Agenda:
Takeaways:
Agenda:
Takeaways:
welcome to this startup is being recorded. This recording is improvised fiction. Similarities between it and the real world are entirely intentional. Now enjoy the recording.
Kate:okay. Um, the recording is on. Um, let's just jump right into it. So, well, I guess I should explain this situation for any anyone listening.
Eric:a good idea.
Kate:Yeah, it's so easy to explain. Um, last week, obviously, when I met with John, he has spent reading, uh, the hard thing about hard things, because he feels like he's a very involved CEO and wants to get, become better at his job, which, you know, I admire him for. But anyway, he heard our recording from last week. He heard about all the conflicts. Creative and tech, and he thought that this freaky Friday thing of this book was the best way to solve it. Um, so you know, Matt and Thea, he made you to switch places for a week and we're now like what T minus two and a half days into the switch. Uh, and
Matt:would be T plus,
Kate:sorry.
Matt:know, it's.
Kate:Yeah, it's okay. T plus two and a half days and we eat. Yeah, the website is like having serious problems. Um, the branding strategy progress is like way off track. I don't think we're going to get done by this
Matt:Uh, we don't know for sure that it's off track. I just want to say I have very little visibility into it. It could be happening out of, you know, my ability to see it. Well, we'll talk.
Kate:okay. Well, yeah. Anyway, um, let's do, let's do interest super quick. Okay. I'm Kate, this has set this company. We're a couch marketplace. When we went, our website has the ability to tell couches, which is like not right now, chief of staff.
Thea:I'm the chief creatives are, or was I.
Kate:What are you today?
Thea:here.
Kate:Just here. That's what Matt's job normally is.
Thea:No, I, I guess I am the CTO right now. Is that what I'm supposed to say?
Matt:Yep.
Kate:I think so.
Eric:I'm Eric, Troy Carter. Um, no, we're just going to keep going. I'm Eric Carter. I'm the chief product officer at CIT, and I feel like the son of divorced parents.
Matt:uh, I am matt.yachts. Uh, that's also my website and I am the czar pro tem of the creative team here at CIT, uh, formerly CTO once and future C T O.
Kate:yeah. Anyway. Okay. Can someone give me, give us an update though? I think the most pressing thing is, is the website, the website, like the orders. It seems like one out of every 10 orders is even getting through. T a what is going on?
Thea:It's a mess. Um, I feel like this has not helped, uh, my relationship with Matt's team in any, if anything, it is just intensified our rage towards each other. Um, we are right now, not even looking at each other, um, which is not helpful because Matt, I will say that. Deep appreciation for you because the challenges you face are numerous and real. Um, just, uh, feels like there is just a constant spray of bullets and those bullets are problems with our old code and,
Matt:Oh, yeah.
Thea:my God, the security issues. I mean,
Kate:What have we had a security breach this week,
Thea:What week have we not had a security breach?
Kate:but
Matt:Oh, they probably put you, uh, on the Pedro system for when we get automatic, uh, that's live on the internet. It's, it's open season from penetration, testers and script kitties, and folks that are looking for issues. Our firewall is very temperamental and so, uh, we pretty much get paged every time someone's looking, whether they find something or not. So. Uh, yeah. I'm sorry. Thank got you. Uh, there's a filter you can put to take out like 99% of that stuff. Cause it's all false positives.
Thea:Yeah. I mean, I've just that Patriot has been going off at all times during my yoga class, during my morning meditations, during my usual bowls. I mean, eighties, it is non-stop.
Matt:Yeah, I, uh, I don't know what to say. I tried to leave instructions, uh, and let them know, like, this is temporary and it's not something that we want. It's not something I wanted or that you wanted. Uh, and if they could just power through, I mean, even just following, you know, our routines and not taking on new projects for a week, the team should have been able to keep it together. Uh, I chalk it up to a lack of emotional Mitchell.
Kate:so Thea is this, is this a new project they're trying to deploy a new project or something, and that's why the website's not working. I mean, what could possibly be on the roadmap right now that needs to be done to this.
Eric:I, I couldn't tell you that the two teams have started waging a ticket war. JIRA instance. And so there's all the actual content and the roadmap is scattered and it's just
Matt:oh wait, is this, is this web versus mobile going at it again?
