(Snowpal Podcast) Remote Leadership - Opportunities & Challenges in scaling remote SaaS teams (feat: Valentina Th?rner)
Krish Palaniappan
Developer & Architect @ Snowpal. We offer domain-agnostic, scalable, feature-rich APIs to reduce cost, risk & time to market for your apps/microservices. License for $3K or subscribe on AWS (snowpal.xyz).
Valentina Th?rner discusses the challenges and benefits of remote work in her book 'From a Distance: Strategies and Tools for Leading Remote Support Teams.' She emphasizes the importance of trust, communication, and clear expectations in remote work. Valentina also highlights the need for conscious conversations and checkpoints to ensure productivity and support for remote workers. She addresses the fear and insecurity of managers in remote work and suggests creating spaces for personal connections and sharing in remote teams. Valentina also discusses the impact of cultural differences on remote work and the need for understanding and adaptation. The conversation explores the importance of understanding cultural differences and creating awareness in remote work. It emphasizes the need to assume good intent and be aware of different frames of reference. The discussion also highlights the significance of building relationships and personal connections in remote teams. It concludes by discussing the future of work and the value of long-term relationships in a changing landscape.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Book Discussion
01:17 Reasons Remote Work Won't Work for Your Company
02:33 Differences in Remote Work Before and After the Pandemic
04:19 Supporting Remote Workers Who Lack Skills
05:50 The Fear of Managers in Remote Work
06:15 The Devil's Advocate: Monitoring Remote Workers
08:11 The Insecurity of Managers in Remote Work
09:10 The Importance of Conscious Communication in Remote Work
10:18 Creating Checkpoints and Clear Expectations in Remote Work
11:21 Establishing Trust and Comfort in Remote Work
13:16 The Role of Trust, Communication, and Expectations in Remote Work
14:34 Establishing Personal Relationships in Remote Work
18:14 Cultural Differences in Remote Work
20:48 Challenges of Personal Relationships in Remote Work
25:19 The Limitations of Online Channels for Personal Relationships
28:00 Addressing Cultural Differences in Remote Work
29:36 The Complexity of Cultural Differences in Remote Work
32:13 Addressing Diversity and Cultural Differences in Remote Work
32:52 Understanding Cultural Differences
39:33 Creating Awareness and Assumptions
44:37 Building Relationships in Remote Work
50:26 The Importance of Long-Term Relationships
56:38 The Future of Work and Relationships
Transcript
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (00:01.602)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Snowpals Software Development and Architecture podcast. We have a very special guest with us today. We have Valentina Th?rner, who's a product advisor, author, and remote leadership mentor, who works with leaders in SaaS in the tech industry to enable operational excellence for their product organizations. I couldn't be happier to welcome Valentina. Thank you so much for taking time to have this conversation. Lovely. Without further ado, we can get started.
Valentina Th?rner (00:24.36)
Thanks for having me.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (00:28.962)
With your book, I'm going to, you know, for folks who are watching this, we're going to have a conversation around remote work, the challenges and our experiences, you know, it's going to be a conversation in that regard. I'm going to refer you to the book that Valentina wrote. It's called From a Distance. That's the title. I'll include links in the podcast as well, so you can check that out. From a Distance, Strategies and Tools for Leading Remote Support Teams.
So we're going to start with some items in your book, and then we can let the conversation sort of drive us. One of the first things when I was looking through that caught my attention in that book was the reason remote work won't work for your company, right? So if you will, if you could just start there, and maybe you can start the conversation from there.
Valentina Th?rner (00:59.155)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (01:17.134)
I think, and it's like, so the book was actually written before the pandemic, because I have been working and advising in remote positions for well over a decade now, and it's very interesting that now we're having this discussion, whether remote work works or remote works doesn't work. And when is it the right option? And when is it not the right option? And I think remote work will not work for your company. If you are a control freak in terms of you need to see that people are working.
Like you need to be able to look at their computer because remote work requires trust and measurements. I mean, trust alone is not enough. You also need to have clear KPIs and clear expectations so that people actually know what they are working on. But at the end of the day, you need to trust the people that you hire that they're going to do their job in whichever way works. And.
something that's kind of popular in some parts of the industry is to track every movement on the screen. That won't work. It undermines trust and it basically reuses the energy of the employees to figure out how to hack the system instead of how to optimize the work that they should actually be doing.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (02:33.262)
Right. So let me ask you something there. So you said the book was written prior to the pandemic, right? The book was written. So as we get deeper into that response of yours there, do you see any fundamental differences? Like if you were to have written this book today versus when you wrote it, would it be a little bit different or would it be dramatically different?
Valentina Th?rner (02:39.506)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (02:52.358)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (02:56.514)
I think it would be a little bit different in terms of that we need to be a lot more inclusive to different kind of peoples, to people nowadays. Because before the pandemic, if you were working remotely, there was kind of this self-selection process. People started working remotely because they enjoyed working in a remote setting. Maybe they don't like...
people, like it's great for introverts that don't have to go to the office. Maybe you belong to a minority and can't really work from an office because of whatever your health, your personal situation. So before the pandemic, people who ended up working remotely, they had really, they had prepared for the reality of being in a remote job. They did research, they learned lots of skills on how to, and we didn't have all of this video communication that we have nowadays. A lot of things simply happened in writing.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (03:31.019)
Right.
Valentina Th?rner (03:50.874)
So there was a clear self-selection that favored writers, people who can express themselves succinctly in the written word. Nowadays, there's lots of people who want to work remotely, not because they want to optimize their work, but because they want to optimize their lives. They know that remote work is basically a tool that can make the rest of their lives easier. So that means they now know that this option exists, they want to do it, but they may be lacking some skills.
they may actually need support in getting the social interactions that they need to stay like mentally healthy. And suddenly the companies have a lot more responsibility in helping these people who did not self select for the way of work, but who do want to do this way of work. And then the question is how we as a company, how can we help them? Because...
It's easy to say, oh, everybody should go asynchronous and just learn how to write. But that is just the same as when before the pandemic, we told the introverts to just be more extroverted. It doesn't work that way.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (04:57.162)
Absolutely. You know, you bring up some really good points, and excuse me if you hear some typing noise because I'm trying to make notes as you speak so I can follow up on it, and I'm not good at making those, but so it might be hopefully there's not too much sound there. You brought up some really good points. Before I go to the next items in your book, I want to go back to what you mentioned earlier. You mentioned that the remote work wouldn't work. The first item that I brought up was one of the reasons you mentioned is companies having this urge or a necessity
Valentina Th?rner (05:06.086)
Don't worry.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (05:27.096)
not very clear to me to be honest with you, where you need to know what Valentina is doing at a certain given point of time or what Krish is actually doing tracking your system. That comes across as preposterous when we say it, but it's true that it does happen, right? It happens all the time. But let me ask this question. And I'm trying to play the devil's advocate here to some extent, if you will.
Valentina Th?rner (05:28.795)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (05:33.31)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (05:42.083)
It happens a lot.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (05:50.134)
I, you know, you're giving me some work to do, right? You say, hey, Krish, can you, I'm talking as a developer for instance, right? Krish, can you get this thing implemented? I'm gonna say, yeah, I can do it. It's gonna take me like say three sessions and a session at Snowpile is like four hours. Let's say I tell you, maybe in three sessions I'll get most of it done and I'll socialize that with you. Why do you need, I'm gonna put you in that situation even though you're not proposing that. Why do you, if you have to...
