Martin Hauck (02:39)
I'm literally about to go to bed. And
Kristen Suess (02:42)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (02:45)
I have this window behind me that I can like crack open. Sometimes when it's raining, I open up and I get some real like ASMR. but I heard yelling last night. And our neighborhood is like relatively family friendly, pretty safe, nothing too crazy. But we hear yelling, and there's like four or five doors down. There's an apartment complex, two floors, there's like a weed shop down below.
Nothing crazy really ever happens. Sometimes in the summer they have like parties in like
Kristen Suess (03:15)
Right.
Martin Hauck (03:16)
they have barbecue parties in the parking lot, and you know, they they play music till two or three in the morning and it's just like boom, boom, boom, boom. No biggie, right? Like there was there was only one time where they were still going at like 5 a.m. and like just like the whole neighborhood had had enough. And we're like, chill guys, right?
Kristen Suess (03:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (03:35)
So last night I crack open the window and
I hear this yelling. And it's like for a minute I thought it was screaming and wasn't. So that's like great. No screaming. But it was just like angry yelling at like literally like 12 o'clock midnight. And I go outside. I'm wearing these ridiculous purple, like raver pants that my friend from from Quebec sent me because she's
like determined to like outfit my outfit for for the summit this year and like purple's my thing. So I'm just
Kristen Suess (04:14)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (04:15)
there, just those pants, giant. Like like you could fit an extra leg in it. She
Kristen Suess (04:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like hammer pants, yeah.
Martin Hauck (04:21)
sent them yeah, she sent them to me and like
Kristen Suess (04:23)
you
Martin Hauck (04:24)
it's not gonna fly like we need to. But anyways, so I'm standing
Kristen Suess (04:26)
Hahahaha
Martin Hauck (04:28)
out there or no, I get to the door and I see four guys in masks from the nose down.
run into a car literally in like 10 feet from my door and then another guy, no mask, run into the back passenger side, and then they zoom away. And then I keep hearing yelling and yelling and yelling. I'm obviously gonna call 911 in my amazing pants. And then
Kristen Suess (04:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (04:54)
and then I was just like so jacked up on adrenaline. Then I saw your email come in and I'm like, I'm just gonna reply now because I need to do something different. It was
Yeah, anyway, so that that was my night. So today is gonna be a little touch unhinged in terms of like podcasting.
Kristen Suess (05:08)
Did you get to
the bottom of it? Was it a robbery of a shop or?
Martin Hauck (05:13)
So there's
been something going around in like the community Facebook, which makes me cringe that I'm like a part of it, but there's this
Kristen Suess (05:17)
Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (05:20)
a weird dichotomy of like I still have to keep Facebook because other people are on it.
Kristen Suess (05:25)
100%.
Martin Hauck (05:27)
but the yeah, so the cop called like 30 minutes later. I was still like wide awake looking up like how do I secure my house?
I need
Kristen Suess (05:37)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (05:38)
a I need a better screen door.
But like around the neighborhood, there's been like these like hooligans kicking in front doors. Like,
Kristen Suess (05:45)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (05:47)
and so I'm like, Yeah, ours is super flimsy. I'm gonna I'm gonna like reinforce it or something, right?
Kristen Suess (05:51)
Reinforce that bad boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (05:54)
The cop calls and he's like, Yeah, we taught like thanks for calling it in. we went to so the people were still outside partying in that parking lot. We went
Kristen Suess (06:06)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (06:06)
to them.
And they weren't helpful. They didn't say anything. So they got into this crazy argument. But the weird thing was the people that like the people that ran into the car were so much younger than like the
Kristen Suess (06:18)
Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (06:20)
the parking lot party gang. Like they're just like who knows? It's just like it's mostly
Kristen Suess (06:22)
Not affiliated potentially or who knows? Yeah.
Martin Hauck (06:27)
just like older older parents. Like parents with like kids. It's it was so weird. Anyways, so I'm a I'm I'm a touch unhinged.
Kristen Suess (06:30)
Yeah, bizarre. Yeah. Okay. Okay, well
that's hard to fall asleep after. I feel like the equivalent experience that I have here, honestly, not infrequently, is that there's a black bear at our front door. So that's our, like, the ring camera will go off or we'll suddenly hear noise and it's like, you know, two in the morning, three in the morning, and it's a black bear right at the front door.
Martin Hauck (06:56)
Y ha what what have you done to protect
yourself from a bear at your door? That's crazy.
Kristen Suess (07:02)
I mean, when you live in North Vancouver, you do coexist with black bears a lot. It's common, but it's still like a bizarre experience to realize like a bear is just, especially this time of year pre-hibernation, they're going around looking for food. I mean, the district I live in, there's a lot of familiarity with how to coexist with bears and you lock up your bins and all of that, but they're still foraging for food. And as soon as they get into one person's garbage bin, it's just a heyday. And then they...
stick to that route. So we have like
a little local bear, he's not little, he's big, we call him Big Eddie, and he's a frequent visitor but my worst fear is also similarly like sometimes just to cool the house down we'll leave the front door open. Like might this bear walk in the front door? It's possible,
Martin Hauck (07:46)
Mm. Yeah.
Kristen Suess (07:48)
yeah.
Martin Hauck (07:50)
So do people let their kids out? Like this feels it's a
Kristen Suess (07:52)
Yes, they
do. There's a lot of, to your earlier point about Facebook, like there's a lot of like through the grapevine bears in the neighborhood, heads up everyone, there's a bear. So we try to kind of keep each other more. And generally they're just keeping to themselves, but it is, I mean, I just came across one the other day biking, like, and it's just right in front of you on the path. And they're just, they are kind of just common here, but I like to always send little.
videos to my family in Ontario because it's like a little bit of the spice of life of living out here in North Vancouver on the West Coast.
Martin Hauck (08:26)
Wild. Yeah.
Y'all, y'all are a different breed. I have a friend in Calgary and he chirps me because he was just like, Y you guys don't know what hiking actually is. Like when when people in Ontario say they're hiking, it's
like
Kristen Suess (08:45)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (08:45)
he's like, That's a nature walk. A hike
Kristen Suess (08:48)
It's... It's...
It's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (08:51)
Okay. I don't I don't mind because it's true. Like I've seen what they call
hikes and that is you have to prepare for that. Yeah.
Kristen Suess (08:58)
just have different geography.
Yeah, same thing about skiing. We joke about that with skiing a lot, like the ski mountains in Ontario versus BC. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, it's like the premier ski resort in Ontario.
