June 30, 2024 • 58 mins
In the latest episode of the remote work life podcast, I had the pleasure of hosting Dan Yoder - CEO of Panda Strike /DashKite - for a second time. The conversation spanned a wide array of topics including generative programming, the importance of building consentful applications, and the evolving landscape of remote work. Dan's insights were particularly illuminating, offering a glimpse into the future of tech and remote work, and how these changes can empower a more inclusive and diverse workforce.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex from Remote Work Life (00:00):
Hey everybody, it's Alex once again
from Remote Work Life, and todayI have an exceptional guest, a
guest that I've had in the past,that I just had to have back
again because we had such aninteresting conversation last
time around and I can't believeit was the best part of three
years ago that we had thisconversation.
(00:22):
Oh, there you go.
So much has happened, so much,so much, and I think, in that
case, hopefully, we've got quitea lot to talk about and catch
up on.
I have Dan Yoda with me today,who is CEO of DashKite.
You can find DashKite at dashand kite k-i-t-e dot com.
(00:44):
As I said, dan is the ceo ofdash kite.
Dash kite is the nextgeneration no code and dash kite
is developing a revolutionarygenerative programming platform
for building consent drivenapplications without writing
code.
Dan, thank you so much forjoining me today on the podcast
again it's a pleasure to be back, Alex.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (01:08):
Yeah, it's great.
I was just going to say thankyou for the chance to be a guest
here again.
Alex from Remote Work Life (01:17):
Yeah , the pleasure is mine, Dan, and
, as I said, a lot of time haspassed since we last spoke.
And, as I said, a lot of timehas passed since we last spoke
and obviously I want to catch upon where you are at the moment
with DashKite.
You've launched this newstartup.
You're still with PandaStrike,of course, but, yeah, tell me
(01:41):
what's happened, eddie.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (01:45):
Just summarize what's happened in the
last few years since we lastspoke.
Well, when we last spoke, soDashKite was there, it existed.
It was in research mode that wewere researching this idea of
being able to do what's quite amouthful generative programming
for consentful applications, sowe can get into what the heck
(02:05):
that all means.
But we were sort of in aresearch mode, sort of
researching the viability ofwhat we wanted to do.
Since then, we've moved intokind of a product development
mode, and that's why we'retalking about that more, and
PandaStrike, which is adevelopment services shop that I
founded back in 2012, is stillis still up and running, uh, but
(02:31):
uh, yeah, the focus in terms ofyou know what I'm, you know
what I'm sort of uh talkingabout these days is is more on
the dash guide side, becausewe're now into doing product
launches, and so that's veryexciting phase of the company's
evolution and uh, as with paddlestrike, dash kite, fully remote
(02:56):
business as well.
Alex from Remote Work Life (02:57):
I'm.
I'm assuming, of course, you'vethat's.
I think, if I remember rightly,you've been developed.
I mean it's been over a decade,is it since?
You've been building remotedevelopment teams and remote
tech teams?
Is that right?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (03:10):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, so we PandaStrike when westarted PandaStrike, we decided
that was going to be remotedevelopment and with remote
developers, so so not justremote from the client's
perspective, but the developersthemselves are remote.
One of the interesting thingsthat's happened in the last
several years since we lastspoke is we've we've branched
(03:30):
out more internationally, soit's it's quite fascinating.
We have developers now all overthe world, so we've really
leaned into the remote aspect ofit and and so.
But Dash, dash kite uh, youknow, obviously we just that
model works extremely well forreasons that we can get into,
(03:53):
and we decided, you know,obviously we're just going to
continue building on thatexperience with dash kite well,
as we're on on the subject ofdash kite, tell us more than
about because you mentionedgenerative programming.
Alex from Remote Work Life (04:06):
and what is that all about then?
What are you building there?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (04:11):
Tell us a bit more about that, well
you've probably seen some of thehype around generative AI and
the GPT and all this, and so, ifyou think of it, this isn't
that, but the word generative isthe operative word here.
So it's similar in that,instead of providing, like, if
(04:32):
you look at something like chatGPT, for example, right, you can
say something like you know,tell me a joke and chat GPT will
come up with a joke, right, andso the generative aspect of
that is that you can give sortof high level direction and you
get much more detailed feedback.
Right, you go between.
(04:53):
The way we think of it is interms of this notion of
integrative levels.
So you have, like, in biology,right, we have, you know,
there's cells and then there'sorgans, and then there's the
body and then there's, you know,communities and cities, and
these are all differentintegrative levels.
Right, when we're talking aboutcities, we don't have to talk
about the cells in our bodies,and so you can think of
(05:17):
generative being.
I want to give you adescription at one integrative
level, but you're going to dosomething at the level, the
levels below it.
So, uh, when we talk aboutcities, we can imagine that
there are all these people andthe people all have, you know,
bodily organs and those organsof cells and we know all that
there.
And that's the idea ofgenerative, right, you say
(05:39):
something at a high level andyou get this detailed.
You know, I tell me a joke andyou get a whole joke, right?
So the generative that's whatthe generative is about is being
able to provide some generalinput.
I want a website that doesthese things and you get back an
actual website that has areasonably coherent design and
(06:00):
that's in contrast with, say,visual programming, right?
So where there are tools likeWebflow, for example, where you
would go in and you basicallyyou're doing more or less what a
code-based programmer would do.
You're just doing it visually,right.
So generative programming isintended to give you this idea
that you're providing this highlevel direction and the details
(06:25):
are taken care of.
So it's more like how you mighttalk to a designer instead of
having to learn how to do design.
And then the consent part of it.
So the consent drivenapplications, and part of the
reason that it that we're ableto do the generative programming
is we're focused around aspecific kind of application
that we call consentful, andthere's a great movement.
(06:46):
In fact, there's a website thatI'd like to call out called.
It's called Consentful Tech.
I think it's Consentful Tech IO, and it talks about this notion
of consent in applicationdesign.
It's a really neat movement.
It has to do with things likewell, primarily around the idea
(07:06):
of of giving and givingapplications consent.
So if I'm going to use yourdata for something, you have to
give me consent for that, ifright, if you're gonna, you know
, keep track of something, uh,even if you don't have any
nefarious intent with the data,you still have to ask for
consent.
And so if we think of ourselvesas having digital bodies that's
(07:30):
the metaphor the consentfultech movement is based around.
And just as you would needconsent for, you know, with
respect to your physical person,we need to embrace this idea
that we need to.
We need to as, as, asapplication developers and in
the technology business, weshould be doing the same thing.
(07:51):
We need consent from uh withrespect to someone's digital
body.
So being able to build thosekinds of apps, which is highly
relevant in an era of GDPR-typeregulations, where I think
there's going to be more andmore of that kind of stuff and
more and more not having thatconsent is going to be a
(08:12):
liability.
But even if it wasn't, it's theright thing to do, right, so
there's an ethical aspect to it.
So what we want to do is makeit easier to build consentful
applications than it is not to.
I think part of the problemright now is that it is very
(08:32):
difficult to build consentfulapplications, and so if we can
make that the default, theeasier thing to do, I think most
people would prefer to do theright thing.
It's just, you know, when theright thing and the easy thing
are at odds, or when the rightthing is the hard thing, it, you
(08:52):
know, it just makes it lesslikely that people are able to
do that.
And, um, and particularly forgroups that have not, you know,
been historically included inbeing able to participate in the
tech industry or buildapplications, generative
programming promises to make itremove a big barrier to being
able to participate and to buildapplications and make it
(09:16):
possible to empower people, andso, while doing that, we want to
be empowering them to also dothe right thing in the form of
building consentful applications.
Alex from Remote Work Life (09:28):
And is there, because I know you
mentioned that you're in startupmode is there an example of
somebody who, or some sort ofuse case you can share with us
in terms of, or an example casestudy that you can share with us
how you're building somethingout with DashKite?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (09:48):
Well, at the moment we're still sort
of doing private beta type, sowe don't have an actual case
study or a customer, aLighthouse customer, that we can
point to.
One company we have beenworking pretty closely with is
the company uh called homeroom,and they're focused on helping
people build uh communitiesaround that are sort of
(10:13):
consentful communities indiscord, and so we've built some
of their back-end tooling andthat's we're doing some work
with them.
We've also worked uh, uh, notas a company but uh the you know
the as individuals working, youknow, bringing our past
relationships in.
We've worked in on anexperiment, uh uh, an
(10:36):
experimental community calledsmall town, which was is
essentially focused around uh,you know, communities where it's
kind of like, imagine it's sortof like a consentful next door,
but maybe a little bit more ina federated model.
So more like uh like being ableto run your own instance of of
(10:56):
a community uh platform withmoderation and so forth.
Alex from Remote Work Life (11:01):
It's all local, as opposed to being
uh something that has one bigplatform with one one moderation
authority or for what might bethousands of individual
communities, which doesn'talways make sense and the I the
last time we spoke um it, youleft a real impact on me in
(11:25):
terms of the way you approachwork and your, your, you know,
just your general, your generalethics and and I it made me
think something I wanted,honestly I, when I, when we left
that particular podcast, therewas so many more questions I had
to ask you, but obviously wehad limited time and this is
another reason I wanted to getback, get you back on today, um,
(11:47):
and from what you're justdescribing, that even the fact
that you're building somethingnow that it seems as though you
know obviously ethics andempowering people is something
that is really um, well, peoplein general are something that's
important to you is.
Is there a particular I don'tknow a story or experience in
your life that has influencedwho you are today and and help
(12:09):
you to define who you are?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (12:13):
yeah, you know it's.
It's funny, uh, I don't know,there's so many, I think, um, a
lot of, so there's some thatwere negative.
There were some of.
It is like just havingexperiences where you know you
felt like maybe you could domore, or um, or you know um
(12:44):
opportunities that that werethere to do, you know to do more
um in terms of, uh, creatingvalue or uh, you know um just
doing the right thing for thecustomer, and you know those
moments of frustration cancontribute to it, of of saying,
(13:05):
hey, you know, I would like to,I would like to be part of doing
something, you know, that makesthe world better, rather than
just I think everybody kind ofhas that right People want
something that's fulfilling youwant to feel like you're
contributing, more than justmaking, know, a paycheck,
ideally, and so, uh, seeingseeing that and then, and then
(13:30):
just being inspired by seeingpeople who have just, you know
that have done that right, thatuh have said, okay, you know um,
I, you know people who, in manycases, could have done many,
many things, but they chose tofocus on trying to make the
world a better place.
(13:51):
So I don't know that there wasa specific you know situation or
experience.
A lot of it's just people thatI've seen that have inspired me
and helped me realize, you know,it is possible to do that.
It is a choice.
It's difficult to get to aposition and I think this is,
(14:13):
you know, part of part of thisidea of empowering people partly
comes from realizing in my ownlife experience just how hard it
has been to be in a positionwhere you can and you know this,
doing the podcast right, I meangetting into a position where
you know you, you can make thatchoice is, you know it takes a
(14:36):
lot to get there and maybe, ifpart of what we want to do is be
working together to, you know,make it a little, make that
choice a little easier forpeople, right, so that more
people can say you know what Iwant to do, something that's,
that's meaningful.
I kind of had a got a kick outof the quiet quitting phase,
right, because I feel like partof what was going on there,
right, was people finding thatmaybe they did have a choice and
(14:59):
you know that they weren't.
