May 19, 2025 • 35 mins
$1000 OFF ANY Springboard Tech Boot camps with my code THEBEARDEDITDAD. See if you qualify for the JOB GUARANTEE! 👉 https://itdad.info/springboardJoin me as I chat with Anil Varanasi, an experienced network engineer who shares his journey from studying at George Mason to mastering networking fundamentals in the field. Through career guidance and practical networking tips, Anil breaks down the value of cisco certifications in today's tech landscape. This episode offers essential data-driven insights for anyone looking to build a successful networking career. 🔗 Don’t wait—click here to start your tech career journey: https://thebeardeditdad.com/itcareeraccelerator/Exclusive Career Resources✅ Weekly Insider Tips: https://thebeardeditdad.ck.page/55f710292b🎧Listen to The I.T. Career Podcast HERE: ➡︎YT: https://itdad.info/ytpodcast➡︎Apple: https://apple.co/4aw0uVM➡︎Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3yBcrfuDisclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links where I'll earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.#networkengineer #network #career
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Just being passionate about yourwork.
I tend to work a lot, but even if you don't, even if you just
do the normal hours, like somewhere between a third to
half of your adult life. So why not be passionate about
it and really pour yourself intoit and try to do something great
and beautiful? What happens when a network
engineer? Gets fed.
Up with the outdated tools we have available and decides to
(00:22):
build something better. In today's episode.
I'm talking with Aneel Co, founder and CEO of Meter, a
company that's not just buildingnew networking hardware, they're
building the backbone of the modern Internet.
Internet A Today we're diving into his journey from humble
beginnings as a networking engineer.
(00:43):
To. Launching a company that designs
and operates vertically integrated networks for some of
the biggest businesses in the world.
If you're into networking, cybersecurity, or just want to
know what it takes to really level up your career in tech.
This is an episode you. Don't want to miss.
With that said, let's dive into this week's episode.
Well, welcome to the show, Neil.Do you mind kind of give us a
(01:06):
bit of background about who you are and what you do?
Yeah, Dakota, thanks so much forhaving me on.
My name is Aneel Varanasi. I started off studying
networking in college. I went to a state school in
Virginia called George Mason andyou know, a lot of lab work and
working towards everybody is their CCNA and dreaming of CCIE
type thing. And then I've been working in
(01:29):
networking hardware and securitythe last decade or two.
And then about a decade ago withmy brother Sunil, we started
Meter. Meter builds networking
hardware, software and operations entirely vertically
integrated. We help power some of the
largest companies in the world from large financial
(01:51):
institutions to public companies, etcetera.
And we not only build the hardware, but write everything
from the firmware, operating systems, distributed systems,
the AP is and applications and then deploy networking and help
maintain it. And our customers are IT and
network engineers. So networking, something I've
care about a lot and have been working in for, you know, over 2
(02:14):
decades now. Let's just dive right on into
that. What inspired you to Co found
meter and what are your were some of your challenges like
your early days when you're starting out?
Oh man, I think the challenge isenough.
Will take a couple hours, but with a lot of these things, it's
easy to claim it was some sort of Newtonian moment or an apple
(02:38):
fell on your head and you know exactly what you were going to
do. It wasn't like that for us.
The reason we ended up starting meter was actually relatively
simple. We cared about networking a lot,
but it felt like not only were there not new networking
companies that were getting started that built the entire
stack, nobody seemed really to care about building beautiful
(03:00):
products. And I'm talking about everything
from how the hardware is designed to the choices that are
made, to how the software is built, from the operating
systems and routing algorithms to how the APIs are built and
how the dashboards are built. Even if you look at networking
dashboards, which I'm sure the color you've seen a fair amount
didn't in your time and every day.
Now, there hasn't been great beautiful software for network
(03:23):
engineers in a long time. And that confused us a lot
because a simple bet we had was that Internet usage will
skyrocket and we all will use Internet more than we currently
do. Then we didn't understand why
they weren't great products. We looked around with other
things we were using, from computers to phones to SAS
(03:45):
software and other things. It seemed like there were some
great things coming all the timefor those things, but not for
networking. So we want to fill that void.
And we also felt somebody shoulddo it fully integrated.
So we do everything from ISP routing, switching, indoor
(04:06):
Wi-Fi, outdoor Wi-Fi, security, Layer 7 security, DNS security,
SDNVPN, and indoor cellular, allintegrated in the same platform.
And you're not wrestling with many different pieces of
software and trying to integrateand really fighting the system.
It didn't make sense to us why somebody didn't say, I'm going
(04:28):
to build a great product, spend a few years doing it, and then
really get into it. And then for the challenges, I
think anytime you're building something from the ground up, it
is incredibly hard. And then anytime you're trying
to build something that's integrated across all these
different parts of stack, it's almost nearly impossible.
We got really lucky with the people we ended up working with,
(04:51):
with some of the choices we made.
But the first few years were really, really tough.
We were building a new architecture.
We would barely get it working. At one point, I had a beard as
long as yours because I was doing nothing except coding and
working on hardware. And my parents, because I work
with my brother, they were immensely concerned for my
(05:11):
brother and I. They're like, what are you guys
doing? When we saw you last, you looked
normal. What happened to you?
You seem like you're barely sleeping anything like that.
So getting it off the ground as a new networking company that's
building something from the ground up, that was really hard.
I can only imagine just the the amount of time and dedication
(05:32):
you put into this was it's just amazing.
And let's kind of step back a little bit, you know, like what
were some pivotal moments in your career or decisions you
made that kind of help progress you from being the network
engineer into this leadership role that you are?
You know, I ended up going to college when I was really young.
I was 16 when I went to college.And one of the things that
(05:53):
happens is when you're young, you're actually more open to
ideas than you are. When you're older, you tend to
actually be open to some new ideas and things.
So there's two things that really stuck with me when I was
younger when I was kind of trying to decide what to work on
and what I would be interested in.
One is either when you're studying or when you're going to
(06:15):
work. As much as you are picking the
company, make sure to pick your boss or make sure to pick your
professor. So I think what was pivotal for
me is there were a couple of professors at George Mason that
were working in industry becauseit was so close to DC.
You know, so much of Northern Virginia is working with the
(06:37):
government. There were folks that were
working on actual day-to-day systems with the government and
then, you know, teaching for part time at the universe.
And I ended up getting lucky in picking a couple of great
professors who had industry knowledge with what they were
actually doing day-to-day ratherthan just theoretical.
So that was super pivotal to actually hear from someone on
(06:59):
what is it like to actually workon networking in the real world.