Valentina Th?rner (05:54.831)
Uh huh.
Valentina Th?rner (06:03.038)
Uh-huh.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (06:15.186)
sort of support that argument, why would you have the need to actually monitor when I'm doing that work, what I'm working on, how contiguous my work is, because all that you care is, am I able to get what I promised to get done by the time I promised you? So if you can speak to why they are doing that.
Valentina Th?rner (06:26.92)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (06:31.166)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (06:36.046)
I think it has a lot to do with fear. Like from a manager point of view, what is actually my work in a remote setting? Because I clearly cannot stroll over the open office floor and do the management by flyby charade. Like how do I justify what I'm doing? So controlling other people feels like you're doing your job.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (06:50.974)
Monitor
Valentina Th?rner (07:03.554)
And most middle managers specifically, they don't really get a lot of support. You become a manager because you were the highest performing person on your team or because you were the most senior person on your team. And then good luck. I hope you can figure out what you're supposed to do. Like not a lot of companies actually have like management or leadership courses that they channel their people through so that the people know what they should be doing in this leadership position. And then the other thing is if you ask fully office based
managers, what are the expectations for the people on their team? What are the KPIs? Do they use OKRs? Are there any goals? Do they measure anything? You're going to get blank stares because I know they are working. I'm seeing them in the office every day. I mean, they must be doing something. And that is missing when you're remote because suddenly I don't...
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (07:54.403)
Something.
Valentina Th?rner (08:00.47)
know that you're working because I'm not seeing you sitting at your desk. So what's the next best solution? I'm just going to track your computer. That way at least I know whether you're sitting at your desk.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (08:11.366)
Okay, fair enough, right? So the point is, maybe there is an element of insecurity as well to some extent, so I need to prove that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Okay, now I'm gonna take the other position now. You've given me work, three sessions later, I'm supposed to deliver something to you. Now let's take these three sessions and make it a bit lengthier, right? Maybe it's gonna take me a week to get something done, right? Maybe I'll report status frequently enough, yet it's gonna take a week. Now, if you don't monitor
Valentina Th?rner (08:17.23)
Mm-mm.
Valentina Th?rner (08:34.289)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (08:41.34)
is doing, when he's actually going to be doing that work. What if I came back two days after and I was working on something quite different from, I mean, I'm just gonna make a bunch of assumptions to make the conversation easier, because you know, the devil is in the detail, you get more specific, it gets more tricky. But let's say I come back to you after two days, which is 40% of the time, right? Of the time that I actually promised to you. And I'm showing, hey, Valentina, here's what I had done in the last couple of days. And you're like, oh my God, this is...
Valentina Th?rner (08:51.218)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (08:56.92)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (09:01.497)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (09:10.842)
You started on the wrong foot, meaning this is completely wrong. Right? It makes no sense at all. Right? I know I'm exaggerating the problem, but sometimes, you know, it's like, it's like Indian movies. Uh, you have to, the element of exaggeration sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't. So I'm going to exaggerate this and say two days after you're shocked, you're disappointed where 40% of the time is wasted.
Valentina Th?rner (09:14.619)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (09:30.438)
Well, the solution is actually the solution that would work for Indian movies as well. If everybody involved just sat down and talked about their assumptions and what they were doing, we wouldn't have a four-hour Bollywood movie because the things would have been settled in the very first five minutes. And I think that's crucial. Remote work requires a lot more conscious conversations, communication than when you're in the office. Because in the office, I can kind of see what you're doing. I also can see when you're stuck.
because you're probably looking at your desk like with a clear indication that you are stuck. And then I can walk over and say, hey, Chris, it looks like you don't really know how to can I help you somehow? And of course, online, I don't see that. So as a manager, but also as a team, they need to be checkpoints during the week.
Let's say we have a one-on-one every week, or you update your, we do an asynchronous standup every morning where you just write down what you're working on today. And as a manager, I should be looking at your, standup and it can be a written thing. It doesn't need to be a call. And then that way I get a sense of what you're working for or where you are stuck. And that's something that you can actually help.
facilitate with processes. Like if there is a standup every morning where you write down what you're doing and what's blocking you, I mean, that's just standard scrum practice. You just adapt it to online, to remote, and then it works as well, but it requires communication. If I gave you a task and you know that you're going to take one and a half or two days, and then I'm not going to see anything of you during those two days, something is probably missing.
Like I would like to then also see you maybe in a Slack channel or in a team space that you're sharing. I don't know the music that you're listening to while you're coding or something. Like just give sometimes signs of that you're alive and actually doing something. And it needs to happen from both sides.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (11:21.746)
Absolutely, right? So these are very valid points, right? So let me take an example.
I much like yourself, even prior to the days I've been doing remote work for a long, long time, right? For a long time. So during the pandemic, there wasn't much of an adjustment from my perspective because I was just continuing to do what I was always doing. And even after I'm still in that position. And you mentioned a few reasons why people might wanna do it. Being an introvert is possibly one reason. There could be other reasons like the commute. I mean, if you're living in certain cities, I don't know what the average commute is. They're like in Spain, Valentina,
Valentina Th?rner (11:34.267)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (11:44.702)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (11:50.555)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (11:58.64)
But let's say I can take, it's about 45 minutes. I think you are taking the Washington DC metro area, right? At the minimum, at the minimum, you're talking 45 minutes. I know people who are actually spending a lot longer in the mornings or evenings, actually going there and getting back. So a fair bit of your energy is lost. No matter what demographic you're in, it's hard or it's inarguable that you are spending energy on traffic. And I don't know how many people enjoy, actually doing that sort of a commute. So there are...
Valentina Th?rner (12:03.814)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (12:14.511)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (12:25.566)
I don't think there are a lot of people. I mean, yeah, podcasts are amazing and you can read books, but I'd rather listen to the podcast while I'm walking through my neighborhood than somewhere stuck in a car or in the metro.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (12:35.339)
And you make the...
Absolutely, right? Absolutely. So these are pragmatic issues, but let's say coming back to one of the early items you mentioned, trust, right? I want to use the word trust here. If, because, you know, given the fact that I've done remote work all the time, I want to speak from my perspective as well. I've never had somebody monitor my screen and I could never have done a job if somebody did. I would have honestly not even taken up that position. I would be like, no, thank you, right? Right?
Valentina Th?rner (12:47.099)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (12:54.142)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (13:02.326)
Yeah, I was about to say that. I wouldn't. Like, I wouldn't.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (13:05.682)
And so is there a fundamental issue? In other words, if Valentina and Krish work together as coworkers and we've established that trust, and how to establish this trust is a slightly different discussion, but let's say we established that trust. Does that mean we alleviated like 95% of the issues surrounding the problems we're discussing up until this moment?
Valentina Th?rner (13:16.382)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (13:28.346)
Yes, so I think it's trust plus communication plus clear expectations. So if I'm hiring you or you are hiring me, I kind of already expect that we have made an informed decision of working together so there is a baseline of trust that is there because otherwise we would not work. Like if I don't trust you I'm not going to hire you so the question is basically no.
