. I know he's dying. They're really quick fall is, is, does open source matter or does transparency and accountable
Speaker 3 00:43:10 Such? I mean, man, that's, that's a whole episode that we're going to come back to, uh, everybody states and, um, I, I think that's for me to be candid, I think the transparency, the empowering, um, the empowerment of technology, uh, and the accountability of it are the things that matter most to me, especially as we're moving into a world where these walled gardens off like iOS and Android and other places out there that are just all consuming. Now that can't just be about the open source software there. That can't be, it has to be like, we need to hold companies accountable for where we're holding our important private data. So that, that matters more to me.
Speaker 2 00:43:48 I almost, um, I feel like I'm hearing you talk about open source in a way that makes me think you actually just think about this as public. Good. Yeah. Right. And I think that's a very, like, I think I can't get in my mind, I can't see past the licensing of it. And when I talk with you about this, what I realized is you have a, you have a world in your mind that exists and is real that the rest of us just don't understand what we're seeing. So when you talk about public, when you talk about open source, you're talking about public good of humanity that even goes pat, like this is global public good. Not even infrastructure for just the nation or, you know, hemisphere you're talking like globally. We now have access to technology that is public good for all of humanity. And that in order for that to be okay, there does need to be transparency. I mean, it's just, it's just such a different vision, I think, than the rep. Like you must be frustrated. So few people even saying, right.
Speaker 3 00:45:00 There's, there's that? And I'm so I'm, you know, uh, I, I'm a hyper privileged person that happens to have won the birth lottery if you want to call it that from where I was born and the great parents I've had and everything else about who I just happened to be lucky to, to be. Um, and I feel that that's, that's kind of a rotten. I feel like not, not wrong for me specifically, but like there's so much that we could be doing across the world because humans are humans and we need to do everything we can to, to lift each other up. And technology just knows no boundaries, I guess, from my perspective, I don't want it to, no, I want this to be in the hands of as many people as possible. So we can really lift as many boats as we can. And I think that the thing that I struggle with is that balance of what you're saying, which is, uh, how do you, how do we keep incentivizing all this great new technology?
Speaker 3 00:45:51 How do we keep businesses running with a profit without necessarily saying, like, what about something other than the capitalism, Ryan? And that's probably podcast number 28. Um, but I, I feel like there's, there's just, I, I just, I feel like, I feel like we started with an alphabet that had like five letters. I'm like, oh my gosh, that that's amazing. And like over time through open source in this, we've been able to add more letters in south of it and do more things and write more words and make better books and like empower and inspire people to do great things. Um, I don't, I don't want those new letters of the alphabet to be like private corporate licensed letters that people need to pay to have access to. I, I need to make sure that many people have access to that as possible. So that's, that's one of the things that keeps running through my mind. I don't necessarily have all the answers to that. Of course.
Speaker 2 00:46:44 So, um, I get frustrated on your behalf because I've seen some of your best work get stolen and Brandon, so, um, you know, and, and some of that is, um, you know, some of that is what you and I experienced when we went to India to try and do an NPSP day. And the trail head team was like, Nope, you can't do an NPSP day here that ha you know, it has to be labeled something else. And so, like we did and whatever, and, you know, and Akash who is just like the Ryan osmek of India, um, and, uh, and amazing, you know, like made it happen. And it was an incredible event and all of that. But I remember backing up from that and just being like, wait a minute, like, this is, this is really kind of backwards, that something you created that you've traveled all over the, it does not add to your bottom line. Like I've been there and
Speaker 2 00:47:56 I'm like, gosh, you know, giving gifts to the community, you know, like it is not, you are not like out there championing so box in NPSP days. Like I was there, I know I went to multiple of them. And, and so, you know, how that, how does that, how does that fit? How does, like, how, how are you not mad about that? I'm mad about it for you. And does that factor in, like, are you worried about, about that? Like you're transparent, so people see it and then they grab it and then license it, like, or it gets rebranded. Like how, how do you, how do you handle,
Speaker 3 00:48:36 But I don't handle it well, uh, I handle it by going to the gym and riding on a stationary bike for hours at a time. Uh, I yell at myself into the void, you know, I think, um, yeah, it is challenging. I think it's challenging because I think it's not often that people understand, especially from a corporate perspective, that I really believe that, that the power is in the community and oftentimes it gets forgotten or it's, it's, it's used as like a marketing tagline. Like it's all about our community and it's all about the community. Then, like, we need to continue to find ways to let the community help itself in one way and then contribute to that community. So it can do great things. I just, I seen so many great communities that have been, um, supported, funded, helped by large corporate interests that might have their own interests, their own needs around that.