So that was 1. And I think second is probably
one of the most fortunate thingsin my life is my brother turned
out to be one of the smartest people in the entire world I've
ever met. And I don't know how actionable
this advice is, but pick your brother and pick a pick a great
(07:20):
brother and having somebody thatyou can bounce ideas off of and
see like, hey, I'm working on this.
What do you think? We've now been working together
close to two decades now. And that part is really great.
And the last is, you know, there's this kind of this old
(07:42):
Bob Dylan song and I think like a good jobs quote or whatever,
it's the thing of like the worldaround you is just made-up by
people just like you. I think, you know, sometimes
when we're driving down the street, we look at stop signs
and traffic lights and be like, you know, some great systems,
(08:02):
whatever. But it turned out to get another
normal person that just decided what color green should be on
the traffic lights, what color red should be.
So, so I think we were also fortunate to have parents that
always told us from the beginning that, you know, if you
want to do something, it's likely that it's your choice.
It's just other people also justdecided.
(08:24):
So I'm not sure what specifically kind of got us to
this, but the ingredients were that, you know, we care about
networking. We ended up finding the right
people and then had parents thathelped us propel saying like you
can just do what you want as long as it's not like illegal or
hurting someone. That's really cool.
You know it's. Not illegal, it's suspect, but.
(08:45):
It isn't illegal. At a young age, I developed the
interest in networking. You know, my high school offered
the CCNA program, and so I went through that at high school.
And then after high school, I started to go to college and it
just wasn't my thing at the time.
I just couldn't focus. So I ended up dropping out and
just doing jobs to, to put food on the table and keep a roof
(09:05):
over our head. Got married, had kids.
And it was later in life that I was like, you know, I'm really
tired of doing something that I hate.
You know, I, I was miserable at my job.
I was making really good money, but I was miserable.
And I decided that I wanted to make a career shift and come
back into tech. And since then I've been very
fortunate when I'm, when I decided, OK, I'm done.
(09:27):
I'm making this change. I really dedicated everything.
I spent countless hours, you canask my wife and I, I couldn't
have done it without the supportof my family standing behind me
believing in me that I can do it.
It was for that reason I was able, you know, that dedication.
I was able to go from an entry level role to a director level
role within three years of entering the tech field and no
(09:49):
degree still. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if I
should go back and get it back. I'm at the point of my my life.
I'm like, it's not going to add any value anymore.
I, I just, it's going to continue growing.
Yeah, it actually might be negative.
You've got the lore of not having a college degree, so you
should keep it that way. Exactly, exactly.
It is that determination. I think it plays a big role.
Like, you know, once you kind ofdecided that this was you, like,
(10:13):
did that kind of help keep you going and you know, you've seen
that progress you were making that kind of like fuel the fire
for you. Yeah, I think definitely like
when when once you start seeing progress, I think it really
helps a lot. And then the other thing that
usually helps is I'm a big believer in just cold emailing
people. So maybe a slight tangent here.
(10:36):
Oh, go ahead. Let's say you go to the New York
Times bestseller list of books. You know, you kind of imagine
that it's millions of people that it takes to get on the
bestseller list. Usually it's a few 100,000
copies if some book is bought that they end up on that list.
We know from Kindle data and other things that 70% of people
(10:59):
buy a book and never even open it.
And then of that other 30%, you know, only about 60% actually
even read the book or even finish the book.
And the percentage that end up finishing a book and end up
actually liking the book and endup having an opinion about a
book starts becoming like a reverse pyramid where it's just
(11:20):
like very few people. Right, so.
One of the things I found similarly, even in networking is
you know, you can go to the library, you can go to your high
school teacher or you know, yourcollege, whatever books you get,
or even even look up online. One of the other things that
kind of helped us a lot is we would just literally cold e-mail
(11:41):
the people that wrote the textbooks and say, hey, here's
how we're thinking about it. Here's some questions I have.
And nine times out of 10, you would get a response back.
And this is actually even 10 outof 10 if you go into research
papers. So if you think about like folks
working on networking research, for example, which helped us a
lot when we started meter on routing algorithms and operating
(12:04):
systems and other things. APHD student usually has 20
people at their dissertation at Max.
That means almost nobody has read their research.
So if you like to e-mail them, Oh my.
Gosh. Saying hey, I read your
research, or I read the paper, Iread this protocol you wrote or
other things. I have these questions.
(12:27):
And then would you be willing totalk about it?
I guarantee you they're ecstaticto talk about it because they
spent six years working on it and have nobody to talk to.
Oh. My gosh, I could only imagine.
So I run a mentorship community for people trying to get into
tech and so many people will go out and, you know, buy a book
and just. You know, hope that they.
(12:47):
Absorb the knowledge through osmosis just by owning it, You
know, most of the time it sits on the desk.
It sits on a bookshelf. Yes.
And I'm like, no, you, you, you got to, like, actually use that
and not just read it. Then you got to actually apply
that knowledge. Yeah.
And you're taking that even a step further by reaching out
like, hey, I read, you know, cold e-mail is great, but a lot
(13:09):
of people also just just ask. They don't contribute to the
conversation. They just give me, give me, give
me. You're like, hey, I read this
and I think it's great. And I want to get your opinion
as a product expert of this. You know, that's a really, like
powerful tip right there. Yeah, I think that's true across
my entire life. So let's say I'm I watch a great
(13:32):
movie, but it's like a small movie or something like that.
I usually used to end up emailing the director like I
thought this was great, like this was confusing, whatever.
And usually you get a response. Same thing on GitHub projects,
same thing on software. There's a lot of great like
wireless and networking softwarethat I really like that are
built by like, you know, small groups or one or two people.
(13:53):
And when you e-mail them saying like how did you build this or
how do you think about this feature, you just get a response
back. But that's true all the way up.
It can be any product, anything.I think the thing probably
that's hard to imagine is the things we all use are just made
by people. We just don't imagine them the
other way around. We know when we're making things
(14:15):
that it's people behind it, but the other way around too.
You can actually just like e-mail people or even like
Twitter DM them or LinkedIn messages and whatever.
And if it's a thoughtful thing and not like some marketing or
fluffy message that goes out. But if you're generally like,
hey, I read this, I found it interesting.
(14:36):
This is the questions I have. Or even if it's a GitHub
project, maybe it's you come across like a good script
usually can be made a little bitbetter, right?
Like you can make it a little bit more performant or add
something to the read me something like that and you can
contribute a little bit. And those are all the things
that we did when we were super young that paid off dividends
(14:59):
for us for many years. Because you end up meeting the
right people who actually like making things.
