Continuous Learning & Networking Can Help Land you a Career in Tech When You’re Not a “Techie”

After you kinda think about that North Star, so I wanted to build something, wanna be entrepreneurial. I wanted to go home every day after work and do that I contributed to something. And technology was a good answer to that, but it could have been it could have been a little bit wider. When I focused in on technology, I wanted to do something every single day to improve against that, goal. Welcome to the Apple One podcast. I'm your host, Brett Howroyd. This podcast consists of three different running serieses. And today, you are listening to our career paths series, where we go deep and wide into what an individual career is like. We will have honest conversations with professionals about what they do to help inform you to make a great career choice for yourself. But honestly, I reserve the right to go down whatever rabbit hole or tangent I find interesting. So let's get started with today's topic, being in tech when you're not a techie. Today's guest is Josh Woodcraft, who is the chief of staff at Canoo Intelligence. How did a guy like Josh, who's never actually written code or, let's say, set up a server in a data warehouse somewhere, How did he get such a cool job and an established tech company? Well, let's find out. Josh. Hello. Hey, Private. So good to see you. Good to see you too. Josh, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey before you became the chief of staff at Canoo? Great. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation, and I hope it's really relevant to the folks out there. And I'll try to do my best to give as much practical and tangible advice, that you may follow along, after this conversation. So, I I started my career on Wall Street, and it was, right before the global financial crisis. So this is two thousand and seven. And the next three years in financial services was extremely busy, and transformational. And, I learned at that time that that industry wasn't the best fit for me. And so I made a conscious decision to go back to graduate school and fortunate enough to go to a school where I could, you know, spend a couple years relearning some things, but also broadening, my exposure. And what I realized is twofold. Number one, me personally, I loved the idea of building something. I love the idea of going to work every day and knowing that your contributions into that enterprise, into that mission, meant something. And the second thing I I noticed is that I love being a generalist. And in my kind of grad studies, I was able to learn a bunch of different subjects and function areas. And a great way to apply those two things is in technology and particularly small companies, within technology, which we'll get into it a little bit later in the conversation. And so, I I can get into the specifics, but I joined a small company coming out of graduate school where I was the first hire in a new region where I did everything. And when you do everything and there's no one else to rely on, when you finish your workday, it means something. So I was able to accomplish those two objectives, and that transition period going to graduate school really helped me hone in on those two things, and that informed kinda how I performed did my search to go find that technology company. That was ten years ago, and we can figure out we we can have a conversation about what happened in those ten years since. But it was really that, and that's, and that those learnings of why I personally wanted to get into technology. Very interesting. So let's talk about grad school for a second because that seems to be an inflection point for you, to move from finance into technology. Kinda how did you approach that? We are a little bit of a product of our environment. I grew up in New York City where finance is, you know, obviously very prevalent. And I didn't know what I didn't know a little bit. I didn't realize that there was this burgeoning industry, Silicon Valley, across the country. And, obviously, I've heard about it, but didn't realize, you know, how big and transformational it's going to be until I was able to be in a community that was very diverse with a lot of different experiences and perspectives. And that really took some of the blinders off that I that I may have. And, you know, really the itch that I wanted to scratch was entrepreneurship was entrepreneurship, building something. And, you know, technology was a nice solution to that. One, because technology was catching a enormous growth tailwind in terms of number of companies, adoption, of those solutions. But technology, and this is where maybe not being a techie comes into play here, technology has gotten relatively easier. And what I mean by that is with the advent of the cloud computing, the mobile device, and, you know, different ways to build tools, more simple by format. So open source code, low code to no code applications. There are places for nontechnologists to go within these companies because the tools and systems are getting more standard and less technical. And so it was the right time for me to enter technology, to satisfy that entrepreneurial ambition. You know, it's it's funny. I've known you for a while, Josh, and I don't think you would have been using some of these terms you're using ten years ago when you got into technology. So for our listener, you know, it just goes to show you don't have to be the end all be all guru to get into this industry. Yes. And I wanna get into that. So I wanna get into that actually, because I have a couple practical things I was thinking about preparing for the conversation here. After you kind of think about that North Star, so I wanted to build something on the entrepreneurial. I wanted to go home every day after work and knew that I contributed to something. And technology was a good answer to that, but it could've been it could've been a little bit wider. When I focused in on technology, I wanted to do something every single day to improve against that, goal. And, you know, this ten thousand hours of doing something to become an expert. Well, if