September 3, 2024 • 51 mins
In this episode of The BOM: Engineering A Path Forward we have the pleasure of sitting down with Engineering Program Manager for Apple and interior designer Anthony Oyatayo to learn a bit more about how the principles of design find their way into engineering.
Anthony is going to tell us why soft skills are just as important as the technical aspects of design and engineering and how he managed to use these skills to help him navigate the controlled chaos that is designing at Apple and help people to understand what they want in living spaces.
This is my conversation with Anthony Oyatayo and this the Bom
Oaytayo Interior Design
Anthony is going to tell us why soft skills are just as important as the technical aspects of design and engineering and how he managed to use these skills to help him navigate the controlled chaos that is designing at Apple and help people to understand what they want in living spaces.
This is my conversation with Anthony Oyatayo and this the Bom
Oaytayo Interior Design
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Apple Apple good thing. A phone is the greatest thing,
and that looks so great. But if it gets in
the hands of users and they're like, not even this
is ugly, I don't want this, then the whole thing
is just done. It's a waste, right, because who's going
to buy it? So the three principles that I have
for my interior design company, and it's highlighted on websites,
highlighted everything that I give out business cards. It's function,
(00:23):
it's mood and harm.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome back to the Bomb. I'm your host, Magenta Strong Card.
In today's episode, we're talking with Anthony Oyataiyo, who's not
only a senior engineering program manager at Apple, but also
the founder of his very own interior design business. Anthony
tells us all about the value of communication in addition
to technical skills, when it comes to everything from early
stage client conversations to large scale supply chain negotiations. It's
(00:52):
a fascinating conversation. Let's get into it. We live in
a time where design and technology touch every aspect of
our lives. But where did it all come from? Who
designed it, how is it built and brought to market?
What will look like in a year two years, one
(01:13):
hundred years, from the phones and smartwatches that help us
in our day to day to the cutting edge spaceships
and three D printers that are leading us into the future.
Modern design is constantly shaping the way we work, communicate,
problem solve, and play, and every new design, bigger, small,
starts with an idea and a bill of materials. I'm
agenta strongheart, and this is the bomb where we talk
to leading innovators in the tech world and celebrate the
(01:35):
transformational power of design.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
What.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you so much for joining us today, Anthony. I'm
really excited to get into this conversation. It's been a
long time coming now. Is like we first connected just
about a year ago, because we had that Hidden Genius
panel event recently just last month, which reminded me like, wow,
it's been a whole year since we last got to
connect in person, and I'm so glad we're finally making
(02:04):
this conversation happen.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, so, I remember when we had you as a
guest on the panel with the hid Ingenious project. You
are just so passionate about kind of this intersection of
engineering and design and not only you're kind of, you know,
your nine to five job, but also this business that
you're starting outside of that, which I'm really excited to
get into more detail. And I think we can just
start kind of with getting everyone on the same page,
(02:30):
just if you could tell us more about, you know,
your full time role and what that entails, because I
feel like it's kind of not directly engineering, but managing
an engineering position in a way right as you're managing
projects and this sort of thing, and then get into
kind of your role also founding this design business, and
then we can talk more detail about both.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, definitely. So right now I work for Apple. It'll
be about two years that i've that I'll be there
actually in end of October. So it's been a cool journey.
I must say. I'm an engineering program manager and I
work on accessories basically, so there's lots of things I
(03:14):
go into the accessory uh you know, umbrella if you will,
But primarily I work on several items that you can
pair with iphons to say please, so an example that
would be phone cases. That's that's one of the things
that I've worked and from an engineering program management perspective,
(03:36):
pretty much there from the beginning when there's a concept,
but I'm essentially working with people in all different uh
you know, facets of the company. You know, there's uh
supply chain, there's uh you know, actual product design, engineering,
there's marketing, there's several aspects that I have to part
(04:00):
or with and really go along this journey to get
this product from again just a concept inside somebody's head
all the way through being in somebody's hand.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Absolutely, And that's actually it's like you read my mind,
because that's what I was going to say. It sounds
like a role that you're kind of working between teams
and you have to have kind of an interdisciplinary understanding
of the whole kind of product life cycle right that
you're managing here. Could you tell us a little bit
about what from your background, you know, professional experience wise
(04:31):
or education wise, you feel like really prepared you for
being able to move between these different teams. You have
to kind of manage communication and obviously project deadlines and
things for and how they're different, you know, probably workflows
are that you're connecting.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
It's interesting because I think all the jobs that I've
had in the past have been different and in different
industries to some degree, I actually wanted to be an
engineer strictly because of roller coasters. That was that was
the main, you know thing. I was like, oh, man,
I want to.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I remember you saying this at the panel, right, So yeah,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
What do I have to do in order for me
to work on the coasters? What degree do I have
to get? So that led me to getting my mechanical
engineering degree. And the first job that I had early
was working for Jacob's Engineering group as a pipe stress engineer.
(05:25):
And then from there somehow I went over to the
Department of Defense, where I was working there for a
few years as a systems engineer in different aspects of
systems engineering. So some of that had to do with
reliability engineering, something that had to do with just general
installation and check out of various weapons systems, and then
a lot of it also had to do with system
(05:46):
integration and overall upgrades to systems. And then from there
I had the opportunity to work at Universal Studios. So
I'm like, all right, great, so you finally get to
Universe Studios because that's why you wanted to be an
engineer the first place. University of Hollywood doesn't really have
those I mean they have some relicals, so they have
some good ones, but you know, not necessarily what I envisioned,
(06:08):
as you know when I was younger as far as
things that I wanted to work on a roller coast want.
And at Universal I was there mostly as a quality engineer,
but I did do some you know, engineering work as
well in me chounical engineering work. And then from there
I went to Northern Grumman Ran Grumman, I was a
functional manager as well as a systems engineer. And then
(06:30):
from northan Grumman I wanted to APP So I explained
all this just to set to say or let you
know that. You know, again, I've been in different industries, right,
and I've had different roles and responsibilities in these industries,
and I feel that coming to Apple and being in
what I'm in now as far as the EPM role,
everything that I've done in the past has helped. Right
(06:51):
from a system engineering perspective, You're looking at things from
you know, the top down, right, and you're making sure
that everybody's being pulled into the conversations and that everybody
is aware of what they're doing in their own boxes. Right.
At times, you know, things can become silid when it
comes to design and engineering. So the system that the
EPM is bringing everybody together to say, hey, you made
(07:13):
it a change to this over here, let me tell
you how that affects this person over there. Again, with
the background that I've had in systems engineering, in you know,
general mechanical engineering and doing some quality work, I truly
feel that that has led me to look at things
from a holistic perspective being an Apple and to just
(07:34):
you know, think about everything that could affect anything. If
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I'm curious if you could elaborate a little bit more
on what skill sets you think you know you've really
like focused on cultivating through this role that maybe weren't
as necessary in some of the quality control roles or
systems engineering roles. It sounds like communication is huge. I'm
sure you know, organization and maybe before I mean organization,
(08:03):
I think is probably helpful in any position in my
experience at least, right But if there's any tips you
would have if people are trying to figure out where
they might fall on an engineering team, or what they
should look to if they have a specific role as
a goal, what they should be kind of working on
to get there besides the degree, you know, the actual degree,
the technical degree focusing on you know, if they want
(08:25):
to do mechanical or electronics or industrial design.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So from a technical perspective, I'll start with that. You know,
I did mention and I have a degree mechanical engineering.
I do have an MBA as well as Masters and
Systems Engineering. And then at some point I became a
licensed professional engineer. And so I also happened to teach
subjects for people who are taking either their engineering and
(08:51):
training or PE exam through another company. Right, so it's
another side thing that I do, and that also I
feel keeps me in tune on the technical aspect, you know,
if I don't get to necessarily being involvement that on
you know, a dating basis with my actual job. Right,
But just going back to what you mentioned, the communication,
(09:12):
I think is something that is major that we tend
to not focus on. Right. All those soft skills I
think are so important, right because you could be maybe
the smartest in a room, or you could know you
know your stuff really well, but if you can't communicate
it properly to different parties, different stakeholders, then information is
(09:32):
almost useless. In a sense. Right, it's there and it's good,
but people need to know what you're talking about. You
need to be able to work with people, right, You
need to be able to have a sense of an
emotional IQ. I think as well, right, this is how
you address this person. You know, this is not how
you address that person. Typically, this person comes into work
(09:54):
in a certain way. Today, they're not really looking like themselves,
so maybe you shouldn't hound them with a bunch of
deadlines this moment, you know, kind of assess the situation, right.
I think one thing that's really important that I don't
think we collectively, uh do enough of is when you
do work for a company, let's say being like Apple.
Let's say you know something small, whatever it is. At
(10:15):
those companies, if it's a small company, more than likely
you're doing several different tasks, right, you might wear multiple hats,
but in the event you don't maybe at a small
company that has do that, or a medium too large
company where you really don't do that. I really think
it's important to go and talk to people, right. I
made it a point in almost every single job that
(10:37):
I've had to have one on ones with people in
different groups. And I'm doing that from a not just
you know, let me meet you and talk to you.
It's more so number one, let me understand what it
is that you do in this company. Number two, let
me see how that ties into my actual role and
see what things I could do better on my hand,
or how we could work better together. And the other
(10:59):
aspect of that is, oh, I didn't know that this
exists here, Maybe I might be interested in that. Let
me talk to this person more and figure out what
they're doing a daily basis and see how I can
maybe transition to that thing this person is doing. Right,
we tend to just really focus on what we know,
what we want to do, and we don't really look
outside of them. And if we do want to look
(11:20):
outside of that, we start looking at other companies. Right first,
maybe you can look internally and see what's there and
talks of people to understand how to get there. Going
back to truly answering your question, I would really say
it's those soft scales that I think are truly truly
important on top of the technical degree.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I love that you make that point because I
do still think that's something that and it's something you
can still do virtually. Of course, as well. It doesn't
rely on being in person, but sometimes you don't even
know what role is there until you pass them in
the hallway or you pass their office and you're kind
of like, what's going on over there? I'd love to
learn more about this position, and again to your point,
maybe you learn about something you might be more interested
(11:58):
in than your current position. And that's kind of the
you get your foot in the door in that way,
and I think that's what is a great benefit to it.
