From Rotary Dials to GPT Files: A Life Wired for Wonder

Episode Transcript
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Tonya J. Long (00:00):
Welcome friends.
I'm Tonya Long and this isRESET.
Each week, we shareconversations with thought
leaders, innovators and thedreamers and doers who are
reshaping the future of work,technology, longevity and
purpose.
So settle in and let's explorewhat happens when purpose meets
possibility.

(00:20):
Hello everyone and welcome toRESET with Tonya remote edition
from Tomales Bay and the OlemaCampground.
I am here today with one of myfavorite people in the world.
This is my Airstream mentor,John McGowan, and John has had
several resets and that's why Igot him to agree to be on
today's show.
John is a lifetime corporateexecutive.

(00:44):
I have, as a recovering techgal, I have really enjoyed
hearing all John stories aboutwhen he, in his early career,
helped Dave Packard and theHewlett Packard team as they
built those teams and then hebecame a negotiation expert.
John is always a fascinatingconversation because his
academic degrees.
He got an engineering degreefirst, I believe.

John McGowan (01:05):
Engineering from Stanford.

And then from Stanford yes, he's one of the
few locals and then followedthat up with an MBA, and then I
guess he must have been boredbefore the kids started, so he
went to law school at SantaClara University to get his law
degree.
So John and I have had so muchfun since I met him five years
ago.
And this contraption we're inis Bella, my Airstream, and John

(01:27):
was the first person that evermet Bella, because I went over
to John home, found him onlineand this was during COVID, and
he walked me through how not toburn it down.
So, with all the usualdisclaimers you would expect
from a lawyer, Airstream bootcamp.
It was Airstream boot camp, allmasks, and I knew John was my
people when the steps didn'tfold out well and he disappeared

(01:48):
into his garage for a minuteand came back with knee pads and
a spray can of WD-40 because hewasn't happy with the steps.
So he's an engineer, he's a dad, he has two grown adult
children and a lovely wife,diane.
So I am thrilled to have Johnon the show today.

John, welcome, thank you.

So tell us I'm going to be candid you will be
the oldest person that I've hadas a guest.
No, and I think it's wonderfulbecause I know that my listeners
here in the Bay Area, but inparticular in Tennessee, are
many that are close to your age.
Marvel when they see somebodystill walking and talking.

(02:25):
But they've had so much lifeexperience.

Right.

And so that's what I think this show is about
RESET.
It's about pivots andtransitions, and I don't want
this to come across wrong, butat some point in life those
transitions become a plateau andwe get accustomed to working
within what we'll be instead ofclimbing.
And I think anyone who'sreached in their 70s has reached

(02:49):
that point where they're makinga difference and an impact, but
in general, they may have newexperiences, but they're not
still climbing.
So where do you put yourself onthat scale?

I have been through quite a few RESET.
I became an engineer.
I have been through quite a fewRESET.
I became an engineer.
I got an engineering degreebecause my father, who was an
engineer and a corporate officer, told me, if I didn't get an
engineering degree, I'd neverget a good job.

So I got an engineering degree.

Yeah, and it turned out, I was a really bad
engineer, didn't do well incalculus, didn't do well in
modern advanced physics.
So I got a job anyway anddiscovered sales and marketing
was a lot more fun.
So I earned an MBA while I wasworking at my first job at
Westinghouse and slid out of theengineering over into the sales

(03:40):
and marketing and learnedgovernment contracting, learned
a few dark arts that nobody elseseemed to care about, and after
a short sabbatical, playingwith airplanes, selling
airplanes.

You sold airplanes too.

at one point I sold airplanes at the local
dealer with the flapping pensand come on out and buy a
$40,000 toy that nobody needs.
That taught me a new style ofselling and I got a job at
Hewlett-Packard.
Finally, that was my company Iwanted to work for, but they
wouldn't hire me out of collegebecause I didn't have the
obligatory 3.0.

So you had fun in college.

Yeah.
Yes, that was another transitfrom 17-year-old 3,000 miles
from home.
Transit from 17 year old 3000miles from home barely able to
drive yes, Lied my way to get achecking account below the age
of majority.
So, no, I didn't get greatgrades.
And at HP I started doingprocurement because they wanted

(04:40):
somebody who could negotiate andmost of the homegrown HP
purchasing people didn'tnegotiate.
They just gave people orders,and so I started in procurement
and then I wanted to show off myMBA and a friend said you could
be the corporate credit managerif you wanted, and I've got a
better job waiting for me.

(05:00):
So I got sucked into being thecorporate credit manager with $6
billion in receivables and Iknew a little.
I found myself taking thebeginning financial analysis
class with a bunch of othercredit trainees from Sears and
they were all astounded thathere's a corporate credit guy

(05:21):
with billions in receivables.
And I quickly learned it wasn'tabout financial ratios and
assets.
It was about the personalitiesand the ethics of the customer
that either we take the deal orwe don't.
But it was not based on theirquick ratio.
And then I slid over back intogovernment contracts again,
because they didn't have anyexperts there either.

(05:43):
And at that point I persuadedHP to let me go to law school in
the evening.
They paid for it, but I had todo the work, and along came two
children while I was in lawschool, first year, first
semester, second year, secondsemester which made it more
challenging.

(06:03):
But with the legal degree on topof the others that made it
possible to really become aspecialist doing contracts and
negotiation, going through thevarious transitions of Hewlett
Packard from the 80s computerbusiness and the 90s internal
conflicts.
By the time of the split I wasleading all of the contracts

(06:26):
activity for the electronic testbusiness, became the director
of contracts for AgilentTechnologies and retired as a
vice president of contracts andpolicies from Agilent in 2006.
And then unretired three moretimes and a total of four
retirements.
Started consulting, went back towork for the old Hewlett

(06:47):
Packard Credit Union as chiefcounsel and risk officer and
finally, another consultingrelationship.
Finally, about 2018, decided Iwas going to retire for good, so
I've been doing other thingssince rather than consulting for
money so along the way youpicked up some interesting

(07:08):
hobbies.
Yep, you have your own smallplane and you fly missions for
pause for pilots, pilots forpause to like rest animal rescue
flights for a group calledpilots and pause, where we
donate the airplane and the fueland just get animals from
shelters to rescue groups.
Vets and I fly.
Somebody gave me an airplaneride when I was 12, and it

(07:32):
changed my life and so I'veflown about 130 children between
the ages of 8 and 18.
They come out to the airportand if mom or dad signs a
release, they get a freeairplane.

