Legends of Tech

I think we're live. Good morning from down under, good afternoon and good evening depending on where you are around the world. It's my pleasure to be fill-in host for today for anyone who has been following the Legends of Tech series. Chris Georgellis and his wife, lovely wife Ting gave birth to a baby girl last night which is incredibly excellent but unfortunately didn't follow my orders to hold off another day. It was, we were talking yesterday and he said you know we're all set for tomorrow unless my wife happens to give birth and I thought there's no way that's going to happen and yet here we are so that's great but Raymond thanks thanks for subbing in. Pleasure, pleasure. So it's my pleasure to introduce what is what I would say an innovator, a disruptor, the chairman of the board, our CEO Matthew Prince so welcome, thank you for coming on Legends of Tech today. I thought that you were the legend of tech like I definitely don't think I am so. I'm not sure we qualify in the same realms but let's let's do something a little different given this is not Chris's show today and this is my show I decided that we're going to do something a bit different. One of the great things that Cloudflare does during induction is is fun facts but I'm going to do fun facts a little differently. These are fast questions so there's no wrong answer. I'm not a psychologist so we're going to start with this. Coke or Pepsi? Coke. Wine or soda? Wine. Mustang or Tesla? Oh gosh I've never been a car person. I think I'm going to say Mustang but only because I had a very strange experience with Elon once so we're not talking about here. We may have to come back to that one. John Lennon or Paul McCartney? Lennon. Very good. This is the Aussie term. Trackies or jeans? Trackies with sweatpants. Or jeans. Or jeans, yeah jeans. Boxers or briefs? Boxer briefs. iPhone or Android? iPhone. Important question coming up now. Star Trek or Star Wars? Probably, I don't know. I've never really been into either of them that much. I think probably Star Trek. Okay, well now that we got the religious piece out of the way in the Star Wars versus Star Trek piece, thank you for that. I don't, I don't, you know, I kind of, I like Star Wars but it feels like the last, the last couple sort of ruined it for me but, but there are some pretty bad Star Treks too so. Yeah, yeah, I, I must say I'm a bit of a Trekkie so I do, I do like them. Not that I don't like Star Wars. I'm a Star Wars fan but if I pick one that was the, the Trek series. My, my sister has two young nephews and, and they, they've been visiting me over this period of time and they're watching the Star Wars trilogy, the Star Wars whole series in order from the beginning and they are, they're, it's amazing how enrapturing it is for a, for a seven-year-old. What's strange is though my, my four, four-year-old nephew is, is obsessed with being Darth Vader. I keep saying he's the bad guy. You don't want to be the bad guy, you know, so whatever. Every story needs a bad guy. I do like that but I, I did the same with my daughters but I decided to skip the first three because they were terrible so, so I went for the original, you know, started at episode four. I think is the right way to go and then, and then they can go back and watch it, watch the first three if they, if they need to. Let's get into the tech side given this is meant to be how you got into tech. What, what was the thing that started you on the passion of, of technology? So I, I grew up in, I grew up in Utah and, and, and I remember when I was, I just turned seven so actually it's amazing, same, same age as my nephew who's visiting and for Christmas my grandmother gave me an Apple 2 plus which was the computer that our, that our, our school was using and wanted to have one at home and, and I just took to it like a duck to water and I was never, I was never into, never into playing video games all that much but I was really into like writing and creating video games and so, you know, did my, my mom, the University of Utah has this really incredible computer science program and they had continuing education classes and my mom used to sign up like she was going to take them and then I would basically, I would, I would sit with her and, and, and do the whole thing and, and, and do all the homework and, and I, and I really, and I really just enjoyed it. I had, I had a friend whose name is Peter who, who also had, he also had a similar computer and we would do, we would, we would write programs and do all kinds of things together and, and then did the thing that made us incredibly popular in middle school which was, you know, go to computer camp for the summer while everyone else was going off to like, you know, soccer camp or, or, or river rafting or, or things that normal kids did and, and so, you know, really, really that was, that was, that was, that was how I got into it. It came back to my, my grandmother and my mom. That's very cool. So was it the creativity aspect, the thing that you could create something from, from, from nothing or, or was it just the, the interaction with the, with the screens and, and, and the games aspect? You know, I, I, I don't know. I think there's something, there's something really, there is something that the creative aspect of being able to create something nothing was, was, was really powerful. I think there's also something very satisfying if you've ever, if you've ever programmed computers, so much of the life is kind of fuzzy around the edges and you don't know if you're doing it right or not. And there's something pretty amazing about, you know, having a compiler and a debugger and you hit run and it works for the first time and that sort of endorphin rod shove, like it's in a break is, is, is really, is really cool. And, and I thought that, you know, I, I, I thought that, you know, I, I spent a lot of time trying to look at, and I still think it's really fascinating. And one of the things that's great about the web is that you can view source and you can see a lot of how at least the front end of a website works. And, and that was always this sort of almost like treasure hunt for me. And so I, I thought a lot of that was, was a big, a big piece of it. And so I would subscribe to really dorky computer magazines. And I remember, you know, typing in the programs in the, in the back of them. And, and again, there's, there's just nothing quite like, you know, hitting, hitting run at the end and having it work. Oh, that's very cool. So, I mean, we had swap mates, et cetera. And, and those here, was that something that, that you, you went through is through your teenage years as well? Oh, we did. And I remember there's one, like, there's one totally sketchy computer professor who always had like the cool pirated games, right. And it was always like, oh, maybe he'll let us borrow a flight simulator or, you know, whatever it was. And, and, and yeah, and you'd, you'd swap things with other, other, other people. And, and then, you know, I think we were, we were a little bit mischievous. I remember when in middle school that there was a computer science, we had a computer lab and it was all, it was all kind of Macs, pretty old school Macs. And the, the computer science, like lab, like administrator had this just horrible extension that you would install that were these little eyeballs, where whenever you would