Some of these larger companies, you might have the opportunity
for shadowing or these like internal short term internship things.
I've learned about those at some companies through some of
these interviews as well, that I think are really awesome
(12:19):
programs and opportunities, you know, for professional development and again
finding out those positions you maybe don't even know about
because when you, yeah, when you come out of the
educational system, I feel like, you know, we're really taught
such a limited scope of what jobs are out there.
But I could go on and on about this forever.
So I want to get back to you and the
(12:40):
work you're doing. And so you talked about all these
different companies that you went between, you know, in your
career journey and going from Department of Defense to North
of Grumman to Apple. Now, I think Apple's one of
those places that people have a lot of like they
wonder what it's like to work for, you know, it's
kind of this golden you know company in the industry,
(13:02):
I feel like, and especially for young people think about
places they might want to work, and especially in the
design world, it's kind of this beak and the people
look up too. So I'm curious if you could tell
us anything about company culture, experience joining the company would
have been some of the highlights, or maybe anything that
was unexpected or did you go in with any you know,
expectations of what it might be like that you know
(13:23):
it's a little different, So I'd be curious to hear
your take on that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean to be honest with you, I had
no idea as far as what to expect, especially with
the jobs that I've had. I knew that it was
going to be much different than what I've been used to.
I knew that for sure, but how much more different,
you know, I didn't know at the moment. And I
would say that overall, I'm definitely happy being an Apple
(13:48):
was definitely, like I said, different than what I've experienced.
It's quite interesting because there's some form of like organized chaos,
if you will, within happened. Right. So if I'm coming
from the DoD from North Rope, everything's very structured. You
can point to a process, a procedure, everything. There's history
of all of everything that's been done. For the most part,
(14:10):
not of it. But there's not a trace of bility. Right.
It's a big thing, especially when it comes to like
requirements development. But I digress. And then at Apple's it's like, okay, hey,
this needs to be done. All right, great, so can
you put me to the documentation so I could follow
it documentation? No, No, that doesn't exist. Well should we
create it? Do we have time to treat it? Right?
(14:33):
It's it's different, like I said, and I definitely enjoyed.
One of the main things that I enjoy the most
about it, interestingly enough, is the fact that I am
treated like an adult and that I have this you know,
autonomous type of feeling. Hey, you have this task, go
(14:54):
get it done. Like we've hired you for a reason. Right,
You're here just like everybody else is go get it done.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
This is the deadline, right, figure it out, right.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So that's great in a sense because you're like, all right, great,
I could go figure it out. I don't have nobody
that's you know, on top of me to do this.
But it's also not great because maybe you might be
set up for failure if depending on how you are
as a person, right. And and the other thing too,
when you look into the Apple director, for example, you
(15:25):
cannot really tell who does what, right. So I can't
just say, hey, I want to go and talk to
you know, RF engineers and figure out what tests I need,
you know, to ensure that the phone case is going
to perform properly with the phone you know, as a
user has it in the field. I can't just go
and say okay, r IF engineer and just find people.
(15:47):
I had to know who to talk to, So how
do you do that? Right? So there's a whole culture
of not knowing what people do and what groups they're
in and figuring that out in order to support your
tasks and within your program. Right. Another thing that I'll
say that I like about Apple a lot too is
that I can honestly tell you that everybody that I've
(16:10):
met again, whether they're in product design, or they're in
electrical engineering or supply management GSM anything. Anybody that I've met,
everybody's been on point. Everybody knows their stuff, everybody's good.
And I don't think I've really felt like that at
(16:30):
all my prior jobs. And that's not to say anything
bad about people and the other jobs that I've had.
It's just that I think at Apple that standard is
so high, and when you're there, you're seeing it all
across the board, and it's like, damn, everybody's good. So
it drives you to also be the best version of
(16:53):
yourself at least try to be the best version of
yourself on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It pushes you. You're like, I don't want to be
the weakest link it totally for sure. That's super interesting
because it kind of sounds to me from a lot
of what you're saying that it's almost like they've been
able to maintain kind of a startup culture even though
they've grown to such a big scale, which is pretty
impressive for a company that large, of course, but that
(17:19):
there are a lot of the things you're saying remind
me of, you know, conversations I've had with other folks
in the industry that are you know, talking about the
differences maybe of a huge company and then a small
team at a startup that you don't really know what
level or what everybody's working on, and that they've you know,
they focused more on getting the next step done rather
(17:39):
than having a huge archive of document and process for everything.
And you know what you were saying about, like, well
should we write a process for it? Well, get it
done first, you know, is yeah, I think is a
big part of that kind of startup energy where it's
like focus on innovation and accomplishing that next level of
achieving something rather than sometimes the documentation of course. And
(18:02):
there I'm not to rag on documentation handy too, like
you were saying, you know, if you have a set process,
you can reference that, but sometimes that can get in
the way, as we all know, of being able to
innovate quickly and efficiently and effectively. So that's great to
hear that. It sounds like generally it does kind of
live up to the hype, which is reassuring. And big
(18:25):
part of course of their reputation is kind of their
design principles. And I'd love to hear how you know,
you know, I want to talk more about your own
design principles and direction that you're taking your business. But
how much has been influenced by your time at Apple
or how much do you feel like, you know, you
had certain ideas around design that you felt would allow
(18:48):
you to work well with Apple, or you were excited
to be in a place that prioritizes these design principles
so much, you know, in this next phase of your career,
and how that's kind of all worked out and then
help you grow this this outside passion too.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You know, at Apple, I've noticed that the true focus
is really the user, Right, how is the user going
to use this device, this this thing? How do we
want them to use it? What's the next best thing
that the user should be looking out for? And you know,
(19:25):
how are we going to guide that path to, you know,
to fruish it. Basically, there's times where I might look
at something and I'm like, all, I think we've we've
done enough right, We've got to a good point, And
the engineers or the cross functional team might still be like, well,
I think we need to do more right, or Hey,
what's the likelihood of a user running into this issue?
(19:47):
Well it's small, but let's continue to do more, right, Like,
there's this drive to ensure that you know, risk is
minimized to the absolute lowest, right, so that if something
is active in an issue, again, that impact is very
very very very very very minor. Right. That's the whole
thing when it comes to Apple, And I think you
(20:10):
could tell that and a lot of the products that
are out in the field that we have access to, right,
you can see that Apple really is, you know, conscious
of the user, the experience, how they want the user
to feel with their products. And I think that from
an interior design perspective. You know, I got into interior
(20:33):
design maybe three years or so ago now randomly, and
I think that a lot of what I've seen at
Apple has also pushed me in that space as well,
you know, just being able to open up my eyes
and just really think about you know, I think this
is great, but how does the user? How does my
(20:54):
client really feel about this? How will they feel about this?
Because there's certain times where I'm like, oh, man, this
is design. They're gonna love this, and they see and
they're like man, I'm like what, Like, what do you
mean mass? This is great? All right? So, just like
you know with Apple, Apple could think a phone is
the greatest thing and it looks so great, but if
it gets in the hands of users and they're like,
(21:15):
I don't even this is ugly, I don't I don't
want this, then the whole thing is just done. It's
a waste, right, because who's gonna buy it? So the
three principles that I have for my interior design company,
and it's highlighted on websites, highlighted everything that I wear,
T shirts, hats, everything that I give out business cards.
(21:35):
It's it's function, it's mood and harmon. Right. So the
first one function is you know, literally function, right, So
what how do you when you walk into a space,
What is the function of this space supposed to be?
Are you going to sit there and watch TVs? Where
your family gathers to dinner there? You like to read
a book there? Right? And then going on to the mood,
(21:58):
it's when you walk into that space, how you want
to feel. You know, what's the vibe? Right? You want
to feel dark and moody, bright, you know, you want
to be open. And then the harmony aspect is then
just making sure all those things come together right. So
and coming together means all right, I know you want
(22:18):
to have a chair, and you like to use this
chair to read in this particular room. And when you
walk into this room, you want it to feel very open,
like you could just have to take a deep breath
and feel great and feel relaxed. Right, So I get
you a chair that's uncomfortable. I don't have any lighting
(22:39):
that's going to allow you to read at night. I
don't have you, know you maybe near a window where
there's sunlight coming in. Then maybe I'm also getting a
chair that is purple instead of something that is more
neutral to give you that sense of strateity when you
walk into the space. I have not done a good
job at harmonizing or bring everything together in harmony. Right,
(22:59):
I do a good job at that function may be
there because I got you a share, but then like
the actual the mood and what I wanted to create
is not really there. So I can't give a thumbs
up on that and just say I got you a chair.
I put it near something, I put it in this room.
But I've messed up right on the lighting, I've messed
up on the color. I've messed up on that mood.
