CTO Wisdom with Liming Zhao | Beyond The Program

Hey, listeners, Tim Winkler here, your host of The Pair Program. We've got exciting news introducing our latest partner series Beyond the Program. In these special episodes, we're passing the mic to some of our savvy former guests who are returning as guest hosts, get ready for unfiltered conversations, exclusive insights, and unexpected twist as our alumni pair up with their chosen guest. Each guest host is a trailblazing expert in a unique technical field. Think data, product management, and engineering, all with a keen focus on startups and career growth. Look out for these bonus episodes dropping every other week, bridging the gaps between our traditional pair program episodes. So buckle up and get ready to venture Beyond the Program. Enjoy.

Welcome to CTO Wisdom. My name is Eric Brooke. This series will talk to leaders of technology at organizations. We'll understand their career, what was successful and what was not and what they learned along the way. We'll also look at what the tech market is doing today. We'll understand where they gather their intelligence so they can grow and scale with their organizations. Hello, my name is Eric Brooke and welcome to CTO Wisdom. Today, we have Liming. Liming, give us your elevator pitch, please.

Thanks, Eric. Hello, this is Liming Zhao, a technology enthusiast who is motivated by transforming legacy industries through technology innovations. I just wrapped up my CTO role at Nomad Health, a digital health care staffing marketplace, and previously I was the CTO at Compass, a real estate technology company. I really like BUILD, just like most of the engineers, and I also think that, uh, to be able to lead an organization and have a lot of people like minded working together and BUILD more, it's super exciting.

It is indeed. So, tell us about your first, I guess, encounter. When did you get excited about technology, engineering, science? When was that?

Yes, I learned programming when I was 10. I wish I could say that was 10 years ago. But gosh, that feeling of, wow, this actually works. And the magical feeling that imagination is the only limit. It's what got me into technology and still kept me motivated to the to today.

Cool. Can you remember when that was? What was the thing that you built first? Or what was the game that you played first that kind of really excited you?

Yes. So out of those programming trainings, of course, you're one of the typical game you program is the snake, right? And you learn a lot of basic games and you mimic. But I was proud that I later on programmed the typing test for myself because You can tell I'm an immigrant, so trying to learn how to type fast. There was not a program available back then, so I, uh, built one for myself, and gave myself some rewards with animations and tokens, so that was fun.

Love it. Okay, so talk about when did you start, tell us your career, like when did you get started, involved in science and technology?

