Hello there. Read that, listeners, and welcome to the show. I'm stoked to have you here today. My guest is David Woodland. David is a technologist from Silicon Valley, and he's a father of four. While recording this episode, he was still working at palm dot com, but now he's a product manager with Facebook before starting on his startup journey and Silicon Valley, he was a consultant, and we're gonna talk about how those skills transition into the start of world, what he learned and how he applied to both his started world and his family. Like I said, he's a father of four. So of course we're gonna talk about what it's like to family to balance family life while working a fast paced environment.

David is gonna share how he got Steph Curry to be the face of palm dot com, and how a team of 12 people can launch a new smartphone from scratch. Also, we're gonna talk about what it's like to be a Mormon in Silicon Valley. Hint. He's not much of a Mormon anymore, but more on that in the show. So without further ado, let's start Well, welcome to the show.

Yeah, Thanks for having me. I've, uh I've been listening to the dead ride at show for a few years, and so it's it's an owner. Be here.

That's awesome. You're like the number one fan of both of my podcasts. Yeah, And I thought you would be a great guest when I saw you tweet. I think the lead tweet was ah prompt to saying, Like what people disagree with you on that you strongly believe was a good idea. And you said that having four kids with a great idea,

I think someone responded like I have four kids to, and that is still, uh, undecided for me. But yet that was my response. Love being dead.

So you're dead a four. And you do start ups. I mean, this is kind of insane.

Yeah, um, really insane. I think it's funny, like in everything that I do in my life. I feel like I just let's go for and I think that I came from big family. My wife was came from a big family, and I think we always wanted to have a big family. And so, you know, I like the thing that I like about startups is like building something from nothing and growing. And seeing this thing that you made, this thing that you created become something bigger. And I like being a father is the same exact thing. I've got these, like, four little humans,

that air crawling around my house and you can watch them grow and guide them, teach them. And, you know, I think similar joys, and I guess it different types of work. But it's similar satisfaction.

So how do you manage that? Right again? You've been having kids every 16 months, give or take. I mean, that's that's really intense on obviously on your wife. But it's also on you, The family like your body, your health

and everything, right? How

do you even manage having all these projects while so raising a family?

Yes, that's a good question. I think you know everybody. I think they say, like, ah, if you're working on something that you love, you never worked for a day. And I think I have been, um, fortunate enough in my career in just life to be able to be so selective on projects in start ups and the opportunities that came, um, that I'm just deeply, deeply, deeply passionate about them. And so around the clock, I'm I'm thinking in my current job,

like I'm thinking about home, day in, day out and it doesn't really feel like work. It's meaningful stuff. And I guess my wife would say that I work a lot, but to me, it's It's not this, like an Ernie energy draining activity. It's something that I just I get a lot of, um, utility at having a lot of joy out of. And so, um, yeah, I'm I worked like a madman and I'm my dad like a crazy man.

So how did you find those opportunities? Because I think that's really rare. To really be into your work and be that passionate buy whatever product you working on or did you specifically seek out the product? You would be passion?

Um, yeah, So I guess before I got into start ups, I was, ah, management consultant. My very first client was Google. Actually, I was on the mergers and acquisitions team at Google in the SEC finance role That was a finance undergrad. I knew I always wanted to be in tech. I grew up in the Bay area. Um, and so, you know, as a consulting that Google em in A It kind of sounds like this dream job. And I knew within, like,

two weeks that I was It wasn't going to be, like, a long term thing for me because the thing that was most interesting to me was not the finance part was the tech part. So, you know, like at the time, was going through, like, buying, like autonomous driving. I think about zag. They bought a few other companies, and the tech was the interesting part. Not the spreadsheets, not any of the valuations of numbers or anything like that. Um and so I was fortunate enough that my consulting firm had a ah innovation technology group.

