July 30, 2025 • 35 mins
Learn more about: DigitalOcean
Read Article: Evolution of the Cloud
Featured on Tomorrow's World Today: S5E6 – Keep Your Head In The Cloud
What does it take to go from a curious nine-year-old tinkering with computers to leading product strategy at some of the world’s most powerful tech companies?
In this episode, Gabe Monroy reflects on his path through the tech world. Raised by a single mom who ran her own bookkeeping business, Gabe got his start helping set up computers for her clients. That hands-on experience sparked a lifelong passion for technology. 💻
Over the years, Gabe would go on to sell two startups (including one to Microsoft), serve as a leader in cloud innovation, and hold the role of Chief Product Officer at DigitalOcean, where he helped shape tools built specifically for the world's small businesses. His experience at the company offered a powerful look at how product strategy and purpose can align.
The episode explores what made DigitalOcean different, including its commitment to small businesses underserved by larger cloud providers, and its remote-first team spanning nearly 1,000 employees across 185 countries. ☁️
One of the most compelling parts of the conversation is Gabe’s approach to creativity and focus. Living on a farm with goats and chickens, he shares how unplugging from technology helps him find clarity—and even his best ideas. His take on “flow state” and the Japanese concept of Ikigai offers a fresh way to think about success, especially in an industry where learning never stops.
Whether you're just getting started or rethinking your path, Gabe's story is full of insight and serves as a reminder that innovation can come from the most unexpected places. 🌍
For more information about the innovations that are shaping tomorrow's world, head to https://tomorrowsworldtoday.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steven Ruffing (00:01):
Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast.
We sit down with experts,world-changing innovators,
creators and makers to explorehow they're taking action to
make tomorrow's world a betterplace for technology, science,
innovation, sustainability, thearts and more.
Episode host George Davison,who is also the host of the TV
(00:23):
series, tomorrow's World Todaysits down with Gabe Monroy, the
former chief product officer atDigitalOcean.
Gabe discusses his journey froma young coder to a tech
executive, highlighting his rolein delivering cloud computing
solutions for small businesses.
He also talks about the valueof learning, how to learn,
achieving a flow state forproductivity and happiness, and
(00:47):
how a hardworking single mom ledhim on a path to success.
George Davison (00:52):
Thanks for coming in and joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I hope you'll share someof your life experiences with us
.
You know real world stuff.
I'm looking forward to it.
All right, well good.
I'm looking forward to it Allright, well good.
So we're going to chat a littlebit about why don't we start
with where you work and what youdo there, so that our audience
can get a little more?
Gabe Monroy (01:13):
familiar with you, sure, so I'm the Chief Product
Officer at DigitalOcean, and soI'm responsible for delivering
the products, including design,engineering a lot of back-end
systems to enable our customersto build digital products using
cloud computing.
George Davison (01:29):
Wow, how did that come to be?
I mean, did you just wake upone morning and you were in this
really awesome position?
Gabe Monroy (01:37):
Yeah, I was straight on the chief product
officer track from when I was infifth grade.
No, of course, I twisted andturned my way into the role.
Lots of failure and interestingmistakes along the way.
Really, I was a coder from aprogrammer from when I was
extremely young.
I got a picture of when I wasnine years old, in front of an
(01:59):
old AT&T 6300 writing code Wow,and didn't have a lot of friends
, you know, when I was growingup, because I like to spend a
lot of time just kind of bangingaway on the computer and
focused on video games stufflike that.
Over time I moved into doingstartups and entrepreneurship
and I was, over time, successfulin that.
It didn't always start that way, but you know, I was able to
(02:21):
start and sell two companies.
The last one I sold toMicrosoft and I spent a lot of
time at Microsoft and from theresort of moved into executive
leadership and that's how Ilanded at DigitalOcean.
That's fabulous.
George Davison (02:33):
So we're going to learn a lot today.
We're going to ask a lot ofgood questions and hopefully we
can give some insight to thesefolks.
So they probably want to knowwell what is.
Let's talk a little bit aboutDigitalOcean so they understand
what that world looks like andmaybe what kind of job
opportunities might exist in thefuture in that space.
Gabe Monroy (02:56):
Sure, digitalocean exists to provide computing
resources to developers andsmall businesses who are looking
to build digital products,things like websites, mobile
applications.
Folks want to create mobile appsof the future.
They want to create newexperiences, product experiences
that are accessed over theinternet, and they don't really
(03:18):
want to have to manage theinfrastructure and the servers
and the cabling and the powerand the cooling and all that
annoying stuff that we had to doback when I was growing up.
They just want to kind of rentthat stuff and focus on the
products that they want to buildand the value that they want to
create for customers.
So that's what DigitalOcean isenabling, and we're doing that
for small businesses really, andthere's 100 million small
(03:39):
businesses out there in theworld and that's growing by 14
million every year, right, andso it's just a very underserved
part of the market today.
If you're a large enterprise,there's lots of places you can
go to get your cloud computingneeds met.
If you're a smaller company,there's a lot less out there in
terms of companies that arebuilding solutions targeted at
(04:00):
your needs, and that's reallywhere DigitalOcean fits in.
George Davison (04:02):
That's wonderful , your needs and that's really
where DigitalOcean fits in.
That's wonderful.
So if I was working atDigitalOcean let's say there are
probably a lot of differenttypes of jobs how do you prepare
?
If I was to go onto the websiteand look at that, how would I
prepare myself as a youngerperson right now If I set my
sights on going to work there?
(04:23):
Is there a certain way I shouldbe thinking, a certain track
that might make sense?
Gabe Monroy (04:28):
digital ocean.
Careers are extremely varied,right, so there are highly
technical careers where you canwork on, you know, as an
engineer on operating systems ornetworking or storage, or
really deep computer sciencefundamentals.
There's also careers inmarketing.
There's also careers in programmanagement.
There's lots of differentskills, and so for folks who
(04:53):
want to work in the techindustry, I think it's important
to remember that not everythingin the tech industry has to be
tech forward and related tocomputer science.
That said, there is a lot ofopportunity for folks who are
interested in learning math,programming, classical STEM
(05:13):
skill sets.
That does provide a reallyinteresting path forward in
terms of careers at companieslike DigitalOcean, which are
growing very fast.
George Davison (05:20):
Yes, Well, that's very helpful.
So STEM, STEAM and pretty muchstorytelling, marketing, through
all those gamuts.
There are lots of differentopportunities.
That's right.
Yeah, About how many peopledoes DigitalOcean employ?
Gabe Monroy (05:35):
We're just under 1,000 employees today and
growing quickly.
We have employees all over theworld.
In fact, we service customersin 185 different countries
globally.
It's important to us that wehave an employee base that is
reflective of the internationalnature of the business.
We've got folks all over theworld Definitely biased more
(05:58):
towards North America.
We have a lot of people inNorth America, but also lots of
people in Western Europe, lotsof folks in India, pakistan and
really across the globe.
Isn't it amazing?
George Davison (06:06):
now we're working remotely in all these
different locations.
Does DigitalOcean have aspecific headquarters where
everybody goes to work, or is itall pretty much remote?
Gabe Monroy (06:18):
It's an interesting story.
The company was founded andheadquartered in New York City,
and one of the challenges thatwe found was New York City is
expensive, right, it's anexpensive place to live, and so
we had some trouble recruitingthe talent that we needed in New
York City, right, and so westarted being remote friendly,
(06:38):
in that we would hire folks whowere willing to work from any
different part of the country,who were willing to work from
any different part of thecountry, and we were doing that
before the pandemic hit, beforeit was sort of required for
folks to do that, and so we wereabout 60% remote prior to the
pandemic and so, as a result,once everyone started working
remotely, we already had itfigured out more or less, and
(07:00):
that was a really big accelerantfor us.
