I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Li for the second time on the podcast (Episode 24). Jeff is a good friend of mine and we are currently working on two machine learning courses together. He came to visit me in person to do some recording. While he was here, we sat down and talked about life, data science, books, and the future. Jeff has what many consider to be a dream data science job, he is a senior data scientist at Spotify. Many people forget you have to actually work after you land a job, and in this episode, we talk about how his priorities changed after landing his new role.
Transcription:
[00:00:00] Jeff: I think one of the interesting things with any kind of progression is that say, when you're a kid, the map is like laid out like very cleanly for you. You need to get good grades. You need to, you want to get into a good college, then you want to get a good job and it's very laid out. So you don't have to spend any of your mental energy figuring out what that map is.
I think once you leave college, you're like say 24, 25. That's kinda where a lot of say quarter life anxiety comes from is because the map isn't really laid out for you. Like there are many, many different maps that you can, you know, walk across. And many young people are paralyzed, like regarding which way they want to go, including myself. I definitely felt that way when I was say 23, 24 as well.
[00:01:00] Ken: This episode of Ken's Nearest Neighbors is powered by Z by HP. HP's high compute, workstation-grade line of products and solutions. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend at Jeff Li. So Jeff is here with me in Hawaii to work on a new course. We're having a lot of fun with that, putting it together.
And I thought it'd be a great time to sit down and catch up. Jeff was on the podcast in episode 24, where we talked a lot about his projects and also he gave us a nice freestyle wrap. This time around, I wanted to get a little bit more serious, talk about his philosophy on life, as well as what it's like to work in his position.
So Jeff has what many people would believe to be almost like a data science stream job. He's a senior data scientist at Spotify, but what happens when you land that job, you know, do your ambitions change. What do you start looking for? So many people are focused on just getting the job that they forget that there's a journey afterwards.
So we get really deep and philosophical here, and we have a lot of fun along the way. I hope you enjoy our conversation. I know I did. Well, Jeff, happy, very excited to have you back on the Ken's Nearest Neighbors Podcast. Also very happy to have you back in Hawaii, momentarily. So this is again, always enjoy seeing you. You're one of my one of my closest friends in the space, I believe and excited again, to hear more about what you're working on. What's changed since the last time you've been on the show. Why don't we start with what you're, what you're doing here right now.
[00:02:25] Jeff: So I secretly came here to ransack Ken's apartment when he's not there when he is out at jujitsu. So that was part of my master plan. So I just told my plan, but in seriousness, I would say what brings me here? Yeah, well, Ken and I have been talking since last year about building this ML course with partnering with 365DataScience. And I took some time off from work to fly out to Hawaii and came here to make this course with you. And also just to catch some waves since there aren't as many of these types of amazing waves in New York.
[00:03:07] Ken: That's incredible. And so for those that don't know, Jeff is unbelievably active and outdoorsy, and you recently broke your collarbone. So it was a little bit hard to do as many outdoors things. So, I bet you're pretty excited to start surfing again. And and balancing those things. How have you felt when you couldn't really do as much physical movement? How, how did that affect your work or those other things in your life? Or was it like, I'm always moving around. This is a time where I can dedicate and focus on stuff.
[00:03:39] Jeff: So, yeah, we can, I can get a little deeper here. So I would say like with I would say for context, athletics is a really big part of my life. I've loved sports since I was a kid I derive a lot of happiness and fulfillment from playing sports, but you know, injuries are part of the game when I am out and about, and I am exercising and playing around this often.
So, you know, it's bound to come at some point. So not super surprised. However, I would say that. Luckily I kept my identity pretty diverse, so I wasn't just completely investing myself fully in sports. I invested myself in work, data science, like, like reading, writing and doing, just like doing like many other things outside of sports as well.
So I think that for me didn't really affect me mentally or emotionally too much. It was really annoying that I couldn't really go play sports, but luckily it was just my collarbone. So I could still, I wasn't in crutches. I could still walk around and wasn't it didn't affect my life too much.
[00:04:46] Ken: So you talk about sort of diversity in the things that you're you're involved in. How do you go about finding new things that are, that are interesting to you? New opportunities to sort of stretch yourself? I mean, again, for context, everyone, Jeff used to do this, or you might still do this challenge where you try to immerse yourself in a new activity every month. How has that evolved over time?
[00:05:08] Jeff: Yeah, so. I would say so many parts to the question. So I would say that to address that first. Yeah. A few years ago, I did this project called month to master where I was trying to master one different skill per month. They can range from Spanish, surfing, dance, you know, wide variety of skills. So I would say like these days it's more or less evolved towards me focusing in on a few skills that I'm very excited and passionate about and wanting to go deeper in those skills rather than trying like a wide variety of skills.
So that's like the first part of your question. However, it's still important to keep your identity diversified, otherwise when you say lose one part of it, you're not super devastated. So your earlier question was how do I find out find different things to dive into and find different things that I'm interested in?
So I would say like this. Like, as data scientists, we can think about it very logically, but I would actually say this is more of a like kind of seeing where your intuition lies and seeing what makes you the most excited. I would say that the way I pick activities that I'm interested in is, you know, maybe like two to three stage process.
First, if I'm just like curious about an activity, you know, Im not really thinking about, am I gonna like, make a lot of money from it, not thinking about, Hey, is this going to get me somewhere or is I do sometimes think about that, but for the most part, if I'm like, just genuinely curious about a specific skill, like say salsa, dancing, I'll always just sign up for, sign up for a class for it.
And I'll just try it out. Sometimes I might not like it. Sometimes I might like it and you know, if I do like it, then I'll just continue doing it. My, my problem is actually just trying to do too many different skills and I'm not really trying to get better at one of 'em where I'm not really seeing as much improvement in one of 'em, but yeah, I would just say.
Generally, you have to kind of follow your intuition here on what you're just naturally curious about and to not judge yourself for being curious about it and to at least experiment with it.
[00:07:14] Ken: Do you find that you ever just get really obsessed with certain things, or is it more that doing multiple different things allows you to focus on each of those more independently, cuz you're not maybe exhausting all of your focus on one thing.
[00:07:33] Jeff: I definitely get, do get obsessed with certain things. I think I kind of see it as a knob. Sometimes I'll need to turn it on more and sometimes I'll need to turn it on less. It also really depends on how much I. like how much time and energy I really want devote to something. If I really want to make this my priority, I can become obsessed with it.
