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. 15/08/2022

    Ep. 14 Defying Conventional Wisdom: Harris Syed

    Show ChaptersFull-text transcript Coming to America (01:15)Coming to Microsoft (03:50)Blaster (09:16)Cortana (20:05)The Speaker (22:03)Trust and AI (31:11)Promotion to Partner (40:04)Partnerships (46:30)What brought Harris outsized joy (55:59)Links from the showBlaster WormCOMDCOM protocol specificationHarmon Kardon Invoke speakerSend me feedback!Music 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 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

    58 min
  2. Ep. 13 Rong Lu: from Engineer to PM to Manager, her 16+ year journey at Microsoft

    11/07/2022

    Ep. 13 Rong Lu: from Engineer to PM to Manager, her 16+ year journey at Microsoft

    Show ChaptersFull-text transcript Intro (00:36)What is a PM? (00:58)Remote is hard (03:39)Pivotal Moment #1: Moving to Redmond (04:46)Great Managers (07:24)From Feature Team to Cross-Team Collaboration (08:23)Owning cross-company collaboration (10:44)From acquisition to a partnership playbook (16:39)Creating the Visual Studio Code C++ Extension (17:30)Pivotal Moment #2: Becoming a Manager (21:05)Autonomy vs. Directed (23:58)Has your perception of a manager changed much now that you are one? (25:04)Situational Leadership (26:16)Coaching vs. autonomy (30:27)Pivotal Moment #3: Dev to PM (32:47)What brought Rong outsized joy (37:12)Outtro (39:46)Links from the showA Great Boss is hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forgetSend me feedback!Music 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 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

    41 min
  3. Ep.12 Jill Jacobson: on UX Design at Microsoft, her circuitous journey to UX design from industrial design, and rediscovering joy from creative pursuits

    27/06/2022

    Ep.12 Jill Jacobson: on UX Design at Microsoft, her circuitous journey to UX design from industrial design, and rediscovering joy from creative pursuits

    Show ChaptersFull-text transcript Intro (00:36)The mystery of the churning Jupyter notebook users (01:45)The importance of understanding your users (09:32)From an aptitude test in high school to industrial design (13:05)Learning industrial design at Western Washington University (15:10)First job out of college (17:59)Getting fired from her first job (20:15)Becoming an intern again (22:04)An opportunity to learn what she really wanted to do (22:48)A crash course in becoming a UX Designer, on the job (27:05)Why team is more important than technology (30:22)Jill is now a full-time employee! (36:03)On rediscovering things that bring us joy (38:16)How to optimize your Kindle experience (41:03)An outsized amount of joy: a plain air tripod (45:05)Conclusion (47:33)Outtro (48:43)Links from the showJill's InstagramJill's web siteAIMS Aptitude TestingLibbyStory GraphMusic 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. Ep.8 Sid Unnithan: on changing jobs at Microsoft, preparing for informational interviews, imposter syndrome and autonomy in the PM role

    30/05/2022

    Ep.8 Sid Unnithan: on changing jobs at Microsoft, preparing for informational interviews, imposter syndrome and autonomy in the PM role

    Table of ContentsHow the Customer Driven Playbook influenced how Sid thinks about PM (14:34)How Sid prepared for his informational interview with our team (15:49)The importance of preparing for your informational interview (17:23)How we structure our PM interviews in DevDiv (19:40)Imposter syndrome and what we can do about it (24:05)On rubrics and career progression (28:54)Side-hustle entrepreneurial thinking while working at a big company (34:20)Learning about customers via jobs-to-be-done and customer interviews (41:52)The lack of respect that PMs face when working with some engineering teams (46:24)On the importance of autonomy and agency in the PM role (55:52)Building products is a team sport (57:00)Travel bidets, cultural barriers and friction in experiences (1:00:36)TranscriptLink to the full text transcript (with audio player!) LinksThe Customer Driven PlaybookThe Jobs-To-Be-Done frameworkThe Hypothesis Progression Framework for Customer Development** Some of the above links are affiliate links for which I earn a commission from the vendor if you purchase a product.

    1hr 7min
  8. Ep.7 Dustin Campbell: on transitioning from PM to Dev mid-career, building .NET developer tools and escaping from a software sweatshop in Las Vegas

    23/05/2022

    Ep.7 Dustin Campbell: on transitioning from PM to Dev mid-career, building .NET developer tools and escaping from a software sweatshop in Las Vegas

    This week, I'm talking with Dustin Campbell, a Principal Software Development Engineer who's been working on tooling at Microsoft for nearly 15 years. He's worked in Visual Basic.NET, the Roslyn C# compiler, the C# extension for Visual Studio Code, and the WinForms designer in the latest release of .NET Core. He has an undergraduate degree in jazz performance guitar, which naturally led him to building spam tools for his father, then to a software sweatshop in Las Vegas before finally landing at Microsoft. Along the way, I learned what distinguishes compiler engineers from other species of software engineers, whether there is any hope for paring down the concept count to empower non-professional software developers, and why immutable synax trees are awesome. Links from the show-

    1hr 22min
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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.

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