And so today we're extremelyproud of our remote first
culture, and I love it becauseit allows us to go tap folks in.
You know parts of Idaho orparts of you know Canada.
You know where people may nothave access or may not have
thought they had access toreally great careers in the tech
(07:21):
industry.
You know we can now get accessto that talent and get access to
those ideas.
George Davison (07:26):
That makes a lot of sense.
Actually, there's an openinnovation which you can put out
there on the world and findpeople all over the world to
help you solve problems onthings that you're trying to
work on.
It's been around for a while.
Quite a few big innovationscame out of that space.
I don't think it would havehappened if it wasn't so global
and having access to people withtheir special areas and traits
(07:50):
that they know so well, thatmakes them tick.
So tapping people all over theworld makes sense to me.
Gabe Monroy (07:55):
Yeah, and it is, at the end of the day, a pretty
intense battle for talent forcompanies like DigitalOcean
talent for companies likeDigitalOcean right, and we want
to make sure that our ability todeliver for customers is
attached to our ability to getthe best talent in the world,
and by being remote friendly, wecan do a better job at that.
George Davison (08:14):
Well, all right, so they scooped you up, so
you're considered really greattalent and did somebody help you
along the way, like you didn'tjust become who you are.
Were there mentors when youwere in middle school or high
school who were some of theinfluential people in your life,
in your life when you weregrowing up?
Gabe Monroy (08:34):
I had a really different story when I was
growing up.
I think one of the the thingsthat was unique for me is my
first bosses when I startedworking professionally were all
female bosses in the technologyindustry, which, if you go back
(08:54):
to when I was coming up in thelate 90s and early 2000s, it's
actually kind of rare to havefemale technologists in
positions of leadership, and so,you know, those were my mentors
growing up and they taught me alot about.
You know just you know humilityin the workplace, how to
communicate, how to deliverimpact and sell your impact.
(09:19):
I think one of the things that,yeah, I recall learning very
much was it wasn't good enoughto just do good work and then
expect that the world wouldrecognize your good work.
You have to be able toevangelize why the work is
important and sort of sellyourself.
And some people think thatthat's chest thumping and maybe
(09:40):
a little bit untoward in termsof how that shows up, but it's
really important to be able totalk about the impact you're
delivering and how you'reinnovating on behalf of
customers, and that was one bigtakeaway from my mentors.
George Davison (09:52):
You know, there's an old poem that goes
hand in hand with what you justsaid he who has a thing to sell
and goes and whispers in a wellis not so apt to get the dollars
as he who climbs a tree andhollers.
Gabe Monroy (10:06):
I love that.
That's a good one, all right.
George Davison (10:11):
So that's great.
You had some gals who were outthere empowering you when you
were beginning your life in the,let's say, the computer
software space.
But let's, can we go back alittle further, sure?
Gabe Monroy (10:25):
how about, let's?
George Davison (10:25):
go back to like maybe when you're younger uh,
let's say middle school or highschool do you have parents who
were married and they workedtogether to help you?
Were they separated, can you?
Gabe Monroy (10:39):
would you be willing to share some of that?
Yeah, so.
So my, my family story is, youknow, a little abnormal, I would
would say.
Both of my parents are from theCaribbean.
Actually, my father was born inCuba, my mother was born on an
island off the coast ofVenezuela called Curacao, and so
first generation Americans yes,and that's an interesting
dynamic.
My parents also were divorcedwhen I was five and my father
(11:02):
wasn't really around all thatmuch, and so it was myself and
my mother and my two sistersgrowing up, and so that
definitely created aninteresting dynamic for me
personally.
One of the things my mother didwas she was starting small
businesses as a bookkeeper,helping folks just get their
bookkeeping system set up and dobasic accounting for folks, get
(11:24):
their bookkeeping system set upand do basic accounting for
folks and you know, this ismaybe in the mid-90s or early
90s.
And it was through thatexperience of helping my mother
get off the ground with some ofthat bookkeeping that I actually
got access to computers right,because she needed the computers
in order to build herbookkeeping business.
Computers right, because sheneeded the computers in order to
(11:45):
build her bookkeeping business,and so I ended up helping her
set up the computers at thedifferent you know clients that
she was servicing and that'ssort of how I got into that.
Wow, yeah, that's a great story.
George Davison (11:55):
I love that story.
You know, yeah, divorce can betough, but moms are tough,
aren't they, boy?
I tell you, they are drivenpeople and when they, when
they're, when they're alone withkids, it's amazing what they'll
pull off.
I came from a similarbackground single mother, driven
, and I give her all all thereasons why I've become who I am
(12:16):
because of my mom, really.
I mean, there were lots ofmentors, but started with mom
absolutely so.
Gabe Monroy (12:20):
you know, same thing for me and and you you
know, as the the son, I wasinspired by that drive that
you're describing and definitelywanted to help out, and it
allowed me to have a sense ofempowerment and a feeling like I
could do anything and sort ofconquer anything after a few
(12:41):
wins in terms of helping her.
That helped me get theconfidence I needed to branch
out into doing things on my own.
So before long I was setting upbulletin board systems with
dial-in modems where I had myown business that I was running
when I was 13, 14 years old.
It was all because I had thatconfidence from helping my
(13:01):
mother out and seeing the fruitsof that.
George Davison (13:04):
That's great.
I'm sure she was complimentaryof you along the way.
Gabe Monroy (13:07):
I, I, yeah, I.
I remember all the complimentsvividly, as you can probably
imagine.
Steven Ruffing (13:12):
That's great Well thanks for sharing that
yeah that's wonderful.
George Davison (13:17):
So let if we were to go back to high school,
if you could just try to triggeryour mind on just something
that wasn't so perfect.
Did you have any trip ups?
Did you have a failing grade?
Did you have something that youhad to work through in order to
get to where you wanted to go?
Gabe Monroy (13:37):
I yeah, I was not the best student, let's just put
it that way which was reallyweird because I was in sort of a
gifted and talented programwhere I was doing stuff in that
space, but in my normal Spanishclass and stuff like that, I was
sleeping in class and I wasjust not great.
(14:00):
And in retrospect I think it wasbecause I was kind of bored.
And what I took away from thatexperience was I really needed
to focus on learning how tolearn different things, and so
that's kind of where I ended upgoing.
But I think probably thebiggest mistake I would say is
(14:20):
the way that I went out of highschool straight into college.
I was not ready for that, andso I think I would have probably
done a lot better had I taken alittle bit more time between
high school and college tofigure out what I really wanted
to do, because once I got intocollege, I only lasted a couple
years before I went back intothe workforce.
(14:41):
I never graduated and I wouldhave loved to have completed
that journey, but I didn't knowwhat I wanted.
I didn't know what I reallyneeded at the time and and and I
felt pressure to kind of justgo on the train straight into
college, as people do, and eveneven today folks do, and I think
perspective would have probablybenefited me and being more
patient.
George Davison (15:01):
Yeah, that's helpful.
The learning how to learn otherthings.
You said yeah, so how did youteach yourself how to do that?
Would you share that?
Gabe Monroy (15:13):
please Sure, when I was really young I had access
to computers and really young is, you know, it's it 10, 11 years
old and the computers were thekey to video games and I really
wanted to play some video gamesright, and so the video games
(15:34):
were the lure for me.
And, as you can imagine, youknow, back in these days it was
kind of hard to get this stuffworking right.
It was always kind of brokenand there was always some
challenges.
It was kind of hard to get thisstuff working right.
It was always kind of brokenand there was always some
challenges.
But the idea of being able toplay this video game was
motivating to me, and so thattook me through.
It taught me perseverance, ittaught me how to learn in order
(15:55):
to go get the video game workingso I could go play it on the
weekend right.
And so, you know, having thatgoal and figuring out what are
the things I need to learn inorder to achieve that goal was
something, it was a pattern thatI started to develop, and it
started with those video games.