However, I can also turn it off. So like, I would say, for example, surfing, I got really into it, but I came to Hawaii to make this course. And if I could let myself just get obsessed with surfing and just like surf all the time, but that's not like my priority is here, is coming here to make this course.
So there is you know, having that obsession is really good to like, kind of get better at things, but sometimes it needs to be measured because I think in your case, you're really into jujitsu. You can't just be going to jujitsu all the time. You're not spending time with your girlfriend, your family, and all that stuff. So still kind of figuring out a way to stay measured with it, but also still keeping it, keeping it going, cuz you need that obsession to to get better at things.
[00:08:35] Ken: I thought you were just here to hang out with me, dude. What the hell? So I mean off of that, we have this sort of, you know, this idea of obsession, right? But with surfing, with something like jujitsu, those are things you can't physically do all the time. So there's a natural cutoff switch. Something like coding, something like data where you're in the comfort of your home. You're working, that is in theory, something you can do for 12 hours a day.
And most people can't the mental capacity. And I mean, I couldn't do that. I'd be so drained, but there are some people that do go down that rabbit hole. I mean, how do you, if you become obsessed with something that doesn't have a natural cutoff switch, I mean, how do you back out of that or what do you do around that? Is that a good thing or is that a bad thing, you know.
[00:09:22] Jeff: I mean, I think whether something is good or bad is always just relative to what goal you're looking to accomplish or, yeah. What you're trying to get out of it. If you're, if your goal is to really get, become great at coding really like, you know, get into the field, you know, break into the field then. Yeah. Being obsessed, coding 12 hours a day, could, you know, be conducive to that goal. The problem with that is, let's say that you have family, you have a say boyfriend or a girlfriend, and you need to spend time with these people, like being obsessed with things is gonna come at cost, you know, to other areas of your life.
Maybe you're coding for 12 hours a day, but then you're not exercising, you're getting unhealthier. So in that sense, it's, you know, quote unquote bad. So it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. So yeah, I would say like, it depends yeah, that's my answer there.
[00:10:20] Ken: So you know where you are in your career? You've worked at some awesome companies. You're a senior data scientist now. And a lot of people look at where you are and they say, Oh, he's made it. He's he's done X, Y, Z. And they don't really look to past that point. You know, like the goal of a lot of people is to just land their first job it's and maybe get a promotion. How do your goals change after you become a data scientist or after you advance in your career? And what, what are some of your goals?
[00:10:51] Jeff: So how did the goals change? So I think one of the interesting things with any kind of progression is that say, when you're a kid, the map is like laid out like very cleanly for you.
You need to get good grades. You need to, you want to get into a good college, then you want to get a good job and it's very laid out. So you don't have to spend any of your mental energy figuring out what that map is. I think once you leave college, you're like, say 24, 25. That's kinda where a lot of say quarter life anxiety comes from is because the map isn't really laid out for you.
Like there are many, many different maps that you can, you know, walk across. And many young people are paralyzed, like regarding which way they want to go, including myself. I definitely felt that way when I was say 23, 24 as well. So I think like, you know, for a lot of people who want to get into data science, they, once they decide, that's like kind of the map and the path they want to take then it starts to become, the map becomes a lot more clean.
So they're like, okay, well I wanna get into data science. So my goal's very, very clear. I wanna like get into the field and get a data science job. So I think that once you get into the job, then you have to kind of recreate that map and figure out, Hey, what's what direction do I want to go? And I feel like it's just a never ending process of really kind of, you know, executing against the map you have for yourself, but also creating that map.
You have to kind of figure out what direction you want to go. So I think that the well laid out path at a company is you enter as a junior data scientist, you know, become a mid-level senior, then you become a manager, then a director that is like the well Tron path. So I would actually say, I like to answer a question.
I'm still trying to figure out what the right path is for me. The way I kind of see it is that I want to, my personal goals are more like a two-pronged approach. So I would say I'll still keep working at a company. Still get experience, still grow my skill set. Still figuring out from the company perspective.
Do I still want to go more towards machine learning engineering? Do I want to go more towards management? I think right now I'm on the path more of a path towards management, which I think naturally lends to some of my natural strengths, like mentorship, empathy kind of delegate. I wouldn't say I'm great at delegating, but like project management, all that kind of stuff.
I would say on the side of that, I also want to say, take what I learn and create value. And like, and this is through like doing these types of podcasts, making these courses writing more, creating more content or like building things that are, are useful for others. So yeah, so right now, like I don't really have like a concrete goal in terms of data science.
Like, I mean the, I guess the goal could be just to be, get promoted and move to the next level. But yeah, that's kind of my answer there. It's not super, it's not super crystal clear for me.
[00:13:59] Ken: Oh, I think that, that there's something beautiful in that is that, you know, a lot of people will look at you and say, Hey, Oh, he has all this stuff. He must have all this stuff figured out. It must be crystal clear. And the fact that it's not, and that it, you know, for me, it doesn't, I don't know what I'm gonna do in two months from now, let alone, whatever. I know that it's on this like general trend and there's some wiggle room around that. But I think that that's should hopefully be reassuring that like, okay, Jeff is at this point in his career, he's done a lot of really cool stuff.
But there's still a level of uncertainty that you have to deal with on a day to day basis. I will ask as you progress through these different, I guess, maps that you're describing, how do you get more refined with what you like? Is that, that same thing as the process with exploring your outside interests or is there some additional nuance to it when it, when it comes to your career?
[00:14:52] Jeff: Yeah, so I've probably thought about this a good amount. I would say that the core difference between thinking about this from a career perspective, versus thinking about it from a hobby perspective, is that I think from a career perspective like I personally try to think a lot more about, Hey, what am I like uniquely suited to do?
And what are like the areas where I am, I have like say a quote unquote, unfair advantage. So I think we were actually talking about this earlier about golf, right? You were saying that you poured your life into getting better at golf and you know, you're pretty good compared to the average person, you're like way better than everybody, but in terms of like the pro level, you weren't quite there.
Right. And then some people just have that natural ability of like, you know, you have, you have to work hard, but you have to have some God given talent there to actually make it to the pros. And I think that for me, for my career, I try to think about, okay, what are like those kind of natural, more like God given abilities that I have.
If I poured some fuel in. The flame will be just like way larger than somebody who's, you know, maybe does not have as much natural ability. So, so from a career perspective, I think I try to think a lot about, Hey, what am I like uniquely suited to do? What are my strengths and where are my unfair advantages, coupling that with, Hey, what are things that like really give me energy and make me come alive because cuz of course you wanna be happy.