Maybe you know it's like well,okay, there, you could look at
that as a failure of the workers, but you know, okay, but maybe
it's also a failure of thecompanies employing those people
not to be able to inspire ormotivate them, right and uh, so
so it's been a.
(15:20):
It's all these experiences, Ithink, um and and so many mostly
, I think, just seeing amazingpeople doing amazing things and
then saying, you know, I, I wantto try to be a part of that, if
I can got it another.
Alex from Remote Work Life (15:35):
You mentioned people who have
inspired you.
Are there any you know, peoplethat specifics that you can
share with us?
Who who's inspired you in your,in your career or just in
generally in life at all?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (15:51):
uh, yeah, um, I kind of hesitate to
call anyone out because there'sjust so many people and I.
Alex from Remote Work Life (16:00):
It's like one of those things
we're're going to miss it, but,yeah, I'm going to.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (16:02):
Yeah, but I'll mention one person just
as an example, just becausethey came to mind, but Laura
Weidman Powers, who is anextremely talented person and
she could have done a lot ofthings, and she could have done
(16:23):
a lot of things and the thingsthat she's chosen to do she
decided to do she foundedCode2040, which was focused on
addressing DEI in tech, and thenhas gone on, as I think she's
now still, as a partner atBase10 Ventures, where she is
(16:44):
working on a fund thatcontributes the earnings from
the fund to hbcus.
So I mean, that's just anexample.
There's lots of other people,but just this just came to mind.
Uh, so you know, uh, you know,that's a great example in the
sense of somebody who's justextremely talented, could have
done anything really, and that's, those are the, those are the
(17:07):
kinds of choices that she made,and I find that kind of thing
would be very inspiring to knowthat those people are out there,
right?
You know, there's there's.
For all of the bad news and thenegativity that we hear in the
world right, that we hear in theworld, right, you know, there
are an awful lot of people justout there doing great work day
(17:28):
by day and they don'tnecessarily get a lot of
headlines or accolades, butcollectively we're all making
the world a better place.
And it adds up all these littlethings, all these little things
that you can do.
Alex from Remote Work Life (17:47):
It may not seem like much in any
individual case, um, but it, youknow, it adds up and and and in
the end that's what it takes, Ithink and I think that's that's
one of the um, the things thatinspire me to to not just start
this podcast but also continue,because I've had my my share of
(18:08):
moments where I think to myselfis, am I doing the right thing
here?
But I think I want to be able toput a spotlight on those people
who are doing, you know, the,the work, the you know the ones
that aren't necessarily heraldedin the media or the ones that
aren't necessarily shoutingabout what they're doing.
I want to be able to use thismedium to do that Because, like
(18:33):
you said, people like Laura,laura Weidman Powell, if she's
doing like powers sorry, she'sdoing that work for DEI, then
that's that's really.
It's really important.
And do you think I mean becausethere's a lot that's been said
about um under representation intech and lots of people talk
(18:58):
about diversity etc.
In your do you see any sort ofany changes or improvements in,
in sort of take up for techroles from from your you know,
from your sort of sphere of yournetwork, or just from a general
(19:21):
perspective?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (19:23):
I think the tech industry in general
has just failed in that I don'tthink that they've made any
progress that's worth.
I think the progress has beenmade.
There's individual examples Ithink of either within companies
, where there are managers who,or you know, director or even VP
(19:45):
level people who are reallytrying to do better Um, and
outside the tech industry.
There are probably a lot ofexamples I'm not as familiar
with.
I know the tech industry moreuh, but within the tech industry
, yeah, I think it's.
It's just uh, uh, you know,just not happening and that's
(20:08):
sad.
Alex from Remote Work Life (20:08):
It's sad and I think there's, like I
said in my because I'm lookingfrom a, I suppose, a recruitment
, hiring perspective you see alot of adverts um saying you
know, we do this and we do that,we, we try and do this, we try
to do that to encourage peoplefrom different backgrounds, etc.
But for one reason or another,like as you were alluding to,
(20:30):
it's not, it's, it's not quitehappening, it's not, it's not
quite um, it's not quite gettingthere but yeah, because if you
look at it from a, if you lookat it like analytically, there's
just no evidence that it'simproving.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (20:43):
So there's all this talk for sure
there's a lot of you know, like,like you said, the you know ads
always mention it Um, uh, but,and you know there'll be uh, you
know, on uh, like somethinglike black history month or
whatever.
(21:03):
There'll be a whole bunch ofrhetoric and activity around
that, but in terms of meaningfulchange, in terms of the number
of people that are being givenopportunities, a lot of times,
when you actually look at thedata, it hasn't changed or, in
some cases, actually gottenworse, which is kind of
remarkable.
Wow, and I?
(21:23):
So I, which is not to be, Idon't mean to be um, I think
there's hope in that, in thesense of we just need to
acknowledge that it's that badand and maybe start thinking
about in my view, I think youjust got to think about uh
outside that ecosystem, right?
How do we?
You know we can't let thatecosystem right, how do we, you
know we can't let that ecosystemcontinue to determine how our
(21:48):
tech industry evolves?
It's, it's broken and I don'tas far as I can tell, I mean,
it's been decades.
Now it's not.
It's not changed, so it doesn'tseem like it's going to be
fixed from within yeah, I thinkit's like you said.
Alex from Remote Work Life (22:04):
I think it takes from a grassroots
level to to do things and Iwhat I'm seeing is a lot, like I
said, lots of talk around umrecruitment and hiring.
I am seeing, I guess, examplesof sort of gen z, gen z sort of
(22:24):
ceos, um trying to I don't well,yeah, they're trying to um be
actively involved in eithersetting up um businesses or
setting up um, because you see alot of uh like coding schools
and sort of coding workshops andboot camps.
(22:45):
Why I'm seeing a lot more is is,for example, the coding boot
camps that encourage women, forexample, or those that encourage
people from you know differentbackgrounds to to write.
I'm seeing a lot of thosebecause a couple of years ago it
was a case where I the codingboot camps that you saw, the
(23:05):
actual fees to get into themwere prohibitively high, whereas
now you're seeing probably afew more that either they won't.
They'll either charge a muchlower fee or they'll encourage
people to sign on and won'tcharge them until they secure a
(23:27):
role at the end of it.
So I don't know if that's anattempt to encourage more people
to get involved with tech and Idon't know if there's any data
that it's even working, but fromthe sounds of it it doesn't
seem as though it's making animpact where it needs to be
making an impact at this point.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (23:50):
Yeah, I mean I, I think.
So there's a couple thingsthere that are sort of
interesting.
I mean one there was sort of apredatory inclusion aspect to
some of the coding schools, butit's if they're moving towards a
model, uh, where they're notcharging or they're deferring
the fees.
Maybe, maybe that, maybe that'sa little better.
And I also think thegenerational component is, is
(24:13):
possibly a factor.
I'm not sure what the you know,maybe things as Gen Z begins to
get more you know, authority andis more empowered to make
change, maybe maybe then thingswill really will change.
That's I would, I would lovethat.
I hope that's the case, uh, andin any case, I do think that
(24:36):
the key is saying well, we justneed to invest in the in in
these groups that have beenhistorically excluded from the
tech industry, because thetalent is there right.
So if you're, if if you'relooking for talent and you have
the resources, the smartestthing you could do would be to
just invest in developing thattalent, because they're really,
(25:00):
you know, the idea that you'reshort on talent is is just a
product of the fact that you'renot willing to invest in
developing it, and so a schoolwhere you're not willing to
invest in developing it.
And so a school where you'resaying, okay, well, we'll, we'll
defer the fees, or, even better, would be just a scholarship
system that evolved from the big.
If they're really serious aboutit, they're saying, well, we
don't have enough talent.
(25:20):
Well then, you know, developthe talent.
They've got the money to do itif they really wanted to solve
the problem.
Alex from Remote Work Life (25:36):
Yeah , I agree, develop the talent.
They've got the money to do itif they really wanted to solve
the problem.
Yeah, I agree, and I think andthis is why again, another
reason for me remote work.
I probably didn't realize howpowerful remote work is until
you know I really got into thesort of conversations like I'm
having with you.
Um, the power of remote work,because I speak to quite a few
people in things like, well,different remote teams,
different remote leaders.
(25:57):
More and more I'm speaking towomen, for example, who have
been able to use remote work toget into tech roles or at least
continue their career, continuebuilding their careers, and in
(26:20):
some cases they say to me itjust wouldn't have been possible
if I wasn't able to workremotely, for example.
So I think if you're aligningsort of the power of working
remotely with what you're saying, dan, in terms of the
scholarships and the trainingaspects of tech, I think that's
(26:43):
a powerful sort of likecombination that can really get
people, or encourage people toget into tech and not just get
into it, but just really buildcareers and see a pathway where
they can actually build a career.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (26:59):
Um, that's a great point about
remote.
I mean remote removes anotherbarrier, right?
Another form of exclusion issaying, well, you have to live
in this very expensive city and,uh, or you've got to take
several hours out of your day tocommute, right, so that just
eliminates a whole bunch ofpeople that either don't have
that kind of free time to becommuting all the time or don't
(27:21):
can't afford to live in SanFrancisco, or you know, uh,
wherever um, remote empowerspeople to, you know, wherever
Remote empowers people to, youknow, by removing those barriers
.
And it's not quite the same andthat's why it's been a little
bit, you know, predictable maybe, but also a little
disappointing to see a lot ofthe big tech companies insist on
(27:44):
having everybody come back, butthe same it is.
The idea of investing in, intraining and skills development
is it's just another form ofthat right, it is just removing
these, these barriers.
I, I have a feeling that if wewere to do that, if we
collectively can remove thebarriers to people participating
(28:06):
in the economy fully, like Idon't even think anybody has any
idea what's even possible withthat.
You know, we've beenessentially kind of it's a very
self-defeating thing to excludeso many people from
participating fully in theeconomy, so many people from
(28:28):
participating fully in theeconomy.
If what you want is economicgrowth, then you want, like you
know, maybe benefits a fewpeople, but I think in the end
it's collectively just aterribly short-sighted decision
to not invest, to not removethose barriers and hopefully
over the next decade or two wecan obliterate those and see
(28:49):
what the economy really lookslike when everybody is able to
contribute this is it and Ithink that it was bought.
Alex from Remote Work Life (28:56):
That whole scenario you've just
described is the contributionand the pooling resources to get
to get the you know, get peopleexposed to tech, exposed the
right trade, so they get backinto the market.
So over the last couple of yearsI've been doing a lot of
coaching and um.
One of the set, one of theareas that has really brought
home to me is is, for example,usually um single moms, single
(29:22):
mothers so, and single momsbetween the ages of, say what,
27 and 35, where I had a coupleof a couple of my, my clients
where they desperately wanted toeither rejoin the workforce
having worked in tech um, orthey wanted to launch their
(29:46):
career in tech but there was somany different hurdles and
barriers for them to to do thatand there was no sort of path,
there's no sort of clear pathwayfor them to to do that and
there was no real sort ofaffordable resource for them to
do that.
And it just, it just made methink to myself.
You know, I think, yeah, Ithink certainly there could be a
(30:08):
lot more done from well, onthis side of the channel, anyway
, on this side of the ocean.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (30:17):
I think the same is true here, yeah.
