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**Adam Jacob:** But bad bet. I mean, not a bad bet. They made so much more money than Chef did. Just so we're clear, it's super-worked out for them, so why are we listening to me...? But as a technology, I think the problems with what's happening now in that space, in operations, in the lived experience of those people... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Your wrist is probably feeling it, though. I mean, for the positive, versus negative... |
**Adam Jacob:** I guess... If you ask me if I want a key I turn or a Start button, I choose the start button. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Adam Jacob:** But I think platform engineering is roughly akin to putting a Start button on top of what is essentially the identical car. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Dang. |
**Adam Jacob:** And I believe that because I helped build the fundamentals of the car. And so when you dig into how it all holds together, you're like "Well, of course it uses source control the same way. Of course it uses Terraform under the hood. |
Of course it uses Pulumi. Of course, it stitches together this. Of course it talks to this under--" You know, all that stuff, it all has a way that it works, it has a way that you manage it, and you can't really escape it. And it defines the outcomes in a very real way, both culturally and technically. So that's my ans... |
And I don't think it's hubris. I mean, it's probably some hubris, but it's but it's mostly just like -- you kind of know it in your heart anyway. If you just sit quietly and ask yourself, "Okay, if I had a better portal over the exact same technology, with the exact same way that I was working before, would it be bette... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay. So long on DevOps, obviously. |
**Adam Jacob:** I mean, I'm long on platform engineering, because platform engineering is going to turn into whatever it needs to, be because all those people are playing the game. They're all competitors... If what I do changes the face of platform engineering, they're going to call it platform engineering... I will, ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[02:12:01.00\] The last question and I'll let you go, to your extensive, important, fun day that you have ahead, beyond this podcast of multiple hours at this point... |
**Adam Jacob:** This is super-fun. Yeah, you're going to have to edit it. \[laughs\] |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Lightly. We'll lightly edit it. Honestly, I think it's all good stuff, and I'm very happy with the conversation. So you've alluded to fall... You're in private beta now. You said slide in your DMs for System Initiative. |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah. Find me on Twitter, send me an email... I'll hook you up right now. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I can see - and maybe you can see the horizon probably better than I can, because you're in it. What is just over the horizon? You mentioned fall. What can you mention here for the first time ever, or at least tease for the first time ever right here? |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah. So one of the things that you do in System Initiative is you customize the way this big -- it's got this big hypergraph of functions that is the thing that actually writes the configuration and sort of runs a simulation of what it is you kind of want to do. That whole thing is programmable. And so... |
So you want to deploy actions, so you would write a little function that describes what it should do on deployment. Or you have a qualification that you want to run when somebody puts some data in to tell them in real time whether or not the configuration is good or bad, or whether it worked or not. So for example when... |
And then there's a little button, and that little button says Contribute. And if you click it, it tells you that you're agreeing to the terms of the Apache license, that we're going to review your code. And then you can push the button, and it'll come to us, and we'll review your code, and then we will ship it. And we'... |
And so I think what's on the horizon is I think this new way of building automation gets connected to the creativity that is latent in that community, where because the tooling has been the tooling now for a while, it hasn't been the most creative work to do DevOps stuff... Because mostly what you're doing is "Oh, I'm ... |
\[02:15:54.26\] And so people are going to look at it at first and they're going to be like "Oh, this is -- whatever; it's visual design for architecture stuff", and that's what they'll see first. And it is that. But under the hood, it's actually just this really fun programmable machine. And I think that what's on the... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Would you think that these shareable, contributable, programmable things that you'd mentioned too written in JavaScript would be comparable to the way Docker Compose, YAML files have helped people who don't really understand Docker stand up a new Docker image? Is that a good comparison? |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah, kind of... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I mean, because that's shareable. So I can go grab a Docker Compose file... As long as I have Docker on a machine, I can run that, I can docker compose -d and off to the races. |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah. This is more like -- I'm going to go again with the Wayback Machine, but it's more like Lisp, where there's old Lisp machines... Like, if you wanted to change the way the application worked, or like the window functioned, you could click a button in the window and it would just pull up the source ... |
So because what System Initiative is under the hood is this modeling system for this graph, the way you program it is different... Because what you're doing is writing functions that inform how the graph should behave at different points in time. It's just a really different way of thinking about it. |
So they're shareable in the same way that maybe like a Compose file is. But to the user, when you bring that asset in, it's like suddenly there's an asset and it shows up on a canvas, and it's got input and output sockets, and it's got properties, and it does cool things. |
So that's pretty -- it is similar in that you can share them and it's repeatable... It's different in that the way you interact with it is like much more visceral. You're just like "Oh, I need one of those." And then there is one. And then if you don't like how it works, you can just open the source code and tweak it. ... |
And over time, we're going to make it so you can hold that patch, and when new updates come to that thing, it'll just tell you "Hey, you also added this extra property. Do you want to keep it?" You know? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. |
**Adam Jacob:** So it becomes this really interesting programming system. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I like that. |
**Adam Jacob:** \[02:18:37.29\] And I think that more than anything is the thing that's going to really propel it, because I think they'll come for the ease of use that is like - that's so much easier to model infrastructure, and to see what you've done when you're finished, than looking at like a Terraform repository.... |
And so that's what's going to bring people to the yard first. But they're going to stay because they're going to realize that that machine is programmable, and they can make it do whatever they want. And that's where it becomes the power tool that actually has enough potential to change how we do the work broadly. Beca... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Everything you've got. |
**Adam Jacob:** I'm bringing the heat. And we'll see. Sometimes you bring the heat and you lose. \[laughs\] But I don't think I'm going to. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Truth. Truth. |
**Adam Jacob:** I think I'm going to win. But we'll see. I don't know. I'm on the edge of my seat, you know? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** In the words of Gavin Belson, he said "I look forward to the fight." |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah, I look forward to the fight. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, I like that a lot. |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Alright. Well, SystemInit.com is where you're planted your roots now. Maybe not your identity. I don't think so based on what you said. But definitely where you're planting your professionalism and all your effort in the space of DevOps. |
**Adam Jacob:** Totally. And yeah, you can send me an email, I'm Adam \[at\] SystemInit.com. It's pretty easy to guess. So if you want to try it out on the SaaS platform, and you got to the end of this incredible podcast, you deserve it. Feel free. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** This is your prize. Adam's giving away access to the DMs, and the private beta. |
**Adam Jacob:** Yeah. Or @adamhjk on Twitter or X, if that's still a thing you use... But you know, you can totally just come and I will hook you up. Just tell me about the Changelog. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Very cool. Alright, Adam. Thank you so much, man. It's been fun. |
**Adam Jacob:** Thank you, Adam. So fun! |
• Ash Jeffs' background and current position at Redpanda |
• Shared experience of having unpopular opinions on Twitter polls |
• Unpopular opinions as a negotiation point in Ash's acquisition |
• Comparison of Ash's and Alex Gallego's journeys to Redpanda |
• Discussion of data streaming and Ash's work at Benthos |
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