Martin Hauck (09:08)
Yeah. Yeah. It's not even a bunny your bunny hill is like our black diamond.
okay, so first off, Kristen, thanks for doing this. Thanks for saying yes. context is I found you on LinkedIn randomly. And
Saw your background. And as a result of running the community, which was born on Slack for nine plus years and it's evolved into a much bigger platform than that. But a lot of the activity day to day is on Slack. I was
Kristen Suess (09:48)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (09:49)
like, Whoa, I want to talk to you. Your background is really cool. Let's hear all those stories. And when we were chatting back and forth, you're like, It's that's not the only thing. And absolutely I I I but at the end of the day, just like I thought it would be cute.
interesting and like extra special for the community to like hear from somebody that was at the place where we all
Kristen Suess (10:14)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (10:14)
hang out on a day-to-day basis. And you've obviously done so much more than that since. But I would love to just get a sense of you're a fellow people person. So it's just cool to have a people people person from Slack or previously from Slack just walk
Kristen Suess (10:31)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (10:31)
us through their experience and yeah.
Would love to just like let's let's start at the beginning and figure out like how did you get into the world of people people in the first place?
Kristen Suess (10:45)
Yeah. So gosh, it's a loaded question, but I feel like, I feel like with lots of things in my life, there's not like a great plan. There's not a ton of forethought, but there's a lot of kind of listening to my intuition about where I want to go next. And so I did a university degree in business. And the only reason I picked a business degree was because I was like, I just don't want to limit myself. And I knew whatever I was going to do yet next, it would serve me in some capacity.
And as I was going through business school, was always just found myself drawn to understanding the more human side of business, what makes people tick. I mean, at the end of the day, businesses are made up of humans, but like really I loved thinking about sort of the psychology of, business, how people are motivated, that type of thing. so, you know,
post-university, I just really like stumbled into my first career in HR, my first job in HR. And it was just at a small, small educational facility for ESL students. And I had done a couple of years teaching in English and Korea. So there was like this, they were willing to take a chance on me and because I had sort of an understanding of the background from the ESL side of things, but it was my first job in HR. And it was just such a good start to.
be a generalist and I think a lot of my early career was in more HR generalist type roles. like, you know, small spots where you're doing it all from recruiting to benefits to payroll leaves of absence. And like, I, you know, to this day still feel a lot of gratitude that I had that kind of a start because I think it helped give me just enough of an appreciation of all of the facets of HR and people to know how to apply them and how to work together with those other functions really well. And, and,
So yeah, I I spent my first really like, I think of my career kind of in two halves, like the pre-tech phase, which was like architecture and I was at Starbucks. So I worked at, know, retail sector and education and another small tech startup, but that was really my pre-big tech phase. And then kind of the post-tech phase, which was started with Slack. And it was almost like, you know, a lot of unlearning had to actually happen as I went from working.
HR, think in more traditional industries, more steady growth state kind of companies to startup culture and working sort of more for Silicon Valley based tech companies. yeah, that's found my way in a little bit hat by happenstance and just kept going and ended up finding a niche I really love in the HRBP role.
Martin Hauck (13:28)
Okay. can we double click on a personal bias that I have?
Kristen Suess (13:33)
Yeah, please.
Martin Hauck (13:34)
I'm obsessed with people that transition from Starbucks into startup land or tech.
Kristen Suess (13:44)
Yeah, totally.
Martin Hauck (13:46)
and I want you to either validate this bias for me a little bit further or like explore it with me. And
Kristen Suess (13:52)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (13:52)
and the reason I say this, and I'll give her a shout out, Kari Bell, I worked with her
I interviewed her at one company and she just came just so locked and loaded and like I was such a huge fan of her. I'd like I fought with the COO to get her hired as like our office manager and he just didn't bite. lovely guy just didn't agree on that point. And like she brought cards and she printed out the cards with the company's values, and this was like for a round two interview. Like she's going to VistaPrint getting
Getting stuff done. And
Kristen Suess (14:27)
wow.
Martin Hauck (14:28)
like that stood out. And but on top of that, she was super qualified and just like the the entire story of like she was like a district manager where
she was
Kristen Suess (14:36)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (14:36)
filling in for a Starbucks district manager at the time for like three different locations. They were downtown Toronto dealing with all kinds of not black bears but crazy things. And then
Kristen Suess (14:47)
Yep.
Martin Hauck (14:49)
as a result, the next company I went to, like six months later, I was like,
We we needed an office manager and we also needed HRBPs and you know the the the VP of people I was reporting into. Long story short, we hired her, we ended up working with her. She's been writing our newsletter for like the last nine years. So there's a lot of sentimentality and
Kristen Suess (15:09)
Awesome.
Martin Hauck (15:10)
gratitude and appreciation. But like on top of that, she's like one of the best HRBPs I've ever worked with. On top of that. And like I'm my bias is like I'm just like
Starbucks, great training, lots of roundabout
Kristen Suess (15:25)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (15:26)
stuff. I'm like, I guess is is well, first off, like do you agree with that? Because it's dangerous to kind of be like, people from company XYZ have you get my point. But yeah, I would love your
Kristen Suess (15:36)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (15:38)
thoughts on that. Yeah.
Kristen Suess (15:39)
I mean, listen, I was there in like 2012 to 2015. And I think, you know, there was a time where Starbucks was like the coolest brand. was where everyone wanted to work. was, you know, growing in popularity is a real exciting growth trajectory. And, and I'm, I was a little bit sort of on the tail end of that, but I feel like
I'm so grateful for my experience there because it deeply taught me about a few things. One was like how to run a business like extremely well, how to deeply understand and analyze your PNL on a daily basis and like look for opportunities and examine the business. like that discipline is so baked in and because Starbucks is such a efficient machine, like
those best practices are not only found down to like, you know, how they train a barista, which of course is down to like just the most minute detail in terms of the best way to do so, efficient practices, how to create the best quality, considering learning styles, all of that, but it's also how like the people team worked there. And so I got to kind of come in as quite a, you know, mid-career HRVP and just see at scale what excellent.
talent planning looked like, succession planning, how to, like all, at the time Starbucks was really invested in understanding neuroscience and how it applied to leadership and development. And like, I still reference those learnings today. it was a, and then at the core, like it was a place where, you know, I think say what you will, like there's, you're always going to find different experiences, but I think for the most part, very much tried to do right by people and had a very strong culture.
of employees were all called partners and they all had a share. Everyone from
the most
Martin Hauck (17:32)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (17:32)
senior folks down to a barista has equity in Starbucks. And just like one small side note that I remember just as we're talking about this, one incredible thing we got to do during the years I was there is there was this huge campaign to help partners understand their beanstalk, it's called, which is their RSUs.