And those are the people you want to learn from is people
that are actually making things themselves.
It might be a book or anything, even a podcast.
Like you are like it. People that end up taking an
initiative and making things arelike they're the best people.
All righty quick break, because if you've ever felt stuck trying
(15:20):
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Yes, $1000 off. All right, with that said, let's
(16:47):
get back. To this week's episode, now for
like people that want to move upthe tech ranks, you know,
progressed in their career. What do you feel are some of
like the key skills or mind shifts, mindset shifts that can
help you the most? I liked our networking program
at George Mason. I think one of the things it did
(17:07):
that I think might be helpful for others is actually getting
your hands dirty and implementing things yourself.
OK, you, you study by networkingor you study about security, you
study about programming or anything like that.
Actually just doing it yourself is, you know, orders of
magnitude more fidelity than just reading about it.
(17:28):
So, you know, if you read about a network topology or how to do
networking, you can go to like eBay, buy some cheap used gear
or on Craigslist or anywhere andactually just like set things up
yourself. And when you set things up
yourself and you're challenging yourself that I read this, but
(17:49):
can I actually do it? There's a huge amount of impact
there. So I think that's one.
And the second is just reading the foundations books of
everything. You know, networking is what I'm
passionate about. I think if you go read like
Andrew Tenenbaum's textbook, right, that's a foundation
textbook on networking. It's on volume 5 or volume 6
(18:12):
now. It's about 300 pages.
Let's say you say in six months I am going to deeply understand
all of Tenenbaum's work in this book.
My intuition is anybody that does that is probably ahead than
95% of the group who actually does that and then.
(18:35):
You know, just taking those first steps, you know, and keep
the momentum going. You know, the the lies we live
in are so easily distracted nowadays.
You know, it's so easy just to come home, sit down the couch,
turn on the TV and do nothing. That is a habit you kind of got
to start breaking if you want tobe serious.
I feel dedicate yourself to thisit, it takes that mindset shift
(19:00):
and that dedication to be successful.
Now, you know, I, I'm very passionate about networking,
like networking has always been my thing, but I feel that you
can't just be a good network engineer anymore.
You also have to be a security mindset as well.
Like they really kind of start going to hand in hand nowadays.
And I, I'd like to hear kind of your opinion on that.
(19:21):
Do you feel that you know to be a really good network engineer
or a networking person, how muchcybersecurity do you have to be
involved in as well? I think it's a big part of it
these days because either somebody in the security
department is going to depend onyou, or you're sort of
(19:44):
responsible if you're at a smaller firm and how you set up
networking, what those protocolsmean, how it integrates with all
the other systems. Security is a huge part of it,
and I think over time things will get even more blended
together. But there's not a single
networking team who doesn't spend a good chunk of their time
(20:06):
with the security counterparts. Absolutely.
And from your perspective, how has like cybersecurity changed
in the like the past couple years you feel?
Yeah, I think like there's probably 1 good way and one bad
way. And on the bad way, I think the
(20:32):
amount of like buzzwords and youknow, something new and shiny
all the time has gone up exponentially.
There is some new acronym buzzword, something somebody
makes up or some vendor makes upevery week and every month now,
(20:53):
and that seems to be just like skyrocketing.
So it's like the bad part, the good way it's changed is it's
deep into understanding what actual problems are being
solved. Yes, we hear about a lot of
attacks and yes, we hear a lot about like bad things that are
(21:13):
happening and there's holes in systems.
But net, net, it's pretty amazing how secure things are
and how much good work folks in networking and cybersecurity are
doing to help protect these systems.
You know, the mental model people should have is if people
weren't doing good work, they'd be like a massive attack every
(21:37):
day because of how much you saidthere is on Internet now, right?
Like everything is packets in the world, literally everything
that we all do his packets and the fact that like there aren't
breaches at a massive scale constantly.
I think it's really cool. I think if you ask someone 20
years ago that this is the levelof usage Internet will have
(21:58):
everywhere you go from, you know, phone calls to messaging
to payments to cars, to healthcare, everything will just
be on the Internet. I think they will tell you is
like, there'll be an attack every single day that's at a
massive scale, but that hasn't happened, which is really,
really cool. No, that, that is crazy.
And you know, Speaking of all these buzzwords and stuff, I'm
(22:20):
going to throw another one out there, you know, with, with like
AI and automation evolving, you know, the, the industry as we
know it is, I think changing even more rapidly, for better or
worse. You know, you could argue how
has you know like AI influenced the industry is in whole you
(22:41):
feel and where what what should people like that are just now
getting into it should expect for the future you feel.
The simple way I think about this is 2 things.
One is if you imagine models notgetting better at all, like
(23:01):
somehow we just stop working on making models better.
Like this is it. It's frozen in time and it
stopped here. They're still incredibly
valuable for learning and augmenting your own work.
So I think the applications still haven't been built using
(23:24):
what already has been done, evenif progress is entirely stopped
here today. Like no more work on models.
We freeze it. It's amazing what happened in
the last five years. Oh, absolutely.
And there's a lot of ways to usethem for learning and other
things, like having a thing thatcan respond instantly to you
(23:47):
about any topic, anything you want to go deep into.
I wish I were 15 again. It's one of the great things.
So that's one side. If you just even freeze it
today, the value is immense. Then on the other side, the way
I think about it is not judging where just things are today,
(24:12):
even with the precursor I just gave, and imagining the rate of
progress not just to be the sameas it's been the last five
years, but to increase from here.
What does it mean then? So if you think about where
models were in 22 to where they are now, so now imagine in 2028,
(24:35):
not only is the rate of progresssame, but actually accelerated
from where it was. That's incredible.
What does that mean for your work?
What does that mean for what youwant to do day-to-day?
And what does that mean for yourcareer is an important thing to
constantly think about, maybe once every few months.
But my default assumption today,and I might update, you know my
(25:00):
thinking based on new evidence that comes in is that rate of
progress not only will continue but will speed up even more.
It's only going to grow exponential.
I mean, if you look at the last,you know, however many years,
it's just like it's by a factor of 2.
I feel like it's, it's doubling every year and just going to
(25:22):
keep on growing and growing. Now I, I'm curious, like you're
a CEO, you know of a company. What do you look for when you're
hiring tech talent? You know what makes people say
it out to you in particular? People that don't need to be
(25:46):
told what to do and that can go find the most important problem
for the company that they can gohelp themselves.
Surprisingly, very few people inthe workforce do that.
