Panelists

Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer | Tzury Bar Yochay

Guest

Kelsey Hightower

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Committing to Cloud Native Podcast! It’s the podcast by Reblaze where we talk about open source maintainers, contributors, sustainers, and their experiences in the cloud native space. If you are ready to be taken on a magical journey look no further. We are super excited to have as our awesome guest today, Kelsey Hightower, who is Principal Engineer and Principal Staff Advocate at Google in the Google Cloud Platform Division. Kelsey shares with us how ended up in the Cloud Native space, joining Google, and his job offer at NASA. We also learn about how Kelsey succeeds with his live demo’s, why he calls himself a Minimalist, and the amazing story behind No Code. Find out why Justin calls Kelsey the “Metaphor King,” and how Kelsey thinks engaging people and telling stories can help a little better at building things. Don’t wait any longer and download this episode now to find out more magical things from the “Principal Storyteller!”

[00:02:20 ] Kelsey talks about how he ended up in the Cloud Native Space and how he joined Google.

[00:04:20 ] Find out about Kelsey’s job offer at NASA.

[00:06:33 ] Richard wonders since open source has longer timelines if it resonates with Kelsey.

[00:09:38 ] Kelsey tells us his role in Google with open source projects.

[00:11:59 ] We hear Kelsey’s thoughts on if Istio is really good at delivering all that documentation, if it could use work, or if that’s the Google way when it comes to open source.

[00:17:27 ] Tzury wonders how Kelsey’s been doing all these years pitching to the Developers who can be a tough crowd in the industry.

[00:19:18 ] Justin mentions how “suspenseful” Kelsey’s live demos are and he wonders how he goes in front of thousands of people without freaking out.

[00:23:22 ] Tzury wonders why Kelsey calls himself a minimalist on his Twitter when he’s so fascinating on stage.

[00:24:55 ] We learn about Kelsey’s GitHub repo called No Code, which has 46,000 stars.

[00:28:15 ] Kelsey tells us how he came up with the No Code idea.

[00:30:54 ] Kelsey shares where he sees Cloud Native going in the future.

[00:33:54 ] Find out why Kelsey said, “Magicians are cool, but teachers are better!”

[00:37:24 ] Justin calls Kelsey the “Metaphor King” since he’s so successful at communicating what he sees and his values, and Richard wonders if he has any tips to share on how to do that effectively do that. Kelsey shares some outstanding advice!

[00:40:21 ] Justin wonders if it’s been a blessing in disguise for Kelsey to have the year off speaking at conferences because of the COVID 19 breakout.

[00:43:46 ] Find out where you can follow Kelsey online.

Quotes

[00:03:40 ] “So, when Kubernetes dropped I kind of looked at it and said you know what, this is probably it!”

[00:04:29 ] “After I left CoreOS I actually signed, you know, my deal to go work for JPL out in Pasadena, and I had done a little bit of work before then on the open source front, and they were using Kubernetes to power their kinda on-site data center there.”

[00:05:35 ] “They explained to me some of the projects you work on at NASA, I think there was one project where, you know, one of the spacecrafts flew past Pluto and took a bunch of pictures, and it’s like that person that worked on that retired two decades ago.”

[00:06:36 ] “It depends on how these projects are launched.”

[00:07:22 ] “And then you have things that are kind of wide open, hey, we’re taking all contributions and then maybe you find out that may or may not be sustainable.”

[00:07:37 ] “You build a product, you gotta make that thing profitable day one. That is the success metric.”

[00:08:48 ] “Because when you say yes or no, you’re signing up for long-term maintenance. Someone can drop by with a contribution and then be gone forever, but it’s on you to maintain.”

[00:09:11 ] “You see people get mad. It’s like, when is this thing going to get updated. I’ve been using it for twenty years for free and this is unacceptable. And you’re like, I’ll give you a refund?”

[00:09:57 ] “I think what people may not understand is Google doesn’t have to try very hard on the open source side.”

[00:10:46 ] “So when it comes to open source and when people say Cloud Native, I think Google has earned appropriate credit for helping spawn this thing. At CoreOS, our mission was GIFEE (Google’s Infrastructure for Everyone Else).

[00:12:11 ] “I mean if you think about it, what does have great documentation? Almost no one likes any documentation anywhere. “

[00:12:22 ] “What’s the documentation for Bash?”

[00:12:46 ] “I think documentation is kind of a community thing. You can always go write a book to fill in the gaps. You can always create a documentation site all on your own.”

[00:13:07 ] “Google’s approach has been, number one, Envoy is amazing. Let’s contribute to it.”

[00:14:58 ] “But, I also am one of those persons that wrote Kubernetes the hard way because I thought there was a lack of documentation.”

[00:17:28 ] “So I don’t pitch to them which is the key. The key is I’m just learning in public.”

[00:17:33 ] “I think when people say, when Kelsey talks about something, I have that empathy that you can see yourself probably typing the same commands that I do in my live demo.”

[00:18:54 ] “Imagine if every developer had to implement HTTP first, we would all be like this is crazy. But that’s kind of what we’re doing on the infrastructure side and we’re proud of it.”

[00:20:17 ] “All those micro feelings of joy that I get from making these work, I try to bottle them up and make that part of the talk.”

[00:22:40 ] “I feel like I’m being the Dungeon Master. I’m telling the story and you can see people leaning in like, this ain’t gonna work!”

[00:25:22 ] “So No Code, honestly I think the people took it and ran with it, but it told me one thing, that I think people are getting tired of all this complexity.”

[00:31:01 ] “I just think any technology that’s super successful has to get democratized, that the people who use it in mass shouldn’t know how to actually build it. That shouldn’t be a requirement.”

[00:31:13 ] “If you want to see any technology, see global adoption, then it can’t require everyone to know how to operate it at the very lowest levels.”

[00:33:54 ] “I would say magicians are cool, but teachers are better!”

[00:36:39 ] “If you’re listening to this and you’re struggling, like why language is good for diversity, some people resonate with food better. You go and taste food from another country it’s like, wow, I would have never thought to put those things together! This is delicious! That’s what diversity gets you when people are trying different things based on their own independent culture, so maybe that would help a lot more people understand and maybe