And there was people, Starbucks has a lot of long tenured employees, right? And, some of these folks had just never received the education or information to really understand and make sense of their equity. And of course, like never held equity before. It's like a world you don't know much about.
Martin Hauck (18:06)
Yeah. Hundred percent.
Kristen Suess (18:07)
And so there was this huge effort and campaign on the part of the people team and the operations team to find all of the top beanstalk holders who had never accessed their beanstalk account before. And so.
It then turned into this opportunity to go store to store and go meet some of these baristas who had tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in Beanstalk and they weren't even aware of that and go help them activate their account for the first time and do it. So just like things like that are just like, feel like that's the heartbeat of what it was like to work there. was a very, very cool experience. And I'm not surprised to hear you've had good experiences with talent. I always think like there's a...
Couple companies I think about when I think about like how training and developing fantastic managers and Starbucks is totally up there. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (18:58)
Yeah.
I mean you can abstract the idea a little further and just apply it to like hospital like fast service, quick service hospitality, like McD like Starbucks has obviously got an element of luxury to it, or you know, if you're comparing between like I'm gonna go have McDonald's to I'm gonna go grab a Starbucks, there's there was there was and still is kind of like a difference in quality, I suppose.
Kristen Suess (19:24)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (19:26)
but still like
out size and scope of training, all that fun stuff. And it's just like, even just the elements of like, this is an interesting thing. I would be curious to get your take on it, is like just the crossover between people experience and customer experience, right? Like both
Kristen Suess (19:43)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (19:44)
of those two things, like obviously as Starbucks, you're gonna be concerned with customer experience. And like realistically, your employees are your customers and you want to retain those customers.
Kristen Suess (19:53)
100%.
Martin Hauck (19:54)
So like how
Yeah, I would be curious if you have any like takes on on that observation.
Kristen Suess (20:01)
I mean, just, it's one of my mantras is like the customer experience will never exceed the people experience because you could, your people can only treat customers well and sustainably and reliably well from a place of deep care if they have that psychological safety and trust that they have been taken care of. And so I think like everything starts with how you treat your people first and foremost and
you might be able to see spikes in short-term customer care through specific motivators or fear or some other reason. But if you want that true long-lasting, incredible customer experience, I think it starts with the foundation of treating your people really, really well. then that flows through to a great customer experience, I think. we could probably sit here and think about some of the companies that we know just have incredible customer experience.
I doubt that any of those companies we would find a culture where employees have fear, know, layoffs or don't trust their leadership or, you know, I just think it's core to building that culture of customer service.
Martin Hauck (21:14)
Let's say you walk into an organization and that's not really baked in at all. And you see it like glaringly, and you're like, hey, listen, I've worked at top organizations. This is what good looks like, this is what great looks like.
Kristen Suess (21:28)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (21:29)
And we're missing the bar, but at some and maybe that's like incredibly revenue driven, or it's like, no, like you're
Kristen Suess (21:34)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (21:35)
you're about to have that battle or that debate of
Kristen Suess (21:38)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (21:40)
Well, you it's customer first and employee second. And I don't think anybody would really ever say that out loud, but like actions speak louder than words sometimes.
Kristen Suess (21:45)
Sure, no one's gonna say it. Right.
Martin Hauck (21:50)
What's what's your go to examples or anecdotes, or how are you making that case?
Kristen Suess (21:57)
I don't know if this quite hits it, but the first thing I thought about when you were talking about that is how companies, know, in HR, especially the HR VP role, you get the benefit slash curse of being behind the scenes for all, a lot of the major decisions, including layoffs. And, you know, this has not been a fun era the last five, six years in the tech industry. And I think that, unfortunately, like I,
witnessed firsthand the companies where they make decisions to just death by a thousand cuts when it comes to layoffs. And I think like nobody, everyone, if you're looking for additional profit margins or you're looking for shareholder value or you're, you know, pivoting, think the first place a lot of, a lot of companies will go is like, well, we need to reduction in force. We got to save some money. We got to cut costs. And I think that's like such a short term.
mentality and of course it has a time and a place, but I think the long tail of a layoff has such insidious and deep effect on employee trust and just productivity and ability to get stuff done. it's
My advice to employers is whenever we're in those situations, if we're going to do it, we do it once and we do it as well as we can. And we do it at the level of depth where we are not having this conversation again in the next year, in the next two years. And I think, unfortunately, there's just been far too many businesses that are just unable to have that real honest
conversation
Martin Hauck (23:35)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (23:36)
and. And really get that clarity of alignment and strategy around.
what we need to do to move forward. And so they are not thinking about those trade-off decisions in terms of what happens. And then instead of employees back to business and focused on building the business or doing what's best for customers, a lot of time is being wasted and spent on concern about job security, gossip, just completely unproductive habits. I think those things are hard to measure. And that's the stuff that's where I would say like,
That's an example of where I've seen that sort of inability to think about the way you're treating your employee population and the long-term effects it will have on the health of the business and the ability to serve customers. So I don't know. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (24:22)
Yeah, no, it's to your
you use the like insidious, right? That it it's just like this underlying thing that it's not gonna show up in KPIs or metrics
Kristen Suess (24:33)
No.
Martin Hauck (24:34)
right away. They're gonna be lagging indicators and
Kristen Suess (24:36)
Licking.
Martin Hauck (24:39)
no, no, it's a great point. Okay, so pivoting here, and we'll use a nice goofy question to segue into it. I need to know what your Starbucks order is.
Kristen Suess (24:50)
Okay, candidly, candidly, I can't
Martin Hauck (24:51)
If if at all
Kristen Suess (24:54)
abide by Starbucks coffee anymore, but my go-to coffee order, and I am very big coffee drinker, is just simply an oat latte or an oat flat white. Yeah, yeah, what about you?
Martin Hauck (25:03)
Nice, nice, nice.
I'm an espresso person myself. It's funny. I used to be like a Tim Hortons triple triple and this was like twenty five years ago, which hurts to say. And then like
Kristen Suess (25:09)
nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (25:16)
my boss at the time was like, We're gonna graduate you. And he took me into a Starbucks and it has never felt more like 'cause I knew they had different names for things and like this is like it was just so foreign to me. Like I felt like I didn't
Kristen Suess (25:31)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (25:32)
didn't belong and like I needed to go with someone else who knew how to do the thing. and
Kristen Suess (25:37)
I remember that, yeah.
