Episode 0 - A little about us

Summary:
In the inaugural episode of the Panda Award Show, hosts Ben Climer and Abhi Saini discuss their motivations for starting the podcast, the importance of managed service providers (MSPs), and the evolving landscape of IT careers. They share personal stories about their backgrounds, the significance of volunteering, and the challenges of navigating the job market. The conversation explores the value of certifications and degrees, the importance of networking, and the impact of impostor syndrome in the tech industry. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding business needs in technology and the need for proactive planning in tech lifecycle management. They express excitement for future episodes and the guests they hope to feature.

00:00
The Purpose Behind the Podcast

02:03
Understanding Managed Service Providers (MSPs)

04:30
Career Transitions in IT

07:15
The Role of IT in Disaster Recovery

09:24
The Panda Award Show's Origin Story

11:33
Personal Journeys in IT

14:04
The Importance of Networking and Connections

16:42
The Value of Certifications and Degrees

19:14
Current Job Market Trends

20:52
Critical Thinking in IT

23:22
Understanding Business Needs in IT

25:48
The Importance of Communication Skills

27:58
Planning for Technology Lifecycles

30:16
The Future of IT Careers

33:06
Closing Thoughts and Future Episodes

Episode Transcript

Ben Climer (00:00):
Hey, friends. Welcome to the Panda Awards
Show. I'm Ben.

Abhi Saini (00:04):
And I'm Abhi. And the two of us are your hosts for
this podcast.

Ben Climer (00:07):
How you been?

Abhi Saini (00:08):
Oh, I've been pretty good. Can't complain. You know,
the world's moving along. Whatabout yourself?

Ben Climer (00:13):
Man, it's been good. Get recording on Juneteenth. So
got a little day off and sometime to get this one out.

Abhi Saini (00:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of people that have been
like, I didn't know the bank wasclosed today. I was like, yeah.
Federal holiday.
So, Ben, we're we're new tothis. This is our first episode
that we're recording. Why? Whydid we start this? What is the
point of this podcast?

Ben Climer (00:39):
Gosh. Yeah. I kinda had this idea in the back of my
head for a while that I listenedto a lot of podcasts. Like,
there are a lot of podcasts thatI love out there. I used to
travel for work, so I'd listento, like, hours of content.

Abhi Saini (00:54):
Nothing better than six hours of podcast on the
plane. Right?

Ben Climer (00:58):
Yeah. I mean, you know, we'd be going New York,
California, and you got threehour flight, and there's nothing
to do, but sit there, listen toa podcast. So one of the gaps
that I saw was kinda in thecareer aspect. Right? Because I
had my really technical podcast,like the PowerShell podcast and
things like that.
And then I I really love, likeI'll I'll shut them out. The the

(01:20):
Humanize IT podcast, reallylike.

Abhi Saini (01:22):
Oh, yeah? Good one. I really

Ben Climer (01:24):
like their stuff. And yeah. And there's a lot of
stuff for MSP owners, butthere's not much for the techs
in MSPs or in internal IT toreally talk about their career
and kind of figuring out, youknow, where they wanna go. And
the other thing that I've alwaysreally enjoyed is talking to
people and diving into theirstories. It's been something

(01:46):
that even if I wasn't recordingit or doing it for a podcast,
how did you get here exactly?
And most of the time when I asksomebody, they say, well, it's a
weird story.

Abhi Saini (01:57):
Every single time, it's weird. And I feel like we
should we should readjust whatweird means. It seems like
weird's the new normal.

Ben Climer (02:07):
I think weird's the normal. I mean, I've seen art
degrees, engineering guys, likeall walks of lives.

Abhi Saini (02:13):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I I love I love what
you said about there being somereally great podcasts out there.
It's it's you know, I think bothof us come from pretty technical
backgrounds, and there's so manypodcasts, and there's so much
content out there that lets uslearn more about whatever task

(02:34):
or job we need. You know, PacketPushers has always been a
favorite of mine, figuring outthe latest and greatest new
thing about networkingtechnologies.
Like, I don't have the time toread all of the articles. It's
good to have someone summarizesome of that. But there was
never anything to teach me justwhat should I do? What's my next
step in my career? How do I gofrom where I am today to, you

(02:58):
know, making more money, havingmore responsibility, doing
cooler things.
You know? What was what did ittake to get there? And that was
always been the hardest part.And I think that's one of the
reasons we wanna start this.It's to get the actual the next
generation to to learn more.
Right? It's to increase theircareer, have a better to
understand what the IT careerpath is. You mentioned MSPs. And

(03:21):
for a lot of people, I think,out there, they don't even know
what that means. You know?
It's a and even I think evenMSPs don't know what it means
all the time. But, you know, forthose that don't know, an MSP is
a managed service provider. Thatalso is not self explanatory,
but they're your outsourced ITfirm.

Ben Climer (03:40):
Yeah. The the way that I kinda explain it, you
know, a lot of companies aren'tbig enough to have, like, an in
like, a full time person doingIT. So you might have, like,
your savvy office manager orsomething like that, but she may
not understand how to manage athree sixty five environment or
networking gear. And so thosesmaller firms are gonna partner
with a managed service provideror a company like that to kind

(04:04):
of round out their IT. And thenthe other piece of it is, you
know, you see larger enterprisecompanies that, you know, maybe
they have some really sharplevel three guys, but those
level three guys are kind offocused in on this one area, and
they need some assistance overhere.
It wasn't uncommon for us to bebrought in on three sixty five

(04:25):
or Azure products because theguys they had were great with on
prem infrastructure and didn'thave the cloud knowledge.

Abhi Saini (04:31):
Yeah. And it's those it's in the same vein as, like,
you know, when you are a smallcompany, you might outsource
your accounting department oryour bookkeeping or your legal
team or, you know, there'syou're not gonna be able to
bring in every aspect of runninga business in house. And so it's
just part of the puzzle ofmaking businesses function
better. And, you know, I now Iam personally happy to be part

(04:54):
of it, and, you know, I thinkyou were there too.

Ben Climer (04:58):
Yeah. And then I guess one other thing to touch
on, like, when you say newgeneration, I kinda I connect
with that. And one thing I wannaadd is new generation doesn't
necessarily mean age. You know,there's people that are thirty
thirty, 40, 50 that areswitching up careers, and, you
know, they wanna look at ITbecause they wanna switch up.
You know, for some, that'smoney.

(05:19):
For some, that's they just wannascratch a different part of
their brain or, you know, it itlooks different from different
walks of life. And thinking ITand cybersecurity, we need
people from different walks oflife.

Abhi Saini (05:29):
Absolutely. Absolutely agree with that. And
I think that that touches on alot of the reasons, like, that
I'm in my position now. You andI kind of, around the same time,
kind of flipped our careersupside down.