Um, Mobile was this brand new thing. So I was able to switch within the firm to this innovation consulting team where we were basically teaching fortune 500 companies about what mobile meant for the industry. So I had clients like Callaway Golf, young brands, Taco Bell pizza, huh? I worked with General Motors. I worked with TD Ameritrade, and it's a lot about like what? Mobile men. What did the iPhone what android mean? And what is the strategy? What is, like, the competency and the investments and what is the play?

And, you know, it was this really high level strategic See, sweet stuff is awesome that I could, like, just have that exposure to that type of stuff so early in my career. But I also just didn't like the model of putting, like, 3 to 6 months on one of these companies and then moving on. I don't wanna be on the sideline coaching, just planning. I wanted to be in the, um, the execution and building stage and just seeing some of these ideas through, um so along this way, while I was at ah,

while I was consulting pebble through their Kickstarter, So I don't know if remember, Pebble, it was Ah, Smartwatch Blue two connected thing that worked for IOS and android. Yep. I have pebble. Yeah. So basically, pebble Kickstarter launched And, um, you know, I instantly my mind as went to all of the different things that I thought Pebble could be And the one that I was most excited to me was I could have turn by turn navigation on my wrist as I was writing my motorcycle our own Silicon Valley, because you don't get, like, a visual prompt for when it turned for,

like, anything. Uh, so I got really excited about. And I just started basically mocking up use cases and stories and suffer smartwatches and got ahold of a community manager and just started going like an online relationship with just various people at Pebble and then, uh, joined pretty on pretty early on. Um, yeah, I just I guess my passion just drove me, like, all way up through that organization of, um, just building just all the exciting use cases that a smartwatch could be because no one had ever made what absolute wash before. So it's pretty cool opportunity.

Yeah. I mean, Pebble was awesome. And you guys, for the first once, I mean, I remember the kickstarted video and I Eric magical ski right this year was basically just wearing this, like, hardware prototype on his wrist in the early days of Pebble. It was really cool, because before that, were there even any equivalent devices not really write. That was like pioneering this pace.

No, not at all. Um, no. So I think Eric actually, one thing people don't really know. It's before Pebble. Before people there was Ah, Eric had a smart washroom. It's called Alert and he made this watch. That worked only for BlackBerry, and I think it was just his text messages or something that would come through it. I think he sold like, See that five or 15,000 of those or something until he realized he's on to something bigger and he entered Ah y Combinator after having already done alerted for

a little bit. Yeah, I knew that wasn't prototype. I didn't know he actually sold copies of it outside of himself. That's pretty cool. Yeah, just curious, given that experience and your consulting experience, because consultants are not entirely popular in Silicon Valley. Um, Gino just watched the Silicon Valley show. Like how many consultants did you seen the show?

Three. Aperture. I didn't even like myself. I was. I brought in a lot of those stigmas, and even today, like you know, a lot of that is flow from puffin buzzwords, and I guess it's kind of the same somewhere. I roll that maybe like some like NBA's get right. It's just you talk about frameworks. You talk about ideas in directions and, you know, it's a thought leadership. And ah, it's, you know,

like in the Valley, people are, like, practical about building and just, you know, actually, like formulating and building something off of this idea. You know, consulting is ah, an incredible, um, place to start your career. Just I think you know, some people went marketing. We started agency. Some people,

like in banking, you start like, added at a bank or starting financing chartered bank. You sort of these places were exposed to a lot of different problems, typically at a higher level. Um, you're solving higher level problems than you would otherwise. We solve a an entry level in a lot of mega corporations, so get a lot of exposure to different industries. Verticals, um, usually, like just senior management. Even at that Google role, I think I was coming in at a manager. But even though I was just ah,

undergrad So, um, fascinating, fascinating area. Um, and there's some people were just cut out to do it. I think there's a lot of like, Yeah, there's some viral to consultants, but at the same time, I know firsthand that, you know, sometimes executives don't want to be the ones to make the call. And it's a lot more country when it says like, Oh, well,

these expensive consultants also came to this conclusion. And it's almost this just validation of ideas that leaders within companies already had that you know, you just need that 30 party perspective, have confidence in it. So it's an expensive way to come to that. But you know, it's every organization has their route and consultants find their way. I think a lot of consultancy as this spring board of opportunity, and you need to sort of find how to transition. How do you go from management consulting to product manager like it's It's not always, Ah, a direct story, and you really need to be able to connect the dots and just make the most of it. And, you know, like NBA's aren't for everybody.