Martin Hauck (25:40)
and and eventually I've I've become just like a a black you know, I'll have a red eye or I'll have like just an espresso and a coffee. Like I'll start with the espresso and then I'll take the coffee to go and that's that's kind of my go-to. And like it's like I'll get it if I I'll get Starbucks this.
podcast had an element, there was a chance we could get it sponsored by Starbucks. but but yeah no I'm I'm more of like your local I love going to the local independent
Kristen Suess (26:11)
Yeah. Totally.
Martin Hauck (26:15)
independent coffee shop so I guess the and there's no sense to the segue and I'll just blame my my
Kristen Suess (26:19)
No, I like it. It's great.
Martin Hauck (26:20)
my lack of sleep here but tell us how you get to to Slack. Tell us like where were you when you even heard about it. What what did that
Kristen Suess (26:30)
Okay.
Martin Hauck (26:30)
What's
what's the story?
Kristen Suess (26:32)
This is like, I don't know if I should admit it because it's quite embarrassing. I didn't know anything about Slack.
Martin Hauck (26:38)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (26:39)
I was at Starbucks and I'd been there several years. And as much as I did love that experience, I also felt internally, just like that rhythm of retail, which is very cyclical, started to feel a little bit boring to me. And I was looking for, I had this sense of like, I need something more exciting, fast paced. And...
my dad had passed away. And so I was going through like a really kind of difficult season of life. I, and I love podcasts. I listened to so many podcasts and there was this podcast I had stumbled into because I loved one of the, one of the people who was responsible for the production of the podcast. And it was a podcast about work. I don't even remember what it was called. And I listened to it a lot and, and, and
It always talked about Slack and it had, and I guess maybe it was, and it was maybe sponsored by Slack. I hadn't really paid much attention. I just liked the anecdotes about work life. And then all of a sudden I was kind of like, my, you know, just checking out LinkedIn and scrolling and thinking about jobs. And I saw a job posting for a company called Slack. And I started to put two and two together that, I'd heard of this company before. And then I realized that the podcast that I'd been listening to was actually produced by Slack.
at the time and, and, as I read the job truly was not paying attention. And as I read the,
Martin Hauck (28:02)
This isn't
Kristen Suess (28:03)
as I read the job description, do you know when you just like read a job description and it just everything clicks, you're like, that's
Martin Hauck (28:08)
Yeah. yeah.
Kristen Suess (28:09)
me. That's me. Everything about it. I was like the way they wrote about the company, the job, everything that they wanted the person to do. And, and what Slack was looking to do at the time was there was about 300 people there and, they were just building out the people team and they,
had recruiters, but they had never hired an HRBP. And so they were looking to hire their first HRBP in Vancouver of all places. And of course, Slack started in Vancouver, but it was really at that point that the San Francisco office was the hub and it was growing quickly. But they wanted someone who understood Canadian employment law and can act as boots on the ground for the Vancouver office and any future plans to grow.
Kristen Suess (28:53)
I I applied and it was just like truly I I I have to thank Dawn Sheriffin, who has just been integral to my career in so many ways. She was my hiring manager. She was the hiring manager then who took his chance on me, this person from Starbucks to come over and work at a tech company. And her and I are still great friends today, and she was my boss for the entire time I was at Slack, which is so incredibly rare. she's the head of people at Slack, and she
She ultimately took a chance on me because she was looking for somebody to really support the growing customer experience team. And customer experience was really kind of the heartbeat of Slack. and and she thought, well, you know, you have this background in at a company that really deeply understands and cares about customers. And the there is that opportunity to translate those skills over here if you can figure out how to be successful in tech. And I think she was willing to take that chance on me and you know.
We had a lot of learnings together over the years and I just learned an absolute ton there. But that was this that was this origin store point, which was like I stumbled upon it, things aligned, it I knew it the I knew it was the right one to take a chance on. And honestly, I believe that's a lot of my life and my career is is just kind of scanning the environment constantly and and knowing when something is the right thing to jump onto. and truly was like the best.
best opportunity I've ever had, I would say, in my life was that chance to to go work for Slack.
Martin Hauck (30:25)
Amazing. all right. Anecdotes, lessons.
Kristen Suess (30:29)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (30:29)
What what did you you you're there, you show up, it's you know, it's your thirty days have passed or your your three months have passed and you're like, cool, I'm here, they like me, I'm making
Kristen Suess (30:41)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (30:41)
an impact. what what are you pulling away from that experience? Or what are you keeping still to this day, Side?
Kristen Suess (30:46)
gosh. Yeah.
I think there has been so much, so it's hard to distill it down. But I was thinking about that like as we were preparing to to chat today. And I feel like one of the things that I I carry with me and I think serve me well at Slack and and and and it will be on that as well is just operating from a place of curiosity and and humility. Like doesn't matter what your title is, where can you
Do you understand what's going on around you and where can you be of most service? And I often joke about being this like amor amorphous blob, but it's true, where I'm kind of like shape shifting to to to fill in whatever gap is needed. And and that look can look really different depending on what stage it's of the company you're at. Like there were times at Slack, my job title was what my job title was. Nobody looked at my like.
In tech, I think it's like job descriptions are almost irrelevant sometimes.
Martin Hauck (31:45)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (31:45)
I mean, it's like, sure, that's what it says you're gonna do on paper, but then what's the reality when you get in the door? And being able to have enough of a generalist background and the humility, I think, to not really focus on job title or who you're partnering with, but to go wherever you're you're of the most serv benefit to the company and of the most service is really
fulfilling personally because it means you get to do a lot of different things, but also like so valuable to
a
Martin Hauck (32:15)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (32:16)
company that's growing and scaling. And so at times that looked like I was writing policies. Sometimes I like I was like, hey, I'll step in and do, you know, the the compliance training because it's just faster and easier than hiring somebody else to do it. And then other times it was like, I am dedicated HRBP and we are going through the performance cycle with this team and fault, you know.
making sure we reach all of our our goals with regards to this performance cycle. And then other times it's, hey, I'm taking a backseat off of the HRBP stuff and I'm developing a leadership development training for the whole company. And so I think knowing where n knowing where to go, knowing where the pain points are, where you can have the greatest impact, and then being willing to like dive in and figure it out is just
It's really valuable. And I think in companies that are looking for the early hire HR VPs, finding somebody who has that ability to wear multiple hats, step in multiple places, and doesn't have any sort of ego around it is is like a super valuable hire to make. And I encourage companies to think about that for their first HR V P hire as well. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (33:25)
Ooh, yeah.