You go to a company, you get a set of tasks and you're sort of
(26:06):
doing them. And when you finish the task for
the day or the week and you're just like, OK, I'm going to
chill. But the inverse of that, which
is what is the most important problem for the company today,
and can I help with that? If there are indications of
somebody having that and having done that at their previous
(26:28):
roles or having that mentality, usually it's a really great
sign. And then somehow, especially in
technology, we've been told thatkindness and ambition are
antonyms. Is that either you can be kind
(26:49):
or either you can be ambitious. What we find is that there are a
group of people who are both kind and ambitious, and those
are usually the types of people we're looking for.
That is true all men. You know, I, I'd never claimed
to be an expert at anything. You know, I'm very good at
things, but I, I've had this happen to me on 2 separate
(27:14):
occasions when, you know, interviewing for positions.
After I landed the position, I, I asked, you know, why did you
pick me? There had to be more qualified
candidates. And like, for instance, my last
job, my, my, my direct manager at the time, he was like, Oh
yeah, we definitely had people that had more knowledge.
(27:36):
We actually had someone that wasquite upset because they're
like, how could someone be more skilled than me?
They had like a master's degree and all this.
And what it came down to is I could see that not only you had
the drive to learn, but the way you could articulate and
communicate your skills. It was far superior.
(27:57):
You know, you, you not, not just, you know, I can teach you
the hard skills. I can teach you how to do this
job. What I can't teach you is how to
one, have that internal drive, have that you know that spark
and how to communicate well withothers.
You know how to have those soft skills and stuff like that.
(28:18):
And if, if you can figure out how to master both of those, I
think you can go far. You're not expected to know it
all half the time, but you're expected to know how to be a
self starter and how to figure it out.
And that's the biggest thing like when I'm doing prep work
with people that are like going to get ready to do an interview,
(28:38):
I say, don't you're they're going to ask you questions.
I can guarantee you that you don't know I do that
intentionally when I do an interview.
And what I'm looking for is how they're going to work through
that problem. Are they going to just like give
up And you say I can't do that or, you know, ask for help.
They. Can't do.
It or are they going to are theygoing to go to Google?
Are they going to start going totheir known sources and start
(29:01):
gathering information? Are they going to try to figure
it out themselves and and that Ican tell like I'm not going to
have to hand hold them the entire process.
I feel like the workforce sometimes misses that and they
are that. I mean that that is some really
good advice there. Yeah, I think, I think overall
(29:21):
just just being passionate aboutyour work, you know, we, I tend
to work a lot. But even if you don't, even if
you just do the normal hours, ifyou will, you know, it's like
somewhere between a third to half of your adult life.
So why not be passionate about it and and really pour yourself
into it and try to do something great and beautiful?
(29:44):
One thing I want to ask is so many people struggle with
imposter syndrome, and I'm curious, like, how have you ever
dealt with that, first of all, in your career?
And you know, how have you kind of worked through that?
I have personally not dealt withthat myself because I think I
the school I went to and the professors I work with, because
(30:06):
they were in industry and other things, we got drilled into our
heads that nobody knows anything.
They're just making it up constantly.
I think, you know, you end up forming a point of view,
thinking that that's the right point of view.
Then you end up becoming dogmatic about it and then you
(30:28):
force the world towards that. That's how the world got
created. It's not because somebody knew
something, it's because somebodydecided something.
You know, there's some fundamental truth truths in the
world, you know, physics and math and music and language.
But I think after that, not muchto have imposter syndrome about.
And, you know, most of us are just making it up.
(30:50):
If you could give anyone one piece of advice that to someone
who is starting their career in tech, what would that one piece
of advice be? So this might be a bit
controversial, but. I love it.
I actually I actually don't think anybody should take advice
from anyone. Oh, OK.
I think you should learn things,you know, books and podcasts and
(31:19):
blogs and all all these things. I think you can learn things,
but it's far better to sort of build your own viewpoint on how
to do something because advice, the hard part of our advice is
every situation is so different.You cannot run the same
(31:41):
experiment twice at all. Everything from like financial
situation to timing to industry to luck, whatever you want to
ascribe to it. Every situation is so different.
I think if people end up taking advice on the surface, you might
end up applying things that are not applicable to you at all.
(32:04):
But I do think when you hear someone and read something or
listen to something, understanding where they're
coming from, that probably is way more important than any
surface level advice. Because here's the thing.
Somebody will tell you, you know, as soon as you wake up, go
(32:26):
look at the sun and somebody will tell you know, like sit in
the dark to meditate, whatever. Like everything has a
contradiction. And every advice might seem,
sounds seemingly great, but I don't think any of that matters.
I think if you genuinely understand what you're trying to
do, you're passionate about whatyou're doing, and then you
(32:46):
understand what you want, you should form your own kind of
thing. That's one.
And certainly second, I think I'm terrible at giving advice,
so I generally try not to. That's, that's awesome.
And no, I, I, that's, that's really good advice.
Now before we keep on going, I, I want to like, if people want
(33:09):
to reach out to you or they wantto learn more about metered
meter, where, where can they find you?
Yeah, so simplemeter.com, METE, r.com and then to reach out to
me is pretty simple. My e-mail is anil@meter.com.
(33:30):
I tend to respond to everything that I get.
Awesome. Folks can send me a note.
Happy to talk to folks, respond.That's so cool.
What's next for you? Any big projects or things that
you're excited about? Yeah, we've, we've got some new
hardware that's coming out. And as a networking nerd myself,
I genuinely think it's some of the best hardware that's being
(33:54):
built in the last 40-50 years innetworking.
So we've got that, hopefully. That's a.
That's a big statement there. Yeah, we've got the hopefully
coming out sometime this summer and I think we'll contribute
something great to the field andespecially that's really cool
because of how mature and long standing networking has been for
(34:18):
four or five decades. And I think we can actually like
contribute something great to it.
That's really cool. And you know, that's one thing I
was thinking about yesterday. I was having a conversation with
someone and but like, you know, networking has kind of grown
stagnant. You know, there hasn't been any
major innovations in the last few years.
And I kind of think about that. And like part of me says yes,
(34:39):
but part of me is like there's new stuff coming out every day.
Networking is constantly evolving and how we're utilizing
the network is changing in big ways.
I feel especially not to throw the buzzwords in there, but like
with AI and stuff like that, thedemand on the network is greater
than ever, which is forcing innovation and new great things.
(35:00):
So I'm, I'm really excited to see what you guys are coming up
with next. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Check out what we have on
meter.com. Shoot me a note.