But if I'm hiring you, okay, I trust that you can do the job because that's what I hired you for. And then the next thing is, okay, be very, very clear with the expectation, hey, I'm hiring you or you're hiring me or whatever. And these are the things that I expect you to do. And in return, these are the things that you expect for me to provide because it's not just that I'm dropping the project on you and then I'm going to leave, but like you probably have like also.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (14:11.199)
Okay.
Valentina Th?rner (14:17.214)
questions that you need answers. So you also trust me to give you the answers that you need to actually proceed with the project. So it's this trust is kind of the starting point. And then we reinforce that trust through communication, ongoing communication about the things that need to get done.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (14:34.494)
makes a lot of sense, right? So to have that communication going beyond trust, I need to have that comfort level. In other words, when you're working in a company with a group of people, we are helping each other achieve a common purpose for the company. It could be for profit, it could be not for profit, right? Doesn't matter. That is something you need to achieve. So there is a goal. It's not like going, I know what a parallel example is. If I go to lunch, I'm grabbing pot belly. If I did it a half hour later, not a big deal, right?
Valentina Th?rner (14:47.516)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (15:04.368)
can grab that sandwich later. Whereas work, there is a commitment, because I have a commitment towards you as somebody I'm reporting to. You have a commitment towards your manager, and the company has a commitment towards its client, and the client has their commitment towards their end user. So it's a chain, essentially. So if somebody doesn't do what they're supposed to do, there is a way to recover to some extent, but he couldn't recover, right? So this is business. We are in the business of making money or helping somebody, whatever the purpose is. With that said.
Valentina Th?rner (15:04.707)
Yeah, yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (15:11.266)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (15:18.631)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (15:26.142)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (15:34.11)
How do I establish that comfort to say that, hey, Valentina, I know I promised to do this in three sessions. Things are actually, it turns out that it's a little bit more difficult, right? And now let me preface the question with making it a little bit even more difficult than it already might be. I'm just out of college. I'm a new graduate. My comfort levels there might be a little bit different. I've done this for five years. I've worked in that company for three years.
Valentina Th?rner (15:43.838)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (15:53.412)
Uh huh.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (16:00.338)
If I've done this for 20 years, I've worked in the company for 18 years, then the game is a whole lot different, right? So if we were to draw a spectrum, like if I were to draw this out, that person and the company could be anywhere in that, how should we go about this?
Valentina Th?rner (16:04.443)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (16:14.366)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (16:18.046)
Trust and communication depends on people knowing each other. So from a basically psychological point of view, we like people or we get along with people that are similar to ourselves. What this similar means can be very, very different. And the idea is that if you're working with somebody, you have to find the things that you are similar in. Maybe you both have kids the same age. Maybe you both...
did, for example, my major is actually in political science. So maybe you are also from the social science originally and then ended up in tech and no one really knows why. Or maybe you love dancing or maybe you like cooking. Like you need to establish with the people that you work with those kind of similarities, not because they're relevant for the work itself, but they are relevant for how you work together and how you connect with each other.
Because if we've talked about our favorite recipe, it will be much easier for you to tell me about the struggles that you are having with your work. Because we've already established a baseline that we aren't that different, that we do have things in common. And that sounds very wishy-washy, because it's like, oh, it's all those human things. But at the end of the day, we are humans that work together. I think if a work relationship only, only evolves around work, revolves around work, then.
you end up with kind of like a gig economy where I've hired you to do this job and once the job is done, you're out. But that's not the idea. If we're working together in a long term project and long term relationships are actually much more interesting also in terms of what you can create as a, as a coworker, then we need to establish like a long term affinity on how we can talk with each other. And that may just be that we're both equally sarcastic or have
equally weird type of humor that we can like draw on. But that's very, it is important. And that's why often remote companies actually do these meetups from time to time where people can get together and actually get to know each other like on a more personal level and not just around work.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (18:14.346)
The lid too.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (18:30.954)
You know, these are such great points. And I'm going to tell you something. In the few weeks I've had these collaborative podcasts with, early days for me, I've been doing podcasting for a bit, but not with people. And I'm enjoying this immensely. And the fact is, I don't think any of the sessions I've had have been won. I always thought, OK, I can cover the topic fair enough in an hour, hour and a half, maybe because I'm chatting in verbose, also because the folks who are coming are extremely smart,
Valentina Th?rner (18:57.051)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (19:01.268)
I'm going to say that I'm going to call this podcast, sorry folks, one of N. I'm going to have to convince Valentin to hop back on this call, because I have a lot of questions about every single thing that you're talking about here. Let's go a little bit deeper, right? You mentioned, you took some great examples. You talked about personal relationships, right? You say, hey, I need to have these conversations with you outside of work.
Valentina Th?rner (19:09.991)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (19:22.794)
By outside of work, I don't mean like outside of work hours, but outside of the work, the scope of work that we're actually involved in. So we know each other a little bit better. So I have that trust and comfort in having those communications with you. I couldn't agree more with you, but I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions. They may not be easy questions, at least for me to answer them if someone asked me.
Valentina Th?rner (19:27.07)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (19:44.603)
Mm-mm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (19:47.378)
Cultural differences, right? Now, let me take as an engineer, right? I'm a developer, I run a company, but at the heart, I'm a developer. I do a lot of other things around what the company needs, but if you ask me, if you woke me up the first and you told me nothing, my fingers will start trying to write some code because that's my natural only skill. And in that capacity,
Valentina Th?rner (19:51.515)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (20:04.113)
Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (20:08.39)
I've noticed that developers come just like everybody else. I'm not speaking, I'm not saying this specific to developers, but I'm just speaking to the people that I work with most of the time.
Valentina Th?rner (20:16.286)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (20:18.094)
I don't know about being introvert or extroverts because when I have conversations, when I've gotten on these podcasts, people have been surprised that I'm chatty because they're like, hey, you're a developer so you should probably be this quiet person who's just writing code. So there is a stigma and a stereotype, which you know, it's okay, right? It's all of them, these things exist in the world. But it's also not inaccurate to say that a lot of the developers like to, you know, just do the work in front of a machine, get the stuff done and move on, right? To a large extent, I don't think I'm wrong in stating that.
Valentina Th?rner (20:25.515)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (20:45.159)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (20:48.102)
Establishing personal relationships, one, may or may not come naturally, right? And the second point is the culture of where you're located. You could be working in a remote position. I've worked with folks, you know, pretty much all over the US and number of places in Europe and most recently in South America and in South Asia as well. And I've enjoyed this immensely because we are all humans.
Valentina Th?rner (20:54.619)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (21:01.787)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (21:09.267)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (21:15.282)
We are all developers doing the same thing, but how we approach a problem, the cognitive aspects of it from an engineering standpoint, the non-cognitive aspects of it as well from a professional personal relationship standpoint, everything is, I'm gonna give you some examples, but before I throw you those examples.
Valentina Th?rner (21:23.004)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (21:34.294)
They are very, very different. I mean, what is your perspective on? I mean, do you agree that the breadth is the magnitude of those differences as much as I'm making it out to be in your opinion?
Valentina Th?rner (21:45.478)
So the thing is, and I really like that conversation, because in a remote environment, we are suddenly interested in differences. Because it's very rare that you hear people that are going to an office actually acknowledge that everybody is different and that everybody has their own experience. But of course in the office, like if you come in and you look like you haven't slept in like five days.