You don't want to just be like, you know, grinding all day and find, and in my per, from my, in my head, the combination of those two kind of gives a good, you know, signal into the direction that I should be going. So that's what I would say there. So I would, yeah, but I would also say for hobbies though, like you don't really have to think about, Hey, what is my unfair advantage? It's more like, Hey, what do I enjoy doing? What's like fun for me. So yeah.
[00:16:43] Ken: Fun for you. Enjoyment versus aptitude, I think is a really important differentiation. You know what I mean? This is a pretty common true people. Talk about it a lot now. Just cuz you enjoy something doesn't mean you should do it professionally.
You know, I could be the, I could love art. It could be my favorite thing. But if I'm drawing stick figures, unless I'm some weird abstract artist, that people really love for some reason, no one's gonna buy it. I probably shouldn't tie my finances to that. But if there's this combination that you described between, Hey, I enjoy this and I'm at least good enough to get paid for it.
There's something special there and then the ultimate is to find something where I am really good at this and I enjoy it. And that's where the magic happens. And you know, I'm finding that with a lot of things, is that, you know, maybe I wasn't quite as good as I thought I was at something and I can iterate a little bit and find something within that domain that I'm, that I'm actually very good at.
I mean, we take golf, right? I, from a playing perspective I was probably the 90th percentile probably higher than that, but if you're looking at like, like college players or whatever, or maybe not even college players, but like, I was very, very good. Let's say 95th percentile globally, but you have to be in the top 0.1 percentile to be really effective there.
But even within that golf domain, if we're looking at statistics and thinking about, Oh, applying these things to professional athletes, helping them improve in that subcategory. I am, you know, probably one of the best, best in the world, just because there aren't that many people, but at the same time, I can blend those skills and really differentiate myself there.
And so it's not like, Oh, I have to go all the way back to the drawing board. No, there was like this little pivot off of what I was already doing in golf that can get me there. And I think that, that at least for me, that sort of blew blew my, my scalp off. Is that. , I don't have to just run all the way back to the starting line.
I can sort of lever what I've been working with and massage it into exactly what I want it to be. I can even create my own category if I want and that is hopefully again, inspirational and something special that you can evaluate something also that we, you know, we've have had a lot of pretty deep conversations and talking through these things and evaluating them.
I mean, is that a big part of your process? I know for me just talking to people, hearing these things come outta my own mouth. I learned things that I didn't know about myself. And it's very strange.
[00:19:16] Jeff: Yeah. So, I mean, that's like one of the ideas of like I think I was reading about Naval ... specific knowledge. So the idea is that is that I think the quote is from Jerry Garcia. Like you want to be the only person who can do what you can do. So there's like, I think we were also talking about this other night. There's like two kind two different types of games. Like winter take all is like, you have to be better than everybody.
To be successful. And then the second type of game is there can be multiple winners. So I actually would say that when you're talking about intersecting these different skills this is a game where you can actually find ways to become a where there can be multiple winners. So I'm really fascinated by this topic because I think that, you know, there are people let's say, like, let's take a financial planner as an example, right?
General financial planner. There's there's many, many of them like there's, you know, hundreds of thousands in the world. However, let's say that, like, you know, you're a YouTube creator, right? You have a specific type of, you know, unique financial situation. Now let's sit layer on like, say a YouTube creator on top of our financial planner.
Now let's say like, Oh, this is a financial planner that specializes in like YouTube or like say entrepreneurial finances. Well, now that we have, like, you have a hundred thousand financial planners now that actually diminishes down to like, say, I don't know, a thousand, and then you can like layer that, like one more level on top of it, you can say like, Hey, I'm a financial planner focused on, you know, YouTube creators ranging from like the 100K to 500K subscriber mark. I'm just like making this up. But then the idea is that, because that person is like the only thing, like really like the only person who's specializing in this area, probably like a YouTube creator would go to them over. Just say like a general financial planner.
[00:21:04] Ken: That's how I found my accountant. Yeah. So they, they specialize in content creation. Yeah. I probably pay a little more than I should, but knows my situation super well. Yeah. The value is so much higher in that front.
[00:21:16] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. And then like at that point, if let's, and you know, let's say that like your accountant or the financial planner, you know, they have their own YouTube channel, so they know what exactly what it's like to be a creator.
Then it's like, let's say I am starting from zero. I'm not a financial planner and I'm not a YouTuber. Well, if I want to like catch up to somebody who is like a financial planner, specializing in YouTube, it's gonna take me like years and years of experience, or like years and years of practice to get there.
And I think, and if we talk about like, from a business perspective, having competitive advantages, it's really hard for people to compete with you when you kind of have this multi-faceted skill set. Versus if you're, you just had one skill set, it's much easier for somebody to get in and compete with you. So that's what I'd say there.
[00:22:05] Ken: It's interesting you say that. I constantly think about that same concept in regards to branding and, you know, by creating a presence across different platforms, being known for specific things. You create this distance from other people in the sense that you have more of this aggregated content, all of these sentiments and information about you that other people have to work very hard to catch up on. And to a certain extent, that is exponential is that if you have content out there, more people recycle it over time, it gets shared. All this stuff continues to build, even if you're stopping to do something and to get even more nuanced.
I mean, something I really pride myself on is I think that my content is very well, like very well serves brands, as well as individual consumers. And I have a good relationship with both. I mean, you know, my content is a little bit more serious and a little bit more professional than the average. I'm also a little bit older, you know, it just like is a really good fit. And so I feel like even though I might not get as many views brands are still really interested because they can use my content for different use cases. You know, I've brands that I've worked with where I'll do a video for them.
That's just internal for their. right. And they know that it's hopefully gonna be communicated. Clearly it's gonna be professional in some sense. And that's a lot of things that that's something that a lot of just general creators don't think about is, okay, I'm doing this for my consumers, but I want to create as much value for as many people in this ecosystem as I can.
You know, there's, there's this sort of a tug between those things and it doesn't have to be that way. I think we also run into that trap in the data domain too, is that we're thinking so much about landing a job that we don't think about. Like if we enjoy this, right, like those two things are a little bit ..., or if we're doing good for the world, you know, I have a lot of friends who have worked at some very large tech companies that are responsible for a lot of information in the world.
And, you know, they land these jobs, they make a lot of money and then they're working there for a while and it's like, wow. It's like what I was doing really. like good for the world. Do I feel good about the work that I've done and, you know, sometimes it is, yes. You know, like I think that, you know, for example, social media, a lot of good things have come out of it, but there's also negative sides and that's for everyone individually to figure out if it's a good or a bad thing for them, but all of these domains are so much more complex than I think a lot of us make them out to be you know, how, how do you feel about that complexity? Is that something that you relish or is that something that's a little scary?