That's that's something that comes up a lot. We're we have a we have a side of our business where we match make members of our communities to like opportunities from clients, right? And
Kristen Suess (33:40)
Right.
Martin Hauck (33:41)
they're oftentimes they're like, It's too soon for us to hire that first HRBP.
Kristen Suess (33:46)
Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (33:49)
or recruiter sometimes, usually it's
Kristen Suess (33:51)
Sure.
Martin Hauck (33:51)
both, and they kind of like, We want somebody to do recruiting NHR and
Kristen Suess (33:53)
Of
of course. Right.
Martin Hauck (33:54)
We can we can talk about the the folly of that, but
the when they do, it's it's they don't know again, they don't know what they don't know, they don't know what they they necessarily need. So to your point, getting that person that can just dive in where necessary and just roll up their sleeves
Kristen Suess (34:13)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (34:14)
and do it is is hyper value. When you're when you've
worked with companies and where you talk to to people about this, what other things would you recommend for like, hey, there's a difference between I'm hiring somebody on a team of five or ten or twenty
Kristen Suess (34:29)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (34:31)
and like your first HR B?
Kristen Suess (34:33)
Mm.
Yeah, it's I it's so hard to know, right, when the right time is to bring an HRBP in. I think you want to sort of take a step back and figure out like, and every company's different, but what is going on for our business right now and what do we foresee happening over the next year? And I think the advantages to bringing in someone earlier is standing up some of the processes, frameworks, systems that will really serve you.
in the first phase of your growth trajectory. And you know, it's we've we've seen what it looks like when you wait too long or you don't have the right people making the right decisions. The pain of having to go back and reconstruct, deconstruct, and re-architect, you know, job profiles, comp bands, you know, career paths, those decisions can be incredibly painful and costly. And so I think like,
Understanding
the cost benefit of bringing someone in early, do you have some of that expertise in-house? Does somebody actually have a good working knowledge? Can you hire somebody to come get some of the big things stood up for you in a on a consulting or contractual basis so that when you are ready to bring an HRBP in, they're not spending their first year enroll unpacking a bunch of problems that and legacy decisions that were made? so that's like a long way of saying.
There's no great answer. I do think there's such a thing as too early. You don't need an HR VP, I don't think, at a, you know, 25 person company. I think that's going to be, you know, quite expensive. But a true HR business partner done well is like an executive coach, has the ability to act as like a real strong guide and offer sage advice and wisdom to founders, to executives, to leaders within the company, and to stand up.
Those programs and systems to help enable people and teams to deliver great results. And so I think companies that have seen it and know, and and people who have worked places where they've seen what a great HRBP can do, like you don't have to convince them. They've seen it, they know it, they get it. And I see right now this sort of like really interesting disconnect happening in in the industry. I'm so curious if you've noticed this too. Like some companies I've noticed are v really value.
I see HRBPs. So they will pay top dollar to bring in a senior HRBP who's been there, done that, brings tons of experience, and can like telescope in and out, acting at the like 10,000 foot level and also like delivering on you know tactical execution as needed with depending on the needs. And then other companies that are like really not seeing that value, and I think the HRBP role is seen as a more junior role.
and they don't have opportunities for senior level ICs. It's like you're an HRBP or you're a leader of an HRBP team, and that's kind of the the only distinctions. And I think I'm really keen on these companies that are seeing HRBP as like a deep craft and value that skill set and are willing to make a big bet because I think that the rewards, the ROI, like I would argue for bringing in a strong HRBP on
on how executives perform, how leaders perform in a company can be huge. So I think that those are the kind of things I would want companies to be thinking about when they're considering whether or not to bring in an HR V P, right? there's a lot of different ways that role can show up to add value early on.
Martin Hauck (38:12)
Yeah.
No, I I mean to to your point about what what I'm seeing, I think I don't maybe there's a trend in in it like being more apparent, I think, but I also think that's kind of always existed in the sense that
Kristen Suess (38:28)
Hm.
Martin Hauck (38:28)
like either you get it
Or you don't is like that's kind of like how I see those organizations where
Kristen Suess (38:37)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (38:37)
it's like when a company maybe they don't get it, but they're open to it, and then once as a result of being open to it, it's just like, this makes so much sense, we should continue doing it this way. Whereas
Kristen Suess (38:45)
Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (38:47)
like and it also just speaks to the top down typically, right? It's like, is this an environment where the executive team or the CEO whatever is more about control and
They want to be like almost too involved in all the processes where it's just
Kristen Suess (39:06)
Is it?
Martin Hauck (39:07)
like, I want an order taker versus I need somebody to to take take this on. And those are two different cultures. And like, I don't know that I have a ton of examples of companies where like the order taking culture wins and it's like a a valid model or something like that. That would be interesting
Kristen Suess (39:24)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (39:24)
to explore. But like you can tell, like the also, and I see I see this the most from the community.
Is like you can tell what people wanna be doing, right? Like,
Kristen Suess (39:34)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (39:35)
yes, it's an HRBP role, but are you just adhering to policies and there's no interest in improving things and making things better? Or
Kristen Suess (39:42)
That's right. That's right.
Martin Hauck (39:44)
or or are they gonna lean on you and say, like, hey, especially now, it's like every week there's a new gizmo that can 10x your productivity. It's like you're gonna need somebody to help you navigate that. You can't you can't even control that now, right? So
Kristen Suess (40:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's true. And I think you raise a great point. And like it's it does kind of start from like, well, what what is the appetite even at from the top, right? To have to take into consideration input from from HR, from a people team. and I've certainly worked places where that did not exist and I've worked places where HR was, you know, seen as like no decision could be made without HR. So I've seen both
ends of this spectrum there. And I think like that's a great place to start is just being really intellectually honest about what the appetite is for that involvement. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (40:40)
Before
we move away, I'm gonna selfishly ask some like
Kristen Suess (40:44)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (40:46)
let's just assume we don't have to assume, I know, that you're talking to a bunch of people that like love using Slack every day and it's their favorite tool. And like, do you have any interesting stories or anecdotes that you can pull that isn't necessarily on the people side, but more just like
Kristen Suess (41:02)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (41:03)
here's some of the behind the scenes of like, you know, if this was if this was VH1 behind the music.
like how did the Beatles come up with like the White album, right? Like is there like what's the version of that that you can bring to the table for our keen listeners?