Yes, um, after my graduate study, my actual first technology working experience Was that a company that my graduate school professor owned, where we turned some of our research work on motion tracking using general sensors accelerometers into a software that performs virtual training simulations using full body control. I know everyone is familiar with the concept, but back then it was pretty groundbreaking. I think that experience of really this thing actually works, you can see the movements of our arm and the virtual avatar is actually moving while probably planted a, uh, seed or bug of startup in me. So when I started my first real job at the D Shore Research, where the famous, uh, hedge fund manager David Shaw, assembled a group of world class research scientists and build words, fastest, specialized supercomputer and town have to qualify all these words. And conduct protein folding simulations. I was very much impressed by the idea and the people and the outcome we produced. I often joke that I probably plan my career backward, right? Working alongside world class researchers in a private research lab should be my retirement job. But it's really the usual research experience that taught me how transformational it could be when a group of committed talents. Are all motivated, motivated by big audacious goals. So then I joined Compass back then called Urban Compass, um, right after their seed round. Like most of the startups, your first business idea did not work. So post our series A round, we pivoted from the New York City rental markets into national residential sales and build the end to end technology platform to power the real estate agents of their workflows and processes and clients. Transcribed And like many of the pivots. It came with turbulence, right? And I was volunteered slash promoted to head of engineering. And later on became the CTO right around that moment, the urgent pivot required us to, um, both stabilize a changing technology team, as well as immediately grow the team, develop new features, expand the businesses. I mean, talking about big audacious goals, right? Right around there. You're basically asked to do, take on a new job and really enter uncharted lands. But even though Compass was my first startup and executive experience, I really appreciate the fact that we managed to grow rapidly, and I hope we can say it's a successful business given the IPO. Uh, and more importantly, all the talent people we were able to recruit during that time. I learned a lot. I learned a lot from my managers, my peers, the people reported to me, and also many of the real estate agents we supported, um, many of them I consider as entrepreneurs. So, the lesson learned at Compass of the importance of bringing together the right talent led me to, later on, co founded Frontier Sigma, which is an assessment SaaS company in the human capital space. Now, becoming a co founder, also CTO, I started to look at our business, uh, differently beyond just the technology angle. I partnered with our CEO of sales operations, which taught me valuable lessons on how to establish a business value perspective from our customers, right? Technology ultimately remains our differentiation, but first and foremost, we need to articulate the urgent business problem that our customers face. are looking for, are willing to pay for, most importantly. So fast forward to Nomad Health, I joined after they raised the Series C round to address an urgent and critical clinical labor shortage problem right before the pandemic broke out. At Nomad Health, um, I was responsible for everything technology. I would say by then I had a little bit more experience. And a few more tools, uh, around my belt. So, step by step, we build out a full fledged technology organization that spans product, engineering, BI, data science, IT, and security. Um, we re platform our core product, standardize our data, execute our machine learning AI strategies, implement automation, both in our own product, also for our internal systems and processes. Which really enabled Nomad to grasp and handle the huge volume increases in the healthcare staffing business created by the pandemic. As a result, we were ranked 66th fastest growing company in North America on the 2023 Deloitte technology fast 500 list. So maybe to sum it up, I think I got into my management career a little bit by coincidence, but I think It has to do some, it had to do something with my, um, solid software development skills, right? Training, all these things. It's actually. You know, I was prepared for this expansion of my responsibility. Um, also, I noticed that, um, you know, the successful executive leaders I have witnessed observed are both deep experts in their own domain, as well as very knowledgeable about many other adjacent areas. So that's something I aspire towards, right? They seem to strike a very good balance of both the depth of the knowledge and width of knowledge. Therefore, as I progress throughout my career, I want to make sure that I'm always solid with the technology, learning the new trend, experiment and build it, ship some product around it, even if eventually it doesn't work, but at least train myself on these new technology. At the same time, Um, anywhere I can, I can expand my purview. Ideally, eventually leads to the expansion of ownership, uh, on border topics.

So thank you for that. So you've given us a summary. So I'm going to dig into different parts of that, that journey. Um, what did you graduate with?

I graduated with a PhD degree in computer science from UPenn.

And so when you, can I ask what you did your PhD in? Yes,

my PhD is quite, I like the topic. Um, my PhD is in motion synthesis from motion capture data.

Awesome. So, um, you're an expert in your field in motion capture, and obviously you talked about that's one of the places that you went to. How is that? Like when you look back on essentially more of a science approach to then the practical engineering and making a business, what are the things that, in science, set you up for success? What are the things that you think of that you left your PhD that kind of said, cool, these are good things that I'm, I'm ready for looking back in hindsight?

Yes, I actually didn't just directly transition out of research because my first job at D. H. O. R. E. research is very research and scientific oriented. So the continuation of PhD training as well as, you know, a good working experience at D. H. O. R. E. research building the supercomputer. I think it really trained my scientific thinking, reason, and a sufficient amount of math and engineering skills to basically say, if something is complicated, I'm not afraid to break it down. If something can be proven, I'm willing and I'm comfortable to learn and pick up tools to get to the bottom of it. I think it also translates into later leadership skills, which is fundamentally, you may not be the ultimate expert in, you know, areas you manage. But you, do you possess that intuition and high level skill to go down one level to rationalize and understand why one option is better than the other, right? Instead of making a gut based best bet, I prefer to make a data informed decision.

Awesome. Thank you. So in terms of like, you've taken this PhD, you're doing motion capture in the laboratory, you then jumped into something very different environment. What was that like going from more of a lab environment to, I guess, the lab of life and business? What were the differences or maybe things that you didn't get right at the beginning that you learned from that part of your journey?

