Behind the Scenes of this Podcast So Far (25,000 Sub Special)

0:00So tell me the story behind starting the podcast. okay the story behind the podcast i last week there was a guest in san francisco that was so worth interviewing that it was a no-brainer for me i immediately booked a flight i booked a hotel i booked studio time but last minute there was a scheduling mix-up and i was able to move everything but the studio time which i had paid almost a thousand dollars for i didn't want to to waste so I texted my buddy Brandon and asked him to show up to interview me and so we turned this studio time into an FAQ episode about the story behind the podcast some of the behind the scenes and also to share where it's headed in the future so while this wasn't the episode that I flew to San Francisco to make which by the way I think is the best episode that I've ever produced and I can't wait to share it with you hopefully it's interesting for people who've been supporting my little show since the beginning so here's that faq episode we're rolling is that okay cool yeah we're good to go so ryan what's the story behind the peterman pod and why'd you create it okay so the story behind the podcast it's honestly pretty straightforward which is that i know for a fact that speaking well is a super high leverage skill for your career for your relationships pretty much anything in life.

1:27People are going to perceive you better. You're going to get more of the things you want. And so I felt like, okay, how can I become a better speaker? Well, I got to practice more. In the past, the way that I practiced was I went to this thing called Toastmasters, which is you get a speech and the speech gets graded. And that's a great way to practice public speaking, but it's not that frequent. And also, at least for me, I didn't reflect as hard on it because it was just like the speech that I'd give, I kind of come in and I got all these other priorities. But what I've seen in content is that my ultimate goal with the content is I want to put out something that you really want to listen to that's, you know, because I know that people are going to listen to it.

2:20And that is like a very powerful commitment mechanism. And it's also a very powerful feedback loop. Because if you gave speeches, you could record it and go through it. But what I found was that I would record it, these speeches that I gave at Toastmasters, but I never go through it because I just have all these other things to do. But if I know that I have to post it, then I'm really going to pour over the thing. And so I thought, okay, I want to create some kind of video content. Podcasting feels like the best way for me to kind of get into it because I feel like I like to talk about a little more professional stuff.

2:59And so I thought, okay, let's make a podcast. And I decided to commit to a really lax goal because I thought, okay, I'm already drowning in responsibility and a bunch of other things. And so I set a goal at the beginning of the year, I want to make one episode per month. And I, in that process, I learned that, well, one, the premise, like I am getting a lot of opportunity to practice public speaking or just speaking in general. So, you know, that was great. And I feel like there's still so much room for improvement. But the other thing I learned is that it's actually so much fun doing the podcast because what I realized is that podcasting, if we do it right, I'm just having a conversation that I want to have here.

3:45Like I just wanted to talk to you about this thing. And then as a byproduct, I'm getting all this practice and all these things. And, you know, a lot of the other people I've had on too, like our people that were kind of dream people that I wanted to talk to. So when I got to thinking about a podcast, I thought, okay, what am I going to talk about here? One of the inspirations for this podcast comes from something that came very early in my career, which is that at Facebook, there are these career stories that these very senior ICs write that details how their careers grew, what are the things that happened as they grew.

4:22At the time, I really loved those stories. Like I remember I would just sit down and start reading one and it's maybe a 50 minute read and I'd knock it out all at once, just really glued to the screen. Like I love these career stories because they're these super impressive people that I looked up to. They had a ton of interesting stuff that I was like learning from. And they're super engaging stories because anyone at that level has done a lot of, you know, interesting stuff and all that. The thinking behind what this podcast is, is just bringing on these super senior people and just having them tell their career story.

4:58And this is the thing that I'm already so interested in hearing about that it becomes a very natural, interesting conversation, at least for me and hopefully for the audience as well. So that's kind of the story behind getting into the podcast. I wanted to become a better speaker and I think this is like a very good mechanism for that. At the same time, I want to share these super senior IC stories or engineer stories with the industry because I feel like they're so inspiring and there's so much to learn from them. So you've had a couple of your podcasts really pop off. What are some of the behind the scenes and surprising tidbits from those episodes?

5:38Yeah, so I think the first episode that really did well was the Philip Su one. He's a super senior engineer whose writing was very famous within Meta, but otherwise he's not super well known. He speaks very well. He has all these interesting stories from people who grow to a distinguished engineer. There's all this stuff that they did to do really impressive work. And he shared all of that. You know, some of the behind the scenes, I think one thing that I remember distinctly is when I was recording that episode, the energy during the conversation was really, really different. Like when I was listening, I felt like I was just so enamored while he was speaking.

6:28Like while he was speaking, I just, I felt like I was just fully zoned in and I was almost addicted to the conversation while it was happening live. It sounded so interesting. And so, you know, I was super happy about it after I recorded it. And I put a lot of work into editing it because he was someone that I always looked up to. But yeah, I remember after I posted it, like just in a day or two, I, the, the graphs were all going vertical, but I think the thing that was, I think special about that was that it showed to me that it's not just me that likes these stories that I love these stories, but I think other people also really enjoy it.

7:10And this can be, you know, kind of product market fit for the podcast. I think one episode where I felt a similar energy with that Philip one was the recent episode with Ethan Evans. But the thing that really impressed me was that Ethan speaks so well. Honestly, I think he's like one of the best speakers that I've seen in tech. Like during the conversation, I was, I felt that energy again, where I was just during the conversation, I couldn't stop listening to him. It was so good. I think the thing that's different between that one and the Philip episode is the trailer edit is kind of ridiculous.