Are those called Little Leos.

They're called Young Eagles.
I knew there was some code namefor this group of young
children who haven't hadopportunities to fly and that
you've done that a couple oftimes a year, sponsored by a
pilot's organization, a group inthe aggregate has flown over
two and a half million kids.

Give them something.

Not all of them will become pilots but all of
them will remember their firstairplane time.

Yeah, of course.
When I was in high school inTennessee, my freshman year, we
had an out-of-town Frenchstudies teacher, small town.
Her husband was a pilot and hetook me up in Hickman County,
Tennessee, and, if it's still onthe books, I have a half hour
of flight time that I got tobook and I probably was 14.
I wasn't driving yet.
It was my freshman year in highschool.

But it was an amazing experience.
When I fly the kids I tell themit was life-changing for me.
It could be for you.
I can remember the weather, thetime of day, the smells of the
air, everything about it.
It's one of those.

Milestone memories.

It's a milestone.

Yeah, I love it.
Now, did you I know on theground did you just own a
Porsche or did you race Porscheswhen you and the boys would go
to Laguna Seca?

Just owned, just owned, okay.

So you had those, but you had those hobbies of
going to racing.

We were going to sports car races as 12-year-olds
, okay, and Roger Penske workedfor my father as an aluminum
salesman in the 60s and we wouldgo watch Roger race before he
did it professionally.
And I went to the race drivingschool at Laguna Seca and
finally realized that could beone too many expensive hobbies

(09:18):
and backed away from it.
Or if I'd had leftover money, Iprobably would have raced cars.
I knew enough people who hadspent a lot of money on racing
cars.
It's all money out.
We have some friends who stilldo that.
No money in.

So then you picked up RVing.
So you owned a sports car, youwere interested in racing but
didn't do that.
You flew and you still fly, andthen at some point you started
RVing.
I believe you had another kindof RV when the kids were young.

In the late 80s the kids were seven, eight.
We wanted to do vacations.
We weren't comfortable takingthem all to fancy hotels yeah.
So we ended up buying a veryinexpensive and marginally built
, it was functional.

We bought a travel trailer because we had a
Ford Bronco to pull with.
Yeah.

And so our little 23-foot trailer bunk beds in the
back for the kids and a queenin the front for us, and we
probably put 40,000 miles onthat trailer over 13 years.
We took it up into Canada,british Columbia, out to San
Juan Island, down SouthernCalifornia out into.

(10:31):
Arizona, the big trip.
We did 10,000 miles.

The only 30-day vacation I ever took in my life
was Sunnyvale, california, toBar Harbor, maine, back to
Northern Route East and SouthernRoute West again, and the kids
still remember that adventure.

Every day was a fond memory.
It was a great adventure andafter our younger son graduated
from college, I decided weneeded an upgrade and bought an
Airstream.
Sight unseen couple in TexasDrove two and a half days
nonstop to get to Texas, hookedit up and brought it home and

(11:10):
that was.
Airstream number one we hadthat for a total of 13 years,
sold it for a profit and wentout and bought a new one.

That's why we value Airstreams because they
hold their value yeah.

Bought a new one that better suited the floor
plan, better suited the dog, andso we've had that since we
bought that at the beginning ofCOVID.
Got it and we've put probably20,000 miles on that a couple of
Arizona loops, another trip upnorth a couple of trips down to
Southern California, and it'sjust it's a great way to travel.

I love it.
So you've had what I wouldauthentically call high-profile
hobbies, yes, and I wonder.
You had a storied corporatecareer.
You were helping build HewlettPackard through their early days
and into their mid-years.
What do you see in common withall that you learned in
corporate?
Supporting these hobbies thatyou had that were most people

(12:05):
would.
It would take a lot to do oneof them and you've chosen
several.
What helped you betweencorporate and those hobbies?
What helped you bridge?

This may not be the right answer.

Everything is the right answer.
What I found the?

hobbies were a way to separate myself from the
work world.
Be able to say I'm.
I am now driving in athunderstorm with tornado
warnings and children in theback seat, through Western
Pennsylvania pulling 7,000pounds with trucks flying past

(12:39):
me and I'm really not thinkingabout work and I'm not thinking
about much else.
Yeah, and the same is true witha small airplane If you're
flying in a rainstorm and you'relooking ahead to see if it's
going to get better or worse andyou have to make an instrument
approach coming down through theclouds to the airplane and.

(13:02):
I were equipped to be able todrop down to within 200 to 300
feet of the ground and, intheory, the clouds will lift and
there will be strobe lights anda runway.

But not always.

And so again, 100% focus, absolutely committed.

Yes, those white knuckle moments.
You're not thinking aboutwhether somebody at the office
got that task done on Fridayafternoon.

There is no mind-watering whatever.
You're focused on that.
The same with driving Driving acar on the freeway on an
average day at the speed limit.
People are checking their phone, looking at text, playing with
the touchscreen when you speedthe car up and you go really
quickly.
All of a sudden, all you'refocused on is the car.

(13:46):
Am I at the limit?
Am I over?

unfortunate or am I just?

below it.
Is there going to be somebodycoming around the next corner,
or can I cut that?
So everything again narrow, thefocus comes narrowed back down.
And all you're doing is dealingwith what's out the windshield
and what's going on in the car.
Work is gone.

You're right.

And that's therapeutic, it helps with
sanity.
It is, isn't it.

Yeah, and in our corporate lives, what I
experience is a lot of tinysteps across a long period of
time to get things done.
And things are so much moreimmediate in this Airstream
world or in some of thesehobbies that we have, because
you do it, then you get it done,you wrap it up, you finish the
project, you finish the weekend.

It's not a two-year roadmap or a launch,
and if you're driving throughNorth Dakota and it's 106
degrees and the air conditionerin your vehicle fails.

Yes.