Yes. So a number of learnings, particularly from academia to industry. So kind of like PhD, the short to startup like Compass, Frontier Signal, Nomad Health. I think the horizon of change when it goes to industry significantly shrinks. And the ability and the need to make a decision with less complete information is a different requirement in research. We want to make the absolutely correct decision if it takes years, even decades. To get to that number in business. No, unfortunately, I like the framework that Jeff Bezos uses, right? Essentially, is it one way or two way decision, a two way door decision based on what it is. You may not need even 90 percent of the confidence or information. 70 percent is sufficient to make those calls. And I think that's a major difference between running a business because at least bias from my own experience is mostly in startup. Um, a lot of proof is in the making is in iteration. So, uh, making mistakes recover and keep on iterating is actually the best way to find the ultimate truth about this industry and business.

Thank you. So, um, at your first company, you, um, can you remember like aspects of your journey whereby, I guess that, let me ask this question, your first role there, may I ask what that was? Uh, are you referring to the eShore research? No, the, um, the company, your first startup, sorry.

Oh, the one we built the motion tracking thing. I was the tech lead. Uh, I'm was the person who, uh, wrote most of the, uh, actual software and platform to render the, Uh, virtual avatar from, uh, uh, controller inputs.

Awesome. So you had a lot, you had a good understanding of ownership. Did you have a team at this point?

So we started with just, uh, uh, my professor and I, and later on we recruited a team member. And we also, you know, in certain areas, some of the work, but mostly a small team.

Cool. That sounds great. And then you come over to like, um, your next company, if I remember rightly, um, yes, um, like your journey and where you became like the CTO, what were the steps that it took for you to get that? So the head of engineering, what were the steps that took you to that journey and what helped you be successful in that journey? Didn't help you be successful. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um,

I think things, uh, you can tell that, uh, you know, people who want to lead, they have a desire to step up and take on ownership, even though title was not given. So. You know, as much as I have no, you know, leadership title in my first job, I took on a lot of the platform ownership. I define all these things because also out of sheer necessity is actually like. If you get to define it, you actually, you know, get to write it the way that you want it, of course, then take the consequences of whether it works or not, I think, over time, even at the usual research. Um, there's a funny thing about it. Like, I joined and on day 1, when, when I get started on board, they told me, like, unfortunately, You know, um, because this, uh, super computer is of national security and back then you're on each one visa from a foreign national. Uh, we have to get you clearance of the security and that took a year. And in that 1 year, I wasn't allowed to even get into the database of the super computer embedded systems and they give me books to read. I was like, that's. Joke. Like, I'm literally afraid, like, next week they came with me, came to me saying, unfortunately, we cannot keep you, right? But that's not how D. E. Shaw, David Shaw treat people. Literally says, like, do whatever you want. So I read a book and I realized that, okay, soon we're going to have all these, uh, supercomputers built, but we still have other clusters, commodity clusters using. The Intel chips to analyze the data come out that needs coordination, so eventually I work with a couple of, uh, team members to build a orchestration system to run the simulation and analyze the simulation on these commodity clusters. No idea about the embedded super computer code, at least for that 1 year, but some 2 to help. So I think that leads to, like. Identify problem and 1 to active step in and solve some problem. That leads to leadership, right? As I said, it's a coincidence, right? Company pivots, team change, a lot of uncertainties. Someone needs to step up and do it. I was both asked. And also, I think, well, let me try. I have not done this before. So let's do it. Um, speaking of mistakes made, um, becoming executive or a leader and executive, I think there are a couple. The first one I would always, um, advise new leader is that you must delegate naturally during that, you know, turbulent pivot when the team was smaller resource was, you know, short in every place you look. I took on developing a data ingestion product code for the business. Remember we're in real estate. We want to expand to new markets. We want to ingest not only non MLS data, but also MLS data. And there are so many versions of them, different schemas and everything. I took it on myself. Quickly realizing that I suddenly become the bottleneck of releasing production ingestion code, which is the key. I like ingesting. I'm also MLS data code, which is the key factor of our business expansion that cannot sustain it. So I quickly gather team. Find a teammate transfer the ownership. Yes, it did take some time of training handoff, but ultimately it's the right decision. Later on, we build a team around this. So I usually advise new leaders as much as you think this is important and you potentially kind of inherently trust yourself better. You have to find someone to take on the criticality of the business. You're here to organize and lead, build a system. You have to reduce your direct involvement of actually being that critical element in this whole machine. So from then on, every time I identify critical tasks, I look around with the team, identify a capable owner, assign ownership, align the outcome, and then get out of their way. Right. Right. Right.