George Davison (16:12):
So it sounds like when you engaged yourself
to do your own self-learningright, I think we talked about
something called flow, yes,called flow, yes, and maybe you
could talk a little bit aboutwhat flow means to you and how
you achieve flow when you'redoing self-learning.
Gabe Monroy (16:30):
Yeah, there's a book out there called flow and I
read it and it really resonatedwith me.
It's this idea that you know,sometimes we work on stuff and
we really get lost in it.
And if you think about theattributes of the kind of work
that allows you to get lost init, there's a few things that
pop.
(16:50):
The first is the activity hasgot to be the right amount of
challenging Not too challenging,that it's frustrating, but
challenging enough to keep youengaged.
It also has to provide somerapid feedback.
You've got to understand howwell you're doing, because
otherwise, if the feedback cycleis too long, again you'll get
disinterested in it.
And and also it has to enableyou to feel a sense of
(17:12):
accomplishment after you've doneit.
And when you get these thingsright, you will find that
whatever you're doing maybe it'smusic, maybe it's art, maybe
it's coding, maybe it's music,maybe it's art, maybe it's
coding, maybe it's designingconsumer products, could be lots
of different things you'llstart working on it and 12 hours
will pass and it'll feel likefive minutes right, right, like
(17:33):
time travel.
It's like time travel right.
And and I and you know the bookargues that there's a real
strong correlation between thatflow state that you know I'm
describing and happiness, and so, for me, I'm always trying to
figure out how can I create flowstate for myself and how can I
enable the creation of flowstate for the teams that work at
(17:53):
DigitalOcean and elsewhere,because I think it's really
important to folks doing greatwork and to being happy in the
work that they're doing.
George Davison (18:00):
So anytime you start to feel that loss of time,
that flow state, right.
That's when, for example, whenwe're designing and creating new
things, flow state.
It happens a lot here and we do.
We have a great time.
You get a sense of euphoria andhappiness when you're doing it,
but before you know it you'relate for dinner.
(18:22):
Right, but you had a great day.
Gabe Monroy (18:27):
I do want to point out it's harder today than it's
ever been, right you think aboutthe advent of TikTok and the
advent of sort of the short formvideo and things like that.
Attention spans have gonereally short, right, and part of
this idea of achieving flowstate is focus for longer
periods of time, and the worldhas sort of moved away from that
(18:49):
in a lot of ways.
So being attentive and focusedon where are you finding the
desire to stay tuned intosomething for a long period of
time?
It's a really important skillto develop now and it's gotten
harder in the world.
George Davison (19:05):
I agree with you .
Do you have any hobbies?
Gabe Monroy (19:08):
I do, I'm a technologist executive.
I also live on a farm and I'mnew at this right and again for
me, I know nothing about farming.
I know nothing about, or knewnothing I should say about,
goats, chickens, livestock,guardian dogs, things like that.
(19:29):
But I've got all that stufftoday and it really keeps me
engaged and I find that I canachieve that flow state that we
were describing by cleaning agoat shed or a chicken coop, and
during those periods I'll oftenget some of my best ideas
related to work.
Right, it's almost likedisconnecting from the work and
(19:50):
focusing on manual labor,including manual labor that
smells really bad.
I will get some really greatideas that I can, you know, sort
of bring into my workday.
And if I didn't have that harddisconnect from work and I
stayed too plugged in for toolong into my computer screen and
type it in the keyboard, Iwouldn't have that perspective,
and so that's important for me.
George Davison (20:11):
Yeah, we've learned to manage that here.
It's that process of we have itrepresented with the open hand,
meaning the mind is free andyou're in flow state, but then
when you grind and grind andgrind, your hand gets tight or
your mind gets tight to thepoint where your knuckles are
white and you can't get an idea,you can't get into the rhythm
(20:33):
and before you know it, youbetter let go.
And when you let go and ifyou're trained in it, you go to
nature.
So I'm not surprised you have afarm.
That's beautiful.
You've figured all this out,because we're actually talking
about that in the world in whichwe create for our staff, which
is nature, is a very criticalpiece to unleashing yourself.
(20:57):
Nature has been around with usfor thousands of years and we
can learn a lot from nature.
Let's just say you have giftsinside you.
That, and so do all humanbeings that are observational
analysis, for example.
Right, how do you learn to useyour observational analysis when
(21:18):
they don't teach it in school,but somehow another?
We already have this gift.
And when we're younger and wewander through nature, it's just
that we feel very healthy andhappy and we're always in a good
mood, and then we get pulledinto this other world, which is
a little tighter all the time.
Learning how to manage thatpump turn it on and off is a
process, and so it's great.
(21:38):
It sounds like, hey, you're onthe farm, lose yourself, you go
into flow and then,subconsciously though, your
mind's probably working onproblems and then bang in comes
the idea, or whatever the ideamight.
Does that sound?
Gabe Monroy (21:53):
a little familiar, precisely, and I like to call it
vitamin n and for nature, right, and we all need our dose of
vitamin n, oh and, and you knowif, if you don't get it, it's
hard to find that perspective.
But you're right,subconsciously that's really
what it feels like.
Right Is you're working onsomething else and
subconsciously there's abackground task that's in your
(22:14):
head about your processing, yourworkday, and ideas will pop out
of that in the back of yourbrain and will come to the front
of your mind and insights.
Innovation.
That's a recipe for it, exactlyI love hearing it.
George Davison (22:29):
That's right on, all right, so sounds perfect.
Your hobbies are wonderful.
Knowing what you know today,what advice would you give a
person interested in enteringinto that industry that you're
in?
Gabe Monroy (22:45):
I mentioned this a bit before but probably worth
elaborating on.
Learning how to learn is reallyimportant.
There is the pace of innovationhappening in the digital world
today is incredibly fast.
World today is incredibly fast.
(23:08):
I feel really bad for theteachers who have to develop
curriculum that can track howfast the world of technology is
moving today, because it's likeevery six months there's some
new disruptive innovation thatcomes out and it's like wait,
here we go.
We got to update the textbooksagain, we got to update the
curriculum again, and so, as astudent, it's really important
that you figure out a way totrack that innovation as it's
coming and figure out how tolearn about it so that you can
(23:29):
stay on top of your game fasterthan the more formal curriculums
can develop, and so that's askill that learning how to learn
is something I'd reallyencourage folks to prioritize,
and there's, fortunately, lotsof resources online online
learning programs things likeCoursera or Khan Academy and
(23:49):
different coding schools likethat, where you can get access
to tools that can help you learn.
But this idea that you can'trely on a system to sort of feed
you information in a push model, right, pushing the knowledge
to you you have to figure outhow to pull the knowledge that
you're going to need, and that'san important shift in terms of,
(24:12):
I think, how folks need tothink about the future.
George Davison (24:14):
And you can pull easier today than you ever were
able to do before right.
Correct.
Yeah, Get in that internet,focus on what you want to learn
and pull it out of there.
Gabe Monroy (24:23):
Yeah, and you know, even things like learning how
to do an effective Google searchRight, like that's a, it's a
thing that we might take forgranted, but you know, if you
talk to someone who has studiedhow to ask a question in a
search engine and get the rightanswer from a trusted source,
right, that's a very concreteskill that will take you real
(24:45):
far, and it's not that hard tolearn how to do it.
If you put your mind to it.
Well, that's good to know.
George Davison (24:51):
See, there's hope out there, everybody All
right.
So let's see here Based uponwhere you are in your life and
what you've brought with you, doyou think anybody can be
successful today?
Gabe Monroy (25:03):
And that's a broad word meaning successful with
your work, family, however youwant to describe it.
I absolutely do.
I think that you know successis in the hands of individuals,
right?
But it's also important thatyou define what success means
specifically, right?