Alex from Remote Wor (30:21):
Definitely , because the governments here,
for example, the government hereis not.
I saw lots of holes in the waythat they're sort of all these
skilled people, as I said,between those ages who are
experienced workers that youknow, desperate to get into it,
but there's no, as I said.
So you think it's the same.
It is the same over there aswell, right?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (30:43):
Well, certainly that aspect, yeah, I
mean, if you look at, I mean I'mlike you, I'm speaking
anecdotally from from peoplethat I've talked to and but it's
sort of also just logic thatkind of makes sense.
I mean, child care is a thing,so if you're um, you know, if
you go back to the commutescenario, right, so, um, if
(31:06):
you've got a commute in thatyou're paying for child care for
that time, right, so there's anactual cost.
And so now, whether you'reactually paying higher rent or
you're paying more child care,either way, there's this cost
for you to participate, not tomention you're not able to be
present around your kids.
And I think remote is one ofthe one of those things that
(31:27):
fundamentally changes thatdynamic.
Right, the commute's gone, um,the a lot of times.
Remote makes sense in contextswhere flexible hours make sense,
which helps me, helps, you know, if you're a single parent, it
helps you be more present inyour, your, your kids' lives,
which I think is, you know, agood thing obviously, and kids'
(31:49):
lives, which I think is you knowa good thing, obviously, and
you know so.
And then, and then you get intothings, like you know, the
training aspect of it, right,which is again, if you can do
the training online in the timethat you have right, the time
that you can make.
It makes it just much more,much more likely that people are
(32:09):
going to be able to get thetraining and then participate
and then get a good job if theycan work remotely.
So it's a complete game changerfor some people, absolutely.
Alex from Remote Work Life (32:23):
It is.
In fact, it's one of the wordsthat somebody I interviewed the
other day used.
She said it was a game changerfor her.
That somebody I interviewed theother day used.
It was a game changer for her.
Not just mothers, but myself.
I'm a good example myselfbecause there was a point where
I was at home looking after mydaughter and remote work enabled
(32:43):
me to continue with my career,not have any sort of real gaps
in my career, but at the sametime, you know, see my daughter
take her first steps, forexample, or even just just take
her to school.
Things I used to take, I usedto take for granted taking her
to school, you know, to behonest with I, mean, how do you
right, how do you even put aprice on something like that?
(33:06):
yes, that's amazing it is, it's,it's, it's.
I was looking back on somepictures and I was thinking to
myself this would not beimpossible had I not been able
to work on a remote basis,because I was a point, there was
a point where I was workingsort of in an office and I was
(33:28):
doing, you know, it was quite isvery heavy sales environment,
heavy sort of client pitchingenvironment where we had to stay
late to do these pitches andsometimes if, if we did a pitch
after, we would, you know, we'dgo out after the pitch with the
client, that sort of thing, andnot get home till sort of nine
or nine o'clock in the eveningsometimes, or even if there
(33:50):
wasn't a client pitch, it wassometimes actually just just the
work itself would mean, youknow, not getting home too late
and not, you know, go going,leaving in the morning whenever
before everybody got up, andwhen I got back home everybody's
in bed.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (34:04):
So it was just, it's incredible right,
right, yeah, yeah, they putsuch a constraint around things
because you, you know, you, youcan't sort of take a short break
from work and then hang outwith your kid and then go back
to work because there's an,there's a commute involved or
there's, you know, there'sthings like well, can you get to
(34:24):
the meeting on time, right, ontime Right, and uh it, you know,
I think one of the things that,um, I had always sort of
accepted, cause I'd heard this alot from people when I would,
you know people who are, in, uh,office bound environments, if
you will, and they wouldsometimes say well, you know the
kinds of things that we'redoing.
You know, we have a lot ofmeetings.
(34:45):
It's really would be reallyhard to do remote, and I always
kind of accepted that lot ofmeetings.
It's really it would be reallyhard to do remote, and I always
kind of accepted that.
And I think one of the thingsthat the pandemic did is it
exposed that as as not being thecase.
We might've I'm not going tosay it was a lie, because I
think a lot of people reallyactually didn't believe that it
was possible for them to dotheir jobs without being in an
(35:05):
office, but a lot of people wereable to do their jobs right and
it turned out.
I mean, you know, the wholeeconomy didn't just collapse,
like a lot of things just kindof kept going and certain
sectors actually boomed, and soit turns out that that's a myth.
It's not really the case thatin fact it's.
(35:26):
You know, I think for a lot ofpeople what they discovered is
that they could actually dotheir jobs better than they were
doing before, and so what'sinteresting has been a little
bit disappointing is to see alot of companies say, well, okay
, everybody, it's time to comeback in the office, but I don't
think you're ever going to likethat's never.
(35:47):
You can't unsee that.
You know, like, even peoplethat are going back into the
office are kind of like well, I,I now, I know, right now, I
know this isn't really necessary, yes, and I think that's going
to.
It may not things still playingout, but I think, because the
discussions now are different,right, people before and you
would know this even better thanI, because you were doing this
(36:08):
podcast and talking to all thesedifferent people about it, not
to turn this around startinterviewing you, but I'd love
to hear your perspective onwhether this has changed,
because before it seemed likethere was a lot of people saying
, well, it sounds nice andeverything, but I don't think it
(36:29):
would work here and I don'thear that now anymore.
It's more like, well, thecompany's making us come back.
There's not really as much of athing of saying nobody's even
really pretending that it'snecessary, at least that's so.
My question to you would be isthat what you're seeing in these
when you're talking to peopleon the podcast or outside of the
(36:54):
podcast, I guess?
Alex from Remote Work Life (36:55):
Yeah , I think what I'm seeing.
I mean, like you're saying, dan, I think the data shows in
terms of productivity,productivity it confirms that
people are certain sectors werejust as productive, if not more
productive, working remotely,working from home.
Um, I, I tell you what, as wellit it's see what the pandemic
(37:23):
has done, is it obviouslyemphasized that the emphasize
that it was possible.
It's also, um, like you said,pushed remote work to the
forefront as a possibility forthe future.
Um, and again, anecdotally, I Ithink we're not just
anecdotally but I think lots ofin terms of the job seekers now.
(37:45):
Job seekers now perhaps in asituation where they're probably
more um specific about thekinds of roles that they want
now.
So they're asking for, if theycan't do remote, then they're,
they're fully, fully remote,that is, they're being a bit
more specific about the, thesorts of work, so the sorts of
(38:10):
arrangements that they want.
So if it's, for example, acouple of days here in the
office, a couple of days at home, you're seeing a lot more um,
in fact, you're seeing a lotmore companies, and this is I
don't.
I don't like this aspect, butyou're getting lots of companies
advertising roles as remote,but then, when you get to the
actual point of the interview,um, they start saying well,
(38:34):
actually it's two days, you know, two days at home, or one day
at home and the rest of it is inoffice.
So they they're realizing thatmore people are asking for
remote opportunities and they'reputting those sorts of things
in the job adverts, but it feelslike it's under false pretenses
and it feels like it's kind oflike a bit of a bait and switch
(38:55):
going on to attract people andthen sort of change the
goalposts because they realizethat, you know, remote roles are
basically the flavor of themonth, it's not the flavor of
the decade, to be honest.
So, yeah, right.
And the other thing is as wellis Speaking to somebody else on
(39:21):
the podcast, somebody who'sfully into remote work.
He's the CEO of Time Doctor andhe was.
I don't know what you thinkabout this, but in terms of the
predictions, obviously you'regetting lots of um bosses now
telling their workers to comeback into the office.
That has been a bit of a trendin 2023, um, but what he
(39:44):
predicted was that that's goingto play itself out through 2023,
start 2024, mid 2024, butbeyond 2024 and 2025 you're
going to see a lot morecompanies, for example, the
companies that establishthemselves as fully remote.
In 2020, at the sort of the endof pandemic or the height of
(40:05):
pandemic, you're going to see alot more of those types of
companies as a matter of course,so to speak, or kind of.
Those will sort of companieswill be more popular, so that,
in turn, will mean that the youknow there's gonna be more
companies offering fully remoteopportunities, for example.
Um, I don't know what yourthoughts are that.
(40:28):
Do you think there's going tobe a more of a uh, more
widespread remote opportunitiesinto the future, or do you think
there's still going to be ademand by bosses to get people
back into the, into the office?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (40:44):
well, a little bit of both.
I think a lot of theestablished companies,
particularly in tech, areprobably going to continue to
insist on having people in theoffice and they have, you know,
enough momentum from a you knowscale and revenue standpoint
that they can probably get awaywith that.
But I do think what's gonna,what that really is going to
(41:04):
mean, is they're going to lose alot of talent over the next few
years and a newer generation oftech companies that is remote
friendly or not even remotefriendly, just remote like as
the default right.
Yes, before the pandemic, Imean, part of PandaStrike's
(41:26):
whole strategy was just thatbecause we were remote, we could
get talent.
That you know.
It's not as much of anadvantage though.
So, to the point of the TimeDoctor CEO, we don't recruit
that way anymore.
I mean, we still recruit asremote being a feature, but it's
(41:48):
no longer an advantage for us.
There's enough other companiessaying that they're fully remote
, that that doesn't distinguishus anymore, and so I think that
does speak to the sheer numberof opportunities that are
available for people that arefully remote.
And I think, between that andthe pandemic, exposing as a myth
(42:11):
that you know that you can'treally, you know, I think people
now realize I can do my jobremotely.
They now are acquainted withthe benefits.
Like, I just spoke with a friendof mine who during, you know,
while his company was remote, uh, he took the opportunity to
(42:31):
move to a location that where hepreferred to, he wanted to
place, that he wanted to live,and uh, the company is now
saying that they want everybodyto come back to the office and,
um, you know, so he's commuting.
You know, I don't like that'schanged the equation for him.
He's now realized, like I canjust live wherever I want, I can
(42:53):
live where I want, I can havethe lifestyle that I want, and
whether that means spending moretime with your kids or living
in as part of the country thatis, you know that you prefer.
It's different for everybody.
But everybody now realizes thatyou know, they know whether or
not, they know firsthand nowwhether or not their job really
does require them to be in anoffice.
(43:16):
And for the people who kind ofknow that it's a myth that they
have to be there, I think it'schanged the way that they're
thinking about it and they'remuch more likely to say, well,
maybe I should just go find acompany that is that will
embrace this.
So I do think it may take awhile to play out, but I do
think it's going to be.
It's going to continue to shiftand I also think it's going to
(43:38):
be a big advantage for companies.
If you're, you know, in termsof being able to track talent,
it's a bad if you're're, ifyou're still in that mentality
that you're saying, well, we'regoing to have everybody come
back into the office.
I mean you're, you're going,there's going to be a cost that
you're going to pay in terms ofthe talent that you have
available to you to execute, andit'll eventually.
(43:58):
It takes a while, especiallyfor these big companies that
have, you know, just suchmassive revenue streams, but
they're, you know it'll.
Alex from Remote Work Lif (44:07):
It'll eventually start hurting them
competitively I think so, and inyour case I mean not the
questions I get about, not inyour case, but the questions I
get a lot about remote, becausethere's there's a whole heap of
people looking for remoteopportunities, um, and not
necessarily knowing how to,whether that's I don't know,
(44:29):
whether that's sort of beingemployed, or even freelancing,
or this is kind of threequestions in one, I guess.