[00:24:59] Jeff: Like when the field is very complex?
[00:25:01] Ken: Just the nature of decision making around all these things. Right.
[00:25:05] Jeff: I mean, like trying to decide on what you want to really dive into. Yeah. I mean, I would say like, it is, I think, I think like, you know, the way I see it is there's two stages, you know, when, like I mentioned earlier, when you have that quarter of life, quarter life anxiety, You're you are just getting exposed to that complexity. So you're not used to it. So you don't really know how to deal with it.
So you feel a lot of anxiousness and a lot of stress. And I think that's why a lot of people that age, you know, they, you know, mental mentally are not in a good place or they're like drinking a lot and partying a lot. And I would say like, as you get older, you don't really, it doesn't really get easier.
You just know how to deal with it a lot better. Cuz I think that, you know, it's still not a hundred percent clear, probably a little clearer than when I was say 23, but you know, there's still things to figure out. And I would say, as we get older throughout our lives, there are other things that are gonna come up like starting a family, you have your kids, you need to figure out, you know how to get them on the right path.
Let's say, you know, unfortunately at some point parents or grandparents or family members are gonna pass away. So life is gonna throw a lot of these curve balls at you. It's gonna make things hard. Like just when you're trying to figure something, just when you're figuring things out, you know, it'll throw some curve ball at you.
It's gonna make it a lot more complicated. So I think nowadays I just try to embrace the complexity and, you know, and cuz that's the only thing we can really do. There's no there's no other option. It's gonna be always com complex as we kind of go through our lives.
[00:26:47] Ken: Yeah. I think the level of complexity and the concern around it is agree. I agree. It's something that's essentially always gonna be there. I would say that, I don't know if I have learned how to deal with it better because the nature of the problems that I face now are different than the nature of the problems that I faced before. So an example is, you know, I was trying to get a job, applying to a bunch of places, really struggling with it.
Didn't have a lot of options. And I was really worried about, Oh, what is the next step gonna be now? You know, very fortunately I'm in a good spot. I have a lot of really good opportu. But now I have to say no to things that I think are really fruitful or value driven or important. You know, an example is I get a lot of messages on every social platform.
Now, people asking for advice and help, I would love to be able to answer all those things. , but it's a trade off for my time to be able to invest in other things that it just isn't worth it for me to spend, you know, four hours a day responding to messages . And so, you know, the question is it harder to, and it, I don't think it has the right answer, but is it harder to make a decision or is it more stressful to make a decision around you know, finite options that are challenging or infinite options that are really good?
And you have to turn down things that you think in theory could be life changing to you or to someone else or value driven. So, I mean, I don't know if there's anything necessarily to say about that, but it's interesting. that as we grow the nature of these challenges do evolve as well. And I guess maybe that's just the, like the fun of of living, right?
[00:28:30] Jeff: Yeah, I mean, there's always gonna be some kind of challenge in front of you and problem, you just really kind of just upgrade the quality of your problems. So as you, Oh, hopefully, yeah. Hopefully you upgrade as if you keep getting better, you upgrade and, you know, sometimes, you know, you'll, you will fall back and get pushed back, but you know, the problems in a way are, are never really gonna end.
You're always gonna have to try to figure something out. And, you know, perhaps that's like something kind of more in the Zen space where, you know, you gotta kind of relax, but you know, I'm not really qualified to talk about that, but I would say, yeah, the problems really never end. We're talking about this in the car earlier, when we're talking about some of the, you know, the things going on in the world, we can fix one thing, but then, you know, it causes.
All these other problems, like one example is like social media, you know, it has brought a lot of good to the world, but by bringing that good, it has, you know, caused other problems out there. And, you know, it is kind of a, in a way, it can't, it can't feel like you're, you're running on a loop where you kind of fix one thing, kind of creates another problem, fix another thing.
So I think then, you know, there's no real solution to it. I think the only solution is really to just like, embrace that process of trying to kind of deal with the complexity, solve that problem, move on to the next and really just enjoy that process of doing it rather than get frustrated or anxious over it.
[00:29:54] Ken: Yeah. I mean, that is a very interesting perspective. I mean, to use a metaphor for like, I guess when you're surfing, right? , there's always gonna be a next wave coming effectively and you get to, you have to choose if you wanna ride it, you have to choose you know, if you do ride it, how do you approach it?
And a lot of these different things. and if you're surfing, you're looking at all those like challenges, it's an enjoyment thing. You know, if you're out there and you're not surfing and you're getting pounded by these waves, you don't know when they're ever gonna stop then it's terrifying.
Right? Yeah. And so if, you know, maybe if we all look at life and the challenges as waves ride, rather than things that are meant to just take us out, there's some, you know, some, I dunno, beauty beauty in there. It's kind of weird though. I just called my own metaphor. Beautiful. But it's all right.
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Now back to our show. That's what it is. I mean, a lot of the stuff we talk about outside of the course is not related to data science, right? I'm really interested at, you know, you're very introspective. We talk a lot about, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about this planning of this outside of work. What are, what are some of your goals like personal development wise? I mean, share a lot of these things on your blog. You know, this year, what are you hoping to achieve?
[00:31:43] Jeff: Yeah, so I would say outside of work I'm not gonna answer it directly. I'll kinda answer it in my own way. So, so one of the things I really kind of thought about was, you know, what are, what are the ingredients I need to feel fulfilled and really happy with my life. So I really like boiled it down to a few.
So the first one is like learning skill development. I want to be like, keep, I wanna continuously keep growing myself in a specific skill set, whether it's like, say sports or work, et cetera. The other one is doing difficult things. So having always having some sort of challenge in front of me, I would say, I love sports.
So being an athlete in some sort of way I think this is more of the health side of things, but I think athletics really resonates a lot more with me. The other one I have is building useful things for other people. So that, that relates a little bit more to work. So building or creating things that actually help solve problems and.
Add value to other people's lives. And then the last one is community. So having a community of interesting people that I'm surrounded with, where we are helping each other, help boosting each other up. And yeah, in a way it's like an extended family. And I would say for me, if my life both work and personal has all those things, I will say it's like a I'm, I'm pretty fulfilled and happy and that's really like all I need to be happy.