move the mouse, like it would, the eyeballs would track it and slow the computers down. And the computers were already limited in the amount of memory they had. And so I remember my, my friend Peter and I, we, we reprogrammed the antivirus software on the, on the computer to think that the, that the eyeball program was a, was a virus. And, and she's the woman who ran with the lab administrator, never quite figured out why she couldn't get her eyeballs to work anymore. And so, you know, it was, but it was, it was fun. It was a, it was a, you know, pretty, it was, it was pretty nerdy, but it was, but it was fun at the time. Yeah, very cool. So at that point, did you think that this is something you wanted to continue to do? Is that, is that, I mean, that started the, obviously the fuel inside you to in the interaction pace, but did you think, okay, this is an industry I want to move into? You know, I, I, so I went off to college and I wanted to get as far away from Utah as I possibly could. So I moved all the way to the other side of the country and, and I thought I was going to study, I was going to study computer science and, and, and, and really went into, went into college thinking that was what I was, I was going to do. And I remember we had to take a introductory computer science course. And the final exam was you had to build a CAD program and you were supposed to type like toilet comma 13 comma 12, and it would draw it on the screen where it was. And I was like, that's completely stupid. And so I went to the, I went to the, I went to the school library and checked out inside Macintosh, which was the original sort of programming guide for Macs. And I built an entire GUI driven drag and drop resizable program. And I remember turning it in and the professor was like, how did you do this? And the answer was, I mean, I just had no life. And so I sat for like a straight week and didn't sleep. And, and, you know, the sort of thing that you do when you're, when you're early in college. And it was, and it was kind of fun. And it was a way of doing that. But I remember, you know, somewhat, somewhat arrogantly, in fact, very arrogantly thinking, gosh, I, I don't have anything that I can learn here doing this. And, and so I actually, I switched my major from, from computer science to English literature, which was as bad as historically different as, as it possibly, you know, possibly could be. I still minored in computer science, but, but spent a lot less time focusing on it. But I, I was good at computers and this was in the, I started college in 92 and I graduated in 96. And so it was really in that sweet spot of the rise of the, of the early Internet. And, and I, I got hired by the college as a, as a network administrator. And, and we worked with, with some other people to help co co-found what was turned out to be originally, it was actually, it was the idea was an online magazine. And the first versions of it, we built in this Apple technology called HyperCard, which is actually really fun programming language back in time. And we would email the HyperCard stacks out to everyone on campus. And they got so big because we, it was, it was this thing that was sort of exciting at the time. They got so big that we kept crashing the campuses mail server and they kept buying us bigger and bigger mail servers because the school loved it. But at some point they were like, Hey, we, we, we need you to, we need you to do something different. This isn't going to scale. And so the school actually introduced us to two groups. One was this printer company based out in, out in, out in the Bay Area that had this really cool technology called PDF. And that was Adobe. And I was a huge fan of PDF. And I was like, this is the future and everything is going to be this. And the other was a group of graduate students at the University of Illinois that had this thing called a browser. And I thought that was, I mean, what, why is anyone going to do anything with that? And thankfully the other three people that had started this magazine with me were like, Nope, that HTML, that's the future. And so we built what we actually won an award from Wired magazine, which at the time was only in print. First online only weekly magazine. And I remember the award was we got a spark workstation and none of us knew what to do with it. So we just, it was a heater that sat in the corner effectively. It was a white noise generator. And so, you know, I felt like I was really, and it was, what was frustrating was, you know, we had created this thing, but you couldn't get anyone to write for it because browsers were so primitive back then that they'd crash all the time. And so, you know, when you were trying to impress, you know, the cute girl down the hall or whatever by, you know, the clever thing that you had written in the, in the magazine, like she'd try and read it and her browser had crashed and she'd give up. And I remember very clearly getting this email from, from someone in Japan who was like, you know, in broken English, we, you know, I love the magazine. I read it every day. Please keep writing more. And I remember thinking, why do I care if somebody in Japan can read this if, you know, the cute girl down the hall can't. And, and so it was, you know, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was actually pretty turned off by technology by the end of college. One of the things that college required was to merge your major and your minor, which computer science and English literature, it wasn't quite clear how I was going to put them together. And so I wrote, I wrote my college thesis literally was on why the Internet was a fad and would never take off. And, and I, and I think I have destroyed all but one copy of it at this point, because it's, it's deeply embarrassing to go back and read, but I turned down, I had offers to go work at, you know, companies that I remember thinking, oh, those aren't going to go anywhere like Microsoft and Yahoo. And, and instead, you know, I applied, I applied to law school and, and, and went and, and went and studied law instead, which was, which was a very, a very different direction, but, but definitely set me on a circuitous path that, that, that took a while to, to kind of live down my, my embarrassment of my college thesis. Yeah, I think that's fascinating. You just touched on, well, then I just moved into law. How does, how did that happen? Given, given what, what you had started and that little bit of passion, why was law then the attraction? Was that something that was a, something from family or, or something that you'd come across that this is the reason why I needed to do that? You know, I, I mean, so my grandfather was an attorney and my, my uncle were attorneys and they both seemed like they were, you know, relatively happy and successful, you know, folks. And, and I was, I mean, the, at some level, the answer was, because I didn't really know how to go get a job. And so I wasn't quite, I wasn't quite sure what, what to do with that. And I was, I was good at standardized tests. And so I'd taken the, the LSAT, which is the test in the United States that you take to go to law school. And I'd done, I'd done well. And, and that then meant that I got into a really, really great, a great school. And, and I, and again, I was really burned out on tech. And I remember thinking, I don't want to spend the rest