Ben Climer (05:43):
Yeah. Right? We Yeah. So, I mean, I guess, to
touch on a a little bit ofbackground. So I know Avi from
IT DRC.
It's a nonprofit at a super highlevel. Disasters happen at an
unfortunately more common ratethan it used to be, and we
basically come in afterwards andhelp the community recover with

(06:04):
technology and communications. Imet him volunteering there, and
we kinda kept touch. And I don'tknow if I've mentioned this you
this before, but in myvolunteering there, I'm usually
either behind the camera orkinda some of the first ones on
scene before there's anybodythere. So I think you might have

(06:24):
taken the only photo of me,like, actually doing something
at IT DRC.
Well, I think I think everybodyelse just thinks I'm like a
figment that, like, pops intothe chat or something because

Abhi Saini (06:37):
I love it. And I think that, you know, we man, I
think, you know, we've knowneach other for a while now, but
we kinda hit it off immediately.We became instant friends. Yeah.
It helped that we were in thesame region.
We kinda had the same mindset. Ithink at the time too, you were
the Tennessee state coordinator,and I had just started. And a
few months later, I would becomethe Florida state coordinator.
So, you know, we we were kindaon the same track. We're around

(06:59):
the same age.
We kinda did the same thing.

Ben Climer (07:03):
Just to step away for a second if I'm educating
people. A state coordinatorworks at the local level when
things happen to help coordinateour recovery efforts. So, you
know, we're usually on theground and, you know, we we're
already connected with the localgovernments and the volunteer
organizations so that we canprovide the quickest and most

(07:25):
helpful impact.

Abhi Saini (07:27):
Yeah. One of the one of the biggest things we do as
state coordinators is kinda bethe liaison between the state
government and our organization.So that way when things do come
up, there's we know who tocontact. We know what to get in
touch who to get in touch withto make sure that the like, in
our case, the Florida Departmentof Emergency Management, we know

(07:47):
exactly who to call, who's incharge, that when they need
help, we can be there to supportthem with Wi Fi, satellite
Internet, radio communications,whatever it might be.

Ben Climer (07:58):
I feel like when you see news coverage, it's all the
bad, and we get to interact withthe people that are doing good
in the face of bad. Yeah. Ithink it was Joe or someone put
it as, you know, when you'reseeing people that are affected,
you're seeing them on the worstday of their life. And how can
you make that better?

Abhi Saini (08:17):
Yeah. Absolutely. And and Joe is one of our
fearless leaders at IT DRC. Healways knows how to say things
so pointly. Yeah.
So the name of my company isBarium Networks, and I'm the
owner of MSP there. But it hasnothing to do with the panda

(08:37):
bear that is on our logo here atPanda award show. That's true.
So why? Why bears for you?

Ben Climer (08:47):
He looked kinda cute and cuddly, so we just brought
him on board.

Abhi Saini (08:51):
No. I I Why look like friend if not friend?

Ben Climer (08:56):
So am I from a first MSP, one of the traditions that
they had is you have, like, aweekly tech meeting where you
would kinda discuss your winsand things were struggling with,
and we would pass a stuffedpanda bear. And they would do it
based on who kind of showedcompany values, and you would

(09:17):
hold it for a week. So you wouldget the stuffed panda bear, and
you would have it for that week.And the next week, you pick you
picked someone who showed thecompany values. And actually,
towards the end of them doingit, so we actually had an Iron
Man suit for the panda too,which was kinda cool.

Abhi Saini (09:32):
Awesome. I love it. So the the panda embodied doing
the right thing and making surethat whatever had to be done to
service your clients was gettingdone. I love it. Absolutely love
it.
I think that that embodies somuch about what what we do in
our jobs. I think the reasonsthat you and I have excelled in
our careers is that we we alwaysgo above and beyond to make sure

(09:55):
that our task isn't just ourtask. It's seeing the big
picture and doing more thandoing more than just the
needful.

Ben Climer (10:04):
And we'll touch on this another episode, but at a
at a really high I kinda pickedup the things that people
weren't doing. Yeah. They had anRMN called Labtech, and nobody
was doing anything with with it.They were just using it for VNC,
which was a really slow remotecontrol tool. And then You don't
want

Abhi Saini (10:24):
it remote control too? Free freeze not always
good? Is that what you'resaying?

Ben Climer (10:28):
But nobody was, like, scripting or anything. So,
like, I created a simple script,and they're like, this guy's a
genius, And I had just copied itfrom Google.

Abhi Saini (10:37):
That's that's something I've always been
really good at. My you know, Ihave I have a little bit of
programming background oreducation, but I was never a
programmer. But what I was goodat was understanding code. So I
can take script and know whatit's about to do and understand
what the language is, but don'task me to write it because

(10:58):
that's what you're I'm gonna getyou involved.

Ben Climer (11:01):
I started as a web developer, and I I had a a gig,
like an internship. And I was inthis cubicle that had these
really tall cubicle walls. Theywere probably 10 feet and they
seemed more like 15 feet. And Iwas like in a quiet cubicle,
like writing code. I was like, Idon't think I want to do this

(11:23):
for the rest of my life.
And so, you know, eventually Ithink that kind of swayed me
more towards IT work and thingslike that.

Abhi Saini (11:30):
Gotcha. Okay. I like that. I like that.

Ben Climer (11:34):
And so, yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, we've
touched on this a little bit,but, kinda who are we? So who
are you? I've seen you a coupletimes before.

Abhi Saini (11:44):
Yeah. I'm I'm your neighborhood friendly brown
bear. I am the owner of an MSPin Orlando, Florida called
Barium Networks. We do a littlebit of everything. We're a
pretty new green MSP, but wefocus in on your general managed
IT services, cybersecuritycoming from my background and

(12:06):
degree in cybersecurity, andthen just all the technology you
need to run your business.
So I've said earlier that, youknow, I I came from an internal
background, but I wanted to beable to impact more companies,
more small businesses thatneeded help. And so started this
MSP pretty recently, actually.

Ben Climer (12:24):
Yeah. And I may I may be putting you a little bit
on the spot here, but I know youmentioned wanting to impact
business. Did you have anypersonal reasons for wanting to
switch over to a business owner?I mean, it's not an easy an easy
job, but you looked at

Abhi Saini (12:39):
Yeah.

Ben Climer (12:39):
Like, I wanna do this.

Abhi Saini (12:40):
To put it bluntly, I don't wanna do tech anymore.

Ben Climer (12:45):
So you you picked that tech a tech company to not
do tech anymore.

