Home Office TV

Good morning. I believe we are live. Welcome to Cloudflare's Home Office TV, where we discuss what it's been like for our employees to go from a very busy, very office-focused life to suddenly working at home in the midst of a global pandemic. And today my guest is Carly Bothe. Do I say the E? Carly Bothe? Yes. You're right. Welcome, Carly. Don't get that wrong. Welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Can you tell us what your role is at Cloudflare? Yeah. So I'm on the finance team. I am a project manager and just kind of act as Thomas's chief of staff, help out with a lot of different projects, including like my first big project when I started was like IPO readiness and then helping kind of project manage us through the IPO, which was really exciting. And I'm now working on a handful of different kind of cross-functional finance projects. So super fun. Had you ever done that before the IPO readiness? Like, was that something that you had done for another company before you did that with Cloudflare? So not exactly. In my prior life, I was a consultant at Pricewaterhouse and did a lot of like finance transformation work. So I did a lot of, you know, divestiture and acquisition work in terms of like back office finance and accounting and day one readiness and that sort of thing. So from a project management perspective, I had a lot of that background. And so it was just kind of a different, you know, end goal that I was managing towards. But, you know, I like working with people and, I mean, getting to know, like the, my favorite part about helping with IPO is just getting to interact with all of the different functions across the company. And, you know, that's lended well to kind of the projects that I've taken on post that because they have been cross -functional in nature. And so, you know, I get to continue to work with, you know, the product team or the HR team or the infrastructure team on different things. So it's really fun. And how has that going working from home? We were chatting a little bit before, before we went live. So you were living in the city at the start of this. Yeah. And now? And now I'm in beautiful Lake Tahoe. This is, this photo was taken like maybe two miles from my house. Yeah. I mean, I think the existing relationships have been really key and, you know, continuing to be really productive. There are definitely things that would have been easier to sort out or, you know, whatever, if we were all in the office together. But I think the team has really managed well through it. And some of the things that we're in the process of implementing in a plan, which is like a financial modeling, finance and sales modeling tool. It's kind of like people refer to it as like Excel on steroids. You can kind of build anything. And so we're working through that implementation currently. And I think some of those things like, you know, it'd be nice to be there in person with our implementation partner to see different things or walk through different example models. But, you know, we've worked through that and, you know, just trying to find ways to like, I'm very thankful for the existing relationships that I have. And so trying to find ways to make sure that the new hires that we have joining the finance team and the BI team that both report up through Thomas are, you know, getting integrated. And we've started doing some like what we're calling like brown bag launches to kind of just get people interacting and make sure the new hires are introduced to the group and that sort of thing. So yeah. Yeah. And what's your living situation now? Where's your home? Are you working outside in this moment? Yes. So I have at the place that I'm renting in South Lake, I have a front porch, which is where I'm sitting now with like two little Adirondack chairs and a table. And then I have a backyard too, like a little shed where I keep all my bikes and, you know, a grill, which I've never owned before. So that's been really exciting. And the place is furnished, which is nice. So I just put my things in storage, you know, because things were so uncertain. I was like, I don't want to pay to have all my stuff shipped out to Tahoe area and, you know, just kind of figure things out as I go. So my, I have an aunt that lives up in Petaluma. And so I have the stuff there just in case I need anything, she can easily access it. She has a key and that sort of thing. So it's great though. Like my, my front porch has been my, it's where I take most of my meetings and that sort of thing. Cause it's so out here. Yeah, that's really great. I think it's wonderful that we were able to, you know, tell people like, Hey, it's going to be a minute before we're back in the office. When I make some lifestyle changes, like now, you know, now is maybe a good time, you know, like that boost of like, you know, I mean, dense city living, you know, San Francisco, obviously we're both in the Bay area, you know, it's very expensive for housing. I'm in the city. It's extremely dense energetically. There's a lot of concrete. I know that for me personally, it's been a lot of in my studio time. Cause I don't have like a walk where I can do outside. So in that I'm excited to, to let all the fans of home office TV know that I am personally going to be upgrading my living scenario as well. And I'm moving into exciting. I know I'm so