#TheTechHustle Podcast 🎙

Backstage with BobbyD: Featuring Babatunde Fashola

• BobbyD, D'Hustle and Raymond...don't call him RayRay

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Ever wondered how a career shift from medical physiology to software engineering could lead someone to Twitter? Meet Tunde, our brilliant guest, who takes us through his extraordinary journey from Nigeria to becoming an engineer at one of the world’s most influential tech companies. Tunde’s story is a testament to the power of continuous learning and ambitious personal projects. From mastering coding languages like Visual Basic, Java, and C, to navigating the complexities of bioinformatics with Perl and Python, Tunde's experience at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center and his transition to Twitter offers invaluable lessons for tech enthusiasts and professionals alike.

We navigate through Tunde’s critical career transitions, highlighting his internship experiences and the tough choices he made between offers from IBM and Twitter. By comparing the supportive, vibrant culture at Twitter to the more traditional environment at IBM, this episode emphasizes how crucial company culture is in career decisions. Tunde also candidly shares the challenges he faced on Twitter's data streaming team and the invaluable support from his manager and the community of Black engineers that empowered him during stressful times. This is an eye-opener for those looking to understand the real-world dynamics of tech companies and the importance of a supportive work environment.

Finally, we delve into Tunde's entrepreneurial journey post-Twitter as he ventured into creating his own company, Causal, addressing gaps in international money transfers. This chapter is packed with insights into the multifaceted responsibilities of being both an engineer and a CEO, from managing operational costs to driving innovation. Tunde’s experience reshaped his perspective on business operations and inspired him to mentor the next generation of tech innovators. Tune in to uncover the transformative power of community, ambition, and continuous evolution in the tech industry, and walk away inspired to take your own tech journey to the next level.

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Speaker 2:

So it was quite interesting 2015,. I was done. I was told I had an offer to come back to Twitter. I was also done with my final year project in school then, so the only thing I needed to do was to defend the final year project, and then IBM came knocking.

Speaker 1:

You hear how people, when they come knocking you say IBM came knocking at the door.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I was like yeah sure I could do it as well. So I went to yeah sure I could do it as well. So I went to TJ Watson the research center there Somewhere in Austin, new York, and so I spent about like maybe seven weeks or eight weeks there, did a bunch of things about big data for them as well. Then Like we had to set up some interesting clusters and process some data and I left and then I graduated in December.

Speaker 1:

Then I started working at Twitter in January Welcome, welcome, welcome to the next episode of Backstage with Bobby D. What up D Hustle? What's going on? Guess where we still at player San Francisco.

Speaker 2:

San Francisco, home of the Giants, and we up in the stars.

Speaker 1:

Up in the stars, up in the stars. Yeah we at the Salesforce Tower. Okay, check a look at the picture, the tall building. We at not the top floor, but we high enough. We are not the top floor, but we high enough. Yes, that's right. Always great to have you here at the show. We got a special guest, somebody that I seen when they first pulled up and got into tech. I may even have a few stories to tell you about when the first time I met him.

Speaker 2:

But let's give a big round of applause for Tunde. What up, tunde, thank you. Thank you for having me. My God, my God, thank you, thank you for having me, my God, my God, thank you for coming.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. This is D Hustle. He's going to hold down in the cut and you know me, you're your boy, bobby D yeah.

Speaker 2:

I know you yeah.

Speaker 1:

But we're definitely interested in having a really cool conversation with you today and one of the cool things about you is that I know we can talk tech and definitely always looking to make sure that I'm dropping a little bit of gems about tech stuff because I know you've touched the keyboard for a number of years and you are by far one of my bright stars that I always make sure I reference especially about your journey from when it all kicked off.

Speaker 1:

But before we even get all into that, tell us where you're from, how you got into tech, maybe even the school you went to and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

So kick us off. My name is Babatunde. I'm from nigeria originally shout out to nigeria.

Speaker 1:

Shout out to nigeria.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I'm from nigeria, originally um schooled in nigeria.

