✊🏽 ✊🏾 ✊🏿 Why We Matter: Fireside Chat with Oates Ododa

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to this Cloudflare TV segment, Fireside Chat. We have for, it's sponsored by Afroflare.

It's all a part of our Why We Matter series.

With me, Devin Davis, IT Security Operations Engineer of Cloudflare. I have our guests from Patreon, Otieno Ododa.

And we're just here to just have a nice little chat about him, his experiences, and what it's like being black.

That's what it comes down to.

So Otieno, go ahead and tell us about yourself and what Patreon is for those folks that don't really know what it is.

Sure. Yeah, I'll start with myself.

Again, my name is Otieno. I'm the Director of Technical Foundation, which is an engineering team at Patreon.

That team really supports the engineering team that builds all of the product that users on Patreon see.

I started doing this kind of work about 20 years ago, systems administration, systems engineering work, really supporting, you know, large websites, basically.

And I moved into leading teams right around 2009 or so.

And I've been doing sort of work around in this space, and in a variety of related roles, pretty much ever since that time.

So yeah, my background really is in scaling for large, large websites.

Yeah, let's talk about Patreon a little bit.

So Patreon is a membership platform for creators.

And it's really a tool to allow creators to gain some independence from more ad driven, more volume driven ecosystems.

Instead of sort of hunting for clicks, or for likes, or for engagement.

For creators who create any kind of content, you know, music, podcasts, videos, art, a writing, that sort of thing.

If you have a fan base, or you're looking to grow a fan base, and you want to be able to connect with those folks have a meaningful connection and not a, you know, I need your eyeballs connection.

Patreon lets you create a membership structure.

So you can turn the people who are really engaged with your work and want to engage more with your work, those fans, you can turn them into patrons.

And in return, those folks are, it's not charity, it's not like begging for money, they're actually supporting you and you are giving them, you know, value in return, in the form of things like you can give them swag, like merch that we actually can work with you to, we have a feature that provides that you can provide them things like early access to content, discord chats, meet and greets with creators, with you as the creator, that sort of thing.

So it's really a platform that allows creators to, to kind of go develop their dreams, essentially, right, like, right, right, rather than being beholden to like monetization, and then, you know, suffering when you're demonetized, or waiting for, again, for all those eyeballs, you have patrons, and you become more in control of your destiny.

We've actually seen that it's been interesting to me as a, as an engineer, to see creators be freed.

You know, we hear stories of like, I don't have to do my day job anymore, I can focus on the folks, you know, the work that I want to do the creative work that I want to do.

Yeah, I've, I've actually seen similar stories about that.

I follow a lot of guys. I'm so personally, I'm, I like to be a home chef. And I follow a lot of guys on on YouTube that are essentially say, Hey, here's my patron ownership.

And they all have that same story of how they are able to use Patreon to help develop a their fan base and then be have a real sense of, I want to say life on out.

I guess you could say it like that. Because I mean, because when you're when you're doing a nine to five all the time, you kind of, you kind of feel like you might get stuck in a rut.

And, you know, it helped it essentially develop your entrepreneurial skills essentially develop from there.

Right? 100 % 100% Yeah.

And when you're doing a nine to five, and then you're doing this thing on the side, one of those things has to suffer, right?

But if you can get to the point where you can, you know, focus in, but also not have to focus in on the the nitty gritty of creating a business, back in the day, you might create your own website, and then you'd have to do WordPress, and then you got to figure out how to do whatever.

But now the folks that you follow, you know, like the home cooking, like they can just focus on what they do well, and then you can get, you know, access, you can say they can, you know, share, you know, recipes or do like cooking classes, it really just opens it up for those folks to be able to, to, to focus on what they love, and not have to like split themselves.

Cool. So that's what Patreon is.

But what about your day to day work? Tell us about that. Yeah, leadership is interesting, because it's not, it's not a very fixed set of things.

I support and work with an amazing team of engineers.

I'm very excited about my team, and the work that we do across a couple of foundational areas.

And I help my team support the engineering infrastructure for Patreon, all of the servers, all of the images that we store all of the databases that hold, you know, our creators and patrons content.

My team support that and do a lot of the work around helping get the features that our engineers write to our creators and patrons in a, in a, in a reliable and performant way.

