Hello Rather listeners. And welcome to the podcast today. My guest on the show is John Cook, co founder

of Gay Choir. Thanks for having me. Please be here. Please be here. Think welcome to the geek Wire offices

and Free Month. Yeah, they're great. They're like, two blocks away from Google, right? So this is gorgeous.

Yeah, we don't have the free food or the big massage tables or any of the amenities that you see a Google, but like that fun here, that's when you just walk over to Google. That's right. They won't have us. They don't like sniffing around over there for stories

reporters. But John is a co founder of Geek Wire. And for everyone who doesn't know, you know, requires an awesome Seattle Tech publication. But really old things, geek and really now old things. Seattle,

Seattle, on beyond. Yeah. We cover the intersection of technology and culture and space and civic innovation. And ah, whole host of things related. Thio the geek world.

Well, you You guys been around for a while now, So you've growed for almost eight years. Yep. Wow, that's a long time. It's about as long as I've been to Seattle and you've grown from just you and Todd to offices and Fremont. Lots of people working for you. That's pretty

exciting. Yeah, it's it's fun. I mean, we had a We had a great time building a new media company and a climate where a lot of people have said it's impossible to build a new type of news organizations. So we've We've kept things kind of lean and mean. We have about 15 folks here now, bigger than I ever thought we'd be. But it's, Ah, it's fun. We get to tell the stories of innovators, creators, entrepreneurs, disruptors on dhe, how our world is changing. So life is always exciting around

here. I guess you get to see it life from all angles, right? So it's way more exciting for you than, say, like an average person who just does one thing every day. You basically do 100 different things and you get to see, like you said, you cover life, science and space and make yourself an Amazon that,

yeah, it's the perfect job for somebody that has a short attention span, I would say because and that likes instant gratification, because every day is a new day. You're not sure what you're gonna wake up to. You're not sure what the big story of the day is gonna be, And each day you're essentially recreating your product for your readers an audience, and that's extremely fast moving. I know the tech industry likes to talk about how fast moving it is in the in the software world, but I would welcome them to the media world where things change and you re create and develop your product in a matter of minutes to get it out. Thio your audience and readers Not a matter of months.

Yeah, I know. Sometimes I read articles and it says, You know, this story is currently being updated and you know, the reporters type thing, the other end that's absolutely going on. That's true. So let's quickly rolled back. Eight years ago, you told me that you guys started require your son was

a year old. My son is eight s. Oh, yes, we basically started in the in the same breath a cz my son and I like to say I had to start ups going on in that moment. My family and my son and D Choir. So

one thing I really want to talk about because it's been kind of popular lately, is remote work. Yes, and parenthood and specifically newborns. So I think that was your 0.8 years ago, right? How did that work out? And, you know, was it beneficial

in the long run? I don't know. We'll see how my son turns out in 10 or 15 years to see if it was beneficial or not. I think it has its benefits and its downsides for me. I actually really love it. I mean, I love the flexibility of being able to be wherever I need to be and still be able to pop in and do my job when I need to. The downsides of that are you convey. Be constantly distracted in front of your family, and it's something that I've tried to get better at. And I've tried to work on, too. If I am working from home and I'm getting demands on my time from my wife or son to be able to cut off, and sometimes I can, and sometimes I can, I think that's the hard thing. And a family is where the family has to be able to recognize.

Okay, this is mission critical time on John's job. We really can't distract him and we can't be engaged or this is not that pressing of a thing. Maybe we can pull him out and we can go play in the backyard or something. And that sort of balance happens all the time in my world. Um, but I do love the flexibility of it. I'm able to coach my son's baseball team, and we just had his his end of season party last night, and I was there to help organize all the wacky games that were were playing for the party. And so being able to cut off and do things like that are really special and important for me to be able Thio to be there at various times to experience part of my son's life, which I don't think I'd have that flexibility if I was a doctor or lawyer or working at a more established company where somebody was telling me my hours and what I had to d'oh. Um, you know, the flip side of that is, I work a lot.

I'm I I put in a lot of hours. In the old adage of you know, it's great to be an entrepreneur. You can pick whatever 80 hours a week you wanna work is true in my case, you know? But that's the life I've chosen. It feels really natural for me. I like it. I'm able to balance it. Um, I think it works pretty well for our family, and my family's been very supportive of my own entrepreneurial journey. But it's not to say it's all rosy. There certainly are roadblocks to it. And it's not all always the clear sailing in terms of how that dynamic works with within the family.

So have you found any tricks? Thio going to tell your family that you're working right now? You're not to be distracted. Or how do you guys even manage the schedule? Where you on 24 7 ready to cover whatever comes at you?