Eric:no, no, this is, this is marketing and creative versus all of engineering, but there are 74,000 JIRA tickets that have been created in the last three days,
Matt:Oh, sorry. That might be important. Can you tell me exactly the number 74,000
Eric:74,536.
Matt:before 5 36. Okay. Okay. I need to do some math. Um, that's helpful. I'm sorry.
Thea:No, no. It's okay. Um, yeah, I, so as far as I know, there are no new projects that were supposed to be happening, but, uh, Matt's team is working very hard and a completely shut me out when I ask what it is. Um, I've tried. Everything. I've to provide them food. I have tried to provide them with loving kindness. Um, I've tried to provide them with lesser vices. Um, really anything I could do. I mean, I usually don't resort to bribing people for love and just project, my best self. But, this is it's a new level.
Matt:Kathy. I don't know if we want to try and like go into the weeds on problem solving this right now, but, um, have you tried. Um, embarrassing them with their ignorance. They usually respond to that really well. Um, because their domain is the code that they work with, the systems, uh, and maths that they deal with every day. And, um, whenever they step outside of that, uh, it's usually pretty easy to sting them and send them right back to work. So if, if folks are, uh, taking the piss, um, Uh, find their online accounts, uh, bring up something about the, you know, the outfit that they posed in over the weekend, or take that they had about a, a movie that was very mainstream. Um, I think like you're particularly well equipped, uh, to cut them down, uh, and, uh, give them to respect you. I mean, out of, at least for you,
Thea:this is brilliant. I, I, should've just gone from the tactic of emotional sabotage from the very beginning. This is, um, this is so good. Really good for me. And, and I am, I am great at digging up things on other people on the internet. I mean, it's what got me where I am today.
Eric:That's true. If you're ever like independence though, or if somebody on your team needs this, I have a box of fake trivial pursuit cards in my desk that have the wrong answers printed on them. And so you can just pull one of those out, ask them any question and there's no chance they'll get it right. And you can just drop them in.
Kate:Well,
Thea:that's, that's really great. Um, I mean, I did have a breakthrough earlier this week, um, particularly when they were talking about the Chechnyan military and something that I know a lot about. So I do think I won over a couple of people with that. Um, and so I think I just need to like really go down. Talking about things that I know I know better embarrassing them in front of their peers.
Matt:oh yeah. In front of each other is really good. I, um, I usually just kind of, you know, send a direct message or something, kind of remind them, uh, who's the boss. Phew, do a good enough job in front of everyone. Dressing down one person. There'll be some knock on effects. So
Kate:Does does that mean they've.
Thea:actually, I I'm just everything that I've heard just reminds me that I have to treat your team. Like they were a pack of Russian wools and. Essentially do what I would do if I wanted to insinuate myself as an AF alpha female and a pack of brush and wolves.
Matt:yeah, I mean, that study has been discredited so many times in terms of how actual packs and especially. Human behavior is modeled, but my team doesn't know that and they tend to operate on the assumption that it's true. So yeah, if you assert dominance, particularly over the right people at the right time, um, they'll crack
Thea:This is brilliant. No, this is great. I've I've had a lot of experience trying to insinuate myself into Wolf packs and. Do that here. Um, Matt, how is it going with my team?
Matt:Um, it's hard to be sure. Um, but I think I am close to finding them,
Thea:Have
Matt:oh, I should catch you all up. Sorry. I've been, uh, I've been deepened this notebook. Um, when I got to your desk and department, I found that many things had been moved around. Uh, many things have been disappeared and among those things was your team. Uh, I thought this was, uh, maybe a protest. They were going to come in later. Uh, but I checked in and they were like working. I saw them using our, you know, copies of Adobe products and, uh, checking in files on the file shares. Um, so that was when I started going through your desk. Sorry. Uh, and I found this marked up copy of Jabberwock. By Lewis, Carroll, uh, peppered with clues and, uh, and a little kind of a taunting message. Uh, basically like if I wanted to work with them, if they wanted me, uh, if they, if they, if I want them to work with me, really, uh, I would need to show them that I have the creativity to solve this puzzle and find them.