excited. I'm moving into a cottage in Lafayette. I've never really been a suburbs fan, but I think in this moment of time it was really the choice was about the nature. Like, you know, like once I started seeing all this movement in like kind of the rental market in the area I started just looking, I would look every once in a while online and I would, I put in cottage the other day and I cottage popped up in Lafayette. That's literally across the street from walking trails that you can walk. Like it's by Briones park. And so it's this really large park. And it's like, so, you know, I know that we'll have at least four months where we're not doing like a daily commute. And I really am hoping for some kind of a modified schedule that, you know, that I don't personally need to be necessarily in the office every single day. So I'm really looking for that kind of flexibility. I think that, you know, like I might have to ride the BART, you know, so I'm sure it'll be interesting, like facemask, like heart, like experience. But I know I'm really excited that I was able to like, just, you know, you get kind of complacent sometimes too when you're living somewhere. I mean, moving is the whole thing, but the trade -off of having nature, like a backyard, I'll have a little backyard. And so I can do my office TV from my backyard. Yeah, it's such a game changer. It's my last place, like I was mentioning, like I was living in the inner sunset. So it was great. Like I had, you know, Golden Gate Park was like three blocks away. And I do a lot of like gravel riding. So I would ride from my house over the bridge into the headlands on the weekends and do like long gravel rides when we weren't allowed to like really drive anywhere. But not having like a place to just like take calls outside or like shake a rug or, you know, just like fresh air was like really getting to me. And so this was, this was like a really good move. And in like trails, talk about trails out your door. Like I did a mountain bike ride this morning on one of like the most fun trails in South Lake. That's, I had to drive there, but it's like a, you know, seven minute drive from my house. And then like Tahoe Mountain and a few other trails that like I can ride from Fallen Leaf Lake, which I don't know if you've been there. It's kind of like. I have not. It's right. So if you drive to Emerald Bay, like from the Emerald Bay, like lookouts, if you hike towards like desolation wilderness, you can see Fallen Leaf Lake and like Cascade Lake. There are so many like stunning lakes. Wow. You know, Lake Tahoe aside, like that's a stunning lake in itself. Obviously it's the biggest and the clearest probably, but there are so many other just like little gems that are fun to discover and explore. So suddenly everybody from Cloudflare is going to be like outside your door. You're going to be like, how did they find me? Like, where was that trail? Where is Carly? Yeah, that sounds really great. I think that, has, have you started any new like hobbies? I mean, it sounds like you're pretty into biking. And so you're really like diving into that. Have you started any like new or different things since the Rodex Panasol? Yeah. One of the most fun and exciting new toys that I got is a stand-up paddleboard. Oh, cool. Yeah. So I got an inflatable one. And it's awesome because like they fold up pretty small. So I was actually, so Mammoth Lakes from South Lake Tahoe is less than three hours away. And so I was actually in Mammoth Lakes this weekend and took my stand-up paddleboard. And I mean, talk about amazing lakes. Like Mammoth has like just beautiful Alpine lakes. And so took the stand-up paddleboard there and paddled around. But there is also like a put in not far from, there's like this marsh area that's like conservation area where there are a lot of birds. And actually there's like a bald eagle that like hangs out on this tree that we've seen. And apparently the locals have named, his name is Hugo. And so like paddling kind of through this little marsh that just opens up into Lake Tahoe. Wow. And that's super close to my house. And on, days when the water is like just calm, I do a lot of running too. And so I would run out to the lake and I'm like the first few weeks I was here, I was like, I need a stand-up paddleboard. Like the water is perfect right now. So I got one. So that's been like my new kind of exciting thing that I've taken up. And then at the beginning of shelter in place, I was actually cooking more. Okay. Um, so I was like finding some fun online recipes and that sort of thing. Um, and that didn't last very long. So you're still having to cook, right? You're not, are you going out to eat? I mean, no, no, no. I'm still cooking, but just more lazy cooking. Yeah. Just like, you know, make some quinoa and roast some veggies. And like, I can eat that for a week. It's fine. Yeah. Um, salad, of course. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Um, but that in, um, at the beginning of quarantine, um, was going on a lot of, like I was saying, like long gravel rides in Marin. I think that I ended up climbing up Mount Tam on a bike, like every possible trail that you can probably climb up Mount Tam. So it was just like, you know, kind of like long all day gravel rides, which passed the time in quarantine for sure. Since, you know, like all the trailhead parking was closed, but it was open to locals. So if you wrote, I'm a local now, baby, I rode my bike. I rode from home. Well, you're going to be my new fitness inspiration, you know, like hitting you up. Oh, good. Yeah. My goal is to get in like, you know, more, more exercise. Like, cause I feel like I don't really have that drive that apparently you have, um, you know, like moving your body and burning calories. And I believe with this drive, like, you know, that I can develop it, you know, well, and especially if you're closer to trail. Yeah. Trails and like, that just makes it that much easier. Um, and you know, it's super nice and the weather will be nicer in the East Bay too. So that'll be really good. It'll be a little hotter. I like the cool weather. So I don't mind, like, I love the fog. I'm a huge fan of like fog and like, yeah, you know, like I don't mind like the gray. Um, but I have my ways of dealing with the heat. I'm a big fan of the cold, wet Sarong. I like to evangelize the cold, wet Sarong. I used to go to a lot of music festivals in a way that I would get through the, um, you know, really hot a hundred degree. We didn't sleep all night, but now we really do want to hear music, but it's in an open Prairie in Canada and there's no shade. Right. And so I was like, Oh my God, we're going to all die. But then I saw people wetting down their Sarongs with this very like cold in the ground Canada. And then I was like, Oh my God, it was like the best idea. And I would see hot people coming at me with like a wagon and their face would be red and they would be suffering. And I would take my cold, wet Sarong and I would like envelop them. That was one of my gifts when I went to Burning Man too, was I had a cooler full of cold, wet Sarongs and I would just, I would just kind of like cool people down. And, you know, if I see people hiking on trails, I'm like, do you not, have you not heard the good news? Like, let me tell you about the glory, you know what I mean? That is evaporative cooling technology. So I'm happy to be able to give a shout out to the cold, wet Sarong, you know, to my seven fans. Yeah. I love it. Um, yeah, it was, I actually met a girl like maybe three years later at a music festival who was like, you're the one who told me about the cold, wet Sarong. I'm like, Oh my gosh. I used to sell them alongside my jewelry too. Cause I was a jewelry vendor before I came to Cloudflare. I was, uh, like kind of my own little, um, I had my own various businesses, like massage therapists and jewelry designers. So I would do a lot of vending, which was really fun. You need to do that social interaction. So I would sell Sarongs to people at music festivals also. Nice. I'd be like, you can have a Sarong. I'm like, keeps you cool during the day. You know, you won't get heatstroke and die. Yeah. You can sit on it when you get home, cover your TV with it, you know, and then I saved your life, you know? Yeah. That's awesome. What kind of jewelry? Um, no, I design like silver and stone jewelry. Um, so I would go to India and buy stones and then, um, have them set in silver. So healing stones, like different vibrations, tourmaline, sujalite, larimar, um, like all the fun, beautiful stuff. And then, yeah, it was, it was a fun little hustle for a while. I'm so glad that I'm not in hustle mode during, um, the quarantine and during, Oh my gosh. Yeah. No, like I I've been like, thank you Cloudflare, you know? Yeah. How did you end up coming to Cloudflare? Um, so I, so I mentioned I was a consultant previously, um, and Maddie Gatto, who is our controller here at Cloudflare, who's amazing. Love her. Shout out to Maddie. Um, she's super woman. Um, and my previous boss, um, who has since left the company. Um, but so they both worked at Symantec and Symantec was my client when I was at PWC and Maddie and my old boss, Mark. Um, and actually Thomas was there as well, but I didn't know Thomas as well at the time, um, came to Cloudflare and Mark was kind of tasked, um, by Thomas with kicking off this IPO readiness project. And he was like, well, this, you know, I need a project manager to help me with this. I can't do this by myself. And I had reached out to Maddie just to kind of see how things were going at Cloudflare and like, you know, had decided that I just knew that I, you know, did not want to grow up to be a partner at PWC. Like that wasn't what I wanted. And so it was kind of starting to try to figure out like, you know, consulting is tricky, especially the type of consulting I was doing. Cause I was in finance, kind of advising companies on finance and accounting related things, but I, I'm not a CPA. I don't have an accounting degree and I had never worked in FP&A and I love like the project based nature of work. Just like, you know, always changing and always just kind of going with the flow and pivoting as needed. Never, never a dull moment. Um, and so Mark and Maddie were like, uh, do you like, do you want to come to Cloudflare and like help project manage this, you know, like kind of like readiness process and whatever. And I was like, yeah, that sounds great. So I talked to, you know, Maddie, Mark, um, I got to interview with Michelle, which was awesome. Um, even just like reading, you know, like different articles about her and stuff was really cool. And she's amazing. Yay, Michelle. Yeah, she really is. Um, so yeah, that was, that was how I ended