I didn't personally go back to school for, like a master s degree of any sort, but that doesn't mean that others don't benefit from I think people you know there's some structures, like some opportunity or like maybe it's just a rebranding of themselves or whatever they need to get to the next thing. But consulting work for me, I was gonna say one of the things that was interesting about my experience specificly was I was thinking about like, the car as a platform for APS at General Motors. I was thinking about, you know, online trading SD case. And what kind of absent ecosystem could you build on top of like, what could third party developers do if they had those AP eyes for trading platform? And ah, my mind was very much already about these ecosystems and APS and third party developers and things like that. And so naturally, when the Smartwatch comes up to me was just one another platform that just hadn't been built out yet.

And so to me, isn't oh, like sports scores and foursquare check ins and PayPal transfers and calling an uber. And you know all of these cool, new, exciting things they could do in a tap instead of ah, you know, the five taps it takes on the phone. So the school

Yeah, and speaking of the springboard, you turn it into an opportunity for you, right? That and that's probably one of the key aspects. Whatever you do, you you can make an opportunity for yourself in just two. Look for it. But what you also mention one thing about ah, schooling and we'll get back to it when we talk about your kids. But where did you go to school? How? How did you become a measurement consultant?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, um, I, uh I was raised in, ah, Mormon family. And now the s family went toe BYU in Utah on, and I went to the Myriad School of Management sitting financing to kill me.

Is it true universities fully paid for you by the church?

Um, no. It is highly subsidized by the church. I think if you're actually like a member of the church, the tuition is lower. Um, I would say the bar to get scholarships, um, wasn't that high, but, um, it wasn't like exclusive nutrition oversight. I think anybody could do.

I mean, I think it's pretty cool, because if you look, I think if you look at the Silicon Valley and profiles of successful entrepreneurs, quite a few of them came out of like either the Mormon church or ah, that university right?

Yeah, it's interesting. I think you know, there's demographic studies of, like how, like Mormons land in the world. And, you know, I just that I think they teach, like some good morals and work ethic. You get some sort of like unorthodox, uh, training when you do like Mormon missions and things like that. And just I guess those air like formula of things just mold people in character characteristic traits. And, uh, yeah,

I think he says, they're like Coulter's. If in Utah, there just a lot of really driven, hyper competitive people. So I just kind of Foster's that.

But hold on. The way you talk about it doesn't mean you're not currently the member of the

church. Um, I guess I'm still still taking on paper, a member of the church, but not super active. And my wife is my family is not me. Specifically?

No, it's just one of the dead that was on the show was Bryce for arbors. DVC for Indy BC Yeah, right And he lives in Utah, and I assume that, you know, I mean, from what we talked about, the seem to be pretty into church. It's interesting to see how people, um, kind of continue with their ah, bringing furthering their life, right? If your family was heavily religious, it's very likely you're gonna continue that hum. Anyways, we don't have to talk about church.

That could get weird. Yeah. No, it's fine. I'm an open book. You can you can go any direction with the times I'm everything's fair game.

Well, then, well, no. But But seriously, then I am curious. And, you know, given how many successful people have come out of Mormon church like it's had a good idea to continue. Kind of like being part of the religious

club. Yeah, So I guess I read Ah, tweet once, Um, I don't know who said it. It was said like, religion doesn't exist because it's true, but because it works. And I think I kind of relate to that a lot in the sense of I had this religion that just gave me so much structure and, like, really taught me to be ah, like, good, happy, disciplined person. It taught me a lot of good work,