of my life sitting in front of a computer writing code. And, and it, and it was interesting. I deferred admission for a year and actually worked as a ski instructor back in, back in my hometown in Park City. And, and what happened in that year between 96 and 97 was all of a sudden the web went from something that geeks like me used to something that like my dad was using at home and it sort of started to take off and show things. And I remember showing up at, at law school and I kind of had this vision of law school that it was like Perry Mason and you stood up in court and argued things. And, and very quickly it got just beaten into us that what lawyers do is they sit and they write all the time. And it's, and it's very precise almost, almost computer code like writing, except you don't have a debugger anymore. And if you make a mistake, you only figure it out, you know, six years later when you end up, you know, back in court, cause you, you didn't, you didn't take into account some, some consideration. And so I, you know, I, I was, I was really pretty, I realized within about the first semester or two that I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to be a lawyer. And I think it was just stubbornness that kept me in, kept me in school for, for that period of time. So finishing the law degree, how, how then what, what set you on the path to say, okay, I want to create a business. I need a foundation for it. Harvest Business School, Harvard Business School is the place to do that. Is, was there something that actually pushed you on that path or, or was that always part of something you just wanted to do? Uh, no, um, you know, I, so I, I, um, I'd worked between, uh, uh, I'd worked during the summer of 99 for a law firm out in San Francisco, um, that, and, and I'd gotten to work in an area of law, um, called securities law, which are the lawyers that help you go, help you go public. And, um, and, and the summer of 99 in, in Silicon Valley in San Francisco was like, I mean, it was just crazy because it was the first.com room. And over the course of that one summer, um, because I, you know, had, had, was a, was a young law, you know, was a, was a law student, a young, young attorney, um, who also was, was a techie. Um, everyone at the law firm wanted me to be on their deal team. And so I got pulled into all of these great deals. And over the course of that one summer, I think we, we, I worked on six different IPOs, um, and we were flying all around the country and, and it was so much fun. And I remember thinking really clearly, oh, I missed out on getting to do this myself and going to one of these firms, but maybe now I can go work for the firms, do a good job. And then, you know, someday I'll be their general counsel and, and, and, and that will be, um, sort of my path. And I went back to, went back to law school for my third year of law school and was super just happy and excited. And then March of 2000, I remember I was sitting in a student lounge, um, at school and my phone rang and it was the head of recruiting for the firm. And she said, Hey, good news, bad news, good news. You still have a job. Um, because the.com bubble was, was quickly deflating and lots of my, my, my fellow students stand up jobs. And she said, bad news is we don't need any more securities lawyers, but we have lots of room in the bankruptcy practice. And it's basically the same thing, which is something that I can understand how a lawyer would say that it would be kind of like, yeah, programming a database system is a lot like programming a, you know, first person shooter. I mean, you know, it's kind of sort of the same thing, but no, it's not right. It's, it's a very, very fundamentally different thing. And so I, I was, I was really, I was really down, um, and I didn't know what to do. And I, I, I talked to, uh, uh, a fellow, or I talked to a professor who had a brother who was starting a, um, technology firm that was in the B2B space and sort of the, the B2C, the consumer space that had collapsed early in 2000 and the B2B space lasted a little bit longer. And they basically said, listen, we'll match your salary and give you, give you stock options, which, you know, I had a general conception of, but didn't really know what, what they were. Um, and you can be the first non-founder employee and come work there. And the only caveat was I had to stay in Chicago, which was where, where it was. And I, and I, I didn't really love Chicago. I wanted to get out to the Bay area, but I, um, but I, uh, I said, that sounds pretty good. And so we built, um, we built a company that's called Groupworks and it was, it's basically the same business model as Zenefits. It was a, a, um, insurance brokerage firm that did some clever things to compete on price and, um, raised, I don't know, it was six or $8 million. Um, and, and, you know, just went after it and we screwed it up in every possible way you can imagine in 18 months, we'd blown through all the money and had no customers. And it was, and we'd chosen the wrong technology, but when we did everything wrong, um, and yet it was so much fun to see that, you know, a group of, of us, and it was, you know, at, at peak, it was maybe 25 people that we could, you know, make a good shot at it. And, and I remember the, and the other thing, which was, was really amazing was here, we lost millions of dollars. Um, and at the end, the investors was like, yep, gave it a good try. You didn't commit fraud, you know, and, and, and, and you went on and you went on your way. And that felt so crazy to me at some level, you could, that you could do that. And so, you know, I, um, and so I think that once you've, once you've started a startup, it's really hard. Once you've been that early play, it's really, really difficult to ever go and do something else. And so I spent the next, you know, next six or seven years, um, really trying to find something else to do that, that again. And I'd started a company that was called unspam technologies. That was a government contractor that helped governments, um, regulate, um, email spam. And we did something like the do not call list, but for email and we didn't care what the, what the government's wanted to regulate, but the government's cared a lot about sin products largely. So alcohol, tobacco, pornography, and gambling. And it was basically like the Superman three or the office space business model, where we take a fraction of a penny every time somebody would send an email and, um, and the alcohol, tobacco and, and gambling folks would, would, would pay. And, and, and that was, and that generated a pretty good, um, revenue stream that the adult entertainment industry, um, saw this as an infringement on their, on their civil rights. And so one day the Marshall showed up at our office, uh, to announce that we were being sued, uh, for this crazy big civil rights violation case, because it turns out in the United States, if, if you're providing services, the government and those services allegedly infringe on, on someone's civil rights, then you are jointly liable for that with the, with the government. And we didn't know what to do. And the lawyer, and we didn't have a lot of money and legal bills were crazy. And, um, the lawyers were like, listen, we think you have a good case. You know, we've likely to win over the longterm, but you got to lay low, um, for at least the next