There's a Japanese conceptcalled Ikagai which really
(25:28):
resonates with me and somethingI use when I'm coaching
different folks who I mentor,and Ikagai has sort of four
concepts, and the first is whatyou're good at right.
The second is what you enjoydoing, the third is what you can
make money doing, and thefourth is what benefits the
world right.
(25:48):
And so when you talk aboutsuccess right, really for me
success is can you get the sweetspot in the middle of doing all
those things at once whatyou're good at, what you enjoy,
what makes you money and whatthe world needs right?
And so the goal for me and foranyone that I'm involved in
mentoring, is how do we find thesweet spot right in the middle
where you can hit all thosethings?
(26:08):
Because to me, that's whatsuccess is.
Some people would define successis just the money part.
Some people would define it asjust you know doing work that
you enjoy potentially, butultimately, fulfillment is going
to be striking that balancebetween all those things and
over time, time it will change,right, because as we grow up, we
change, we evolve, and so maybewe're a little bit out of
(26:29):
balance Today.
For me, just as a concreteexample, one of the reasons I
love DigitalOcean is we'reserving small to medium-sized
businesses, and I think they'rewildly underserved, and so
that's a what the world needscomponent.
And so for me, success is can Icontribute to what I think the
world needs?
And I think everyone has towrestle with their own version
(26:51):
of, uh of those questions well,that's perfect.
George Davison (26:54):
We, as human beings I don't know about
everybody else in the world, butmost everybody I know we like
to.
I think the saying was put adent in the universe, or you
know, to make a contribution foryour, you know, your fellow
people.
It just that's another feelgood, that's a success.
Like I made this impact.
It took me a long time tofigure all this out, but look at
(27:17):
how many people benefit from it.
Right, it's wonderful.
It's a wonderful feeling.
Gabe Monroy (27:21):
Yeah, and it's also very personal, right from it,
right, it's wonderful, it's awonderful feeling.
Yeah, and it's also verypersonal, right.
What success means is going tovary greatly individual to
individual, and that's okay,right?
That's part of the goal, and soI think the first step is just
understanding what success meansfor you as an individual,
understanding that that willchange over time, and just start
chipping away at it, right?
George Davison (27:39):
That's great stuff, all right.
So what one project that youthink your industry has
struggled with but you thinkwould elevate humankind the most
?
Gabe Monroy (27:57):
That's a great question.
Part of the world, you know, 16million new developers are
projected to enter the market bythe end of 2023.
So coming up pretty soon here,right, and you think about where
those folks are.
Right, they're not coming up inthe, you know, western Europe
or the Silicon Valley area,right, these are going to be in
(28:20):
India, china, southeast Asia,africa, lots of different parts
of the world.
And so what do those folks need?
What do we need as society todeliver to those individuals, to
get their ideas and theirinnovations into our
socioeconomic fabric?
And that's a really importantquestion for me.
And so, when I think about whatare the innovations that could
(28:41):
enable that, that coulddemocratize technology for those
folks, there is this concept oflow-code and no-code tools,
this idea that you can builddigital products without
actually having to writeclassical computer code.
So you can think of it as, like, I'm going to draw out a mobile
app using sort of a move mymouse and put the box here and
(29:03):
collect input here and feed thatinto some other tool, and you
don't have to be a professionalcoder to build that application.
Right, there exists those sortof tools today.
They're not as good as theyshould be to empower those 16
million new developers that areentering the market, and so I
would love to see that kind oftool get better in the interest
(29:26):
of empowering that set of folks.
George Davison (29:27):
That makes a lot of sense.
So simplification to empowerothers who are coming up in the
field.
I remember back in the day whenthe mouse was invented at the
research center for Xerox, Ithink, is where that came from
and then Jobs got a hold of itand it changed the world.
(29:48):
Simplification of complex ideasis a lot of opportunity in that
space.
Gabe Monroy (29:55):
Absolutely, and large companies don't have a
monopoly on wisdom, but they dohave a monopoly on the tools and
technology required to deliverinnovation in parts of the tech
field today, and so we've got tobreak through that.
We've got to figure out how todemocratize that technology, and
there's lots of ways we coulddo that, but to me that's the
(30:17):
thing that would be the mosthelpful.
George Davison (30:18):
Yeah, some of these new innovations that are
coming out, they don't have thefinancing power that the big
corporation has.
That's another limiting factorat getting your innovation
forward.
All right, so last questionwhat do you think the next big
innovation will be in yourindustry?
Gabe Monroy (30:46):
be in your industry .
There's a lot.
I talked before about this ideaof serverless and locationless
compute, and I do think that'san important one, but I'm taking
a different pivot on that.
I really think that artificialintelligence and machine
learning is going to transformthe technology landscape over
the next decade.
I think if we're sitting here10 years from now and we're
(31:06):
looking back on this period andwe say, well, what really moved
the needle for the industry as awhole, it's things like the
OpenAI, gpt-3 language model orDALI 2.
I don't know if you've seen theability to create art images by
asking an AI a prompt hey, giveme a picture of a Colorado
(31:30):
farmer wearing overalls withsome goats behind them, and you
get this beautiful picture ofexactly what you described, and
it's mind-blowing what thattechnology is able to do.
And so when you think aboutapplied artificial intelligence
where, in this case, artificialintelligence applied to
generating imagery, right, thatkind of stuff is going to be
(31:52):
radically transformative to theindustry, and I think some
people are very afraid of this,right?
They think about well, oh gosh,is this going to disrupt my
ability?
As you know, I don't know acoder, right?
Am I going to be replaced byartificial intelligence, and
we've got to figure out how wecan allow these to be tools that
enable folks to be moreproductive, while accepting the
(32:15):
disruptive innovation component,and so striking that balance is
, I think, going to beinteresting, but I do expect
that to be transformative.
George Davison (32:23):
I think you're right and it's really
controversial in some ways rightnow.
I was just reading about anarticle where these artists I
think it was in California thisbig art competition and the
person who won it was an AI artcreation and the entire art
community was like they, theywent ballistic over.
(32:44):
Hey, what's going to happen tous?
And that transition whentechnology moves into
traditional, let's say,industries, it can be kind of
scary.
In the beginning there was anjust another little side story,
but back.
This is why innovation kind ofthrows people off for a while.
But an example would be there'sa little island right and you've
(33:06):
got all these little Islandersthere and and back ages ago and
all the men would push theirlittle boats out into the water
and they fish right and then oneday, you know, they bring back
to catch in.
One day this guy guy invents anet and he goes out and he
catches enough fish for theentire village in a couple hours
(33:27):
and the entire village goescrazy saying what are our people
going to do?
That's what we're supposed todo.
But then shortly thereafter wehad running water and better
roofs and roads were built, andso that transition is kind of
scary when innovation does movein.
I hope you're right.
(33:48):
I'm sure AI will rattle a lotof cages for a while, and then
we'll figure out how that, aswell as the telephone, the
electric light bulb andeverything else that
transitioned and disruptedeverything along the way.
We'll figure it out.
Gabe Monroy (34:03):
Yeah, and you know it's.
The cloud computing industry isa pretty similar story, it's
right.
It's like there used to be aset of folks who were managing
servers in a data center andracking and stacking gear and
cabling the gear and dealingwith power and cooling.
And now, with the cloud, theydon't have to do that anymore.
Right, because they can go toDigitalOcean and they can
purchase cloud resources right.
(34:24):
And so there was a set of folkswho were displaced.
Right, because they were theones who were working in the
data center.
It's like, oh, what happens tome now?
What happens to my career?
Well, guess what?
It turns out that they werepretty easily retrained into
writing software or helpingmanage the servers that were
running in the cloud, or helpingmanage the servers that were
running in the cloud.
(34:45):
And so it's really about beingadaptable to change more than
anything and accepting sometimesthat disruptive innovation will
come.