Thea:Uh, I am so sorry to that. You have to deal with that. Um,
Matt:I have to tell you, like I'm having the time of my life,
Thea:Oh, that's good. I'm I'm happy to hear that. Did you, did they take the Talkboy then that I left for you?
Matt:um, that I talked, boy, I didn't see,
Thea:mean, I usually call them in, by, um, I created songs for all of their names and I had a talk boy for you there
Matt:uh,
Thea:names, so you could call them in, but it makes sense that if they don't want to be found that the
Matt:Okay,
Thea:is the talk boy.
Matt:Yeah. Remove the ability to, uh, to be called in now. That is really interesting. Uh, okay. That explains a lot of these numeric notations that are added here. Um, it's been so long since I had piano lessons. Um, anyway, I'm, I'm starting to piece this together. Okay. So like the, the JIRA ticket. Uh, if you add up, if you sum up the digits on either end, uh, you get 13 and then seven, five is in the middle. So five and seven is 1213 in one. So, uh, one which I think has helped me unlock the first, uh, the first clue in the first paragraph. Um,
Kate:You're at the first clue in the first paragraph, it's been two and a half days.
Matt:been, I've been working in this back and forth. Like, you know, you can't just start at the top for a, this kind of like escape room, puzzle room, uh, thing. So that one definitely is going to be the key to others. Oh, sorry. Okay.
Kate:I appreciate you're having fun, but, uh, we need to finish our new rebranding this week. And I understand what John asked you to do was very poor timing. But Monday there is a press release that is going out with our new name,
Matt:yeah.
Kate:CIT. That is our new name, but.
Thea:I mean, get it and I get that there are some mission critical failures that are happening right now, but what John wanted us to do was gain empathy. And I think we are both on the verge of a breakthrough with our teams right now.
Kate:the tech team has locked you out of the office, Thea and Matt. You haven't even interacted with anyone from the grade of team.
Matt:oh, that's not true. Uh, I forgot to say, um, there is, there's a dead drop. Uh, there are actually several, but we've been communicating by dead drop. So when I solve one of the clues, uh, I go leave it in wherever the clue says. I mean, that's how a lot of these puzzles work, uh, come back at the pre appointed time and there's usually another puzzle. Uh, I've been very pleased to see, uh, examples of stuff that they're working on. And so, you know, I can't be a hundred percent sure what it's going to come across, like, uh, on screen. Uh, they've been using a lot of like, um, what does that process called when you like, uh, you know, dip paper and T and, and distress it to make it look like, uh, like it's old manuscript.
Thea:Oh yeah. I kind of like a form of like screen printing almost,
Matt:yeah, essentially I would like to think of it as like ruining, uh, the paper, but, um, yeah, so I've seen, I have seen, uh, some drafts. I didn't bring them with me because the scrolls are, are very large, but, um, I have been provided with scrolls of, uh, Uh, trial art for a Bugsby under the new name, under several different options for, uh, what SYT is an acronym for, um, different treatments of SYT again, colors are kind of hard to work out cause it's going kind of washed down and brown, but, um, there's some stuff there. Uh, and as soon as I get these last couple of pieces, the music really helps I think. Okay.
Thea:and
Matt:I think this could be a YouTube video, right?
Thea:earlier, but they didn't realize that I can pick locks like nobody's business. And I think like watching me. Unlock their shared office space and come in really has helped form a foundation of respect. And I think a couple more times, and like, we can really get to get to a good place here.
Matt:Do you just want to warn, um, don't let them lull you into a sense of complacency with the lockbox. Uh, let's just say, if you try that in the server room, um, we have, we have lock-in mechanisms, uh, and not all of them are survivable. So like kudos getting, getting into the office. That's totally right. And in fact, there are a handful of, uh, resource cabinets around that. There that's the only way to get into it, um, either because of machismo or because the keys are lost, but. Yeah. Not, not all, uh, not all locks are meant to be picked if you, if you take my meaning.
Thea:at this is perfect. I mean, there's not a booby trap I've met that I can't get through. And, and this seems to be like a great way to, to show the way I can survive situation.