two years. And I didn't know what to do with myself over, over two years. And so one night over, uh, over a bottle of wine, um, I ended up applying to eight different business schools. Uh, I was rejected from seven, somehow got into Harvard and, uh, and that's how I met Michelle. So. So is this one of those slides? This was, this was the plan the entire time, you know, this is clearly one of those sliding door moments where, where that could have been the path of, of Matthew Prince, as opposed to going back to Harvard, uh, the Harvard business school and, and meeting Michelle, et cetera, and, and looking at, uh, and what you've created today. So interesting sliding door moment. Have there been any other sliding door moments? I mean, prior to the cloud player pace, uh, that you sort of look as, you know, periods of time where isn't it lucky that I didn't continue on that journey. I know you talked about the, you know, being the lawyer and the dot-com period of time gave you an insight, but, um, is there any other sliding door moments that you reflect back on? Yeah. I mean, I, I, so I remember, um, you know, we were, when we were, when we were working on unspam, um, there were, there were, um, there were, there were three of us that started that. And two, this guy named Ben and I were out and, um, and Washington DC and listening to an FTC hearing. Um, and I remember, you know, there's, there's a woman who's at, his name is Paula Sellas, who was a assistant attorney general. And, and, um, she was on this panel and I asked a question of her, which was very much like a question that was very self-serving. And we were trying to, trying to kind of make the point that the technology that we had built would be a really good one. And as she's answering, and this is all, this was all on C-SPAN, which is the kind of government, um, uh, programming here in the US. Um, she's answering this, this little guy, older guy comes up to me and he takes a piece of paper and he shoves it in my, in my, in my chest. And, and I sort of take the piece of paper and I'm reading it as I'm sort of trying to listen to Paula as well. And he's, he's described all this technology that we thought, you know, we were the first ones to invent and build. And, and part of the, the whole secretive of, of, of unspam was that we were, we were going to be kind of, we, we invented this, this patented technology that existed. And he basically just said, here's prior art for it. And I remember we tracked him down and we were like, Hey, is there, is there, um, is there, how can we, how can we work with you on something? And he's like, well, I'm a professor at UC Santa Cruz, and I've been building this technology for the last three years. And I've got four students that have been working on it with me. And so here's the deal. Give us a little bit of stock in the company, each of us, um, promise to file a patent that's in all of our, our names, and you have to hire one of my four students. And I remember thinking, okay, I'm okay with the first one. I'm okay with the second one. I'm not sure I'm okay, you know, hiring some random student I've never met, but we all, we all got together. And I mean, there's this, this, this dinner and Ben was there, who's my, my business partner. And I was there and, and, and the professor and the four students, and we would all just sign the, the documents for the, uh, patents to get filed. And, and we're, and nobody else knows around the table, but we're kind of interviewing, you know, the four students at the time. And, and I remember, um, you know, I ordered a beer and Ben ordered a beer, and then we went around the table and, and then the professor said, he didn't want one. And the next one just said, he didn't want one. The next one said he didn't want one. The next one just I'll take a beer. And, um, and that turned out to be Lee Holloway, who, uh, who was the third co-founder of Cloudflare. And, and I think that, you know, there had, you know, he bet so much of the rest of his career on, on me and on us. And, and I, and I think, had he not, had he decided that he didn't want a beer that night, I'm not sure we would have, we would have, we would have ever actually hired him. So. Oh, that's a great, that is a great story. Uh, fascinating story. First time I've heard that one. So, uh, and, and, you know, having been, you know, being able to bring the, the trio together, um, I think it's, uh, a nice, um, a nice way to tie that up. The other one, the other one with Michelle was, um, I was trying to convince Michelle, we should start a company forever. And I kept taking her out to this restaurant that I loved in, uh, in Boston. Um, and she, she, at some point she's like, I don't, I don't want to go out to dinner with you again. And I thought that she didn't want to start a business. Turns out she just really didn't like Ethiopian food, which was the food that was at that, that one thing. And so, and I, and I hope, thankfully I invited her to something that wasn't an Ethiopian restaurant and she came. So. Note to self, not Ethiopian for dinner. Um, we've only got a couple of minutes left. One thing that I, I, um, I find fascinating is, is the, you, you like to punch above your weight, uh, you know, you're picking fights with, and, and, and it's the disruptive pacing you and whether it's the, you know, wanting to democratize the tech and, and give, you know, free access and Internet should be, uh, secure Internet should be free for everyone. It's the mission of, of who Cloudflare are, you know, that clearly comes from, from you and, and that, um, that drive inside you, where, where is that from? Um, you know, just wanting to make it fair for people. You know, I think that, I mean, I think it's, first of all, we, we knew that Cloudflare was either going to be a one or a zero. It only worked if it got to a certain, a certain scale. Um, and you know, I, I guess having, having made the mistake, uh, once of saying that the Internet was a fad, um, you know, I have, I've over the last 30 years now watched how, how important it is and how, how critical it is. And, and it's something that I think deserves defending. And you know, I, I think a lot of times when we thought when we started out, um, and we were looking at the trends of what was going on, the real risk was the Internet was going to consolidate behind Facebook. And I think the same way that, you know, um, that, that Shopify is the thing that sort of arms the rebels against Amazon. Um, I think we hopefully will provide that infrastructure so that everyone doesn't have to revert and end up on Facebook. Yeah, I think that's, uh, it's a great thing to be part of. And, um, it's important in, in that there's an open market and, uh, you know, the, the monopolies of the world never, never support the people. So it's, um, uh, you know, I, I think it's, uh, really important as part of the mission to continue to punch above our weight. And, and I love the disruption, uh, we're getting so big now that, um, that we're, we're, we're also, um, becoming a force, which is, which is great. Uh, the last question, uh, was going to be, you know, is, is this the, the, the one thing that you're most proud of in, in this part of your career? Oh, I mean, for sure. I mean, they're like, you know, I, I was always the person who all my life would be, um, you know, thought that like, I always knew what the next thing