Kristen Suess (41:21)
Okay, wait, so are you curious about like stories about what it was like building Slack, like the product, or
Martin Hauck (41:27)
Just stuff
that stuff that stands out, anything to do,
Kristen Suess (41:30)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (41:31)
you know, but but would like would make somebody who uses and loves using Slack on a day to day basis kind of like smirk or smile.
Kristen Suess (41:39)
my gosh. There's so many stories. I mean, truly, like, I don't even know where I would start from like customers writing haikus and love letters to us on the CET. I think someone once made a like we had cakes delivered from customers, custom slack cakes were delivered from customers. I mean, the the customer love was like one thing that I think was just like so fun and so cool about working there. I think like there's a lot of
There's a lot of internal lore, a lot of memories I have from like, you know, I think, you know, John Legend performed for us once internally. you know, there was there was always like something going on with regards to like a, you know, some sort of a concert or a celebrity getting involved. But no, I think like one of the things that I would just say is like Stuart famously, Stuart Butterfield, the the founder of of Slack.
Would always famously talk about what a piece of shit Slack was. excuse my language. And he would say it internally to us all the time. And and, you know, it was a lot of tongue, it was tongue-in-cheek, but it he it was true. There was the original product of Slack was a bit of a piece of garbage. Like it was, it was, it was great, people loved it, there was a lot of good functionality, but there was a ton of things that didn't work. And we were always dog fooding our own product, so we were always working on it.
using using it ourselves and trying to test what was working, what wasn't working. And I think, you know, what people maybe don't know, and I didn't appreciate that people didn't understand is that the way we used Slack at Slack was so incredible. I wish everybody had a chance to opt to to experience what that was like sometime in their careers. And I think I try to.
Teach people about how to use leverage Slack better and what it can look like when it's when everyone deeply understands the norms and the and the ways of using Slack. But like it was truly so powerful that anywhere I've worked it since, one of the first things I do is try to figure out how I can help this company leverage how they use Slack better. Because unfailingly, most places I've gone, it's not used nearly as effectively as it could be. And I think at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, well,
Why is that? And is that a failure of the product itself? But I think it's it's got so much power when it's used well. And it's such a fun and engaging platform to be involved in. Like if you ask me where I'd work, like Slack is where I work, like within the product. And we always say like Slack is where work happens, and that is that would be my office was the Slack instance that I was working in. and so
That's not exactly like an exciting story, but I think and I'm happy to share any of those tips and tricks at any time. But like I think the power of using that platform to really connect people and to have great inside jokes. I mean, some of the threads that we would have going on while also getting a work done were just things I still laugh about to this day in terms of like nonstop.
gifts and you know, inside jokes and just with a lot of creativity and a lot of humor. worked with some very, very clever people. And I think Slack is a place where you can bring that creativity and that humor to light, which honestly just who doesn't want that? It just makes everything more enjoyable at work, right? So yeah. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (45:10)
Yeah, it's it's true.
I mean, if if hopefully just when, but if if you decide
Kristen Suess (45:18)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (45:19)
to join our community, I feel like I just realized I'm like I'm gonna have this holy shit moment where it's like, Okay, everybody, I'm going to approve Kristen's membership. She's gonna be coming soon. Everybody on your best behavior, and like make sure you use lots of emojis, but like I'm sure we're not using it in the in the the best way and like
obviously being a company and a community are two different two different things and I think we're doing a lot of stuff, right? Otherwise we wouldn't be growing the way we are. But I might have to double click on that with you later afterwards. But
Kristen Suess (45:51)
Well,
I'm I'm in the Slack group and it's I I
Martin Hauck (45:54)
We haven't done that.
Kristen Suess (45:56)
you do such a good job. You really do. I mean, there are some very good
Martin Hauck (46:00)
What they do.
Kristen Suess (46:00)
habits formed in there, I think. and we I'm happy to talk to you about it more. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (46:02)
Okay. I'm sure there's better. I would
I okay. So w a ton, I wanna be respectful of your time.
Kristen Suess (46:09)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (46:10)
I would love I was gonna ask you for two. If you're like, what's the one thing a company needs to start doing to start using Slack better? And then,
Kristen Suess (46:19)
Mm.
Martin Hauck (46:19)
you know, they can Google the rest kind of deal.
Kristen Suess (46:23)
I would say channel naming conventions is pretty high on my list. So you
Martin Hauck (46:28)
Okay.
Kristen Suess (46:29)
should have a sort of whether it's a library or a guide, how are you, what are your channel naming conventions? So for example, like anything that's an announcements channel, whether it's like maybe it's you have regional announcements channel, you have team announcements channel, it's announcements dash Japan, announcements dash global. You know, so follow that convention because then when I'm searching for it.
It's super easy to pull up because I know, it's an announcements channel, so I start with announcements. the other thing I'll just give as a side tip, which for some reason a lot of people still don't know about, is the quick switcher. hopefully you know about it, but it's Command K. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (47:08)
Command K, yeah.
Kristen Suess (47:09)
And so just for anyone who might be listening, try it, bring it up. It's Command K is your fastest way to search for the channel, the conversation, the DM, the file, Command K. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (47:20)
Command K. No, that's
those those are so I think, I mean, Excel Command K is easier than learning how to do a V lookup on Excel, but when you learn how to do a V lookup on Excel, like your life changes. I don't I guess sadly this is like aging
Kristen Suess (47:33)
Totally.
Martin Hauck (47:36)
me in the sense that like we probably don't need to do VLux up V lookups anymore because we're just got Claude and and all those folks doing it.
Kristen Suess (47:43)
We probably don't,
but you know what? We know how to, and we should be proud of that.
Martin Hauck (47:47)
Was that like not Lord of the Rings, the Narnia? Don't quote the I was don't quote the the magic to me. I was there when it was written kind of deal. Like that's that's I I I'll have
Kristen Suess (47:57)
Yeah, okay, good one. Yes. Yes. gosh.
Martin Hauck (48:01)
to pull it up. Maybe we can flash that on the screen w when this part
Kristen Suess (48:05)
I love it.
Martin Hauck (48:06)
happens. Okay, so moving away from Slack, thank you very much for indulting.
Kristen Suess (48:09)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Hauck (48:11)
we're like fast forwarding today. You what are you up to?
What's keeping you up at night besides bears and and people in the streets? what's keeping you up in night in the night people and culture wise?
Kristen Suess (48:25)
Yeah,
first of all, nothing's keeping me up at night. I sleep like a baby.