ethics and how to treat people in behavior and value families. And I got so much out of it. Meanwhile, in the end, while I took all of those good things, why don't necessarily take a lot of the like the historical facts and things that you're taught? But I definitely, like, can appreciate the community and the morals and stuff. And my wife, who is still an active, practicing Mormon who likes to take our kids to church on Sundays. It's just saying that, uh, you know, I can appreciate the things so they're sure,

like, maybe it cause it's some complications and ripples and things that we work through. But it's, um you know, I think net positive and my kids will hit a point at some point where they have toa figure out what direction they want to go. But no, I think revision as a framework like, you know, not every framework in the world is perfect, but usually a frame a framework is better than no framework. So that's my two cents on that. Yeah, it's an interesting and I interpret this forever. No to me. Like, you know,

I think I know people. I know a lot of people who leave their religion, and they are bitter and they want to tear down religion and think of it as an evil thing to me. You know, like I think just it provides someone structure and so much good for so many people. The last thing I generally want to do is just read people faith away and tell them they're wrong or making fuel of Stevie, like for the most fire, Like a lot of the seaport. Truly, truly, truly happy. And until their religion is getting in the way of their happiness, I've let him being let him enjoy their beliefs, whether it's yours or not.

So I'm curious. You said that sometimes it causes hiccups in your family. Um, and you work through it. Can you give me an example of how you work through it?

Ah, how do we work through it? You know, I honestly like when we got married, I we were both mormon. So, you know, my wife was signing up to the, um, married forever to like a lifelong about Mormon. And I guess, you know, there's just kind of just things she was thought she was signing up for that. Didn't, uh it just didn't pan out that way. But all through all of this like when I was just leaving the Mormon church. My go along the whole way was always to just,

um, not let it be a theme that Brogel part my family, like I wanted my family was going to be the most important thing. And yeah, sure, you take my face way, But don't take my wife and kids away from me. So I guess every everything for a while is, you know, just being cautious and careful and thoughtful and taking a deep breath and just bringing perspective to everything. And, um, I guess just it's it requires patients from me and patients from her and understanding like some things that she just has to do and some things I just have to do and just figure it out as a couple.

I mean, I'm sorry for putting you on the spot about this, but I think it's super important, cause I bet there is tens of thousands of families like that who may or may not be going through something similar so or a considering right, because for everyone who joins a religion that somebody's leaving it, and I think it's important that people know how to kind of think about it if they don't have a foreign work to think about it yet.

Yeah, it's an interesting space because, you know, a lot of that is, uh, you know, when people were going through, like a faith crisis, it's probably the time when they need people the most. But it's also a time when, ah, I guess a lot when you're raising the Mormon Church. You know what? Your wife, your family, your school, your professors,

most of the people around you have that faith. And so, as you're taking on the biggest challenge of your life, of getting through that, most of that support system isn't necessarily behind you on that and questioning you. And it's it is a journey, and you have to find where those support avenues come from, whether you know it's friends or people you can trust or co workers or ah, Internet forums or whatever. Like you know, you find the people that can just carry you through.

Is it acceptable to suggest that people listening to this who may need I want to ask questions they could reach out to you and Twitter and folky

brain about this? Yeah, for sure. I'm always an open book on Twitter on anything generally, you know, I'm always if anybody asks for help on anything, I'm happy to help him. And, uh, never never to tear anybody down or critique. I'm even in these guys that startups to is, you know, here, startups wack. I'll, uh, usually, you know, give constructive feedback. But it's all in all with love.

Bonus points of tweets come from a palm device, right? Yeah. So, you know, let's talk about that a little bit. So you went through this journey of being kind of like a product manager and then teaching yourself a lot of hardware software stuff. And now you're working on palm. You wanna tell people promise from the com, by the way.

Yeah. So, um yeah, Palm is a, uh, a brand new start up in San Francisco, I guess when a lot of people here palm, they think of the Palm Pilot from the nineties, maybe the palm pre from about 10 years ago. Um, So we're a small team in San Francisco today, bringing in the the company of palm back. So we're 12 people sitting in office today, and our very first product that we brought back is what we're calling the ultra mobile. So it's a smartphone that's about the size of the of a credit card. It fits in your coin pocket. It fits in your wallet, fits in a lot of little things, and you know all the places where your phone can't.