you're trying to be an expert, you might as well just start soon because you gotta accumulate those hours. And so I did you know, I kept I made I kept myself honest to keep learning, and the information economy technology is all about learning. A technology company is two things, lines of code, and so folks on the audio in the audience here are not techies, we we won't touch that. The other part that technology company is is people. And a typical software company, eighty five percent of the spend eighty five percent of the cost will be people, payroll. Right? So it's a human capital intensive business. It's an intellectual business. And so knowledge, learning information are ways to stay relevant and competitive, on the people side, which is a large aspect of these companies. And so I did, you know so on my learning, I did three things. Number one, I found relevant publications that public publish something every day on, you know, the the industry, whether it was a big event or a fundraise or a founding or a new milestone, and I've read those three publications every day for the last ten years now. Secondly, I found long form things on the weekend that went deep dive into a certain topic, and I've read that every weekend for ten years now. And then quarterly, you know, there will be research reports that come out on the industry, and I found a couple, you know, places that produce credible reports with great data, and I read those deep dive reports quarterly. So I've done those three things daily, weekly, and quarterly for ten years. And if you do that for a long enough period of time, you recognize patterns. And so, well, if you, you know, if this is your north star or anything outside of technology, quite frankly, just start, in my opinion, and keep yourself accountable to make those small steps to achieve that larger goal. That's brilliant feedback, Josh. So let's let's fast forward the ten years to now. You're you're in the technology industry. You're you have a great job at a tech company. Let's say we're talking to the listener who is where you were ten years ago. How do they get started if they wanna get hired at at a tech company? What what should their what should they expect in the process maybe of getting, getting a job in in technology in today's world, let's say? I have two ideas. Number one, is you're probably getting it at the ground floor, which is totally fine. These are businesses that grow very fast, and these are businesses and oftentimes cultures where the cream can rise to the top. Or that if you can just get your opportunity, and this is what what you really wanna do, your career can really accelerate. You can catch a tailwind. Both because the industry and companies are growing so fast, but secondly, the culture of, you know, recognizing performance, you can get on a fast track within a technology company. Whereas it may be more legacy industries, there's more of a set path on career progression and maybe the companies in those legacy industries aren't growing as fast. So you might have to get on the ground floor and be okay with that, assuming that works with your for your situation. Secondly, you know, I think a big, differentiation between companies is a big company or a small company. We've seen these big technology companies, these public companies get enormous, and they are, you know, household names that you know. There are tens of thousands of smaller technology private companies out there that you don't know about. So, which which of those two might you wanna go pursue? My general advice is if you're new somewhere, go somewhere bigger at first. The bigger companies, number one, they have more seats because they're bigger. It is competitive to get into, but more importantly, they have a training program and an internal network of, you know, various team professionals that will accelerate your learning. It's also easier to go from a bigger company to a smaller company later in your career. It's harder to go from a smaller company to a bigger company later in your career. For example, if you were able to work for Google, you know, there's a lot of companies that wanna hire people from Google. So, going there and learning the best practices from Google, would be very beneficial to have in your in your tool belt. Now a larger company, it might feel like it's a slower trajectory, or I'm doing something really small in a bigger picture, and I'm not seeing that impact that I thought I would have. Those things could be true. At a smaller company, you're gonna have a larger remit. You're gonna see your impact. You might be like I was so single threaded in your job, or you're the only person. I recommend that experience. It was, transformational for me. I wanna seek that out for the rest of my career. You should just be ready for it because there is less of an onboarding kind of program. There's less of a support network. You have to be proactive. You have to solve things by reading, as I mentioned earlier, or looking to an outside network that's not within the company. And that's, of course, possible, but you have to come in there with that mindset that you might be bringing some things to the table that the company is not providing for you directly. And when you're ready for it, go do it. And if you're not ready for it and you're trying to learn and get into the industry, big companies are an excellent way to start that. Got it. That's wonderful advice. And I might need to have you back on the show to talk about hiring in the tech world because that's our hiring made human series. But today, we'll stick to to the career path line of thought. So let's go back to the listener who who doesn't have the background in technology, no computer science degree, but they aspire to get into the space. What are the pros and cons of working for a tech company versus, let's say, outside of the tech industry? For me, I get a lot of joy, and, maybe I'm good at it, at solving problems. And what I found in technology is there's a lot of problem solving, and it's it's oftentimes very objective. Here's one example. You're building a software application. You push a button, and