Martin Hauck (48:30)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (48:31)
So I'm not too stressed. I'm very fortunate. But I what I'm up to lately is actually, you know, I've done this kind of interesting thing in my career where I'm tak I take little mini retirement breaks in between jobs. And I think I was thinking about it the other day because, you know, I am not in a traditional role right now. I'm starting a consulting,
business, but in these breaks, I think it really it it really kind of breaks with this notion of you work, you work, you work, and then you retire. And I have found this rhythm that I feel like really aligns with my values and and just what I care about. And it is work real hard and then like play real hard in between. And so in between Slack and and Apollo and then in between Apollo and Dropbox
I have taken, you know, nine to 12 month breaks in between and just got to indulge in things that I love to do and gardening and biking and all these types of things. And I think I'm currently in a season of that break again, which is allowing me this opportunity to focus on thinking about how I want to bring forward a consulting practice, what that looks like that feels really true to what I'm great at, what I love doing, the kind of people and businesses I like to partner with. and you know, I do think about.
what is it like everyone, right? We're everyone's being asked what's the future of of HR, how is AI impacting the future of of the people function. And I'm not gonna posit anything huge there. I think there's a lot of panic and anxiety around what this looks like. I also think that there's a lot of people professing they know what the future looks like. I will be honest, I still think garbage in, garbage out, we gotta get a handle on
our data and our data integrity and deeply understanding what matters to people. And I think like as far as I can tell, we still have a lot of platforms and a lot of you know, that require a lot of integration, that where there's a lot of duplication, using a lot of the wrong information. And I think like I've seen it firsthand where we talk about being really an AI forward company with a lot of, you know,
really unique use cases for how we integrate it into the people function. But then at the baseline, like we can't do simple things like internal transfers well that treat employees with like dignity and
Martin Hauck (51:01)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (51:01)
build trust and build so I something I believe strongly in is like deeply understanding humans and what matters to people will never be replaced by AI. And I think it can't be. And so I take a lot of comfort in knowing that I'm
gonna wanna work with another person on a lot of things far more than I am going to want to work with AI. And I think AI has a great use case and we can use it to take away parts of jobs that are not enriching, not exciting, not value added when humans touch them. But I think that we'll never be able to replace like the the human desire to work with another person and other people on great teams to achieve great things because that is just something that is baked into who we are in our DNA. And so
It's
not keeping me up at night, but I do think it's an interesting time and I enjoy reading people's thoughts about where we're headed and what's going on right now.
Martin Hauck (51:57)
What's what what was I mean you have a million things you you could jump into. What
Kristen Suess (52:06)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (52:06)
what prompt there's a lot of folks thinking about going fractional and a lot of folks thinking about just becoming a consultant in in some capacity. What was the what drew you to it and what what are your plans for your own for for people up?
Kristen Suess (52:22)
Yeah. for me it's a chance to align, I think, and if I do it well, it'll be a chance to align like what I love to do and my strengths with lifestyle that matters to me. And and more than anything, it's so important to me to focus on family and health and friends and my community. And I'm at a phase in my life where I have the opportunity to do that. And and so
That is my number one priority. But if I can if I can find a way to weave in the things that keep my brain really active, like like partnering with people on really hard, cool problems to unlock potential, like that for me just fills my cup. And so I'm excited about offering consulting where I won't be the right fit for everyone, but I think I'll be the right fit for some places and some people. And I have
certain things that I just love to do. Like, I just there's nothing that gets me more fired up than facilitating leadership development opportunities, understanding what problems companies are trying to solve, and then bringing like the right creating the right container for folks to come together and learn from one another and develop new skills and abilities to like move forward and be reinvigorated as they go back and return.
Their to their work and apply those practical skills. So that is something that I will just like really double down on in my consulting practice. There's probably other work that's out there that is much better suited to other HR practitioners. And so for me to be able to have that opportunity to like really hone in where I think I can add value and gracefully hand off the work to others where I think it's better suited to their skills at this phase in my career is like a really a true gift. and that's what I'm looking forward to. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (54:14)
Nice. Are there
like dream like for me when I like I
Kristen Suess (54:18)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (54:19)
when I went all in on T P G I started it wasn't really all in on T P G 'cause I I I need I needed to consult for a little bit and
Kristen Suess (54:27)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (54:28)
I was reaching out to like VR companies and video game companies. I'm a big nerd. Like what what's what's on your wish list of like dream clients to to work with? Or is it less about the industry and the company and is it more about the like mission?
Kristen Suess (54:43)
It's
it's yeah, that's a great point. I know. And you know, there's different phases in our life we have the ability to s you know, be more picky or choosy or less picky or choosy. So there's zero judgment there. But I think for me, I don't I'm not targeting a particular industry. I think I think the knowledge I've built in the tech industry is incredibly valuable and there's a lot of applicability to other industries as well. And I think a lot of the time companies are looking to understand what are some of the innovative or, you know,
innovative ways that you can help build resilience and you know comfort with change and ambiguity in your workforce that that the tech industry I think has had a lot more experience with. But I would I just want to work with good people. Like at the end of the day, if a company is interested in talking to me in the first place, like you've already passed step one, which is like something's going on where you're interested in investing in some in in
Helping unlock something with with regards to your people. And you care enough to do it in a way where you're gonna hire somebody who has a level of expertise in that. So that already to me is like such a great sign. But you know, you get to a certain phase in life and you're like, all I wanna do is work with good humans who have good values, and maybe we have a little bit of fun along the way. And that's all.
That's all I really want, right? Like the work is the work. It honestly doesn't change that much place to place. How it shows up could be a bit different, but you just let's let's let's kind of collaborate and let's get something done in a way that makes us in like where we enjoy coming to work every day. That's kind of the goal. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (56:24)
Okay. I'm gonna
follow up with a similar question to the coffee question.
Kristen Suess (56:31)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (56:33)
But a little bit more technology driven. And you could be like, listen, I don't, I don't dabble. But like, do you have a strong position on like when you are messing around with AI? If you are messing around with
Kristen Suess (56:45)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Hauck (56:45)
it, do you have a preferred LLM? Are you a Claude person? Are you a chat GPT? Are you a perplexity? What's what's your approach to that whole world as you're as you're standing this all up?
Kristen Suess (56:56)
Yeah,
I've been using Claude. I was using Chat GPT and I I honestly find the working with Claude to be more of a true thought partner and less of sort of a pandering tool. So so for me, you know, I I have been using Claude. I'm I I'm using I just upgraded finally to the pro account or whatever it is. and and I honestly what I use it for all kinds of things.