up here. And, um, it's been such a great ride. Um, we're, you know, getting to work closer with Thomas kind of like, as my previous boss had left was really awesome. I've really enjoyed getting to know him. He's a phenomenal boss and, um, was, you know, a huge enabler of me being able to be here. Um, so that, that was like super meaningful to me. And, um, you know, I like to think that I've been just as productive or more given everything that's been happening. I feel like when you're, you know, just like in a happier place, like life-wise, you end up being a more productive and, uh, you know, not that I, not that I wasn't productive in the office or not happy in San Francisco, but like a new level out here. So that's amazing. Yeah, that's good. You're one of my, um, I think that you're one of my first guests of Cloudflare TV. That's really made a massive, like lifestyle shift, you know, due to the, you know, pandemic. So it's like, you know, talk to people who are like, yeah, we're at home or maybe they're doing like a renovation. But, um, I think for my first guest, that's really like, Hey, I got out of the city. I rented, you know, a three bedroom spot for the same that I was paying for one bedroom in the city. And now I have nature at my doorstep and you know what I mean? So you're seeing a lot of positive you've, you've been able to make a lot of positive changes for yourself, you know, and I think it's easier, you know, obviously you don't have children. Right. And I was just going to say, like, I, you know, we are thankful for my flexibility. Um, I understand that, you know, some people are locked into leases and I was lucky enough to have something that was month to month. And, you know, I don't have children and, um, you know, really just kind of have myself to think about. So it put me in this super flexible spot where I was able to do that. And, um, was actually, like I mentioned that I got like a little camper van, um, and actually worked from the road for a little bit too. Cause I did like a little road trip, um, after I got that. So it's a good time to have a camping vehicle, to be able to get out and explore and, um, and you know, all that and not have to interact with the general public that much. So, I mean, God bless any of the general public that's like watching the show. We love you all very much, but you know, like some of us prefer nature. Yeah. Tell me about your van. Like what did you get? What is your, what is it? Um, it's a, it's a sprinter van that like built out on the inside. So this was something that I was, you know, had been planning for a while pre COVID, um, and kind of saving up for, for quite some time. And just with like lifestyle originally, it was like, you escaped to the mountains. Um, kind of have the best of both worlds cause I'm in the mountains van. Um, but it's just been awesome. And like just an enabler of like, Oh, like, you know, um, do I want to go to mammoth lakes this weekend? It's only a three hour drive. And like, you don't, you know, you just don't need to make plans. And so it just makes it that much easier to just kind of pick up and go. Um, so I don't need to be in a space, you know what I mean? You're not staying at a hotel or like Airbnb where you're maybe like, you know, like sharing airspace, you know, close in close quarters with other people. And you're not having to pay $700 a night or something because, you know, I do know that Tahoe is busy, you know, like a lot of people are kind of trying to escape to the mountains. We went to the hot, we went to the hot springs on Sunday up at Harbin and there was complaining from the, from the people, you know, who are like, ah, you know, Tahoe is too busy. Everybody's here, you know? And like, and other people were like, Oh really? I thought it would be quiet. I was like, why would you think that? Like, first of all, like summer people want to get out anyway, but then you have like, everyone's cooped up and, you know, so that's awesome. I'm so excited for your van. Yeah, it's been super fun. I mean, there's things that have, the best way to learn how to, how things work I've learned is for them to break because things have definitely broken and I've had to figure out how to fix them. But, you know, so it goes, it's a learning experience for sure. Sure. But yeah, it's been super fun. Got to explore like, drove through like Yellowstone and the Tetons. I think the Tetons are like my favorite. Tetons are amazing. Amazing. And I read a fact, and I'm probably going to get this slightly wrong, but it, something, so the Rocky Mountains are substantially older mountain range than the Tetons. The Tetons are quite young in terms of, as far as like, you know, how old mountains are. And I can't remember the exact years, but the rocks that the Tetons are made of, I think are very old. It just like, they didn't, you know, collide until later and actually like form a mountain range. So it's quite interesting. But that area is just stunning. Stunning. And there have been a handful of, you know, like long drives down dirt roads to find a camp spot and kind of park in the dark and hope for the best. Like, I hope there's going to be a decent morning view. And in the Tetons, like outside of Jackson, parked and like just woke up to this stunning view of the Tetons, which is, you know, like those sorts of places you can't really, like they