So I kind of have those as the themes for myself, but. like at work and outside of work. So since I just moved to New York city, I'm very focused on that community piece because when I was in HawaiI felt like I built a pretty good community here in New York. Starting to build it, but it's not quite there yet.
So that's kind of what I'm focused on outside of work and really trying to learn, Hey, how do you, what is the process for how to build a strong community? What's the process for building really strong relationships with people because I have friends from college, you know, other parts of my life, but I want to kind of, you know, continue to keep growing those friendships.
[00:33:54] Ken: So from a data perspective, how do you evaluate those things? I think that that's always something that I struggle to do and there's things that I want to do. Like I, community building is one of the Mo like the most important things in my life. It's something I find immense joy in but it's like, how do I know I did a good job at that?
[00:34:11] Jeff: Yeah. So, I mean, I think, I actually think that this is an area where it's like less. Quantitative and more qualitative, I would say the way I kind of gauge whether I've built a strong community is whether I feel fulfilled with kind of the relationships that I have and the people that I'm surrounded by.
So it's really like more of a feeling versus like, Oh yeah, this is like the end point of, you know, I've accomplished building a community. I, and I also think it's like less of a, it's less of start to finish more of like, it's more like a garden, a community I see is more like a garden where you want to keep cultivating that garden, like cultivate your relationships. Cuz if you don't, if you just kind of leave them and don't pay attention to it's gonna kind of wither away and die. So I kinda see it more like a garden rather than like a start to finish type of thing.
[00:35:11] Ken: Yeah. I like the garden cultivation type thing. I. in practice. That's very difficult for me to do. It's like, wow. I there's so many people that I love spending time with that I really relish the experiences with , but at the same time, how do I possibly keep up with all of them? In a meaningful way. And that's something I really don't know the answer to you know, it's very, very challenging.
It's something that we talked about earlier, you know, just a couple minutes ago is the opportunity cost of a lot of, a lot of time and if I spend time with one person, I can't spend it with another person and maybe systems, maybe like LinkedIn, maybe message boards, maybe slack or discord is an option to handle that. But, you know, how, how do you prefer to connect with people and keep up with them?
[00:36:09] Jeff: So yeah, I've actually thought a lot about this and I've kind of broken it down for both like say. Growing new, so new relationships and also like keeping up with the current ones. So I would say in terms of creating new relationships, I found that say whenever you're in a new place, or like in a new city, I would, I find that if you can get into the right group chat, you'll like, kind of, that'll really like open the doors for communities.
Because I think if you're in a group chat with 10 people, you can just send one message and it'll like go to 10 people with a single message. But if you had to. Like in touch with all 10 of them at the same time, you have to like send, have 10 different conversations. It's not really gonna be sustainable.
So I find that like having a group chat with, with the right people that can like the right reasons that connect everybody in that group chat is very important and that can actually help you keep in touch with people a little bit more at scale. So that's one, I would say the second one is actually hosting events versus just attending events.
Cuz then if I host something then I can actually gives me an excuse to actually just invite everybody that I like and care about to that event. So I at least, I mean, of course you're not gonna get as deep because there's a lot of people there, but it is a little easier to keep in touch with, you know, all your friends, quote unquote at scale.
And I would say then that the third thing I would say here is that there's different levels of friendships. So there's like the first level is where the. Your friends based off circumstance, let's say you grew up together. You happen to like, do the same thing. You have that shared experience. Second level's interest.
Like you like golf. I like surfing. I have friends. We both have friends that like the same things. So it's easy for us to all get along. But then I think the third and most important one is like a value alignment. So you don't have even have to like the same things, but if you value the same things, then you can you'll, you'll definitely get along.
So I would say that to, in my perspective, cultivating those relationships at that third level, the values one is where like, Hey, I wanna spend more one-on-one time with this person. If it's like interest based, you know, Hey, let's like have a surf trip and like, you know, invite all of our friends who are into doing that. So yeah, that's kinda how I think about it.
[00:38:27] Ken: My thought is how do you outside of having a podcast and inviting people to talk about their values on every yeah, yeah. Whatever I have them. How do you elicit those like value driven conversations? You know, so. I think a lot of people struggle with is just having deeper conversation than small talk with, with new people.
You know, bridging that gap. I mean, for me is pretty easy because I'm just like super direct and I'll ask just weird stuff that people aren't comfortable with. But you know, is there you know, is there, is there more of a systemized approach of getting to know someone in that way.
[00:39:05] Jeff: To like kind of pull out their values.
[00:39:07] Ken: Yeah to pull out their values, to take it from, to like probe beyond a situational interest or or like circumstantial interest, you know, for example, a lot of my friends who are circumstantial, like based on we grew up together, whatever it is, they probably don't like having conversations with me too much because I talk about stuff that they're just not comfortable talking about.
Like, Oh, you know, like. how does, how does that set you up for this in the future? Like, what are your goals? Like those types of things and , , you know, frankly, that can be scary for some, some people and that concerns me a little bit, that it's scary for them, but but you get what I'm saying here?
[00:39:45] Jeff: Yeah. So, so the question is like really, how do you kind of glean values out of somebody to know if you're like a good.
[00:39:54] Ken: Yeah. Possibly without scaring them off.
[00:39:56] Jeff: Yep. Okay. So I would say, yeah, I mean, I guess it is interesting we're that really diving into social skills now, and I love this topic so happy to talk.
[00:40:05] Ken: Oh, I think you're very good social skills, so.
[00:40:07] Jeff: I appreciate it. ... Yeah. So, so the way, so I actually have to practice this a lot because you know, when I'm in New York, you know, going on dates, I need to quickly be able to pull out what their values are and to determine if they're the right fit or not.
So usually like the more innocent questions I'll ask front is what do you like to do in your, in your free time? Because usually I would say. what you decide to do in your free time is a good indication of, Hey, what do you value? Because if at work, you're kind of forced to do certain things. If you're working for somebody else, but when you have your free time, you literally can do whatever you want.
And whatever's more important to you. So usually then if they can kind of say something like, Hey, like, you know, I like reading books and then I say, Oh yeah, look, what books have you been reading? And I find that books, cuz I love reading as well, very easy way to kind of see what they value, like what kind of books they're reading. And that's like, one way.
[Ken] We both read this.
Yeah. We read the same books.
[00:41:08] Ken: So many books. Well, it's fun to like, I really enjoy sharing books with you because yeah. A lot of the times you read 'em and almost all the books, I think every book you've ever recommended me has been really good.
[00:41:19] Jeff: Yeah, so books is one way the other one is like, Hey, if they they're into sports, you know, we can easily talk about, you know, what teams they like, but of course like sports, there's like a limit.