So, for people looking for foremployment in remote,
freelancing, or even just to dosomething, um in remote, you
know, in a remote aspect, maybewe should just start with those
(44:50):
are employed how would you thenbecause obviously you hire for
your different teams um, howwould you suggest that people
start looking for remoteopportunities that suit them?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (45:09):
in terms of, I'm not sure, like
what do you mean?
How, how to start looking so?
Alex from Remote Work Life (45:16):
I think one of the the the biggest
, uh, I guess, um difficulties.
I guess there's lots ofcompetition for remote work and
there's so many different.
There's different peopleprofessing to, to have remote
roles.
There's some unscrupulouspeople sort of posting roles
(45:38):
that are remote and it can bequite difficult actually to
differentiate between thebusinesses that are offering
legitimate roles and those thatare not.
So I guess what I'm asking iswhat?
What would you say?
You know somebody who's lookingfor a remote job, a remote role
?
Um, how would you sort ofrecommend they go about not only
(46:01):
looking for a role, but alsothey're engaging with a
potential employer?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (46:13):
I see, yeah, as far as the first part
of that, I actually am not that.
I mean, we we still just kindof run ads and we have our
network that we put the word outwhen we're looking for
something.
So there's nothing.
I don't have any particularlyuseful insights there as far as
like, where do you go?
I think remote is now commonenough that pretty much you know
any job board or any anyrecruiter is.
(46:36):
You can tell them, you can hitthe flag I'm looking for remote
or tell a recruiter I'm lookingfor remote, um and um and just
look for the remoteopportunities.
But then when you're reallyengaging, I think there is some
questions you can ask that canhelp sort of differentiate.
(47:01):
You know, one of the most simplethings is you know how much of
the company is remote and youknow what's the commitment to
remote.
Is it, you know?
Is there any?
Is there any plans to whetherthey're in the next six months
or year or in the indefinitefuture?
Is there any plan to say you'regoing to want people to come
(47:22):
back into the office and youknow if hopefully they'll,
they'll be honest about thatresponse.
But if, if you're, I mean and Iwould say if you're kind of
concerned that maybe they're notbeing honest, then you know
that's a whole different problem.
But there's also sometimes thefact that the hiring managers
(47:42):
themselves may be being misled.
So to take that into account, Ithink you know one of the
things that you know is usefulis to kind of get a sense of to
what extent has the hiringmanager completely adapted to
learning how to manage remote,because managing remote means
(48:03):
you're not doing bodies andchairs right.
You don't look around youroffice and go okay, everybody's
here.
They appear to be working.
I mean, it's funny because Idon't know how many times people
would ask me or raise theobjection.
You know, how do you know thatpeople are working?
Which I always thought was wemight.
I think we might've talked onthis in the last, uh, the last
time I was on your show.
(48:24):
Uh, because it's a strangequestion to ask in the sense
that it sort of implies thatthere is that you don't have a
way of measuring theproductivity of your team, like
even on a just even on a gutlevel.
I don't necessarily mean thatyou know you're sitting there
counting widgets, but justhaving a sense of you know well
(48:44):
how productive are people being,that's part of being a good
manager.
So I think if you ask peopleabout how do they assess things
like how do you measure orassess productivity, you know
how do you give and you know howdo you provide feedback, so
that I know what I need toimprove on or do better.
(49:05):
And those are good questionsanyway.
But remote managers will tend togive, I think, much more
concrete answers because theywill have been and they will be,
they will have adapted to say,okay, well, I can't see
everybody, I can't just goaround and chat with people.
(49:26):
So I got to actually kind ofknow how to determine who's
getting what done.
And if they've got good answersto those questions that don't
depend on people being in anoffice, then there's a good
chance that at least the hiringmanager is completely committed
(49:46):
to remote.
You know whether or not.
I think at that point, if you,if you're not sure, if it's a
big, sometimes these bigcompanies, um, you know are, you
know it's hard to the hiringmanagers don't always know for
sure.
So I think in those cases youcan always say well, know, let
me ask some questions of the HRpeople.
(50:08):
And if they're like yes, we're100% committed to remote, but if
they start dancing around theissue, then probably they've
been in meetings or somethingwhere there's been discussions
about, you know, the possibilityof asking the employees back of
(50:32):
asking the employees back.
Alex from Remote Work Life (50:32):
Yeah , it's uh, I think the the
process of job search, and it'salways been about asking
questions, but I think even morenow it's it's even more
important because of the there'sso there's so many different uh
, there are so many differentquestions to ask now.
Uh, just so you're clear on umyou're you know what you're
getting into as a job seeker orsomebody who's looking for an
opportunity.
So I like that question whatcommitment do you?
(50:55):
What's the commitment to remotework?
That's a pretty good one and ittells a lot.
That should tell you a lot, Ithink.
So, yeah, thank you for that,dad.
And in terms of um, in terms ofdash kite, then, um, what,
what's on the horizon for foryou, dan?
What's on the horizon for fordash kite, uh, in the future?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (51:19):
well, so we have our first um.
Well, thank you for asking thatquestion.
Uh, first of all, uh, we haveour first product out, which is
a, a simple.
It's called dashkite db andit's a simple, doesn't require
any programming type of databasethat you can create the
database very easily.
You go in, click, boom, youhave a database and um, and then
(51:41):
you can, you know, put thingsin and it's not.
There's not a lot of toolingaround it to make it easy to put
things in and out.
It's really just part of aroadmap that we have.
The next product we're going tobe launching in July is called
Sites, and Sites is a.
It's a generative websitebuilder, meaning you know, you
can essentially just startputting content in the site and
(52:05):
the the application figures out,you know how to, how to display
it so that it looks very nice.
So it's kind of it's kind oflike a cms that also knows how
to do web design is maybe theway you can think about it.
Well, we'll hopefully have, youknow, a nice.
Well, we'll have that, thatplaying.
(52:26):
We're planning to do that in alaunch that in July and maybe
have a little bit of a littlehow to video that goes along
with that, to show people how touse it.
Uh, and then and then fromthere, uh, we're going to make
it so that it's more interactive, which is why the where Dash
Guide DB comes in, because, uh,you know, just to be able to do
simple things like a form, likea signup form.
(52:56):
You want to store that datasomewhere.
So we that's the, that's theimmediate roadmap we're pretty
excited about.
Well, by getting our firstproduct launch, that's always
exciting, exciting milestone.
There was a long period of timewhere we were kind of in
research mode, trying to um, youknow, figure out what we wanted
to do and whether we could dowhat we, what we wanted to try
to do, and I think we've hadsome really good results come
(53:17):
out of that, and so it'sexciting to get to this point
and we're really excited about,you know, sites and the roadmap
from there which will build onthat and get us move us towards
this vision of just empoweringpeople to who don't have
(53:40):
traditional programming skills,whether they're visual or coding
, to be able to createinteresting applications.
Alex from Remote Work Life (53:50):
No, it sounds good and, of course,
we'll be keeping an eye onDashKai on you as well, dan.
There's one more question Iwanted to ask you before we
start to wrap up, because we'vetalked a lot about work, we've
talked a lot about remote work.
But when you're not working,what kind of things are you
generally?
But when you're not working,what kind of things are you
generally?
You generally do if you're not,when you're not working, or do
(54:11):
you work all the time?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (54:13):
well, I try to.
I do work a lot, but I try tomake it sustainable and I I
think actually one of the thingsthat I often tried to counsel
other entrepreneurs on is to getout of the grind mindset.
I think the startup grind thingis is a somewhat toxic and
harmful mentality to be in.
(54:34):
Uh, because it it's not, it's,it's not usually.
I think there's maybe times inyour life or you know, I don't
want to say that if you're doingthat, that it's you know.
Maybe you know what you'redoing and it's okay, but for a
lot of people it's prettyunhealthy and there's just so
much talk about grind, grind,grind.
That's how you get an advantage,and the reality is, a lot of
(54:56):
times, past a certain point,there's kind of diminishing
returns.
Right, there's only so muchproductive energy that you have,
and then you have to kind ofrecharge and live to fight
another day, uh, so you know, I,I live out here, marina del rey
, which is I'm very fortunate tobe able to live here, and so I
can go down.
You know, I go down to thebeach.
Uh, you know, just sometimesjust stare at the water and that
(55:21):
becomes part of.
I find that very.
It's a strange, I don't knowwhy, but for some reason the
just being around the ocean hasthis effect on me of just
refreshing me and clearing myhead and, um, you know, and uh,
I enjoy, you know, I I've beenwatching, uh, some, some shows.
(55:42):
I watched the last of us, whichthought was great, and uh, been
watching succession recently,which is, uh, which is a kind of
a fun, if, if, very warped, uh,I don't know, I don't know if
you're, if you're keeping upwith any of those, any of the
shows, but well, there's oneshow that I was watching.
Alex from Remote Work Life (56:03):
I mean it is quite warped, um,
it's quite old but breaking bad.
Oh, that's one of my favorites.
Oh my gosh.
I, my, my wife started watchingthat and I was thinking what's
this that she's watching,because I don't normally watch
netflix.
And then I started sitting downto watch it and I was thinking
this is really.
It was really addictive for meand I've actually started to
(56:25):
watch it from the beginningagain.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (56:27):
It's great, yeah well, it's one of
those shows where that actuallythere's a lot of little things
that you notice the second time,yeah, that are hinting at
what's going to come down theroad and uh, it's.
It's a rewarding show to watchtwice plus the.
The visual storytelling in thatin that show is is just kind of
(56:51):
fascinating to watch.
It's very engrossing just onits own, but if you enjoy that,
when you're done with that yougot to watch better to call saul
okay better calls.
Alex from Remote Work Life (57:00):
Okay , I'm making a note of that.
My trusty pen yeah, he was agood character in that, but I
mean, for me there was, therewere so many characters in that
you could just create a filmaround.
It's like even mike, you know,the mike, the guy with the bald
head, um dang, yeah, I could be.
Yeah, but anyway that was likemy.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (57:20):
That's kind of what better call saul
sort of picks up on right.
It's not just about saul, itsort of dives into like how did
all those characters get towhere they were at the beginning
of Breaking Bad?
And Mike is definitely featured.
And, yeah, we need to doanother podcast, or you should
(57:41):
do another podcast on BreakingBad.
Alex from Remote Work Life (57:45):
I could easily do that.
I could.
That might be a podcast ideafor me.
Bad, I could easily do that.
That might be a podcast ideafor me there.
I'll make a note of that aswell.
It's a podcast idea for thefuture, but no, it's been great.
Dan, the thing is, whenever Iinterview you, I've always got
more and more questions that Iwant to ask, but of course I
don't want to take up too muchtime because I know you're busy,
so maybe there's a part threeto it, who knows?
(58:06):
But thank you for being with meagain on the Remote Work Live
podcast and I hope to againspeak to you in the future and
I'll be sure to keep up to datewith what you're doing.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (58:16):
Yeah, it's a pleasure.
First of all, I always enjoythese.
Alex from Remote Work Life (58:29):
And the two that we've done have
been great, and let's maybe notwait, uh, three years.
Definitely the next one.
Absolutely not, absolutely not.