Matt:okay. I think I'm getting okay. This is M eight O I D P. Q lowercase. Q Y B L w. Uh Califia whose, whose is beyond the sea. Bobby Darren's beyond the sea. Who is that?
Thea:oh,
Matt:Okay.
Thea:Yes. Oh, that is so good. Cause Josh really is working on that press release and um, you probably do need to talk to him sooner rather than later.
Matt:okay. And just, I just want to be clear it's Bobby Darren's version. It's not one of the covers, right?
Thea:it is not the original French version. It has to be Bobby Darin's version.
Matt:Okay.
Kate:this is working. This is not Eric. Can you help me out? There's no one understand what's going on right now. We're free.
Eric:I mean, I I'll be honest. I've been enjoying, uh, learning, uh, you know, empathy by osmosis. It was describing chapter seven of the book. Um, feel like I'm really getting to know my peer executives really well through this process, seeing how they solve problems. Uh, really the only thing that's bothering me is the fact that the turf war has on a proxy war within the parking lot. So I had to park a mile away and walk over. But other than that, it's been.
Thea:Yeah, I'm sorry. Um, the creative team has been taking over parking spaces for a, and turning them into lots, um, specifically, you know, to create some kind of private, private hiding space. I, I assume that of them might be using some of those as a way to hide. Um, but I
Matt:before you go into that. I have, I have checked 95% of them. Um, but I did it through a random method, uh, which I'm now realizing may have been the, that may have been the point I was using Monte Carlo sampling. Of course, there's nothing inspired about I'm sorry. Y'all go ahead.
Thea:that this has seemed to intensify the feud between our two departments more than it assaulted. But I, I think we are really getting to a place that like, we get another day of this and, and we might end this, right? Yeah. And for all, I mean, sometimes with wars that you have to have a big battle before you can come to the table and do the peace resolution, you know,
Kate:I, I, I mean, that makes sense as a metaphor, but. It's it's hard for me to rebuke any sort of war metaphor you give Califia every single time, the war metaphor. And how am I supposed to argue with that?
Thea:I know. I, um, I'm sorry. You know, I just came from a life, uh, and sometimes I fall back. But I, I do think that like, you know, if you let me risk my life to get into the server room, I think I can have that breakthrough with Matt's team. And I think we're going to be a better company for it.
Matt:I, and I think, I swear I'm like two puzzles. From having at least 40% of the creative team back. And once I have them in, I think I've already figured out, like we're going to do a nice singing bowl meditation. We're going to do a sound bath. I'm going to bring things to a nice mellow and they'll be able to bring the rest of the team back in. Meanwhile, the little drips and drabs and crumbs that they've been leaving in their secret hidey holes, uh, suggest to me that they're taking the work series. And they still want to see set succeed.
Kate:listen, how long. You know, frankly, I would like a little bit of a sidebar with an Eric right now. So how about you to each take three minutes, break into the server room, solve your two puzzles. Come back to us, let us know how that went.
Matt:if they were three minute puzzles, all right.
Kate:I believe in you now that you figured out that the whole fricking song thing.
Matt:Kate do you think you could do a better job and in my spot, do you want to
Kate:no. It's all
Matt:Cause it sounds, it just sounds a little bit like,
Kate:I know, I
Eric:One switches one switch one time.
Thea:Sorry, I'll be done in
Kate:I'm freaking out, Eric. I'm freaking out.
Eric:It's a it's okay. It's it's going to be fine. This is what the book said would happen. It's not that it's following the pattern of the book. Exactly. Like you just said, it
Kate:this is an important.
Eric:and then it gets much worse and then it gets imperceptibly bad and then it either gets much better or it explodes. And I don't see. It's not going to explode.
Kate:I just don't I can't explode
Eric:Can we just, we can't move the press conference.
Kate:No, John scheduled it himself with his, his favorite press secretary. And it's.
Eric:you got his
Kate:he's going to be there. Yeah, I know it doesn't
Eric:Oh, wow. Okay. Well,
Kate:just getting really involved. All of a sudden everything and it's, it's somehow making things worse.
