And I just kind of want to ask you first, I guess, materially, is this materially different here from the... traditional announcement like what do you think it is and also like from the the silicon valley promise in this utopia um is it this utopia around the corner like what are we looking at in the future from this announcement and you know does it leave builders and you just what is your thoughts just in general like high level i guess

I think Mark Zuckerberg himself calls it a philosophy, and I don't know if he meant to choose that way to give a word because I feel like there's some interesting ideas in here, but it's also very thinly argued, so philosophy is doing a lot of lifting.

But I feel like what it is is...

It's doing a couple of things.

One, it's dipping into that eternal well of Silicon Valley myth-making, in that a utopia is just around the corner, and if you just give us everything that you have, all of your data and all of your connections, and just let us build this thing, then we pinky swear at some point this will return to you a more bigger, beautiful, better world.

So he's leaning heavily into that mythos.

I think it's very much aligned with going back to Facebook's early days, Google's early days, and so on, that things are going to be great.

I think that would be my little summary.

And I just kind of want to ask you first, I guess, materially, is this materially different here from the... traditional announcement like what do you think it is and also like from the the silicon valley promise in this utopia um is it this utopia around the corner like what are we looking at in the future from this announcement and you know does it leave builders and you just what is your thoughts just in general like high level i guess

I think Mark Zuckerberg himself calls it a philosophy, and I don't know if he meant to choose that way to give a word because I feel like there's some interesting ideas in here, but it's also very thinly argued, so philosophy is doing a lot of lifting.

But I feel like what it is is...

It's doing a couple of things.

One, it's dipping into that eternal well of Silicon Valley myth-making, in that a utopia is just around the corner, and if you just give us everything that you have, all of your data and all of your connections, and just let us build this thing, then we pinky swear at some point this will return to you a more bigger, beautiful, better world.

So he's leaning heavily into that mythos.

I think it's very much aligned with going back to Facebook's early days, Google's early days, and so on, that things are going to be great.

I think that would be my little summary.

And I just kind of want to ask you first, I guess, materially, is this materially different here from the... traditional announcement like what do you think it is and also like from the the silicon valley promise in this utopia um is it this utopia around the corner like what are we looking at in the future from this announcement and you know does it leave builders and you just what is your thoughts just in general like high level i guess

I think Mark Zuckerberg himself calls it a philosophy, and I don't know if he meant to choose that way to give a word because I feel like there's some interesting ideas in here, but it's also very thinly argued, so philosophy is doing a lot of lifting.

But I feel like what it is is...

It's doing a couple of things.

One, it's dipping into that eternal well of Silicon Valley myth-making, in that a utopia is just around the corner, and if you just give us everything that you have, all of your data and all of your connections, and just let us build this thing, then we pinky swear at some point this will return to you a more bigger, beautiful, better world.

So he's leaning heavily into that mythos.

I think it's very much aligned with going back to Facebook's early days, Google's early days, and so on, that things are going to be great.

I think that would be my little summary.

What brought you into this crazy world? What's your origin story there?

Yeah, unfortunately, my origin story does not involve either a VAX or a radioactive spider.

But I come to this through the media side as a journalist.

So I'm not a network engineer.

I'm not a security professional.

I've been covering the tech space for, geez, might be going on, It's more than 20 years.

So cut my teeth at a lot of trade magazines that people might have heard of, things like Network Computing, Network Magazine, Information Week, just reporting and covering the industry, which I also worked on the Interop Conference for a couple of years, helping to put together the technical program for that conference.

I'm going to let him go first.

So tell us the why behind

doing the survey.

Sure.

Well, it was a team effort.

Me and Ethan Banks and Robin Young put together the survey, came up with some questions.

But we wanted to do it, one, because we feel like as packet pushers, we want to provide resources to the engineering community.

So we've got stuff on the website like... you know, a list of SD-WAN vendors, open source networking products like that we just sort of have there as references.

But yeah, you know, the total compensation, it's very hard to measure at different stages in your life, right? I'm certainly different pre-kids and post-kids.

So tell us the why behind

doing the survey.

Sure.

Well, it was a team effort.

Me and Ethan Banks and Robin Young put together the survey, came up with some questions.

But we wanted to do it, one, because we feel like as packet pushers, we want to provide resources to the engineering community.

So we've got stuff on the website like... you know, a list of SD-WAN vendors, open source networking products like that we just sort of have there as references.

But yeah, you know, the total compensation, it's very hard to measure at different stages in your life, right? I'm certainly different pre-kids and post-kids.

So tell us the why behind

doing the survey.

Sure.

Well, it was a team effort.

Me and Ethan Banks and Robin Young put together the survey, came up with some questions.

But we wanted to do it, one, because we feel like as packet pushers, we want to provide resources to the engineering community.

So we've got stuff on the website like... you know, a list of SD-WAN vendors, open source networking products like that we just sort of have there as references.

But yeah, you know, the total compensation, it's very hard to measure at different stages in your life, right? I'm certainly different pre-kids and post-kids.