And I know that you just came back from paternity leave. It's very easy for me to say, Oh no, she's teething, right? Like it will pass, like you get through it and we have an immediate connection. But because I saw, I got that visual cue. So online it's like, how can we establish, not necessarily protocols, but spaces where people can show up as they are without making it a one hour. Like.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (22:25.142)
Right.
Valentina Th?rner (22:45.746)
presentation or something. Because when you come into the office and let's say you're radiant because you're super happy because, I don't know, yesterday you ran your first marathon. But whatever. Like people see this and people will respond to this because you're radiating this, oh my god I could rule the world today. Or the other way around when you're really, really sad, people pick up on this and somebody is probably going to walk over and say, hey, like, is there anything that I can do to help?
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (23:10.779)
Great.
Valentina Th?rner (23:11.99)
And online, we need to create spaces where people can actually show up as they are, and others can react to it, kind of naturally. And I don't know if you're using Slack at Snowpals, but in Slack, you can just have your every company that I've worked with has a random channel where people can just put in GIFs or Today I Learned channel where people just put in a link to a blog post or to a podcast that they heard. And I think that's kind of the equivalent
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (23:31.079)
Great.
Valentina Th?rner (23:41.562)
show as much or as little as you want. And you can sometimes just react to things that other people put in there, but it creates this very, very low effort way to share things that are going on in your life. And then if you have a channel for runners and one for, I don't know, pet owners, there's usually a cat channel as well. And people just put in a picture of their rescue cat. And like suddenly you add humanity to the mix. And in the office, you get that by default, just by people walking in.
But in remote settings, you kind of need to create a space where people can do that and can engage with each other. And you'll always have people who are kind of very chatty and who like are in all the channels and participate in everything. And you'll always have a couple of people who like very rarely say something, but if they do, everybody listens. But that's the same in the office. So sometimes I think we just have to go back to what is it actually that we want to achieve? Okay, we want to achieve the people.
don't feel they have to hide anything. Okay, how can we do this in the office and how can we do that online? And then go via the what am I trying to achieve instead of how can I copy exactly what's happening in the office.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (24:49.182)
Okay, so let's talk about that. You mentioned getting on these channels, for instance, on Slack. I know exactly what you mean, but is it anywhere close to the same? For instance, you mentioned some people are active, some are not so active, right? And you get on these channels, it is very different. I mean, is it fair to say that it's not anywhere, I mean, if you drew a spectrum one to 10, where 10 is Valentina and Krisha showing up at work, where you catch the fact that I ran a marathon, I look super happy.
Valentina Th?rner (25:15.614)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (25:19.236)
are not so excited that particular day, like, hey, can I help? Is everything all right? If that is a 10, meaning, I mean, phase is the index of mind, at least for a lot of the people, so you can tell, not with everybody to a large extent. Where would you draw Slack in these channels? Is it like a nine or eight where it's very close, or is it like a one or a two, which means it's not zero, but it's at the other end of that spectrum?
Valentina Th?rner (25:22.759)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (25:44.222)
say if it's probably a five or a six if you combine it with meetups. So because exactly, and those meetups don't have to be every week, which is why I'm not really a fan of hybrid, which kind of makes people stay in the high cost of living area without the advantages of actually getting regular injections. But like every four months, every six months or something, let teams get together so that people can get to know each other because
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (25:49.65)
Okay, with video conversations and other things.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (26:01.25)
You're right.
Valentina Th?rner (26:13.006)
At the end of the day, even on Slack, you kind of realize if somebody who's usually very chatty and hasn't said anything in like three days, you realize like you notice that. And then if you have sufficient con like you know them sufficiently well, you might actually read out reach out and say, hey, you haven't said anything, but I know you're not on vacation. Like, what's up?
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (26:33.858)
You know, Valentine, it's amazing that because there is an element of care. You care. So, you know, even if it's on Slack, right? So this is, this has a fundamental assumption here. It's a beautiful assumption and it's lovely that was existential commonly, right? But what if that, that notion of care may or may not exist in a corporate world. Here, you're trying to meet these deadlines, KPIs, OKRs, yada, yada. And everyone's trying to, you know, just live life.
Valentina Th?rner (26:40.634)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (26:51.697)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (27:03.812)
and doing these hustles. Does anyone take a moment, pause for a second and saying, hey, are you happy? I don't know what else to say there.
Valentina Th?rner (27:04.931)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (27:13.97)
Does that happen? So the thing is, people who care, care in the office and they care remotely. People who don't care, won't ask you how you are, neither in the office nor online.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (27:29.114)
So which means the point is it's brilliantly put, right? You said it brilliantly. Which means it's less about challenges coming with remote positions, right? Because if you were able to care while you were at work, you most likely, I mean, I'm sure it's gonna be a little bit more challenging for you to be able to tell if Krish ran a marathon or not going with that example, but you'd still would have that same level of care. So which means associating this to only something that can be done.
Valentina Th?rner (27:41.149)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (27:47.301)
Yeah, yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (27:54.998)
when you are at work with this that cannot be done remotely is not the right thing to do then, right?
Valentina Th?rner (28:00.338)
Now basically remote work, if there are any dysfunctions in your company, remote work will like really, really get them into the light.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (28:09.522)
It actually exacerbates that, right? So you can actually find that out a lot sooner than you could do. Okay, these are, you know, I was just jotting down some points, right? So personal relationships. Now I will tell you that given the fact, I'm sure you've worked with folks from all over the world as well, but you might have noticed some subtle differences. Sometimes they are not so subtle, right? Some remarkable differences, for instance. You know, I was gonna do a separate, not a podcast on this, but I'm gonna just throw this out here, right?
Valentina Th?rner (28:12.452)
Exactly.
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (28:27.226)
Oh, not so subtle and not so subtle.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (28:39.21)
Like I saw a video recently where somebody from Netherlands is visiting India and he's to have... Yeah, yeah, and it's... If you have an interest, I'll share that. It's some amazing content, right? I want to have these conversations outside the realm of these formal podcasts as well, but I've tried to make these podcasts a little bit more casual. Not necessarily being extraordinarily serious. It's not just me as a person.
Valentina Th?rner (28:47.329)
Whoo! That are two cultures that are amazing to put them together and then just get some popcorn and see what happens.
Valentina Th?rner (29:03.474)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (29:07.294)
So he goes to India, nice guy, it's first trip to India and he's having this conversation. And you know, he's having a conversation with a group of students who some were in college and some who graduated recently. And you know, you may have heard this usage you may not have, but let's pretend like you've not heard this usage, even if you have. So you're gonna have to, you know, do a bit of acting here, I'm sorry. Let's say, let's pretend that I'm the person from Netherlands.
Valentina Th?rner (29:20.254)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (29:35.803)
Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (29:36.074)
It's going to be a little bit difficult, Indian phase, but let's imagine an Indian person in Netherlands and I'm going to India, right? I'm going to play role reversal, if you will. I'm asking you, you know, when you graduated, right? Hey, did you graduate recently? And your response is, yeah, I passed out 12 months ago. You know, my friend passed out a year and a half ago. I passed out a year ago. That's your response.