You don't schedule a Zoom, because this has
happened to John.
These are not what ifs youdon't schedule a Zoom call.
Yes, you don't send an email tothe team saying what shall we
do?
You pull over, you find therepair shop, you get it fixed
you deal, where are?
We going to put the trailerwhile we're waiting for the
compressor again.

Or if you lose a tire driving across.
Was it Wisconsin, wyoming W?
I got the W Rock Springs.

All of that again, yes, Not thinking about work,
not thinking about the lastconsulting project, whether you
might have done that a littlebetter or differently.

A narrow focus.

I love it and for me, that shifting of gears to be
able to say, okay, I'm going tothat shifting of gears.
To be able to say, okay, I'mgoing to turn work off and turn
on something else that I'mcommitted to and enjoying.

Good.

Putting three 10-year-olds in your airplane
with mom and dad and allstanding behind the fence going
oh, I hope he comes back, okay.
Tremendous level ofresponsibility.
You don't want to screw that up, you're right.

So we were just talking about how your corporate
role played into corporateroles, played into these
fantastic hobbies andexperiences that you've
developed as part of your life.
And you didn't do this alone.
You did this with a wonderfulhuman named Diane, thank you.
And let's not forget Ellie, butEllie's only been around the

(16:07):
last 12 or 13 years.
A sweet little dog.
But, diane, how long have youbeen married?

It was 50 years in November that we've been
married.

I think I saw pictures on Facebook of the
celebration.

Blind date set up, she was engaged to somebody
else.
Happily that didn't work out.
Blind date set up, she wasengaged to somebody else.
Happily that didn't work out,and I was.
I was smart enough.
My, my dad elbowed me at onepoint and said hurry up.
And so we got married in 74 andtime.

(16:41):
She was a printed circuitdesigner, so she was working at
Hewlett Packard and she helpedfind me the job at HP.
And once I had the HP job, withall of the stability and
benefits, she went off andbecame an independent contract
designer.
Was making substantially moremoney than I was at the time was

(17:04):
making substantially more moneythan I was at the time.
But after the airplane salesexperience, when the dealer went
bankrupt and I got the job atHP, it's time we should have
children and we had talked aboutand committed that once we had
children she was going to be astay-at-home mom and in Silicon
Valley that means certain thingsaren't going to happen.

(17:24):
The big house in the hills isn'tgoing to happen, but it worked
really well and she was PTApresident at the elementary
school and at the junior highschool and elected to that job.
But the high school had to stepback for some other reasons.
But it made a huge differencefor the kids and it made a huge
difference for me workingbecause, I could go off one year

(17:48):
.
I spent 16 weeks in WashingtonDC when I was HP's government
contracts manager working on bigproposals, lobbying, testifying
in Senate subcommittees all ofthis stuff that you do in the
government.
The government is in Washingtonnot in Sunnyvale, and there
would have been no way to dothat without Diane being at home

(18:08):
with the kids making sure thatthey got to school, that they
had a costume for Halloween day.
She was the classroom momhelping teachers aid for a while
, so all of that was enablingand all the way up through high
school and college, because bythe time the kids got to college

(18:30):
I had transitioned to the testand measurement electron test
job at Hewlett-Packard.
That made the international trap.
So now, instead of just buzzingoff to Colorado or Washington,
where I can get home in fivehours, buzzing off to Colorado
or Washington, where I can gethome in five hours, now I'm in
Geneva or Hong Kong or Singapore, where I can get home 12 hours
after noon tomorrow because ofthe time zone and hard to talk

(18:54):
on the phone because it's themiddle of the night somewhere
and again.
So she took care of the homeoffice while I was out taking
care of my career of the homeoffice while I was out taking
care of my career and whatstarted as both working, both
earning money, trying to get tothe point where we could afford
to buy a house or getestablished, to being full-time
mom all the way through schooland then, once the kids were

(19:18):
gone, let's just divide thingsup 50-50 and become partners and
throughout the she and I,people would say you two are
very different.
Left brain, engineer, attorney,brain, artistic, emotional,
quotient.

High EQ High.

EQ.

It really works.

It does.
It works pretty well, it does.

I've watched you guys for the last five years and
I can say it works.

It took a little while, but both of us realized
that the other has skills andtalent and abilities that we
don't, and step back and avoiddoing the things that we're good
at and let the other one dothat.

I think that's sage advice for anyone young
into their marriage or theirrelationship to let the other do
the things that they're good at, that they enjoy, and you don't
have to be there for everysecond of it.
In fact I've experienced thatwith you.
We've done some work on Bellafrom your sidewalk and Diane
would come out over a couple ofhours to say you guys need some

(20:20):
tea, but she didn't hover at allbecause she knew that we were
doing our mechanical thinginstalling some new batteries.

She's never going to change the oil or rotate the
tires or fix a broken outlet,and I'm not less likely to host
a party by myself.
And part of it.
That by itself is powerful.
What is extra powerful is theability to both laugh at

(20:52):
ourselves and the situation whenthe entire plan fails Be able
to say that was a colossal screwup and then start laughing
about it and having maybe notthe same sense of humor, but
complimentary sense of humor, toavoid getting wound up when
things weren't going as well asthey were planned.

Yeah.

You've gone through the plan A and plan B
and you're down to plan F andyou have to be able to say Time
to sit.

Start back in a bit.
Oh you wait.

We'll get through this.

Yeah.

And and so it's been hugely positive.
The career wouldn't havehappened without Diane and Diane
stepping into the roles thatshe stepped into.

And our kids would have turned out
differently as well if she hadbeen there for them, my mom also
took time off when we wereyoung.
My brother and I do think itmakes a big difference when they
can be in the schools.
Like Diane was involved in PTA,my mom's substitute taught and
for them to experience what thekids are going through I think
helps them relate more to whatthe challenge is.

It was huge and we'd have some rice and beans
dinners and we were drivingolder cars and our friends were
moving up into the higher rentneighborhoods and we weren't.
We said and our friends weremoving up into the higher rent
neighborhoods and we weren't.
We said are you good with that?
Yeah, good with that?
Good, yeah, it's a consciouschoice.
We've seen other arrangementsthat didn't work out as well.

(22:13):
Her time in the schools youcould see kids that were having
some of them with both parentsworking were fine, but some of
them were struggling.
We didn't want to have to putourselves at risk of having that
happen.