You just. just like, it's not as deep, but that's like one way, but yeah, I usually like to ask, Hey, what's like, what do you like to do during your free time? Then that gives me a couple like threads that I can potentially pull on to dive deeper into, into what their values are. And yeah, and I would also say another way I gauge this is by the questions that they ask me.
So if I say something, do they take it a level deeper and like kind of introduce a different dimension towards what I said or do they kind of leave it at that and still stay, you know, shallower within the conversation.
[00:42:08] Ken: I mean, this is gonna sound possibly borderline creepy, but I think that there's plenty of frameworks out there to help you understand how other people are and you can borrow from the way that they are structured.
To figure out how other people view the world. I mean, there's the ocean framework, which is. I forgot what it stands for. Openness. I remember the N is neuroticism, but you know, from that framework, you can learn a lot about how someone views the world, you know, like openness is, are they, do they like trying new things?
Right. And there's certain a certain question set that you can evaluate to see if they're into those things. I personally really like to talk to people or be around people that want to experiment and try new things. You know, the most recent trip I went on, where I met a bunch of people, almost all of them were really open to trying new things, trying new foods.
It was like the easiest trip I've ever been on in terms of like what we eat. I usually you, I go with friends and it's like, Oh, this person can't eat this, this person can't eat this, this person can't eat that. And it was a very interesting experience. Yeah, I guess you can, you don't know, you can just sort of use some preexisting things to get a little bit more sophisticated with how you dig. I also, obviously haven't gone on a date in a while. I've been in some serious relationships. And so that probably wouldn't go over. Great. Take this test for me. Can you, can you fill out the survey on our first date?
[00:43:38] Jeff: I think I know what you're talking. The openness conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. I've taken that. Yeah, I've seen that one before.
[00:43:49] Ken: I think that's actually my favorite framework. I think it's the most practical for interpersonal relationships.
[00:43:56] Jeff: Yeah. I mean, I guess yeah, when you see somebody, you just say, Hey, like, you know, before we, before we spend more time together, just like take this quiz, send me, send me the results. And then we'll follow up.
[00:44:07] Ken: I wanted to film a YouTube short about it's called You're on a date with a data scientist, and just like some stuff like that. Like what would a data scientist say a on date? Like very stereotypically. Yeah. It was like, Oh, you have the data to back up that claim.
[00:44:24] Jeff: Yeah. What examples do you have?
[00:44:30] Ken: Can so can you just shoot me the links to your ex-boyfriend's social media profiles? I wanna see like how they stack up, what you're into if I fit the category.
[00:44:40] Jeff: Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. I always kind of do that. Just overapply logic, data science to like non-logical things, but, you know.
[00:44:53] Ken: Yeah. I think that there is some challenge with making decisions, if you're overly analytical, because there's infinite variables associated with so many decisions and we can't possibly quantify of them. So we get in this trap of never having enough information to make the decision and I mean, there are a lot of things that are like 50, 50, you just don't have enough information to be able to really tell
And I know I personally freeze quite a bit. Or I don't make an action. And something I've realized recently is that we're very good at quantifying the cost of doing something like taking an action, but it's very difficult for humans to evaluate the cost of not doing something and I'm trying to integrate that more in my life, but it's really hard. I mean, we we're so bad at evaluating, Oh, if I don't do this, what are the down? What, what are the downstream effects of that?
[00:45:54] Jeff: Is it like what it's like, if I don't exercise what's what's gonna happen.
[00:45:59] Ken: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, exercise too. There there's like, that's like multifaceted because, you know, exercise, you have to do it consistently. You have to do it over time. And the payoff is non-linear. Whereas, you know, it's like, Oh, you know, if I don't eat this, I guess that's the same thing as if I don't eat. This pizza and cheeseburger for lunch versus I do eat it. You understand what the payoff structure is there?
Yeah, and the nature of decision making I think is very, is very nuanced and kind of, kind of funny but yeah, I mean, what are you what are you hoping to achieve kind of while you're here, you know, you are taking some time off work does that does taking like chunks off of work, does traveling and working from different locations, you know, is that something that you think makes your quality of work go up or is that something you're like gonna get back and be like, Oh my goodness. I have so much stuff to catch up on.
[00:47:01] Jeff: So like is traveling gonna be, make me more productive or does it make me, you know, more scattered or, you know? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm pretty used to it now. I've been traveling and working. quite a bit. Now my home base is in New York. So I think my productivity, I don't have a huge drop off in productivity when I travel.
The only thing is when I do travel, you know, it's hard to keep a consistent routine. Cuz every time you switch locations, you have to rebuild your routine. So that, that was probably the main negative I've had with traveling a lot where it definitely would mess up my routine. Like I like my routine here is not really, don't really have a routine right now, still trying to like figure it out, but you know, take takes once you figure it out, you leave.
Yeah, exactly. So that's probably the negative, but yeah, no, I'm pretty used to traveling. I kind of see myself in the future, you know, living with a home base, but also traveling a part of the time as well, cuz adventure and like talking about openness, new experience, trying new things is a big part of my big part of my life.
[00:48:13] Ken: What new experience have you not gotten to do yet? That's on your bucket list or not bucket list, but that you'd really like to do. I know you climbed Kilimanjaro earlier this year, or was it last year? Last year, last year, last year. And you've done some pretty extreme things. What is it that you haven't done and why do you want to do that?
[00:48:33] Jeff: Oh, there's a lot. So I would say one is surfing in Alaska. Sounds cool. It's like, yeah, exactly. I mean, for me, I was telling some, a friend, another friend this other day any experience I have, I like it when there's some level of suffering that I have to experience, because I feel like having some level of suffering really like one to talk like David Goggins, Callous is my mind.
And then two it's actually kind of more of a it's called like ... or type two fun. Where in the moment it's not very fun, but when you reflect on it, you're like, Oh, that was like, you know, a great experience, cuz it really had a, you really feel like it had an impact on your life and it's really like conducive to personal growth.
So a lot of the experiences that I want to have are really of that nature. So there's like this one thing that I was, I've been thinking about for years living in the wilderness. So they have this thing where you go into the wilderness without any, without anything and they just teach you how to live off the land and you just have to live off the land for like a month. Damn. So that's like one I wanted to do.
[00:49:51] Ken: Well, I told you next year I will do that with you. if you can't find else.
[00:49:55] Jeff: For sure. I'm to hold you to that. I forgot you said that offer can do it. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, we'll, we'll talk more about that later, but yeah, that's like one I wanted to do I love language learnings. I do...