the page is either gonna turn blue or red. It's not programmed to turn green. It's just not programmed. Those lines of code, I push that button. It's either gonna show red or blue. It's not gonna be green. So that's a that's a little objective truth about the technology. Those objective truths are all over the application, all over the business. Sometimes there are no answers. Should we go into this market or not? Should we do this or not? That requires a little bit of judgment calls, instincts, how to make sure some leadership. Sure. But the actual technology. Right? So you say, oh, I'm just so I'm a little overwhelmed about getting into technology because I'm not a computer scientist. Gosh. They're gonna ask me to get into the code base. I don't know how to do that. That's not required. Trust me. I've never done that. But there are these kind of truths around. And if you like problem solving, if you like knowledge, eventually and here's the secret. Eventually, you find out all the answers. A technology company fits in this and it fits in a box. Now, obviously, the big public companies are enormous, so that's a really big box. But I'm saying a smaller company, and I work at a smaller company today. The software, the application, the code base, the use cases, the amount of things you can do with it, it's finite. So eventually, you get up to the bounds, the walls, and you're like, wow. I knew everything. And now at one, you're super valuable for your company. You're adding a tremendous amount of impact. But for me, once you kind of reach those walls, you're like, oh, you you feel like you are so engaged because you're now a resident expert. So, I think if you like problem solving, your objective, you love information and learning, that's a great place to be because you get up to a certain plateau and you're at you're having a lot of value, and it it just gets a lot more fun too. And let me and let me go into one one more kinda related concept. So what role would I say to Josh? This has been great, but, man, what do I, you know, where do I go? I see you go to a career site. I see all these different titles. Man, what where should I focus my energy if I'm not a techie? There are, first off, within a headcount of a company, a technology company, I would say, oftentimes, a majority of the head count is nontechnical. Majority, sales, marketing, operations, customer service, project management, implementation. So those roles, you need to understand what the technology does. You will need to play with the technology interface. You will need to explain some technical things to a nontechnical user, but very rarely are you going under the hood. And if you eventually develop a technical skill set and you wanna go to the hood, there's opportunity to do that, which is great. But in a lot in a lot of the roles, it's not required to do that. That's really interesting because I think a lot of people have this idea of maybe, you know, four people in a garage all, you know, coding away. Right? And, that's not necessarily the case as you were naming some of those job titles. These are things that people would say, I don't work at a tech company, and I'm in sales. I don't work at a tech company, and I'm an accountant. So it's not all just a bunch of people hacking, you know, hackathons, you know, through the late hours of the night. There's a lot of jobs out there in in tech that are gonna resonate. But I think your theme there was, you know, you still have to have the discipline to to be able to learn, to get involved. Right? And to be able to do some of the talk the talk. Is is that right, Josh? Yes. Totally. And just on the four folks in the garage, yes. There are projects and companies where there are four four folks in a garage right now doing that. And the earlier you go, the more tech tech heavy it's going to be. Okay. On the later stage you go, the more that there are operations, sales, and services functions around the technology, supporting the technology. So, so just to just to differentiate that. So okay. Great. You listed some examples. I'm now feeling more inclined to take a look. Gosh. But I don't really know much about these products. There's some back end products, some enterprise products. I don't even know how to talk about technology, but I think I could do that role. Let me let me share one example. There's one technology company which I think is very impressive, and I don't have any personal or professional stake in this, but I just wanted to give an example. Application called Toast, and Toast is a point of sale solution for restaurants. So if you go to a restaurant and a waiter or waitress comes up and takes your order and types into the handheld machine or swipes your card at your table, there's a technology behind that machine. It's called Toast. So if you are a let's say you're waiting tables right now as an example, and you wanna get into technology, and you're like, shoot, I don't know how to talk with these technology companies. You are a power user of a great technology in your hand, and you know how it's configured. You know the best use of it. You use it every damn day. I bet, and this is how I got my first technology company, because I was a subject matter expert, that if you were a subject at in this example, restaurant service industry, there are technology platforms powering that industry that would love to hire you because you know how to use their products. You're one of their customers. You know what what matters. You know where some of the potential opportunities are. And so, for example, this is just a simple example. You could go into a client service position at a technology company that you use, and you would talk to similar folks just like you, but on the other side. And you're now servicing other restaurants and waiters and waitresses with a technology that you know very, very well. That's very attractive for that technology company to hire you. So you're going into a different industry, but it's in a it's in a subject matter expertise that you actually know very well. That makes a lot of sense. And I I again, I thank you because I don't think