I love that.
So I'm going to.
You mentioned neighborhoods andmoving up, which is a segue for
me to community.
So I want to take just a quickminute and do a station ID check
.
Here at the bottom of the hourwe are at KPCR LP, 92.9 out of
Los Gatos.
Today I'm broadcasting remotelyfrom Olema Campground up in

(22:47):
Tomales Bay and also sisterstation KMRT LP that's 101.9 out
of Santa Cruz.
So we are recording thisremotely with John McGowan and
the community statement I made.
We are a community radio stationso we have developed a program
called the Signal Society forthose who want to support
community radio for KPCRLP.

(23:11):
For as little as $5 a month youcan become a subscriber to the
radio.
You get a little membershipcard.
John, you might want one ofthese Instead of your ARP card.
We can get you a Signal Societycard and there's a few dozen
businesses, mostly CentralPeninsula in the Bay Area.
Also, if you become a member ofthe Signal Society, you get to
come into the station and do atour and you can do one show a

(23:34):
year where you partner with aregular host and we'll create
your own show with you on theair, which is cool.
You can go to kpcrorg and thedonate section and you'll see
details.
But it's a great way to supportthe artists and the curators
and the creators that work tobring you the news and the
information that we think youwant as part of the community.

(23:55):
Okay, so let's go into I lovethe talk about Diane.
Let's move into transitionsgoing from big enterprise
corporate into transitions goingfrom big enterprise corporate
HPE, hewlett Packard Enterpriseto Agilent, then into consulting
that transition for you.
It's hard for me.
So what was that like for youto move from running big teams

(24:16):
in a big company with bigprocess to helping smaller
companies find their processes?

The driver for that transition.
The dot-com bust of 2001 hitAgilent particularly hard.
We called ourselves at onepoint, the caterpillar tractor
of the information highway.

Okay.

So we provide a lot of equipment and
infrastructure tools to letother people build out the
internet and when theinternetcom boom collapsed, we
went from a billion dollar amonth company to a 400 billion
dollar a month company in onemonth.

(25:14):
And no large corporation canturn on that small a dime Like a
60% drop in a month.
I was pretty well burned outand it was painful dealing with
employees that I had sought outand recruited and persuaded to
come to work for me.
And it also led me to be alittle bit difficult to deal

(25:35):
with the CFO and CEO.

Those are tense times.

And when you're at near the upper part of the
pyramid and you start rufflingfeathers, you could decide that
maybe I should look for otheropportunities at this angle so.
I just got.
I got fed up and so I had theopportunity.
I took an early retirement andone of the companies that I
worked with to train my peopleand they trained the HP

(26:03):
Salesforce.
They also trained AT&TSalesforce, salesforce, lots and
lots of large blue chipcompanies.
They were the trainer of recordfor negotiation, sales
negotiation for their salesteams.
And I had been the promoter andwork with them and help develop

(26:24):
a program that was unique to HP.
Got another CEO very well.

And after I retired.

he had reached out and said would you be
interested in doing similarkinds of things for us as a
consultant to be able to help uscustomize our training for
future corporate clients?
And since I was unemployed, itsounds really interesting and so
I started.

(26:51):
I did some classroom trainingand did some developing.
The developing job was youcould do from home, you could do
with good quality telephonecomputer basically interview the
sales organization leadershipteam.
What is it that's bothering yoursales?
What are your competitors doingto you?

(27:12):
What are your customers doingto you?
What skills would you like toget better?

Which tactics would you?

like to respond to Build that into a briefing
profile for the instructorclassroom so he knows the names
of the key players.
He knows all of the hot buttonissues.
And then would build practicenegotiation cases that were
structured around or modeled fornegotiating, but had their

(27:39):
industry and the competitors'and customers' behaviors baked
into them, competitors' andcustomers' behaviors baked into
them.
And so over the course of threeyears of doing that, did
probably 40 assignments,everything from PG&E to
companies in the food businesslearned lots of new industries

(28:00):
and it turned out that a lot ofthe core level issues they were
facing were common, but thetactics the customers would
apply would be different.
Some companies had literally ahandful of key customers and
some had thousands of customers.
Some were very transactional.
It was fascinating to getinvolved and engaged in that

(28:22):
level but it was a whole newskill set.

Yeah, of course.

One of the tactics , one of the skills I had
developed hugely valuable washaving a conversation and
getting people to tell me thingsthat they probably wouldn't
tell their boss, and quite oftenthe briefing to the instructors
there would be information.
How did you find out about that?

We did a lot of research.

Yes, yes, I would occasionally get busted for it,
but people are sometimesreluctant to say we're not doing
this correctly to your manageror your worse, your manager's
manager, but some harmlessconsultant on the telephone.

Yeah, here, I wish we would.
I wish we do this differently.
I wish we would change.

I wish we'd do this differently.
Anyway, that was the consultingtransition.
It was really challenging.
It was fun.
I hark back to the old HewlettPackard.
Hewlett Packard believed youshould make money and make a
contribution At some level.
You should be making the worlda better place or company more

(29:26):
successful.

I still see that with my current friends who are
at HPE.

And I felt if I could enhance or if we could
enhance the negotiation skills,we were helping the company
perform better.
And there are lots and lots ofviews and opinions about
negotiation.
Everybody has ours with highlyprincipled.
We never taught tactics.

We refused the courses in the old airline
magazines.
Yes, I remember those.

Come to our hotel room for two days and we'll
teach you about the Dutch crunchand the squeeze and the nibble
and we didn't do that, it waswhat are you trying to get out
of this negotiation?
Spend some time trying tounderstand what they're trying
to get out of it and try tofigure out a way using a little
bit of tension try to figure outin a principled way how to get
there where both of you end up.

Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
So you've had a really widerange in career from a timeline
perspective.
So you've just, like you've,seen the Bay Area grow up from
orchards to high rises, to largecompounds, if you will, for
companies.
You've also seen the transitionfrom largely analog to
exclusively digital.

(30:36):
My question there would be whatdo you think has been the most,
in your experience, the mostdramatic change that has
occurred?
Because we've really leftbehind analog and went to a
completely digital businessmodel.

I kid you, when I started it was typewriters and
mimeograph machines.