(23:22):
So I think that's a very very interesting perspective again
going back to the Apple thing, because the voice of
the customers currently in Apple's minds, and Apple wants to
do things at the best and the highest level to
ensure that the customer truly feels great spending Damn there
(23:42):
over one thousand dollars on a freaking cell phone, right,
that's a lot. That is a lot, so it has
to be worth it, right, And that goes to everything,
even their phone cases, to MacBooks, everything, right. And I
have that same thought process again when I dealing with clients,
it's you know, what do they really want? Is this
(24:04):
really going to work for their space? Can I also
convince them otherwise because maybe they don't know that they
want And just like Apple, maybe you don't know that
you know you want this next best thing until we
show you they think about, right. Maybe the goggles that's
an example of that too. People are like, do we
really need this, you know ar VR goggle for Apple? Well, hey,
(24:26):
we're going to show you why you do need, right,
So the same same thing. So I would definitely say that,
you know, they carry over the crossover as far as
you know the work at Apple and you might work
as a I can coming into your designer.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I appreciate just how thoroughly you went into your design principles,
and I think thinking about the you know, user centric
aspect totally makes sense that that's like this through line
through all this work, of course, and I really like
how you distilled those and kind of illustrated, you know,
when one or the other won't work to and that's
that harmony piece that you mentioned. We're going to take
(25:05):
a quick break and when we get back, Anthony tells
us his personal bill of materials, and you're not gonna
want to miss the three words he lives by. As
(25:26):
you mentioned, maybe sometimes your clients don't know exactly what
they want, or if they do, you want to figure
out what that is before you get too deep into
the project, of course, So could you tell us a
little bit about what the process is like those early
conversations do you have you know, as much as you're
willing to share. If this is like the secret sauce,
you don't have to get into it. But what's kind
(25:47):
of your method in pulling that out from people? Do
you show you know, inspiration or how you know what
stage are you talking to them about different options versus
you know, wanting to hear what if they had something
in from the jump.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So that process for me has been iterative for sure.
You know, the way I started with you know, client
one isn't the same as clients today, rights, it's much different.
I would say that the first first thing is being
able to go to their space, right, And really first
(26:22):
thing is really looking at at the current space. You know,
maybe there's already furniture there, maybe there's already artwork there,
maybe there's not, but getting a feel for the space.
Number one. Second thing is really talking to the client
and understanding how they want to use the space. As
I mentioned the functional aspect right, literally just going through
the function mood harmonies. But anyways, sometimes they know how
(26:42):
they want to use the space, sometimes they don't know.
Sometimes I need to tell them how they should use
the space, right, there's a difference there. And then once
we agree on the scope of work and what's needed,
I give a few ideas, you know, as we're going
through this, but I don't want to get too much
because I can give everything and give all these ideas
(27:03):
and they're like, well, you know what, never mind, we
don't need you anymore. Now they're running off of my
ideas right, and I wouldn't want that.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes, that's an excellent point too. Yeah, you got to
be careful for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And that's why some people will also argue, you know,
do you do free consultation? Do you pay? You have
you know, do charge for the consultation, because if you
charge and you do say some ideas, hey, maybe you
leave with the five hundred or a thousand dollars, two
thousand dollars whatever it is as a consult fee. And
then if they use your ideas, great, they don't you
know whatever, at least you got something out of it, right,
And then on the free aspect, it's like, well, then
(27:37):
you don't want to say everything. But if you don't
say everything, maybe they feel like you don't have anything
to offer them, or that you don't really know what
you're doing, what you're talking about. So it's a fine line.
But as far as what I do, my consults are
free people. Again we'll say, don't do that. But anyway,
once we do sign the letter of agreement, now I
(27:59):
really I start work, get on layout. It's work helps
this is we're just general layout, nothing specific to cubs.
And then we agree on that layout. I use three
software as well to illustrate the layout. So that's I
think an add on that is really great to being
able to visualize. You know that certain people can't visualize
(28:19):
mebe the vision that I have. But anyways, that's still
a step down the way. So go from there and
then eventually I get to the presentation. The presentation is
it has everything. It has the layout as lighting, it
has the couches, the chairs, the dining table, dining chairs, everything,
all the colors, area rugs, everything right. And I've seen
(28:44):
that in that process. When I have the review with
the person one on one, like and we do either
together like I said, in person, or it's through you know,
Skype for example, it's much better because I'm able to
go through each page with the person and explain why
I chose each item and how it works. In that process,
(29:04):
sometimes people like, no, I don't I can't now I
don't like yellow, for example. But I would have already
known because I would have asked them, Hey, what colors
do you not like? What colors do you like? I
would have asked that. But sometimes I still try to
push them closer to being uncomfortable, because what's my purpose
of being there if I can't have you be in
(29:26):
a different space or something that feels like you could
not have done by yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Right, think a little bit outside of the box.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
They outside the box, right, there's other ways to look
at this. Right. So in the beginning, I think I
spent a lot of time just Okay, you don't like this, Okay,
let me try it. Let's do something else. Now I
spend more time on well, well, before you say no
to this, let me tell you why it works, and
let me tell you how it's really going to tie
into the overall design and how on the long run
(29:53):
you're going to love it. And you know, let's just
try it. Let's get these poofs. Let's get this color
that you might not like, put it in inside the
house with the design, and let me tell how you
feel about it in three or four weeks. If you
don't like it, we'll process the returns. We do all that.
But most of the time, when people get something that
I recommended in their actual house and they see it
with everything, they're like, you know what, it's not that bad.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Actually like this that makes sense. I'm like, I'm starting
to see some common threads here as far as like
the way you handle your job, you know at Apple,
and being able to connect with people one on one
and really understand where they're coming from in their role,
what practices make the most comfortable when integrating into a
team or to get their part of the job done,
(30:36):
into how you are speaking with your clients, you know.
I think it shows that clearly you you know how
to understand someone and really get to the bottom of
how they're going to feel about something, or again how
to maybe challenge and push them in a certain direction.
And I think that's really beautiful and speaks to some
of the necessary again kind of mix of soft and
technical skills you need in order to be successful in
(30:58):
an industry like this, and specifically an interior design, which
I think is awesome. And also I just love you know,
it makes sense that you would push people to have
a sample in their home for a while. That's so
smart because you don't really know something until you try it.
It's like just reminds me of like kids being picky
with food, you know, like it's easy to just look
(31:18):
at something and say no, I decided a long time ago.
I don't like that, you know, versus like trying it
or maybe it takes you a few tries before it
really grows on you. And something that's gonna be in
your home for a long time, it's gonna, you know,
it is gonna grow on you over time and you're
gonna have to sit with it. So I think that's
really wise to have, you know, take them a little
(31:39):
further into having a sample, and don't just kind of
just give up if you get that pushback right away,
like you know, yeah, like you said, challenge them a
little bit. Love that. Well, thank you for sharing your process.
And I'm curious, maybe this is even more just selfishly,
I'm curious how you're able to balance all these things.
It sounds like you do a lot with your time.
(32:00):
You have this huge role at Apple, you have this
business you're running. It sounds like you also do these
these classes you mentioned that you teach in the industry.
What kind of advice would you give to people who
you know, maybe are really happy with their their full
time job but also have this dream of something they're starting,
And how do you kind of navigate priorities and still
(32:20):
have you know, you seem a pretty happy, healthy person
from what I can see. Of course, maybe I'm making assumptions,
but you know you're finding a way to balance it
all and still have time to jump on a podcast,
which I appreciate. So any pro tips you have for
people who might want to do.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
The same, That's that's a very interesting question. And part
of why I think is interesting is because we spend
so much time in this nine to five space, right,
and for most of us, your bread to think that
you're nine to five is your end all bio. Right.
You go to school to get a degree, or you
(32:57):
go to trade school, you go to whatever, or to
get some kind of certificate that gives you access to
a nine to five. Right, you work you're nine to
five for so many years, you stop working, and then
it sounds bad, but then you die, right like you
spent all these years working for a nine to five
for somebody else, You stop working, and then you die.
(33:21):
Right Like I always say, imagine if we were able
to the drive that you have at your nine to five.
Oh my god, I have to be there on time.
All this thing needs to be done on this date.
I have to make sure I look a certain way.
I have to make sure. Imagine all that energy that
you're putting into your nine to five, you recycled it,
(33:41):
or you shifted it elsewhere and put it into your
own life. I always say it like I wonder how
much further in life you would be. Maybe not, I
don't know, right, but I just say that because there's
just so much emphasis on your nine to five, and
people even use that to define who they are, right,
and what's your name? What do you do? That's a
(34:02):
common follow up question, right, and then you feel, oh, well,
as an engineer, I'm supposed to but why you're relating
you're nine to five identify who you are? So I
feel that when you could find things outside of work
that you're truly passionate about, it's very easy to make
time for it because you're passionate about it, and you
(34:23):
don't feel tired because you're passionate about And don't get
me wrong, if you're able to find that passion within
your nine to five, then by all means that is awesome.
That is like I think the I want to say
the pinnacles close to being able to find your passion
within a job. The reason why I'll say it's not close.
The only reason why I say it's not close is
because you're still limited by someone telling you how much
(34:45):
you'll work. Right, you love the job and your passion
is there, but you're still limited. Hey, you're only worth
two hundred fifty thousand dollars three thousand dollars, and maybe
that's good enough for you, So that's something you could evaluate.
But then you imagine if you did your own thing,
and it's gonna be rough in the beginning, right, but
over time your worth of you know, two fifty is
(35:06):
really one fifty million instead, right, And you're never gonna know.
So I think for me, with what I'm doing, I'm
also setting myself up for some kind of failure because
it's really hard for you to focus on things that
you like when you have everything else that's in me.
I know there's no way that I could truly expand
the way I would like to expand in the interior
(35:28):
design world, having a demanded nine to five and other things.
And I've accepted that maybe something might pop out of
one job that just leads other things, and I could say, hey,
you know what, I'm going to quit Apple. But but
you know, there's there's that balance, right. So I think
for me, there's so many things that I do and
(35:49):
people are always like, man, how do you balance everything?
And I still go out, I still have fun. I
have two kids, one's a six year old girl and
a fourteen month old son.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Now my mind is because the fact that you're doing
all this with your kids is crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Because you at the day you make time for stuff
that you want to make time for. Right, it's when
you say I don't have time, it's you don't have
time for that activity. That's what you don't have time for. Yeah, yeah,
it's true, but you have time. There's ways you could.
You could break up You're twenty four hours to give
you the time that you need to allocate to whatever
activity is that you want. Right. I fall to that
(36:26):
excuse too, like oh no, no, no, I don't have time
for that. But it's no, I don't want to do that,
is what it comes down to. If I did, I
would do it very simple. I try to live black
and white to do this, or it's that I try
my best although it's hard. Sometimes I would say that
it's really being able to find what brings you joy.