So, using your example of thefishing net, it's like, well,
now that we've got a net, whydon't you figure out how to
attach that thing to a boat?
Because once you do that, youcan start collecting even more
fish.
And so I think it's that growthmindset that I think is really
important for folks to keep inmind.
George Davison (35:06):
Well, Gabe, I can't thank you enough for your
time today and you sharing someof your life's wisdom with us so
far so thank you for coming in.
Gabe Monroy (35:16):
Thanks for having me.
George Davison (35:17):
Bye everybody.
Steven Ruffing (35:19):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
Tomorrow's World Today podcast.
Join us next time as wecontinue to explore the worlds
of inspiration, creation,innovation and production.
Discover more attomorrowsworldtodaycom.
Connect with us on social mediaat TWT.
(35:43):
Explore and find us whereverpodcasts are available.
Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast.
We sit down with experts,world-changing innovators,
creators and makers to explorehow they're taking action to
make tomorrow's world a betterplace for technology, science,
innovation, sustainability, thearts and more.
Episode host George Davison,who is also the host of the TV
(00:23):
series, tomorrow's World Todaysits down with Gabe Monroy, the
former chief product officer atDigitalOcean.
Gabe discusses his journey froma young coder to a tech
executive, highlighting his rolein delivering cloud computing
solutions for small businesses.
He also talks about the valueof learning, how to learn,
achieving a flow state forproductivity and happiness, and
(00:47):
how a hardworking single mom ledhim on a path to success.
George Davison (00:52):
Thanks for coming in and joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I hope you'll share someof your life experiences with us
.
You know real world stuff.
I'm looking forward to it.
All right, well good.
I'm looking forward to it Allright, well good.
So we're going to chat a littlebit about why don't we start
with where you work and what youdo there, so that our audience
can get a little more?
Gabe Monroy (01:13):
familiar with you, sure, so I'm the Chief Product
Officer at DigitalOcean, and soI'm responsible for delivering
the products, including design,engineering a lot of back-end
systems to enable our customersto build digital products using
cloud computing.
George Davison (01:29):
Wow, how did that come to be?
I mean, did you just wake upone morning and you were in this
really awesome position?
Gabe Monroy (01:37):
Yeah, I was straight on the chief product
officer track from when I was infifth grade.
No, of course, I twisted andturned my way into the role.
Lots of failure and interestingmistakes along the way.
Really, I was a coder from aprogrammer from when I was
extremely young.
I got a picture of when I wasnine years old, in front of an
(01:59):
old AT&T 6300 writing code Wow,and didn't have a lot of friends
, you know, when I was growingup, because I like to spend a
lot of time just kind of bangingaway on the computer and
focused on video games stufflike that.
Over time I moved into doingstartups and entrepreneurship
and I was, over time, successfulin that.
It didn't always start that way, but you know, I was able to
(02:21):
start and sell two companies.
The last one I sold toMicrosoft and I spent a lot of
time at Microsoft and from theresort of moved into executive
leadership and that's how Ilanded at DigitalOcean.
That's fabulous.
George Davison (02:33):
So we're going to learn a lot today.
We're going to ask a lot ofgood questions and hopefully we
can give some insight to thesefolks.
So they probably want to knowwell what is.
Let's talk a little bit aboutDigitalOcean so they understand
what that world looks like andmaybe what kind of job
opportunities might exist in thefuture in that space.
Gabe Monroy (02:56):
Sure, digitalocean exists to provide computing
resources to developers andsmall businesses who are looking
to build digital products,things like websites, mobile
applications.
Folks want to create mobile appsof the future.
They want to create newexperiences, product experiences
that are accessed over theinternet, and they don't really
(03:18):
want to have to manage theinfrastructure and the servers
and the cabling and the powerand the cooling and all that
annoying stuff that we had to doback when I was growing up.
They just want to kind of rentthat stuff and focus on the
products that they want to buildand the value that they want to
create for customers.
So that's what DigitalOcean isenabling, and we're doing that
for small businesses really, andthere's 100 million small
(03:39):
businesses out there in theworld and that's growing by 14
million every year, right, andso it's just a very underserved
part of the market today.
If you're a large enterprise,there's lots of places you can
go to get your cloud computingneeds met.
If you're a smaller company,there's a lot less out there in
terms of companies that arebuilding solutions targeted at
(04:00):
your needs, and that's reallywhere DigitalOcean fits in.
George Davison (04:02):
That's wonderful , your needs and that's really
where DigitalOcean fits in.
That's wonderful.
So if I was working atDigitalOcean let's say there are
probably a lot of differenttypes of jobs how do you prepare
?
If I was to go onto the websiteand look at that, how would I
prepare myself as a youngerperson right now If I set my
sights on going to work there?
(04:23):
Is there a certain way I shouldbe thinking, a certain track
that might make sense?
Gabe Monroy (04:28):
digital ocean.
Careers are extremely varied,right, so there are highly
technical careers where you canwork on, you know, as an
engineer on operating systems ornetworking or storage, or
really deep computer sciencefundamentals.
There's also careers inmarketing.
There's also careers in programmanagement.
There's lots of differentskills, and so for folks who
(04:53):
want to work in the techindustry, I think it's important
to remember that not everythingin the tech industry has to be
tech forward and related tocomputer science.
That said, there is a lot ofopportunity for folks who are
interested in learning math,programming, classical STEM
(05:13):
skill sets.
That does provide a reallyinteresting path forward in
terms of careers at companieslike DigitalOcean, which are
growing very fast.
George Davison (05:20):
Yes, Well, that's very helpful.
So STEM, STEAM and pretty muchstorytelling, marketing, through
all those gamuts.
There are lots of differentopportunities.
That's right.
Yeah, About how many peopledoes DigitalOcean employ?
Gabe Monroy (05:35):
We're just under 1,000 employees today and
growing quickly.
We have employees all over theworld.
In fact, we service customersin 185 different countries
globally.
It's important to us that wehave an employee base that is
reflective of the internationalnature of the business.
We've got folks all over theworld Definitely biased more
(05:58):
towards North America.
We have a lot of people inNorth America, but also lots of
people in Western Europe, lotsof folks in India, pakistan and
really across the globe.
Isn't it amazing?
George Davison (06:06):
now we're working remotely in all these
different locations.
Does DigitalOcean have aspecific headquarters where
everybody goes to work, or is itall pretty much remote?
Gabe Monroy (06:18):
It's an interesting story.
The company was founded andheadquartered in New York City,
and one of the challenges thatwe found was New York City is
expensive, right, it's anexpensive place to live, and so
we had some trouble recruitingthe talent that we needed in New
York City, right, and so westarted being remote friendly,
(06:38):
in that we would hire folks whowere willing to work from any
different part of the country,who were willing to work from
any different part of thecountry, and we were doing that
before the pandemic hit, beforeit was sort of required for
folks to do that, and so we wereabout 60% remote prior to the
pandemic and so, as a result,once everyone started working
remotely, we already had itfigured out more or less, and
(07:00):
that was a really big accelerantfor us.
And so today we're extremelyproud of our remote first
culture, and I love it becauseit allows us to go tap folks in.
You know parts of Idaho orparts of you know Canada.
You know where people may nothave access or may not have
thought they had access toreally great careers in the tech
(07:21):
industry.
You know we can now get accessto that talent and get access to
those ideas.
George Davison (07:26):
That makes a lot of sense.
Actually, there's an openinnovation which you can put out
there on the world and findpeople all over the world to
help you solve problems onthings that you're trying to
work on.
It's been around for a while.
Quite a few big innovationscame out of that space.
I don't think it would havehappened if it wasn't so global
and having access to people withtheir special areas and traits
(07:50):
that they know so well, thatmakes them tick.
So tapping people all over theworld makes sense to me.