Abhi Saini (12:49):
Yeah. It sounds weird. Right? But, no, I love I
love technology. I'm good attechnology.
I understand technology, but,it's not what I wanna do every
day all the time. And I'vealways been a little bit of a
leader. I've never actually leda business or led a large team,

(13:10):
but I was always the one thatwhen we had a group project at
school, I'd just be the leaderbecause I'm the one that was
seeing the bigger picture andsee how to put things together.
I took leadership classes when Iwas 16. And all those things,
still have the book somewhere.
I'll have to pull it out foranother episode or something.
But when I look at trainingtoday, I'm like, how to be a

(13:31):
better this or how to do projectmanagement, whatever it might
be. So many of the lessons arethe exact same lessons I learned
when I was, you know, a kid.Yeah. And I realized that I have
a skill set, and I have apassion for leading teams.

(13:51):
And so why why stick myself onlyto do technology when it's not
something I want to do all thetime? I can instead have a
company, try to lead thatcompany, try to grow that
business to have a team, have agroup of people, nurture them to
train them their skills, givethem better skills, upskill

(14:12):
them, kinda what we're doingwith this podcast. And then,
hopefully, it also sets me up toto have a lasting business that,
you know, my my family doesn'thave to worry and that I can set
up a legacy for my kids thatdon't have kids yet. But give me
three weeks, and, I'll have one.

Ben Climer (14:29):
Man, we're excited for that too. I bet you guys are
really happy to start. Weeks.

Abhi Saini (14:35):
I forgot. We're we're recording this a little
bit early. Two weeks from thetime this podcast airs, I will
be a father. So I'm reallyexcited for that. And I just I
want I want more for my daughterthan what we have available
today.
So just trying to work towardsthat.

Ben Climer (14:51):
And I forget. Have you announced the name yet or
anything, or is that gonna be

Abhi Saini (14:56):
We have not mainly because we also have not picked
the name. We have it listed. Ihave a piece of paper here on my
desk that has a few names on it,but we haven't picked it up yet.

Ben Climer (15:06):
Are you thinking, like, day of? You're like, you
know, that looks like a Sally orsomething like that. Are you
gonna pick who

Abhi Saini (15:13):
would look like that? Yeah. I think we it's
gonna be like from the the threethat we have now, slowly we'll
dwindle it down to two or one.

Ben Climer (15:22):
This is kind of a I don't know if this is a dark
joke, but probably a bad joke.But is it kinda like naming a
dog where you, like, see whatthey respond to or something?

Abhi Saini (15:30):
You know, I've been looking into it. There's no
legal requirement to give yourkid a name. Right? Like, you
don't have to. Now they won't bea part of society, but
technically, you don't have to.

Ben Climer (15:45):
You'd be probably have to if you want the tax
credits and things.

Abhi Saini (15:48):
Right? But that that's just being part of
society. If you don't you don'thave to. You can homeschool them
technically. Right?
Or it's like, what about SocialSecurity? They don't have to
work. Right? It's not part ofthe requirements to be human,
but it is a requirement to bepart of society.

Ben Climer (16:07):
I think we've bled into the hot take section
unintentionally.

Abhi Saini (16:11):
Let's go this let's go back a little bit. Ben, I
wanted to to follow-up with yourquestion to me. What what do you
do? What's your job?

Ben Climer (16:19):
The super high level today, I work at Roost as a a
lead automation specialist, andI support, like, the automations
they're working on in theplatform and help kinda lead and
mentor a team of people, some ofwhich are honestly smarter than
me in some ways.

Abhi Saini (16:35):
But So you you you saw a gap at your previous
company. You filled that gap,and now you're filling the gap
for so many other companies outthere.

Ben Climer (16:46):
You know, kinda when I was I was switching over, I I
mean, I had probably one of thebetter MSP scenarios out there.
Overall, they treated me wellcompared to some of the horror
stories that I hear. Or, youknow, whenever you go to RMSP,
there's always some story abouteverybody being underpaid and
not getting any PTO.

Abhi Saini (17:07):
Litmus test for reality.

Ben Climer (17:09):
Yep. But I was looking for a change up, and
there's a guy in at Black HillsInfoSec. And he does these live
streams on getting like, jobhunting for hackers is what it's
called. I think it's JasonBlanchard. I'm probably gonna
mess that up.
But, in a super high level, oneof the things when I had watched
his streams, like, during COVIDand stuff, he said, make a list

(17:32):
of the top five companies thatyou'd like to work for and start
figuring out how to work there.You know, if the company that
you're at today is not at thetop of the list, what do you
need to start doing to be at theone that's at the top of the
list? And Rooster was at the topof that list. And so I don't
know that I did anything thatintentional other than I

(17:53):
probably picked up moreautomation projects than I would
the normal, and I startedlooking for the job openings.

Abhi Saini (18:01):
Yeah. What came first? Roost being at the top of
that list or you starting toenjoy automation?

Ben Climer (18:07):
So I I think that's been one of my career power
factors has been automationalong the way. So I've dabbled
in PowerShell pretty early on,and I think the industry of
automation has kinda evolvedwith time. Right? So, you know,
ten years ago, like, PowerShellwas a huge thing. It still is,
but there's other ways, youknow, to be impactful to the

(18:28):
organization at a higher scale.

Abhi Saini (18:31):
Right. Now, you're not your options aren't just
Python and PowerShell. There'sso many more things that you can
do out there. Yeah. Well, that'sone area I've struggled with,
understanding APIs.
I think I I literally learnedwhat an API was in the last
three or four years. I didn'tunderstand what it was for the

(18:52):
long

Ben Climer (18:53):
If if you're out there, don't understand
application programminginterface, I believe is the
acronym for it. I might be wrongwith that, but I'm pretty sure
it's the acronym. And and superhigh level, when you click
things on sites that changethings on the back end, it's
probably using an API. And sothere are tools out there that

(19:13):
you can sort of orchestrate andtie together those APIs to do
bigger things at a better scalethan you clicking things all the
time.

Abhi Saini (19:22):
Yeah. I think when I tried learning about it, it was
essentially the it's the bridgebetween two applications. So
like you're you want your youwant QuickBooks to talk to
Excel? Well, they don't justtalk to each other. They both
have to speak a language thatthey both can understand.
So you use an API to tell theother one what to do that tells

(19:45):
the other one what somethinglike that. Right? Yeah. I mean,
this you know, I think I thinkyou and I both have We've worked
in tech for a while. How manyyears have you worked in tech?

Ben Climer (19:55):
Okay.

Abhi Saini (19:56):
I always have to do some math.

Ben Climer (19:58):
Yeah. So it it depends. If we so if you just
wanna count like full timeemployment working for someone
No.

Abhi Saini (20:04):
No. I wanna know when was the first time you did
something that wasn't just beingthe neighborhood tech kid?

Ben Climer (20:12):
So something you did for money.

