Pivotal Moments with John Lam

John Lam

Achieve your career and life goals sooner by learning from the pivotal moments of my guests. Each Monday a new guest, mostly working in tech and Microsoft, will share with you pivotal stories from their careers and lives and the lessons they learned. Hosted by John Lam.

  1. Ep.11 Tim Heuer: on changing from evangelism to product development, making changes to his health, and the characteristics of a great PM

    20/06/2022

    Ep.11 Tim Heuer: on changing from evangelism to product development, making changes to his health, and the characteristics of a great PM

    LinkLink to the full-text transcript Show ChaptersA Pivotal Moment: Getting Healthy 01:32Writing down calories in and calories out 03:00Tim's first adult bicycle 04:33One in, one out 06:37Change can be more permanent if you do it with others 07:39Early career: developer evangelism 08:54Into the lion's den: Open Source 10:08Better ways to learn from our field organization 12:31How to listen to your biggest fans 16:07A Pivotal Moment: moving from evangelism to product 17:49The ship bug 18:57Some career advice 21:22A Pivotal Moment: moving into people management 22:22Finding time for IC work 23:45Beginner's mind 25:37Tip: creating separation between work and home 27:12It's not just people that change, organizations can change too 30:10A Pivotal Moment: someone saw something in Tim 31:48Old tools vs. new tools: which are more productive? 35:12Access 2.0 36:47Low code vs. high code vs. ? 38:34Pickleball: An outsized amount of joy 40:33Links from the showTim's TwitterTim's Web SiteOSCON 2006: The Lion's DenMoots CyclesPickleball in NYTMusic credits–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Track: Lost In Medina — Amine Maxwell [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/qNSdpqSkRe4 Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/lost-medina ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

    43 min
  2. Ep.10 The Wisdom of my guests: looking at my conversations with my first 9 guests through the lens of Change, Trying on the Job for Size, and Mistakes

    13/06/2022

    Ep.10 The Wisdom of my guests: looking at my conversations with my first 9 guests through the lens of Change, Trying on the Job for Size, and Mistakes

    Feedback wanted!Please send specific feedback to: jlam@iunknown.com and help me make the show better for you! What would you like to get out of this podcast series? What other questions would you like me to ask? What other guests would you like me to talk to? Link to the full text transcriptLinks to sections (with timestamps)IntroChange: 01:34Changing from Academia to Industry: 01:46Changing from the Army Rangers to Microsoft: 03:02Changing from Bay Street to Microsoft Way: 04:36Changing from solving other peoples' problems to creating problems for other people to solve: 05:56Changing a role from PM to Developer: 09:12Moving from Windows to DevDiv: 12:08Change is the only constant: 16:17School doesn't always prepare you for the job: 23:34Learning on the job: 25:39Trying on the new job for size: 30:17A (somewhat) traditional Microsoft Internship: 30:54The value of a co-op program: trying many different jobs on for size: 32:30From an MBA to Data Science: 36:31On making mistakes: 40:18Conclusion: 48:07External LinksMusic credits–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Track: Lost In Medina — Amine Maxwell [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/qNSdpqSkRe4 Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/lost-medina ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

    49 min
  3. Ep.9 Larry Osterman: on working at Microsoft for over 37 years from MS-DOS to Azure and advice on how to have a long and productive career at the company

    06/06/2022

    Ep.9 Larry Osterman: on working at Microsoft for over 37 years from MS-DOS to Azure and advice on how to have a long and productive career at the company

    Links to sections (with timestamps)Larry's been here for 37 years 10 months ... or has he? 01:53Carnegie Mellon in the 1980s: 03:04Interviewing for a small 500 person startup in Seattle: 06:01Meeting Steve Ballmer, "Head of HR": 08:23Interviewing with Gordon Letwin: 10:50Flying to Paris to fix a floppy drive bug in MS DOS 4.0: 13:33Burgermaster for lunch and naming objects in MS DOS: 16:58Documenting the creation of Windows NT: Greg Zachary and Helen Custer: 19:35On the importance of lunch conversations in driving the culture of a team: 23:30It's Alive! Windows NT running Reversi on an i860 emulator: 28:04Thursday Beers, MAPI Beers and the Weekly World News: 30:08Rewriting the Beep() API in Windows Vista to save tens of millions of dollars: 34:22Larry's brief tenur in Microsoft Research: 43:14The legendary Exchange Server "Stonehenge Party": 49:03Scalability Day and Microsoft's beginnings as an enterprise software company: 55:26How Larry's biggest feature in Windows 7 kept killing gamers in-game: 01:04:44The origins of the Windows Runtime team in Windows 8: 01:07:09The origin story of the IUnknown.com domain name: 01:11:26How Larry enabled language projections in WinRT using COM: 01:12:34From Windows to Azure: Confidential Compute and encrypted VMs: 01:20:13On joining DevDiv and the Azure SDK team and becoming "mini-Jeff": 01:27;17What advice would you give someone just starting their career at Microsoft? 01:32:28Something that gave Larry an outsized amount of joy recently: 01:37:21External LinksLarry's GlowforgeLarry's ornate box, cut on the GlowforgeThe Goupil G4 with the showstopper floppy drive bugGordon LetwinShowstopper by G. Pascal ZacharyInside Windows NT by Helen CusterPC Roadkill by Michael HymanMusic credits–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Track: Lost In Medina — Amine Maxwell [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/qNSdpqSkRe4 Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/lost-medina ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

    1hr 41min

About

Achieve your career and life goals sooner by learning from the pivotal moments of my guests. Each Monday a new guest, mostly working in tech and Microsoft, will share with you pivotal stories from their careers and lives and the lessons they learned. Hosted by John Lam.