I wanted to be doing was. And I remember, um, you know, pretty clearly there was, there was a moment in time. It's actually, it's actually been interesting. Nobody, nobody has ever tried to buy Cloudflare in, in the, in the 11 years that we've been, that we've been around, which sometimes sort of makes you feel like you're the, you're the kind of ugly kid at the dance. Um, but, but you know, it's worked out okay. And, and I don't think we, and we never really tried to sell the company, but there's, well, there was one moment in time where, you know, as we were sort of reading the tea leaves, we thought, Oh, maybe someone's going to make an offer. And I remember Michelle came over to my apartment in San Francisco and we sat on the floor and, and, and open a bottle of wine. And, uh, and, and, and she, she was like, you know, how should we think about this? And I said, you know, I, I don't, the, one of the things I think about is what on earth would we do if we weren't doing this? Because what on earth could we do that would be, you know, as, as meaningful and as impactful. And, um, and, and she was like, well, obviously we just start another company. And I remember thinking, wow, that is both simultaneously the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me, because, you know, usually co-founders by the end are trying to kill each other. Um, but, but also like, I don't know that I've got another one of these, you know, in me, so, you know, I, from, from things that we've done where, you know, the, the day that we turned on encryption for free for all of our customers. I mean, I think that really led the way and that, that became standard, what we're doing now around encrypting the, you know, the routing tables so that you can't hijack that encrypting DNS, um, really not just the fact that we've built a business that, um, you know, that, that, that people pay us a lot of money to use, but that we're actually making real progress on fixing some of the underlying kind of bugs and flaws of, of the Internet. And that's, that's the, that's the stuff that I'm, that I'm really proud of. So, uh, and, and I, I can't imagine anything more important to be working on than that right now. So, so I, uh, I I'm, I'm going to be around for as long as, as long as our board of directors will have me. Oh, that's excellent. Thank you so much for today. Thank you so much for pinch hitting and, uh, and appreciate you having me on. Welcome everyone to legends of tech on this beautiful Wednesday morning. We have a returning guest, Mr. Mick Rosfeld, or as we call him MG, um, on the show today, but it's such a great session on the first one, MJ, I thought it'd be great to bring you back online. So thanks for joining. No worries. Thank you for having me. And, um, probably some Rocky music or something, mate, next time. We're not that advanced yet, but you know, there is discussions. We'll have a makeup crew soon, a bit of music, introductory music. So you just tell me what your theme song is, mate. So hopefully by the next one, we can have that on. The 18 sounds good. Oh man, that's another good one. So mate, um, I know you and I've been chatting over the last few weeks and, you know, there's a topic that I think is pretty interesting because, um, it's one of those areas where I think a lot of people in our industries is, is having a chat about or trying to figure things out. And really it's, you know, how, how have you been or how, what are some of the ways you've been staying connected to the world during the isolation phase in particular, you know, what I like to call is, you know, the thing that's missing now, those water cooler conversations or the pulse that's happening within the marketplace. So, mate, um, I know we've spoken about it, um, in, in a lot of detail and I thought, you know, it'd be good to have a chat because I know I'm sure there's a lot of people out there, especially within our industry or even just in general that, you know, we're in this world, you know, where we're isolated behind a screen, we're doing a lot of work, everyone's busy, but it's like, there's something missing in terms of, you know, how do we stay connected? So I'm keen to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, sure. So initially when we first went into lockdown or isolation, the first week was, was surreal. I really felt like a recluse. Um, the house was full, kids were, you know, scattered around the house and, you know, Jodie was elsewhere and it was just, whilst the house was busy, but there was, it was, you still felt isolated and you sort of felt shut off from the world. And, you know, I know we were busy at work or behind screens and we were doing our email, but literally I had to make a decision the following week. I thought, you know, I can either sit here on my own or I need to work out how I can co-exist like the rest of the world, um, with work and with this, you know, with this pandemic going on. So I literally would reach out to people. I mean, obviously I, I watched the news every, every, every, every hour of it. But in terms of my network, in terms of getting an understanding of what was going on out there in the market and how other people were coping and whatnot, WhatsApp has been a great tool for myself. I WhatsApp a lot of people, a lot of people WhatsApp me. And one of the advantages that I've had over the years, mate, as you know, when I've run big people intensive businesses is that I still get a lot of people reach out from time to time for advice or for help or a reference check or whatever the case may be. So I've always had a level of connectivity, but I felt that if I wasn't proactive in reaching out to my peers or my contacts out there in the, in the industry, then yeah, that isolation could have very much been, you know, the epitome of what the word means. Right. So that's how I've had to do it. And, and just, you know, if you get the opportunity during the day, as you know, you sit behind this damn screen for hours and there's no commute to between meetings, it's just click one button, click next. But when I've often had a 15 minute break in the calendar, I would literally get outside and just walk up and down the street just to get the legs moving. But I'd also then jump on the phone and make some phone calls just to, just to stay connected, just to find out what people are doing, find out how people are coping. Everyone's different and people handle things fundamentally differently. So, yeah, so it's been an interesting ride, but coexisting, I think globally, I think our, our day starts when my day starts typically around about seven 30 in the morning, cause you grab a cup of coffee, you sit down at your laptop, you start looking at your emails as to what's flown through overnight. And then, you know, you, you pretty much, you can, you can work up until five 30 or six o'clock or seven o'clock because you're not driving anywhere. So the length of the hours is, you know, it's completely up to, you know, um, yourself and, and, and how much effort you put into the day. Yeah, you're spot on. I mean, look for me personally, um, I'm pretty structured in terms of my day. I do things in certain times of day. So I'll do my training in the morning. Then typically I'll go to the office, do my, you know, my admin, my emails, my follow -ups, make my phone calls as you do on your way to the office. But now being at