That's really my focus. I'm sorry to interrupt, but do your creators have a chance to even also submit feature requests as well?

To the same way that engineers will be able to as well or no?

Not quite in the same way. And, but we do have a couple different channels.

Certainly we're, we listen to our users, right?

I know that our CEO has done some, you know, some, some AMAs on Reddit.

We certainly listen on Twitter, that sort of thing. We have some teams internally who are very focused, and we are a very creator focused business.

It's been amazing for me to see as an employee, just how focused we are on the creator.

Our mission is to get creators paid.

That is the thing that we talk about. And we're very, just singularly focused on that mission.

So we, we do listen absolutely to our creators.

Nice. Yeah. So yeah, I work really just to kind of connect folks around the company with the engineers and resources that they need around the foundation.

And that leads to like a really varied day-to-day experience. Sometimes I'm in the trenches working with engineers on, you know, designing new things or fixing or thinking about how to fix problems.

I'm not the fixer anymore, but I work with those folks who do.

Sometimes I'm working, I'm collaborating with other, you know, teams and stakeholders to, for them to figure out what they need from us so that we can kind of create internal solutions around their needs.

Right. You mentioned earlier that during your career buildup, you were, yeah, you made that transition from not just being in the weeds, as you said, but also leading the team.

So what, can you describe how that, how you personally were able to make that transition?

Because I've seen a couple of times where some folks do feel like they'd be able to make that transition, but in the end, it's like, it's not good for both the team and for themselves because sometimes things happen.

So tell us about that transition you personally made.

Yeah. The transition I personally made is probably, may not be the path for everyone.

At Friendster right around 2008, 2009, there have been a few changes in the company, some departures and opportunity presented itself.

We had a small team, we had a mission, and I really went to my boss and I said, I'm not too worried about like the money or the title, but I want to fix this.

I want to push this thing forward.

I want to carry this thing forward. And my boss, who I really enjoyed working with, I followed him to two other companies after that.

He was like, okay, cool.

And he gave me that opportunity. So that's one of the things I always sort of suggest is like, go and find that opportunity and prepare yourself.

The only other thing I'd say is that it's not always the best path. The best person at doing the work is not always the best person to manage the work.

Management is a very specific skill and being at the top of your craft is also a specific skill.

Those two can be different paths and they should be really equally as rewarding, I think.

Nice. Yeah, I hear all the way because if it's not equally rewarding to you, then there is no, there really isn't a point in continuing on that, right?

Like you have to, because all in all, it all comes down to whether you feel comfortable in this or not, because if you're not comfortable in making that choice or that transition to lead, then you're only doing a detriment to yourself.

Right.

Right. But too often we present that as like, that's the only option, right?

Like I get to a ceiling and then I either got to lead or I'm not going to get praises.

I'm not going to get opportunities. So that's a problem for sure.

But I do like your point about how the best person isn't necessarily the right person to lead, right?

Like that's something to pass the offering plate around.

You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. But in any case, what's your most challenging experience to date?

And this doesn't have to be at Patreon, but this could also be somewhere else as well.

Sure. Yeah. It wouldn't be Patreon. I've been really, I've really enjoyed working at Patreon just from a personal standpoint.

So the challenges I think are the right kind of challenges, right? How do we do the tech?

How do we get the org together? How do we think about culture? Certainly early in my career, I've had the kind of experiences that probably ring familiar for folks who are minorities, who are in sort of different sets.

I've had folks suggest I should just go along to get along.

I've had, I had a boss suggest that I was physically intimidating, which for me at like five, eight is almost a compliment.

Hey man, that's short brother's got to represent like real, like, right.

I'm just saying like, I'm a solid, I'm a solid five, seven, maybe three quarters.

So round up to five, eight, right. But I'm a solid five, five, seven and three quarters.

And the fact that you find me intimidating, I don't know if I should be, I should be feel flattered or be like, you know, maybe you shouldn't be, maybe this shouldn't happen.

Right. Maybe, maybe that's a you thing, right?

Like maybe that's on you. So, so yeah. I've had that situation. I've had, you know, there's been a time or two where I didn't get jobs that I was clearly easily qualified for.