Or whoever runs. You'll just have to outrun me. You'll absolutely outrun me. figured you just, you might be better. So you might be able to like wrestle me down. yeah. Why do you think I've been training someone much?
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but those are just a couple, those are like very physical. I would also say there's like a whole bunch of things that I want to learn. I'm really fascinated by languages. I love how languages really can connect you to different culture. So whenever I go to a new country, I always try to like learn at least a small phrase.
And I'll just say it really badly. And the locals just love you when you, when you try that. So you have some other like learning projects that I have on my mind. And yeah.
[00:50:58] Ken: That concept is really funny to me is that when you try to speak the language, most people are self-conscious and they'll be like, you know, they think that the locals are, Oh, it depends what culture you're in, frankly.
Like if you're in France and you're speaking bad French, they'll be like, no, no, no, just speak English to me. But in South America and quite a few other countries, if you're trying it, the language, they like it they'll help you and do whatever. But to me that's a really interesting sort of misconception is that, you know, I study the language, you know, I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I like understand most of what other people are saying to me, but I'm terrified to speak it.
I'm like, they make fun of me, all these things and they almost never do. I wonder why that phenomenon is that just like the lack of confidence, even when people are generally pretty inviting? Why we're so scared to engage like that?
[00:51:49] Jeff: I see. Yeah. I mean, my, my guess is there's some fear of embarrassment when you are not good at something, cuz you don't really doesn't really paint you in the most positive light. So when you don't know the language very well. you in a way do have to kind of embarrass yourself a little bit. I think the reason why I'm comfortable is cuz I used to intentionally embarrass myself and do like different social challenges.
So it actually got me really comfortable just like being ridiculous to other people. So I did so. Yeah. I think if somebody is, has that fear of embarrassment, I would say that try some of these like social challenges and I would actually say spanks, do you know spanks? I think it's more of a female pulling word name.
Yeah. So Sarah Blakely, she actually says that she does this thing where every once in a while she intentionally embarrasses herself. So she doesn't like, you know, so that way she can still have the confidence to, you know, go for things and not fear failure. So she, she did this thing where she like went into an elevator and just like.
Started singing really loudly. So that, that could be one example. One I did was I bought a costume and I just like went out and just like wore, wore a costume while just like walking around another one. It was like, I had to rub some food on my face and like tried to talk to an attractive girl.
Another one was like, Oh, go to the middle of the mall and just start dancing, like play some music and start dancing. Like no one was there. So yeah, I found that I did those exercises and then I just started change your, like, not give a, not dour here, not give a fuck muscle. And then and then, yeah, I think it applies to just speaking a language poorly. You are embarrassing yourself, but it's usually all right.
[00:53:40] Ken: Yeah. I think that there's and so over time I've gotten very comfortable speaking. , I've been uncomfortable on video. I'm comfortable in these different things, but those are. A lot more premeditated. Those are things that I focused on cultivating a good skill set in obviously there was a point where, where I wasn't good at these things and many people would argue I'm still not good at them.
But you know, there's that competence that I always feel like I can fall back on and I have to imagine it's pretty liberating to feel that even if you are not good at something, you can put yourself out there. That's something I'm even not as comfortable with now is that if it's in certain settings, I'm like incredibly comfortable and I think impressive in some settings.
And then there's other settings where it's like completely out of my element and and you know, you struggle to you, like your body get hot, starts sweating a little bit, you know, those things and the physical phenomenon, you know, that's how you interpret it, right? Like nervousness is the same thing is.
I think it's like anticipation like the physical characteristics are the exact same. It's just how your mind interprets it. But those don't go away. It's just about how you frame them. And I feel like over time, you frame these things very different. If you have exposure to them, I mean, I can't remember the last time that I was genuinely embarrassed.
[00:55:04] Jeff: I mean, we can make, we can, we can change that very easily. We could. Yeah. I mean, I would, what I would say there is like you, when you first started making YouTube videos and you weren't very good, you probably felt a little bit more apprehension towards putting it out there.
And then as you get better, as you get, you know, validation, as your skillset grows, you develop more, more and more confidence in that skillset. And I think confidence generally does come from, like, if you're able to repeatedly be successful at doing this one thing. and you've proven to yourself that you could do that on a consistent basis, then confidence will, will come.
So it is kind of out like in data science, the cold start problem, where when you're first starting off in any kind of skill, you don't really know, you're not that good. So you don't have confidence and a lack of confidence can cause you to not want to do it anymore. But once you kind of develop the confidence, it's like self reinforcing, then you'll, you'll actually really kind of accelerate your growth once you get that confidence.
So it's like, Hey, how do you, how, like, how do you either develop the skill first, then get the confidence? Or do you just have the confidence and then use that to develop the skill? It's yeah, it's a bit of a cold start problem.
[00:56:25] Ken: I think that's fascinating if we put it into a broader framework. So we have either specific confidence or we have general confidence and our general confidence allows us to start with a higher baseline in pretty much anything so, you know, you might be comfortable, let's say it's like, you know, on a date talking to someone or at a bar talking to someone because you have a general baseline level of confidence. Whereas someone else might have a very specific level of confidence in that targeted thing.
But when they go speak in front of a crowd, they're absolutely terrified where that broader confidence sort of carries over is broader confidence, something you generate from getting a bunch of different individual specific confidences . Is that something that you have or what, you know, how do you think you cultivate that?
[00:57:18] Jeff: Like how to, how to cult cultivate a broader general confidence? So I think, I actually think you can, I would say, you know, I definitely have to think more about how to cultivate. But just from talking this idea out loud right now, the people that I've noticed that tend to have the best sort of like broader confidence are people who tend to feel the most comfortable in their own skin.
And they're able to laugh at themselves. And I would say that when they're able to do that, they can try things and they can just see it as a funny experience or they can see it at, they can enjoy it. They're able to find some sort of fun in that kind of awkward feeling of not being very good at something.
That's kind of what I noticed. I would say I also have a friend say like with date, the dating example, he's like dated many people, but never through dating apps. He goes on his first date through a dating app. He's like super nervous, super scared is like, you know, In a way, like trembling a little bit.
So there is some level of specific confidence and there's some level of general confidence. I think that what you said makes sense. Like if you have a higher general level of confidence, maybe that specific domain, you're not that good at, but it can propel you to get over that home a lot faster.