a lot of people think about it that way. Josh, what's a day, a week, a month like in in your life working at a tech company? The nice thing about, I'm a smaller technology company, but I would say this is categorically true across across most technology companies. We are trying to be different. We're trying to look different, be different at the end of the year than we are today. We wanna be bigger. We wanna build new products. We wanna go into new markets. Right? And we you know, the beginning of the year, we set an ambitious goal of what that will look like. Now if you do the same thing at the beginning of the year, all year, you're gonna get the same outcome. So you're not gonna get that bigger outcome. So there's this kind of long form operating motion. There's a short form operating motion. This is how I think about it personally. A long form is like, are we doing the big things necessary to get to that ambitious goal? So walking back, what are those critical milestones that we need to hit? What are those big initiatives that we need to put in place? You know, let's not be creatures of habit doing the same thing over and over again. So that one thing I love about technology is you're always kinda disrupting yourself. Are we doing it the best way? I love the idea of continuous improvement and almost making big bets in certain ways. And I I I say this internally at my company, the best ideas can come from anywhere. You have folks on the front line talking to a customer. Customer has a real pain point in a certain area. Guess what? Other customers are having that pain point. And that individual who's talking to one customer puts together a proposal for the company to do something totally different to satisfy all customers, that is a big, step function. That's a big change, that's that's awesome in technology. And you, you know, you can implement that very fast across the organization. So that's the longer form piece. That's the exciting piece of being in a growing company, growing industry that, you know, every month or quarter, you're trying to do something differently to obtain obtain a larger a larger goal. On the day to day, of course, you know, every day to day feels a little different. I think there are some things that are running the business, checking a sales dashboard, talking to customers, doing internal meetings, looking at data, staying aligned across the business. Again, remember, it's an information business, and so you've got a lot of folks. And now a lot of these companies are remote or hybrid, so you might not co locate some colleagues and making sure everyone is aligned and seeing the same thing, saying the same things, understand the same thing. So that's kinda running the business, making sure we're all paddling in the same direction. And then, yeah, on a typical week, this idea of continuous improvement and adding something into the in into the business, making sure that you're making progress against some of those initiatives, some of those new initiatives. So, if that feels like jargon, let me boil it down to you. I'm on a lot of Zoom calls. I look at a lot of data, and I talk to a lot of people. And I think that's pretty ubiquitous of technology companies. So you need to be able to manage your calendar. You have to like working with people. As I mentioned earlier on the objective piece, whether you're in the software or looking at data, you you need to be able to look at information, glean insight from which to make decisions. Those things happen all the time. Thank you for that insight. Earlier on this call, you mentioned Silicon Valley, and I think everyone knows of Silicon Valley as a as a tech hub. You live in Austin, Texas, another area I think people think about nowadays at least when they think about technology. But let us know if if you're someone who's interested in this industry and you don't live in Silicon Valley or you don't live in Austin, Texas. Is that important nowadays? I mean, does the whole idea of, I made it in tech if I live in this place, is that still a thing, or is that kind of an outdated way of thinking now? So the answer is both, and there's a couple ways to look at this. By the numbers, the most companies, the most transformational companies, the and the biggest outcomes are in Silicon Valley. So if you wanna go to the moon, high probability that that's gonna happen in in Silicon Valley. That being said, there are a couple other pockets which I which I like. In Boston, Massachusetts, there's a real focus on medical technology, health care. So if you come from, you know, health health care industry, that's a night that's a pocket that outcompetes Silicon Valley around med tech and health care technology. And then within New York City, if you're in financial services and fintech, you that's you know, New York City is a real hub hub for that for that industry. Los Angeles is coming up very quickly in terms of entertainment and consumer. So outside of those, and Austin is growing very quickly. It's still relatively small, but it's growing quickly. There are a lot of micro smaller hubs coming around. Because what I mentioned earlier with the cloud, with remote work, because it's getting simpler to build technology companies, you don't need to have, you know, physical data centers, be co located, that there are smaller pockets opening up across the country. I I will say that and so the answer is both. You could find a great job, you'll need one. You could find a great job working in one of these smaller places. My recommendation would not be fully remote when you're just getting going. There's real opportunity kind of being around people, getting on the whiteboard. Learning just happens a lot faster. So whether that's a hybrid or a, you know, full full on-site position, I think that's just great when you're getting into somewhere new because your learning velocity just just accelerates. If you wanna go for it, if you wanna play for the Lakers, Silicon Valley is still the place to be. Interesting. Now do you think a lot of tech jobs because I know a bit about your life lifestyle. You do live in Austin, but you fly to New York