Definitely important lessons. I think we all travel that journey of suddenly realizing we're in the way and we shouldn't be. And we have lots of excuses for it, but I'm glad to hear that part of it. So when, um, you pivoted, what was that like as a leader in that moment of like one minute you're doing one thing, the next minute you're doing something completely different, and maybe you don't have all the skills and capabilities, and Tell us about what that pivot was like.

Yes. So I would say, fortunately, we pivoted after we raised the ROM. So we do have the capital. I have seen, um, and, uh, you know, know that other cases that are not so desirable, then it will definitely be more challenging. But nevertheless, you know, code base has to be upgraded. Suddenly we no longer only focus on New York city, uh, the whole national markets, what kind of amounts to ingest? How do we expand? And, uh, all these uncertainties arises. So it's a collective thinking, right? The leadership can get together and debate and discuss. What is the strategy? What are the focus areas then come down to the team naturally during and in pivots. There are people who agree. There are people who disagree. And in this case is, I think. A strong culture and HR processes is important. I mean, it's impossible to, you know, force people to believe in certain things. So there are attritions at the same time, in this case, you've got a new idea, you've set a new goal. Unfortunately, you're also equipped with capital, go hire people who are going to agree with this new direction, get those people on board. And I think that has remained a very strong trait of compass during the time I was there, which is, it's always able to sell a future and attract talent people to come. Yeah. and build it together. And by the way, in that journey, as new people come, they help shape, crystallize that future and make it real and tangible.

Yeah. Um, having people that are passionate about what you're doing, I think it's definitely important. Um, 100%. Okay. So, um, beyond Compass Journey, tell us a little bit about some of the learnings and lessons that you learned from Nomad Health.

Yes. And Nomad Health, I think, like I said, I think I joined at a moment where they already have the, uh, market fit and it's really aiming for very accurately, like a growth and In a way, like timing was magical, like pandemic give everyone a shot, but of course, you know, it's going to feel the health care staffing industry. So the focus would be knowing that there's going to be an insane amount of scale or volume come coming down in this particular business business sector. Where do we invest? Of course, there are debates and discussions. Ultimately, I think our leadership came to a conclusion that we need to automate the top of the funnel, the part, the kind of, you know, reaching out, hunting the candidates, doing the matchmaking, trying to guess if you're interested in this, you're qualified as that technology to take care of that. So, as a result, I'm proud to say among the, you know, almost a thousand staffing agencies, 12, which are public trade companies. I can easily name your dozen that are feedback. Nomad Health built a staffing agency first and probably the only without recruiters is not to say we don't have human. We don't have operators to, to work with our clinicians. We devote those operators towards the care giving, which is the agency part, right? By the time our clinicians are committed, vetted, validated by our technology to go on to those assignments. We'd represent them to the facility, help them to negotiate an offer. When they are on assignment, we're checking every week because we have to pay them. And then we'd be able to facilitate the facility. There are literally RW2 employees during that time. So in a way, our founder and CEO usually say, let technology do what technology is best at. Right. And let human do what human is best at. Both, you know, high tech and high touch.

And in that journey. Tell us how you felt it was different, like in terms of your first exec journey at Compass and then now you're at Nomad Health. Like, what are the other things you're doing? And I'm also curious about how did you establish the balance? Because obviously if you're going to be a scaling company, you can over engineer everything. So how did you figure out what to scale and what you weren't going to do? How did you prioritize, I guess, in that context?