Speaker 3 00:49:26 Um, but are able to continue to, to thrive and grow, uh, on their own. And I feel often that as soon as you move away from that and into kind of a, a more corporate run community, you lose a lot of that. The grassroots efforts, the spirit that was behind kind of those original values and what people wanted to see, because they, you know, we often say the open source community is like, it's people scratching the itch, right? Like they have this such, they want to get this problem solved. NPS, PAs have always just been mad. Like it doesn't come with me 10 Tracy or others saying like, here's a eight hours with the presentations about things you must know because Tim and Tracy know it really well. It is great. Let's come together as figuring out how to solve the problems you're facing. What are the questions that you have?
Speaker 3 00:50:13 And I think as soon as it becomes more of a corporate approach, there's less, um, incentive for it to be that there's a lot more incentive to be able to say, let me lead you down a path. The next thing that you can do to level up to purchase this next license is doing. So the thing that I think is the thing that gets me the most brushed with it, and there's bureaucracy, that's frustrating me of course, because I'm a pretty anti bureaucratic person. Um, but I think the thing that's most pressuring to me is I just want people to come together in a way that says, this is what matters to me. This is why my organization struggling. This is what we need to do to like help poor young, LGBT community folks in Livermore, like make their lives better. Like, that's what really matters. Like let's, let's focus on solving those problems together. Not I happen to have all the answers, let me teach you the way. And that's just been a thing I've been most challenged as I, as I see things of all of them are time.
Speaker 1 00:51:08 Well, there's this question of ownership and predictability, right? And it's funny you say, you know, when communities come together on their own, like that Google group that we all used for Salesforce Landia, even if every fifth email was please read the archive before spamming us with your questions, which was true. Right. We were, when, when Salesforce took it over, we were promised a home in perpetuity that was arms. And that was an acceptable trade-off at the time for access to the technology. And you know, what, what is true on both sides of that equation is the questions of ownership and predictability. I think from a corporate lens, I would say the last thing you want is a bunch of unpredictable users running around punching holes in your system, in front of other potential sales deals, but from a community perspective, that's exactly what you want because it lends authenticity to the utilization of whatever tool that you've got in the first place.
Speaker 1 00:52:17 And similarly, like you touched on public good stuff. I mean, I won't get on my non-profit data as a public good high horse. You've heard all about that before. But what I will say is that, you know, we traded ownership and it didn't work out well in the longterm, in that circumstance. So, you know, the idea that we should own something that is unpredictable and wild, and frankly, motivational is a very necessary thing because that will never exist at scale in any company that I know, like no company, I know says what we should do is invest in unpredictable things. Um, and yet community is unpredictable and it's exactly what's necessary to drive predictable innovation. And I think that's, that's always the tension, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:53:18 What if I said this, um, where I think community does its best job is where there's already some existing market failures, corporate failure, something else happened every time I seen somebody say, well, this company organization is not doing this, or like this need isn't being met or like I'm having problems with this. My response is always like, all right, let's get to work the DC marathon. Exactly. Let's, let's do this. Let's let's build community sprints. Let's make NPSP days, let's run an unofficial marathon. Let's do it like fantastic. Like you're welcome. Let's rock and roll. And I think that that comes from part of this is a bit of privilege, of course. And part of it needs to be this democratizing of empowering of individuals. And I, I can't solve all those problems, but it makes me really excited to be able to see that opportunities come up.
Speaker 2 00:54:15 I think you should know Ryan that maybe it's an unintended, um, unintended consequence and maybe you already know about it, but there's also, and I don't mean like you're a Saint, but there's a halo effect that is practical. That happens where inspiration and influence combined to actually create solutions that are otherwise unobtainable through profit. And I think people have given up on that and you haven't, we keep dancing around it, but there is a tangible benefit there that is public good that I think you keep driving towards. And, um, I really, I really hope that you continue to keep that vision and that, that spark of like, Hey, this authenticity, this transparency, this empowerment that is possible through this community, doesn't need a brand behind it. It doesn't need a funding source behind it. What it needs is a need that it is meeting. And if it's got that, it will succeed. And I just think that is a really rare perspective. Um, so I want to thank you. I know lots, lots, and lots of us in the community are really grateful that you've held that position for so many years. Um, and you know, we're really grateful for it. Thanks for all the work that you've done
Speaker 3 00:55:39 Since
Speaker 1 00:55:40 Ryan. Oh my goodness. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be here now talking with you. If it weren't for meeting you, you know, you're one of the early and deepest influences in my career and you know, you're also a purveyor of sunny optimism, particularly when I don't always have it. So I am deeply indebted and deeply grateful and yeah, we should have you back. Cause there's like a thousand tangents that we didn't even get to today. So thank you.
Speaker 3 00:56:10 Yeah, no thank you guys for having me, uh, and all this matters because we can keep making the world a better place together. So stoked that you're bringing on folks and be able to have the discussions and we'll keep it up. I'll be telling this
Speaker 2 00:56:23 I'm Tim lucky.
Speaker 1 00:56:24 I'm Tracy, Crohn's Zack, and you've been listening to why it matters.
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