Okay, oh, the purple eight.
Is that mimeograph?
The?

fax machine hadn't arrived yet.

Okay, okay, and it was the big black.

IBM correcting selector.
Sometimes if the boss reallyhad a relationship with the
secretary, she got a tan one.
But they were big blacktypewriters and maybe telexes,
and over the through the 80s andthe 90s that morphed to the
beginning of the PC and thebeginning of the fax machine

(31:24):
came along.
About that time the mobilephone was a big change.
Computing power became morepersonal.
Now everybody has a mainframein their pocket.
And so computing, everybodytakes that for granted.
You've got a couple gigabits, acouple gigs of memory and you

(31:47):
say what's the weather?
Going to be tomorrow and theyreach for their pocket and
nobody has to remember anythingbecause it's on your phone, and
so that is a huge change, andnow even if your phone doesn't
know the answer, the phone willmake it up with AI.

You're getting the hat on the AI conversation.

I love it.
The phone is getting smarterand smarter it is, and my watch
is getting smarter.

And talking to your phone.
Your watch is talking to yourphone.

If I misspeak, the phone will say the watch will
say I didn't quite get that, canyou?

say that again.

I fell down yesterday and the phone said
would you like me to call 911for you?
So this level of technology Iremember at HP they used to talk
about the days technology inthe future would be just
automatic, you wouldn't have tothink about it.
And the example they used wasrental cars and the example they

(32:44):
used was rental cars.
All over the country in the1990s, corporations would send
an executive out to a strangetown and this company with a big
yellow or green sign would lethim drive off in a car he'd
never driven in without readingthe owner's manual.

We were a yellow sign company and I always had
printed copies.
The Internet and MapQuest wasbig then, but I always had
printed copies of my maps forevery single day and where I was
going.
When I got in my rental car,Whether you had a Chevrolet or a
Ford, you didn't read themanual Key went here and shifted
there and the steering wheelturned to front and away you
went.

Computers have reached that point and gone past
, where now you don't have tothink about how do I turn it on?

or how do?

I do something with it and that's been a huge
evolution in the analog todigital.

The other one when.

I started working at the.
Westinghouse Corporation as oneof 800 young engineers hired in
the spring of 69, you went towork.
You had a shift.
I worked on a plant that soldsteam turbines and engine rooms
of ships to the Navy.
The whistle blew at 4.15.
All of the union workers wouldleave and the professional

(33:58):
engineers would stick aroundanother 20 minutes.
And we're they.
But then we go home and therewas no telephone access, no work
access.
We were either at work or wewere not at work.
It was binary, and if you sowhen you went home for dinner,
you went home for dinner, yeah,and bedtime stories and bath

(34:21):
times and all those things Imight talk to my wife about
something funny or odd thathappened at work, but it was a
completely disconnectedconversation from work and if I
had to go to a dentist in themorning and I came in late and I
missed a couple of phone calls,there would be a pink slip on
my phone.
Joe called.
Here's his phone number callback wants pricing.

(34:42):
Great, I could catch up.
I never got a pink slip mail tomy house.

Nobody called me at three in the mornings.

I need financials for this upcoming bid.

I was either at work at home or not at work and
today the last couple of yearsat.
Agilent I had my phone in mypocket.

I could be reached by text message anywhere.
It was a GSM phone that wasglobal.
It didn't matter if I wastrying to sleep in a hotel in
Hong Kong or I was havingbreakfast in Germany, If
somebody wanted to reach John.

I was reachable, you were reachable.

And unless I was on an airplane.
Now that safe haven is gonewith internet aboard the
airplane, but now it's 24 by 7,literally.
And there's no turning it off.
People don't even turn it offon vacation family time.
I go take the dog for a walk inthe park and all these parents

(35:42):
are watching their kids on thesling looking at their phones or
having conversations on theirphone while they're pushing the
kids on the sling or watchingthe kids.
I understand that there's anefficiency payoff, but there's a
human time.

It's pretty sad and I struggled with that I
remember making a transfer inHeathrow and I was on my cell
phone desperately trying to typeout something to an employee
that was non-critical and I wasstanding holding on to the tram.
That stop, start, stop, starttrying to type out something on
my cell phone and I got so upsetwith myself because I was like

(36:19):
this can wait, this is a I thinkit was a benefits question Some
guy, his wife was pregnant andhe wanted to ask what the
paternity leave time was for ourcompany and I was like this can
wait, so I need to wait.
We get conditioned into that,always on, always responsive,
and I think that is a big shiftfrom 20 years ago, 25 years ago,

(36:41):
probably a little longer, I ranthe first trip to Singapore in
the late 90s or mid-90s and ithadn't hit the instrument side,
but HP had a large semiconductorfacility.

And the general manager of that facility
nicknamed Emperor and he toldhis staff that, if I send you a
message, I expect a responsewithin 30 minutes.
Yeah, and he had absolutehiring and firing autonomy.
The poor version of the H-3 waywas a little different and

(37:12):
everybody just said, oh okay,that's the way I will abide by
this.
And at the time, if thiscatches on, this could be
trouble.
And sure enough it caught on.

Most of my career has been an always-on.

And it's.

I'm not thrilled watching.

I understand.
That time off the 30-daycross-country RV trip, the kids
and the dog, and all of this.
I made two concessions.
I agreed that we had the oldpush-button, the payphone
voicemail check, and I said Iwill check voicemail every
couple days and I gave themthree addresses with approximate

(37:52):
dates where they could send aFedEx package if some document
needed to get to me.
But of the entire 30 days, thatwas the extent of my
reconnecting with them and thatmodel has shifted.
Yeah, it has, it's the same.

But I think a lot of the things like me
describing giving an answerabout parental leave, you
describing signing contracts.
I do believe what's coming withthe future of technology is
going to eliminate a lot of thatmundane sign-off, signatory,
perfunctory kind of work.

The contract is okay, sign it.
Put the phone back in yourpocket.