Speaker 1:

My undergrad was in medical physiology, because I wanted to be a medical doctor oh, that's what's up and then um, for some reason, I couldn't be actually we had my issue here earlier and she said when she saw blood it was a wrap. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then right afterwards I went into I think it was in college- the. University of Nigeria, University of Badu, that I started learning how to write codes. My first language then was Visual Basic.

Speaker 1:

Visual Basic yeah.

Speaker 2:

I went into java and um. Right afterwards I started doing many interesting things in c as well um, um. Then I left nigeria and then went into um. I came here to the us to come study bioinformatics I just wanted likea a measure between like software engineering yeah which I'm actually picking up right now, and medical physiology somewhat. So bioinformatics actually came up and it was good. Learned how to write Perl programming language there.

Speaker 1:

Perl. That was one of my first programming languages. Big shout out to Perl. Yeah, I learned how to write Perl and Python.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, and then got into big data. That was exactly when big data actually started. Um created like a hard to um cluster oh, he's talking big names here. He said he, he created a big gen big gems.

Speaker 2:

Keep it going, I love this created a hard to uh cluster, um then, um, for my final year project or final project in school, um, and it was quite interesting. So I came to Twitter, which was quite interesting then and thankfully, because of the fact that I had done something very interesting in like AdWoop and big data and all that there was a very large amount of data that we needed to process at Twitter and I was an intern then I did it and that ended my coming back to Twitter.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was like yo. The door is open. You know how to use the key. It looks like Just find your way back over here.

Speaker 2:

So big shout-outs to that.

Speaker 1:

I definitely want to say, whenever I hear when people are getting into tech or they start in this journey and doing something like learning Hadoop right or learning what a distributed file system is or a distributed system is, or what to do with all this data, because there's gigs on top of gigs and top of gigs. It's like how do you design systems to take advantage of it? And this is something you did in school and, um, in terms of, like, personal projects, that right there, my, my eyes and ears are like big radars when I see those type of things on personal projects.

Speaker 1:

So, big ups to you, and very much appreciate that, and the reason why I bring this up is some of our audience members are new grads or just getting into tech and they're always asking me like so what should I work on? What should I work on? Shoot for them stars. Like work on things that really impact, and you heard Tunde say is like yo, because of that, I was able to get back at Twitter after my internship. So big shout-outs to you, man, thank you. Oh my gosh, I always am taken back about your journey and definitely some of my first mentees at Twitter, because by the time you ran into me, I was over there sliding, I was moving, it was Bobby D's world type stuff and just giving you just a little bit of exposure to that. Especially, you know you start your internship in 2015 era time, right, but tell me how that was. How was your, you know, being an intern at Twitter 2015 and stuff like that? Oh, wow, it was interesting.

Speaker 2:

So I remember coming into Twitter my very first time of being in San Francisco. Got an apartment in Berkeley and then I took a train ride all the way from somewhere in Berkeley down to Civic Center.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then I got to Civic Center and I walked all the way from Civic Center, bath Station to like, where the Twitter building was, just to see exactly where I was going to be going to on that very first day. And then the next day I started, but then it was very shocking that I was one of the very few black people that actually just showed up. And if you know exactly the school I went to, I went to Morgan State University, so Black School.

Speaker 1:

HBCU.

Speaker 2:

And so when I came in, I saw all these white folks from Harvard, from MIT, and all of that. I think I felt very in see you, um.

Speaker 2:

And so when I came in, I saw, like all these white folks from harvard, from like mit, and all of that um I think I felt very like inundated, like it was very overwhelming to see, like, all of these people um, but then it was cool, right, I got to learn a lot of things um, while I was there, um, there was a culture shock for for like several different days um, but I remember when I actually joined, um chris coco, which you know oh my god, big shout out to chris, coco, my guy was on my team and he was someone I could actually go approach and talk um, talk to um, and he's pretty senior as well.

Speaker 2:

So like it was very easy for uh, for me to be able to like look up to him and say, hey, this guy's actually been able to do it. Um, I saw some of his code and I was like no, this guy is really brilliant. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So like I was like no, this guy is on another level and I needed to like step up my game. So it was good. It was really nice. I worked on several projects when I was there, but then, um, the first project I got was, like I was done in like maybe two weeks or four weeks, I think. The whole internship was for 12 weeks and so I had maybe eight more weeks to go.