Yes. So let's answer the first question. Um, the differences between my executive journey at Compass and at Nomad Health. On my personal level, certainly a lot more lessons, mistakes made, lessons learned. So like I said, a little bit more experience, some more tools around my belt. I think a major difference I, um, intentional exercise to during my executive role at Nomad Health is to. Listen more because, uh, essentially, you know, um, as I said, the executive leader, you need to be both deep and broad. So being curious, listen to other aspect of the business and really chiming, but also be very. Credible about the technology ownership is some activity. I don't think I was able to, or, you know, reliably perform and, uh, compass. Also understood that was my first startup, first, uh, uh, uh, leadership experience. And also early on the executive team at compass are all first timers who are trying passionately about things. So there are a lot of figuring things out. And whereas Nomad Health, I think, uh, fortunately business has recruited many industrial experts. So I learned a lot, even during those conversations, seeing them, how they tell the story about their business. And then chime in with data, chime in with what if we try this? What if we try that? So those kind of activities, learnings, or even in a way that the position that I put myself in that room is potentially a, uh, major differences when you are, you know, 2nd time, a 3rd time doing an executive role. So now coming to your 2nd question, which is, How do you strike the balance? I actually did give that a lot of thoughts because when I look at the business, one thing that our founder and CEO usually quote is like, when I met Liming, he said one thing that really stick with me, and I said, every modern technology company must be a data company. So, let's actually get our data right. So, the very first thing I spent a lot of effort on is to make sure that we are structuring, defining the data schema right. And we are storing and cleaning up, cleansing up our data right in which way we can really draw insights, validate and reason against it. It took a quite a long time, but once you get your data right, and the way systems generating data, the dependencies, the. Joins and the reasoning around, right? You can actually get rid of your product services much faster because now you can rely on a consistent API or schema of exchanges as we all know, like writing some business logic. It is not hard, right? Capable engineer can quickly write that whole code. The real problem is that when it actually reads the data of a malformed, uh, uh, structure, it breaks. And, uh, many times you don't even know that, right? So for that part, we moved steadier and slower, and I think it's important. Other parts, for example, trying some, uh, new framework, I usually aim, like, first of all, let's have a debate. Why is it even worth thinking about this? And is there a business value? But ultimately it's too fast, right? Do quick experiments. Does it really get us any gain from a productivity perspective, from a business value perspective? From being able to, uh, enable some additional strategic opportunity perspective, but if there's a there, there try it so fast, either you prove it's working and then we all in on this. Or show it's after all, it's just like, you know, how do you call this? Like, uh, in our idea was like a half a kilo versus 500 grams. It's essentially the same. Right. Yeah. So, um, those are the kind of balances I'm trying to strike. It's like, as you look at your entire business and tech tech stack, get the foundation of things really early on. Right. And take some time. And let your team really drive that's nuances of how service should be separated, how front end framework should migrate, whether we're going to have legacy part of the code still sticking around for a long time, or we need to dedicate it a major effort to kick it into a new. You know, front end framework or, or API framework, et cetera.

Cool. Thank you for that. And thank you for sharing your kind of history. So looking at the kind of the broader abstract and meta, what does success look like to you and what has helped you be successful?

Um, I think, you know, it. Depends on how do you define success, right? I think for a company at a business level, um, to me, success means that you're really producing, creating value. You're transforming the industry that this business operates in. I give a concrete example at the usual research, you know, we proved that specialized ASIC actually can produce the fastest Results in certain areas. Nowadays, everyone has, of course, GPUs for AI, right? At the personal level, it's slightly different, in my opinion. At a personal level, success to me means setting a slightly more ambitious goal and achieving it. And repeat that and repeating that is very important because that means it's not because of luck and repeating that is the joy, right? You constantly stretch yourself and achieve that on a repeatable fashion. I also relate this to sports. I like sports. So think about it. It starts with setting go, right? Measurable targets and then come up with a development training plan. Um, And, uh, maintain the discipline and consistency, at least don't just train for a day, every day, whether you like it or not, and build a support network, right? You, you should invite your teammates and get a mentor. Right, and then be agile during the competition. Nothing is guaranteed. You may be practicing on this kind of turf. every, every day in the past year, but suddenly it's muddy. Right. And then finally, and very importantly, celebrate small wins. And that to me is the process of, uh, uh, really gain the, understand what success means and also enjoy the journey of getting to that success.