You often for bouncing ideas for helping I I have a lot of thoughts. It helps me kind of like reframe my thinking and my ideas condense. Exactly. Like that use case for me is so valuable. I love to ideate, but it can help me kind of group ideas and and distill things down. Number one non-work use case though is trip travel planning. It's like I have you been using
Martin Hauck (57:48)
yeah. Yeah.
Kristen Suess (57:51)
yeah.
Martin Hauck (57:52)
That's a sweet spot. Yeah. Like it
Kristen Suess (57:53)
Sweet spot.
Martin Hauck (57:54)
it was accidental. I didn't even think of it. But like there's so many businesses have like so many places have gotten my business as a result of like what's good around here? And like it's
Kristen Suess (58:04)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (58:05)
not for some reason like the it pulls all the things nicely and I'm like, this is great. This having dinner here or like
Even my trip to New York in a couple of months is like all sorted. I I learned things I didn't even know that would probably take, you know, forever to talk to somebody about like, hey, they're they're like a legend when it comes to traveling. But like you can pre book all your hotels and like instantly get them refunded. So book all that up front now. And if something changes, you can change it. But like there is a window for flights. I'm like, I don't know this. I'm
Kristen Suess (58:35)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (58:36)
new to the whole like traveling a lot game, right? So like, yeah, the travel
Kristen Suess (58:39)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Hauck (58:40)
thing is is good. Yeah.
Kristen Suess (58:42)
Awesome. What about you? What do you have any recommendations for tools that you've been using that you've been loving?
Martin Hauck (58:49)
I could go on forever. I'm happy to, but I'll keep it short. I'm a huge fan of Whisper Flow, which is basically you hold a key on your keyboard and it just dictates whatever you're saying anywhere. So to your point, what I use it most
Kristen Suess (59:04)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (59:04)
for is with AI, where it's just like I've got all of these ideas. They're a little bit jarbled and it doesn't come out in like a nice cohesive.
Kristen Suess (59:13)
Ha ha
Martin Hauck (59:15)
manner, but I can do that and then reframe it and be like, okay, cool. And then I can send my thoughts to other people and be like, I get it. Cause a lot of
Kristen Suess (59:22)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (59:22)
times I'm I'm a little all over the place. But that's been super helpful. So Whisper flow is there. Like each tool kind of has their version of like voice. But what's different about Whisper is that like anywhere on my computer or anywhere on my phone, doesn't matter where, I can just like dictate into it. And then on top of that, it'll
It'll do like a really nicely formatted. So if I'm saying something that's like like a list, it'll automatically add the bullets and all that fun
Kristen Suess (59:51)
nice, yeah.
Martin Hauck (59:52)
stuff. So it's that's next level. I mean, note taking I'm a big fan of granola and what they're doing.
Kristen Suess (59:58)
Yes.
Martin Hauck (59:59)
can't just the the it's just something different about the way they do it. And I frankly, I've I've messaged the founders. I was just like, You two need to buy each other so I can just have one membership because
I want both of you in the same place. Stop trying to build competitive things. They're not gonna listen to me. It's in their like spam inbox, I'm sure, but I regularly.
Kristen Suess (1:00:20)
No, I love it. You gotta shoot your shot, yeah.
Martin Hauck (1:00:23)
If it happens, I will take small credit for it. I think
Kristen Suess (1:00:25)
You're responsible for the merger, yeah.
Martin Hauck (1:00:29)
the other thing, like you're already using Claude. I've got a couple developer buddies, and I would just like encourage anyone like is like
Start building some kind of like web app, some sort of website. Like
Kristen Suess (1:00:41)
Hmm.
Martin Hauck (1:00:42)
last night I vibe coded my whole personal website and it looks a thousand times better, a thousand times geekier than I've ever had before. But it's just like get used to like like
Kristen Suess (1:00:54)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (1:00:54)
I create a folder on my computer, I open up terminal, which makes me look like the world's biggest hacker, at least to myself. And then I just,
Kristen Suess (1:01:00)
Totally. Yep.
Martin Hauck (1:01:02)
you know, I use open code to like.
do the thing and I've asked a couple but like it explains it to me. And at the end of the day, it's just a weird looking interface that's not at all user friendly. But I'm still all I'm doing is just dictating the thing that I want it to do and I say it in my own way. And like I think that's just kind of been the most helpful for me because I feel like I've learned the most as a result 'cause then new ideas come up on like how I can use it. Right. So
Kristen Suess (1:01:30)
I think that's so cool and I would say that's something that I've loved is like this opportunity to kind of play a little bit again, is
Martin Hauck (1:01:35)
Yeah.
Kristen Suess (1:01:37)
because that's when you learn, right? And I think it it is important for us in people's space to like push ourselves to understand and explore using these new tools. And I think I already am like, gosh, I'm gonna get left behind, you know? but it's but it's it's far less daunting when you just
treat it as low stakes and and have these opportunities to like play around. And I think the more you do that, the less of a barrier to entry. It's it's more in your head than it is in reality. And so I think that's been that's been really cool. And I think giving people that chance to like a little bit more accessibility to the to the tech world, like we can play and pretend that we're, you know, software engineers, I think is is,
Martin Hauck (1:02:19)
Ha ha.
Kristen Suess (1:02:20)
is dangerous and fun.
Martin Hauck (1:02:23)
I can't wait for people
to like I I I can't wait for just there's gonna be some crazy fallback of like the the code debt that people are creating like the non developers are just like just like I just wanna watch reaction videos of developers looking at code created by folks like me and just like what are you doing? Like what kind of Kogmire of a code base is this and
Kristen Suess (1:02:45)
Yeah
Martin Hauck (1:02:49)
what is this like I I I could watch that all day long.
okay, well, thanks so much for your time. Thanks for thanks for doing this. This was a blast. hopefully not the last time we do something like this. And yeah, just just just thank you for for saying yes, sharing the stories of of Slack and and the bears and and all the things.
Kristen Suess (1:03:14)
Well, a huge thanks to you. You have like put in so much work to building a community and I have selfishly reaped the benefit of it when you've come to town and and in within the Slack group. And huge thanks to you for welcoming me onto the podcast as well. And I hope we'll continue to connect on all kinds of things. So look forward to it. Yeah.
Martin Hauck (1:03:34)
Hundred percent. Yeah, I I have
many, many questions. So awesome. Thanks, Kristen. Cheers.
Kristen Suess (1:03:37)
Keep coming. Thanks Martin. Bye.