Valentina Th?rner (29:42.194)
Hahaha
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (30:03.17)
How do you expect me to react to this? It's a simple question. It's a simple answer. I don't know if you've heard that usage before that I passed out 12 months ago. Yeah, that he does not, actually the response does not mean that the person passed out. The response means they graduated 12 months ago. He's actually saying, hey, I passed out 12 months ago. My friend passed out 18 months ago.
Valentina Th?rner (30:11.651)
No. Uh-uh.
Valentina Th?rner (30:20.883)
Oh.
Valentina Th?rner (30:24.119)
Okay.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (30:29.574)
I'm watching this video with my son. I understood the usage because I grew up in India. My son is like, what does he mean by he passed out 18 months ago? That doesn't make any. Yeah, you know, place it does, you know, but he doesn't mean he passed out. No, just so you're clear, it's not the passing out that you're thinking. Passing out means he graduated. That's just another way to say you graduated. Now, this is a clear communication gap here, right? He the person is saying I graduated a year ago.
Valentina Th?rner (30:34.552)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (30:38.37)
And why is this relevant?
Valentina Th?rner (30:44.304)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (30:49.598)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (30:57.558)
The usage happens to be for whatever reason, I don't understand that it's passed out. This person from Netherlands does not understand, they're like, he's super confused. What do you mean by you passed out 12 months ago and your friend passed out 18 months ago in the context of graduating because they have nothing to do with the, he does not mean he actually passed out or he fainted. He just means that I got out of college 12 months ago. Now, this is a very exaggerated situation, but if you take this to work, take an engineering problem here.
Valentina Th?rner (30:57.864)
Mm.
领英推荐
Valentina Th?rner (31:07.964)
I'm out.
Valentina Th?rner (31:19.587)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (31:26.114)
take a problem that you're writing some code and explaining a design problem to you. It does not come across as this profound when it's an engineering problem, but they could actually be talking two different things. I've actually seen that.
Valentina Th?rner (31:29.726)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (31:34.395)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (31:38.642)
And that's just because that's just the language if we add the fact that Dutch culture is usually more upfront and more direct than Indian culture and Dutch culture has a lot less. Hmm difference to authority let's say than Indian culture then that like adds a whole different layer of complexity. Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (32:02.39)
Perspective, right? Dynamic to it, right? So these are real problems and the world has become globalized. You have people working from all over the world, different countries, different cultures. How do we address?
Valentina Th?rner (32:10.43)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (32:13.574)
Some of these, you know, this is you mentioned work, hybrid, going to work, you know, some people living in the area, right? So if I were working in a project where everybody was located in the US, for instance, the levels of learning I might need to have would be different. Even though there is a lot of diversity, it's still, we are used to certain patterns, design patterns and rules and regulations. Similar.
Valentina Th?rner (32:28.936)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (32:33.902)
Yeah, the underlying work culture, let's say, is very similar because the expectations are very clear about how work works and how you interact with each other. There is a really good book, it's called The Culture Map. As you can see, one of my favorite books, lots of marks in there. I can really recommend it. Like it's The Culture Map by Erin Meyer and...
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (32:52.131)
You all right?
Valentina Th?rner (32:58.366)
She analyzes how different cultures work with trust, with how they interpret time, how they work with what does authority or respect mean, how are decisions made. And she basically plots countries on a graph between, for example, high authority or low authority. And then just by seeing, oh, wow, I'm coming from a country that is very...
consensual and this other person I'm working with comes from a culture that's very hierarchical, that might explain why we can't get to an agreement because we are looking at completely different frames of reference. So what I usually do when I start working with new teams is that I have them do the culture map quiz. There's a quiz that you can find online where you can basically put yourself on the culture map and then have everybody compare with each other just to create this awareness about...
where differences come from. Because very often, it's like a little bit like a fish who doesn't understand what water actually is, because we don't understand how unique our culture actually is because we live and breathe and work in this culture every day. And having grown up in India, I assume that you are very aware of how different the water in India is compared to the water, so to say, in the US.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (34:07.022)
Absolutely.
Valentina Th?rner (34:18.63)
But of course, if you've never left your country or you've never worked in a different environment than the one in your own country, it's very difficult to understand that. So like raising this awareness, it helps with communication and it also kind of lowers the friction just because it's easier to assume good intent if you know that the other person is simply coming from another frame of reference and it's not evil.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (34:46.066)
Yeah, you know, this is you made a great point that you said assume good intent. I think one of my, you know, one of my recent work that I did, I worked with somebody and he used to say this all the time. You always it was actually, I think, you know, like one of the motto or one of these values, the organization, if I remember correctly, saying you assume good intent, meaning people have good intentions, how they represent that intent, how they verbalize that intent might be driven by their own experiences based on where they grew up or what.
Valentina Th?rner (35:04.958)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (35:15.78)
their cultures are, but you're going to have to go with that assumption and then figure out what those gaps are and try to fill those gaps. But let me hit upon that point a little bit more and ask you a question there, right? So I say I grew up in India, I was rather young, at least compared to how old I am today when I came here, right? So I was like 21 at the time. So I've lived most of my life in the US outside of India and my early years were defined by growing up in India.
Valentina Th?rner (35:19.646)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (35:31.235)
I'm sorry.
Valentina Th?rner (35:34.863)
Uh-huh.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (35:41.854)
And even with that said, so they say when you migrate, time stops. You think of a place when you migrated as to how it has been. Things change dramatically exponentially. In the last 10 years, things have changed. And I'm completely disconnected even as somebody who grew up in a particular part of the world. So I have some challenges that people are presumptuous about my awareness about what I might or might not know. That's one point. The second is.
Valentina Th?rner (35:48.229)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (35:56.989)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (36:03.187)
Oh yeah, of course.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (36:06.278)
All countries have their own diversities within those nations, some more profound than others. I grew up in the southern part of India, in one of the states in India called Tamil Nadu. So my native tongue is Tamil. India has got like 28, I'm not sure, different languages and tens of thousands of dialects. The culture is very different. And I've done a reasonable amount of travel in Europe.
Valentina Th?rner (36:10.156)
Uh-huh.
Valentina Th?rner (36:14.182)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (36:21.014)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (36:27.646)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (36:28.49)
before, and I didn't assume that the cultures were going to be similar, but it became much clear to me, like, you know, say going from England to say Switzerland, for instance. I don't know, I asked somebody who's an outsider, I found that they were very different to me. I mean, I don't know, technically, if I wrote it down, whether those differences are accurately understood by me or not, but I could tell if you blindfolded me and drop me in London versus Edinburgh, versus like Interlaken in Switzerland, I could kind of tell things are different.
Valentina Th?rner (36:43.087)
Uh-huh.
Valentina Th?rner (36:49.158)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (36:58.386)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (36:59.734)
You can tell those differences if you're conscious to those differences or if you've lived where people have come from those locations You know, my neighbor used to be from Switzerland So I have some idea but if not, I might not have been able to tell the difference the same thing with Southeast Asia As well, right? Every culture is uniquely different people sometimes misrepresent. It has like one whole blob of place, but you know, it's super unique How do we?