Once again, thanks, dan, and Iwill be in touch.
I'll be speaking to you againin the future and keeping an eye
on what, uh, you, pan strikeand dash kite are going to be
doing.
Thank you well.
Likewise, take care.
Hey everybody, it's Alex once again
from Remote Work Life, and todayI have an exceptional guest, a
guest that I've had in the past,that I just had to have back
again because we had such aninteresting conversation last
time around and I can't believeit was the best part of three
years ago that we had thisconversation.
(00:22):
Oh, there you go.
So much has happened, so much,so much, and I think, in that
case, hopefully, we've got quitea lot to talk about and catch
up on.
I have Dan Yoda with me today,who is CEO of DashKite.
You can find DashKite at dashand kite k-i-t-e dot com.
(00:44):
As I said, dan is the ceo ofdash kite.
Dash kite is the nextgeneration no code and dash kite
is developing a revolutionarygenerative programming platform
for building consent drivenapplications without writing
code.
Dan, thank you so much forjoining me today on the podcast
again it's a pleasure to be back, Alex.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (01:08):
Yeah, it's great.
I was just going to say thankyou for the chance to be a guest
here again.
Alex from Remote Work Life (01:17):
Yeah , the pleasure is mine, Dan, and
, as I said, a lot of time haspassed since we last spoke.
And, as I said, a lot of timehas passed since we last spoke
and obviously I want to catch upon where you are at the moment
with DashKite.
You've launched this newstartup.
You're still with PandaStrike,of course, but, yeah, tell me
(01:41):
what's happened, eddie.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (01:45):
Just summarize what's happened in the
last few years since we lastspoke.
Well, when we last spoke, soDashKite was there, it existed.
It was in research mode that wewere researching this idea of
being able to do what's quite amouthful generative programming
for consentful applications, sowe can get into what the heck
(02:05):
that all means.
But we were sort of in aresearch mode, sort of
researching the viability ofwhat we wanted to do.
Since then, we've moved intokind of a product development
mode, and that's why we'retalking about that more, and
PandaStrike, which is adevelopment services shop that I
founded back in 2012, is stillis still up and running, uh, but
(02:31):
uh, yeah, the focus in terms ofyou know what I'm, you know
what I'm sort of uh talkingabout these days is is more on
the dash guide side, becausewe're now into doing product
launches, and so that's veryexciting phase of the company's
evolution and uh, as with paddlestrike, dash kite, fully remote
(02:56):
business as well.
Alex from Remote Work Life (02:57):
I'm.
I'm assuming, of course, you'vethat's.
I think, if I remember rightly,you've been developed.
I mean it's been over a decade,is it since?
You've been building remotedevelopment teams and remote
tech teams?
Is that right?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (03:10):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, so we PandaStrike when westarted PandaStrike, we decided
that was going to be remotedevelopment and with remote
developers, so so not justremote from the client's
perspective, but the developersthemselves are remote.
One of the interesting thingsthat's happened in the last
several years since we lastspoke is we've we've branched
(03:30):
out more internationally, soit's it's quite fascinating.
We have developers now all overthe world, so we've really
leaned into the remote aspect ofit and and so.
But Dash, dash kite uh, youknow, obviously we just that
model works extremely well forreasons that we can get into,
(03:53):
and we decided, you know,obviously we're just going to
continue building on thatexperience with dash kite well,
as we're on on the subject ofdash kite, tell us more than
about because you mentionedgenerative programming.
Alex from Remote Work Life (04:06):
and what is that all about then?
What are you building there?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (04:11):
Tell us a bit more about that, well
you've probably seen some of thehype around generative AI and
the GPT and all this, and so, ifyou think of it, this isn't
that, but the word generative isthe operative word here.
So it's similar in that,instead of providing, like, if
(04:32):
you look at something like chatGPT, for example, right, you can
say something like you know,tell me a joke and chat GPT will
come up with a joke, right, andso the generative aspect of
that is that you can give sortof high level direction and you
get much more detailed feedback.
Right, you go between.
(04:53):
The way we think of it is interms of this notion of
integrative levels.
So you have, like, in biology,right, we have, you know,
there's cells and then there'sorgans, and then there's the
body and then there's, you know,communities and cities, and
these are all differentintegrative levels.
Right, when we're talking aboutcities, we don't have to talk
about the cells in our bodies,and so you can think of
(05:17):
generative being.
I want to give you adescription at one integrative
level, but you're going to dosomething at the level, the
levels below it.
So, uh, when we talk aboutcities, we can imagine that
there are all these people andthe people all have, you know,
bodily organs and those organsof cells and we know all that
there.
And that's the idea ofgenerative, right, you say
(05:39):
something at a high level andyou get this detailed.
You know, I tell me a joke andyou get a whole joke, right?
So the generative that's whatthe generative is about is being
able to provide some generalinput.
I want a website that doesthese things and you get back an
actual website that has areasonably coherent design and
(06:00):
that's in contrast with, say,visual programming, right?
So where there are tools likeWebflow, for example, where you
would go in and you basicallyyou're doing more or less what a
code-based programmer would do.
You're just doing it visually,right.
So generative programming isintended to give you this idea
that you're providing this highlevel direction and the details
(06:25):
are taken care of.
So it's more like how you mighttalk to a designer instead of
having to learn how to do design.
And then the consent part of it.
So the consent drivenapplications, and part of the
reason that it that we're ableto do the generative programming
is we're focused around aspecific kind of application
that we call consentful, andthere's a great movement.
(06:46):
In fact, there's a website thatI'd like to call out called.
It's called Consentful Tech.
I think it's Consentful Tech IO, and it talks about this notion
of consent in applicationdesign.
It's a really neat movement.
It has to do with things likewell, primarily around the idea
(07:06):
of of giving and givingapplications consent.
So if I'm going to use yourdata for something, you have to
give me consent for that, ifright, if you're gonna, you know
, keep track of something, uh,even if you don't have any
nefarious intent with the data,you still have to ask for
consent.
And so if we think of ourselvesas having digital bodies that's
(07:30):
the metaphor the consentfultech movement is based around.
And just as you would needconsent for, you know, with
respect to your physical person,we need to embrace this idea
that we need to.
We need to as, as, asapplication developers and in
the technology business, weshould be doing the same thing.
(07:51):
We need consent from uh withrespect to someone's digital
body.
So being able to build thosekinds of apps, which is highly
relevant in an era of GDPR-typeregulations, where I think
there's going to be more andmore of that kind of stuff and
more and more not having thatconsent is going to be a
(08:12):
liability.
But even if it wasn't, it's theright thing to do, right, so
there's an ethical aspect to it.
So what we want to do is makeit easier to build consentful
applications than it is not to.
I think part of the problemright now is that it is very
(08:32):
difficult to build consentfulapplications, and so if we can
make that the default, theeasier thing to do, I think most
people would prefer to do theright thing.
It's just, you know, when theright thing and the easy thing
are at odds, or when the rightthing is the hard thing, it, you
(08:52):
know, it just makes it lesslikely that people are able to
do that.
And, um, and particularly forgroups that have not, you know,
been historically included inbeing able to participate in the
tech industry or buildapplications, generative
programming promises to make itremove a big barrier to being
able to participate and to buildapplications and make it
(09:16):
possible to empower people, andso, while doing that, we want to
be empowering them to also dothe right thing in the form of
building consentful applications.
Alex from Remote Work Life (09:28):
And is there, because I know you
mentioned that you're in startupmode is there an example of
somebody who, or some sort ofuse case you can share with us
in terms of, or an example casestudy that you can share with us
how you're building somethingout with DashKite?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (09:48):
Well, at the moment we're still sort
of doing private beta type, sowe don't have an actual case
study or a customer, aLighthouse customer, that we can
point to.
One company we have beenworking pretty closely with is
the company uh called homeroom,and they're focused on helping
people build uh communitiesaround that are sort of
(10:13):
consentful communities indiscord, and so we've built some
of their back-end tooling andthat's we're doing some work
with them.
We've also worked uh, uh, notas a company but uh the you know
the as individuals working, youknow, bringing our past
relationships in.
We've worked in on anexperiment, uh uh, an
(10:36):
experimental community calledsmall town, which was is
essentially focused around uh,you know, communities where it's
kind of like, imagine it's sortof like a consentful next door,
but maybe a little bit more ina federated model.
So more like uh like being ableto run your own instance of of
(10:56):
a community uh platform withmoderation and so forth.
Alex from Remote Work Life (11:01):
It's all local, as opposed to being
uh something that has one bigplatform with one one moderation
authority or for what might bethousands of individual
communities, which doesn'talways make sense and the I the
last time we spoke um it, youleft a real impact on me in
(11:25):
terms of the way you approachwork and your, your, you know,
just your general, your generalethics and and I it made me
think something I wanted,honestly I, when I, when we left
that particular podcast, therewas so many more questions I had
to ask you, but obviously wehad limited time and this is
another reason I wanted to getback, get you back on today, um,
(11:47):
and from what you're justdescribing, that even the fact
that you're building somethingnow that it seems as though you
know obviously ethics andempowering people is something
that is really um, well, peoplein general are something that's
important to you is.
Is there a particular I don'tknow a story or experience in
your life that has influencedwho you are today and and help
(12:09):
you to define who you are?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (12:13):
yeah, you know it's.
It's funny, uh, I don't know,there's so many, I think, um, a
lot of, so there's some thatwere negative.
There were some of.
It is like just havingexperiences where you know you
felt like maybe you could domore, or um, or you know um
(12:44):
opportunities that that werethere to do, you know to do more
um in terms of, uh, creatingvalue or uh, you know um just
doing the right thing for thecustomer, and you know those
moments of frustration cancontribute to it, of of saying,
(13:05):
hey, you know, I would like to,I would like to be part of doing
something, you know, that makesthe world better, rather than
just I think everybody kind ofhas that right People want
something that's fulfilling youwant to feel like you're
contributing, more than justmaking, know, a paycheck,
ideally, and so, uh, seeingseeing that and then, and then
(13:30):
just being inspired by seeingpeople who have just, you know
that have done that right, thatuh have said, okay, you know um,
I, you know people who, in manycases, could have done many,
many things, but they chose tofocus on trying to make the
world a better place.
(13:51):
So I don't know that there wasa specific you know situation or
experience.
A lot of it's just people thatI've seen that have inspired me
and helped me realize, you know,it is possible to do that.
It is a choice.
It's difficult to get to aposition and I think this is,
(14:13):
you know, part of part of thisidea of empowering people partly
comes from realizing in my ownlife experience just how hard it
has been to be in a positionwhere you can and you know this,
doing the podcast right, I meangetting into a position where
you know you, you can make thatchoice is, you know it takes a
(14:36):
lot to get there and maybe, ifpart of what we want to do is be
working together to, you know,make it a little, make that
choice a little easier forpeople, right, so that more
people can say you know what Iwant to do, something that's,
that's meaningful.
I kind of had a got a kick outof the quiet quitting phase,
right, because I feel like partof what was going on there,
right, was people finding thatmaybe they did have a choice and
(14:59):
you know that they weren't.
Maybe you know it's like well,okay, there, you could look at
that as a failure of the workers, but you know, okay, but maybe
it's also a failure of thecompanies employing those people
not to be able to inspire ormotivate them, right and uh, so
so it's been a.