Gabe Monroy (07:55):
Yeah, and it is, at the end of the day, a pretty
intense battle for talent forcompanies like DigitalOcean
talent for companies likeDigitalOcean right, and we want
to make sure that our ability todeliver for customers is
attached to our ability to getthe best talent in the world,
and by being remote friendly, wecan do a better job at that.
George Davison (08:14):
Well, all right, so they scooped you up, so
you're considered really greattalent and did somebody help you
along the way, like you didn'tjust become who you are.
Were there mentors when youwere in middle school or high
school who were some of theinfluential people in your life,
in your life when you weregrowing up?
Gabe Monroy (08:34):
I had a really different story when I was
growing up.
I think one of the the thingsthat was unique for me is my
first bosses when I startedworking professionally were all
female bosses in the technologyindustry, which, if you go back
(08:54):
to when I was coming up in thelate 90s and early 2000s, it's
actually kind of rare to havefemale technologists in
positions of leadership, and so,you know, those were my mentors
growing up and they taught me alot about.
You know just you know humilityin the workplace, how to
communicate, how to deliverimpact and sell your impact.
(09:19):
I think one of the things that,yeah, I recall learning very
much was it wasn't good enoughto just do good work and then
expect that the world wouldrecognize your good work.
You have to be able toevangelize why the work is
important and sort of sellyourself.
And some people think thatthat's chest thumping and maybe
(09:40):
a little bit untoward in termsof how that shows up, but it's
really important to be able totalk about the impact you're
delivering and how you'reinnovating on behalf of
customers, and that was one bigtakeaway from my mentors.
George Davison (09:52):
You know, there's an old poem that goes
hand in hand with what you justsaid he who has a thing to sell
and goes and whispers in a wellis not so apt to get the dollars
as he who climbs a tree andhollers.
Gabe Monroy (10:06):
I love that.
That's a good one, all right.
George Davison (10:11):
So that's great.
You had some gals who were outthere empowering you when you
were beginning your life in the,let's say, the computer
software space.
But let's, can we go back alittle further, sure?
Gabe Monroy (10:25):
how about, let's?
George Davison (10:25):
go back to like maybe when you're younger uh,
let's say middle school or highschool do you have parents who
were married and they workedtogether to help you?
Were they separated, can you?
Gabe Monroy (10:39):
would you be willing to share some of that?
Yeah, so.
So my, my family story is, youknow, a little abnormal, I would
would say.
Both of my parents are from theCaribbean.
Actually, my father was born inCuba, my mother was born on an
island off the coast ofVenezuela called Curacao, and so
first generation Americans yes,and that's an interesting
dynamic.
My parents also were divorcedwhen I was five and my father
(11:02):
wasn't really around all thatmuch, and so it was myself and
my mother and my two sistersgrowing up, and so that
definitely created aninteresting dynamic for me
personally.
One of the things my mother didwas she was starting small
businesses as a bookkeeper,helping folks just get their
bookkeeping system set up and dobasic accounting for folks, get
(11:24):
their bookkeeping system set upand do basic accounting for
folks and you know, this ismaybe in the mid-90s or early
90s.
And it was through thatexperience of helping my mother
get off the ground with some ofthat bookkeeping that I actually
got access to computers right,because she needed the computers
in order to build herbookkeeping business.
Computers right, because sheneeded the computers in order to
(11:45):
build her bookkeeping business,and so I ended up helping her
set up the computers at thedifferent you know clients that
she was servicing and that'ssort of how I got into that.
Wow, yeah, that's a great story.
George Davison (11:55):
I love that story.
You know, yeah, divorce can betough, but moms are tough,
aren't they, boy?
I tell you, they are drivenpeople and when they, when
they're, when they're alone withkids, it's amazing what they'll
pull off.
I came from a similarbackground single mother, driven
, and I give her all all thereasons why I've become who I am
(12:16):
because of my mom, really.
I mean, there were lots ofmentors, but started with mom
absolutely so.
Gabe Monroy (12:20):
you know, same thing for me and and you you
know, as the the son, I wasinspired by that drive that
you're describing and definitelywanted to help out, and it
allowed me to have a sense ofempowerment and a feeling like I
could do anything and sort ofconquer anything after a few
(12:41):
wins in terms of helping her.
That helped me get theconfidence I needed to branch
out into doing things on my own.
So before long I was setting upbulletin board systems with
dial-in modems where I had myown business that I was running
when I was 13, 14 years old.
It was all because I had thatconfidence from helping my
(13:01):
mother out and seeing the fruitsof that.
George Davison (13:04):
That's great.
I'm sure she was complimentaryof you along the way.
Gabe Monroy (13:07):
I, I, yeah, I.
I remember all the complimentsvividly, as you can probably
imagine.
Steven Ruffing (13:12):
That's great Well thanks for sharing that
yeah that's wonderful.
George Davison (13:17):
So let if we were to go back to high school,
if you could just try to triggeryour mind on just something
that wasn't so perfect.
Did you have any trip ups?
Did you have a failing grade?
Did you have something that youhad to work through in order to
get to where you wanted to go?
Gabe Monroy (13:37):
I yeah, I was not the best student, let's just put
it that way which was reallyweird because I was in sort of a
gifted and talented programwhere I was doing stuff in that
space, but in my normal Spanishclass and stuff like that, I was
sleeping in class and I wasjust not great.
(14:00):
And in retrospect I think it wasbecause I was kind of bored.
And what I took away from thatexperience was I really needed
to focus on learning how tolearn different things, and so
that's kind of where I ended upgoing.
But I think probably thebiggest mistake I would say is
(14:20):
the way that I went out of highschool straight into college.
I was not ready for that, andso I think I would have probably
done a lot better had I taken alittle bit more time between
high school and college tofigure out what I really wanted
to do, because once I got intocollege, I only lasted a couple
years before I went back intothe workforce.
(14:41):
I never graduated and I wouldhave loved to have completed
that journey, but I didn't knowwhat I wanted.
I didn't know what I reallyneeded at the time and and and I
felt pressure to kind of justgo on the train straight into
college, as people do, and eveneven today folks do, and I think
perspective would have probablybenefited me and being more
patient.
George Davison (15:01):
Yeah, that's helpful.
The learning how to learn otherthings.
You said yeah, so how did youteach yourself how to do that?
Would you share that?
Gabe Monroy (15:13):
please Sure, when I was really young I had access
to computers and really young is, you know, it's it 10, 11 years
old and the computers were thekey to video games and I really
wanted to play some video gamesright, and so the video games
(15:34):
were the lure for me.
And, as you can imagine, youknow, back in these days it was
kind of hard to get this stuffworking right.
It was always kind of brokenand there was always some
challenges.
It was kind of hard to get thisstuff working right.
It was always kind of brokenand there was always some
challenges.
But the idea of being able toplay this video game was
motivating to me, and so thattook me through.
It taught me perseverance, ittaught me how to learn in order
(15:55):
to go get the video game workingso I could go play it on the
weekend right.
And so, you know, having thatgoal and figuring out what are
the things I need to learn inorder to achieve that goal was
something, it was a pattern thatI started to develop, and it
started with those video games.
George Davison (16:12):
So it sounds like when you engaged yourself
to do your own self-learningright, I think we talked about
something called flow, yes,called flow, yes, and maybe you
could talk a little bit aboutwhat flow means to you and how
you achieve flow when you'redoing self-learning.
Gabe Monroy (16:30):
Yeah, there's a book out there called flow and I
read it and it really resonatedwith me.
It's this idea that you know,sometimes we work on stuff and
we really get lost in it.
And if you think about theattributes of the kind of work
that allows you to get lost init, there's a few things that
pop.
(16:50):
The first is the activity hasgot to be the right amount of
challenging Not too challenging,that it's frustrating, but
challenging enough to keep youengaged.
It also has to provide somerapid feedback.
You've got to understand howwell you're doing, because
otherwise, if the feedback cycleis too long, again you'll get
disinterested in it.