home, I've got a young family. So kids at home, wife's at home. I do my exercise in the morning, but as soon as I get home, the family's up and then we start our morning routine. We're getting things ready. And then once that happens, then you're into your day of work. So I've actually had to change the way I work. And now typically I wouldn't do things like late at night. That's typically when I'm, I'm pretty tired because I've had a big day. I've had to change my strategic time in terms of, okay, I want it to now block out three, four hours at night, or even in different parts of the day to do these things. But I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. I think it's always in retrospect. When we think about these things, I was, I was having a chat to a colleague that's in a similar role to me. And you know, he was, he was just saying right now, he's finding it hard to get his finger on the pulse because you go out to a lunch or you have a meeting somewhere around about, and you just, there'll be chatter. People will be talking. You'll hear what this customer's doing or what this partner's doing or what this vendor's doing. And there was, it's like a back channel in terms of information. You know, we've got tools and we're online and we can, you know, punch in, you know, news websites and LinkedIn, but it's that, it's that discussion point that's been, I guess, you know, and I guess everyone's got a different perspective of it. That's been the thing. So, so you're saying that you've been using those mechanisms, I guess, to keep in, in check with what's happening in the market? Yeah, pretty much because as you rightly say, you go to the office, you go across the road with a couple of your, you know, your work colleagues, you go and grab a coffee together, you have a chat, you go and have a lunch meeting with a customer or with a partner or a vendor or whatever, then, you know, you typically have more of a dialogue with those guys and you get to hear what's going on out there in the industry, who's doing this, who's doing that, what's happening, what RFPs are coming out. That's all literally being cut off and if you don't proactively engage people, then that information isn't going to flow through to you because, you know, yes, I know we can go to pubs now and we can go to restaurants and that now, it's obviously a lot more different because, you know, obviously you've got to coordinate things a bit differently, but I find that I probably still reach out to three or four people a day and it might just be, it might just be an innocuous three-second message or it could turn into a, or into a, you know, a 15-minute phone call, but at least trying to get a finger on the pulse as to, you know, what they're seeing in the market, which partner's doing this, which customer's buying, etc. So, but you have to be, you have to be incredibly proactive. I know a lot of people have gone to ground and a lot of people that I know have, you know, have pretty much almost gone literally into isolation themselves and haven't reached out, people haven't heard from them for months and, you know, and then that causes other challenges and, but, you know, I wouldn't suggest it's, you know, becoming a victim of the pandemic, because it's quite easy to do that, no question. But certainly, I think certainly you being a participant in your own rescue around how you get above and beyond it and get out there and communicate with people and make time to connect, that's, that's critical. Absolutely. That's spot on. I think, yeah, I think it's really important. I think it's having these conversations and I think it's just being aware of what's happening around you. It's, you know, I think we're in this for the long haul and, you know, I think there's a lot of hope that, yeah, this is going to be a few month thing, the thing's going to go away and then we're going to be back to normal. But I think, you know, for a lot of people now, it's okay, well, this thing may not go away in the short or medium term. So, you have to, like you said, you can't be a victim to the situation, you have to be proactive. And I think it's important, because you're right, everyone's got a different personality. Some people live at home on their own, some people need to be forced into an environment to come out. So, you know, I've been doing similar things, reaching out to various people, and you can see the ones that, you know, that are potentially struggling with it, in terms of, you know, they're really busy, but it's all good to be busy, but not to be connected at the same time as well, right? So, I guess it's always good to help others and figure out what works for you in terms of staying connected to the outside world and understanding what's going on. So, mate, in terms of what you're seeing now, and I know you've, you know, you've been around the traps quite a fair bit, you've had a lot of experience. I mean, have you seen any other time where we have gone through, or where you've actually gone through a similar situation? Because I'm sure you being in the Navy at some point, mate, you would have been isolated yourself, being out on sea and doing other things like that. Yeah, definitely. Definitely in the military, especially when you're at sea for a very, very long time, and you're doing work-ups, which is basically a bunch of exercises that the Navy puts you through, the whole ship through, to get to a certain state of readiness to go to a war zone. And, you know, people are literally working around the clock. As crazy as it sounds, you could be on a warship with 200 people. And in a 24-hour period, you might only see and talk to two people, just because everybody's busy doing their thing. And everybody, when they can, they get the rest they can get. So, and that does play on your mind, because you're sitting out there, bobbing up and down in the ocean for months on end. And you literally are. Back in those days, we had an Inmarsat satellite, which could connect email, you know, once a week or something like that, but we were fundamentally cut off from the world. So at least during COVID, you've got all the resources of technology at your disposal, and you can pick up the phone, or you can email, or you can do Zoom, what we're doing now, or FaceTime, or, you know, maybe Chris, you might even want to do TikTok. But there was none of that. There was none of that in the Navy at sea. And you had no idea what was going on. Like, you know, we come back from being away for, you know, months on end, and there was fundamental issues going on, or there was economic challenges, or there was some country had been attacked, or whatever like that. And you're just fundamentally cut off from the world. So it does play on your mind, but it's how you handle it, and how you manage it. And as you said earlier, to your point, people are different. And everyone's ideology is very, very different to somebody else's. And what motivates you may not motivate me, or vice versa, or how much pressure you can handle, or how much emotional attention you need is different to the next person. So, you know, a lot of the people that I still reach out to, they live on their own. As you said, they're busy. They're busy from 7.30, 8 o'clock till 6.30, you know, in a day, but they're glued to work. But after that, there's nothing because they live on their own. They've got no one to talk to after