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• The advantages of Rust in ensuring memory safety and preventing versioning issues |
• The use of tools like Dropshot and Progenitor to generate open API specs and clients |
• The confidence in the correctness of the code due to Rust's strictness and type system |
• The contrast between the experience with Node.js and the experience with Rust |
• Rust compiler and its value in solving complex problems |
• OxCon: a company-wide meetup for remote teams |
• Oxide company design and brand story |
• Ben Leonard's role in designing Oxide's branding and UI |
• Industrial design and how it informs the product and brand |
• Balancing consistency and creativity in design |
• Limitations of manufacturing and materiality in design |
• Challenges with color matching and material consistency |
• Compromises made in design due to manufacturing constraints |
• Industrial design and hardware limitations |
• Importance of design language and values in branding |
• Balance between investment in design details and cost |
• Variety and scope of work at Oxide that keeps Ben Leonard engaged |
• The benefits and challenges of working with a new brand |
• The tension between consistency and change in brand identity |
• The impact of company growth on design needs and opportunities |
• The creative process and the role of design in a company's success |
• The importance of design in setting a company apart and showing intention and trust |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So Cliff, what is it you do here, man? |
**Cliff Biffle:** I'm responsible for parts of the really low-level firmware on the computer. So everything from the machine turning on, up through fans and power management and all of that. Basically, all the stuff that happens before the thing our customers think of as the computer turns on. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Cliff Biffle:** That's all -- well, me and my colleagues now, but originally it was me. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that like BIOS stuff, or is it -- |
**Cliff Biffle:** Well, before then, actually. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Before BIOS. |
**Cliff Biffle:** From -- |
**Jerod Santo:** What's before BIOS? |
**Cliff Biffle:** What's, indeed? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay... |
**Cliff Biffle:** So these big AMD and Intel processors, and even the big ARM nowadays that you see in something like an iPad - there's actually a lot of work that has to go on to allow them to turn on. They need a bunch of different -- like, voltage supply is stable, they need a bunch of clock signals set up and devic... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Pretty fast. Like 20 seconds? 15 seconds? |
**Cliff Biffle:** Ours is milliseconds. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** To me as a user, it's like 15 seconds, you know? |
**Cliff Biffle:** Sure. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** They mentioned PCBs, so you're building your own boards... |
**Cliff Biffle:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So you're going first principles on a lot of this stuff. |
**Cliff Biffle:** Yeah, absolutely. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** And you're a first principles kind of guy? |
**Cliff Biffle:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Do you like that? |
**Cliff Biffle:** I think I actually designed the first board we made... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** No way. |
**Cliff Biffle:** Back before we hired actually qualified electrical engineers. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay... It was an MVP, or was it a -- |
**Cliff Biffle:** Yeah, it was just for testing out some of our circuits we proposed for the bigger, expensive board... Because it's nice to make cheap things that if they're wrong, you can throw them away. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Cliff Biffle:** You know. |
**Jerod Santo:** And so Oxide has this writing culture... I assume that you were kind of attracted to that, or kind of helped formulate it... |
**Cliff Biffle:** No, it was pretty well established when I got here. |
**Jerod Santo:** Okay. |
**Cliff Biffle:** But the fact that -- we make people write a bunch of stuff during the application process; the materials, and like that whole packet of "Why do you want to work here? What's an interesting problem?" Because it really saves time in the interviews. But for a lot of people, that's daunting. For me, it wa... |
**Jerod Santo:** Nice. |
**Cliff Biffle:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Was that a process you liked? This request for discussion, righ? RFDs... Had you done it before? Is this something that was -- |
**Cliff Biffle:** Previous companies I'd worked for had a process around design docs that kind of was similar, but not exactly. We are way more writing-focused here, and in particular, most of the docs are living. So as we learn what we're doing, we go back and fix the docs that we wrote when we were done, to try to be... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Would you call it document-driven? Do you think you start with docs or an idea, or not so much a spec, but something fleshed out first before you do -- |
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