Speaker 1:

That's how good he was. He was like 12 weeks. I was done in two weeks. I was done in like yeah, remind me of me.

Speaker 2:

And so I had to go approach my manager, and then my manager talked to the tech leader and the tech leader was like oh yeah, yeah, there's this project, that, um, this senior software engineer actually left. Um, she's on maternity leave. Do you want to pick it up?

Speaker 2:

I'm like yeah, sure, um, I talked to chris and chris was like if you are not sure, don't pick it up, but I. But then I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. So I was, it was very it was me actually having to crack a lot of things.

Speaker 1:

I was on red bull um every single day. Red Bull's the sponsor of the show. Make sure you highlight me.

Speaker 2:

I was on Red Bull every single day. My manager would say today I always come here and then you're there, and then when I'm leaving, you're still there. Because, I knew exactly what I wanted, so it was good. I finished the project, it was good and everyone was very happy.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my gosh, give him a round of applause. Stepping into that and this is like in terms of just, uh, seeing the results, right, um, and just understanding, like um, I remember chris coco, come and tell me about you. It's like yo, this guy's on fire, just watch, just watch, and I'm like yo. All I had to do is look up jira, look up in the review board, see what code you're submitting, what's going to master, what's going on the main branch?

Speaker 1:

I was like, damn, today you're out here killing it right um, and and you are right, it's like when, when you first got there, it definitely was a culture shock, because 2015, I was only there maybe two years in, and I tell the story all the time that I used to just have these blinders and then when I take it off, I couldn't really see much. Um, but the thing that I love about the story is it wasn't like, hey, I just went there to kick my feet up. No, I went out there to go get this hustle, to understand how this stuff works, because you were there before the manager and you were there after the manager. So big round of applause and definitely that drive is something I've always admired and definitely appreciate you showcasing what they were telling us that we didn't have out there, which were people that look like us, that could go as hard as them, and you were going harder than them. Big shout-outs to you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Definitely man so 2015,. You ended your internship, you went back to school.

Speaker 2:

Or was that the end of the year? So it was quite interesting. 2015, I was done. I was told I had an offer to come back to Twitter. 15 I was done. I was told I had an offer to come back to twitter. Like yeah, good, awesome. I was also done with my final year project um in school, then um, so the only thing I needed to do was to defend the final project and then ibm came knocking you hear how people one day when they come knocking and he said ibm came knocking at the door.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so um, I was like, yeah, sure, I could do it as well. So I went to tj w Watson the research center there Somewhere in Austin, new York, and so I spent about like maybe seven weeks or eight weeks there, did a bunch of things about big data for them as well. Then, like we had to set up some interesting clusters and process some data and I left and then I graduated in December. Then I started working at Twitter in Januaryuary oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

So they tried to get you, but the offer wasn't good enough. I didn't want to go back. Yeah, yeah, he got a little bit taste of twitter the culture, the vibe, the setup right. Ibm is still old school, fortune 500, you know, archaic in some ways. Big shout outs to their engineering because we wouldn't be here without them, but it wasn't the same thing it wasn't, it was not.

Speaker 1:

I think it was majorly the culture actually yeah, yeah, and you know what um and I hope the audience can hear this is, as you'll hear me talk to a lot of peeps or tweets that I had and I remind myself is like, uh, twitter culture was one of those driving factors that made it so appealing for people to come and make these big contributions, because we haven't really talked about the peak. It's. Just look at the skill set that was coming out of Twitter, and now you can understand why because the culture itself allowed you to be Tunde, to be yourself. Yeah, that's what's up, man, and big shout outs to IBM not making the offer. Oh right, let me say it don't matter what they was offering. I was going to be back in SF, that's true.

Speaker 2:

That's what's up, man.

Speaker 1:

So when you got back from Twitter and I'm just remembering that scenario is, you and Teo were one of the first engineers that we had come through, and then y'all were off and then we were like, oh my gosh, where are our interns at, when are the young black engineers at? And then, all of a sudden, I seen you back on campus. I was like, yes, that means you're here full time, right. What team did you join when you came back and what kind of stuff were you working?

