Episode 47: People and Relationships with Matt Asay

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On today's episode, we have special
guest, Matt Asay, Cloud and open source executive with Amazon Web
Services (AWS). Matt tells us how his office is different from the
Open Source program office. We will learn all about his career and
his HTML5 start-up Strobe that was acquired by Facebook. Also, Matt
talks about some interesting things he's learned from interviewing
project maintainers and it has to do with the importance of being
nice, kind, and welcoming. Download this episode now for some great
inspiration and advice. [00:00:58] Matt tells us the difference
between the two offices and teams and also how he ended up in his
role. [00:05:09] With the focus on what your customers are doing,
Justin asks Matt how does how does he address the controversies
like the MongoDB API and all that other stuff and what is he doing
to combat that? [00:12:22] Here we will hear all about Matt's
impressive career and his HTML5 start-up Strobe acquired by
Facebook. [00:16:59] Matt tells us about interviewing project
maintainers and things that have stood out during the interview
process after talking to them. [00:25:00] Matt explains what the
key to sustainability is and he goes into risk sustainability.
[00:28:10] Richard gives some really good feedback on Matt's answer
on how he solves problems and Matt says he is going to steal one of
his answers. [00:32:39] Richard asks Matt what is he doing with his
team, what do your partnerships look like with CouchDB and
Confluent, and what are you doing to make sure that the work you
have lasts beyond you? [00:37:48] Matt tells us where we can find
out more about him on the internet. Spotlight: [00:39:30] Justin's
spotlight is arweave.org. [00:39:56] Richard's spotlight is the
IPFS stack. [00:40:30] Matt's spotlight is an interview he did with
Hugh "Jim" Bailey at OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). Panelists:
Richard Littauer Justin Dorfman Guest: Matt Asay Quotes: [00:06:00]
"So I've always worked for those companies. It's always been an
easy marketing sell for me to talk about that. But, with AWS it's
different." [00:06:46] "The whole open source definition is around
distributing software, but we're not distributing software anymore.
It's being consumed as a service over the internet." [00:07:35] "I
used to work at MongoDB. I love MongoDB. It's one of the best
working experiences I've ever had." [00:10:42] "I have a lot of
respect for people, these virtuoso engineers who develop great
software. But I have just as much respect for those who can
operationalize and make that software easy so that customers don't
have to worry about how they're going do maintenance on my SQL, as
an example." [00:16:16] "If you want to successful you've got to
figure out how to work with people." [00:17:54] "You reflect the
kind of community that you will encourage. And so, if you're a
jerk, then you're going to struggle." [00:18:03] "This is their
free time. They're volunteers. They don't have to show up and be
abused by you." [00:20:17] "In general, life's too short to be
dealing with mean people all the time." [00:20:32] "If you're rude
to those volunteers they're going to go elsewhere, and in open
source, those contributors are your most valuable asset."
[00:25:00] "So I think one of the keys to sustainability has to be
community." [00:27:44] "I think that's something we need to figure
out because open source is only getting more and more significant
with more and more dependencies on it." *Links: * Matt Asay Twitter
(https://twitter.com/mjasay?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
The Newstack
(https://thenewstack.io/youre-addicted-to-curl-you-just-didnt-know-it/)
InfoWorld-Articles by Matt Asay
(https://www.infoworld.com/author/Matt-Asay/) TechRepublic
(https://www.techrepublic.com/meet-the-team/us/matt-asay/) AWS
(https://aws.amazon.com/) Arweave (https://www.arweave.org/) IPFS
(https://ipfs.io/) "How open source "selfishness" can lead to
burnout" by Matt Asay with Hugh "Jim" Bailey.
(https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-open-source-selfishness-can-lead-to-burnout/)
Credits Produced by Justin Dorfman Edited by Paul M. Bahr at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Matt Asay.