Valentina Th?rner (37:07.176)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Valentina Th?rner (37:21.241)
Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (37:23.83)
traverse these very fine lines. You know, people are very sensitive. People want to get stuff done. Ultimately, you hired me to write go lang code. Are you going to be able to take the time, Valentina, to educate and understand and appreciate these differences? Or is it upon you as an employer to do that? Like, is it your job? I'm going to make this really hard for you to answer because I've seen places where they take an interest. Other places, you know what?
Valentina Th?rner (37:48.493)
Uh-huh.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (37:50.07)
We live in a world of, I don't want to go to that second contracting W2 world yet, because that's just my next question to you, but sorry. Assume that anyone mentioned that model. Can you please speak to the earlier part of the complications and complexities and, and the dollar amounts we all have to make to satisfy the companies? How do you maneuver this complicated world?
Valentina Th?rner (37:55.164)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (37:59.773)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (38:08.059)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (38:11.45)
Well, it's the same in a company with an office than in a remote company. Some companies with an office have like invest a lot in making sure that everybody's heard, that everybody has a voice at the table, that everybody can share, that people learn about everybody else. And then there are companies with an office who couldn't care less. And like, and I think the same is in the, the same happens in the remote world. There are remote companies.
where from a leadership level, they do a lot to kind of elicit these learnings and kind of create spaces where people can share, for example, their cultural parties or festivals or like important dates. And then, and from an employees side, they have maybe people who actually enjoy sharing these things, but it's always it has to come from both sides. It's not something that one side can basically
just decide it needs to be a joint effort. And then there are remote companies who only want to talk about work and never learn anything about the people involved as well. So it's not actually a function of being remote. It's more like, do the people in the company care enough to learn about each other? And do they have enough space to actually talk to each other, maybe a little bit longer than just three minutes a day.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (39:33.102)
Okay, fair enough, but I'm gonna disagree a little bit. Here's why. I agree with the part that people who do care for you would have any way scared whether you went to work or you do it remotely, right? No arguments there, I agree. The part that I think I look at it a little bit differently is if we were working together at work, you sometimes have less of a choice in not.
knowing more about the other person because you're subject to them every single day. You're seeing them, you're going for lunch, you know, you're having these meetings, live meetings and conversations. So even if I were not the kind of person who would have otherwise taken an interest in knowing the cultures of.
Valentina Th?rner (40:02.942)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (40:14.899)
of different people and understanding them personally, I sometimes might be left with little choice because my conversations will not be productive if I did not have those types of discussions. Because remember you mentioned earlier with professional relationships, when you talk about recipes, work gets done in other aspects of non-recipes faster. If I pull that together into this part of the conversation.
Valentina Th?rner (40:16.67)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (40:22.099)
Hm.
Valentina Th?rner (40:29.757)
Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (40:37.71)
I look at it as if I go to work, I have to make an effort. Whereas in a remote capacity, I can choose not to do that. I mean, is that fair to say that?
Valentina Th?rner (40:45.874)
Mm-hmm. Yes, I agree. Like you can you can choose a lot better with whom you want to interact and with whom you prefer to interact a little bit less. And actually, that's almost kind of a risk factor, because it's easy if you never do any in-person meetings. And that's why I'm such a fan of like actually meeting people in person from time to time, even if it's every four to six months. It's very easy to forget that there is a person behind the avatar.
Like that can create a kind of friction, especially if it's somebody who has, who seems to have very different values to your own values and they are expressed in writing. So they can't really wiggle themselves out because they see your, your confused look on your face. That can actually make it more difficult. I do think though.
that just because we are hiding disagreement better in person in an office, that doesn't make the disagreement go away necessarily.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (41:48.926)
Okay, okay, this is well said, beautifully said. So you're saying if I'm good at hiding those disagreements, it doesn't mean that they do not exist, right? But that's along the lines of, hey, let's say I have two thoughts. One is a good thought, one is a not so good thought, right? I can choose to express the good thought and I choose not to express the not so good thought. It doesn't mean I don't have the not so good thought.
Valentina Th?rner (41:58.904)
Exactly.
Valentina Th?rner (42:07.869)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (42:11.453)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (42:16.662)
But it certainly makes a difference. If Krish as a person expresses both kinds of thoughts, you will look at me differently than if I only express my good thoughts, right? So what if I said that it's all right if you had disagreements, if you are able to brilliantly hide those disagreements, you're like a DiCaprio in acting where you have all these versatile talents, is that okay? Or is that gonna cause issues in the longer run?
Valentina Th?rner (42:23.964)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (42:37.798)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (42:43.986)
To be very honest, in a work environment, I think it's fine. I mean, it's kind of, I know that some of the men that I've worked with in the past are very misogynist and do not enjoy having me as a woman on their team because I probably should be in the kitchen or whatever their idea is. I don't care.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (42:51.947)
Absolutely right.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (43:08.13)
Right.
Valentina Th?rner (43:12.078)
I would never have like invite them to my birthday or go to a dinner party with them. But as long as it gets the and it's kind of controversial, but like as long as they get the job done and do not kind of expose this view at work, I can live with the fact that at home they have a worldview that I do not agree with in the slightest.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (43:39.946)
Wow, this is very...
You say it much better than I could say it. It's very delicate there, right? So in other words, you have to be, there is, you know, you mentioned personal relationships and to me, it resonated immediately with me. I'll be honest with you, Valentina, because that's my personality of some sort, right? Even, and I'll bring the contracting into the mix to make it more challenging, but that's just who I am as a person. But I've worked with a lot of engineers who are much better engineers than I am, but who probably approach that a bit differently.
Valentina Th?rner (43:56.648)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (44:11.468)
You know, they want to get stuff done. You know, if I'm an architect, I architect. If I'm a developer, I do it. I get my work done. I'm nice to you. I have a good relationship, but I'm honestly not even interested in knowing anything about you, right? I could work with people for like six months. They wouldn't even want to know my last name if they didn't have to know my last name, for instance. That would drive me nuts because that's not just me as a person, but then you start respecting the difference, right? As you grow older,
Valentina Th?rner (44:24.303)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (44:30.886)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (44:37.309)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (44:37.942)
You live in societies where there are more receptive to these differences than in societies that are not genuinely receptive to these differences. And you live and learn essentially. But in a remote capacity, this is a little bit more aggravated, right? Because there are, and I'm going to have to pop in this work model.
Valentina Th?rner (44:44.383)
Mm-hmm, yep.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (44:55.074)
to some extent. I've been trying to avoid that because a lot of this conversation is not related to that, but I want to exaggerate the problem, not exaggerate, actually, I want to add to it, say that this problem becomes more profound in some scenarios. What happens is you're trying to fill this, you want to get something done. You know, engineering has come to a point.