frequently because your company I mean, that's that's part of who they are. Do you think that is a a pretty normal experience where you might be able to live in Utah, Nevada, Ohio, you know, somewhere that's maybe not known as a traditional tech hub, but your company will still have you travel to one of the places you just mentioned. Is that kind of a normal thing? It is certainly more normal now, on the backside of the pandemic prior to before the pandemic. Couple couple of real benefits. Number one, employees want it. Employees like, you know, if they're have families to live places which are, you know, great for their families. Employers like it because their office footprint is smaller. But getting together and every time I get together with my colleagues, there are big bang moments, which are great, where we say, yeah. That thing's not going super well, or that's a real opportunity. And we carve out time when we're together. It's we don't do go through the day to day rhythm. Everything I mentioned earlier, that can happen very well remotely. But if you wanna really co create something, align on something, do something new, we clear the calendar as we said, hey, we need to solve this one challenge. And that that just operates, in my opinion, a lot better, when you're together. So, yes, I I'm seeing that kinda hybrid to call that hybrid that hybrid structure, be more and more common. Let me ask you a weird question, Josh. Let's go down one of these rabbit holes that I like to go down. I really enjoyed the show Silicon Valley on HBO when when it was, when it was out. And they were constantly riffing on this idea that the tech industry is just full of dudes and socially awkward dudes to to to say that, introverted people. Is that what you have found, or do you think that's a stereotype they were playing on for last? There are number there there there are numbers out there in terms of composition of employees of technology companies, and I I'm not an expert in that show, but, you know, probably some of those characterizations are true based on the numbers. But let me on a introverted, nerdy piece that you mentioned, yeah. And it's great. It's a place where, someone like that can thrive because, it's not the oftentimes, the loudest person in the room who's gonna, you know, command and win the meeting or the idea. It's gonna be the person who knows the most. It's the person I've been mentioning earlier in a software company. You've touched all the walls. You know if the light is in turn red or blue. You've reached the plateau. And I'd much rather go to that person for insight and an opinion than someone who just joined who's louder. In fact, that could be a big distraction. So it's a great place, for those for for those for those, folks folks who have that, disposition. I will say that I find technology as being a great equalizer, because of its, objectivity and it being, you know, an information economy. For example, I know a couple companies few companies that do a cognitive test before being able to be at the company or interview the company. And a cognitive test is before they even see what you look like, how you act. I think the resumes are blind. I think the names are taken off off the resumes. And so it's just very objective. Does it match the profile of what we need for this position? And I don't see that a lot in other industries. So, I I look at technology as being a great place for all types of folks. And, you know, even if you're introverted, you like hanging out with people. You just like you just like hanging out with people in different ways. So Yeah. We've got a pool table in our office when we get together. That's a that's a lot of fun. We do a monthly company gathering. That's a lot of fun. We have an internal tool that, that that pairs you up with a coffee chat with a random member of the company for fifteen minutes every week, and folks love that. You know, to have one on one conversations around the organization, we see a lot of activity on that on that chat app. So, yeah, it's a great it's a great it's a great place for for for for that. So it sounds like being a great problem problem solver is more important than who, male, female, what you look like, you know, what your background is. It's an industry that attracts people who are into what you've been talking about. Right? Solving problems, collaborating at times to make sure that you are, you know, making sure that the technology achieves its mission. And I think that that's a pretty awesome, you know, thing for people to to rally around, and and that's why it's attracting a lot of talent. Let me take an extreme example. Sales. Right? Oh, gosh. That person is so salesy, and maybe we hear that sometimes. And in some parts of technology, if you're selling something that's consumer driven and the, you know, maybe the price point of that application is a little lower, yep, it's pretty salesy. Do you wanna buy? Do you wanna buy? Do you wanna buy? For b two b software, where I play, and particularly enterprise software, so selling to big companies, big companies, they don't buy that quickly. They're going through a long procurement process. They wanna understand everything about you. They wanna understand how this is gonna integrate into their company. So that sales process is like a can be three to twelve month initiative, where there are specific checkpoints, specific milestones, group presentations and meetings. And, yes, having some salesmanship certainly works. That being said, it's a just the objective piece that I talked about earlier, you have to help the buyer understand that this is going to be great for them. And so, you know, you can there's a lot of different profiles of folks that I've seen in in sales roles at technology where it kind of it debunks, you know, what we think sometimes as, you know, folks being super salesy. Ultimately, the buyer on the side wants to wants to know that you are telling the truth and that you're a trusted adviser and that this is the right solution for me as the buyer. Because with technology, here he goes again. It's either gonna work or not work for the customer