Yeah, some tricks are I try to make it a point of letting my wife handle the morning routine before my son is going to school and let her manage that until they're almost ready to walk out the door. And then I scramble and get ready and I walked with them to school, and I try to do that almost every day on just to even have that moment of time with them. Um, and so that's That's one thing that I've I've been doing a lot after I walk my son to school. I I've gotten into the habit here recently of walking to our offices here in Fremont in Seattle, which is about a 40 minute walking. My wife often walks a decent amount of that time with me, so that's some amount of time that were ableto decompress a little bit where you're walking. You're getting some exercise, but you're but

you're spending time together wasting away. You do a date every day for 40 minutes. That's that's a great

way to look at because my wife was giving me a hard time the other day saying, We don't do enough date nights and we don't spend enough time together. And I was like, What about when we walked to the officers like Oh, yeah, well, I guess that kind of counts, but it is kind of way to look at it, But we were just talking today about how we need to get a few more date nights into the mix for us. What is the date night. What is a date night? It is for us. Or just generally speaking, I don't

know. Can you tell General? I guess for you,

right? May. Oh, gosh. Yeah. We really don't do many of them. We do a lot of our social time, and I guess my typical preferences we would we would get together with another family, get together in barbecue and just hang out with with the family's engaged, and that's we spend a lot of that time. If we don't have, um, our son with us, we would pie, go see a movie or go get dinner. But it doesn't happen that often. Well, I just curious

about it because a lot of people would go get, go watch a movie. But then the time you walk together is so much better because you're not just sitting next to each other looking

at somebody else and stop. My wife and I both do like movies, but, you know, so we get get some pleasure out of that. But yeah, I would say the number of true date nights we've had where we're alone and going out and doing things is is fairly rare

to get some grand parents

nearby. Uh, no, they're in Ohio. Yes, a little bit of a little bit of a hike. Yeah, I do have. My brother lives here in Seattle. And so Uncle D and Aunt Sara sometimes get

called into action. That's which is great. Have you been able to figure out a baby sitter or

we've had them on and off, but not a regular baby sitter in the necks? Yeah, we've used We've used things like, um, the community center's when they have their parents night out of ants. We we've used those. We do have a family friend who will baby sit occasionally, but yeah, I would say it may be once a month.

Okay? No, I think it's important to mention because for a lot of dads, actually, parents in general families, it's hard to find a baby sitter. It's hard to find somebody

to trust. And yeah, luckily, we do have some family friends here that we can rely on for some of that, but yeah, you know, and oftentimes, frankly, with with the work, I have a geek wire. I have a decent number of events that were either organizing here or events in the community that I'm participating in. And so I'm out a lot doing things in the evening related to my work, which takes me away from family. And sometimes in some of those instances my wife would tag along, telling, If we're going to some dinner or there's some sponsor oriented activity or something. Sometimes I will drag my wife along and expensive running this company.

She often times we'll say, Oh, God, not another geek. Is this a geek wire thing that we're doing? Like I'll get you know they'll be tickets that were going to some some event in town as something pretty cool. But then she'll like All right, what's the geek wire angle on this? Over that we're going to this thing and I'm like, Oh, gosh, it's gonna be fun. Don't worry about it. We're gonna be hanging out with all the geek where

we go into the belly of the using in your a biotic symphony. That's

there's something. Yeah, there's some, like connection there, but you gotta multitasking. You got to kill two birds with one stone. I mean that's I gotta live by that because I am always looking for efficiencies in terms of how I can kill 234 birds with one stone with the activities that I'm trying to pack into the day. I just have, you know, I have so much going on. It's just so, and I know everybody's stressed and pulled in so many directions. But when you're running a company and you have a family and you want to be engaged in your friend, circle and school and all the different things like it's tough like yesterday, my day Waas coming in to the office and have a really hard day because we're working really hard on this cloud tech summit that we have coming up at the end of the month here in June on Dhe. You know, there's a lot of stress and a lot of moving pieces in terms of how we're coordinating speakers and getting attendees out and making sure the event logistics are all coming together.

And so I got my mind deep in the middle of that a same time, I have volunteered at our school to do a new program called Let Me Run which is a great program. It's like girls on the Run, which is a pretty popular nonprofit program. But in this case, let me run is about young boys and, you know, building their self confidence. And so I earlier in the year I agreed to do this program with with my wife and where we're doing organized runs with thes fourth and fifth graders. And so I had to figure out Buzz up there to get up to that. And then and then there's the baseball party we're organizing and, like all this stuff is coming together. And I'm still trying to juggle aspects of the business and making sure you know the things. They're all coming together, you know? And that's that's the That's the hardest thing.