Valentina Th?rner (44:58.034)
Hahaha
Valentina Th?rner (45:07.39)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (45:13.23)
I don't want to say sadly, sometimes sadly, because I treat it as art. Because when you don't have other artistic skills, like I don't know how to draw, I don't know how to compose music, I don't know how to cook, I love all of those things and I have immense respect, but I don't have those skills. So what do you do when you don't have those skills? You just stick to this one tiny skill you have and keep writing software. Thankfully, I like doing that, so I do it. But what happens in those scenarios is,
Valentina Th?rner (45:15.42)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (45:20.509)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (45:29.04)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (45:34.014)
Mm-hmm. Hahaha.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (45:41.33)
You're hiring somebody to fill this role for like three months. Yeah, I need to fix these 200 bugs. I'm going to take a preposterous example, right? Hey, Valentina, can you please help me fix these 200 Ruby bugs? You're like, sure, I can help do this for you. You come on board. I'm not interested in knowing who Valentina is, where she's living, what our interests are. So we never established that personal relationship. Never. The same three months, the same situation, if you came to work,
Valentina Th?rner (45:45.383)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (46:00.592)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (46:04.861)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (46:09.458)
It's highly unlikely I'm not dragging you out for lunch because I love to get out for lunch. I'm like, you know what, you know, unfortunately, I'm, you know, or fortunately, I'm vegetarian, borderline vegan. Uh, it becomes tricky and we have these 20 minute. Lovely because, you know, they have this, you know, Scott Adams had a strip many years ago that said the team wanted to go out for lunch.
Valentina Th?rner (46:13.189)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (46:22.31)
Same here, we would be amazing finding restaurants.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (46:31.89)
And then the vegetarian guy got up and that's it. Because you never end up going anywhere because you have to discuss for like three hours as to where to go and what you can or cannot eat, right? So I'm one of those picky vegetarians too who asked the person to wash the wok with hot water for like 10 minutes and people are standing at the back, they're like, what are you doing, right? So that it's weird, but I would still drag people to lunch. Even in those three months, I would have no other choice or you would have no other choice to.
Valentina Th?rner (46:38.302)
Are you?
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (46:58.334)
sort of come join for these launches that you don't really want to come to maybe, right? But in a remote capacity, this does not happen. People come in, log in, get stuff done, they're gone. This doesn't, it's not fun for starters. Two, you never get to know each other. These long-term relationships are not built to begin with. And the saddest part, I'll tell you, is the companies and the folks doing the job.
Valentina Th?rner (47:13.342)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (47:25.186)
actually start to believe that this long-term relationship is not even needed. You know what I mean? It's like a robot. I needed a job to be done. I hired a bot to get this done, and the bot is getting this to be done. Is this a scalable model?
Valentina Th?rner (47:30.89)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (47:41.362)
So I have seen that this happens, but I don't agree that it has to be that way. Because like one of my best friends, we met on LinkedIn or something, and I think we were in contact for like four years until we met each other in person for the first time. So if this can happen just around a joint interest,
in an online network where we actually don't even have an official reason to be communicating, like work would be an official reason, then I believe we can also make this work in an online world. And for example, lots of, I still have very, very good relationships with lots of people from Automatic where I worked like six, five or six years ago.
And like we are still in touch. Like there is a Slack community for people who used to work there. And we are, we continue to be in touch, but this is because the company has actually invested in creating this internal culture where it is easy to share stuff. And then you just know that this person spends way too much money on their plants, but it looks like they're living in a greenhouse and you can see it every time they put on their camera, because they are really proud about all the like.
greenery in their background. And then you kind of you learn of all of these little things and then you use geek bots to elicit people to regularly share what they did on the weekend and then you have a seasonal channel on Slack where people basically, whoever hears Mariah Carey Christmas job song in the wild shares where they heard it. And you do all of these
little bit silly things that are not even organized by anyone particularly, but that people just come up with because people want to share their lives. And especially if they are working fully remotely and work is basically the one stable relationship, let's say that they have where they can actually share these things. People are the people who want to share are going to share. And as a company, you can either ignore this or you can use it.
Valentina Th?rner (49:55.894)
And I really recommend to use it because people don't leave companies. They leave boring colleagues. They leave people they don't have a connection with. So if you want to have long term relationships because you really care that the knowledge in your workers brain doesn't leave. Like, it's not even about if you care about the people. If you care about the knowledge and the experience in their brain, you should invest into getting these people involved on a personal level with their co-workers.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (50:26.166)
You know, and it's also just to add to what you're saying there, right? Why it's important, right? I want to add one more point to that, if you will, which is even though on the surface level, it might look like, Hey, you're taking time to investing in these, uh, and folks having these personal relationships. And that does not mean Christian Valentina, two coders. I hired them to write code. How does it matter to me as an employer if they get long or they don't get long? Right. But I think there is a monetary explanation. I don't have a graph or anything like that. No.
Valentina Th?rner (50:55.399)
Hmph.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (50:56.581)
but I'm sure there is ought to be some there, but I can see this.
We live in a world with 8 billion. I think it's over 8 billion people at this point of time. Right. And I think maybe there's like 25 million people you are taking as an engineer. I try to quantify a lot of these things because you understand when it's quantified, even though a lot of these things cannot be quantified and it's silly to quantify them. It sometimes just helps bring, you know, there is, and I try to quantify it to the point where it cannot be quantified anymore and become subjective, but that's just me just thinking that fashion, 25 million people in this field of engineering, as I'm understanding in this industry, give or take.
Valentina Th?rner (51:10.782)
Hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (51:31.845)
The world's population is going to go to like 11 billion. I think in the next, I want to say three, four decades, something along those lines. There is going to be more of us. There is going to be less that we'll have to do, given AI and generative AI and everything progressing.
Valentina Th?rner (51:38.142)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (51:48.057)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (51:48.218)
less to do in certain aspects. I'm not saying less work overall, but less to do in certain things that we're doing today. So it might come across as to an employer as a company. And if I looked at it as Snowpal as an employer, not as Krish working at Snowpal, I have a lot of options. There's more people. There's bots doing a lot of the work.
Valentina Th?rner (51:51.846)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (52:03.006)
Mm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (52:08.342)
There's needs, you know, they can satisfy a lot of the needs so I can be pickier. I can be more selective I can actually treat people with lesser respect potentially and treat them like bots What options do they have? So why do I care to do that? Right? But here's my answer I don't know if this is a correct answer, but here is the way I look at it Let's say you try to fill a position, right?
Valentina Th?rner (52:19.902)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (52:32.522)
be it product management, be it development, be it architecture, be it testing, project management, be it CTOs, CEOs, and I'm talking just software companies, but just any position you're trying to fill. Sure, there's a lot of people. There is no dearth of talent in this world, right? And there's no dearth of credibility in this world. There are really honest people, they're really smart people. When you put both of them together,
Valentina Th?rner (52:40.38)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (52:51.506)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (52:56.318)
really honest, smart people, you know, the things get a little bit narrower, right? There's really honest people and really smart people, but now you combine these things, really honest people, really smart people, really honest, smart people who actually work the window that you want for them to work, really honest, smart people that work the window that you want for them to work in the industry that you want for them to work in, really smart, honest people who work the window you want them to work in the industry, you get the drift, right? So as you go with more and more of this,
Valentina Th?rner (53:17.373)
Mm.
Valentina Th?rner (53:23.057)
Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (53:24.822)
the options get fewer and fewer and fewer. And add to this, you need to fill this position in the next four weeks, because you need to get stuff done in the next three months. Now, suddenly, you don't have as much luxury as an employer as you actually thought you had. If you had maintained those long-term relationships that Valentina actually wants to work for you, even after she moved on six years ago, you would be in fantastic shape, then going to...
Valentina Th?rner (53:28.126)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (53:32.505)
Yep.
Valentina Th?rner (53:40.357)
Yeah.