Yeah, that will change, yep sign-off, signatory,
perfunctory kind of work.
The contract is okay, sign it,put the phone back in your
pocket.
Yeah, that will change.
Yep, it will be a big shift youhave.
When I started doing my AIjourney, you were so good about
sending me Santa ClaraUniversity law school forums or
things that you saw online thatyou thought were interesting.
In fact, you were quite thethorn in my side because you
would be like, yeah, I might bebad and you kept sending me

(38:53):
stuff.
That was because there was alot of consternation when
generative AI first hit themarket in a really big consumer
way.
It's a dark side.
There is a dark side, but Ithink people are accepting and
tolerating that.
Good comes with bad.
What's that been like for youto witness that transition?
Because I witnessed it frominside my professional space.

(39:13):
But I think you are an observer, but you're a very interested
observer.

I'm several steps away from the actual doing zone
and it's engineers who go to lawschool and become attorneys are
essentially trained.
The glass is neither half fullnor half empty, but it's
possibly got a crack and mightsomeday spring a leak, and
here's how we can protectourselves from a potential leak
in the future.
So that helps explain the sortof dark side perspective of

(39:42):
looking always looking at whatcould go wrong, because that's
what you do with many contracts.
We've had arguments about the.

I'm not planning for this could go wrong, because
that's what you do with manycontracts.
We've had arguments about the.
I'm not planning for this to gowrong, John.
That's it, yes.

And within the industry, in the technology
world, there is a track recordof saying that technology by
itself is just plain fascinatingand cool.
And how far can we push it?

Good for you.
What can it?

do next, and can I make the robot sing in three?

languages instead of two.
You're staying up on trend.
I love it.

Can it make coffee or tea while it's singing in
three languages and do my and?
I'm part of a couple of regularZoom meetings and we're now
getting transcripts of the Zoommeeting typed up at the end of
the meeting without anybodyhaving to write anything.

They're pretty impressive, aren't they?

Really good.

Yeah, yeah, really good.

I am not critical of the technology.

And the more I've looked at it.

There are early adopters, there's bleeding edge
adopters.
It's another technology,another tool set that is really
not unlike the first computersthat came out, some of them were
truly junk, and some of themwere ahead of their time and
others nailed it, but the fear Ihave now, I still have you

(41:02):
would.
The thing is that there seemsto be a bifurcation or a split
between those who are going toparticipate and play with and
use the technology and leverageit to their benefit and those
that are going to be left outand going.
I was just trying to get by as acustomer support assistant with

(41:25):
a headset and a telephone, andnow that AI machine is answering
tougher questions faster than Ican.
So what do I do next?
And in some ways it almost thesuccessful and the well-to-do
and the sort of elite, theelites as some would describe

(41:49):
them.
They've been doing pretty wellthe last 10 or 20 years and
those that lack the educationand the ability to grab a hold
of this technology and play withit have been doing relatively
less well and might conceivablyend up lesser.
I find that troubling.

(42:09):
Yes, because there are billionsof people.
I don't think even India orChina or some of these other
hugely populous countries aregoing to escape having to deal
with the same issue.
This is not a.
Silicon Valley problem or a.
Us problem and what is China?

(42:31):
going to do if really smartrobots over a lot of the
low-cost manufacturing thatmillions of Chinese are doing,
or coding AI tools are gettingsmarter and smarter at writing
good code.

They are.

And a lot of people in other parts of the
world who are hanging on bywriting software.
But basically, what kind ofsoftware are they going to be
able to write?
A machine just kicked out 8,000lines of code between breakfast
and coffee break.
Yep, the coder is.

And AI never takes vacation, never goes to a
dental appointment, never takesparental leave, and the output
is massive for what it will do.

Grabbed onto it and tried to understand it and
tried to leverage it, but it's atool and in the same way that a
typewriter or an iPad was atool some people grab onto it
and say what can this do for me?
How?

can I use this?

What will it do to help me do what I want to do?
And they figure that out andthey run with it.
The people who look at it say Idon't like that.

I'm afraid of it.

It's going to hurt me.
It might actually hurt becausethey just this is not a
technology where you can sit onthe sidelines.
It doesn't apply to me becauseit will apply to everybody.

So what is your advice?
Because I think you are aposter child.
I'm losing my voice.
I think you're a poster childfor a generation of people that
didn't grow up on technology.
You didn't grow up with aniPhone in your hand.
You had to adapt to that.
But now AI is a whole differentlevel of activity and

(44:19):
dimensions of things that youcan do For people of your
generation.
What's your advice to peoplewho have been on the fence, who
haven't really been ready to tryto do things in AI yet?
What would you suggest theystart with?

It's just because we grow up with a telephone on
the wall, the rotary dial, or ifit rang you must answer it.
Very different today's theadvice is even if you just stick
a finger in or two fingers,ChatGPT is free.

But I highly encourage people to do the $20
upgrade.

You can get an upgrade if you can afford it.
Try it.
You can't hurt it.
You can't.
There is no way to breakChatGPT for an average human.
You can't break it.
Play with it, Try it, See withit.
Try it See what it will do.
You can upload pictures and letit tell it to redesign a
picture.
It's at first interaction itwill seem a little bit dumb and

(45:19):
you can tell it that was quite,that wasn't correct.
Try it this way, or make thatbigger, or remove this from
picture or substitute.
You're having a conversationwith the machine is the way to
look at it and the same is true.
If you ask it to write something, write a short story about a
young boy and his dog, and theirfriend falls in the you can.

(45:41):
It'll come back with a and tellit how long.

And then ask the story to be written in German,
and then ask the story to bewritten in the style of oh, I
don't know who's your favoriteauthor.

Carl Hyasson.

You're supposed to say Tonya Long.
I'm sorry, Tonya Long In thestyle of.

Ernest Hemingway or Tonya Long.

Yeah.

Yeah, there was a two years ago, three years ago,
a famous Sunday Doonesbury thattalked about the emerging career
of being the prompter andlearning how to prompt an AI
tool by asking the rightquestions being the right
instructions.

And it's iterative, you start here.

That didn't work.
You try a different line.

Didn't work.

You say no, fix it differently.
So it's, that's one opportunity.
Just try the technologies thatare out there With the phone.
You can edit photographs on thephone.
Practice playing with the phonefor editing photographs, Just
playing.
Just don't be afraid of it.
It's a short answer.