So, I mean, I'm going to ask you the reverse question for a second. Like, obviously we all want to be successful, but we're not successful. And I feel like you've kind of implicitly answered this from your scientist background, but how do you think about failure?

Failure is definitely frustrating, and you should find a proper venue to let it out. Don't recommend family members, but there are other appropriate ways, such as peer groups, right? And we can talk about that because you and I are in a, I think I enjoy that peer group. Uh, first of all. Let it out, but I think most failure, I couldn't see every failure. Most failures are opportunity of learnings. And therefore, I think both at the individual level and more importantly, for a company is to create a space safety space, right? Again, go back to the earlier topic. What we want to slowly in this case, risk profiles a little bit bigger, but other things, you know, trying, trying the new frameworks. Discipline it, but we expect it to not work and you'd better prove us working or not working quickly. So, in a way, maybe go back to personal career planning is. In certain things, it takes time, so 1 failure doesn't mean anything, but in other areas, probably you should set some timelines. If it doesn't work, maybe you're not good for this. Right? Again, going going back to the Atlas, like. Not everyone is going to win Olympic gold medals. Uh, so you should set proper expectations.

Thank you. Okay, is this something that you're looking into or figuring out or exploring at this moment of your career? Yes, as I

said that I am now, uh, you know, looking to explore my next chapter and, uh, obviously, nowadays, if any conversation doesn't touch the keyword AI, it will be strange. So I cannot get out of that, uh, you know, trend either. So I'm definitely exploring applications of. New AI or classical eye into the industries that I am passionate about. Give an example, you know, I'm looking into examining the healthcare industry, right? I'm pretty sure like, every one of us can name a few legit problem with healthcare. Right now, you probably can recall something that you're frustrated about just a few days ago about healthcare, right? But the interesting is the thing is that probably smart people, uh, can come up with legit or reasonable solutions to half of those problems. But the real interesting thing is that if you look back 10 years, very few of those problems were fundamentally addressed. If you look up the healthcare tech startups, you know, names, what you see is a rolls of tombstones, right? So to me, what I'm trying to figure out is not only is there a. Urgent problem that might have a feasible solution, but really, what is that pressure and urgency for this industry and the participants to change? Right. Essentially, I want to figure out not only there is a perceived value of applying AI in healthcare, but really it is practical and immediate. I'm sure, you know, you and our friends and maybe the audience of this podcast has a lot of thoughts, so I welcome suggestions and feedback.

Awesome. Thank you. What are you seeing in the wider market in technology today? Thank you.

Let's still talk about AI, because I think there are a lot of concerns about AI, such as, you know, is this going to really end, you know, human civilization? I think, you know, everything has risk. And if you magnify the risk, anything can wipe out human race. But we have seen a lot of technology evolution in our history. I usually go to, like, the invention of automobiles and mass production of cars, right? And In less than probably 20 or 30 years, you couldn't even give away your horse, your carriage cart, because of the automobiles is so readily available. And today, if you look back, I think, other than leisure purposes, nobody wants to ride a horse to work and rely on a horse to commute. And more importantly, if you look at one car produced today, I think the amount of people, the amount of. Resources get involved, probably outnumbered the entire horse and carriage industry back then. So I want to look at the positive, stable future of all these technologies, such as AI. And by the way, even when cars were invented, it kills people, right? There was no traffic signs, even though it was running like insanely slow, slow speed. There's no traffic rules. So we will do the same thing. We will regulate AI. We will come up with the compliances and regulations to make sure it is applied. In the proper way, but If we believe similar thing can be achieved, I really see a very bright future of AI applications. Essentially, I call this a superhuman, right? It's actually now a person can do so much. We can really focus on what we are the best at and let AI and a chain of agents to help us to do the rest, right? That is super attractive. Just like this kind of virtual meetings. We don't have to be sitting in a physical room for these conversations to happen. Imagine that. You view the real limitation, you know, when the AI for the path, you know, penetrates into our life and work the real value that that the critical value we can bring is our creativity. Have you thought about something and the 2nd thing is, can you validate that when they actually produce a result? Does it really work? Is it real? Right? I think humans do place a critical role in that. So. In a broader market now, I've also heard about like, oh, is this going to significantly reduce software engineering salary? I don't have a crystal ball. I cannot predict, but I think at least one possibility would be very capable software engineers are going to be even of higher demand because they can do a lot more. They can do back end, front end, you know, system, everything you name it, because They are currently, they will be equipped with AI that all these, you know, um, peripheral things are going to be taken care of and they focus on the ultimate creativity of the system they deliver and ensuring the validity of the results that the system delivers.