(36:46):
And if the joy is within your nine to five, awesome.
If the joy is outside of it and you need
your nine to five to help support it awesome. I
just think that you need to do things that give
you life. That's going to keep you feeling young, it's
going to keep you here on earth, I think longer.
Especially like I said, if you're doing this nine to five,
(37:08):
maybe you're just there just to be there with nothing
else going on. Again, you retired, you die. Who wants
to do that? I want to live, right and I
want to live every day.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Sounds like you started, correct me if I'm wrong, but
right after kind of the pandemic, so I'm sure there
was a lot of you know, residual supply chain, you know,
kind of challenges with all the shortages that were going
on during that time. And then I think that the shortages,
you know, from what we could see big picture, kind
of had this rebound effect where then companies had a
(37:40):
bunch of extra parts, maybe because they were trying to
overcompensate for the shortages once they did get access to parts,
and then there was like kind of a surplus of
in house inventories, et cetera. I don't know if Apple
was dealing with any of that, but I'm curious to
hear if you could speak to what you've seen, you know,
more zoom doubt big picture as far as trends with
(38:02):
supply chain in your career going through these different industries,
is there anything you've seen as far as like how
technology has advanced in the last few years or since
joining Apple that has really caught your attention as far
as like maybe the future of supply chain and how
newer tools are helping support engineers and people in your
(38:23):
position who are managing different aspects of a product's life
cycle to be more reliable in the future and maybe
combat some of those those issues you can have. As
far as supply chain is concerned.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I would say that a lot of that just ties
into the collaborative aspect of the job, right, and then
what does that time into that. There's software that ties
into that as well, right, So I think these these
software suites are getting much larger than they're able to
do more. Right. They're able to give you a lot
of real time data, and they're also able to help
(39:00):
you perform whatever assessments that are needed to make a
pivotive needing right. One thing that's important that I've seen
in different jobs that I've had or different companies that
I work for, is also ensuring that you don't have
a single source partner for someone, right, ensuring that you
have a backup, and in some cases you might launch
a product with both of those partners or the suppliers,
(39:24):
I should say, in your products, right, you know, you
have a magnet from this company and a magnet from
that company, and you use them, you know, equally in
your product, and then if something goes wrong with this one,
make sure that this other one has enough uh uh,
you know, supply to make up for the loss over here. Right,
(39:44):
I'm saying a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, kind of the redundancy strategy.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, exactly right. I'm saying that I'm on one of
my programs even for ink. Right, it's like multiple vendors
for ink and some thing did you know not go
how we would have liked for it to have gone,
so we had to pivot to happen.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
You were glad you had that.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Exactly exactly right, and then you know, I think it
also gets a little complicated in when you're in other
spaces like I've been in the d D because you
have to have a certain type of company. You get
to have all these requirements for you to be able
to work with the d O D right, and then
(40:27):
the clearances and all that is a whole other other level, right,
because with what I was working on for a majority
of my time with the Department of Defense was weapon systems.
So you could imagine with weapon systems, it's not like,
you know, hey, let's just go down to you know,
(40:50):
hobby lobby or old old radio shop or something like that.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
And get something rip radio shack. I was just talking
to someone else about radio shack.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
But anyways, yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's just really I
think about about, you know, having that that collaboration, trying
to see what's down the path in the future, whether
it's the future for your own products, and what that
means for suppliers, looking at the different software that's out
there that could also help you map those aspects also
(41:23):
help you, I think overall, just have your supply chain
strategy and and there's also that negotiation piece to it,
right that I don't think we also don't talk about enough.
I just I mean, when I started one of my
programs this year, I was working with a globe supply
chain manager and I got to witness his greatness as
(41:47):
he was negotiating to get the costs down on several
several things that are going into this product that I'm
working on, and I was like, wow, like that's something
that you're not going to get on software, right, Yes,
the software not going to be to.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Say that, that's that human component, right, and.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
And then you know, being able again to pivot in
that aspect. Right, Hey, if we need something for forty
cents and this company is not fron to offer forty cents, well,
here are options of other people that are the companies
that could deliver, and here's their timeline, here's their proposed uh,
you know, this price on their end, and then how
(42:29):
does it look into a cost perspective for us? Right?
And how easily can we shift from one to the other.
So it's pretty multifaceted. And again it's nothing that I'm
directly involved in on a daily basis. We're just sitting
back and being able to observe what I've seen at
Apple and then just thinking about the experiences that I've
had in different companies. I think technology is definitely something
(42:51):
that is very very important, but as you allude to
it that that human aspect is definitely key. And that
just goes back to what I keep talking about the
operation aspect. And just the proper.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Forecasting definitely, and again some of those soft skills too
that we were discussing earlier. So thank you. I appreciate
you bringing it back to kind of that balance. Also.
So often in these conversations around you know, latest and
greatest technology and what drives the industry and innovation, there
is a ton of focus, of course, on the power
of software, and we would be remiss not to, you know,
(43:27):
highlight the advantages of that of course as well. But
I think there still is definitely some value to what
people and people with experience and expertise and practice in
these rooms, you know, like you said, negotiating or communicating
in different ways and being able to see again, like
you said, kind of this forecasting that really comes from
experience and being through certain scenarios time and time again
(43:49):
and learning from those. So yeah, I definitely think that
that's important to remember and mention to people. Okay, I'm
gonna wrap it up here because I really could just
keep going on and on. Our last two kind of
rapid fire questions what is one thing outside of technology
that's currently inspiring you? And then our last question is
going to be what's on your personal bill of materials,
(44:10):
which is really up to interpretation.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Okay, So as far as the non technology related thing
that's inspiring, I really think it just goes back to
what we spoke about when I just said, you know,
everybody dies when everybody lives, right, and that in itself
is inspiring enough for me to do what I would
like to do. And if that means that, Hey, this year,
(44:34):
I want to travel to this country and travel to
this country, right, and maybe while I'm at that country
I'm going to use things that I'm seeing there to
inspire other things that I do. Oh, I like this restaurant.
I would love to design something like this, but maybe
I might not have the opportunity. But I could kind
of translate this to somebody's kitchen, right. So that's something
that's inspiring from a inspirational trip. But there's also just
(45:03):
the general human factor. Whereas cheesy as it sounds, I
think having kids really change my outlook on things. I
think that there's several things that I've accomplished in my life,
and I think that I am truly a child or
a kid at heart, and I think the only thing
(45:25):
that makes me feel like an adult is the fact
that I have two kids that need me. If it
wasn't for that, I don't even know. I'd still be
a hundred percent kid the whole time, you know. I
would say that the funniest thing is when I didn't
consider myself a full adult after having kids. It wasn't
(45:45):
until I had a five nine savings plan for my
kids I was like, oh wow, I'm an adult man.
This is kind of cool. Okay, okay, but yeah, so
I think that's something or I know as a matter
of fact that that is something that is inspiring on
the non technology side of things. And then for your
last question, you said, what is your personal bomb? Right? Yeah, yeah,
(46:09):
I think you can take that question different ways, right
because I can say, Okay, what is it that makes
me me? Right? Because you need to have all these
things to make a product. I guess I'm the product.
But if I don't look at it from that way,
I would say that I'll categorize it into three things here,
(46:32):
So I would say reflection, assessment, and action. Okay, And
I say those three things because I feel like those
three truly shape me on a daily basis and drive
me to what I need to do again on a
(46:52):
daily basis. So The reflection aspect is just you know,
me looking back at some event or activity period of
my life, something that just happened five minutes ago, yesterday,
whatever it is, and just kind of just reflecting on
what happened in those moments. Right. The next part is
then the assessment. So from that reflection of me observing
(47:15):
whatever happened, But what is it that I want to
do differently, should do differently, need to do differently? And
then the third part is the action is Okay, now
I've had that assessment, Now what's the action plan to
put these things into place? And so I say that
those three are part of the bomb again, because that
could go for anything. Right if it's Hey, this year,
(47:39):
I didn't do that much traveling, so why would I
want Why do I want to do more traveling? Why
I want to do more traveling because I want to
see the world. I want to get to see other
people's cultures. Okay, what's the action we'll save for this
trip or just book this trip? Right? Or I would
like to have more clients for you know, and share
design for example. So go through that process, right, what's
the action that's needed to get from point made? Again?
(48:01):
I think those three really just encompass anything and everything
on a daily basis for me because I really do
take the time to look at things. I really take
the time to figure out in a sense that should
it would it could have. Sometimes it's not necessarily should
(48:22):
it would have could have from a regret perspective, but
it's just like from an improvement perspective, right. And then
the third part of action, that's just kind of maybe
maybe not. So the action plan might be there, but
are you spending the effort and the time to actually execute.
So that's also an area that I like to be in,
(48:43):
and I try my hard is to close out those
tasks within the action tab. I might not get to
all of them, but at least it's still there on
that plan. And maybe we're just shifting that date, right
we have checkpoints instead of etcs, right, But those are
the three I would say.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Those are amazing words to live by. I'm like over
here taking notes. I feel like, I don't know if
you just came up with that on the spot, but
that was really impressive. I think that those are great.
It's like a philosophy in and of itself. Reflection, assessment, action.
I'm like I'm going to start keeping that in mind
and my day to day because I think it is,
like you said, really applicable to so many different goals
(49:23):
you may have, or different challenges you're facing, and that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
So even even friendships and relationships, right, you can do
that for everything.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
I think that's like we can't talk that that's mic.
Drop right there and really appreciate your time and words
of wisdom today, Anthony. I got a lot out of
this conversation. I know our listeners are going to get
a lot. So thank you so much and I'm really
glad we finally made the time to make this happen.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. I
really appreciate it. And you know, if there's anything we
could do in the future to partner some more, please
let me know. What's been great to you know, communicate
with you has been great to support activities as well,
and thank you for the opportunity again, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Definitely definitely looking forward to more. If you like the Bomb,
don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever
you get your podcasts. You can follow supply Frame and
Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and design lab at
supply Frame Design Lab on Instagram and Twitter. The Bomb
(50:26):
is a supply Frame podcast produced by Me, Magenta Strongheart
and Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie Bowles and edited by
Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by Anna Hogman. Show art
by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to Giovanni Selinaz, Bruce Dimingez,
Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark, the entire supply Frame team,
and you are wonderful listeners. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart.