Abhi Saini (20:14):
Yeah. Or something that's what was the first time
you did something that a sysadmin would do?

Ben Climer (20:19):
I mean, a really weird one. When I was 14, my
uncle was working at a lawn carecompany, and they had this
really expensive software thatwas on a failed hard drive. And
they didn't have the softwarekey, and if they had, like,
reinstalled it, they'd have topay another $2 or something. And

(20:44):
so this was A lot money

Abhi Saini (20:45):
for a small company.

Ben Climer (20:47):
Yeah. And I mean, it was kind of cool. Use a three d
modeling software. So you couldlike recreate the client's yard,
and they would like put inbushes and stuff and show you
what it would look And this wasback in like, I don't know, 2009
or something they were doingthis.

Abhi Saini (21:01):
The good old days.

Ben Climer (21:02):
Yeah. It's somewhere around there. And kind of the
fur so, like, I helped them outwith that, and I got a it was
Windows XP days, and I figuredout every registry key, every
folder, and, like, all thethings that were needed for it
to work. And I got it copiedover to a new install with a
good drive, and it actuallyworked. And they Wow.

(21:24):
You know, paid me $50 orwhatever. What about yourself?

Abhi Saini (21:28):
I know this, like, as a top of mind always. It was
it had there's a lot of stuffbeforehand, but it was seventh
grade, 12 years old. I learnedhow to image computers so that
way the actual IT guy didn'thave to do it. He was teaching
us. I think, technically, it'dbe like free labor, but we won't
go there.

(21:49):
We were having fun. I enjoyedit. I have no qualms against
who's now a friend, the personthat was a tech person there.
And she's doing awesome thingsnow. So, you know, really cool
to see how their careerprogressed.
But, yeah, I I learned how touse Alteris, you know, to to
image a computer remotely, do itI was I was putting new RAM in

(22:10):
computers, configuring networkprinters, teaching teachers and
students how to do things. Iwent to a really cool element, a
middle school that had a lot oftechnology. So we were piloting
at the time, this was 02/1945 orso. So we were piloting SMART

(22:31):
boards, and now SMART is a hugecompany. Right?

Ben Climer (22:35):
Yeah.

Abhi Saini (22:35):
We were piloting microphones for classroom audio
systems, which now is, like,just the default. People just
see that so often.

Ben Climer (22:45):
Yeah. Gone are the days of the transparent sheet
projectors and things like that.

Abhi Saini (22:50):
Overheads. Yep. Yep. We had we had a one to one
laptop ratio for each classroom.So we had laptop cards.
Now a lot of large schooldistricts have one to one
student ones, but I was I waspart of the I ended up being
part of the team actually when Iwas an intern at that school or
in that school district Yeah.That brought us to one to one.

Ben Climer (23:13):
I don't know if if you guys called them this, but
they would call them cows at ourhigh school. Computers on
wheels.

Abhi Saini (23:19):
Yeah. Oh, no. Cows for me were always cell sites on
wheels. When you have a when ATand T or Verizon come out and
set up a lark cell tower, set upa cow.

Ben Climer (23:30):
You know, you you didn't get to keep the laptops
like they do today and stuff.You, like, maybe got them for a
class. And Yeah. If if it was acore class, like, maybe the last
student didn't plug it in, andit just dies on you when you're
writing your paper.

Abhi Saini (23:44):
Yeah. Those batteries did not last. I think
putting putting late twothousands batteries in the hands
of a child is a terrible ideabecause they have no long
company. Okay. So the the reasonI asked you that question, you
know, I wanted to just I wantedto set the stage here for, like
you've had years of experience.

(24:05):
Even though we're pretty young,you know, we've still had ten,
twenty years worth each of ITexperience or seeing things in
the industry. So, you know, ifwe wanna if we wanna move into
our hot takes, what what aresome of those crazy things
you've seen that kind of set thestage for this podcast? You

(24:27):
know? What have you seen outthere that we're trying to

Ben Climer (24:31):
I mean, I won't get into politics too much, but I
think we're seeing a little bitof a, you know, a hirer's job
market right now. And just ayear or two ago, it was, you
know, kinda on the the techs hadthe upper hand on everything.
And, you know, right now, wekinda you know, I know if it's
economic concerns, but we'rejust not seeing as many new jobs

(24:52):
as we work. And Right. Thatkinda that kinda means things
are more competitive, and it's alittle harder to get a job
starting out.

Abhi Saini (25:02):
Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, we went from
especially during the pandemic,everyone needs a remote worker
now. Everyone needs a job. Andit's like, well, now there's now
we've finally figured out how towe went through those struggles,
and we're we're equalizing themarket and things are saying,
but it's getting harder andharder to get a job.
But not it's not getting harderto get a job because there's
fewer jobs necessarily out therein a way. There there are, but

(25:23):
there's also more workers withthose skill sets. So the ratio
is off, and the employers arethey want, like, stronger
candidates. Or they're lookingfor

Ben Climer (25:34):
I think the people that are looking for a job would
strongly prefer to have a remotejob, and we're definitely seeing
less of those by quite a bit.And so the jobs that are out
there in IT might be a hybridrole where you're in a couple
times a week.

Abhi Saini (25:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, a guest that I hope we
will have on the podcast at somepoint. I saw him in an
interview. He said he would nothire for a particular part of
his company for, you know, asegment of his job.
He would not hire remote workersbecause that team needs to
collaborate and work together somuch that being in person is

(26:12):
vital to their function. Ittakes a really intelligent
person to understand that sothat way they don't just blanket
say all remote or all in person.Right? It's there's nuance to
it. We'll have to ask him.
I'm I mean, I'll keep hisidentity hidden for now. If we
have him on, we'll have to askhim what his his nuanced

(26:33):
thoughts on that.

Ben Climer (26:35):
Even if you take a little bit less pay sometimes,
it's a different quality of lifebeing able to work remotely like
that. And, you know, there thereare people that that it's gonna
be too distracting at home. Youknow, I won't say that everybody
should go all remote, but Ithink, I I know with minds
mindset, I can be I've beendiagnosed with ADHD for a lot of

(26:57):
years now. And

Abhi Saini (26:59):
I gotta go do that. I think mine's just still
undiagnosed. Yeah.

Ben Climer (27:05):
I think working at home sometime I tell you what I
really liked when I didn't havethe option to work from home is
sometimes doing the on-site workwhen I had the opportunity to
work on one thing at a time andjust knock them out. I loved
that too. Yeah.

Abhi Saini (27:19):
That's really good for that ADHD brain, being able
to focus on something.

Ben Climer (27:25):
Towards the end of my MSP life, I was doing sort of
the I mentioned a little bitearlier in the episode, but kind
of the longer travel stuff. Andso, know, I fly into California,
New York, and I'd go in and swapyour entire network. And, you
know, if you look at myLinkedIn, you'll see Yeah.