Eric:Yeah. If I know, you know, if I know Califia and Matt, at this point I protesting, this is only going to make them dig in more. If we just let them, I think you did the exact right thing to let them go off into their corners and try and solve the problem. I'm sure when they come back, that will pass through to chapter nine, the empathy revolution.
Kate:The empathy revolution.
Eric:it'll be.
Kate:I just, I just worry about what book he's gonna read next, you know, like, is there any that you could just like recommend to him that we know are really have good ideas?
Eric:I really do think we should try and get into his Amazon recommendations and steer them away from certain sectors. he almost read Harry Potter once that was, that was really close.
Kate:How far did he get, did he
Eric:got to the sorting hat. You remember the members, remember the sorting.
Kate:That's right. Oh my gosh. Yeah, no, we had, we had houses. Oh, that was bad.
Eric:had to update his browser to replace 40 different terms and redirect them. So he would never find more Harry Potter content again.
Kate:That's dope. Uh, I think some people are so scarred from being named slither in by that AI that we built
Eric:Why, why is there smoke coming from.
Kate:oh God. Uh, uh, do you see fire? Do you see fire?
Eric:No, it's
Matt:okay. Folks. Uh,
Eric:smoke.
Matt:good news, bad news. Um, good news, uh, track down all of the creative team. Uh, bad news. They're not going to like me for it. Um,
Kate:How did you do it?
Matt:Well, you see all that smoke in the parking lot. Yeah. I remote detonated a bunch of their work issued tools.
Kate:What I thought you were going to solve the final puzzles
Matt:Yeah, listen, I did this, I sang beyond the sea. I brought in Josh and, uh, he made fun of me for being too much of a logical mind, trying to puzzle it out. Why wasn't I just intuiting? And, uh, when I tried to ring up the singing bowls and bring us into a nice home, he was like, don't try to bring me into your resonance frequency, man. I'm doing my own thing. Uh, and I kind of. Okay. So I used the backup credentials that I'm not supposed to have. And I got back into my team's stuff and I remote detonated all of their team issued iPads. And if they want to continue working, they can come in. That's the last message that scrolled across their screens. So, uh, yeah. Good news. Bad news there.
Kate:Uh, okay. Okay. Okay. Um, ho Thea.
Thea:you put bees in the server room.
Matt:Oh, God. Yep. They're technically paper wasps, but they swarm just like.
Thea:Okay. You know what? I thought I could take anything that tea could have me, but he's using mother nature. get me. Oh, I can't.
Matt:we thought that would be the one thing no one would ever expect. Uh, and you know, in case of, uh, uh, like if their paper hive caught fire, the Halon system will take them out and the fire and anyone else who's.
Thea:God.
Matt:that at Califia
Kate:Uh,
Thea:I, I just, there's no way I can regain face in front of, in front of your team now. I mean,
Matt:oh, that's not a hundred percent true. Um,
Kate:you do look like you have a lot. Um, stings though. I.
Thea:I mean, I treat myself with Paula and all the time. I think I'll be okay.
Matt:uh, Kathy, when you left, did you close the door behind?
Thea:No, I was running away from bees.
Matt:Um, well, we might want to just stay in this room. Uh, I released the secondary of heads. They're paper wasps. Okay. Um, there is one in cage and there is one, uh, out of cage. Uh, Amanda usually takes care of it and, uh, it's open now. Uh, I let them all know with a text from your. Uh, that if they like be so much, uh, they should enjoy having them. Uh, and then I sent a correction from my own text message from my own text account that said their paper wasps. Um, anyway, they're loose, uh, mostly in, uh, Devin it, but, uh, they will be wandering through the building unless someone manages to close that door.
Kate:so Devin, its offices are swarmed with wasps and, and all of the iPads of the creative team have been promote detonated and.
Matt:Uh, only the latest ones issued by the company yet.
Kate:Oh, my God.
Thea:this might be a bridge. Move on our parts. You know, I think we tried to bring together our two teams through mutual respect, but I think what they've learned is fear from today. Um, and, and that's an important lesson.
Matt:oh,
Eric:Oh
Matt:dev team emptying out into the parking lot. Okay.
Kate:Wait, that's where the that's where the creatives are.
