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**Steve Yegge:** \[17:38\] So we're in this tiny room, in this Transylvania-looking castle building that we were in, the PacMed medical building in Beacon Hill, Seattle... It's big, intimidating-looking... And he's in the top-corner wing, in this corner office... A real small office, the corner window view of the sound... |
And it was the shortest fitness function that anybody had presented. A lot of people had been presenting Jeff with these really complicated mathematical functions of many, many terms, weighted terms, that are going to be "This is how the team's performance is tracked." And he would argue with them, and throw it out, an... |
So Jeff listens to the pitch, and he asks one question, and he put them into a state of complete paralysis. Have you ever seen when you draw a line in front of a chicken? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, my gosh... Yes. |
**Steve Yegge:** And it thinks it's a snake, and it just freezes... So both of them \[Laughs\] Sorry Jeff and Kim, amazing leaders... |
**Jerod Santo:** So you have a chicken analogy here... It's not lost on us. |
**Steve Yegge:** They froze, deer in the headlights, because Jeff asked -- he asked something that nobody had ever heard of before. Just out of the blue, he goes "Every fitness function has a yin and a yang. What are they for this one?" And they literally turned to stone. It was the wildest thing I'd ever seen. And I'm... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, gosh, yes... |
**Steve Yegge:** But they weren't saying anything. They were just sitting there... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** How long? Like minutes? |
**Steve Yegge:** At least five to seven really uncomfortable seconds passed. Maybe 10. I mean, it was like long enough that I finally said, "I know what the answer is." |
**Jerod Santo:** Okay. |
**Steve Yegge:** And they all looked at me, and I swear to God, I swear to you, they looked at me like they were drowning, and I had thrown them a life preserver. Okay? Like the exact same look in their eyes. Right? \[laughter\] |
**Adam Stacoviak:** "Thank you for saving me..." |
**Steve Yegge:** And Jeff, of course, kind of slowly turns to me like "Oh, it talks", right? And now all the pressure is on me. And of course, I had a total of five seconds to assess the situation, parse his question, come frame an answer, and so now I'm on the spot, right? First time I ever talked to Jeff. And I told ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh, my gosh... |
**Steve Yegge:** And you could see them defrost, and the conversation started to proceed again... And boy, it was wild, though. It was wild. He could he could take the most seasoned, brilliant leaders and just freeze them. |
**Jerod Santo:** Huh. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow. |
**Jerod Santo:** Well, congrats on having an answer... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[21:50\] Right? |
**Jerod Santo:** Not being one of those chickens... But -- I'm so dense. I may not even have followed the yin and the yang. So the yin is that this is really simple, but the yang is like "Well, we can game it." Is that what you're saying? Like, it can be gamed without actually fixing the problem... Is that what you're ... |
**Steve Yegge:** Well, I mean, I wasn't -- |
**Jerod Santo:** I'm over here on the answer. I'm trying to understand the answer. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** What's the logic of the question? |
**Steve Yegge:** A hundred percent. That was approximately the level of -- I think he might have winged the question... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I don't know that... |
**Jerod Santo:** \[laughs\] It sounds like a question that's made up. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** The way I would interpret that really is the way that yin and yang works is that it's two fish in perfect harmony, because they're chasing each other's tail. And they can never catch each other, so they coexist forever, in their pursuit of their pursuit. And so the same here - if you're just trying ... |
**Steve Yegge:** Well, that's really beautiful, Adam. I wish you had been there. |
**Jerod Santo:** \[laughs\] |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Well, I had more than five seconds, Steve, so... I can assimilate that. |
**Jerod Santo:** And none of the pressure of Jeff Bezos staring at you. I mean, that's just got to -- |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I'm sorry, I have to do this, Jerod... I have to do this. Ring the bell. My answer really comes from watching Silicon Valley. |
**Steve Yegge:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So I learned more about the term, yin and yang -- that's a joke. |
**Jerod Santo:** Missed it. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yin and Yang. |
\[23:12\] |
*"A lot of these guys come in here and they can do all the engineering stuff, and they get all hung up on technicalities. They can't just tell you what their vision for the company is. It's like, you need both halves of the brain. The Jobs and the Wozniak. The ying and the yang.* |
*I think it's Yin.* |
*Yin? Like Yin and Yan?* |
*Nope. Like know yin and yang.* |
*No, it's ying and yang. Their opposite.* |
*So Pied Piper, drop it on me... What is it?"* |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Because of Silicon Valley. That was explained in that TV show. Not to that detail, but the concept of yin and yang... Which I knew already, but it was just "Explain it to me like I'm five", explained in a TV show. So there you go. |
**Jerod Santo:** Right... Well, I just want that power to just be able to make people freeze, and crap themselves in their desire to please me with some sort of an answer. I mean, that would be a superpower that I guess would be kind of fun to have. Don't you think, Steve? |
**Steve Yegge:** I certainly saw it wielded a lot, It was wielded frequently. I'll tell you another story... I mean, seriously, every time I met with Jeff, it was kind of an interesting experience. For example, did you know that he had a survival keychain? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** No. |
**Steve Yegge:** In case he ever got trapped into earthquake rubble or something, he had some really fancy -- |
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