I think you've drawn a good parallel to when
everyone got smartphones andstarted taking pictures of every
activity of life and thenstarted editing those photos.
It was a progression ofactivity and most people now
have smartphones, statistically,and most play with photos and
it's play.
I think it's the word playthat's important.

(47:04):
Photos and it's play.
I think it's the word playthat's important.
Find something that entertainsyou, that serves you, and make
your life a little richer forplaying with technology that
adds to what you enjoy doing.

One more quick one .
As an instrument rated pilot, Iused to carry a three inch
binder yes, five and a half byeight inch, seven holes with
charts and plates, and fold openterritorial chart for every
approach, for every airport.
It's just a separate handbookfor the basic information about

(47:35):
the air elevation hours ofoperation.
How to turn the lights on.
Now we have an iPad.
Yeah, the iPad has a killer appthat is like Lotus 1-2-3, when
it hit the.
Ibm PC.
Every pilot essentially has aniPad on their lap.
It has every approach for everyairport.
It has real-time weather on amoving map, it has all the

(47:59):
frequencies, all the phonenumbers, everything you ever
wanted to know to fly, and, ifyou can afford it, it will
actually talk to the autopilotin the airplane.
So he said here's my flightplan, boom.
It sends it to the government,the government sends you the
expected routing and then itsends you the clearance back to
the IPAC.

no more calling the phone, Nice.

Yeah, and then you push a button, sends it to the
instrument and you get a magentaline.
And as soon as you take off,the autopilot will fly the
magenta line through space.
When I learned how to fly oninstruments 45 years ago.
I had charts on my lap, I hadtwo different radios.

I can't imagine, and I know how driving is like
driving in a city when I travellargely for work, driving in a
city using much less advancedtechnology, but I don't worry
about it.
I used to plan extensively forwhen I would be on a trip in a
city and driving where I wasn'tfamiliar.
And now you just arrive andplug in.

So that's what technology is doing for us.
That technology is so powerfulthat it just blew up all of the
chargers and all of the peoplewho made the binders.
The airlines were a little slowbecause they're very
conservative.
But there is an airline pilotin the world that still carries
around a book full of charts.

They carry a spare iPad unless their first
iPad dies.

Yes, but that's.
The tools can be helpful, butyou can't be afraid of the tools
.

Yeah, yeah, thank you.
I appreciate that.
I want to end with family,because we've talked during this
conversation about you havingkids when you were in law school
and then going through theRVing early days with kids.
Now your kids are grown andgone Not yet at the point of
having their own kids, butthey're the age of that going on

(49:38):
.
Your daughter livesinternationally in Europe.

In a lovely village in Switzerland.

In a lovely village in Switzerland.
In a lovely village inSwitzerland.
What has that transition beenlike?
Because that's a big RESET togo from all, because it is
always on dad.
There's never a time whenyou're not dad.

until now, it's not easy because you're always a
dad, you're always going tohelp fix booboos.
Let me take care of thatproblem for you and instead of
just taking a step back andsaying, do you need help?
And our daughter honors lawschool, built a wonderful career

(50:18):
, I forget what are the lastones.

I got this, dad, okay, why?

take it and same with our son.
He's more of the artistic side,not an engineer, so a little
bit more of a challenge tosettle into a career you're
really happy with and it's gotto be one both you enjoy and
that you're good at.
All that has to line up.

But he's got a good life.
He's there, a nice wife and aFrench bulldog, right yeah.

But both of them very happy.
I still find myself saying do Ineed to come over and pick you
up and give you a ride?
I got it, dad.

I got Uber.

So we're there, we're backstopping them.
We would do anything neededbail them out if they got in
trouble.
But in their forties, I have toremind, when we were 40, we
were grownups.
And instead of saying ourlittle kids they're grownups and
that's a difficult transition,but it's been fun because, as

(51:16):
grownups.
They're behaving according totheir plan and we're, in some
ways, we're just happyspectators and potentially
enablers, but that's a differentrole, and they're forever
cheerleader.

You will forever be their biggest advocate and
supporting all the success.
That you built a foundationwith them.

They may be choosing the home we go into.
So we're very fortunate to havegreat relationships with both,
and both of them took widelydifferent directions in terms of
pursuing a career and the firstand most challenging hurdle was
it's their life, their career,not ours.
And I remember that story mydad telling me what I had to do

(52:01):
to be able to get a job and havea good life and we tried really
hard not to do that.

Yeah, and we didn't.

We said you want to do this?
Great, change your mind.
Okay, we'll do somethingdifferent.
Can we help?

I got this, so that's how I think you've
transitioned well into movingchildren into adulthood outside
the home.
You have, and it gives you timeto do other things.
Speaking of other things,what's on your list?
Your bucket list is shorterthese days because, you've done
so much, it's actually gettinglonger.

This is the wee time.
I hate to say we're approachingour sell-by date, but we've got
an episode dealing with agingparents with medical issues and
being caregivers for the parentsof many people this generation.
After the kid parenting sothere's parent parenting then
comes the medical issues of ourown to wrestle with and go

(52:57):
through.
So now we spend more timevisiting back to Switzerland.
Orion River Cruise I'm lookingforward to oh good.
And the Airstream has neverbeen to Alaska.
Okay, Probably should go.
Canadian maritime provinces areon the bucket list.
They've been on the list for 12years and that list keeps

(53:18):
growing.
I love it so the only thingholding me back is are we
healthy enough and you rearrangesome of the other volunteer
stuff to make that time.
So we can go do it.

I'm going to point that out that he has to
reprioritize his volunteeractivities to get in some bucket
list items.
That's living a good life, John, it really is I really?

I can't complain.
We have been very fortunate.
We're pretty happy, lookingforward to the next couple of
years.

So I'm going to end with an impromptu speed
round of questions.
Let's see, if you had to giveup your airplane or your
Airstream, which one would yougive up?
See, these are good, I don't.

Got to choose one, probably the airplane I've been
flying more than 60 years FAAWright Brothers Master Pilot
Award.
But at some point the FAA andthe medical community and the
insurance community is going tosay you might be a little too
old for this you can keepairstreaming until you fall over

(54:31):
.
So I think I get more years.
I support that.
I can't get the airstream in theairplane, okay, and I've nearly
lost the ability to fly theairplane a couple months ago, so
it's a warning bell from theuniverse saying the time may be
coming.