[00:58:50] Ken: Yeah. I think honesty with ourselves is a really difficult one. For a lot of people and I try to be as authentic with that as possible, but there are some things where you're just like, you don't want to admit it to yourself even now. And I think I'm probably in like the, I don't know, at least ninetie 90 is somewhat percentile and understanding my capability is what I'm good at, what I'm not good at what I need to work on.
Yeah. I mean, I guess that comes full circle to our, our introspection conversation and just you know, self-evaluation and experimentation. I mean, How much do you think you need to balance like experimentation trying new things with self-evaluation and and like looking at how you feel about those different things or is that just a constant iteration loop?
[00:59:45] Jeff: Yeah. I mean, I see it more as like to do both. So you experiment, then you reflect, see how well you resonate with something, does it resonate or not? And then you take, you learn from it and then you experiment again. It's kind of like, you know, when you run A/B tests, right, you run a bunch of A/B tests, you know, you see if it works or not.
If it doesn't work, you try to understand why, Hey, why did, why didn't this A/B test work, develop another hypothesis, test it again. And then you see that it does work and you're like, okay, this is great. And then we can move forward in a different direction. So I think it's the same idea. You you need a little bit of both to experiment and you also need to be able to reflect introspect.
[01:00:30] Ken: I like that A/B testing on our own lives. It seems like you have such a really way to look at life decisions and, you know, like your personal choices in the frame of sort of a data problem. And I think that hopefully that resonates with a lot of people. That's just kind of fun and that's something I've always enjoyed about our conversations.
We always seem like we come out of things with a framework for understanding something larger and something more complex. Like maybe it doesn't touch on every single element , but it seems like we can sort of have a bit more understanding of the world or put it into it, like a tidier box which is inherently human, right.
I mean, we make decisions based off heuristics. We kind of have to, or else we'd be overloaded with information and the better our heuristics are the better and more successful we become in life. And I think we can develop more optimal heuristics through a more systematic and maybe data-driven approach.
[01:01:33] Jeff: Yeah, no, absolutely. And like develop more heuristics. I kind of see it as more like you have these different mental models of like how the world works and that's actually why I think learning is really important and not just learning from your own field is that by learning from all these different types of fields, you can actually take these different mental models and cross pollinate them.
So like, you know, I'm applying A/B testing to real life. We earlier were talking about like how surfing can compared to like, you know, getting puled and, you know, being able to get back up and try, keep, keep trying things. So I do think that like, by trying a lot of different things, learning a lot of different things.
You have a lot of these different models and concepts to explain the world better. And you know, our human minds cannot really comprehend the complexity of the world. We can only really see things through one, our, the lens of our brains. So I think, you know, the more we collected these, the more we can actually just glean insight into, Hey, how, how does the world really work? How, what are kind of like these, these laws that are really kind of governing just how, how nature exists and everything there.
[01:02:45] Ken: I think that there's something pretty exciting about seeing parallels in different things. , I mean, I look at people are probably tired of how much I talk about jujitsu now.
But you know, there's a lot of patterns that I see when learning jujitsu that I think are direct parallels to how I'd approach learning data. Or how it would approach a problem in life or any of these types of things. And I think it pays to be a student in a lot of new things. I think it pays to relish the diversity that we were having before, in order to use the, like the analogous learning that we pick up in these individual lessons.
I mean, this podcast is about individual case studies of specific people, I guess, in the data domain or just that are my friends or whatever it might be. Right. And the thought is that there's been over a hundred episodes. Now those are a hundred different mental models for people to evaluate their experiences off of, to evaluate if you know, the approaches someone else took might be relevant to the problems that they're facing now.
And I love that we can do that at scale now. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I really like reading is cuz I get. Someone else's entire life and their perspective and whatever these things are, in, you know, four or five hours, whatever. It takes me to read a book rather than them having to wait 10 years to write this book or doing whatever it is that to me is is like the epitome of how powerful a specific technology or information transfer can be.
[01:04:20] Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and that's why we need to keep reading, reading books, like learning new things. And I mean, yeah, there's argument to, I sometimes can consume too much information, but I think for the most part to keep, keep growing our knowledge base and finding new connections is how we kind of progress everything forward.
[01:04:38] Ken: Are there any books that you're super keen on right now? You'd recommend people to take a look at.
[01:04:46] Jeff: Hmm. I mean, actually, like, I feel like recently, so, so this, this idea of a quake book, do you know .... Yeah. So just in case, you know, the audience doesn't know yeah.
Quake books are basically books you read that really shake up your worldview and how you see the world. I would say the ones that come to mind for me, I haven't really read one recently, but the two that come to mind are the one that you shared with me, millionaire fast lane really kind of changed how I saw a career and how to like, kind of build, build wealth.
And then the second one is the Ray Dalio book. The I think the principle called the new, the changing world order. Yeah. Changing world order. That one really kind of painted a lot of context into where the world is right now, where the U.S. is and the, and in China and how dead cycles work and the context behind it. So those are probably the two recently that I found to like really affect my worldview. Otherwise. Yeah. A lot of the books I've read recently, haven't really done it for me.
[01:06:00] Ken: That's awesome. I think I've actually, I've read both those books. Yeah. So one, I recommended you one, you recommended me. So it's a perfect example. of the power of of sharing that information and yeah, I mean, I think both of those have helped me think about how I make sense of the world, how I make sense of my career. And I hope for anyone who's watching this, please recommend us some additional quake books.
I think that would be, we're always on the haunt. if we find any good ones, we'll continue to share. I probably should start like some sort of, I share with the books I'm reading in my newsletter, but I should have a more systematic approach to sharing the ones that are really valuable. Jeff. Those are all the questions I had today. Thank you so much again for coming on the show. Any last thoughts, parting words that you wanna share.
[01:06:53] Jeff: No, I mean, I would say whoever listened to the end here, appreciate the time. Hopefully you got something out of this. Definitely I didn't dive too much into to data science, but I think it's, you know, nice to dive into some areas that that, you know, we're both really interested in and yeah, hope, hope, hope everybody listening has a great day and great rest of the week.
[01:07:21] Ken: Yeah. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, all of it is sort of related to data science... right. I mean, there there's so many ways that we can apply a lot of data concepts to our lives, to our happiness, to these other things. And there's no reason why we should be super quantitative or super data-driven in our work and not in our personal life when we know that's probably where I can pay the biggest returns. So I think that that's how I would very try to try to very neatly title together.
[01:07:52] Jeff: Sounds good.
[01:07:53] Ken: Awesome. Thank you again, Jeff, this is awesome.