And I think where there can really truly be some stress points and where tension rises in our family, if I'm getting stretched in that many directions, it's hard to do some everything. Well, um, but that's the balance.

What do you think your son's attitude to that is right now is like a cool guy because he's

I don't think you think jobs the coolest guy now, Um ah, I think he likes aspect. I mean, there's a give and take with everything. I think he likes aspects of it and recognizes it. And, um, they're elements of it that are bothersome. Tomb. Then I can't always be present. Um, and it's it's a struggle. It's a struggle. That's all you need to know, folks. Goodbye. Yeah,

I wonder if it's actually a struggle. You recognize it more of a struggle because you're being a lot more attention because you're doing so many things, right, because in the country you can have somebody like a lawyer or a doctor being at work, you know,

eight or 9 p.m. Well, it's also an active choice. I mean, I think there are families that the parents don't want to be that engage and don't want Thio And I would probably frankly, I would probably say we're overly engaged. If if I were to give ourselves criticism, I would say we're too engaged on. Probably What we need to do is, you know, steal back a little bit, but I guess I'm not wired that way. People who know me know me know that I'm not really wired Thio No, you take it, take it easy and just kick back and let things let things roll. Um, but yes, so but But there are people that make the choice just not be that engaged in their families life.

And I just don't want that, you know, it's one of the reasons why I do think it's really great to have your own small business, that you're running because you can. And that's kind of how I grew up. I should step back for a moment where my mom was a newspaper reporter and worked out of the home. And so I was really exposed to journalism and that culture and the media culture really early on in my life. And my dad was a small business owner. He had a he had a car and truck dealership that he operated, which was the family business, and and my parents were extremely engaged and active in our lives. I mean, I don't think they missed a sporting event we went to. They could always take off time if needed to be there and do things, and that's pretty cool, right? I mean, I

think it's really cool, and you know what I think It's interesting because there's a lot of talk about how small businesses are dying and kind of previous generation of Americans with Earl, about small businesses. It will local and people lived in their stores. But they kind of work and live together. And now everybody goes 9 to 5 off to somewhere in an hour long commute. And I was just talking to Dad the other day, who said he realized that some of his company works remotely. So he went to his manager and said, You know, I wanna work remotely And then I just said, Well, why don't we figure out a van with wife high? And so because they're moving, they're moving further away from the offices and, you know, you can take the van,

they'll drive you, and you can just work from the car. And he was just like, you know, like, I just I don't want to commute anymore. Like,

yeah, I don't think I could

do it any more. But to be cos is like Well, what do you mean you don't want to commute? What do you mean? You want to stay? I spend time with your family,

right? Yeah, on and yeah, this is why I'm probably unemployable at this point because I wouldn't want anyone telling me howto run or operate my my life. Yeah, it's one of the good reasons to start your own business.

But was it you know, how hard was that at the very beginning, when you were running around trying to start? Is it harder to run G choir? Now that

it was a question, we're at a really interesting times. That's a little bit more of a complex question. Um, we're at a, um kind of an interesting inflection point in terms of where we're where we are and how much opportunity there's in front of us. And so we have so much percolating right now and so much going on that it does feel as crazy as when we started. Um, and I think that's in part because we just have a lot going on, and we've kept our team pretty, uh, small and boot strappy in orderto make this a successful venture. As I said earlier in the show, you know, media is a hard business, you know, we were not getting into an easy business.

Here is a lot of media companies are dying and information is getting fragmented into 100,000 different channels, including the Rad Dad podcast. And it's not a centralizing because of that, it's it's harder to command an audience on that creates all sorts of challenges. And so, with media going through that, it's it's a tough business to be, um so yeah, it's that's that's that's always weighing on my mind that issue.

So you had a bit of a break in the last couple of years, but now it's high gear

again. Yeah, I don't know if there was there was never a break. I mean, it maybe went from 100 miles an hour to 80. Uh, now we're back. Thio 110 is as the same as when we were starting, and we do have more. Resource is and some great people around us on the on the geek wire team. Now that does allow us tow back off a bit. But with that, we are adding more things to do. You know him or more things to go after s Oh, yeah. Actually,

let's talk about the business. That row quick, because I'm curious, is the media is changing right and I can see it. Some people are putting pay walls, some people putting John advertising. There's some, once again, the new new type of media who are trying to create different type of advertising. So it's more engaging and hopefully monetize is better. Very good there. Oh, it's cool. You know, it's a conversational podcast. We can put this stuff on there

where? You know, I'm checking my phone to see if I'm on soccer duty. S Oh, it's try ties in the back. I gave you that warning before

him. Yeah, Yeah, I was really expecting it. A text of emoji with a soccer bowl put on a soccer ball. But anyhow, is the media landscape exchanging right? How are you guys responding to that? And, um, doesn't put pressure and use a reporter, especially since your mama's a reporting. You saw this entire transition? What kind of pressure doesn't put in your in order to sustain the company and still deliver the quality that you set out to deliver?

Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. We are. You have to be flexible as a media organization. You have to move quickly. And that's why I think Geek Wire is somewhat, you know, successful is because we are pretty lean and can pivot and move relatively quickly. We're not 100 year old physical newspaper that has $100 million in debt tied up related to their new printing press that they just opened up thinking that more people were gonna be buying printed media in the next 20 or 30 years. You know, we don't have that baggage around our which allows us to move fast, which allows us to tell stories and really creative ways in the platform that we've chosen on dhe. So, you know, I think it's certainly, ah,

blessing to not have that sort of baggage. And I came out of that, that traditional newspaper world. And so while there's a lot of business baggage related to it, there's a lot of great editorial content positives that have come out of having that legacy media be part of our DNA at G Choir and Todd Bishop in myself, Who are the two co founders come out of a very traditional news driven environment where journalists extent journalism matters, journalistic standards matter quest for that truth matters, and those air all principles that we absolutely adhere to and are extremely important in our day to day operations here. And so while we're kind of new school in our business, approach and platform were extremely old school and our storytelling format and principles of journalism. And so we think that's a really nice match. If you still can build a community based on the trust that you have with your readers and audience, because you are committed to high quality and high quality journalism, which is the standard of traditional news business, you could argue that a lot of attritional news doesn't especially as it relates to things like TV oriented news doesn't really add here. They've in my mind have lost a lot of the core principles of doing great journalism,

and so they've damaged their brand in my mind on DS. But you know, I think that's one of the reasons why we've been ableto have successes because we're flexible and nimble and able to pivot on our business side, and we have a flexible platform in the digital world to play with. Yet we are very committed to being old school in our news

approach. It sounds really good. And I think that's something I've learned over the last couple of years. Personally, that I think you have to have core principles, but really, you can have everything. Can't be a principal, right? You have to have a couple. And then everything else has to be flexible around that. Otherwise she'll die because the world will change into a different direction. But do you guys get in trouble where you cover? Say, one of the Seattle company is right, and they don't like it. How do

you respond to that? Oh, that happened. That's happened throughout my career. Yes. Uh, I don't say we get in trouble. I say we're doing our job. People get mad at us all the time. We're not doing our job if people aren't getting mad at us. Um and, you know, I guess this is where it does help that Todd and I have been routed as part of the tech community here for as long as we have. Because in some of these instances we've dealt with some of the companies are entrepreneurs for not months, but decades. You know, in many instances,

I mean dating myself, but, uh, yeah, and we're just we're hanging around, you know, we're here and I think people respect that. And I think that's the number one thing that is, the only thing you can ask is is that people respect. The role that you have is being a media organization and telling the stories, and some people get that other people don't. And when people don't get it, sometimes they run into the hard truth that we're not here to be their PR organization or a marketing firm, and we and that's a reality. And to me it's an educational process. A lot of people have lost faith and lost a sense or don't even have any knowledge of what it's like to have a news type of organization covering a community.

Um, and that's sad to me. And so for me there's an educational component to this that, like this, is what it means to have press covering things. You don't always like, what is being said now? We certainly are trying to be truthful and we don't want to have inaccurate information and we go through the process of correcting that if we do get something wrong, but just not liking the tone or style or the fact that we covered Ah, lawsuit or a layoff or whatever it is. I mean, that's the way it goes way deal with that and the funny thing in on Funny thing. And I get asked this question occasionally is what do you do in thes folks like a man with you? The funny thing is, I've been around in the community so long now that I have been in battles and fights with CEOs that I know you know, that are probably pretty well known that have gotten so mad and angry with us or me personally on have had many go arounds and now they're just perfectly great sources of information for us.

So, Michael and this is something I probably learned I learned from my mom, who was a reporter is like, you just you're You just gotta keep developing the relationship and, like some of your greatest enemies at one point could become your best sources of information. Especially over time. I've seen this. Some of their usually you're at least I feel I'm right. You're in the right position. You you, you think you're doing what's right, and they just are angry, inventing and are embarrassed or upset about how something is being portrayed in the short term. So it's a short tomb term fuse that's burning for them versus this much longer term approach that I have towards it. And once that short term fuse for them blows, then I think sometimes those people are somewhat reflective after a year or two or maybe some people never get over it.