How cool is that? That 12 people could be working on a smartphone that is a standalone smartphone. Like, how is that even possible

today? Yeah, actually, its 12. But we really built their with about five of us. I think we were six when we launched. But two of those people, one of this I think two people joined in, like the months leading up to her launch. So obviously this partnerships involving agencies involved have, like, brand agencies and marketing agencies, we use contractors for engineering and testing. And, you know, like we have this. We lean on broader partners and stuff, so maybe our budgets are larger than 10 people, but it's Ah yeah, full time in San Francisco is about 10 people and come for a moment, please.

But, I mean, you've done hardware for a good number of years, now, right 10 years ago versus now What's changed that enables this huge leap,

I think, in the early 2000 tens with this whole maker movement and Kickstarter products. And you know, like I think the all these platforms useful things like Shopify appeared. I think when will launch like Shopify didn't exist. Pebble was building a lot of just a whole e commerce platform, basically from scratch and AP eyes and development systems and stuff. And now and, you know, like Shopify is just like part time job. That's just a few hours a day that someone who sort of looks at instead of needing a huge team. Eso I think, Yeah, I think just hardware as an industry change and a lot of tools and a lot of things were popping up on. And then there's just a lot of synergies that we inherit just because we're a mobile product, there's just a lot of things Mobil's and very, very mature in this route said.

There's just like things like Android has already made. We don't worry about Android actually on this. So all along the way, the company that we sort of looked at as a model on how we wanted to build a company was, ah, video. So I think if you there's use cases case that he's on a physio. Um, and I think they launched busier with four or five PM's. And, you know, they made a plan that count sources that kind of manufacturer in Mexico. They got their Costco deal, the structure of the guy that all set up and they start shipping. And I think they became close to a $1,000,000,000 company before you've been hitting their 10th employees. So,

um, it was a model that we looked at. And if you just have a few like, yeah, intelligent, talented people in multiple areas can think about problems holistically, um, managing different various vendors and things like, you know, magic happens.

Could you just get even curry?

How did we get staff? Um, that's a phony story. So we were looking for investors, and I am like, I'm a Bay Area native. Uh, just lifelong nb a fan. If you know anything about the history of the Warriors, they're like the worst. They were like the worst n b a team of my childhood. And then, like this guy named Stephon Curry comes along, and he's like he's like the savior of the franchise. He's everything. So, like as the Warriors in like Stephan Curry was just like my hero.

He was like my celebrity, like people that go influencers I didn't care about, like any, like famous person or celebrity in the world. Steph, Steph Curry. He was like my favorite dude. So I knew using tack, I knew he invested especially, you know, like I just I thought a lot of things that we're doing about with our software of, like being focus and attention and fitness and just a lot of use cases around problem would be a good fit. So I thought there would be a good match there and, ah, but then it's like, How do you get?

How do you get the attention of your like your hero of like the Steph Curry's of the world? Um, she's a fair question. So I just, you know, I started, like just scouring the Internet, trying to find ways. I probably like gm him on various platforms, just e tried a few different things. Eventually, I found the name of his agent. Um, I go onto linked in. And there's a guy who's like he has that name. He's like,

uh, he doesn't have a picture uploaded. He doesn't have any work history. Except, like the agency for all his three connections on LinkedIn. And for all I know, this is like a fishing scheme. Or like, maybe he actually did log in, but he forgot his password and never logged in ever again. Um, but us Xperia, I'm just gonna, like, send him are, like Pidge or like sending Marty's here anyways,

which is also fun, because at the time, Palm wasn't public, Our product was in public, were so self wouldn't tell anybody. So in that tease, I didn't say the word poem, and I didn't say anything about mobile or anything. It was just, like, very vague. Um, but Steph has a great agent. He saw that, and like, within 30 minutes,