But I've also been really fortunate to be able to work with, to find good mentors, to find, to work with folks who gave me a chance and to work with folks with teammates who valued my contributions enough to the point that they wanted to work with me again.

Yeah. So the team that at Friendster that opened the door for me to what I do now was very much, I found mentors there.

They gave me a chance, et cetera.

I mentioned a boss that I'd worked for before that I, that I, that I went to work on work with again.

But again, I have had some experiences. And I think the most challenging experiences for me are the ones that lead to kind of uncertainty.

Yeah. When you, when it comes to like racism and bias and that sort of thing, it's rarely the kind that slaps you in the face.

It's not the, you know, there are no hoods, right?

There are no like, you know, burning crosses. Fortunately for us, for me, where I am, right.

I know that's not the case for everyone.

Right. But it's always like a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of like that, that blow to your confidence where you're like, was this the reason, right?

Like, was there a legitimate reason or is it, is it something else? Right. There was one, one situation that stands out to me.

I was at a job where there'd been a reorg and my new boss didn't really understand what I did, what my team did and the role of my team, sort of in a broader engineering organization.

And that meant that we really were fundamentally at odds about what, about what my team should do and what I should do.

That situation kind of turned more acrimonious than it needed to.

That was the boss that suggested that I was physically intimidating to my team, which was just bizarre.

Cause my team largely really enjoyed working with me.

So, so I ended up leaving and kind of shaken and kind of unsure, like of where I was going to go next.

Right. Cause it's taken me a long time to have the confidence to be like, I know exactly what I'm doing.

Not cause I don't, not because there were problems, but because there are things that kind of just like that nagging voice that like imposter syndrome.

I don't know. I'm not good enough.

Maybe there's a thing and something like that can shake you to your core and really give that voice volume.

Right. Yeah. I don't think people understand that imposter syndrome hurts black people the most, like in my, in my personal opinion, because we're already dealing with on a daily of living black, but now I have to be go to work black and think about, am I good enough or am I not good enough or, oh snap, I messed up right here.

So does that mean I might get fired or I might get a, or, or some sort of reprimand or something like that?

It's just, it's just something, something, sometimes some people don't realize that that hurts the most.

Right. And there's a weight of having to like represent the entire, you know, the entire community to represent all black people are all black men or, you know, and that, and that it just, it just, it, it weighs on you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Leaving stranded that, that, that, that, that's kind of an interesting way you put that when you left that from that other position to your next spot for someone that might be, might experience the same sort of thing.

How did, how were you able to, I guess, A, comprehend that you are not really stranded.

You actually have some sort of help, whether it's family related or some sort of ally support somewhere or whatever.

And then B, did that always stay in the back of your mind at your next position of, am I, am I really alone?

Right.

That's a good question. It, it, it wasn't, it didn't linger. And I know it can, so I'm not going to say that that's a natural way for it to go.

I think it's important to build your network, to have folks that you can talk to, to have folks that you can, you know, and have mentors.

So, you know, from all walks of life I've been very fortunate that I haven't, you know, I have rarely had to use my resume because I can, there are people that are, so that will say, Hey, come work for me.

Hey, I really enjoy, I enjoyed working with you.

I want to work for you again, that sort of thing.

But that doesn't mean that there wasn't like a fair amount of soul searching in that moment.

Like what am I going to do? Will I ever find work again?

It's laughable to me now because I've had so many roles since then. Right. But, but in that moment, that is a very real, a very real thing.

So again, I would encourage folks to, to really lean on network, to lean on their community, to do whatever soul searching is necessary, right.

To make sure that you're not, that you weren't actually wrong.

Right. But when that thing goes down, you mentioned like, if I break something, was it you or, you know, or, or was it something else?

Right.

So I had to do that as well. And I came out again where I am now. I'm fine. I'm good.

Yeah. Yeah, of course. How do you protect your mental during that time? Like, like I'm, I'm as a black male, your mental is, is really all you have, I guess.

I mean, of course you have, if you're fortunate, fortunate and blessed enough to have family, that's something you already always have in the back end.

But then it's your brain.

Like, how do you protect your mental during that, not only that experience, but all these experiences really of being, of working while black, living while black and all that stuff?

Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question.

And I think I don't, I'm sure I don't have all the answers, but I can certainly speak to my experience, of course.

Of course. And that's all, that's all we want.

That's all we want. Yeah, of course. Of the, the, the, the diaspora is, you know, gives strength, right?

Being able to tap into that on multiple levels, right?

Having, again, friends and family, being able to tap into communities that you can find online.

I'm a computer geek, and I don't say that with any kind of, like, I love it.

Yeah, there you go. So that's what, that's where I go, right? And I go, I also have, it's the thing that I've done constantly is I want to prove the haters wrong, right?

Right? Right. Please underestimate me. That's what I want.

I want to make sure that 10 years from now, the person that made me leave, the person that did this thing over here, I don't want to have to say a word to them.

I don't want to have to tell them anything, right? I want it to be so obvious that I can be, and it's maybe it's a little, I don't know what, but I want it to be obvious.

I just want to be like, that motivates me. It's one of those, please believe me.

Come at me if you will. Right. I try to relish that, and it's not easy.

I definitely don't want anyone to feel like, oh, well, you just do that, and then you're good.

No. But if you can, if you can, you know, find that place after the soul searching and connecting with the community to be like, I'm going to prove that person wrong.

I feel like that can be a good outcome in a situation like that. Gotcha.

So what if I were to tell your younger self that, hey, man, you're going to grow up, and you're going to be, you're going to go through all these, this career flow of, from just a coal worker or a mine worker, then you're going to actually lead a team, and then you're going to be a director at one of these great companies that you've been at.

You told me personally that you used to work at places like Twitch, for example, but then now you get to Patreon, and now, what would you say to that young person?

I mean, what I would say to that young person is, there's an element of like advice and like, just hold on, it'll come.

But you know, if that was me, I would be shocked.

I didn't have a plan getting here. Frankly, I didn't have a plan for my career until maybe six or seven years ago.

I had already led teams.

Like I mentioned earlier, when I jumped into leadership at Friendster long ago, I just wanted to see it done better.

I just wanted to see the work improved. And I had a singular focus on that.

So if I was going to give advice, you know, to my younger self or to someone else in the space, like, I would say, let's, I would say, you know, do the work.

Be whatever you are, be a good one, you know, right? Try to be the best.

The best does not mean the smartest. Right. Hard work counts for way more than just like, raw intellect.

Being smart also helps. But those are the things I would say.

And those are not the things you come out of like high school or college thinking.

You think if I got the best grade, I'm going to get the best job. Less about like the hard work and the sacrifice.

Right? Yeah. I'm with you all the way.

Like, I just, it's interesting to be able to look back on where you were, and then see the, you can both look at the progressions and the regressions that you experienced to make yourself better.

So what, is there anything that you would change, I guess, to say, be like, hey, you know, I don't want to go through this specific route and, or something like that.

Or would you want to still, if you had a time machine and say, hey, and I know that the whole theory of back to, back to future theory of being future and all this stuff.

Aside from that, is there anything that you would change or make different?

I have to just, no, there, there isn't, you know, there's the temptation in a hypothetical like that to kind of go back and sand off the rough edges.

Right. Like, what if I hadn't gone through that?

But having, looking at the, at the, the entirety of, of, of my career and where I've landed, I'm beyond my wildest dreams as a kid.

So I wouldn't change it.

And I'm very fortunate that like, I have to, I have to constantly sort of like, you know, pinch myself, like I'm here.

So I don't, it's not like I'm not fame or anything like that, but just a level of success where I feel like I have a modicum of control over my, you know, my destiny and where I go and what I do.

I'm very fortunate in that, but I wouldn't, the rough edges got me here.

Right. They gave me the perspective.

And I think that that perspective is critical. So I wouldn't change a thing.

That's beautiful. That's good. So for any younger person, younger black person that's wanting to jump into the infrastructure or, or I guess, you know, is it, would you, would you also consider yourself like SRE sort of like, or just infrastructure?

Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. What would you, what advice would you give them?

Aside from signing up for courses galore on Coursera and stuff like that.

Right. Right. Yeah. I would say, look for opportunities, not in any particular order, look for opportunities, network and sacrifice strategically and be curious.