Okay, Not there yet.
Good.
Next lightning round questionElectric vehicles are I've
forgotten, is it I've forgottenthe dates that California, the
state of California, 2030.

Is moving.

It was.
I'm not sure we're tracking tothat, but they're making you
know this.
They're making an EV airstream,an electrically powered
airstream.
Will you transition to electricwhen it's time?

Not to an electric airstream, potentially to an
electric vehicle.
We're still years away fromhaving an electric vehicle that
can do everything an internalcombustion can.
Our son works for an electriccar company in Palo Alto.
I previously worked for a namedelectric car company in Fremont
.
They can do a lot of thingsreally well, and some of the

(55:37):
newer ones coming from otherparts of the world are
astonishing, but they can't pulla trailer 300 miles between
charging and they can't drive toTucson and back.
In a day We'll get there on.
It's not going to be 2030.

Okay.

And there are enough voters and citizens in
the middle of this country,south, that are not willing to
give up their pickup trucks justyet.
Yeah, it's an impressivetechnology, but it's going to
move slower than some peoplethink it is, but you will adopt
when it's time.

And if you had to adopt, to keep airstreaming
because the environmentalrequirements were for you to
pull with.

If I had to, I would If they outlawed big V8
powered trucks.

Like you have.
Yes, everything is a compromise, okay.

It's not very fuel-efficient but it does a
really fine job of pulling a7,000-pound truck.
So it rests between jobs.
Yeah, not exactly lightninglight.

Okay, it's fine, it's good, let's see, let's find
a couple more.
You've talked about airporthamburgers.
What are they called?

You've talked about airport hamburgers.
What are they called?

Well, they used to be $100 hamburgers when you'd
fly into a small regionalairport and eat at their little
diner restaurant.
So airport hamburger orfive-star restaurant.

Absolutely the hamburger.

Perfect yeah.

Anything over three stars, I won't go to.
Perfect, yeah, anything overthree stars I won't go to.
I don't enjoy looking at smallportions of artistic food plate
handcrafted by other people do,okay, fine.
That's not me.

What's the most interesting thing Dave Packard
ever said to you?

I actually got to know Dave because he cared about
government and I was with himone night.
And I was with him one night.
I was told I should follow himaround as a bodyguard to Ricky's
Hyatt House in Palo Alto, okay,where he was going to give a
speech, a dinner speech.
And I'm walking in and.

(57:35):
I asked him a question back inthe 80s about the house and the
garage on Addison Avenue.
And so are you excited?
Do you think it should beturned into a museum?
Would you like to see?

That's history.

I don't care about that.
He said His entire focus wastoday and looking forward.
And I was shocked.
This is the famous garage whereyou start.
It was yesterday.
I don't care.
He had no interest in lookingover his shoulder at what
happened 20 years ago.
He was focused on 20 years out.

I love that Last question and you gave me a great
segue for it.
What is in your 20 years outthat you want to have?
No stop it that you want tohave done in that 20 years?
What's the bucket list item?
If health and financials arenot a concern at all and you can
do anything, what do you wantthat to be?

I think I'd like to relive the summer of 68, when
I spent 10 weeks travelingthrough Europe in a Volkswagen
camper bus.
My parents offered to help witha graduation present and it
ended up being between my firstand second senior years and

(58:56):
agreed to front the cost of theVW bus if I sold it at the end
of the summer and paid them back.
Sold it at the end of thesummer and paid them back.
So a college friend and I flewon Icelandic airways with
propellers through Reykjavik toBrussels or Luxembourg and
started our adventure withpicking it up at the Volkswagen

(59:17):
factory and put 13,000 miles onit in 10 weeks from the tip of
Inverness in northern Scotlanddown below Rome sleeping in the
bus grabbing showers atcampgrounds and it's out of all.
And I would probably do that alittle more elegantly.

Yes, life gives us that opportunity, sometimes
Our daughter doing that.

But I think that would be fun to go back and just
not so many Americans givethemselves the week.
A vacation is defined as theweek and Europeans we were with
the trailer, british Columbiaand the Canadian Rockies.
All we found were otherEuropeans with rented motorhomes
because they come for three orfour weeks.

Tonya J. Long (01:00:04):
And the Americans look at it and go.

John McGowan (01:00:06):
I can't get from here to Canadian Rockies and
look around and get back, so I'mgoing to have to go somewhere
else I can get to.

Disneyland in a week and back Right.
Different experience.
I can't give myself two weeksbecause that's all the vacation
I've got.
I've got to save a couple days,it's true, and so doing that in
a more relaxed approach andjust not being in a hurry.
It's a great place.

Can we stay another night or two?

Yep.

And.

I heard that's really great over there.
We go over to that littlevillage.

I hear they have a terrific chocolate factory.

Yep, we're going to look forward, then, to you
finding a way to make thosethings happen.

I think it'd be a ball.

So, John, you've gone from corporate executive to
consultant, from baby dad toadult, full grown adult,
successful dad.
You have made the transitionsfrom full employment to full
pursuing of your dreams.
So I think those things have noexpiration date for you and
look forward to seeing you onmany more campouts and

(01:01:04):
adventures as you continue togrow.

Fingers crossed In your bucket, go along with that
wish Wonderful.
That's the plan.

Fantastic, and we will do this again in a couple
more years.
We'll have another one, maybewireless.
We'll treat us a little betteron the next round.

Okay.

Thank you.
Thank you so much, everyone.
This has been John McGowan andTonya Long on RESET with Tonya
from the Tomales Bay area.
You've heard the chirping ofbirds and a few service vehicles
going by, and this has been alovely way to do my first Bella
podcast in conjunction withradio station KPCR 92.9 LP out

(01:01:41):
of Los Gatos, California.
Have a wonderful day.
We'll see you next week onThursday at 11 am.
Thanks for joining us on RESET.
Remember, transformation is ajourney, not a destination.
So until next time, keepexploring what's possible.
I'm Tonya Long and this is home.

(01:02:05):
This is RESET.

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Tonya J. Long

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The Joe Rogan Experience

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.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Rotary Dials to GPT Files: A Life Wired for Wonder