work. So you just, you know, just, I guess, just knowing that people are in that situation, are isolated, that I think it's good from time to time to reach out and just say, hey, listen, I'm here. You know, you can pop over, you can have, even if you just do a phone call, just to make sure that they're all right. At sea, you couldn't do that. It was a very different world. But, you know, it was, but you were mentally in a different state, if that makes sense. Yeah, 100%. I think, look, and I think here now, you know, we've done a really good job here. Raymond's, you know, set up daily meetings for us as a team to get together. And, you know, it's great that we've got all these different avenues within the week for us to connect as a team. I think that's really important because, you know, where, especially how we operate, you know, we typically used to operate within the office. That was the culture. But now that we're all dispersed, I'm just, I'm just glad to see that us as a team has that real connection within what's happening within our team. And, you know, there's regular touch points, and I think it's been good. I'm actually speaking probably to more of the team now than I was before. But I guess, you know, that's always good to have that connection. Now, Mick, I'm going to change it up a little bit, as I like to do. And these, you know, as we know, you've been trending on LinkedIn for this segment. And I've already had a couple of requests, wanting to hear some stories of MG, in particular, his days back in the Navy. So, mate, I'm going to leave this one to you. I'm not going to, I'm not going to, there hasn't been any ask about this particular story, but I've actually had a couple of requests saying, when MG's on, can you ask him for a funny story that's happened to him while he was in the Navy? God bless you, Christopher. God bless you. There's been a few, there's been a lot. And I guess ones that are above board. I guess a relatively clean one, relatively clean. In 1999, you remember when the TNI came down and invaded East Timor and Dili. Anyway, we were asked to go up there on the ship to get into Dili, but then also get around to which is where the TNI was sort of hustled in there. And anyway, so we, we sailed up and we went via Brisbane and when we got to Brisbane, because of, you know, just the nature of, you know, East Timor and malaria and whatnot, they gave us a whole bunch of antibiotics every single day. So when you got your dinner, the antibiotics were there, the chief medic was there and they made you take the antibiotic. And so it was probably a good two-week sail around from Brisbane to Darwin, because we got into Stokes Hill Wharf in Darwin just to prepare then spend the two days to get over to East Timor. Anyway, we finally got into, into Darwin at Stokes Hill Wharf and it was a Saturday and the next day, which was a Sunday, and the ship decided to do what was called a Navy Open Day, where families could come down and they could see what life was like in the military and especially what life was like in the Navy. You know, they could see where people slept and the sleeping quarters and the messes and, and that sort of thing and the spaces and all that. And so, so that was pretty much going to be done from like 7.30 in the morning till about one and then by the afternoon we had to sail. Anyway, so when we got into Stokes Hill Wharf, the chief medic said, righty-o folks, you've got 24 hours pretty much. Go out, have a rest, because we're going to be in East Timor for a number of months, but you can't drink because, you know, this medicine that you're on will interfere with the alcohol and the outcome might be good. And, you know, myself and some of the lads were 23, 24 years of age. What would a medic know with medicine and alcohol? Please. So as, as young lads do, we went straight to the pub and drank and we put on a bit of a wild bender. Now, now the rest of this story is actually hearsay because I actually don't remember, but how it's been articulated back to me by several senior officers on the ship that in fact did interact with the alcohol and it wasn't a great outcome. But what was interesting was that come the next, fast forward to the next morning, you've got all these families in Stokes Hill Wharf lining up to want to come and bring on to the open day and half the ship's company are in their uniform and they've dressed the ship and all the flags are out and all the festooning lights and all that sort of razzmatazz was there and anyway, apparently the, the warrant officer had said to a couple of the lads, I said, oh fair dinkum, have a look up there on the wharf in the corner. Boys discreetly go and get him. There's Mickey G up there. And I was naked and, and all I had was a bowl of Chinese and I had no idea where my clothes were. And, and if you know Stokes Hill Wharf and you know Darwin, there's not a Chinese shop within So how on earth I got from wherever I was drinking to a Chinese shop on the wharf and then decided to take my clothes off. I don't know, but I can, fair to say that a whole bunch of families had a real understanding of what life was like in the military, mate. And MG's on the wharf, naked, eating a bowl of Chinese. So probably not my finest hour of the day, but it's always a good one. And I'm sure there's plenty of those stories, mate. And I think, thanks for that, for the, for the anonymous person out in the wilderness, within the digital world that asked that question. So it's great. You know, like I was saying, right, people, people have been really keen just to see you talk. We know you've got a lot of stories. So hopefully we can share the Cloudflare TV world. You know, just some, some of the interesting things that have happened in your world, mate. So that's really good. That's fantastic, mate. So always, always a good story. I guess back to the original point, these are the things that I think are missing in a way. Yeah, you have chats and you have talks, but it's always the stories that come out in these environments, you know, whether we're, you know, in the office having a chat or whether someone chimes into something, it's that chiming into things, I'm finding, you know, and I guess this is what people are saying, that's the part that's, that is missing. And I think it's really, and I was having a chat to, I guess, a mate of mine and I said, well, we probably just need to create environments or groups or even Zoom calls where, you know, we can just get on and have, have a chat, share a story and have a bit of a laugh as well. Because, you know, it's all good to work and, you know, obviously we're all focused on doing that, but I think, you know, personally, mentally, we all need to, to, you know, loosen up a bit and make sure that we're, you know, we're having a laugh. And I think, you know, yes, we do that with our families and our close friends, but I think, you know, with our peers and our colleagues across the industry, that's the, that's the thing, you know, when was the last time we had a, you know, a vendor conference or, or something that happened where people connect and meet and you wouldn't see someone for a couple of years and all of a sudden you've seen them again, that, that's the part that has been definitely missed in the last few ones, right? I agree with you and that's, and make no mistake, whilst we're feeling this and we're going through