I'd love to hear from folks thatlike networking.
That's awesome. Again, thank you so much for
taking the time and sharing yourwonderful wisdom with us and not
advice, but thank you again. I really appreciate it.
(35:24):
Awesome. Thanks, Dakota.
Absolutely everyone, I really hope you enjoyed this week's
episode. If you cut something from it or
if you feel like there you got some sort of wisdom, not advice,
let me know in the comments downbelow.
Again, thank you so much and until next time everyone keep
learning.
Just being passionate about yourwork.
I tend to work a lot, but even if you don't, even if you just
do the normal hours, like somewhere between a third to
half of your adult life. So why not be passionate about
it and really pour yourself intoit and try to do something great
and beautiful? What happens when a network
engineer? Gets fed.
Up with the outdated tools we have available and decides to
(00:22):
build something better. In today's episode.
I'm talking with Aneel Co, founder and CEO of Meter, a
company that's not just buildingnew networking hardware, they're
building the backbone of the modern Internet.
Internet A Today we're diving into his journey from humble
beginnings as a networking engineer.
(00:43):
To. Launching a company that designs
and operates vertically integrated networks for some of
the biggest businesses in the world.
If you're into networking, cybersecurity, or just want to
know what it takes to really level up your career in tech.
This is an episode you. Don't want to miss.
With that said, let's dive into this week's episode.
Well, welcome to the show, Neil.Do you mind kind of give us a
(01:06):
bit of background about who you are and what you do?
Yeah, Dakota, thanks so much forhaving me on.
My name is Aneel Varanasi. I started off studying
networking in college. I went to a state school in
Virginia called George Mason andyou know, a lot of lab work and
working towards everybody is their CCNA and dreaming of CCIE
type thing. And then I've been working in
(01:29):
networking hardware and securitythe last decade or two.
And then about a decade ago withmy brother Sunil, we started
Meter. Meter builds networking
hardware, software and operations entirely vertically
integrated. We help power some of the
largest companies in the world from large financial
(01:51):
institutions to public companies, etcetera.
And we not only build the hardware, but write everything
from the firmware, operating systems, distributed systems,
the AP is and applications and then deploy networking and help
maintain it. And our customers are IT and
network engineers. So networking, something I've
care about a lot and have been working in for, you know, over 2
(02:14):
decades now. Let's just dive right on into
that. What inspired you to Co found
meter and what are your were some of your challenges like
your early days when you're starting out?
Oh man, I think the challenge isenough.
Will take a couple hours, but with a lot of these things, it's
easy to claim it was some sort of Newtonian moment or an apple
(02:38):
fell on your head and you know exactly what you were going to
do. It wasn't like that for us.
The reason we ended up starting meter was actually relatively
simple. We cared about networking a lot,
but it felt like not only were there not new networking
companies that were getting started that built the entire
stack, nobody seemed really to care about building beautiful
(03:00):
products. And I'm talking about everything
from how the hardware is designed to the choices that are
made, to how the software is built, from the operating
systems and routing algorithms to how the APIs are built and
how the dashboards are built. Even if you look at networking
dashboards, which I'm sure the color you've seen a fair amount
didn't in your time and every day.
Now, there hasn't been great beautiful software for network
(03:23):
engineers in a long time. And that confused us a lot
because a simple bet we had was that Internet usage will
skyrocket and we all will use Internet more than we currently
do. Then we didn't understand why
they weren't great products. We looked around with other
things we were using, from computers to phones to SAS
(03:45):
software and other things. It seemed like there were some
great things coming all the timefor those things, but not for
networking. So we want to fill that void.
And we also felt somebody shoulddo it fully integrated.
So we do everything from ISP routing, switching, indoor
(04:06):
Wi-Fi, outdoor Wi-Fi, security, Layer 7 security, DNS security,
SDNVPN, and indoor cellular, allintegrated in the same platform.
And you're not wrestling with many different pieces of
software and trying to integrateand really fighting the system.
It didn't make sense to us why somebody didn't say, I'm going
(04:28):
to build a great product, spend a few years doing it, and then
really get into it. And then for the challenges, I
think anytime you're building something from the ground up, it
is incredibly hard. And then anytime you're trying
to build something that's integrated across all these
different parts of stack, it's almost nearly impossible.
We got really lucky with the people we ended up working with,
(04:51):
with some of the choices we made.
But the first few years were really, really tough.
We were building a new architecture.
We would barely get it working. At one point, I had a beard as
long as yours because I was doing nothing except coding and
working on hardware. And my parents, because I work
with my brother, they were immensely concerned for my
(05:11):
brother and I. They're like, what are you guys
doing? When we saw you last, you looked
normal. What happened to you?
You seem like you're barely sleeping anything like that.
So getting it off the ground as a new networking company that's
building something from the ground up, that was really hard.
I can only imagine just the the amount of time and dedication
(05:32):
you put into this was it's just amazing.
And let's kind of step back a little bit, you know, like what
were some pivotal moments in your career or decisions you
made that kind of help progress you from being the network
engineer into this leadership role that you are?
You know, I ended up going to college when I was really young.
I was 16 when I went to college.And one of the things that
(05:53):
happens is when you're young, you're actually more open to
ideas than you are. When you're older, you tend to
actually be open to some new ideas and things.
So there's two things that really stuck with me when I was
younger when I was kind of trying to decide what to work on
and what I would be interested in.
One is either when you're studying or when you're going to
(06:15):
work. As much as you are picking the
company, make sure to pick your boss or make sure to pick your
professor. So I think what was pivotal for
me is there were a couple of professors at George Mason that
were working in industry becauseit was so close to DC.
You know, so much of Northern Virginia is working with the
(06:37):
government. There were folks that were
working on actual day-to-day systems with the government and
then, you know, teaching for part time at the universe.
And I ended up getting lucky in picking a couple of great
professors who had industry knowledge with what they were
actually doing day-to-day ratherthan just theoretical.
So that was super pivotal to actually hear from someone on
(06:59):
what is it like to actually workon networking in the real world.
So that was 1. And I think second is probably
one of the most fortunate thingsin my life is my brother turned
out to be one of the smartest people in the entire world I've
ever met. And I don't know how actionable
this advice is, but pick your brother and pick a pick a great
(07:20):
brother and having somebody thatyou can bounce ideas off of and
see like, hey, I'm working on this.
What do you think? We've now been working together
close to two decades now. And that part is really great.