he was just like, Hey, sounds interesting. Give me a call. So I still wasn't sure if it was the guy I called him. Um, you know, we're sort of feeling at him out. You see, if I was legit, I was saying if he was legit and after a while it just exclusive. This is second decision. I'm just gonna give him, like, the full pitch. So I pitched him on the phone within a few days,

him and steps finance guy came out, we pitched them and they liked it. So we ended up going to Steph's Jim. We pitch Steph Curry for 30 minutes at his gym in the East Bay after a workout session, and then he came to the office a few times. So we started getting knowing him, get to know him and do creative sessions with him and just really get him a part of things and buying and just see it, as you know, after, if you try after a few meetings like that, we just had. We had a good relationship and trust and vision, and, you know, I think a lot of just who he is as a family man, an athlete is the intersection of like it made a lot of sense for the brand.

And, um, just where his passions are because I think you know, Steph, he's you see it like a lot of his endorsements that he's he's with under armour. He built on armor. He uh, he likes it. Choose the underdogs and build something to be a part of something and not just like a face to a brand, but really just be a part of the process. And I think that was appealing to him with Palm was like, You know, you could get a patient from Apple or Google for a few years or he could be a part of Palm and work for with us for forever, like, you know, beyond basketball and stuff. So, um, I think that

that's pretty sweet. So he still shows up in the office again.

And, um, yeah, so we seem quite a bit. He's pretty big busy in the n b a season, but what we do photo shoots will come in or like, we'll do like, uh, collaboration things around like accessories in various things That was funny, like, even like we have this like arm sleeve and, like Steph knows a lot about, like sports accessories and materials and rubber and gripping and all kinds of things that, you know, we didn't really know is like electron ICS guys. So he's like, Yeah,

there's this material here where you put a little bit of rubber and it groups better on your forearm and try that. And, you know, he's just giving us tips and stuff along the way. And, uh, yeah, like it's not like a joke when we say like he's a part of the company and its not he's more than just investor like he really is. Ah, one of us. So for me, that's just like, you know, Like I said, he's like the big influence here. And just like having a guy like Steph Curry,

not one, like being aware of who I am, investing his personal money and time into what I'm doing approve seeing the craft, appreciating it and just having those experiences with him. It's for me. It's, uh it's incredible, just like everything you could ask for, like in a ah, in a start up. And then also just like when you talk about your interactions with, like, your childhood hero, whatever, like he's, uh, it's a good one.

You know, I really love the story because your passion comes through in your voice, and it's not. It's not like fake like, Well, we're gonna build a product that's gonna make a lot of likes, you know, whatever you like. It's an actual product. You actually excited about it? And these little stories, I can feel how much joy it brings into your life and them I don't want to know more about you're in Silicon Valley. You know, you've had other experiences and startups in Silicon Valley, and Ah, right now we live in this hustle culture world where everything's about work. 24 sevens.

They have all the time, like work, work, work, work, work. But you're a family man. You've got for kids. What's your view? How do you balance it? And you know, where do you put the focus to be present for your company, but at the same time also enjoyed Injure your family?

Yeah. You know, I think I think that's I guess that's the biggest question. This podcast. And I think a lot of people figure that out. So I guess for me, um, I want to preface this whole thing. So there's this thing on Twitter the last week, about like, 10 X engineers, and everybody rolls their eyes and I saw someone I saw some treated 10 x family man, and that was what I Retweeted not cause I'm calling myself a 10 x 1,000,000 But that's just that's sort of what I aspire to be. Because, you know everything. Would you ever do all the work and hard work and everything we do is providing for our families and, uh,

why so we can So we can, like, give those opportunities in that comfort and the future to our Children And no, just having having that lifestyle with them. And so I think, um, I've always I started my career. I started having kids really young, and so from the very beginning, kids were a part of it. And I've just always tried Teoh design my work in my day around my kids. And so with a start up, you know, with Palm I was working very long days in very long hours to get the company off the ground. But I just put in things in place that just made sure that I was made that time for my kids. So,