Abhi Saini (27:41):
I've seen a couple of those.

Ben Climer (27:43):
See some of those racks. And those are ones where,
yeah, I traveled to anotherstate and took out all the old
junk that was cable spaghettiand left them with something
that we could manage remotelyand, you know, just left them in
a better place.

Abhi Saini (27:58):
Nice. Nice. It's always I had a I was raised as a
a boy scout, and one of thethings that still is a real big
part of my life is leave notrace and leave it better than
you found it.

Ben Climer (28:12):
Yeah. Right? I was gonna say, I think I left a
little bit of a trace, but I Ido think I left it better than I
found it at least.

Abhi Saini (28:19):
Yeah. I mean, there's a well, you know yeah.
Okay. Fair. I like the latterpart of what I said.
Leave it better than you found.

Ben Climer (28:25):
Yeah. So I'm curious. One, did you have any
certifications that really, youknow, brought you a lot of value
in your career? And do you thinkdo you think having certs will
get you a job today? Sure.

Abhi Saini (28:42):
Yeah. So I I got my a plus, CompTIA a plus
certification in 02/2009. So Iwas I was in eleventh grade. Got
it. I was in an IT academy atthe school.
It was like a magnet program. Iwas doing all the fun stuff

(29:04):
because I I I like tech. I waslike, I was the guy that just
wanted to do all the stuff. Wewere using test out for
training, for learning. I wasgetting, like, 97 percents on
the time of tray the what's itcalled?
The the practice exam. So I waslike, okay. You know, maybe I
should go actually sit for theexam. And I did. I got my a plus

(29:25):
as a 16 year old kid.

Ben Climer (29:28):
That's awesome.

Abhi Saini (29:29):
I it didn't do anything for me until like,
three, four, five years later.

Ben Climer (29:38):
I This is kinda I may throw you off track here,
but was that when you took it,did they still have the lifetime
exam for A plus?

Abhi Saini (29:45):
I I not only took my A plus, it is still my only
current certificate. And I gotmy first IT job out of it. It
was Geek Squad. I interviewedfor a Geek Squad job, and they
saw that I had a plus, and therest of the interview was all
about personal, not technical.And I had that job for five

(30:13):
months, maybe six months.
No one has asked him out sinceNo one. But

Ben Climer (30:20):
So so you were was that about 20 when you got your
Geek Squad job? Or

Abhi Saini (30:25):
Yeah. I wanna say it was, like, 2012 or '13, so I
would have been around '20, '21.No, I was not 21. I was I was 19
or 20. It was before it wasbefore I had a diff.
Yeah. Yeah. So I remember thejob that I was at when I turned
21. This was before that.

Ben Climer (30:43):
Where did you find the job? Did you seek out Geek
Squad or did you see a listingsomewhere?

Abhi Saini (30:49):
Back then, it was it was the only thing I knew about
IT jobs. Like, if I wanted tofix a computer, where do I go
get a job? That was the onlything I knew. It helped that
Best Buy was really close to myhouse, so it was an easy

Ben Climer (31:05):
That makes it nice.

Abhi Saini (31:06):
Yeah. But I I was I was definitely more of a
hardware guy than I wasnetworking or software, and that
kinda set the stage for me. Butthe you know, ever since then,
like, if you just take the nameof my company, Barium Networks,
I don't own I don't hold anetworking certificate. I should

(31:27):
probably sit for an exam just todo it, but it wasn't the
certificate that got me to whereI am today. It was just
continuously proving worth andhaving more and more worth on my
resume beyond the certificate.

Ben Climer (31:44):
Yeah. I think, you know, kinda like your Best Buy
situation, I think the certs canget you the interview. Your
knowledge gained from the certsactually gets you hired.

Abhi Saini (31:54):
Yeah. I will

Ben Climer (31:56):
people that out there doing the brain dumps and
stuff like that, you're cheatingyourself. You might get the
interview, and then you're in aworld of hurt at a lot of
places.

Abhi Saini (32:05):
Yeah. It's not just unethical. It's just useless. If
you the one thing that I valuein a a plus certification and if
you talk to a lot of IT guys ora lot of people in like,
anything if you talk to a lot ofour friends and colleagues,
they'll be like, a plus?Useless.
Doesn't do anything. Doesn'tteach you anything else. But it
does. It does a lot. It teachesyou how to troubleshoot.

(32:28):
It teaches you what to think andhow to think about technology.
And I think that was the mostvaluable thing I got from a
plus. It wasn't knowing that VGAcable has nine pins or 15 pins
and a serial cable has nine.Right? Like, that doesn't
matter.
No one cares in the long run.The big thing

Ben Climer (32:48):
Don't plug a serial cable into VGA port.

Abhi Saini (32:52):
If you can make that happen, I'll give

Ben Climer (32:54):
you a I've had a user turn in a computer that
that was the issue as they triedusing a serial cable as a VGA.

Abhi Saini (33:01):
Hey. In end user is the person that taught me that a
USB a cable, the male end is thesame width as RJ 45 jack. Oh,
well, it You're like, it doesfit. I'll give you that.

Ben Climer (33:17):
Yeah. I've seen phone cables plugged into the RJ
40 earlier in my career too.

Abhi Saini (33:22):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, why is it party? So, yeah,
I, you know, I and we'll go intothis more.
I wanna you know, we can diveinto it, but I don't think a
certification necessarily getsyou the job to get the actual
technical side of the job. Ithink it does do a decent job at
checking a box and gets past HR,but it doesn't actually teach

(33:45):
you how to do the job you'regoing for.

Ben Climer (33:49):
Yeah. And and and maybe it depends. It could
depend on the certs. Like, we'restarting to see more I think
people are hearing thisfeedback, and we start seeing
more certifications, like,especially on the cyber security
side where, you know, you haveto do something to get the cert.
Like, it's not just question andanswer type of situation.

Abhi Saini (34:11):
You have to prove that you've had industry
experience. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Climer (34:16):
Tying into this a little bit, I think your,
answers will be similar, butwhat about a degree? Do you
think you need a degree to get ajob in IT?

Abhi Saini (34:25):
Well, this is a this is a fun we'll talk about later
as well. I I got my degree mybachelor's degree, two years
ago? Last year? I forget. Idon't know.
It's it was that useless to me.I got it just to get it, to
finish a task, to prove tomyself that I can do it, but it

(34:48):
was never what got me my job.And I was able to reach a 6
figure salary without a degree.There's more to technology than
just education. It's important.
I will I am a lifelong learner,proud supporter of education,

(35:08):
but it is not the only thing.