And the last is, you know, there's this kind of this old
(07:42):
Bob Dylan song and I think like a good jobs quote or whatever,
it's the thing of like the worldaround you is just made-up by
people just like you. I think, you know, sometimes
when we're driving down the street, we look at stop signs
and traffic lights and be like, you know, some great systems,
(08:02):
whatever. But it turned out to get another
normal person that just decided what color green should be on
the traffic lights, what color red should be.
So, so I think we were also fortunate to have parents that
always told us from the beginning that, you know, if you
want to do something, it's likely that it's your choice.
It's just other people also justdecided.
(08:24):
So I'm not sure what specifically kind of got us to
this, but the ingredients were that, you know, we care about
networking. We ended up finding the right
people and then had parents thathelped us propel saying like you
can just do what you want as long as it's not like illegal or
hurting someone. That's really cool.
You know it's. Not illegal, it's suspect, but.
(08:45):
It isn't illegal. At a young age, I developed the
interest in networking. You know, my high school offered
the CCNA program, and so I went through that at high school.
And then after high school, I started to go to college and it
just wasn't my thing at the time.
I just couldn't focus. So I ended up dropping out and
just doing jobs to, to put food on the table and keep a roof
(09:05):
over our head. Got married, had kids.
And it was later in life that I was like, you know, I'm really
tired of doing something that I hate.
You know, I, I was miserable at my job.
I was making really good money, but I was miserable.
And I decided that I wanted to make a career shift and come
back into tech. And since then I've been very
fortunate when I'm, when I decided, OK, I'm done.
(09:27):
I'm making this change. I really dedicated everything.
I spent countless hours, you canask my wife and I, I couldn't
have done it without the supportof my family standing behind me
believing in me that I can do it.
It was for that reason I was able, you know, that dedication.
I was able to go from an entry level role to a director level
role within three years of entering the tech field and no
(09:49):
degree still. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if I
should go back and get it back. I'm at the point of my my life.
I'm like, it's not going to add any value anymore.
I, I just, it's going to continue growing.
Yeah, it actually might be negative.
You've got the lore of not having a college degree, so you
should keep it that way. Exactly, exactly.
It is that determination. I think it plays a big role.
Like, you know, once you kind ofdecided that this was you, like,
(10:13):
did that kind of help keep you going and you know, you've seen
that progress you were making that kind of like fuel the fire
for you. Yeah, I think definitely like
when when once you start seeing progress, I think it really
helps a lot. And then the other thing that
usually helps is I'm a big believer in just cold emailing
people. So maybe a slight tangent here.
(10:36):
Oh, go ahead. Let's say you go to the New York
Times bestseller list of books. You know, you kind of imagine
that it's millions of people that it takes to get on the
bestseller list. Usually it's a few 100,000
copies if some book is bought that they end up on that list.
We know from Kindle data and other things that 70% of people
(10:59):
buy a book and never even open it.
And then of that other 30%, you know, only about 60% actually
even read the book or even finish the book.
And the percentage that end up finishing a book and end up
actually liking the book and endup having an opinion about a
book starts becoming like a reverse pyramid where it's just
(11:20):
like very few people. Right, so.
One of the things I found similarly, even in networking is
you know, you can go to the library, you can go to your high
school teacher or you know, yourcollege, whatever books you get,
or even even look up online. One of the other things that
kind of helped us a lot is we would just literally cold e-mail
(11:41):
the people that wrote the textbooks and say, hey, here's
how we're thinking about it. Here's some questions I have.
And nine times out of 10, you would get a response back.
And this is actually even 10 outof 10 if you go into research
papers. So if you think about like folks
working on networking research, for example, which helped us a
lot when we started meter on routing algorithms and operating
(12:04):
systems and other things. APHD student usually has 20
people at their dissertation at Max.
That means almost nobody has read their research.
So if you like to e-mail them, Oh my.
Gosh. Saying hey, I read your
research, or I read the paper, Iread this protocol you wrote or
other things. I have these questions.
(12:27):
And then would you be willing totalk about it?
I guarantee you they're ecstaticto talk about it because they
spent six years working on it and have nobody to talk to.
Oh. My gosh, I could only imagine.
So I run a mentorship community for people trying to get into
tech and so many people will go out and, you know, buy a book
and just. You know, hope that they.
(12:47):
Absorb the knowledge through osmosis just by owning it, You
know, most of the time it sits on the desk.
It sits on a bookshelf. Yes.
And I'm like, no, you, you, you got to, like, actually use that
and not just read it. Then you got to actually apply
that knowledge. Yeah.
And you're taking that even a step further by reaching out
like, hey, I read, you know, cold e-mail is great, but a lot
(13:09):
of people also just just ask. They don't contribute to the
conversation. They just give me, give me, give
me. You're like, hey, I read this
and I think it's great. And I want to get your opinion
as a product expert of this. You know, that's a really, like
powerful tip right there. Yeah, I think that's true across
my entire life. So let's say I'm I watch a great
(13:32):
movie, but it's like a small movie or something like that.
I usually used to end up emailing the director like I
thought this was great, like this was confusing, whatever.
And usually you get a response. Same thing on GitHub projects,
same thing on software. There's a lot of great like
wireless and networking softwarethat I really like that are
built by like, you know, small groups or one or two people.
(13:53):
And when you e-mail them saying like how did you build this or
how do you think about this feature, you just get a response
back. But that's true all the way up.
It can be any product, anything.I think the thing probably
that's hard to imagine is the things we all use are just made
by people. We just don't imagine them the
other way around. We know when we're making things
(14:15):
that it's people behind it, but the other way around too.
You can actually just like e-mail people or even like
Twitter DM them or LinkedIn messages and whatever.
And if it's a thoughtful thing and not like some marketing or
fluffy message that goes out. But if you're generally like,
hey, I read this, I found it interesting.
(14:36):
This is the questions I have. Or even if it's a GitHub
project, maybe it's you come across like a good script
usually can be made a little bitbetter, right?
Like you can make it a little bit more performant or add
something to the read me something like that and you can
contribute a little bit. And those are all the things
that we did when we were super young that paid off dividends
(14:59):
for us for many years. Because you end up meeting the
right people who actually like making things.
And those are the people you want to learn from is people
that are actually making things themselves.
It might be a book or anything, even a podcast.
Like you are like it. People that end up taking an
initiative and making things arelike they're the best people.