(15:20):
It's all these experiences, Ithink, um and and so many mostly
, I think, just seeing amazingpeople doing amazing things and
then saying, you know, I, I wantto try to be a part of that, if
I can got it another.
Alex from Remote Work Life (15:35):
You mentioned people who have
inspired you.
Are there any you know, peoplethat specifics that you can
share with us?
Who who's inspired you in your,in your career or just in
generally in life at all?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (15:51):
uh, yeah, um, I kind of hesitate to
call anyone out because there'sjust so many people and I.
Alex from Remote Work Life (16:00):
It's like one of those things
we're're going to miss it, but,yeah, I'm going to.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (16:02):
Yeah, but I'll mention one person just
as an example, just becausethey came to mind, but Laura
Weidman Powers, who is anextremely talented person and
she could have done a lot ofthings, and she could have done
(16:23):
a lot of things and the thingsthat she's chosen to do she
decided to do she foundedCode2040, which was focused on
addressing DEI in tech, and thenhas gone on, as I think she's
now still, as a partner atBase10 Ventures, where she is
(16:44):
working on a fund thatcontributes the earnings from
the fund to hbcus.
So I mean, that's just anexample.
There's lots of other people,but just this just came to mind.
Uh, so you know, uh, you know,that's a great example in the
sense of somebody who's justextremely talented, could have
done anything really, and that's, those are the, those are the
(17:07):
kinds of choices that she made,and I find that kind of thing
would be very inspiring to knowthat those people are out there,
right?
You know, there's there's.
For all of the bad news and thenegativity that we hear in the
world right, that we hear in theworld, right, you know, there
are an awful lot of people justout there doing great work day
(17:28):
by day and they don'tnecessarily get a lot of
headlines or accolades, butcollectively we're all making
the world a better place.
And it adds up all these littlethings, all these little things
that you can do.
Alex from Remote Work Life (17:47):
It may not seem like much in any
individual case, um, but it, youknow, it adds up and and and in
the end that's what it takes, Ithink and I think that's that's
one of the um, the things thatinspire me to to not just start
this podcast but also continue,because I've had my my share of
(18:08):
moments where I think to myselfis, am I doing the right thing
here?
But I think I want to be able toput a spotlight on those people
who are doing, you know, the,the work, the you know the ones
that aren't necessarily heraldedin the media or the ones that
aren't necessarily shoutingabout what they're doing.
I want to be able to use thismedium to do that Because, like
(18:33):
you said, people like Laura,laura Weidman Powell, if she's
doing like powers sorry, she'sdoing that work for DEI, then
that's that's really.
It's really important.
And do you think I mean becausethere's a lot that's been said
about um under representation intech and lots of people talk
(18:58):
about diversity etc.
In your do you see any sort ofany changes or improvements in,
in sort of take up for techroles from from your you know,
from your sort of sphere of yournetwork, or just from a general
(19:21):
perspective?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (19:23):
I think the tech industry in general
has just failed in that I don'tthink that they've made any
progress that's worth.
I think the progress has beenmade.
There's individual examples Ithink of either within companies
, where there are managers who,or you know, director or even VP
(19:45):
level people who are reallytrying to do better Um, and
outside the tech industry.
There are probably a lot ofexamples I'm not as familiar
with.
I know the tech industry moreuh, but within the tech industry
, yeah, I think it's.
It's just uh, uh, you know,just not happening and that's
(20:08):
sad.
Alex from Remote Work Life (20:08):
It's sad and I think there's, like I
said in my because I'm lookingfrom a, I suppose, a recruitment
, hiring perspective you see alot of adverts um saying you
know, we do this and we do that,we, we try and do this, we try
to do that to encourage peoplefrom different backgrounds, etc.
But for one reason or another,like as you were alluding to,
(20:30):
it's not, it's, it's not quitehappening, it's not, it's not
quite um, it's not quite gettingthere but yeah, because if you
look at it from a, if you lookat it like analytically, there's
just no evidence that it'simproving.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (20:43):
So there's all this talk for sure
there's a lot of you know, like,like you said, the you know ads
always mention it Um, uh, but,and you know there'll be uh, you
know, on uh, like somethinglike black history month or
whatever.
(21:03):
There'll be a whole bunch ofrhetoric and activity around
that, but in terms of meaningfulchange, in terms of the number
of people that are being givenopportunities, a lot of times,
when you actually look at thedata, it hasn't changed or, in
some cases, actually gottenworse, which is kind of
remarkable.
Wow, and I?
(21:23):
So I, which is not to be, Idon't mean to be um, I think
there's hope in that, in thesense of we just need to
acknowledge that it's that badand and maybe start thinking
about in my view, I think youjust got to think about uh
outside that ecosystem, right?
How do we?
You know we can't let thatecosystem right, how do we, you
know we can't let that ecosystemcontinue to determine how our
(21:48):
tech industry evolves?
It's, it's broken and I don'tas far as I can tell, I mean,
it's been decades.
Now it's not.
It's not changed, so it doesn'tseem like it's going to be
fixed from within yeah, I thinkit's like you said.
Alex from Remote Work Life (22:04):
I think it takes from a grassroots
level to to do things and Iwhat I'm seeing is a lot, like I
said, lots of talk around umrecruitment and hiring.
I am seeing, I guess, examplesof sort of gen z, gen z sort of
(22:24):
ceos, um trying to I don't well,yeah, they're trying to um be
actively involved in eithersetting up um businesses or
setting up um, because you see alot of uh like coding schools
and sort of coding workshops andboot camps.
(22:45):
Why I'm seeing a lot more is is,for example, the coding boot
camps that encourage women, forexample, or those that encourage
people from you know differentbackgrounds to to write.
I'm seeing a lot of thosebecause a couple of years ago it
was a case where I the codingboot camps that you saw, the
(23:05):
actual fees to get into themwere prohibitively high, whereas
now you're seeing probably afew more that either they won't.
They'll either charge a muchlower fee or they'll encourage
people to sign on and won'tcharge them until they secure a
(23:27):
role at the end of it.
So I don't know if that's anattempt to encourage more people
to get involved with tech and Idon't know if there's any data
that it's even working, but fromthe sounds of it it doesn't
seem as though it's making animpact where it needs to be
making an impact at this point.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (23:50):
Yeah, I mean I, I think.
So there's a couple thingsthere that are sort of
interesting.
I mean one there was sort of apredatory inclusion aspect to
some of the coding schools, butit's if they're moving towards a
model, uh, where they're notcharging or they're deferring
the fees.
Maybe, maybe that, maybe that'sa little better.
And I also think thegenerational component is, is
(24:13):
possibly a factor.
I'm not sure what the you know,maybe things as Gen Z begins to
get more you know, authority andis more empowered to make
change, maybe maybe then thingswill really will change.
That's I would, I would lovethat.
I hope that's the case, uh, andin any case, I do think that
(24:36):
the key is saying well, we justneed to invest in the in in
these groups that have beenhistorically excluded from the
tech industry, because thetalent is there right.
So if you're, if if you'relooking for talent and you have
the resources, the smartestthing you could do would be to
just invest in developing thattalent, because they're really,
(25:00):
you know, the idea that you'reshort on talent is is just a
product of the fact that you'renot willing to invest in
developing it, and so a schoolwhere you're not willing to
invest in developing it.
And so a school where you'resaying, okay, well, we'll, we'll
defer the fees, or, even better, would be just a scholarship
system that evolved from the big.
If they're really serious aboutit, they're saying, well, we
don't have enough talent.
(25:20):
Well then, you know, developthe talent.
They've got the money to do itif they really wanted to solve
the problem.
Alex from Remote Work Life (25:36):
Yeah , I agree, develop the talent.
They've got the money to do itif they really wanted to solve
the problem.
Yeah, I agree, and I think andthis is why again, another
reason for me remote work.
I probably didn't realize howpowerful remote work is until
you know I really got into thesort of conversations like I'm
having with you.
Um, the power of remote work,because I speak to quite a few
people in things like, well,different remote teams,
different remote leaders.
(25:57):
More and more I'm speaking towomen, for example, who have
been able to use remote work toget into tech roles or at least
continue their career, continuebuilding their careers, and in
(26:20):
some cases they say to me itjust wouldn't have been possible
if I wasn't able to workremotely, for example.
So I think if you're aligningsort of the power of working
remotely with what you're saying, dan, in terms of the
scholarships and the trainingaspects of tech, I think that's
(26:43):
a powerful sort of likecombination that can really get
people, or encourage people toget into tech and not just get
into it, but just really buildcareers and see a pathway where
they can actually build a career.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (26:59):
Um, that's a great point about
remote.
I mean remote removes anotherbarrier, right?
Another form of exclusion issaying, well, you have to live
in this very expensive city and,uh, or you've got to take
several hours out of your day tocommute, right, so that just
eliminates a whole bunch ofpeople that either don't have
that kind of free time to becommuting all the time or don't
(27:21):
can't afford to live in SanFrancisco, or you know, uh,
wherever um, remote empowerspeople to, you know, wherever
Remote empowers people to, youknow, by removing those barriers
.
And it's not quite the same andthat's why it's been a little
bit, you know, predictable maybe, but also a little
disappointing to see a lot ofthe big tech companies insist on
(27:44):
having everybody come back, butthe same it is.
The idea of investing in, intraining and skills development
is it's just another form ofthat right, it is just removing
these, these barriers.
I, I have a feeling that if wewere to do that, if we
collectively can remove thebarriers to people participating
(28:06):
in the economy fully, like Idon't even think anybody has any
idea what's even possible withthat.
You know, we've beenessentially kind of it's a very
self-defeating thing to excludeso many people from
participating fully in theeconomy, so many people from
(28:28):
participating fully in theeconomy.
If what you want is economicgrowth, then you want, like you
know, maybe benefits a fewpeople, but I think in the end
it's collectively just aterribly short-sighted decision
to not invest, to not removethose barriers and hopefully
over the next decade or two wecan obliterate those and see
(28:49):
what the economy really lookslike when everybody is able to
contribute this is it and Ithink that it was bought.
Alex from Remote Work Life (28:56):
That whole scenario you've just
described is the contributionand the pooling resources to get
to get the you know, get peopleexposed to tech, exposed the
right trade, so they get backinto the market.
So over the last couple of yearsI've been doing a lot of
coaching and um.
One of the set, one of theareas that has really brought
home to me is is, for example,usually um single moms, single
(29:22):
mothers so, and single momsbetween the ages of, say what,
27 and 35, where I had a coupleof a couple of my, my clients
where they desperately wanted toeither rejoin the workforce
having worked in tech um, orthey wanted to launch their
(29:46):
career in tech but there was somany different hurdles and
barriers for them to to do thatand there was no sort of path,
there's no sort of clear pathwayfor them to to do that and
there was no real sort ofaffordable resource for them to
do that.
And it just, it just made methink to myself.
You know, I think, yeah, Ithink certainly there could be a
(30:08):
lot more done from well, onthis side of the channel, anyway
, on this side of the ocean.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (30:17):
I think the same is true here, yeah.
Alex from Remote Wor (30:21):
Definitely , because the governments here,
for example, the government hereis not.
I saw lots of holes in the waythat they're sort of all these
skilled people, as I said,between those ages who are
experienced workers that youknow, desperate to get into it,
but there's no, as I said.