the iterations in our mind about certain things, the majority of our peers are as well. They're seeing them from home, wondering, I wonder what XYZ's doing, I wonder how their business is going, I wonder what challenges they're facing during COVID. But you and I are very similar animals in terms of how we like to network, you know, we like to be out at a pub or a cafe or whatever and talking to colleagues, peers, customers in the old school way, have a beer with them and, you know, get to learn about them as an individual and a person, not just from a business point of view, but also you get to learn the personal side of things and that's been very, very challenging. But even just in, you know, whether it's a conference, so to speak, at a bar where you get 10 people from the industry and having a point of view, yeah? I don't think that I've heard anybody's real point of view about certain things just because of that dialogue hasn't been there, it hasn't existed, that interaction. Now, what's interesting is I went and met somebody for a meeting last week, drove all the way into St Leonard's and it was a fantastic meeting, it was great to meet the person and we had a coffee and we sat in the office and we talked about old times and things like that, which was awesome. But then I'm driving back home and it was a half an hour commute and I thought, whilst it was great to meet and great to connect, I thought to myself, why am I driving for half an hour? It's an absolute waste of my time. I could have done three emails or a call, four partners or whatever it happened to be, right? But that's where the psyche's changed and I literally thought, you know, six months ago we had no issue commuting, six months ago was part of it and you'd block out times in your calendar to go here, there and everywhere, but now it's like, well, what an absolute waste of time when I could have just seen, yeah, sure, I couldn't have, the guy and I couldn't have hugged, we could have had a virtual coffee and yeah, but I literally thought about the productivity side of it, I thought sitting in my car for half an hour is an absolute waste of time. Yeah, so you're finding yourself to be super productive during this time? Yes, absolutely. I'm to the point where you don't, look, you don't know when to switch off, which is one thing, however, but because my workstation's set up 24-7, you know, I can cook dinner, sort the kids out, quickly jump on and just see what's popped in, so the challenges here, you do find it challenging to switch off, but I do find myself being so much more efficient and I'm getting an enormous amount of work done and I literally, because I'm not wasting time either sitting in a car or sitting in a train or sitting in an Uber, going places and so that side of it, but I guess the consequence of that is you don't get that human interaction, you don't get that bond, you don't get that, I guess, the mental stimulation of just standing around the water cooler. So that's where I think you really need to, you know, for those that want it and those that need it, I think it's critical that you still connect to your network and you still reach out and you still maintain, you know, that level of dialogue and communication around with your peers and partners or whoever it happens to be. Yeah, spot on, mate. So what have you done to, I guess, to separate work from life or was it all blended? How do you manage that side of the fence for yourself? It's funny what you get used to, Chris, it really is, because as you know, I'm big into my F45. I mean, it's in COVID because everything was stopped, so we went to virtual F45 and I thought, how on earth am I going to do virtual F45, right? I need somebody, you know, I'm the sort of bloke that, you know, when I felt the urge to go for a run, I'd lay down to the urge passed. So I need someone to motivate me and to really kick me along. I can't do staring at a screen. However, within the literally this wall behind me, I had a couple of weights, I had the, so I'd finish, you know, quarter past five, I'd just hit stop on my meeting or I'd leave the email, I'd literally go next door and I'd do 45 minutes of F45. I wasn't wasting 20 minutes driving there and back. And then as soon as I'm done, I come straight back in here and just see what's happened in the last 45 minutes. So I guess exercise has been a bit of a way to help me structure my day, keep my mind open, free, but certainly, you know, in being in the city and walking to and from meetings or to whatever, like I don't get as much vitamin D as I should be getting, absolutely not, it's probably why I'm so pale. But yeah, trying to maintain a good balance is challenging because I'm like you, I'm very structured, very rigorous around what I want to achieve by the end of the day and expectations of, you know, what happens if I don't. So trying to blend that in there has been difficult, but it's just, you know, you just need to find your rhythm, find what works for you and just really stick to it as best as you can. Mate, fantastic. Mate, I think, you know, the best thing that we can all do here is just be open. I guess the advice is, you know, reach out to your peers, chat to them. And I think one observation I have made, a lot of people thought it was just them, like maybe it's just me, this is the reason why I'm feeling, but you'd be surprised how many people you talk to. Everyone's feeling the same thing, but I just don't think a lot of us are having those conversations around what's actually happening because we're just stuck in our worlds, right? And there's no time to sort of think back and go, hey, what's going on? But look, I think, you know, everyone's different. Everyone's, you know, some people are loving the isolation I've had. People go, you know what, this is the best thing ever for me. I get up in the morning, I do my work, you know, and I love being online. I don't prefer that. So for some people, they're loving it. For some other people, they're not. And there's everything in between, but I think it's, you know, really important that this situation's not going to change anytime soon. And I think all of us, you know, have a responsibility to reach out to one another and make sure that we're having these conversations. I think it's very important because we, you know, you see on the news, there's a lot of issues around people's mental health. You mentioned something about things like getting vitamin D and making sure that our immune systems are strong, you know, because we're not walking to a station or walking to the office and doing this. We're just sitting around, not moving. So I think, you know, as individuals, like I've got a stand up desk, that's helping my back issues for sure. But I also make sure that I'm staying active all day. So mate, some really good tips. Some really good stories, as always, Mr. MG. I love a good Navy story from you, mate. I'm sure the crowd today loved it and hopefully the ratings spike because of it, mate. So on that note, mate, we thank you for your time. Mate, it's always a pleasure. Mate, some really good tips for the community out there. Again, I'd love to have you on the show again in the future, probably once the baby comes along, we'll be posting that. So have a good day. Thank you everyone on CFTV. Thanks for the questions that came live through today as well. And we'll speak to everyone next week.