All righty quick break, because if you've ever felt stuck trying
(15:20):
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Yes, $1000 off. All right, with that said, let's
(16:47):
get back. To this week's episode, now for
like people that want to move upthe tech ranks, you know,
progressed in their career. What do you feel are some of
like the key skills or mind shifts, mindset shifts that can
help you the most? I liked our networking program
at George Mason. I think one of the things it did
(17:07):
that I think might be helpful for others is actually getting
your hands dirty and implementing things yourself.
OK, you, you study by networkingor you study about security, you
study about programming or anything like that.
Actually just doing it yourself is, you know, orders of
magnitude more fidelity than just reading about it.
(17:28):
So, you know, if you read about a network topology or how to do
networking, you can go to like eBay, buy some cheap used gear
or on Craigslist or anywhere andactually just like set things up
yourself. And when you set things up
yourself and you're challenging yourself that I read this, but
(17:49):
can I actually do it? There's a huge amount of impact
there. So I think that's one.
And the second is just reading the foundations books of
everything. You know, networking is what I'm
passionate about. I think if you go read like
Andrew Tenenbaum's textbook, right, that's a foundation
textbook on networking. It's on volume 5 or volume 6
(18:12):
now. It's about 300 pages.
Let's say you say in six months I am going to deeply understand
all of Tenenbaum's work in this book.
My intuition is anybody that does that is probably ahead than
95% of the group who actually does that and then.
(18:35):
You know, just taking those first steps, you know, and keep
the momentum going. You know, the the lies we live
in are so easily distracted nowadays.
You know, it's so easy just to come home, sit down the couch,
turn on the TV and do nothing. That is a habit you kind of got
to start breaking if you want tobe serious.
I feel dedicate yourself to thisit, it takes that mindset shift
(19:00):
and that dedication to be successful.
Now, you know, I, I'm very passionate about networking,
like networking has always been my thing, but I feel that you
can't just be a good network engineer anymore.
You also have to be a security mindset as well.
Like they really kind of start going to hand in hand nowadays.
And I, I'd like to hear kind of your opinion on that.
(19:21):
Do you feel that you know to be a really good network engineer
or a networking person, how muchcybersecurity do you have to be
involved in as well? I think it's a big part of it
these days because either somebody in the security
department is going to depend onyou, or you're sort of
(19:44):
responsible if you're at a smaller firm and how you set up
networking, what those protocolsmean, how it integrates with all
the other systems. Security is a huge part of it,
and I think over time things will get even more blended
together. But there's not a single
networking team who doesn't spend a good chunk of their time
(20:06):
with the security counterparts. Absolutely.
And from your perspective, how has like cybersecurity changed
in the like the past couple years you feel?
Yeah, I think like there's probably 1 good way and one bad
way. And on the bad way, I think the
(20:32):
amount of like buzzwords and youknow, something new and shiny
all the time has gone up exponentially.
There is some new acronym buzzword, something somebody
makes up or some vendor makes upevery week and every month now,
(20:53):
and that seems to be just like skyrocketing.
So it's like the bad part, the good way it's changed is it's
deep into understanding what actual problems are being
solved. Yes, we hear about a lot of
attacks and yes, we hear a lot about like bad things that are
(21:13):
happening and there's holes in systems.
But net, net, it's pretty amazing how secure things are
and how much good work folks in networking and cybersecurity are
doing to help protect these systems.
You know, the mental model people should have is if people
weren't doing good work, they'd be like a massive attack every
(21:37):
day because of how much you saidthere is on Internet now, right?
Like everything is packets in the world, literally everything
that we all do his packets and the fact that like there aren't
breaches at a massive scale constantly.
I think it's really cool. I think if you ask someone 20
years ago that this is the levelof usage Internet will have
(21:58):
everywhere you go from, you know, phone calls to messaging
to payments to cars, to healthcare, everything will just
be on the Internet. I think they will tell you is
like, there'll be an attack every single day that's at a
massive scale, but that hasn't happened, which is really,
really cool. No, that, that is crazy.
And you know, Speaking of all these buzzwords and stuff, I'm
(22:20):
going to throw another one out there, you know, with, with like
AI and automation evolving, you know, the, the industry as we
know it is, I think changing even more rapidly, for better or
worse. You know, you could argue how
has you know like AI influenced the industry is in whole you
(22:41):
feel and where what what should people like that are just now
getting into it should expect for the future you feel.
The simple way I think about this is 2 things.
One is if you imagine models notgetting better at all, like
(23:01):
somehow we just stop working on making models better.
Like this is it. It's frozen in time and it
stopped here. They're still incredibly
valuable for learning and augmenting your own work.
So I think the applications still haven't been built using
(23:24):
what already has been done, evenif progress is entirely stopped
here today. Like no more work on models.
We freeze it. It's amazing what happened in
the last five years. Oh, absolutely.
And there's a lot of ways to usethem for learning and other
things, like having a thing thatcan respond instantly to you
(23:47):
about any topic, anything you want to go deep into.
I wish I were 15 again. It's one of the great things.
So that's one side. If you just even freeze it
today, the value is immense. Then on the other side, the way
I think about it is not judging where just things are today,
(24:12):
even with the precursor I just gave, and imagining the rate of
progress not just to be the sameas it's been the last five
years, but to increase from here.
What does it mean then? So if you think about where
models were in 22 to where they are now, so now imagine in 2028,
(24:35):
not only is the rate of progresssame, but actually accelerated
from where it was. That's incredible.
What does that mean for your work?
What does that mean for what youwant to do day-to-day?
And what does that mean for yourcareer is an important thing to
constantly think about, maybe once every few months.
But my default assumption today,and I might update, you know my
(25:00):
thinking based on new evidence that comes in is that rate of
progress not only will continue but will speed up even more.
It's only going to grow exponential.
I mean, if you look at the last,you know, however many years,
it's just like it's by a factor of 2.
I feel like it's, it's doubling every year and just going to
(25:22):
keep on growing and growing. Now I, I'm curious, like you're
a CEO, you know of a company. What do you look for when you're
hiring tech talent? You know what makes people say
it out to you in particular? People that don't need to be
(25:46):
told what to do and that can go find the most important problem
for the company that they can gohelp themselves.
Surprisingly, very few people inthe workforce do that.
You go to a company, you get a set of tasks and you're sort of
(26:06):
doing them. And when you finish the task for
the day or the week and you're just like, OK, I'm going to
chill. But the inverse of that, which
is what is the most important problem for the company today,
and can I help with that? If there are indications of
somebody having that and having done that at their previous
(26:28):
roles or having that mentality, usually it's a really great
sign. And then somehow, especially in
technology, we've been told thatkindness and ambition are
antonyms. Is that either you can be kind
(26:49):
or either you can be ambitious. What we find is that there are a
group of people who are both kind and ambitious, and those
are usually the types of people we're looking for.