So you think it's the same.
It is the same over there aswell, right?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (30:43):
Well, certainly that aspect, yeah, I
mean, if you look at, I mean I'mlike you, I'm speaking
anecdotally from from peoplethat I've talked to and but it's
sort of also just logic thatkind of makes sense.
I mean, child care is a thing,so if you're um, you know, if
you go back to the commutescenario, right, so, um, if
(31:06):
you've got a commute in thatyou're paying for child care for
that time, right, so there's anactual cost.
And so now, whether you'reactually paying higher rent or
you're paying more child care,either way, there's this cost
for you to participate, not tomention you're not able to be
present around your kids.
And I think remote is one ofthe one of those things that
(31:27):
fundamentally changes thatdynamic.
Right, the commute's gone, um,the a lot of times.
Remote makes sense in contextswhere flexible hours make sense,
which helps me, helps, you know, if you're a single parent, it
helps you be more present inyour, your, your kids' lives,
which I think is, you know, agood thing obviously, and kids'
(31:49):
lives, which I think is you knowa good thing, obviously, and
you know so.
And then, and then you get intothings, like you know, the
training aspect of it, right,which is again, if you can do
the training online in the timethat you have right, the time
that you can make.
It makes it just much more,much more likely that people are
(32:09):
going to be able to get thetraining and then participate
and then get a good job if theycan work remotely.
So it's a complete game changerfor some people, absolutely.
Alex from Remote Work Life (32:23):
It is.
In fact, it's one of the wordsthat somebody I interviewed the
other day used.
She said it was a game changerfor her.
That somebody I interviewed theother day used.
It was a game changer for her.
Not just mothers, but myself.
I'm a good example myselfbecause there was a point where
I was at home looking after mydaughter and remote work enabled
(32:43):
me to continue with my career,not have any sort of real gaps
in my career, but at the sametime, you know, see my daughter
take her first steps, forexample, or even just just take
her to school.
Things I used to take, I usedto take for granted taking her
to school, you know, to behonest with I, mean, how do you
right, how do you even put aprice on something like that?
(33:06):
yes, that's amazing it is, it's,it's, it's.
I was looking back on somepictures and I was thinking to
myself this would not beimpossible had I not been able
to work on a remote basis,because I was a point, there was
a point where I was workingsort of in an office and I was
(33:28):
doing, you know, it was quite isvery heavy sales environment,
heavy sort of client pitchingenvironment where we had to stay
late to do these pitches andsometimes if, if we did a pitch
after, we would, you know, we'dgo out after the pitch with the
client, that sort of thing, andnot get home till sort of nine
or nine o'clock in the eveningsometimes, or even if there
(33:50):
wasn't a client pitch, it wassometimes actually just just the
work itself would mean, youknow, not getting home too late
and not, you know, go going,leaving in the morning whenever
before everybody got up, andwhen I got back home everybody's
in bed.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (34:04):
So it was just, it's incredible right,
right, yeah, yeah, they putsuch a constraint around things
because you, you know, you, youcan't sort of take a short break
from work and then hang outwith your kid and then go back
to work because there's an,there's a commute involved or
there's, you know, there'sthings like well, can you get to
(34:24):
the meeting on time, right, ontime Right, and uh it, you know,
I think one of the things that,um, I had always sort of
accepted, cause I'd heard this alot from people when I would,
you know people who are, in, uh,office bound environments, if
you will, and they wouldsometimes say well, you know the
kinds of things that we'redoing.
You know, we have a lot ofmeetings.
(34:45):
It's really would be reallyhard to do remote, and I always
kind of accepted that lot ofmeetings.
It's really it would be reallyhard to do remote, and I always
kind of accepted that.
And I think one of the thingsthat the pandemic did is it
exposed that as as not being thecase.
We might've I'm not going tosay it was a lie, because I
think a lot of people reallyactually didn't believe that it
was possible for them to dotheir jobs without being in an
(35:05):
office, but a lot of people wereable to do their jobs right and
it turned out.
I mean, you know, the wholeeconomy didn't just collapse,
like a lot of things just kindof kept going and certain
sectors actually boomed, and soit turns out that that's a myth.
It's not really the case thatin fact it's.
(35:26):
You know, I think for a lot ofpeople what they discovered is
that they could actually dotheir jobs better than they were
doing before, and so what'sinteresting has been a little
bit disappointing is to see alot of companies say, well, okay
, everybody, it's time to comeback in the office, but I don't
think you're ever going to likethat's never.
(35:47):
You can't unsee that.
You know, like, even peoplethat are going back into the
office are kind of like well, I,I now, I know, right now, I
know this isn't really necessary, yes, and I think that's going
to.
It may not things still playingout, but I think, because the
discussions now are different,right, people before and you
would know this even better thanI, because you were doing this
(36:08):
podcast and talking to all thesedifferent people about it, not
to turn this around startinterviewing you, but I'd love
to hear your perspective onwhether this has changed,
because before it seemed likethere was a lot of people saying
, well, it sounds nice andeverything, but I don't think it
(36:29):
would work here and I don'thear that now anymore.
It's more like, well, thecompany's making us come back.
There's not really as much of athing of saying nobody's even
really pretending that it'snecessary, at least that's so.
My question to you would be isthat what you're seeing in these
when you're talking to peopleon the podcast or outside of the
(36:54):
podcast, I guess?
Alex from Remote Work Life (36:55):
Yeah , I think what I'm seeing.
I mean, like you're saying, dan, I think the data shows in
terms of productivity,productivity it confirms that
people are certain sectors werejust as productive, if not more
productive, working remotely,working from home.
Um, I, I tell you what, as wellit it's see what the pandemic
(37:23):
has done, is it obviouslyemphasized that the emphasize
that it was possible.
It's also, um, like you said,pushed remote work to the
forefront as a possibility forthe future.
Um, and again, anecdotally, I Ithink we're not just
anecdotally but I think lots ofin terms of the job seekers now.
(37:45):
Job seekers now perhaps in asituation where they're probably
more um specific about thekinds of roles that they want
now.
So they're asking for, if theycan't do remote, then they're,
they're fully, fully remote,that is, they're being a bit
more specific about the, thesorts of work, so the sorts of
(38:10):
arrangements that they want.
So if it's, for example, acouple of days here in the
office, a couple of days at home, you're seeing a lot more um,
in fact, you're seeing a lotmore companies, and this is I
don't.
I don't like this aspect, butyou're getting lots of companies
advertising roles as remote,but then, when you get to the
actual point of the interview,um, they start saying well,
(38:34):
actually it's two days, you know, two days at home, or one day
at home and the rest of it is inoffice.
So they they're realizing thatmore people are asking for
remote opportunities and they'reputting those sorts of things
in the job adverts, but it feelslike it's under false pretenses
and it feels like it's kind oflike a bit of a bait and switch
(38:55):
going on to attract people andthen sort of change the
goalposts because they realizethat, you know, remote roles are
basically the flavor of themonth, it's not the flavor of
the decade, to be honest.
So, yeah, right.
And the other thing is as wellis Speaking to somebody else on
(39:21):
the podcast, somebody who'sfully into remote work.
He's the CEO of Time Doctor andhe was.
I don't know what you thinkabout this, but in terms of the
predictions, obviously you'regetting lots of um bosses now
telling their workers to comeback into the office.
That has been a bit of a trendin 2023, um, but what he
(39:44):
predicted was that that's goingto play itself out through 2023,
start 2024, mid 2024, butbeyond 2024 and 2025 you're
going to see a lot morecompanies, for example, the
companies that establishthemselves as fully remote.
In 2020, at the sort of the endof pandemic or the height of
(40:05):
pandemic, you're going to see alot more of those types of
companies as a matter of course,so to speak, or kind of.
Those will sort of companieswill be more popular, so that,
in turn, will mean that the youknow there's gonna be more
companies offering fully remoteopportunities, for example.
Um, I don't know what yourthoughts are that.
(40:28):
Do you think there's going tobe a more of a uh, more
widespread remote opportunitiesinto the future, or do you think
there's still going to be ademand by bosses to get people
back into the, into the office?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (40:44):
well, a little bit of both.
I think a lot of theestablished companies,
particularly in tech, areprobably going to continue to
insist on having people in theoffice and they have, you know,
enough momentum from a you knowscale and revenue standpoint
that they can probably get awaywith that.
But I do think what's gonna,what that really is going to
(41:04):
mean, is they're going to lose alot of talent over the next few
years and a newer generation oftech companies that is remote
friendly or not even remotefriendly, just remote like as
the default right.
Yes, before the pandemic, Imean, part of PandaStrike's
(41:26):
whole strategy was just thatbecause we were remote, we could
get talent.
That you know.
It's not as much of anadvantage though.
So, to the point of the TimeDoctor CEO, we don't recruit
that way anymore.
I mean, we still recruit asremote being a feature, but it's
(41:48):
no longer an advantage for us.
There's enough other companiessaying that they're fully remote
, that that doesn't distinguishus anymore, and so I think that
does speak to the sheer numberof opportunities that are
available for people that arefully remote.
And I think, between that andthe pandemic, exposing as a myth
(42:11):
that you know that you can'treally, you know, I think people
now realize I can do my jobremotely.
They now are acquainted withthe benefits.
Like, I just spoke with a friendof mine who during, you know,
while his company was remote, uh, he took the opportunity to
(42:31):
move to a location that where hepreferred to, he wanted to
place, that he wanted to live,and uh, the company is now
saying that they want everybodyto come back to the office and,
um, you know, so he's commuting.
You know, I don't like that'schanged the equation for him.
He's now realized, like I canjust live wherever I want, I can
(42:53):
live where I want, I can havethe lifestyle that I want, and
whether that means spending moretime with your kids or living
in as part of the country thatis, you know that you prefer.
It's different for everybody.
But everybody now realizes thatyou know, they know whether or
not, they know firsthand nowwhether or not their job really
does require them to be in anoffice.
(43:16):
And for the people who kind ofknow that it's a myth that they
have to be there, I think it'schanged the way that they're
thinking about it and they'remuch more likely to say, well,
maybe I should just go find acompany that is that will
embrace this.
So I do think it may take awhile to play out, but I do
think it's going to be.
It's going to continue to shiftand I also think it's going to
(43:38):
be a big advantage for companies.
If you're, you know, in termsof being able to track talent,
it's a bad if you're're, ifyou're still in that mentality
that you're saying, well, we'regoing to have everybody come
back into the office.
I mean you're, you're going,there's going to be a cost that
you're going to pay in terms ofthe talent that you have
available to you to execute, andit'll eventually.
(43:58):
It takes a while, especiallyfor these big companies that
have, you know, just suchmassive revenue streams, but
they're, you know it'll.
Alex from Remote Work Lif (44:07):
It'll eventually start hurting them
competitively I think so, and inyour case I mean not the
questions I get about, not inyour case, but the questions I
get a lot about remote, becausethere's there's a whole heap of
people looking for remoteopportunities, um, and not
necessarily knowing how to,whether that's I don't know,
(44:29):
whether that's sort of beingemployed, or even freelancing,
or this is kind of threequestions in one, I guess.