Eric:out
Matt:it too. Yeah, no, they're huddling. Oh yeah. Here comes the clot of wasps. Oh
Kate:Wasps hate smoke. They won't go anywhere near,
Matt:huddling around the teams are huddling together inside the clouds of smoke to keep the wasps away. Look at them.
Kate:oh
Matt:Yeah. Use that, that brush will burn yet.
Eric:the website's up?
Matt:Is it?
Eric:Yeah, look, check like on mobile.
Thea:And, our press releases in our media center.
Eric:This looks great.
Kate:the JIRA ticket numbers going down by the hundreds every second.
Matt:All right. Um, I guess empathy.
Eric:We cannot tell John this worked.
Kate:No, no, no, no.
Matt:point.
Thea:I think we stop at the bees and the fire and don't tell him what happened afterwards. Um,
Kate:I agree. I
Matt:yeah. We're we're good now, right?
Thea:yeah, we're good.
Kate:You can switch.
Matt:Uh, I, I owe you to replace the, the whiskey I found in your desk.
Thea:Oh no, that's, fine.
Matt:It just helps me with, when I do the logic puzzles, you know, it's like sitting down with the crossword on the weekends. It's nice.
Thea:Yeah, it's really, it's really nice. And the slight flavor of, uh, yaks urine, and it really helps bring, make those
Matt:Oh, that's what it is. Yeah. It's not quite earthy, but it's like, it's biting. Is that the right?
Thea:Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like I really became addicted to that. Uh, when I went to Nepal, it comes in like a sword glass, sword. Really good stuff.
Matt:nicely. And I know I didn't recognize that bottle at all. Uh, if you want I'll I can bring you a bottle from the server room, you know, if you had actually gone, uh, one cage down in one cage over, uh, that's, uh, Good to keep my contraband.
Thea:oh, well, we should just do some like whiskey treating in the office sometime, you know, now that I know how to get into the server room without alerting the BS.
Kate:Great. Well, Honestly crisis resolved. Um, I think you were right, Eric. It just gets worse and worse and worse until it, it gets better. Um, I think
Matt:Oh, they've got quite a fire going now.
Eric:Yeah.
Kate:Oh my God.
Thea:Wow.
Kate:We're not supposed to be burning things in the parking lot. This is a shared parking lot with the rest of the bills.
Matt:you know, there's more of a.
Thea:okay.
Matt:I mean, that's what they,
Thea:is that? What are your guys with the.
Matt:oh yeah.
Eric:Look at that.
Thea:Oh,
Kate:Wow.
Eric:kinda want to get down there,
Thea:yeah,
Eric:don't want to mess the vibe.
Matt:Oh, uh, I hope somebody lets the utility company know that their trucks are awfully close to this bonfire.
Kate:I've got to do that. Okay. Well, yeah, you all decide if you want to party, you're not ruin the party, but. It seems
Matt:am I have? They're fun. I mean, yeah. Let's, let's tell Verizon that their trucks are
Kate:Yeah.
Thea:Yeah.
Kate:Yeah.
Thea:just him know.
Kate:What I'm having. Okay. Well, I'll stop the recording. Um, we'll hope John, doesn't listen to this one and, uh, I guess. Let's get it done, guys. Let's get what we needed to get done this week.
Thea:Yeah.
Ben:This meeting has ended. To subscribe to this startup is being recorded. Go to the podcast player of your choice and tap a button that likely says subscribe. More content is on Twitter at startup recorded, or shoot us an email with ideas, feedback, or your personal startup horror story. At hello@startuprecorded.com. Kate is played by Valerie Garrison. Valerie is a health tech product manager and regularly plays with the improv troupe letters to chicken online. You can find her on Twitter at thevalgarris eric has played by Barry wright Barry is a product manager at Spotify and a co-founder of Highwire Improv. Find him by his name on LinkedIn, where he holds regular office hours or at highwireimprov.com. Matt is played by Martin Mcguire. Marty is a senior web engineer and improviser in New York city. You can find Marty's comedy code and cats on his website at M M G dot R E. Calathea is played by Robyn Stegman. Robyn is a digital campaign manager for ocean Conservancy and is a comedian mostly found at Highwire improv. You can find her on all the social medias. And she does mean all at rsteggy thank you for listening.