Yeah. So sort of that, like you need to like a, like a rapacious curiosity about how things are, why they are and how to fix them.

And it can be a little it can be a little daunting and maybe, maybe slightly it's not an easy road to think about what's broken and sometimes to realize you can't fix it.

But if you have that drive to fix what's broken and you practice that, I think that's crucial.

Strategic sacrifice to me is a big deal. I've heard, I've heard of a lot of folks who are just like, I want to get paid and then I'm going to learn the thing.

Like, I think we have to invert that. Right. It's not get the money and then the power, right.

It's get the responsibility, practice it, sort of prove yourself worthy.

But folks are worried about being like used or like, I don't think you should worry about that too much.

Right. Pay your dues is really what I would say. Do it for a minute. Get to the point where you're like, where you know your worth, where that worth is clear to you.

And then that's what I would say you should do. You know, the kind of the money will follow and the role will follow.

Networking is absolutely critical. I would not, I got very, very lucky early in my career to meet people who are willing to help.

So use your network. I am always open to trying to help folks, to give folks tips from my, you know, kind of my own unique experience, my limited experience really, if it's, if it can help.

So it's important to use it to grow the network and be real upfront.

Hey, I need help with this. This is what I'm trying to do.

What should you do? And be ready for feedback. Like you need to go deep.

You need to go, you know, you need to work on this for a while, that sort of thing.

Yeah. That's interesting. You said, I like the way you like framed that up in a strategic sacrifice because some people sometimes are not willing to, you know, go the, they'll end up seeing that there's only one way and that's it, but not be, be open to the fact that there are multiple, multiple paths to get to where you need to go more than anything really.

Right. Because a lot of times, and I have a, I have a three month old now, and I'm pretty sure that when he grows up, he's going to say pops, I'm not having him call me daddy.

I'm going to have him call me pops because I feel like I'm old guy.

Anyway, he's going to say pops. So I want to do this than the other.

I'm like, well, son, you got, you got to do the work. You got to do the work.

You got to be willing to do the work, man. And then he's going to, he's got, I'm pretty, I'm, I would bet myself a dollar, the old, the old trading places bet.

But myself, Randolph and Mortimer dollar bet that, hey, he's going to complain and he's not going to see what's, what, what, how much of a, of a reshaping and a, and a smooth surfacing you end up going to from, from being a rock into, into grow into a diamond.

Like I'm pretty sure that that's some time, something that a lot of young folks might not say a lot.

It's hard to see unless you do it.

I hear you on that for sure. Yeah. Well, we've got two minutes left. And so I now have to ask the, not have to, I'm just playing.

I'm going to ask the, the age old question that we've been asking for all of our fireside chats.

Why do you think we matter?

Like people in tech, in life? Why do you think we matter? Sure. Yeah. Taking the question kind of at face value, I feel like it's kind of axiomatic, you know, if people matter, then black people as people matter.

Right. But I think the question certainly is like, you know, why should we, we value, you know, black people in these, in these fields and in these spaces.

And I think we bring, we all bring unique, we all bring different perspectives, but there is a perspective that, or a set of perspectives that's shared by folks who, who are, or black, who are black women, who are black LGBTQIA plus.

Right. And those, those unique sets of perspectives, we are not one, we're not a monolith.

None of those sets are monoliths, but we all bring kind of like unique sets of perspectives, right.

That enrich any business, any organization trying to solve problems, like the most complex problems of our time that deal with people.

Right. So if you don't sort of solicit and grow and build a diversity of perspectives, just as a business, just as a matter of profit and loss, you, I don't think that you can profit.

I think any organization that looks for that diversity will do better than the, than the, than the organizations that do not.

So we bring just as, as black people and as, you know, our history in this nation, we have a very unique set of perspectives that I think is valuable for any business, any organization, any endeavor.

Nice. I love the way you framed it.

Because like, look, you just can't keep on taking the same coin.

When you flip a coin, there's a 50% chance it's going to land on different sides, right?

You can't keep on expecting the same result by asking the same person, right?

Like, you have to, you have to be able to input our own value into this. Anyway.

Well, I like to appreciate you for joining us during this time and hope you all have a beautiful day.

Awesome. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.