um, I, uh the easiest low hanging fruit for me is I take my kids to school in the morning and I take, you know, take the preschoolers and then we go maybe go over Starbucks for a bit and I'll take my kids to, like, kindergarten and, like, I go to the rounds. And so no matter what, Monday through Friday. Um, you know, I don't know how long I'm making second work or where things in Tokyo, and I hope that you back in the evening. But if I don't get back in the evening,

at least I had, uh, the mornings with my kids. And so, uh, I've blocked off the mornings a block of my calendars. Make sure I'm not unlike phone calls are interrupting the morning times and then just get to spend those morning hours and mentally prep my kids and asking about their homework and just, you know, given that, like, pep talk or training or whatever it is, So I have that imprint on their day, no matter what, Uh, and I think that's sort of this, like,

foundational thing that I discovered that just like makes it is just a built in part of the day that a decision I don't have to make every day I can speed their dad for that. And then, ah, you know, my kids have taken to sports and I love sports. And so I volunteered to coach are being assistant coach basically like, you know, they do soccer, that you basketball, they do baseball. And, ah, I guess whenever I choose a job, I make it clear from the very, very beginning. Like,

um, I make it clear, like, you know, like, I'm a family man and, ah, like, this is an important part to me, and I would love to work here, and I will give, like, every ounce of everything I have into this. But I'm gonna be at my kid's baseball game and oh, and I'm gonna this. And so just making that a priority,

blocking off your calendar. And, you know, I think, um, it's always feasible. It can always happen. You can always clear calendar and then you just that they're worried about the repercussions like will this hurt my growth with people of the office? Trust me. Well, they what do they think about me balancing out early every Tuesday and Thursday to get back to basketball practice? Um, and you know, there's a little bit of hesitation, and I still kind of get nervous about it almost every time that I do it. But ah,

no, it's part of the game. It's part of life. And as long as I'm just working hard and I'm showing that effort and I'm showing that impact and I show that I'm willing to put in a long, hard hours and people like I don't think there's anybody in the company that is a question about my work ethic despite probably ducking out earlier than most people a couple times a week. So just finding that balance in finding that self confidence just make it happen.

And it's interesting that you still worry about it, even though things seem to be going fine.

I think that's just how I'm wired. It's like I am just a super super driven person. That's just I just work on and I love work. And so I've always been a person. I like to lead by example, and I like to parent by example. And um, it's, you know, I wanted still that in the teams that I work with that, like working hard, is important but also like even I know it sounds like a hip, credible thing when you duck out early from the office like twice a week. Still, you know,

you mean define early. Is it like one in

the afternoon? Or like, No, no, eso like I usually tried to schedule, um, like practices as ladies. I cannot. We do. So will be the team that practice at, like 6 30 or something. But, you know, if there's a baseball game at five and I have like an hour plus commute means not to get that way, like 3 30 or something, something. So it's not too bad. But

e I remember during Pebble years people who are in you who were working there were pretty excited about the unlimited vacation time because I think the idea was that you work hard when there's a sprint and then you can relax. Well, you know, other parts of the business catching up, and it seemed like a really good idea where it was totally normal to do that. But what's that? The case? I mean, at least on your side

of the team. Yeah, I think I think that's been pretty pretty standard, and most starts these days is like this, like they just opened vacation policy and just make sure you take care of what gets done. I think that was one of the things that attracted me to product management was just seeing like how, you know, product management is cyclical, and there's times where it's really busy. And this time we're just early planning, creative design process and, you know, you can just sort of take He's like, built in breaks. And, you know, like,

I know what marketing those people are working through, like Black Friday in the holidays and things like that and, you know, im product. Usually you've already shipped, and everything's like pretty much taken care of in the bugs. And as long as you're not pushing too much code going into the holidays like you can sleep easy at night, unlike Christmas Eve, knowing that, Ah, you did your part because those were already under the tree.