(50:47):
See you next week.
Apple Apple good thing. A phone is the greatest thing,
and that looks so great. But if it gets in
the hands of users and they're like, not even this
is ugly, I don't want this, then the whole thing
is just done. It's a waste, right, because who's going
to buy it? So the three principles that I have
for my interior design company, and it's highlighted on websites,
highlighted everything that I give out business cards. It's function,
(00:23):
it's mood and harm.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome back to the Bomb. I'm your host, Magenta Strong Card.
In today's episode, we're talking with Anthony Oyataiyo, who's not
only a senior engineering program manager at Apple, but also
the founder of his very own interior design business. Anthony
tells us all about the value of communication in addition
to technical skills, when it comes to everything from early
stage client conversations to large scale supply chain negotiations. It's
(00:52):
a fascinating conversation. Let's get into it. We live in
a time where design and technology touch every aspect of
our lives. But where did it all come from? Who
designed it, how is it built and brought to market?
What will look like in a year two years, one
(01:13):
hundred years, from the phones and smartwatches that help us
in our day to day to the cutting edge spaceships
and three D printers that are leading us into the future.
Modern design is constantly shaping the way we work, communicate,
problem solve, and play, and every new design, bigger, small,
starts with an idea and a bill of materials. I'm
agenta strongheart, and this is the bomb where we talk
to leading innovators in the tech world and celebrate the
(01:35):
transformational power of design.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
What.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you so much for joining us today, Anthony. I'm
really excited to get into this conversation. It's been a
long time coming now. Is like we first connected just
about a year ago, because we had that Hidden Genius
panel event recently just last month, which reminded me like, wow,
it's been a whole year since we last got to
connect in person, and I'm so glad we're finally making
(02:04):
this conversation happen.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, so, I remember when we had you as a
guest on the panel with the hid Ingenious project. You
are just so passionate about kind of this intersection of
engineering and design and not only you're kind of, you know,
your nine to five job, but also this business that
you're starting outside of that, which I'm really excited to
get into more detail. And I think we can just
start kind of with getting everyone on the same page,
(02:30):
just if you could tell us more about, you know,
your full time role and what that entails, because I
feel like it's kind of not directly engineering, but managing
an engineering position in a way right as you're managing
projects and this sort of thing, and then get into
kind of your role also founding this design business, and
then we can talk more detail about both.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, definitely. So right now I work for Apple. It'll
be about two years that i've that I'll be there
actually in end of October. So it's been a cool journey.
I must say. I'm an engineering program manager and I
work on accessories basically, so there's lots of things I
(03:14):
go into the accessory uh you know, umbrella if you will,
But primarily I work on several items that you can
pair with iphons to say please, so an example that
would be phone cases. That's that's one of the things
that I've worked and from an engineering program management perspective,
(03:36):
pretty much there from the beginning when there's a concept,
but I'm essentially working with people in all different uh
you know, facets of the company. You know, there's uh
supply chain, there's uh you know, actual product design, engineering,
there's marketing, there's several aspects that I have to part
(04:00):
or with and really go along this journey to get
this product from again just a concept inside somebody's head
all the way through being in somebody's hand.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Absolutely, And that's actually it's like you read my mind,
because that's what I was going to say. It sounds
like a role that you're kind of working between teams
and you have to have kind of an interdisciplinary understanding
of the whole kind of product life cycle right that
you're managing here. Could you tell us a little bit
about what from your background, you know, professional experience wise
(04:31):
or education wise, you feel like really prepared you for
being able to move between these different teams. You have
to kind of manage communication and obviously project deadlines and
things for and how they're different, you know, probably workflows
are that you're connecting.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
It's interesting because I think all the jobs that I've
had in the past have been different and in different
industries to some degree, I actually wanted to be an
engineer strictly because of roller coasters. That was that was
the main, you know thing. I was like, oh, man,
I want to.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I remember you saying this at the panel, right, So yeah,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
What do I have to do in order for me
to work on the coasters? What degree do I have
to get? So that led me to getting my mechanical
engineering degree. And the first job that I had early
was working for Jacob's Engineering group as a pipe stress engineer.
(05:25):
And then from there somehow I went over to the
Department of Defense, where I was working there for a
few years as a systems engineer in different aspects of
systems engineering. So some of that had to do with
reliability engineering, something that had to do with just general
installation and check out of various weapons systems, and then
a lot of it also had to do with system
(05:46):
integration and overall upgrades to systems. And then from there
I had the opportunity to work at Universal Studios. So
I'm like, all right, great, so you finally get to
Universe Studios because that's why you wanted to be an
engineer the first place. University of Hollywood doesn't really have
those I mean they have some relicals, so they have
some good ones, but you know, not necessarily what I envisioned,
(06:08):
as you know when I was younger as far as
things that I wanted to work on a roller coast want.
And at Universal I was there mostly as a quality engineer,
but I did do some you know, engineering work as
well in me chounical engineering work. And then from there
I went to Northern Grumman Ran Grumman, I was a
functional manager as well as a systems engineer. And then
(06:30):
from northan Grumman I wanted to APP So I explained
all this just to set to say or let you
know that. You know, again, I've been in different industries, right,
and I've had different roles and responsibilities in these industries,
and I feel that coming to Apple and being in
what I'm in now as far as the EPM role,
everything that I've done in the past has helped. Right
(06:51):
from a system engineering perspective, You're looking at things from
you know, the top down, right, and you're making sure
that everybody's being pulled into the conversations and that everybody
is aware of what they're doing in their own boxes. Right.
At times, you know, things can become silid when it
comes to design and engineering. So the system that the
EPM is bringing everybody together to say, hey, you made
(07:13):
it a change to this over here, let me tell
you how that affects this person over there. Again, with
the background that I've had in systems engineering, in you know,
general mechanical engineering and doing some quality work, I truly
feel that that has led me to look at things
from a holistic perspective being an Apple and to just
(07:34):
you know, think about everything that could affect anything. If
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I'm curious if you could elaborate a little bit more
on what skill sets you think you know you've really
like focused on cultivating through this role that maybe weren't
as necessary in some of the quality control roles or
systems engineering roles. It sounds like communication is huge. I'm
sure you know, organization and maybe before I mean organization,
(08:03):
I think is probably helpful in any position in my
experience at least, right But if there's any tips you
would have if people are trying to figure out where
they might fall on an engineering team, or what they
should look to if they have a specific role as
a goal, what they should be kind of working on
to get there besides the degree, you know, the actual degree,
the technical degree focusing on you know, if they want
(08:25):
to do mechanical or electronics or industrial design.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So from a technical perspective, I'll start with that. You know,
I did mention and I have a degree mechanical engineering.
I do have an MBA as well as Masters and
Systems Engineering. And then at some point I became a
licensed professional engineer. And so I also happened to teach
subjects for people who are taking either their engineering and
(08:51):
training or PE exam through another company. Right, so it's
another side thing that I do, and that also I
feel keeps me in tune on the technical aspect, you know,
if I don't get to necessarily being involvement that on
you know, a dating basis with my actual job. Right,
But just going back to what you mentioned, the communication,
(09:12):
I think is something that is major that we tend
to not focus on. Right. All those soft skills I
think are so important, right because you could be maybe
the smartest in a room, or you could know you
know your stuff really well, but if you can't communicate
it properly to different parties, different stakeholders, then information is
(09:32):
almost useless. In a sense. Right, it's there and it's good,
but people need to know what you're talking about. You
need to be able to work with people, right, You
need to be able to have a sense of an
emotional IQ. I think as well, right, this is how
you address this person. You know, this is not how
you address that person. Typically, this person comes into work
(09:54):
in a certain way. Today, they're not really looking like themselves,
so maybe you shouldn't hound them with a bunch of
deadlines this moment, you know, kind of assess the situation, right.
I think one thing that's really important that I don't
think we collectively, uh do enough of is when you
do work for a company, let's say being like Apple.
Let's say you know something small, whatever it is. At
(10:15):
those companies, if it's a small company, more than likely
you're doing several different tasks, right, you might wear multiple hats,
but in the event you don't maybe at a small
company that has do that, or a medium too large
company where you really don't do that. I really think
it's important to go and talk to people, right. I
made it a point in almost every single job that
(10:37):
I've had to have one on ones with people in
different groups. And I'm doing that from a not just
you know, let me meet you and talk to you.
It's more so number one, let me understand what it
is that you do in this company. Number two, let
me see how that ties into my actual role and
see what things I could do better on my hand,
or how we could work better together. And the other
(10:59):
aspect of that is, oh, I didn't know that this
exists here, Maybe I might be interested in that. Let
me talk to this person more and figure out what
they're doing a daily basis and see how I can
maybe transition to that thing this person is doing. Right,
we tend to just really focus on what we know,
what we want to do, and we don't really look
outside of them. And if we do want to look
(11:20):
outside of that, we start looking at other companies. Right first,
maybe you can look internally and see what's there and
talks of people to understand how to get there. Going
back to truly answering your question, I would really say
it's those soft scales that I think are truly truly
important on top of the technical degree.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I love that you make that point because I
do still think that's something that and it's something you
can still do virtually. Of course, as well. It doesn't
rely on being in person, but sometimes you don't even
know what role is there until you pass them in
the hallway or you pass their office and you're kind
of like, what's going on over there? I'd love to
learn more about this position, and again to your point,
maybe you learn about something you might be more interested
(11:58):
in than your current position. And that's kind of the
you get your foot in the door in that way,
and I think that's what is a great benefit to it.
Some of these larger companies, you might have the opportunity
for shadowing or these like internal short term internship things.