And and also it has to enableyou to feel a sense of
(17:12):
accomplishment after you've doneit.
And when you get these thingsright, you will find that
whatever you're doing maybe it'smusic, maybe it's art, maybe
it's coding, maybe it's music,maybe it's art, maybe it's
coding, maybe it's designingconsumer products, could be lots
of different things you'llstart working on it and 12 hours
will pass and it'll feel likefive minutes right, right, like
(17:33):
time travel.
It's like time travel right.
And and I and you know the bookargues that there's a real
strong correlation between thatflow state that you know I'm
describing and happiness, and so, for me, I'm always trying to
figure out how can I create flowstate for myself and how can I
enable the creation of flowstate for the teams that work at
(17:53):
DigitalOcean and elsewhere,because I think it's really
important to folks doing greatwork and to being happy in the
work that they're doing.
George Davison (18:00):
So anytime you start to feel that loss of time,
that flow state, right.
That's when, for example, whenwe're designing and creating new
things, flow state.
It happens a lot here and we do.
We have a great time.
You get a sense of euphoria andhappiness when you're doing it,
but before you know it you'relate for dinner.
(18:22):
Right, but you had a great day.
Gabe Monroy (18:27):
I do want to point out it's harder today than it's
ever been, right you think aboutthe advent of TikTok and the
advent of sort of the short formvideo and things like that.
Attention spans have gonereally short, right, and part of
this idea of achieving flowstate is focus for longer
periods of time, and the worldhas sort of moved away from that
(18:49):
in a lot of ways.
So being attentive and focusedon where are you finding the
desire to stay tuned intosomething for a long period of
time?
It's a really important skillto develop now and it's gotten
harder in the world.
George Davison (19:05):
I agree with you .
Do you have any hobbies?
Gabe Monroy (19:08):
I do, I'm a technologist executive.
I also live on a farm and I'mnew at this right and again for
me, I know nothing about farming.
I know nothing about, or knewnothing I should say about,
goats, chickens, livestock,guardian dogs, things like that.
(19:29):
But I've got all that stufftoday and it really keeps me
engaged and I find that I canachieve that flow state that we
were describing by cleaning agoat shed or a chicken coop, and
during those periods I'll oftenget some of my best ideas
related to work.
Right, it's almost likedisconnecting from the work and
(19:50):
focusing on manual labor,including manual labor that
smells really bad.
I will get some really greatideas that I can, you know, sort
of bring into my workday.
And if I didn't have that harddisconnect from work and I
stayed too plugged in for toolong into my computer screen and
type it in the keyboard, Iwouldn't have that perspective,
and so that's important for me.
George Davison (20:11):
Yeah, we've learned to manage that here.
It's that process of we have itrepresented with the open hand,
meaning the mind is free andyou're in flow state, but then
when you grind and grind andgrind, your hand gets tight or
your mind gets tight to thepoint where your knuckles are
white and you can't get an idea,you can't get into the rhythm
(20:33):
and before you know it, youbetter let go.
And when you let go and ifyou're trained in it, you go to
nature.
So I'm not surprised you have afarm.
That's beautiful.
You've figured all this out,because we're actually talking
about that in the world in whichwe create for our staff, which
is nature, is a very criticalpiece to unleashing yourself.
(20:57):
Nature has been around with usfor thousands of years and we
can learn a lot from nature.
Let's just say you have giftsinside you.
That, and so do all humanbeings that are observational
analysis, for example.
Right, how do you learn to useyour observational analysis when
(21:18):
they don't teach it in school,but somehow another?
We already have this gift.
And when we're younger and wewander through nature, it's just
that we feel very healthy andhappy and we're always in a good
mood, and then we get pulledinto this other world, which is
a little tighter all the time.
Learning how to manage thatpump turn it on and off is a
process, and so it's great.
(21:38):
It sounds like, hey, you're onthe farm, lose yourself, you go
into flow and then,subconsciously though, your
mind's probably working onproblems and then bang in comes
the idea, or whatever the ideamight.
Does that sound?
Gabe Monroy (21:53):
a little familiar, precisely, and I like to call it
vitamin n and for nature, right, and we all need our dose of
vitamin n, oh and, and you knowif, if you don't get it, it's
hard to find that perspective.
But you're right,subconsciously that's really
what it feels like.
Right Is you're working onsomething else and
subconsciously there's abackground task that's in your
(22:14):
head about your processing, yourworkday, and ideas will pop out
of that in the back of yourbrain and will come to the front
of your mind and insights.
Innovation.
That's a recipe for it, exactlyI love hearing it.
George Davison (22:29):
That's right on, all right, so sounds perfect.
Your hobbies are wonderful.
Knowing what you know today,what advice would you give a
person interested in enteringinto that industry that you're
in?
Gabe Monroy (22:45):
I mentioned this a bit before but probably worth
elaborating on.
Learning how to learn is reallyimportant.
There is the pace of innovationhappening in the digital world
today is incredibly fast.
World today is incredibly fast.
(23:08):
I feel really bad for theteachers who have to develop
curriculum that can track howfast the world of technology is
moving today, because it's likeevery six months there's some
new disruptive innovation thatcomes out and it's like wait,
here we go.
We got to update the textbooksagain, we got to update the
curriculum again, and so, as astudent, it's really important
that you figure out a way totrack that innovation as it's
coming and figure out how tolearn about it so that you can
(23:29):
stay on top of your game fasterthan the more formal curriculums
can develop, and so that's askill that learning how to learn
is something I'd reallyencourage folks to prioritize,
and there's, fortunately, lotsof resources online online
learning programs things likeCoursera or Khan Academy and
(23:49):
different coding schools likethat, where you can get access
to tools that can help you learn.
But this idea that you can'trely on a system to sort of feed
you information in a push model, right, pushing the knowledge
to you you have to figure outhow to pull the knowledge that
you're going to need, and that'san important shift in terms of,
(24:12):
I think, how folks need tothink about the future.
George Davison (24:14):
And you can pull easier today than you ever were
able to do before right.
Correct.
Yeah, Get in that internet,focus on what you want to learn
and pull it out of there.
Gabe Monroy (24:23):
Yeah, and you know, even things like learning how
to do an effective Google searchRight, like that's a, it's a
thing that we might take forgranted, but you know, if you
talk to someone who has studiedhow to ask a question in a
search engine and get the rightanswer from a trusted source,
right, that's a very concreteskill that will take you real
(24:45):
far, and it's not that hard tolearn how to do it.
If you put your mind to it.
Well, that's good to know.
George Davison (24:51):
See, there's hope out there, everybody All
right.
So let's see here Based uponwhere you are in your life and
what you've brought with you, doyou think anybody can be
successful today?
Gabe Monroy (25:03):
And that's a broad word meaning successful with
your work, family, however youwant to describe it.
I absolutely do.
I think that you know successis in the hands of individuals,
right?
But it's also important thatyou define what success means
specifically, right?
There's a Japanese conceptcalled Ikagai which really
(25:28):
resonates with me and somethingI use when I'm coaching
different folks who I mentor,and Ikagai has sort of four
concepts, and the first is whatyou're good at right.
The second is what you enjoydoing, the third is what you can
make money doing, and thefourth is what benefits the
world right.
(25:48):
And so when you talk aboutsuccess right, really for me
success is can you get the sweetspot in the middle of doing all
those things at once whatyou're good at, what you enjoy,
what makes you money and whatthe world needs right?
And so the goal for me and foranyone that I'm involved in
mentoring, is how do we find thesweet spot right in the middle
where you can hit all thosethings?
(26:08):
Because to me, that's whatsuccess is.
Some people would define successis just the money part.