Ben Climer (35:11):
Yeah. I I think there's so I still don't have a
degree today. I've thought aboutit more in the recent years
because I think as you get midcareer, if you wanna and I don't
know that I want to, but there'scertain, like, really large
enterprises and government jobsthat Mhmm. Still have some
degree requirements there. But,man, it's

Abhi Saini (35:32):
But even even your IPMs, your intels, they got rid
of the requirement. It used tobe big there.

Ben Climer (35:39):
Yeah. I was gonna say, it's more and more often
that I see, you know, bachelor'sdegree or equivalent work
experience. And I think and tobe honest, like, I I've been on
the hiring side of the MSP, andI think people have an
expectation that once theyfinish their IT degree, they're
ready to rule the world. But,you know, education at a college

(36:01):
level is tricky because there'sapproved coursework. So it's not
uncommon for you to take anetworking course at a college,
and some of the material mightbe, you know, three to four
years old.
Now, you know, a lot of theconcepts are still gonna apply.
It's not changing that often.But I think a lot of your value
in a college degree from talkingwith people that have had them

(36:23):
and went the traditional routeis, frankly, you know, some of
the connections you make, like,you know, I mean and I found
some mentors and connectionswithout college, but, you know,
I I've known a lot of peoplethat had their college professor
help them get their first job.Yep. And I think it it does have
opportunity to make you a morerounded person, you know, well

(36:45):
rounded person depending on, youknow, what you do with that
time.

Abhi Saini (36:49):
Right. And I think that's that, that's actually a
big huge reason why a lot of IvyLeague schools will give away
some of their education for freebecause it's not it's not
necessarily the education thatyou're paying for at those big
schools. It's it's the people.It's the networking. All this
secondary and tertiary aspectsof an education.

Ben Climer (37:12):
Yeah. And I and I will say this. Like, man, when I
was just first starting out, Ithink or at least early on,
Coursera started being a thing,and Harvard was putting out,
like, their IT courses and stufffor free even back then. Yep.
And I I did class.

Abhi Saini (37:29):
It's the, it's CS 300?

Ben Climer (37:34):
Yeah. Something right along those line. They
like their computer scienceclasses.

Abhi Saini (37:37):
Yeah. That is a amazing class. Have you ever if
anyone listening to this podcastwants to learn more about
computer science, the intro tocomputer science class that
Harvard puts out on Coursera andI think their own thing. Super
amazing.

Ben Climer (37:52):
And, you know, that was it was I think it was Mark
Zuckerberg that he would just,like, audit classes, basically.
Like, he would just show up tothe physical conference and
attend classes, but you youdon't get credit for it, but he
would just, like, take theknowledge from it. And, you
know, if finances

Abhi Saini (38:11):
I guess worked out for him.

Ben Climer (38:14):
It it might have worked out. You know, there
there's this little lesser knownguy, but, you know, I think I
think, know, if this meta AIthing takes off, he might be a
little bit more successful. But,yeah, I mean, I you know, I
don't if you wanna go tocollege, I think that's great
and admirable. If you don't havethe financial means, I don't
think you need to go into a tonof debt if it's not the right

(38:37):
thing for you.

Abhi Saini (38:38):
Yes. Absolutely. There's some really, really good
content out there for next tonothing or less than $50 a month
that, you know, you can if youput the time, I think that's the
most valuable thing that youhave as a as a as a young adult,

(39:00):
the most valuable thing you haveis time. And if you can if you
can dedicate an hour a day toeducation, you will be miles
ahead of so many others outthere. And that's just an hour.

Ben Climer (39:15):
Yeah. I'll be honest. Earlier in my career,
one thing that I would be toldby management is in IT spaces, I
was a little bit weaker on mysocial skills. And I probably,
you know, in some situations,still am. But what I would do is
I would stay late every nightbecause I had crap Internet at
home.
And I would watch TEDxs and,like, everything that I could

(39:39):
on, like, human interaction and,like, you know, ways to, like,
conversate better. To be honest,I probably retained, like, 5% of
it. I couldn't tell you most ofit now, but, you know, I think
there's

Abhi Saini (39:51):
Every single episode of this whole house, I cannot
build a

Ben Climer (39:56):
Yeah. But, you know, I think I think there's
something to be said about,like, using those resources, and
it it doesn't have to betechnical upskill either kinda,
you know, in another point here.When I mentor people that are
earlier in their career, I kindatell them there's different ways
to upscale. Everybody focuses onthe technical side. The other

(40:16):
side that will increase yourimpact and value to a company is
actually that social componentin a lot of roles.
You know, if, like, if you'rethe level three network guy, you
know, sure, you can be a jerk,but a company might pay you 20
or 30,000 more if you're not ajerk and still know your stuff.
Because I mean, I thinkeverybody's met the

(40:38):
stereotypical, like, CCIE jerkwho's, like, blaming you for the
problem that's on the networkand stuff.

Abhi Saini (40:46):
It's always the network. Every time.

Ben Climer (40:50):
It's not the network, guys.

Abhi Saini (40:52):
But then I think that's that's a a big thing too
is because you have to rememberwe're people. We're humans. We
your day to day job might betechnical in nature, but it's
affecting people. And you haveto be able to communicate with
people in order to

Ben Climer (41:11):
And it's okay to not be social or extroverted. I'm
not an extrovert. This is memasking. I mean, I still enjoy
it. But, you know, after this, Imight go, like, zone out and not
talk to anybody for a few hoursor something like that.

Abhi Saini (41:26):
Yeah.

Ben Climer (41:28):
But, you know, like, it really depend like, it's okay
to not be an extrovert. Thereare opportunities if you're
willing to wear that mask or bethat person.

Abhi Saini (41:38):
Yeah. And I you know, I'm I'm kind of the
opposite. I'm definitely moreextroverted, but I am I will
gladly say I am not the experton so many things, and I am not
the number one person on atechnical subject. I'm good at
it. Right?

(41:58):
I'm I will stand by my rates andwhat I charge for my services
because I know it's worth that,but there's a lot of people that
are way smarter than me. But Ido like to talk to people. I
like to communicate, and I liketo I like to make friends. I
think that's been a really bigproponent of my career. It's
it's just being communicative,being there at the right time,

(42:23):
knowing the right people.

Ben Climer (42:25):
A 100. You know, I I think and you kinda touched on
an aspect on there. Like,sometimes it's knowing the right
people at the right time. Like,nepotism is not a great thing,
but I think there are, like,just befriending someone on
LinkedIn that, like, I mean,like, to be on it, like, the the
Roost job offering. If I hadn'tadded Roost people on LinkedIn,

(42:45):
I never would have saw the jobposting.
It just was never on my radarbefore.