But I've had many instances where people get over there like the kind are like I was kind of being a jerk on that. I see what you were. I understand what is going on now. Yeah, and then they sometimes they our become good sources of yours. So

anyway, no, it sze great to hear it in the fact that you mentioned that people are not really used Thio proper newspaper covering you today, right? Because lately there's been a lot of fighting between, say, like a LA mosque and the new sources on Twitter head back and forth. But really, and some of the looking some publications, you can tell that they're just going for a quick click throughs, right, and there's no real information in there On the other hand, though, like well, yeah, has newspapers job to, like actually find something interesting? That is true.

Exactly. That's my point when everybody brings up click baby stuff. But everybody in it is there are supposed to be trying to find new and interesting angles and information and present that in a way that people want Thio consume

it right, But especially for it Tech founders, you kind of came to expect that. You say, Hey, I'm launching something and everybody jumps and they cover it in a positive light, right? But that's but then it's not really a newspaper anymore, is just PR machine it up. Yeah, it might be an email subscription said

that there were people on rad Dad gonna want to really dig deep into the news business. So they're gonna be after sit on this thing so I can go off on this time. You'd

be surprised what people are interested in, right? I think it's important that people can also learn something new that they

Yeah, absolutely especially, I mean in this era with, you know, the whole fake news phenomenon going on. I mean, it's it's an important discussion and

like serendipity works in funny ways because you guys sort of gave me this first way to share my thoughts publicly. Two large audience when you re shared when I recall

that a road on my block is not That's how we got reconnected here, wasn't it? Did you reach out? You say did. He said he wanted something changed in an old article because there was no point. There was a known Lincoln. So you reached out. And I was like, What's going on? And I think I saw, like, your podcast. Yeah. Way talking

like that, by the way. But funny has thought, as I actually wrote it in a coffee shop that used to be here right in the house over there. Way.

Remember that? Yes. Place. I wish it was still there.

It was a great place. And and the other article came out of the coffee shop too. Was about entrepreneurship because, you know, the owner was actually running. He was running a Iot. You business right where you could just get a coffee and pay my monthly. But very Seattle. It was very old Seattle. It was the only place I knew where I could just, like, forget my wallet at home and then still paid months later. But eso with everything you're doing now, you know, what would you teach your son about life, where he's gonna end up knowing what you know about the world today and how it's changing

my But where the world is now and where chance Well, I think we have such a interesting perspective here, Aggie Choir, that we do get to cover entrepreneurs, innovators, creators and really talk about the future and what it's gonna look like. And so a lot of the things that were writing about and talking about it's interesting to think about. This is the stuff that's potentially going to impact my son in his generation. If you're thinking about a, I are, you know, autonomous vehicles, space travel, all this stuff. I mean, it's really probably going to come to fruition not in my life, but in Hiss.

And so I just want him to be exposed to all the cool stuff that we get to cover and experience. And he's a little young at this point, but pretty soon I want to have him start to go out on kind of assignments with me, and I'll do this occasionally but assignments or just kind of meet some of these people and participate in the activities that were doing. As I said, his attention span right now is probably not quite deep enough to hold to go out to, like, see a lecture on autonomous vehicles, but pretty soon and I just want him to be exposed that Plus, I really want him to be exposed to entrepreneurial thinking and thinking on his own and knowing that he can build and do something on his own. And so I've been trying to stress that to him. Thea Other thing. I'm really trying to work and this is the hardest thing for me and I'd love to get your advice or the advice of your listeners is how to stress. I think what was so important to me having watching my mom and dad work was instilling work ethic in a deep and meaningful way and not work ethic for the fact that they just want to work but work because they're passionate about it and they love what they dio and I saw that my parents and maybe it's hopefully by osmosis. My son will pick that up as well, because the challenge with me as I love what I do,

I couldn't spend many many. I mean, I spend most of the day almost every waking moment doing what I'm doing and I have to I have to physically break off to go and engage in the other parts of my life. Andi, I've gotten better at this. I think you have to ask my wife. She doesn't always agree. But I think I've gotten better at knowing, like, okay, I got to turn this off and go do this activity or or shut the laptop for for a bit. And so I don't I want Thio somehow pass on that lesson of work ethic and passion around learning and the things that I get to experience because I think I think we're we have an amazing job here. Icky choirs was really cool. I mean, I wake up every day and there's something really interesting happening, and you get to become a subject matter expert in it for two or three hours to figure it out.

I mean, you're constantly learning. I mean, there's awesome. I mean, there's really no job like that that I can think of. That's that fast in terms of your ability to learn something new. Um and so I guess I would just like to have him. I understand the work ethic, the entrepreneurship and this love of innovation and what's coming next.