I've learned about those at some companies through some of
these interviews as well, that I think are really awesome
(12:19):
programs and opportunities, you know, for professional development and again
finding out those positions you maybe don't even know about
because when you, yeah, when you come out of the
educational system, I feel like, you know, we're really taught
such a limited scope of what jobs are out there.
But I could go on and on about this forever.
So I want to get back to you and the
(12:40):
work you're doing. And so you talked about all these
different companies that you went between, you know, in your
career journey and going from Department of Defense to North
of Grumman to Apple. Now, I think Apple's one of
those places that people have a lot of like they
wonder what it's like to work for, you know, it's
kind of this golden you know company in the industry,
(13:02):
I feel like, and especially for young people think about
places they might want to work, and especially in the
design world, it's kind of this beak and the people
look up too. So I'm curious if you could tell
us anything about company culture, experience joining the company would
have been some of the highlights, or maybe anything that
was unexpected or did you go in with any you know,
expectations of what it might be like that you know
(13:23):
it's a little different, So I'd be curious to hear
your take on that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean to be honest with you, I had
no idea as far as what to expect, especially with
the jobs that I've had. I knew that it was
going to be much different than what I've been used to.
I knew that for sure, but how much more different,
you know, I didn't know at the moment. And I
would say that overall, I'm definitely happy being an Apple
(13:48):
was definitely, like I said, different than what I've experienced.
It's quite interesting because there's some form of like organized chaos,
if you will, within happened. Right. So if I'm coming
from the DoD from North Rope, everything's very structured. You
can point to a process, a procedure, everything. There's history
of all of everything that's been done. For the most part,
(14:10):
not of it. But there's not a trace of bility. Right.
It's a big thing, especially when it comes to like
requirements development. But I digress. And then at Apple's it's like, okay, hey,
this needs to be done. All right, great, so can
you put me to the documentation so I could follow
it documentation? No, No, that doesn't exist. Well should we
create it? Do we have time to treat it? Right?
(14:33):
It's it's different, like I said, and I definitely enjoyed.
One of the main things that I enjoy the most
about it, interestingly enough, is the fact that I am
treated like an adult and that I have this you know,
autonomous type of feeling. Hey, you have this task, go
(14:54):
get it done. Like we've hired you for a reason. Right,
You're here just like everybody else is go get it done.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
This is the deadline, right, figure it out, right.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So that's great in a sense because you're like, all right, great,
I could go figure it out. I don't have nobody
that's you know, on top of me to do this.
But it's also not great because maybe you might be
set up for failure if depending on how you are
as a person, right. And and the other thing too,
when you look into the Apple director, for example, you
(15:25):
cannot really tell who does what, right. So I can't
just say, hey, I want to go and talk to
you know, RF engineers and figure out what tests I need,
you know, to ensure that the phone case is going
to perform properly with the phone you know, as a
user has it in the field. I can't just go
and say okay, r IF engineer and just find people.
(15:47):
I had to know who to talk to, So how
do you do that? Right? So there's a whole culture
of not knowing what people do and what groups they're
in and figuring that out in order to support your
tasks and within your program. Right. Another thing that I'll
say that I like about Apple a lot too is
that I can honestly tell you that everybody that I've
(16:10):
met again, whether they're in product design, or they're in
electrical engineering or supply management GSM anything. Anybody that I've met,
everybody's been on point. Everybody knows their stuff, everybody's good.
And I don't think I've really felt like that at
(16:30):
all my prior jobs. And that's not to say anything
bad about people and the other jobs that I've had.
It's just that I think at Apple that standard is
so high, and when you're there, you're seeing it all
across the board, and it's like, damn, everybody's good. So
it drives you to also be the best version of
(16:53):
yourself at least try to be the best version of
yourself on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It pushes you. You're like, I don't want to be
the weakest link it totally for sure. That's super interesting
because it kind of sounds to me from a lot
of what you're saying that it's almost like they've been
able to maintain kind of a startup culture even though
they've grown to such a big scale, which is pretty
impressive for a company that large, of course, but that
(17:19):
there are a lot of the things you're saying remind
me of, you know, conversations I've had with other folks
in the industry that are you know, talking about the
differences maybe of a huge company and then a small
team at a startup that you don't really know what
level or what everybody's working on, and that they've you know,
they focused more on getting the next step done rather
(17:39):
than having a huge archive of document and process for everything.
And you know what you were saying about, like, well
should we write a process for it? Well, get it
done first, you know, is yeah, I think is a
big part of that kind of startup energy where it's
like focus on innovation and accomplishing that next level of
achieving something rather than sometimes the documentation of course. And
(18:02):
there I'm not to rag on documentation handy too, like
you were saying, you know, if you have a set process,
you can reference that, but sometimes that can get in
the way, as we all know, of being able to
innovate quickly and efficiently and effectively. So that's great to
hear that. It sounds like generally it does kind of
live up to the hype, which is reassuring. And big
(18:25):
part of course of their reputation is kind of their
design principles. And I'd love to hear how you know,
you know, I want to talk more about your own
design principles and direction that you're taking your business. But
how much has been influenced by your time at Apple
or how much do you feel like, you know, you
had certain ideas around design that you felt would allow
(18:48):
you to work well with Apple, or you were excited
to be in a place that prioritizes these design principles
so much, you know, in this next phase of your career,
and how that's kind of all worked out and then
help you grow this this outside passion too.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You know, at Apple, I've noticed that the true focus
is really the user, Right, how is the user going
to use this device, this this thing? How do we
want them to use it? What's the next best thing
that the user should be looking out for? And you know,
(19:25):
how are we going to guide that path to, you know,
to fruish it. Basically, there's times where I might look
at something and I'm like, all, I think we've we've
done enough right, We've got to a good point, And
the engineers or the cross functional team might still be like, well,
I think we need to do more right, or Hey,
what's the likelihood of a user running into this issue?
(19:47):
Well it's small, but let's continue to do more, right, Like,
there's this drive to ensure that you know, risk is
minimized to the absolute lowest, right, so that if something
is active in an issue, again, that impact is very
very very very very very minor. Right. That's the whole
thing when it comes to Apple, And I think you
(20:10):
could tell that and a lot of the products that
are out in the field that we have access to, right,
you can see that Apple really is, you know, conscious
of the user, the experience, how they want the user
to feel with their products. And I think that from
an interior design perspective. You know, I got into interior
(20:33):
design maybe three years or so ago now randomly, and
I think that a lot of what I've seen at
Apple has also pushed me in that space as well,
you know, just being able to open up my eyes
and just really think about you know, I think this
is great, but how does the user? How does my
(20:54):
client really feel about this? How will they feel about this?
Because there's certain times where I'm like, oh, man, this
is design. They're gonna love this, and they see and
they're like man, I'm like what, Like, what do you
mean mass? This is great? All right? So, just like
you know with Apple, Apple could think a phone is
the greatest thing and it looks so great, but if
it gets in the hands of users and they're like,
(21:15):
I don't even this is ugly, I don't I don't
want this, then the whole thing is just done. It's
a waste, right, because who's gonna buy it? So the
three principles that I have for my interior design company,
and it's highlighted on websites, highlighted everything that I wear,
T shirts, hats, everything that I give out business cards.
(21:35):
It's it's function, it's mood and harmon. Right. So the
first one function is you know, literally function, right, So
what how do you when you walk into a space,
What is the function of this space supposed to be?
Are you going to sit there and watch TVs? Where
your family gathers to dinner there? You like to read
a book there? Right? And then going on to the mood,
(21:58):
it's when you walk into that space, how you want
to feel. You know, what's the vibe? Right? You want
to feel dark and moody, bright, you know, you want
to be open. And then the harmony aspect is then
just making sure all those things come together right. So
and coming together means all right, I know you want
(22:18):
to have a chair, and you like to use this
chair to read in this particular room. And when you
walk into this room, you want it to feel very open,
like you could just have to take a deep breath
and feel great and feel relaxed. Right, So I get
you a chair that's uncomfortable. I don't have any lighting
(22:39):
that's going to allow you to read at night. I
don't have you, know you maybe near a window where
there's sunlight coming in. Then maybe I'm also getting a
chair that is purple instead of something that is more
neutral to give you that sense of strateity when you
walk into the space. I have not done a good
job at harmonizing or bring everything together in harmony. Right,
(22:59):
I do a good job at that function may be
there because I got you a share, but then like
the actual the mood and what I wanted to create
is not really there. So I can't give a thumbs
up on that and just say I got you a chair.
I put it near something, I put it in this room.
But I've messed up right on the lighting, I've messed
up on the color. I've messed up on that mood.
(23:22):
So I think that's a very very interesting perspective again
going back to the Apple thing, because the voice of
the customers currently in Apple's minds, and Apple wants to
do things at the best and the highest level to
ensure that the customer truly feels great spending Damn there
(23:42):
over one thousand dollars on a freaking cell phone, right,
that's a lot. That is a lot, so it has
to be worth it, right, And that goes to everything,
even their phone cases, to MacBooks, everything, right. And I
have that same thought process again when I dealing with clients,
it's you know, what do they really want? Is this
(24:04):
really going to work for their space? Can I also
convince them otherwise because maybe they don't know that they
want And just like Apple, maybe you don't know that
you know you want this next best thing until we
show you they think about, right. Maybe the goggles that's
an example of that too. People are like, do we
really need this, you know ar VR goggle for Apple? Well, hey,
(24:26):
we're going to show you why you do need, right,
So the same same thing. So I would definitely say that,
you know, they carry over the crossover as far as
you know the work at Apple and you might work
as a I can coming into your designer.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I appreciate just how thoroughly you went into your design principles,
and I think thinking about the you know, user centric
aspect totally makes sense that that's like this through line
through all this work, of course, and I really like
how you distilled those and kind of illustrated, you know,
when one or the other won't work to and that's
that harmony piece that you mentioned. We're going to take
(25:05):
a quick break and when we get back, Anthony tells
us his personal bill of materials, and you're not gonna
want to miss the three words he lives by. As
(25:26):
you mentioned, maybe sometimes your clients don't know exactly what
they want, or if they do, you want to figure
out what that is before you get too deep into
the project, of course, So could you tell us a
little bit about what the process is like those early
conversations do you have you know, as much as you're
willing to share. If this is like the secret sauce,
you don't have to get into it. But what's kind
(25:47):
of your method in pulling that out from people? Do
you show you know, inspiration or how you know what
stage are you talking to them about different options versus
you know, wanting to hear what if they had something
in from the jump.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So that process for me has been iterative for sure.