Valentina Th?rner (53:48.69)
Hehe.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (53:51.906)
I don't know, monster.com or Google, whatever these jobs or LinkedIn.com, these sites, to find these people. What do you, I mean, I know I said a lot of things. I mean, does, do you agree with some of them or what are your thoughts on that?
Valentina Th?rner (53:59.87)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (54:07.482)
So I think relationships are kind of the future, especially in a world of AI, generative AI, where like all the boring stuff can be automated in a certain way and where it's actually the way that people can work with each other and enrich each other's ideas in novel ways. I think that's kind of the future. In order to do that, people need to trust each other and they need to know each other.
It's like if you're having dinner with somebody that you were meeting for the first time, you may have really, really interesting conversations because you are getting input that is completely new. But if you're having dinner with your best friend that you know for 15 years, you can go way deeper. Like immediately, because you have this shared story and you kind of know how you each other think. And so you can incorporate new ideas with each other and not just on top of each other.
And I think that's the same at work. So obviously you need new input. And that's why it's also really good to like generally get new people into the company who can like bring those new impulses, but you also need people who have been there from the very beginning and who are kind of the, like the, the sages that they kind of know where these things came from, because there are so many things in companies where you're like, I wonder why this is like this.
And then you talk to somebody who was there in the very beginning and they explain, no, because when we first developed this feature, we had this constraint. And so we had to do this thing. And then suddenly it makes sense. And suddenly it's much easier to find a solution because you know the history. But the history usually is a lot more accessible if you have people that you can discuss the history with, even if they just tell you, oh, you should look in confluence or a notion under this topic, because I remember that we've wrote something down there.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (55:48.81)
Absolutely.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (56:04.286)
Absolutely, right? I think, you know, we are...
three minutes into the hour. So I'm going to ask for your closing comments here, right? But let me say this. I opened the book and I started with the first, one of the third line in your book. And I haven't looked, you know, I haven't gone within other notes that I made to be honest with you. So much like I do with everybody else, after I hit stop, I'm going to ask you if I can bring you back here, because there's a lot more to this conversation, every facet of what you've discussed here. But let me, before,
Valentina Th?rner (56:24.091)
Uh huh.
Valentina Th?rner (56:36.955)
Uh huh.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (56:38.796)
we get to the hour, I wanna say a few things. One is thank you very much for first, you know, taking time to have this conversation. This was, I immensely enjoyed the chat and the learning and everything that you've shared here.
Valentina Th?rner (56:46.736)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (56:51.414)
It's an important conversation to have.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (56:54.282)
Very important conversation because I want to ask for your closing thoughts, but I want to say like in 30 seconds if I can. Abravity is not my forte as you probably figure out during this conversation, but I'm going to say that when I was, you know, before I started my company, the Snowpal, right, I was building software for a long time, doing all aspects of development architecture, but in the space of pure engineering alone.
Valentina Th?rner (57:04.562)
Hahaha
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (57:20.19)
Now I still do most of it, right? I mean, 90% I still do, that's what I do, that's what I enjoy doing. But to sell a company and its services, you have to go a lot beyond the executable lines of code. So I was pushed outside my comfort zone, not that I ever enjoyed my comfort zones, but I still had to be pushed out of my engineering comfort zones to doing things I otherwise would not have done, podcasting being one of them. And as I'm having conversations with folks from different walks of life,
Valentina Th?rner (57:23.181)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (57:33.432)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (57:40.518)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (57:49.442)
I'm starting to realize and not realize, I've always realized it, but conceptualize it as to the importance of every role in a company, even in a software company. Because before I let Valentin have the closing comments here, I wanna say folks, if you're a developer, if you're an architect, if you're a tester, if you have a DevOps person, doesn't matter. If you're in that space of doing that work and working with people.
Valentina Th?rner (57:55.036)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (58:16.826)
In other aspects of the company, product managers, project managers, dev managers, directors, VP, CTOs, sales, marketing people, I think it's important to understand everyone's job is not just as hard, almost harder than what you're doing. That sometimes is not obvious. Sometimes people tend to believe that what they are doing is more complicated.
Valentina Th?rner (58:36.126)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (58:42.706)
Maybe true, maybe not true. I think the moment we pause and realize that, hey, Valentina's job is a whole lot harder than what I'm doing, I think it can lay the foundation for some element of trust and relationship. This is me talking as somebody who has no skills in this area, but I would do it that way. That's the only way I know how to do it. Sorry, your closing thoughts.
Valentina Th?rner (58:50.407)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (59:03.838)
Actually, I'm going to leave everyone with homework. So, I mean, we are now at kind of the end of the year, Christmas, everybody is into like appreciation, et cetera, whether you work remote or not, like reach out to three people that have helped you this year. That have picked you up when you were feeling sad, that ask you exactly the right question when you were stuck.
Like those small things that actually make work worthwhile and that you probably didn't tell them. So they are not aware about the impact that they had on you. Like tell them, thank you for that gift that you sent me that made me laugh the day that I felt really, really bad. It made a difference. Thank you for asking this question about when my daughter had her eye surgery. I felt that you really cared. Like tell people that it makes a huge difference.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (01:00:00.318)
You said three people, correct? The exercise is three people.
Valentina Th?rner (01:00:02.583)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (01:00:03.398)
I think I'm going to kick off my exercise by thanking one of the people out of the three. I'm going to go back to Valentina Turner for actually accepting my request on LinkedIn. She did not have to, right? If I accepting the request and not knowing me, we've not worked in the past, taking a chance in having this conversation, right? Because I'm not a podcaster. You probably looked it up. Like how bad is Krish going to be?
Valentina Th?rner (01:00:32.35)
Hahaha!
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (01:00:34.433)
I'm just learning and improving. So my first person, I've kicked this off. For everybody watching this, you better do your job in executing this exercise. Thank you, Valentina. Really, really, really appreciate this time. That does not mean I don't have a million other questions for you from what I've said.
Valentina Th?rner (01:00:54.486)
we can do a follow-up don't worry
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (01:00:55.106)
Yeah from what you have in your book and what you brought up here because there are more delicate topics and some of the items You touched upon some other guests have talked to in my conversations. You mentioned mental health I know somebody who feels very strongly about that topic. Her name is Biddi I had one chat with her and I have my second podcast with her later tonight
Valentina Th?rner (01:01:05.928)
Mm-hmm.
Valentina Th?rner (01:01:12.286)
Mm-hmm.
Krish (saas.snowpal.com) (01:01:15.986)
So I want to bring this up and say, maybe we can have a collective conversation talking about that topic. That's something she really, really wants to have conversations about. Before I end, Merry Christmas to you, happy holidays and a happy new year as well. I'm gonna just end this here. Thank you.
Valentina Th?rner (01:01:16.787)
Oh nice!
Valentina Th?rner (01:01:24.62)
Uh-huh. Great.
Valentina Th?rner (01:01:28.974)
Yeah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!
Valentina Th?rner (01:01:36.092)
Thank you.
Snowpal Products:
Founded Doctor Project | Systems Architect for 50+ firms | Built 2M+ LinkedIn Interaction (AI-Driven) | Featured in NY Times T List.
1 年Sounds like an insightful read, Valentina! ?? Looking forward to checking it out.