Episode 149 - Permission to Launch with Kelsey Hightower

Hacker Valley Studio

In this episode, we've brought in a special guest, Kelsey Hightower. Kelsey is Principal Engineer at Google, and also co-author of Kubernetes: Up and Running: Dive into the Future of Infrastructure.

To start the show, Kelsey shares he considers himself a self-taught engineer. He started his life out as a small business owner and then moved to a system administrator. Now, he is at Google.

Kelsey’s fascination with cyber started post High School. Rather than go to college, he jumped into, tech support, consulting, dropping cat five cable, but about 2004ish he really digs into the world of open source and all the things that you can do with it as a user and as a contributor.

When it comes to community and customers, Kelsey felt they were one in the same. However, in the last five years or so, he has kind of changed that a little bit, thinking everyone is probably in your community. The willing the ones that are willing to pay you money, we call those customers.

And then the conversation turns to comedy, and his journey through comedy management and performances. Along with this comes discussion about acquiring skills.

Finally, Kelsey shares advice to listeners!

Key Takeaways:

1:00 Welcome back

2:18 Kelsey shares his background

3:31 Community and customers

4:40 Professional purpose

6:00 Retirement thoughts

10:31 Journey in comedy

14:35 Getting better

16:28 Propelling forward

20:12 Minimalism

22:18 Immersion journey

25:25 Don’t miss the moment

27:00 Exceeding expectations

37:56 It’s ok to start!

39:25 How to keep up to date with Kelsey

Kelsey on Twitter

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