You know, the way I started with you know, client
one isn't the same as clients today, rights, it's much different.
I would say that the first first thing is being
able to go to their space, right, And really first
(26:22):
thing is really looking at at the current space. You know,
maybe there's already furniture there, maybe there's already artwork there,
maybe there's not, but getting a feel for the space.
Number one. Second thing is really talking to the client
and understanding how they want to use the space. As
I mentioned the functional aspect right, literally just going through
the function mood harmonies. But anyways, sometimes they know how
(26:42):
they want to use the space, sometimes they don't know.
Sometimes I need to tell them how they should use
the space, right, there's a difference there. And then once
we agree on the scope of work and what's needed,
I give a few ideas, you know, as we're going
through this, but I don't want to get too much
because I can give everything and give all these ideas
(27:03):
and they're like, well, you know what, never mind, we
don't need you anymore. Now they're running off of my
ideas right, and I wouldn't want that.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes, that's an excellent point too. Yeah, you got to
be careful for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And that's why some people will also argue, you know,
do you do free consultation? Do you pay? You have
you know, do charge for the consultation, because if you
charge and you do say some ideas, hey, maybe you
leave with the five hundred or a thousand dollars, two
thousand dollars whatever it is as a consult fee. And
then if they use your ideas, great, they don't you
know whatever, at least you got something out of it, right,
And then on the free aspect, it's like, well, then
(27:37):
you don't want to say everything. But if you don't
say everything, maybe they feel like you don't have anything
to offer them, or that you don't really know what
you're doing, what you're talking about. So it's a fine line.
But as far as what I do, my consults are
free people. Again we'll say, don't do that. But anyway,
once we do sign the letter of agreement, now I
(27:59):
really I start work, get on layout. It's work helps
this is we're just general layout, nothing specific to cubs.
And then we agree on that layout. I use three
software as well to illustrate the layout. So that's I
think an add on that is really great to being
able to visualize. You know that certain people can't visualize
(28:19):
mebe the vision that I have. But anyways, that's still
a step down the way. So go from there and
then eventually I get to the presentation. The presentation is
it has everything. It has the layout as lighting, it
has the couches, the chairs, the dining table, dining chairs, everything,
all the colors, area rugs, everything right. And I've seen
(28:44):
that in that process. When I have the review with
the person one on one, like and we do either
together like I said, in person, or it's through you know,
Skype for example, it's much better because I'm able to
go through each page with the person and explain why
I chose each item and how it works. In that process,
(29:04):
sometimes people like, no, I don't I can't now I
don't like yellow, for example. But I would have already
known because I would have asked them, Hey, what colors
do you not like? What colors do you like? I
would have asked that. But sometimes I still try to
push them closer to being uncomfortable, because what's my purpose
of being there if I can't have you be in
(29:26):
a different space or something that feels like you could
not have done by yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Right, think a little bit outside of the box.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
They outside the box, right, there's other ways to look
at this. Right. So in the beginning, I think I
spent a lot of time just Okay, you don't like this, Okay,
let me try it. Let's do something else. Now I
spend more time on well, well, before you say no
to this, let me tell you why it works, and
let me tell you how it's really going to tie
into the overall design and how on the long run
(29:53):
you're going to love it. And you know, let's just
try it. Let's get these poofs. Let's get this color
that you might not like, put it in inside the
house with the design, and let me tell how you
feel about it in three or four weeks. If you
don't like it, we'll process the returns. We do all that.
But most of the time, when people get something that
I recommended in their actual house and they see it
with everything, they're like, you know what, it's not that bad.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Actually like this that makes sense. I'm like, I'm starting
to see some common threads here as far as like
the way you handle your job, you know at Apple,
and being able to connect with people one on one
and really understand where they're coming from in their role,
what practices make the most comfortable when integrating into a
team or to get their part of the job done,
(30:36):
into how you are speaking with your clients, you know.
I think it shows that clearly you you know how
to understand someone and really get to the bottom of
how they're going to feel about something, or again how
to maybe challenge and push them in a certain direction.
And I think that's really beautiful and speaks to some
of the necessary again kind of mix of soft and
technical skills you need in order to be successful in
(30:58):
an industry like this, and specifically an interior design, which
I think is awesome. And also I just love you know,
it makes sense that you would push people to have
a sample in their home for a while. That's so
smart because you don't really know something until you try it.
It's like just reminds me of like kids being picky
with food, you know, like it's easy to just look
(31:18):
at something and say no, I decided a long time ago.
I don't like that, you know, versus like trying it
or maybe it takes you a few tries before it
really grows on you. And something that's gonna be in
your home for a long time, it's gonna, you know,
it is gonna grow on you over time and you're
gonna have to sit with it. So I think that's
really wise to have, you know, take them a little
(31:39):
further into having a sample, and don't just kind of
just give up if you get that pushback right away,
like you know, yeah, like you said, challenge them a
little bit. Love that. Well, thank you for sharing your process.
And I'm curious, maybe this is even more just selfishly,
I'm curious how you're able to balance all these things.
It sounds like you do a lot with your time.
(32:00):
You have this huge role at Apple, you have this
business you're running. It sounds like you also do these
these classes you mentioned that you teach in the industry.
What kind of advice would you give to people who
you know, maybe are really happy with their their full
time job but also have this dream of something they're starting,
And how do you kind of navigate priorities and still
(32:20):
have you know, you seem a pretty happy, healthy person
from what I can see. Of course, maybe I'm making assumptions,
but you know you're finding a way to balance it
all and still have time to jump on a podcast,
which I appreciate. So any pro tips you have for
people who might want to do.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
The same, That's that's a very interesting question. And part
of why I think is interesting is because we spend
so much time in this nine to five space, right,
and for most of us, your bread to think that
you're nine to five is your end all bio. Right.
You go to school to get a degree, or you
(32:57):
go to trade school, you go to whatever, or to
get some kind of certificate that gives you access to
a nine to five. Right, you work you're nine to
five for so many years, you stop working, and then
it sounds bad, but then you die, right like you
spent all these years working for a nine to five
for somebody else, You stop working, and then you die.
(33:21):
Right Like I always say, imagine if we were able
to the drive that you have at your nine to five.
Oh my god, I have to be there on time.
All this thing needs to be done on this date.
I have to make sure I look a certain way.
I have to make sure. Imagine all that energy that
you're putting into your nine to five, you recycled it,
(33:41):
or you shifted it elsewhere and put it into your
own life. I always say it like I wonder how
much further in life you would be. Maybe not, I
don't know, right, but I just say that because there's
just so much emphasis on your nine to five, and
people even use that to define who they are, right,
and what's your name? What do you do? That's a
(34:02):
common follow up question, right, and then you feel, oh, well,
as an engineer, I'm supposed to but why you're relating
you're nine to five identify who you are? So I
feel that when you could find things outside of work
that you're truly passionate about, it's very easy to make
time for it because you're passionate about it, and you
(34:23):
don't feel tired because you're passionate about And don't get
me wrong, if you're able to find that passion within
your nine to five, then by all means that is awesome.
That is like I think the I want to say
the pinnacles close to being able to find your passion
within a job. The reason why I'll say it's not close.
The only reason why I say it's not close is
because you're still limited by someone telling you how much
(34:45):
you'll work. Right, you love the job and your passion
is there, but you're still limited. Hey, you're only worth
two hundred fifty thousand dollars three thousand dollars, and maybe
that's good enough for you, So that's something you could evaluate.
But then you imagine if you did your own thing,
and it's gonna be rough in the beginning, right, but
over time your worth of you know, two fifty is
(35:06):
really one fifty million instead, right, And you're never gonna know.
So I think for me, with what I'm doing, I'm
also setting myself up for some kind of failure because
it's really hard for you to focus on things that
you like when you have everything else that's in me.
I know there's no way that I could truly expand
the way I would like to expand in the interior
(35:28):
design world, having a demanded nine to five and other things.
And I've accepted that maybe something might pop out of
one job that just leads other things, and I could say, hey,
you know what, I'm going to quit Apple. But but
you know, there's there's that balance, right. So I think
for me, there's so many things that I do and
(35:49):
people are always like, man, how do you balance everything?
And I still go out, I still have fun. I
have two kids, one's a six year old girl and
a fourteen month old son.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Now my mind is because the fact that you're doing
all this with your kids is crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Because you at the day you make time for stuff
that you want to make time for. Right, it's when
you say I don't have time, it's you don't have
time for that activity. That's what you don't have time for. Yeah, yeah,
it's true, but you have time. There's ways you could.
You could break up You're twenty four hours to give
you the time that you need to allocate to whatever
activity is that you want. Right. I fall to that
(36:26):
excuse too, like oh no, no, no, I don't have time
for that. But it's no, I don't want to do that,
is what it comes down to. If I did, I
would do it very simple. I try to live black
and white to do this, or it's that I try
my best although it's hard. Sometimes I would say that
it's really being able to find what brings you joy.
(36:46):
And if the joy is within your nine to five, awesome.
If the joy is outside of it and you need
your nine to five to help support it awesome. I
just think that you need to do things that give
you life. That's going to keep you feeling young, it's
going to keep you here on earth, I think longer.