after purchase. And a technology company, we are very incentivized to make sure it works. We want you to stay for a long, long time. And that starts in the sales process, making sure that we land with customers that understand what we do, that are ready for this kinda to be part of their business, adopting part of their business. And so the sale you know, the sales role is a very interesting role at a soft a software company, because of the kinda long term nature of the customer relationship. It's not kind of a one time sale and then you're gone. That resonates with me. Apple One is part of a larger company called the Act One Group, and one of our sister brands, Agile One, sales sales technology. And I think the old fashioned approach was to have a salesy person paired with the solutions architect. And the salesy person does all the talking, and the solutions architect is there to answer any gotcha specific technical questions or present, that or do a demonstration if that's what the the buyer wants. However, today, I think the salespeople and the solutions architect is the same person. We are more and more. It's it's becoming like that where you don't want to be as salesy. You want to be able to actually make that actual, value proposition through talking about the technology. So that's a very interesting point you make, Josh. Alright, Josh. This has been really interesting. Let me ask you one more question. What would be three tips that our listeners could do in the next, let's say, month or so, to kinda help them start down this process if you've if you've kind of got them interested? Number one, as I mentioned earlier, identify some of these publications that you can start reading every day or every week or every quarter. That clock starts. And you might look at it and say, I don't even know how to understand that, but read it every day. And eventually, you're gonna pick up some patterns and some words and terminologies, and that might spur other thoughts. So do a mapping of your information out there, and there's so much information out there, And then keep yourself accountable to start making those small steps of learning. So instead of starting the day on Instagram, they could start the day reading reading something more. There are so many niche publications. For example, one individual down here in Austin is the technology whisperer. I mean, he he knows everything that's going on here, and there's a daily newsletter with insane amount of detail of the technology industry happening here because he's just getting all these inputs, and he formulates that into a newsletter and sends it out every day. So even in your local geography, there's someone who's got the heartbeat and wants you to follow their newsletter and and engage in a community and all that kind of good stuff. So one is get your information strategy in line and start learning. The second is no matter where you are, I I think there are probably technology companies within driving distance of you, which is amazing. You can go to a website. I I I like this one called crunchbase dot com. And you can go to crunchbase dot com, and you can filter to, you know, SaaS or technology industry. You can filter down to, you know, the larger metro area that you might be in, and you can then sort by, you know, either, you know, number of employees or, you know, the funding amounts that the companies have been able to generate or revenue depending on the, you know, the source that you're gonna find this information. And that becomes a small target list to think about. Okay. Jeez. These are the top ten or top twenty largest technology companies in my metro. And I would take that list and I'd put it somewhere, and I, you know, wanna learn a little bit about each of those companies. Because, I I I think, you know, working collocating is gonna be really, powerful early on in your transition. And so understanding those companies specifically, maybe you have a neighbor or friend that's worked at one of those and know something about them, start to understand those top ten, top twenty. Remember, start large and then move move your way smaller. The third way the third tip I have, ten tangible tip I have is it's important, and it is important to have a fairly mature LinkedIn presence. What I and I know that and LinkedIn is everywhere. So I I I think I have I've had five employers. Each of the five employers, I I got in through a mutual connection through the side door. I I didn't I didn't get in through applying on the website. I came in through a warm referral, and I and I've seen that now in ten years be a way to where those the odds get tilted. Yes. You can walk in through the front door. It's a lower probability. It's possible. Coming in through the side door through a warm referral really tilts the odds. And so in that list from that I just mentioned of the top ten or twenty companies, put those companies in the LinkedIn and look to see if you have anyone that you know at those companies or if you know someone that knows someone at those companies. And so now you have a target list of companies, and you have a target list of individuals. And go meet an individual for coffee once a week or breakfast or something like that. So you're learning asynchronously. Okay. That's happening weekly, daily, quarterly. And you're meeting people on a regular basis and asking questions, and it might feel foreign at first. But, you know, if you come in through a warm connection, you say, hey. I'd love to have a coffee and talk about your job and technology. People will do it. And you do a dozen of those, that ball is gonna start rolling downhill. And, so those are those are my three practical recommendations. Amazing. Amazing advice, Josh. Alright, folks. I hope you enjoyed our useful and informational conversation that we had today. If you need anything from us at the Apple One podcast, we are always here to help as we are hiring made human, so don't be shy. And your feedback will go towards making sure I keep our conversations relevant and fun. So the next career series episode is tailored to a career you're interested in. Thanks for listening.