Well, you've got a perfect job for it, right? Because you can take your son and g o have a lunch with such a

while you're interviewing, not always get a lunch. Yeah.

I mean, they just this'll hold, get help, thing you can talk about. There you go.

He's eight. I don't know if he's grasping. Get hub. There are eight year olds that already ate and still not grasping Heywood. Now, if I were to go sit down with anybody on the Xbox team, he would be very excited about that. Yes,

but that's right to the point, because I think there's this some kind of stigma about almost entrepreneurship in exploration in the world. I feel that way at least because when you try and go do something that's interesting to you, people say, Well, no interesting to you, they're really for your hobbies. Like for your 9 to 5. You should really go suck

up that other thing that I totally disagree with that and absolutely was not raised that way. My parents raised me and my two brothers to find your passion and not worry about the work. And that was a great thing to be blessed with that from an early age. I was never encouraged to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer, scientists or whatever they just said, get interested in something and then be interested in it, you know, and like just then that's and and go with that. And I think that's just great. A great weight. Oh, if you're passionate about something, you'll find work around it. You'll be more sad and you'll be more satisfying your life because it's fun to dio

you'll be into it. I'm glad you're saying that. I mean, I was talking to some parents the other day who are writing. Forget the proper word for it, but not not their will. But basically you know what happens to their running should they're both pass away and what their kids can do, and they're putting a college fund for them, and they basically saying Well, if the parents are not around, you're allowed to be a lawyer, doctor or an engineer. And that's your path in life. And their logic is like, Well, you know, if we're not there to guide them, they need something that will keep them on their feet like I kind of get it. But then, if they hate their life, how great

is not gonna be? Andi, I think the I think work is changing so dramatically and it's gonna not look anything like what it does today that you trying to place the bet on what that is going to be in 20 or 30 years is probably a fool's bet. You might be setting them up for failure by putting them into a career such as that. This is why I think entrepreneurship is such a smart thing to expose young people too, because I think our society is becoming more entrepreneurial. And I think those are the people that the way work is shifting, that people that are able to find their own opportunity and develop something around that I think you're gonna be rewarded in the next couple decades more than just being a engineer just being an engineer at a company or a lawyer at a firm. That's my feeling. I might be completely wrong, but that's why I would rather encourage that sort of mindset. And I know it's not for everybody. But if I want to set up my own son for success, that's the path that I would push towards. And

in terms of success, I realized that intuitively, both of us want to talk about success in terms of what you do. But let's talk about it a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey, your son and health, because I think it's very, uh, forgotten topic. Entrepreneurship.

Absolutely when I started geek wires, so going back. And I'm sorry to cut you off if you have a specific question there. But I can riff on that for just a quick second, because before time I started geek Wire, we had left the Seattle P I, which was a daily newspaper here in Seattle, and we had joined up with a business publication in Seattle. We started a new thing, and that didn't work out the way we were hoping Thio, and during that period I was extremely stressed. I thought this was my chance to be an entrepreneur, but I really wasn't. It was kind of a baby step towards that. We weren't fully in, really At the end of the day and and I got really stressed and I was working crazy hours, and I was just not taking care of myself at all.

I was I was just not exercising, not eating well, working nonstop, and it had an impact on my health. And I remember when I started geek wire with Todd, I said, I'm gonna make a point, Thio, make sure I do a couple things. I have a smoothie in the morning, which I've gotten out of the habit of, but I've taken care of myself. Isn't better ways that I was gonna have a suit smoothie in the morning cause I wasn't Even I wasn't eating. I wasn't eating during that two year period. I would just get up and I go on. I wouldn't stop on.

And then I said, I'm gonna exercise and I'm gonna get back in the plane. Soccer a lot more. I'm a big soccer player, and, um and so I started doing that. I would, during the early days that geek wire here in three month there was a pickup soccer game in the middle of the afternoon, up on Queen Anne Hill, which is just nearby. And I would buzz up there at about one o'clock in the afternoon and play soccer this again, the flexibility opportunity. But I needed it for my mental health, and I would admit so. Middle of the day I go on, play soccer for hour,

hour and 1/2 and then come back to work and I was much happier. And I've gotten out of that pickup pickup game. But I'm still playing soccer, and I still now walking in and running. Like I said, I'm doing this. Let me run program some running occasionally. And so I'm trying to keep the health aspect as a forefront of my life. I personally need that. I know it, and sometimes I go through good periods with it sometimes. Not so much for, um, I'm eating well and taking care of myself and getting good shape, and it's just critical, you know,