Nice. I often think this is the opportunity for us to evolve and not do the same things we were doing before because, um, this version of AI can help us and assist us and support us. But I also agree with, we do need guidelines because people will push those guidelines. Oh, yes. We need to protect us to a degree, but it is an opportunity. Um, I concur with you. Okay. What has helped you grow as a human, but also as a professional in your trade? And what continues to help you grow and scale now?

I consider myself lucky that I have always worked with high performing managers. So I think I learned many things from every one of my managers. By the way, I think if it's that true for, for any, any of us, that's a bless because People who work in the work environment are context aware of what we're being challenged with. So their mentorship is of, I think, a higher value when it compares to just find any. You know, group of people who randomly get together, so highly recommend new leaders to find a mentor, potentially inside a company. If your company is large enough, right? Cross functional to avoid some sensitivity, basic common senses. But because this context relevant. Advises you are actually going to tackle the challenges they're facing much more effectively. Another way to do that, I found. Useful and effective is to join a peer group, such as advice. Not trying to make an advertisement here, but I think the uniqueness of them is that they handpick. Helpfully curate. A small group of people that faces similar stage of career challenges and stay together for years is such a value because then the conversation is not about what's trendy today. We actually revisit again and again, practical challenges of our company, our role, our dynamics within the company or outside the company. And make very relevant suggestions. And then a few months later, ask, did you do that? What was the result? So, in a way that you kind of while doing only 1 job, you are observing multiple jobs being down and challenges being addressed. It's a very effective way to learn. That said, I think one should still challenge oneself with some kind of external pushes. For example, Intentionally checking with some people in your network that are for the long in the professional journey to get some outsider perspectives. In this case, as I encourage very honest, strong pushes kind of suggestions to force you to think outside the box. Why do you have to do this? Right? Have you considered something else? Is this mean very brutally? Is this time for you to consider a different role? Those are very, very challenging questions. I don't think any of those. Mentors inside your company are going to tell you about that. Also, I think, you know, today information is very readily available. You can read a book, you can listen to the book, listen to podcasts like this and a few others. I try to use my fragment time anytime I'm in emotion, like I'm on the car, in the, in the train. Just listen to that and, uh, gather his information. And, uh, sometimes whatever suggested, well at least spend a few minutes, just listen to it and see if it's interesting.

Awesome. Thank you. And my last question for you today, the Ming, is what do you do for fun?

Oh, that's a great one. I actually do like things I do outside my work, which is, you know, our job is software engineering. So my hobby outside work is actual engineering without the soft part. So building physical things. Small things, such as building smart devices from actually buying those controllers and programming it to, you know, physical small constructions of objects in my backyard. I built a shed. I mean, I literally joke was like, when I bought it from Costco, I thought it was like, a few Lego pieces. Yes. 2000 pieces, right? And then I later on, I set up a zip line. Rope courses between the trees, et cetera. Very quickly. I learned that software is so easy. Hardware is much harder, right? It took me multiple tries to make sure that the foundation frame is square, not a diamond. And then sometimes, but only until I put the door on, I realized actually, there is a toot in the beam. So those are very fun learnings and really get your body exercise and mind onto a different thing.

Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. 2000 pieces. That's, uh, yeah, like Lego, um, Millennium Falcon Lego kind of thing, but. Um, but harder. And I mean, thank you very much for your time and transparency today. I've enjoyed listening to you and your advice. Thank you very much. Thank you.

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