Abhi Saini (42:49):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. For social media, you have to you
have to be in the circle inorder to see the circle. Right?
So it's not don't there's areason that on LinkedIn or even
Facebook that I have thousandplus connections.
It's not because I talk to athousand plus people. It's

(43:09):
because that's the only way foryou to to be visible. You have
to have that network.

Ben Climer (43:16):
Yeah. And, I mean, I think, you know, along the way,
I've made some really deepconnection and, like,
friendships with some peoplejust because, you know, they'll
post something and, like, oh,you know, I kinda know something
about that. I do wanna go backfor a second because you kinda
touched on something thereabout, you know, not knowing
everything. Something that Idon't know. This probably sounds

(43:37):
a little goofy, but somethingthat I had to learn to be okay
with in my impostor syndrome isbeing okay with not knowing
everything, if that makes sense.

Abhi Saini (43:47):
Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Climer (43:48):
I I think it's and I don't think I think this is a
typical problem, but, you know,you're in IT and maybe most of
your job at MSP is dealing witha network. And then you go to a
conference and there's a CCIEthere and they know the world
and you're like, well, I'm anidiot who's a fraud and I've
tricked this MSP into hiring mendoing their networking work. But

(44:10):
I I think there's

Abhi Saini (44:11):
It sounds like you're talking from firsthand
experience because I know I'vebeen there.

Ben Climer (44:15):
I know this guy, and, he worked at MSP and
defrauded them by tricking theminto but, you know, if you're
out there and you have thatimpostor syndrome, I think
there's a seat at the table forpeople that aren't the experts.
That's the reality of it. Yeah.

Abhi Saini (44:31):
Absolutely. I think that's the, there's if you look
at any, and, know, the datewe're recording this podcast, I
think it's kind of perfect towhat I'm about to say. It's it's
you have to have a really broadand diverse set of skills in
order to make anything happen.You know, when you if you're

(44:54):
thinking about any business, thethe person in the top, the CEO,
they have to have really goodbusiness acumen. Right?
They have to know everythingthere is to know about running a
business and how differentaspects of the business can
affect other aspects. But then,you know, they rely on a really

(45:16):
smart group of people. They relyon the CFO, the chief financial
officer that only is really goodat finance, but they suck at
legal and tech. That's fine.Right?
That's why you have a chieftechnology officer, someone
who's really good at technology,but may not know everything
else. And you have the chieflegal officer or head counsel.

(45:39):
You might have a chief operatingofficer, just someone that's
running the business and canunderstand other things but
doesn't know the details. Andwhen you realize when you
extrapolate from that and you gofurther and further down a large
enterprise chart or anorganizational chart, right,

(45:59):
really down the ladder there,even your your bottom of the
wrong teams, they have to havepeople that can do so many
different tasks. And that teamworks with other teams that
works with other teams thatworks with other teams, and they
all do their own thing.
But, I mean, that that's that'sthat's a lot of you have to
recognize that and know thatyou're not gonna know everything

(46:22):
because that's why we're a team.

Ben Climer (46:24):
Yeah. And I I think that's something that I another
aspect that I kinda figured outalong the way. MSP works a
little bit polarizing. A lot ofpeople either love it or hate
it. And I think one of thereasons is you have to be more
of a generalist.
Like, there can be areas offocus, but there's really more
of, you know, a mile wide, youknow, couple inches deep

(46:47):
knowledge Yeah. That it can havea greater value than being the
expert in one particular thing,especially on smaller teams.

Abhi Saini (46:55):
And, I mean, you know, I I said earlier, I I just
shouted out that. I've seenevery episode of this old house,
but I don't know how to build ahouse. But I own a house, and I
have had to paint the walls, andI've had to fix the walls. I've
had to fix the plumbing. I'vehad to fix the landscaping.
I've had to do electrical work.I've had to do structural work.

(47:18):
Right? And so it was like, I I'mthat person where I am not I am
not an electrician, but I knowhow to replace a light switch.
Right?
I have that surface levelknowledge, which I think helps
me in my

Ben Climer (47:35):
What it is is know what you know. And that applies
to the house too. Right? Like,I'll replace a faucet. I'll
clean my gutters.
But, like, when it talks about,like, replacing the gutters or
something like that and, like,you're on the ladder all day and
stuff, like, somebody else isgonna do a much more bet you
know, a much better job than Iam. Or, you know, like, I'll
like you said, I'll replace anoutlet. I probably won't replace

(47:56):
the circuit, the breaker panelby myself. I'd probably involve
somebody on that.

Abhi Saini (48:01):
Right. Yeah. And it's it's understanding that
there's so much depth and nuanceto so many different industries
that you know, if working intech, I think this is something
that I've always thought backto. It's like, if you're in tech
and MSPs, you said, you have tospecialize or you have to kinda

(48:21):
go into a vertical or a niche.But at the end of the day, like,
tech is tech.
If, you know, the computer thatyou use at Google is the same
computer that you use atDeloitte, which is the same
computer that you use atWalmart. They're all computers.
So you have to there's afoundational base understanding

(48:42):
and knowledge to how technologyworks. And then I think what
elevates you to have those morespecialized careers or higher
value careers is understandingthe business part or the the
tiny little details thatseparate Walmart from, you know,
Google. Right?

(49:03):
They're so similar yet sodifferent.

Ben Climer (49:05):
Yeah. I think to kinda expound on that a little
bit, you're touching a few ofyour things there. So I think,
you know, when you're thinkingabout how technology works,
there's a piece to that calledcritical thinking of, like,
really breaking down a problemand understanding where the
issue is. I'll loop back to my aplus certification. They teach
that.
I if if you don't have the aplus or if you don't you know,

(49:27):
you're not interested in MindyGreens did a really good talk on
it a few years back aboutcritical thinking. There's also
a book by Don Jones who wrotethe books on PowerShell in a
month of lunches. And I thinkhis book is a lone wolf in
Siberia, and it's a book abouttroubleshooting. It's about 50
pages. It's a little short read,but it's it's really good too.

(49:50):
But yet when you see, you havethe critical thinking piece and
then you touched on anotherthing that I like that when I
was in my internal IT role andwhen I was in sort of the sales
a little, yeah, there you go.Third edition, baby. Now, have
you actually went through it oris it just on your shelf and

Abhi Saini (50:09):
Both. There's there's 350 pages. I've probably
only read up.

Ben Climer (50:15):
Yeah. Anybody listening on audio, he's brought
out his PowerShell in a month oflunches book.

Abhi Saini (50:20):
Yeah. Learn Windows PowerShell in a month of
lunches. Third edition by DonJones and Jeffrey D. Hicks.

Ben Climer (50:26):
Yeah. I have a couple sign I went to one of his
he did an in person class. He'sa super nice guy.