that healthy, healthy, body healthy mind go, you know, hand in hand. And so, um, I try to work at it Um and I know I'm just in a better place when I'm taking better care of myself right now. I think it's so It's critical. I mean, I'm glad you brought up because it is absolutely one of the most important things I think you can do. Is is take care of yourself physically

and popular media tech world does not really Thea

other part of this Just interrupt for a quick second there. The other part of this is not only the eating and exercise part, but the sleep now. Arianna Huffington Huffington Post. Well known entrepreneur and business person. She is really big on this idea of the importance of sleep to your well being. And there's been now a lot more attention, I think, towards sleep because the common you know rhetoric in the start up tech world is like while I'm working my you know, 16 hours a day and I don't have time to sleep, and I'm eating pizza at the office and then I'm back coding, you know, a few hours later and like people like No, it's really, really bad for you. It only works in movies. Yeah,

it's like but people I mean I had that. That was a lifestyle I had when I was starting out. Um, and yes, it is bad for you, and it's and so I I think I sleep pretty well. I sleep very soundly on dhe. I could always probably do a little bit better on my diet and exercise. But, um, you know these air critically important things critically

important. You know, while we're talking about this, just serve a plug in terms of the diet and exercise. And I mean, my oldest is only three in a bit, but even at that time I fluctuated and wait by maybe £30 on and off because of lack of sleep and for exercise or diet and just like, just a message to all the dads out there like, you really gotta be on top of this, right? And between exercise, sleep and good nutrition, you have to do at least two. Well, yeah, because it's so easy to gain weight. But then it's so much harder to lose it. Yeah, just you have life goes

up, and especially for the older dads out there, and I would put myself in that camp. I'm 46 is the thing that is scary about it is like you really do get Start to slow down, you know? And if yes, yes, And if you're if you're for me, exercise is a way to actually keep your energy up. You think that you're gonna get tired but actually provides you with MME. Or Energy? Two do activities with your son, our son or daughter on DSO. I mean, that's the other aspect of this is like keeping that health up. So you're like, ableto go run a five k with your kid, you know, because it can deteriorate quickly.

I'll link to another episode. But I was talking to a friend who said this 10 year old said she wanted to climb a mountain and he was like, Whoa, I don't even know if I can climb a mountain. You know, being a 40 year old dad. Never mind the 10 year old, but they did. It's a great story, but yes. Oh, you really got a keep it up. But so eight years into it, you know, you guys figure a lot of stuff. Is your family your sons more or less happy or a This work she can take time off and take him to work sometimes. What do you think we're other big learning experience is that you want to share with parents like you just remind future parents, cause I think ride that is also popular with parents with families were going to become parents Because people get to listen and see what it feels like to be a dad.

Yeah. My my advice that I give to my older self today that I wish I would have followed earlier in my life applies both to to my two startups. As I mentioned my son and require do it earlier start earlier. I think we started too late in the process on both. I wish I would have started geek wire earlier, and I wish I would have, uh, had my son earlier. And it ties into some of the things we're just talking about about energy and health. And, um, you know, that stuff really starts toe slow down as you get older. Uh, you could say I'm wiser, but I think, you know,

by mid thirties, I was I was ready to do it, and, um, it would have just been probably better just to start earlier and earlier in the process. So that's the advice that I give to myself with held you back. Oh, gosh, um, on the kid's side, it wa ce while my wife and I got married a little bit later, but even still, we we were not as quick is we probably could have been there, I think Just a fear fear of, ah changing my life up and changing my lifestyle. You know,

I think the people I was really happy with the way my life was going and, um, unable Thio and really credit to my wife really pushed to do this, you know, And like now I'm very happy that it has happened. Um, but I think they got their guys out there. And since this is a guy podcast, you know that like you're in your twenties and thirties and, um, you're just you're just living kind of that. That lifestyle, you know, of having fun being a being a guy without much more responsibility, right? And and some people are able to move out of that phase of their life may be quicker than those that I was probably on the slower end.

And so I think there's probably fear Toe about that change that I was gonna my life wasn't gonna be a ce fun or interesting anymore. Well, the fact of the matter is, your life becomes more fun and more interesting because you've introduced this new dynamic to it. You can get really bored and, um, enter a period of just complacency if you just kind of keep things status quo for too long. So mix it up because that's kind of the advice, you know, mixed it up. Kids have a couple of kids mixed it mixes it up. Yeah, definitely does. And but the same thing's goes toe career or doing the start up. I mean, it is interesting the parallels between the family creating the family and creating the startup.