That's that's a good advice, Right, sir? Maybe if you like, it's important to pick the job that fits into your priorities. In them stay. This priority is clearly so that everybody's aware why you're making decisions the way you do and then is

just fine. Yeah, in like when you're a dad, you just learned like you know you don't have that luxury of just going on vacation and you weak it has to fit with the school schedule. So it's like, you know, you have, like, around Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring, break and summer. And so that's already built in those air, like four weeks of the year that you definitely need to capitalize on. And so as long as you're just being proactive in making plans and making sure you're doing something meaningful with your family, that's like I was on a quarterly basis. You doing like an extended like we dish type thing,

Um, and then on the three day weekends, just really just get on those is to make sure you're getting those. Yeah, it works

who I'm not again like scheduling that, that that's the hard part.

Yeah, I like to I schedule in my work, but in my personal life, I guess my wife holds down a lot of that. Actually, that's a funny thing. So this is the, like, the rad Dad show, but it should. This episode should be rebranded the bad Dad show because right now my family is not here. They're on vacation in Seattle, up by you and then there for those They're there for the next week and 1/2 while Dad's at work. And then, ah, next week I'll be flying up to Portland and we'll spend some time on the Oregon coast before coming back. So

I mean, on the bright side, you taking a break from the family is great. So, Howie, you don't Their future is gonna look very different from our present and past. What do you think is going to be important to teach them? And what career life, whatever have you path you're trying to set them for in order to be successful in life?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think the thing that I tried to instil my Children is, um, I hope that they just have curiosity and that they understand how to fill that curiosity. So, um, just a step learning that just that lifelong learning mentality and actually seeking out to learn things. And you know that there's, you know, education system, like they're just ways to make the most of it, making sure that they're just desire to learn and then just keep learning interests, pursuing what interests them. Um, the other thing that I would like just in my mind the things I was just, uh,

creativity. So, you know, we got, like, robotics and Ai And, um, you know, engineering is like it's not becoming a commodity. But, you know, we're gonna have just armies and armies and armies of engineers air on the world and just knowing the right things to build and how and when. And, um, you know, just that,

just letting them tap into that creative, entrepreneurial mind and to me, I guess that's a lot of it's just I'm a product line in person, but just the creative think that artists can do That's just a little softer thing. And I just hope they can just have interesting creative things to pursue.

Uh, I'm glad you said that about tons of engineers being available in the future because it seems like I mean, frankly, what's your opinion on this whole? Let's teach everyone to code. Good thing. Bad thing in between.

Um, no, I I'm a big coding supporter. So every cousin that I have, it's in university trying to figure out just, like just get do C s u C s u. C s. It's just this foundational skill that's so that evil. And I think there's just so many other things that are just really easy to learn on your own. Like you can learn business and you can learn finance. Finance is actually a lot easier to learn in a shorter time period. Um, so I heavily support people getting these technical skill sets in, like sciences and computer sciences and things like that. But I think where the magic comes is when you can mix that with a broader skill set and thinking holistically. It's approaching things the right way so

well, if there's one piece of advice you want to give to parents, dads you know about raising their kids while working in exciting startup life, What would it be?

Um, I think to me, I said to parent, specifically, like, I just hope that every parent's I can just always keep the broader fitted like, you know, parenting is worth it. It's awesome. It's a long term thing that you will benefit from the lifetime of doing. And, um, it's, you know, every time it's seems difficult to get home, be there for you, kid.

Read them at work. Whatever it is. It's always worth It pays off in the end. And, you know, it's just long term dividend of of a relationship and knowledge and growth in the world. That happens because you were there for a kid. And so, uh, always move time and put in the effort and you'll be better off for

greater the race. Thanks for coming and sharing your

story. Yeah, man, for sure. I didn't think we're going the religious route, but, uh, yeah, we got that in on audio, so that's perfect.

Well, there you have it. David Woodland and the story of how a consultant could have a great life in Silicon Valley. Thanks for listening. And as always, if you know someone who needs to listen to this episode, please let them know until next time.