That is true all men. You know, I, I'd never claimed
to be an expert at anything. You know, I'm very good at
things, but I, I've had this happen to me on 2 separate
(27:14):
occasions when, you know, interviewing for positions.
After I landed the position, I, I asked, you know, why did you
pick me? There had to be more qualified
candidates. And like, for instance, my last
job, my, my, my direct manager at the time, he was like, Oh
yeah, we definitely had people that had more knowledge.
(27:36):
We actually had someone that wasquite upset because they're
like, how could someone be more skilled than me?
They had like a master's degree and all this.
And what it came down to is I could see that not only you had
the drive to learn, but the way you could articulate and
communicate your skills. It was far superior.
(27:57):
You know, you, you not, not just, you know, I can teach you
the hard skills. I can teach you how to do this
job. What I can't teach you is how to
one, have that internal drive, have that you know that spark
and how to communicate well withothers.
You know how to have those soft skills and stuff like that.
(28:18):
And if, if you can figure out how to master both of those, I
think you can go far. You're not expected to know it
all half the time, but you're expected to know how to be a
self starter and how to figure it out.
And that's the biggest thing like when I'm doing prep work
with people that are like going to get ready to do an interview,
(28:38):
I say, don't you're they're going to ask you questions.
I can guarantee you that you don't know I do that
intentionally when I do an interview.
And what I'm looking for is how they're going to work through
that problem. Are they going to just like give
up And you say I can't do that or, you know, ask for help.
They. Can't do.
It or are they going to are theygoing to go to Google?
Are they going to start going totheir known sources and start
(29:01):
gathering information? Are they going to try to figure
it out themselves and and that Ican tell like I'm not going to
have to hand hold them the entire process.
I feel like the workforce sometimes misses that and they
are that. I mean that that is some really
good advice there. Yeah, I think, I think overall
(29:21):
just just being passionate aboutyour work, you know, we, I tend
to work a lot. But even if you don't, even if
you just do the normal hours, ifyou will, you know, it's like
somewhere between a third to half of your adult life.
So why not be passionate about it and and really pour yourself
into it and try to do something great and beautiful?
(29:44):
One thing I want to ask is so many people struggle with
imposter syndrome, and I'm curious, like, how have you ever
dealt with that, first of all, in your career?
And you know, how have you kind of worked through that?
I have personally not dealt withthat myself because I think I
the school I went to and the professors I work with, because
(30:06):
they were in industry and other things, we got drilled into our
heads that nobody knows anything.
They're just making it up constantly.
I think, you know, you end up forming a point of view,
thinking that that's the right point of view.
Then you end up becoming dogmatic about it and then you
(30:28):
force the world towards that. That's how the world got
created. It's not because somebody knew
something, it's because somebodydecided something.
You know, there's some fundamental truth truths in the
world, you know, physics and math and music and language.
But I think after that, not muchto have imposter syndrome about.
And, you know, most of us are just making it up.
(30:50):
If you could give anyone one piece of advice that to someone
who is starting their career in tech, what would that one piece
of advice be? So this might be a bit
controversial, but. I love it.
I actually I actually don't think anybody should take advice
from anyone. Oh, OK.
I think you should learn things,you know, books and podcasts and
(31:19):
blogs and all all these things. I think you can learn things,
but it's far better to sort of build your own viewpoint on how
to do something because advice, the hard part of our advice is
every situation is so different.You cannot run the same
(31:41):
experiment twice at all. Everything from like financial
situation to timing to industry to luck, whatever you want to
ascribe to it. Every situation is so different.
I think if people end up taking advice on the surface, you might
end up applying things that are not applicable to you at all.
(32:04):
But I do think when you hear someone and read something or
listen to something, understanding where they're
coming from, that probably is way more important than any
surface level advice. Because here's the thing.
Somebody will tell you, you know, as soon as you wake up, go
(32:26):
look at the sun and somebody will tell you know, like sit in
the dark to meditate, whatever. Like everything has a
contradiction. And every advice might seem,
sounds seemingly great, but I don't think any of that matters.
I think if you genuinely understand what you're trying to
do, you're passionate about whatyou're doing, and then you
(32:46):
understand what you want, you should form your own kind of
thing. That's one.
And certainly second, I think I'm terrible at giving advice,
so I generally try not to. That's, that's awesome.
And no, I, I, that's, that's really good advice.
Now before we keep on going, I, I want to like, if people want
(33:09):
to reach out to you or they wantto learn more about metered
meter, where, where can they find you?
Yeah, so simplemeter.com, METE, r.com and then to reach out to
me is pretty simple. My e-mail is anil@meter.com.
(33:30):
I tend to respond to everything that I get.
Awesome. Folks can send me a note.
Happy to talk to folks, respond.That's so cool.
What's next for you? Any big projects or things that
you're excited about? Yeah, we've, we've got some new
hardware that's coming out. And as a networking nerd myself,
I genuinely think it's some of the best hardware that's being
(33:54):
built in the last 40-50 years innetworking.
So we've got that, hopefully. That's a.
That's a big statement there. Yeah, we've got the hopefully
coming out sometime this summer and I think we'll contribute
something great to the field andespecially that's really cool
because of how mature and long standing networking has been for
(34:18):
four or five decades. And I think we can actually like
contribute something great to it.
That's really cool. And you know, that's one thing I
was thinking about yesterday. I was having a conversation with
someone and but like, you know, networking has kind of grown
stagnant. You know, there hasn't been any
major innovations in the last few years.
And I kind of think about that. And like part of me says yes,
(34:39):
but part of me is like there's new stuff coming out every day.
Networking is constantly evolving and how we're utilizing
the network is changing in big ways.
I feel especially not to throw the buzzwords in there, but like
with AI and stuff like that, thedemand on the network is greater
than ever, which is forcing innovation and new great things.
(35:00):
So I'm, I'm really excited to see what you guys are coming up
with next. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Check out what we have on
meter.com. Shoot me a note.
I'd love to hear from folks thatlike networking.
That's awesome. Again, thank you so much for
taking the time and sharing yourwonderful wisdom with us and not
advice, but thank you again. I really appreciate it.
(35:24):
Awesome. Thanks, Dakota.
Absolutely everyone, I really hope you enjoyed this week's
episode. If you cut something from it or
if you feel like there you got some sort of wisdom, not advice,
let me know in the comments downbelow.
Again, thank you so much and until next time everyone keep
learning.
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