7:46Like, I don't know, Acquired and Lex and a lot of those guys, I mean, they're so well recognized at this point that the hook, like the thing that gets you to listen is that you know that it's going to be good because it's Acquired or that it's Lex or whatever. They don't need to bring you in. But for someone like me, that's pretty new. You know, if I just go straight into the conversation, a lot of people are going to just click off. So I've been putting together these trailers that I'm like, hey, this is, you know, this is the reason why you should listen. Like, here are the absolute snappiest attention grabbing bits that you should listen for.

8:26And when Tino, my video editor, when he put together that trailer and I watched it the first time, I was just like, that is ridiculous. That is so good. It is so insane that that edit is it's almost too much. It's it's like super aggressive. So the video starts out, it's like, you know, this is the most brutally honest, like it's just like crazy attention grabbing energy. By the way, quick aside here, people have given me a lot of great feedback in the YouTube comments. I really appreciate it and listen to all of them. I'm trying to strike a balance between grabbing the attention and also not going too overboard.

9:03One idea that I have, which I think will also make the content a better listen, is in places where there are more recurring listeners. So that means Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm thinking of doing no trailers or maybe a very easy to listen to quick one that just has one or two lines. And so if you don't like the trailers, I'd recommend you listen there. It'll be nicer for recurring listeners. But on YouTube, I still think there's a lot of value in putting a trailer that wins over someone that's new to the show. So I'll still be putting effort into those. I'll just try to keep them a little bit more tasteful and not go overboard.

9:42So keep me honest, you can drop comments on YouTube. I'll take a look at them and we can kind of figure out a good balance as we go. And now back to the show. I was so excited when I saw that trailer. I was like, we got to shift this. It had that energy during the conversation. And I feel like the trailer was probably my favorite trailer so far. And yeah, so far it's doing quite well. So pretty happy about that. So after all of those previous guests, who are some of the future guests that you would love to have on your show? So when you think about this podcast, like my dream guest list is very different from a lot of other tech podcasts because I want to find these hidden super senior engineers who no one knows them at all.

10:30They're just really incredible on their team and their org. And they went up like crazy at, I don't know, Google, Facebook, wherever. And they're super well known there. So they have done so many really impressive things to get where they are. They have incredible stories and they're engineers that we can all look up to. But you've probably never heard of them. And so how do you find this list of people? It's actually really tough because LinkedIn search is like pretty bad. These people are not super active typically as well on social media or wherever. You can't just Google for this list of people.

11:09and so I've gone lucky because I work in big tech and so I can source some of these candidates and I think a lot of the early candidates were just using my network and the people that I really look up to and I think are incredible engineers but past that actually the way that I've been building this list is by asking the audience who is that senior IC that is in your org that you're super impressed by that you want me to interview. And that has worked super well. I've reached out to a ton of people now. There's a bunch of people from other companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft that I'm planning on interviewing.

11:50And that was only possible because someone in the comments on YouTube said, this guy is a super strong engineer. Please interview him. And that's kind of how I've been building lists so far. So you've been podcasting for a while. What's one of the hardest things you've learned about podcasting that you didn't know until you started doing it? The thing that I didn't realize until I started podcasting that is very different from normal conversation, and I'm still getting better at this, is that when we're trying to produce this audio file that sounds good to people and have a good conversation, but it's very natural when you're speaking to someone to verbally acknowledge what they're saying, right?

12:35You're saying things like, uh-huh, uh-huh, right, yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you do that while the guest is speaking, you can just imagine someone in your AirPods, you're trying to listen to someone and all you can hear is the uh-huh, uh-huh, right, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. And so I've been working on that where it's very different from normal conversation in that when you're speaking or when the guest is speaking, I'm just nodding vigorously and trying to hold myself back from saying anything. I think that's probably the biggest thing that's different. So you work a full-time job and you create content on the side.

13:14How do you balance the two? I think it's very difficult, especially with big tech being a little more intense these days, where you, to meet expectations, you already have to work a lot. So then doing this extracurricular stuff is going to push out something in my life. And, you know, for me, every Thursday, for about two years, I was staying up till, I don't know, 4am writing a newsletter because I had to wait till the last minute, because I was just struggling to stay afloat on that. And yeah, I remember once I was grabbing lunch with Gergay, who writes a really, the largest engineering newsletter.

13:59And when we were catching up over lunch, he said, he was surprised that I was working at the same time as doing the newsletter. And I totally understand why, because he said something like, you know, be careful about burning the candle up at both ends. And, you know, after having experienced this for the last two or three years, he's totally right. It's definitely a lot of work. And I think, you know, if I had a family or other time commitments, I think like I would I would literally be drowning. Thanks for listening to the podcast. I don't sell anything or do sponsorships. But if you want to help out with the podcast, you can support by engaging with the content on YouTube or on Spotify.

14:41If you want to drop a review, that'll be super helpful. And if there's any guests that you want to bring on to, please let me know. I feel like sourcing very senior ICs. There's no well-studied list out there on Google that I can just search this up. So if there's someone in your org or at your company who you really look up to and you want to hear their career story, let me know and I'll reach out to them.