Especially like I said, if you're doing this nine to five,
(37:08):
maybe you're just there just to be there with nothing
else going on. Again, you retired, you die. Who wants
to do that? I want to live, right and I
want to live every day.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Sounds like you started, correct me if I'm wrong, but
right after kind of the pandemic, so I'm sure there
was a lot of you know, residual supply chain, you know,
kind of challenges with all the shortages that were going
on during that time. And then I think that the shortages,
you know, from what we could see big picture, kind
of had this rebound effect where then companies had a
(37:40):
bunch of extra parts, maybe because they were trying to
overcompensate for the shortages once they did get access to parts,
and then there was like kind of a surplus of
in house inventories, et cetera. I don't know if Apple
was dealing with any of that, but I'm curious to
hear if you could speak to what you've seen, you know,
more zoom doubt big picture as far as trends with
(38:02):
supply chain in your career going through these different industries,
is there anything you've seen as far as like how
technology has advanced in the last few years or since
joining Apple that has really caught your attention as far
as like maybe the future of supply chain and how
newer tools are helping support engineers and people in your
(38:23):
position who are managing different aspects of a product's life
cycle to be more reliable in the future and maybe
combat some of those those issues you can have. As
far as supply chain is concerned.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I would say that a lot of that just ties
into the collaborative aspect of the job, right, and then
what does that time into that. There's software that ties
into that as well, right, So I think these these
software suites are getting much larger than they're able to
do more. Right. They're able to give you a lot
of real time data, and they're also able to help
(39:00):
you perform whatever assessments that are needed to make a
pivotive needing right. One thing that's important that I've seen
in different jobs that I've had or different companies that
I work for, is also ensuring that you don't have
a single source partner for someone, right, ensuring that you
have a backup, and in some cases you might launch
a product with both of those partners or the suppliers,
(39:24):
I should say, in your products, right, you know, you
have a magnet from this company and a magnet from
that company, and you use them, you know, equally in
your product, and then if something goes wrong with this one,
make sure that this other one has enough uh uh,
you know, supply to make up for the loss over here. Right,
(39:44):
I'm saying a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, kind of the redundancy strategy.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, exactly right. I'm saying that I'm on one of
my programs even for ink. Right, it's like multiple vendors
for ink and some thing did you know not go
how we would have liked for it to have gone,
so we had to pivot to happen.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
You were glad you had that.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Exactly exactly right, and then you know, I think it
also gets a little complicated in when you're in other
spaces like I've been in the d D because you
have to have a certain type of company. You get
to have all these requirements for you to be able
to work with the d O D right, and then
(40:27):
the clearances and all that is a whole other other level, right,
because with what I was working on for a majority
of my time with the Department of Defense was weapon systems.
So you could imagine with weapon systems, it's not like,
you know, hey, let's just go down to you know,
(40:50):
hobby lobby or old old radio shop or something like that.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
And get something rip radio shack. I was just talking
to someone else about radio shack.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
But anyways, yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's just really I
think about about, you know, having that that collaboration, trying
to see what's down the path in the future, whether
it's the future for your own products, and what that
means for suppliers, looking at the different software that's out
there that could also help you map those aspects also
(41:23):
help you, I think overall, just have your supply chain
strategy and and there's also that negotiation piece to it,
right that I don't think we also don't talk about enough.
I just I mean, when I started one of my
programs this year, I was working with a globe supply
chain manager and I got to witness his greatness as
(41:47):
he was negotiating to get the costs down on several
several things that are going into this product that I'm
working on, and I was like, wow, like that's something
that you're not going to get on software, right, Yes,
the software not going to be to.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Say that, that's that human component, right, and.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
And then you know, being able again to pivot in
that aspect. Right, Hey, if we need something for forty
cents and this company is not fron to offer forty cents, well,
here are options of other people that are the companies
that could deliver, and here's their timeline, here's their proposed uh,
you know, this price on their end, and then how
(42:29):
does it look into a cost perspective for us? Right?
And how easily can we shift from one to the other.
So it's pretty multifaceted. And again it's nothing that I'm
directly involved in on a daily basis. We're just sitting
back and being able to observe what I've seen at
Apple and then just thinking about the experiences that I've
had in different companies. I think technology is definitely something
(42:51):
that is very very important, but as you allude to
it that that human aspect is definitely key. And that
just goes back to what I keep talking about the
operation aspect. And just the proper.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Forecasting definitely, and again some of those soft skills too
that we were discussing earlier. So thank you. I appreciate
you bringing it back to kind of that balance. Also.
So often in these conversations around you know, latest and
greatest technology and what drives the industry and innovation, there
is a ton of focus, of course, on the power
of software, and we would be remiss not to, you know,
(43:27):
highlight the advantages of that of course as well. But
I think there still is definitely some value to what
people and people with experience and expertise and practice in
these rooms, you know, like you said, negotiating or communicating
in different ways and being able to see again, like
you said, kind of this forecasting that really comes from
experience and being through certain scenarios time and time again
(43:49):
and learning from those. So yeah, I definitely think that
that's important to remember and mention to people. Okay, I'm
gonna wrap it up here because I really could just
keep going on and on. Our last two kind of
rapid fire questions what is one thing outside of technology
that's currently inspiring you? And then our last question is
going to be what's on your personal bill of materials,
(44:10):
which is really up to interpretation.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Okay, So as far as the non technology related thing
that's inspiring, I really think it just goes back to
what we spoke about when I just said, you know,
everybody dies when everybody lives, right, and that in itself
is inspiring enough for me to do what I would
like to do. And if that means that, Hey, this year,
(44:34):
I want to travel to this country and travel to
this country, right, and maybe while I'm at that country
I'm going to use things that I'm seeing there to
inspire other things that I do. Oh, I like this restaurant.
I would love to design something like this, but maybe
I might not have the opportunity. But I could kind
of translate this to somebody's kitchen, right. So that's something
that's inspiring from a inspirational trip. But there's also just
(45:03):
the general human factor. Whereas cheesy as it sounds, I
think having kids really change my outlook on things. I
think that there's several things that I've accomplished in my life,
and I think that I am truly a child or
a kid at heart, and I think the only thing
(45:25):
that makes me feel like an adult is the fact
that I have two kids that need me. If it
wasn't for that, I don't even know. I'd still be
a hundred percent kid the whole time, you know. I
would say that the funniest thing is when I didn't
consider myself a full adult after having kids. It wasn't
(45:45):
until I had a five nine savings plan for my
kids I was like, oh wow, I'm an adult man.
This is kind of cool. Okay, okay, but yeah, so
I think that's something or I know as a matter
of fact that that is something that is inspiring on
the non technology side of things. And then for your
last question, you said, what is your personal bomb? Right? Yeah, yeah,
(46:09):
I think you can take that question different ways, right
because I can say, Okay, what is it that makes
me me? Right? Because you need to have all these
things to make a product. I guess I'm the product.
But if I don't look at it from that way,
I would say that I'll categorize it into three things here,
(46:32):
So I would say reflection, assessment, and action. Okay, And
I say those three things because I feel like those
three truly shape me on a daily basis and drive
me to what I need to do again on a
(46:52):
daily basis. So The reflection aspect is just you know,
me looking back at some event or activity period of
my life, something that just happened five minutes ago, yesterday,
whatever it is, and just kind of just reflecting on
what happened in those moments. Right. The next part is
then the assessment. So from that reflection of me observing
(47:15):
whatever happened, But what is it that I want to
do differently, should do differently, need to do differently? And
then the third part is the action is Okay, now
I've had that assessment, Now what's the action plan to
put these things into place? And so I say that
those three are part of the bomb again, because that
could go for anything. Right if it's Hey, this year,
(47:39):
I didn't do that much traveling, so why would I
want Why do I want to do more traveling? Why
I want to do more traveling because I want to
see the world. I want to get to see other
people's cultures. Okay, what's the action we'll save for this
trip or just book this trip? Right? Or I would
like to have more clients for you know, and share
design for example. So go through that process, right, what's
the action that's needed to get from point made? Again?
(48:01):
I think those three really just encompass anything and everything
on a daily basis for me because I really do
take the time to look at things. I really take
the time to figure out in a sense that should
it would it could have. Sometimes it's not necessarily should
(48:22):
it would have could have from a regret perspective, but
it's just like from an improvement perspective, right. And then
the third part of action, that's just kind of maybe
maybe not. So the action plan might be there, but
are you spending the effort and the time to actually execute.
So that's also an area that I like to be in,
(48:43):
and I try my hard is to close out those
tasks within the action tab. I might not get to
all of them, but at least it's still there on
that plan. And maybe we're just shifting that date, right
we have checkpoints instead of etcs, right, But those are
the three I would say.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Those are amazing words to live by. I'm like over
here taking notes. I feel like, I don't know if
you just came up with that on the spot, but
that was really impressive. I think that those are great.
It's like a philosophy in and of itself. Reflection, assessment, action.
I'm like I'm going to start keeping that in mind
and my day to day because I think it is,
like you said, really applicable to so many different goals
(49:23):
you may have, or different challenges you're facing, and that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
So even even friendships and relationships, right, you can do
that for everything.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
I think that's like we can't talk that that's mic.
Drop right there and really appreciate your time and words
of wisdom today, Anthony. I got a lot out of
this conversation. I know our listeners are going to get
a lot. So thank you so much and I'm really
glad we finally made the time to make this happen.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. I
really appreciate it. And you know, if there's anything we
could do in the future to partner some more, please
let me know. What's been great to you know, communicate
with you has been great to support activities as well,
and thank you for the opportunity again, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Definitely definitely looking forward to more. If you like the Bomb,
don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever
you get your podcasts. You can follow supply Frame and
Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and design lab at
supply Frame Design Lab on Instagram and Twitter. The Bomb
(50:26):
is a supply Frame podcast produced by Me, Magenta Strongheart
and Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie Bowles and edited by
Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by Anna Hogman. Show art
by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to Giovanni Selinaz, Bruce Dimingez,
Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark, the entire supply Frame team,
and you are wonderful listeners. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart.
(50:47):
See you next week.
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