don't, you know, at a campsite, you don't really get the same thing. You kind of have to go backpacking or something like that. It's also super fun. Yeah. We went in 2008, there was the Rainbow Gathering, because, you know, I used to be kind of a traveler. So I went to the Gathering in the Tetons in 2008. So gorgeous. It was just like, you know, there was these gorgeous like fields of, you know, flowers and like, you know, the Rainbow Gathering always has to have like a giant meadow because on the 4th of July, instead of like being like, yay bombs, you know, people gather in a circle for silent meditation and prayer. Oh, that's so cool. You get this giant circle of like thousands of people all holding hands in silence, you know, and then so like, that was a really special moment that I had in the Tetons like back in the day. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was it was like special. And then, you know, just, I think we have such a, it's such a privilege to be able to get out and be in that nature, you know. 100%. So many of the people that really could benefit, I think, from being in nature, like aren't getting those opportunities. I'm hoping that, you know, it's kind of like you see like what's going to be birthed out of this, you know, time that we all have, you know. Yeah. I just really hope, you know, I'm not, some people are like optimistic for like the future. I'm not especially so at this moment. Yeah. I don't, I'm not like brimming with it, with I'm a little more brimming with, you know, anxiety. But I do hope that, you know, as a human culture, we can, you know, you know, take some of the lessons we're getting from this, like about slowing down, you know. Yeah. It's really nice. Like I was so excited when I saw the gas prices bottom out. I was like, oh, look at that. Yeah. Just for a minute, you know. Yeah. Just for a moment, like I like to, I like to mention on my show, like I'm not that sad that the sport ball stadiums are closed, you know. Yeah. Like one season of like all that plastic not going into our rivers. Like, you know, maybe we can like, when we reopen it, we have a new vision, you know. So like I, you know, I would love to see like more of the humans, like appreciating the natural world, but in a way that also is still respectful. Cause I also think like as we're seeing an uptick, you know, in visitors to these places, we're also seeing, you know, like an increase, you know, of like kind of unconscious people who haven't really been taught, you know, how to treat the outdoors. Like they don't, they may be, you know, there's a lot more education, you know, that is needed, you know, on so many levels for our beautiful brothers and sisters of the human race. Yeah. May they all get that. Yeah. But yeah, I'm really excited for you that, that you've been able to have some of these great adventures since, you know, since this started and like take action on, you know, things that we're going to bring more joy and like, you know, peace and, you know, even productivity for work. Like, as you said, like the more that we're, you know, happy, I know that I'll be happier, you know, at the end of the month when I like, yeah, have a little garden, like little vegetable friends, you know, and instead of my kale going bad in my fridge, it'll just be fresh. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That'll be so amazing. That'll be exciting. Do you have any other like things that you want to share about like what it's been like, what's been the biggest challenge for you, like working remotely? I think, I mean, so I spend a lot of my time in meetings, just generally with the type of work that I do. I think the tricky part is just like when I have like a project that I need to just like sit down and spend, you know, an hour, two hours, just like focused, like finding that time and distracting myself with other things that are around my house, whether it's like a counter that's messy or, you know, whatever that might be. That's probably been the biggest challenge, but I mean, I've been like so floored and appreciative of, you know, how well our executive team has handled everything and how transparent that they've been with, you know, updates and like the business continuity team has been awesome. So, and, and I mean, our, like, look at how, like as a business, you know, Matthew talks a lot, a lot about, you know, how, how like, you know, we're, we're still hiring. We're, you know, we're still growing. We're not laying people off. We're still paying our porter team here in San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. We're still trying to, yeah, we're not, yeah, we're not, and unlike, you know, so many companies where they've had to kind of downsize, we are still growing and building and, and coalescing like the vision and like moving it forward. And yeah, on that, we have about 30 seconds left, so I'm going to wrap us up, but I just want to say thank you so much. It was great to see you. I miss you. I mean, as the front desk person, I always had people coming to see you, you know, especially pre-IPO, you know, you were one of our, you know, very popular meeting hosts. So I'm glad that we got this chance to connect and I'm going to be sending you some messages about some of these places that you mentioned, you know. Oh, yes. Ventures. So absolutely. All right. Thank you so much. Bye Carly.