So, for people looking for foremployment in remote,
freelancing, or even just to dosomething, um in remote, you
know, in a remote aspect, maybewe should just start with those
(44:50):
are employed how would you thenbecause obviously you hire for
your different teams um, howwould you suggest that people
start looking for remoteopportunities that suit them?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (45:09):
in terms of, I'm not sure, like
what do you mean?
How, how to start looking so?
Alex from Remote Work Life (45:16):
I think one of the the the biggest
, uh, I guess, um difficulties.
I guess there's lots ofcompetition for remote work and
there's so many different.
There's different peopleprofessing to, to have remote
roles.
There's some unscrupulouspeople sort of posting roles
(45:38):
that are remote and it can bequite difficult actually to
differentiate between thebusinesses that are offering
legitimate roles and those thatare not.
So I guess what I'm asking iswhat?
What would you say?
You know somebody who's lookingfor a remote job, a remote role
?
Um, how would you sort ofrecommend they go about not only
(46:01):
looking for a role, but alsothey're engaging with a
potential employer?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (46:13):
I see, yeah, as far as the first part
of that, I actually am not that.
I mean, we we still just kindof run ads and we have our
network that we put the word outwhen we're looking for
something.
So there's nothing.
I don't have any particularlyuseful insights there as far as
like, where do you go?
I think remote is now commonenough that pretty much you know
any job board or any anyrecruiter is.
(46:36):
You can tell them, you can hitthe flag I'm looking for remote
or tell a recruiter I'm lookingfor remote, um and um and just
look for the remoteopportunities.
But then when you're reallyengaging, I think there is some
questions you can ask that canhelp sort of differentiate.
(47:01):
You know, one of the most simplethings is you know how much of
the company is remote and youknow what's the commitment to
remote.
Is it, you know?
Is there any?
Is there any plans to whetherthey're in the next six months
or year or in the indefinitefuture?
Is there any plan to say you'regoing to want people to come
(47:22):
back into the office and youknow if hopefully they'll,
they'll be honest about thatresponse.
But if, if you're, I mean and Iwould say if you're kind of
concerned that maybe they're notbeing honest, then you know
that's a whole different problem.
But there's also sometimes thefact that the hiring managers
(47:42):
themselves may be being misled.
So to take that into account, Ithink you know one of the
things that you know is usefulis to kind of get a sense of to
what extent has the hiringmanager completely adapted to
learning how to manage remote,because managing remote means
(48:03):
you're not doing bodies andchairs right.
You don't look around youroffice and go okay, everybody's
here.
They appear to be working.
I mean, it's funny because Idon't know how many times people
would ask me or raise theobjection.
You know, how do you know thatpeople are working?
Which I always thought was wemight.
I think we might've talked onthis in the last, uh, the last
time I was on your show.
(48:24):
Uh, because it's a strangequestion to ask in the sense
that it sort of implies thatthere is that you don't have a
way of measuring theproductivity of your team, like
even on a just even on a gutlevel.
I don't necessarily mean thatyou know you're sitting there
counting widgets, but justhaving a sense of you know well
(48:44):
how productive are people being,that's part of being a good
manager.
So I think if you ask peopleabout how do they assess things
like how do you measure orassess productivity, you know
how do you give and you know howdo you provide feedback, so
that I know what I need toimprove on or do better.
(49:05):
And those are good questionsanyway.
But remote managers will tend togive, I think, much more
concrete answers because theywill have been and they will be,
they will have adapted to say,okay, well, I can't see
everybody, I can't just goaround and chat with people.
(49:26):
So I got to actually kind ofknow how to determine who's
getting what done.
And if they've got good answersto those questions that don't
depend on people being in anoffice, then there's a good
chance that at least the hiringmanager is completely committed
(49:46):
to remote.
You know whether or not.
I think at that point, if you,if you're not sure, if it's a
big, sometimes these bigcompanies, um, you know are, you
know it's hard to the hiringmanagers don't always know for
sure.
So I think in those cases youcan always say well, know, let
me ask some questions of the HRpeople.
(50:08):
And if they're like yes, we're100% committed to remote, but if
they start dancing around theissue, then probably they've
been in meetings or somethingwhere there's been discussions
about, you know, the possibilityof asking the employees back of
(50:32):
asking the employees back.
Alex from Remote Work Life (50:32):
Yeah , it's uh, I think the the
process of job search, and it'salways been about asking
questions, but I think even morenow it's it's even more
important because of the there'sso there's so many different uh
, there are so many differentquestions to ask now.
Uh, just so you're clear on umyou're you know what you're
getting into as a job seeker orsomebody who's looking for an
opportunity.
So I like that question whatcommitment do you?
(50:55):
What's the commitment to remotework?
That's a pretty good one and ittells a lot.
That should tell you a lot, Ithink.
So, yeah, thank you for that,dad.
And in terms of um, in terms ofdash kite, then, um, what,
what's on the horizon for foryou, dan?
What's on the horizon for fordash kite, uh, in the future?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (51:19):
well, so we have our first um.
Well, thank you for asking thatquestion.
Uh, first of all, uh, we haveour first product out, which is
a, a simple.
It's called dashkite db andit's a simple, doesn't require
any programming type of databasethat you can create the
database very easily.
You go in, click, boom, youhave a database and um, and then
(51:41):
you can, you know, put thingsin and it's not.
There's not a lot of toolingaround it to make it easy to put
things in and out.
It's really just part of aroadmap that we have.
The next product we're going tobe launching in July is called
Sites, and Sites is a.
It's a generative websitebuilder, meaning you know, you
can essentially just startputting content in the site and
(52:05):
the the application figures out,you know how to, how to display
it so that it looks very nice.
So it's kind of it's kind oflike a cms that also knows how
to do web design is maybe theway you can think about it.
Well, we'll hopefully have, youknow, a nice.
Well, we'll have that, thatplaying.
(52:26):
We're planning to do that in alaunch that in July and maybe
have a little bit of a littlehow to video that goes along
with that, to show people how touse it.
Uh, and then and then fromthere, uh, we're going to make
it so that it's more interactive, which is why the where Dash
Guide DB comes in, because, uh,you know, just to be able to do
simple things like a form, likea signup form.
(52:56):
You want to store that datasomewhere.
So we that's the, that's theimmediate roadmap we're pretty
excited about.
Well, by getting our firstproduct launch, that's always
exciting, exciting milestone.
There was a long period of timewhere we were kind of in
research mode, trying to um, youknow, figure out what we wanted
to do and whether we could dowhat we, what we wanted to try
to do, and I think we've hadsome really good results come
(53:17):
out of that, and so it'sexciting to get to this point
and we're really excited about,you know, sites and the roadmap
from there which will build onthat and get us move us towards
this vision of just empoweringpeople to who don't have
(53:40):
traditional programming skills,whether they're visual or coding
, to be able to createinteresting applications.
Alex from Remote Work Life (53:50):
No, it sounds good and, of course,
we'll be keeping an eye onDashKai on you as well, dan.
There's one more question Iwanted to ask you before we
start to wrap up, because we'vetalked a lot about work, we've
talked a lot about remote work.
But when you're not working,what kind of things are you
generally?
But when you're not working,what kind of things are you
generally?
You generally do if you're not,when you're not working, or do
(54:11):
you work all the time?
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (54:13):
well, I try to.
I do work a lot, but I try tomake it sustainable and I I
think actually one of the thingsthat I often tried to counsel
other entrepreneurs on is to getout of the grind mindset.
I think the startup grind thingis is a somewhat toxic and
harmful mentality to be in.
(54:34):
Uh, because it it's not, it's,it's not usually.
I think there's maybe times inyour life or you know, I don't
want to say that if you're doingthat, that it's you know.
Maybe you know what you'redoing and it's okay, but for a
lot of people it's prettyunhealthy and there's just so
much talk about grind, grind,grind.
That's how you get an advantage,and the reality is, a lot of
(54:56):
times, past a certain point,there's kind of diminishing
returns.
Right, there's only so muchproductive energy that you have,
and then you have to kind ofrecharge and live to fight
another day, uh, so you know, I,I live out here, marina del rey
, which is I'm very fortunate tobe able to live here, and so I
can go down.
You know, I go down to thebeach.
Uh, you know, just sometimesjust stare at the water and that
(55:21):
becomes part of.
I find that very.
It's a strange, I don't knowwhy, but for some reason the
just being around the ocean hasthis effect on me of just
refreshing me and clearing myhead and, um, you know, and uh,
I enjoy, you know, I I've beenwatching, uh, some, some shows.
(55:42):
I watched the last of us, whichthought was great, and uh, been
watching succession recently,which is, uh, which is a kind of
a fun, if, if, very warped, uh,I don't know, I don't know if
you're, if you're keeping upwith any of those, any of the
shows, but well, there's oneshow that I was watching.
Alex from Remote Work Life (56:03):
I mean it is quite warped, um,
it's quite old but breaking bad.
Oh, that's one of my favorites.
Oh my gosh.
I, my, my wife started watchingthat and I was thinking what's
this that she's watching,because I don't normally watch
netflix.
And then I started sitting downto watch it and I was thinking
this is really.
It was really addictive for meand I've actually started to
(56:25):
watch it from the beginningagain.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (56:27):
It's great, yeah well, it's one of
those shows where that actuallythere's a lot of little things
that you notice the second time,yeah, that are hinting at
what's going to come down theroad and uh, it's.
It's a rewarding show to watchtwice plus the.
The visual storytelling in thatin that show is is just kind of
(56:51):
fascinating to watch.
It's very engrossing just onits own, but if you enjoy that,
when you're done with that yougot to watch better to call saul
okay better calls.
Alex from Remote Work Life (57:00):
Okay , I'm making a note of that.
My trusty pen yeah, he was agood character in that, but I
mean, for me there was, therewere so many characters in that
you could just create a filmaround.
It's like even mike, you know,the mike, the guy with the bald
head, um dang, yeah, I could be.
Yeah, but anyway that was likemy.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (57:20):
That's kind of what better call saul
sort of picks up on right.
It's not just about saul, itsort of dives into like how did
all those characters get towhere they were at the beginning
of Breaking Bad?
And Mike is definitely featured.
And, yeah, we need to doanother podcast, or you should
(57:41):
do another podcast on BreakingBad.
Alex from Remote Work Life (57:45):
I could easily do that.
I could.
That might be a podcast ideafor me.
Bad, I could easily do that.
That might be a podcast ideafor me there.
I'll make a note of that aswell.
It's a podcast idea for thefuture, but no, it's been great.
Dan, the thing is, whenever Iinterview you, I've always got
more and more questions that Iwant to ask, but of course I
don't want to take up too muchtime because I know you're busy,
so maybe there's a part threeto it, who knows?
(58:06):
But thank you for being with meagain on the Remote Work Live
podcast and I hope to againspeak to you in the future and
I'll be sure to keep up to datewith what you're doing.
Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite (58:16):
Yeah, it's a pleasure.
First of all, I always enjoythese.
Alex from Remote Work Life (58:29):
And the two that we've done have
been great, and let's maybe notwait, uh, three years.
Definitely the next one.
Absolutely not, absolutely not.
Once again, thanks, dan, and Iwill be in touch.
I'll be speaking to you againin the future and keeping an eye
on what, uh, you, pan strikeand dash kite are going to be
doing.
Thank you well.
Likewise, take care.
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