Some people would define it asjust you know doing work that
you enjoy potentially, butultimately, fulfillment is going
to be striking that balancebetween all those things and
over time, time it will change,right, because as we grow up, we
change, we evolve, and so maybewe're a little bit out of
(26:29):
balance Today.
For me, just as a concreteexample, one of the reasons I
love DigitalOcean is we'reserving small to medium-sized
businesses, and I think they'rewildly underserved, and so
that's a what the world needscomponent.
And so for me, success is can Icontribute to what I think the
world needs?
And I think everyone has towrestle with their own version
(26:51):
of, uh of those questions well,that's perfect.
George Davison (26:54):
We, as human beings I don't know about
everybody else in the world, butmost everybody I know we like
to.
I think the saying was put adent in the universe, or you
know, to make a contribution foryour, you know, your fellow
people.
It just that's another feelgood, that's a success.
Like I made this impact.
It took me a long time tofigure all this out, but look at
(27:17):
how many people benefit from it.
Right, it's wonderful.
It's a wonderful feeling.
Gabe Monroy (27:21):
Yeah, and it's also very personal, right from it,
right, it's wonderful, it's awonderful feeling.
Yeah, and it's also verypersonal, right.
What success means is going tovary greatly individual to
individual, and that's okay,right?
That's part of the goal, and soI think the first step is just
understanding what success meansfor you as an individual,
understanding that that willchange over time, and just start
chipping away at it, right?
George Davison (27:39):
That's great stuff, all right.
So what one project that youthink your industry has
struggled with but you thinkwould elevate humankind the most
?
Gabe Monroy (27:57):
That's a great question.
Part of the world, you know, 16million new developers are
projected to enter the market bythe end of 2023.
So coming up pretty soon here,right, and you think about where
those folks are.
Right, they're not coming up inthe, you know, western Europe
or the Silicon Valley area,right, these are going to be in
(28:20):
India, china, southeast Asia,africa, lots of different parts
of the world.
And so what do those folks need?
What do we need as society todeliver to those individuals, to
get their ideas and theirinnovations into our
socioeconomic fabric?
And that's a really importantquestion for me.
And so, when I think about whatare the innovations that could
(28:41):
enable that, that coulddemocratize technology for those
folks, there is this concept oflow-code and no-code tools,
this idea that you can builddigital products without
actually having to writeclassical computer code.
So you can think of it as, like, I'm going to draw out a mobile
app using sort of a move mymouse and put the box here and
(29:03):
collect input here and feed thatinto some other tool, and you
don't have to be a professionalcoder to build that application.
Right, there exists those sortof tools today.
They're not as good as theyshould be to empower those 16
million new developers that areentering the market, and so I
would love to see that kind oftool get better in the interest
(29:26):
of empowering that set of folks.
George Davison (29:27):
That makes a lot of sense.
So simplification to empowerothers who are coming up in the
field.
I remember back in the day whenthe mouse was invented at the
research center for Xerox, Ithink, is where that came from
and then Jobs got a hold of itand it changed the world.
(29:48):
Simplification of complex ideasis a lot of opportunity in that
space.
Gabe Monroy (29:55):
Absolutely, and large companies don't have a
monopoly on wisdom, but they dohave a monopoly on the tools and
technology required to deliverinnovation in parts of the tech
field today, and so we've got tobreak through that.
We've got to figure out how todemocratize that technology, and
there's lots of ways we coulddo that, but to me that's the
(30:17):
thing that would be the mosthelpful.
George Davison (30:18):
Yeah, some of these new innovations that are
coming out, they don't have thefinancing power that the big
corporation has.
That's another limiting factorat getting your innovation
forward.
All right, so last questionwhat do you think the next big
innovation will be in yourindustry?
Gabe Monroy (30:46):
be in your industry .
There's a lot.
I talked before about this ideaof serverless and locationless
compute, and I do think that'san important one, but I'm taking
a different pivot on that.
I really think that artificialintelligence and machine
learning is going to transformthe technology landscape over
the next decade.
I think if we're sitting here10 years from now and we're
(31:06):
looking back on this period andwe say, well, what really moved
the needle for the industry as awhole, it's things like the
OpenAI, gpt-3 language model orDALI 2.
I don't know if you've seen theability to create art images by
asking an AI a prompt hey, giveme a picture of a Colorado
(31:30):
farmer wearing overalls withsome goats behind them, and you
get this beautiful picture ofexactly what you described, and
it's mind-blowing what thattechnology is able to do.
And so when you think aboutapplied artificial intelligence
where, in this case, artificialintelligence applied to
generating imagery, right, thatkind of stuff is going to be
(31:52):
radically transformative to theindustry, and I think some
people are very afraid of this,right?
They think about well, oh gosh,is this going to disrupt my
ability?
As you know, I don't know acoder, right?
Am I going to be replaced byartificial intelligence, and
we've got to figure out how wecan allow these to be tools that
enable folks to be moreproductive, while accepting the
(32:15):
disruptive innovation component,and so striking that balance is
, I think, going to beinteresting, but I do expect
that to be transformative.
George Davison (32:23):
I think you're right and it's really
controversial in some ways rightnow.
I was just reading about anarticle where these artists I
think it was in California thisbig art competition and the
person who won it was an AI artcreation and the entire art
community was like they, theywent ballistic over.
(32:44):
Hey, what's going to happen tous?
And that transition whentechnology moves into
traditional, let's say,industries, it can be kind of
scary.
In the beginning there was anjust another little side story,
but back.
This is why innovation kind ofthrows people off for a while.
But an example would be there'sa little island right and you've
(33:06):
got all these little Islandersthere and and back ages ago and
all the men would push theirlittle boats out into the water
and they fish right and then oneday, you know, they bring back
to catch in.
One day this guy guy invents anet and he goes out and he
catches enough fish for theentire village in a couple hours
(33:27):
and the entire village goescrazy saying what are our people
going to do?
That's what we're supposed todo.
But then shortly thereafter wehad running water and better
roofs and roads were built, andso that transition is kind of
scary when innovation does movein.
I hope you're right.
(33:48):
I'm sure AI will rattle a lotof cages for a while, and then
we'll figure out how that, aswell as the telephone, the
electric light bulb andeverything else that
transitioned and disruptedeverything along the way.
We'll figure it out.
Gabe Monroy (34:03):
Yeah, and you know it's.
The cloud computing industry isa pretty similar story, it's
right.
It's like there used to be aset of folks who were managing
servers in a data center andracking and stacking gear and
cabling the gear and dealingwith power and cooling.
And now, with the cloud, theydon't have to do that anymore.
Right, because they can go toDigitalOcean and they can
purchase cloud resources right.
(34:24):
And so there was a set of folkswho were displaced.
Right, because they were theones who were working in the
data center.
It's like, oh, what happens tome now?
What happens to my career?
Well, guess what?
It turns out that they werepretty easily retrained into
writing software or helpingmanage the servers that were
running in the cloud, or helpingmanage the servers that were
running in the cloud.
(34:45):
And so it's really about beingadaptable to change more than
anything and accepting sometimesthat disruptive innovation will
come.
So, using your example of thefishing net, it's like, well,
now that we've got a net, whydon't you figure out how to
attach that thing to a boat?
Because once you do that, youcan start collecting even more
fish.
And so I think it's that growthmindset that I think is really
important for folks to keep inmind.
George Davison (35:06):
Well, Gabe, I can't thank you enough for your
time today and you sharing someof your life's wisdom with us so
far so thank you for coming in.
Gabe Monroy (35:16):
Thanks for having me.
George Davison (35:17):
Bye everybody.
Steven Ruffing (35:19):
Thank you for listening to this episode of
Tomorrow's World Today podcast.
Join us next time as wecontinue to explore the worlds
of inspiration, creation,innovation and production.
Discover more attomorrowsworldtodaycom.
Connect with us on social mediaat TWT.
(35:43):
Explore and find us whereverpodcasts are available.
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