Abhi Saini (50:33):
If you want an insane class on PowerShell,
Jeffrey Snover.

Ben Climer (50:39):
Yes.

Abhi Saini (50:40):
I mean, the father of PowerShell there, that guy.

Ben Climer (50:43):
Yeah. As you get a little bit deeper, the
PowerShell conference puts out alot of their, like, their
sessions, and they do somereally technical deep dives. If
you're someone who knowsPowerShell and wants to get a
little deeper. The other thing Iwanted to tie back to is you
were talking about understandingthe business value, and I think

(51:05):
that's some like, how a businessworks. And I think that's
something that I had tounderstand when I went through
internal IT and then some in theMSP world as well.
But, like, you can reallyconnect the need to the
business. Like, that if you'rein MSP's sales, that's frankly
how you should be selling.Everybody comes out with kind of

(51:28):
the commodity MSPs package.Everybody has AV and RMM. Can
you sit down, talk with acustomer, understand how their
business works, and then savethem time or money?

Abhi Saini (51:40):
Right. Right. It's it's how do you translate tech
to business needs. And that goesfor any industry really. Right?
Like, finance is finance, buthow do you how do you link the
very particulars of finance tohow to run this business? And
that's something that I've Ijust I'm learning more about. I

(52:02):
just had to redo my entire chartof accounts. And I was I'm
working with a a bookkeepingcompany, and they're like, okay.
Here's the 5,000,000 options youhave.
Do you need this, this, this, orthis? I'm like, I don't think
so. It's like, okay. Let's go tosomething else. Like, there it's
there's amazing how many optionsthere are, but that's part of

(52:23):
that's part of understanding thebusiness and how it relates to

Ben Climer (52:28):
Even at even at the core, if you don't understand
the business terms, it'sshocking and disappointing to me
sometimes how few MSP ownersdon't understand how their
clients actually make money.Yes. Well, you're like, oh,
they're they're they're aprinting company or whatever.
Well, then you dig in, and thisspecifically is 80% of our

(52:51):
revenue. And when it goes down,we lose $20,000 an hour.
We should probably add someredundancies there.

Abhi Saini (52:58):
Right. And it's not it is not the job of the owner
of that printing company to toknow that's what it takes to get
to the fix. Right? Thatredundancy, they might not know.
They know that they need that towork, but they don't know what's
gonna what it's gonna take tomake it work properly.

(53:18):
And that's where that's where wecome in at, like, IT
professionals.

Ben Climer (53:22):
And they're expecting you to be the experts.
So there's some clients that ifyou don't identify those needs,
they're gonna when it goes down,they're gonna be asking, why
didn't you tell me about this?

Abhi Saini (53:33):
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's I think that happens so
often in not just in MSPs, butinternal IT and all kinds of IT
worlds. It's like you itshouldn't be news to you that
this is a current event.
It shouldn't be news to you thatWindows 10 is about to stop

(53:56):
being supported. Right? End oflife comes three months from
now. Right? But we've known thatfor a while.
So you should have planned forthis, and you should have known
that this is gonna happen. Andthis is a big thing that's,
like, talked about in IT spacesor in in the MSP side at least.

(54:16):
It is it's like planning forequipment replacements. So,
like, you just bought a laptop.It shouldn't be a surprise to
you that five years later, youneed a new laptop because they
only have a five year lifespanor whatever it might be.
Right? You might be able to getmore fewer more years out of it,
but that's the that's a big partof, like, the executive side of

(54:40):
IT. It's understanding thelifesand life cycles of devices
and services and planning forthe future today.

Ben Climer (54:48):
Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, if I if I have never had a
conversation with my clientbefore about Windows 10 And I
come to them in, you know, it'sI believe it's October when it
goes into life. I come to themin September and say, well, hey,
guys. We gotta replace a 100laptops next month.
They're gonna go, what the heck,dude? Why didn't you tell us
about this earlier? Right. If Ican tell them, you know, a year

(55:12):
in advance where they can start,like, planning their money out,
where it's not this surprisehuge bill, like, nobody's happy
about that.

Abhi Saini (55:20):
Oh, yeah. And I think I think companies are
doing the companies that, like,set these, like the Microsoft,
Apple, Google, right, they'redoing a really good job at
setting expectations for howlong they are going to support
the product. You know, likelike, I have a I have a Pixel
phone, and I think it gets sevenyears of updates. Right? So I

(55:42):
know that after this I get this$1,500 phone, bloody expensive.
But in seven years, I can'texpect that it is gonna be a
good phone to have. For otherreasons. Right? Seven years is
quite a long time for a compactdevice. But, you know, you have
to understand those andacknowledge those details.

(56:05):
And if you do, you will you canhave those conversations about
the future expectations of yourtechnology department.

Ben Climer (56:13):
Well, Abby, I've really enjoyed our time on this
call and everything, and I'mlooking forward to the future
episodes. I think this is gonnabe a lot of fun. Do you have
anything else to tell thefriends of the Internet?

Abhi Saini (56:25):
Please come back.

Ben Climer (56:26):
Please listen to our podcast.

Abhi Saini (56:28):
Yeah. I am I'm really excited not just to to,
like, for you and I to chat.This is great. I think it's
great as episode zero, justchatting. But I'm really excited
for the conversations we'regonna have with people that you
know, what we can say is they'vethey've made it.
Right? They've they're atthey're in their career. They're

(56:49):
doing the thing. They'resucceeding. How did they get
there?
Why did they get there? I'mgonna I'm gonna be just enamored
in learning these people'sstories.

Ben Climer (56:58):
I I I've looked looked at that list of people
that have expressed interest.And, I mean, I'm excited. I'd
love to talk to any one of thesepeople about anything, frankly.

Abhi Saini (57:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are of

Ben Climer (57:12):
them, I could listen to them talk about a broomstick,
and they'd make it entertainingsomehow.

Abhi Saini (57:17):
Yeah. And that I mean, that list that we've and
this isn't just a list of peoplethat we want to talk to. Right?
This is literally a list ofpeople that we have asked and
said, hey. Would you want to beon our podcast?
And they have said yes. Andthere's people on there that,
like, I've looked up to. There'speople there that I idolize, and
I'm like, you, you're the personthat teaches me how to do my
job. And you wanna be on mypodcast? Talk about, like,

(57:42):
fandom.
Right? It's that's crazy. Ithink that's that is that's the
best thing about technology andIT. It's like we're all a bunch
of nerds. We just wanna helpeach other.
We just wanna learn more. Right?And I love that. I absolutely
love it. Awesome.

Ben Climer (58:01):
Well, we'll see you all next week and, back here on
the Panda award show. Thanksall.

Abhi Saini (58:07):
Take care, everybody. See you next time.