I mean, I knew I had worked in newspapers for 15 plus years by the time we were starting geek wire and knew the rules of the road, and you could get comfortable with that and a lot of people were getting comfortable with it at the organization. I was working at the Seattle P I and thought it was just gonna be that way forever. And that was There's gonna be right out their careers like that. And And I guess the advice is like, You gotta mix it up. You got to keep mixing things up and changing course and keeping things interesting. And, um, it's good to do that every once in a while.

And conversely, Is there anything you miss now from your previous life before you were dead, that you would have done more off if you were to do it again?

Not so much. I mean, maybe maybe I'm everyone says travel and go see other aspects of the world. But, um, you know, I'm pretty happy with how that has played out, So anything else that I wish I would have done before family entered Is that kind of the question. Any other things I wish I would have accomplished or I got to do, um, too much. I don't have too many regrets and

regrets, but you know, people say travel is because traveling with

kids it's hard. Traveling with cause is harder. Absolutely. And I don't have the opportunity to maybe just pick up and go, you know, backpacking through South America with with the family now. Well, there's some people say, Why not? Why don't you go do that? Maybe that'd be a great experience, and you should, But it is harder, and there is a business to run, and that is so it does become more challenging to do. That s o. I would probably say that Just experience more things.

I feel like I've had a really great life and have gotten an opportunity, experience, a lot of different things that I'm extremely thankful for. You know, I just feel like I'm in the just the elite of the world, you know, when you look at the problems that that many people in society face across the planet. Gosh, I mean, how can't you feel blessed to be in the situation that I feel like I'm in with two great parents that raised me with an awesome family with two supportive brothers and like, ah, strong knit family with a great family here now in Seattle and, you know, being ableto do my own entrepreneurial thing around something that I love and having the freedom to pursue That I mean, it's just like I am. No,

I don't have many complaints. I don't have any many complaints with that. So I guess I'm happy. You know, I'm happy things, a play. I mean, I guess that's the point. That's the place I want to try. Toe Try to stay. You know, it's like that's I'm very satisfied, and I never try to lose the perspective that I think what's been given to me is extremely unique. And I have to take advantage of that to its full potential because I know there are a heck of a lot of people on this planet that weren't given even on ounce of what I got, you know, and that sticks with me.

And so that. And I think that makes me happy that knowing, knowing that, you know, coming from that standpoint. And I'm I'm not a, uh not a materialistic person, really at all. I mean, I'm passionate about my family and my friends and making sure that I'm having fun and doing a good job with the thing that I'd like to dio with with our business, you know, And that's what gives me the most satisfaction. All the other stuff. Is this

a little bit of clutter? That's great. Last question. So Let's imagine you guys sold Giguere tomorrow for millions and millions of dollars. What would you do? I don't know.

I don't know. I'm pretty high energy. I don't see myself as being somebody at least of this stage retiring or setting sail. Um, I I would probably want to take a little bit of time to decompress and spend more time with family and see what that you know, just really, really experienced some going going down from 110 miles an hour and take it down to 20 for a little bit and see what that's like. And but I don't think I'd get stuck a 20 for too long. I think it would. It would have toe ramp up for me, but I don't know. I don't know what that next thing would be for me. Um, I love being in the media business. I think it's fascinating. I love being able to tell stories and connect people through the storytelling that we do. Um,

and so I would probably stick in something related Thio media, um, and whether that's helping the next generation of, uh, media entrepreneurs or reporters, you know, I do feel pretty passion about the idea of that. The free press in our society today is under attack, and I hope this is a temporary attack. But who knows how that's gonna play out? I think it's absolutely imperative to our democracy that we have a free press that is respected and able to operate on its own. And I don't know how that's gonna play out in the next several years, and that's scary as hell to me. And so that's a passion that I would want to make sure I was at the forefront of and making sure that people understand is, you know, kind of this educational component of knowing why it's important,

have media doing what they're doing. Um, but yeah, I couldn't draw it out in terms of what that next next stage would be. I'm not gonna become a professional soccer player. I'm too old for that. So

that's that's you could just enter the Olympics. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm glad to hear that it's working out, and I think it's very reassuring for other parents that you can do all these things and come out

you can. Sometimes you do it well, sometimes not so well,

but yeah, well, at least try. Exactly. And if you try, you'll you'll do. Fine, right? Like it? It's a gamble, but you can do it. So I love this little trip through entrepreneurship in parenting, and I think it's valuable for other parents to hear if if you have anything else you know, let me know. I'm happy to hear more, but otherwise I think it's been great. And thanks for having me.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And, you know, if there's more questions will come back to it another day and answer

those thanks for having me on the show.

All right. Thanks, John.