Speaker 2:

on then. So when I came back, I was on the data, the data streaming team, and what we were responsible for was so people used to connect to Twitter data and then they would get a stream of data consistently so, like the fire hose type thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the fire hose.

Speaker 2:

That was the team I was on for like one and a half years and there was several different projects that we had to work on re-architecting things. I remember one single project I actually worked on. It was a project where, like, we had a lot of instabilities in our streaming, partly because of the distributed log and all of the things that we had then.

Speaker 2:

And so one of the things I was told to do is to create a way to ensure that it was more stable, and the reason why it had to be stable was because we have very, very important partners.

Speaker 2:

I can't mention them here because yeah they're very important partners and we're making several millions of dollars on that project, and so it was the project that earned me moving from my level one to level two. But it was a very intense project, like it was the first time I was being like, moving from a rookie to like, stepping to big legs. Yeah, but it was a very intense project, like it was the first time I was being a rookie, like moving from a rookie to like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, stepping into big leagues, yeah, yeah, yeah, especially when they start putting dollar figures around it. Yeah, and how long this API is down, or how long the stream is down, you know how much this clock over here, this metric that's climbing right, can really put a lot of stress on you. Yeah, yeah. But what do you feel like you? You that helped you overcome those I don't want to say scared, but more moments of anxiety what helped you overcome those?

Speaker 2:

I think one is, uh, my manager. She was very, very um helpful. Um. I remember one of the times like the stream was down and it was because of an oversight from my own and and one senior engineer wanted to stop I mean jump in to come help and she was like, um, she came to me because she knew I was down and she was like hey, um tundi, do you have this?

Speaker 2:

and I was like yes, and so she told the senior engineer to back off a bit yeah um, and so that boosted my confidence in a way oh my gosh, that was really, really awesome shout out to the good manager yeah, that's that, that's one. The second thing also was the community of black engineers that were right before me, like people like you and Chris Coco Big shout outs. Yeah, they were.

Speaker 1:

Shout out to Chris Coco, not to Bobby.

Speaker 2:

Hello, come on man.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to get a shout out tonight. Come on, d. Come on, my man. I was holding it down back then. All right, all right, I was holding it down back then. Alright, yeah, shout out to you, man.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate you yeah, so it was very easy to actually go to people and say, hey, I have this problem please could you help me and it was not necessarily like it, you don't have to do my job, You're not doing my job. But then the fact that I could see you and then you could say, yeah, things are fine a lot of that was also very helpful. So even if I'm spending extra hours in making sure that things are fine, it was like oh sorry, someone said it's going to be good, so I think it's going to be good, that's big, big shout out.

Speaker 1:

So a round of applause for Tunde. I think that sometimes, when you don't have that pressure, you can't really understand what it means when your manager comes by and gives you that look like yo, you got it. And then you look back and say I got it. And then that trust, right, that right there is, like for me, one of those pivotal moments for you that impacts you throughout your whole career, because you know how to say yes, I got. Or to say no, I need some help, right. And and let me tell you, the thing that was so great about you is that I didn't have to worry, right, and if I didn't hear, oh, tunde did this, and that I never heard, that I didn't even know this story was there.

Speaker 1:

And how much pressure and moments you had right there and how strong you stood at that moment to be able to resolve the issue, have the backing of your team and then, ultimately, being the results of you know, your growth as an engineer. Because, um, I know what that heat feels like, right, I know what them eyes look like. Or, or, jack is walking around the office like yo, when, when this, when the pipeline gonna start opening back up type stuff, um, and just know that uh, that skill set. It was so great, uh, for you to have that experience in that environment and feel safe, um, and I'm just happy that I contribute just a little bit right just just by me being around I tell mentees all the time that while working at twitter, one thing that I always felt like I provided was being a cultural mentor.

Speaker 1:

Right, it's like just letting you know, like, um, yeah, we are working at this high level. Um, yeah, it definitely can be stressful, but if I can hang out here and still have this way of being myself, then I know that's going to empower you. So I'm happy that you received those rays I was sending your way, even though I wasn't planting seeds, but I was sending you sun rays. But big shout-outs to you, big shout-outs to you, my brother. Now, tech-wise, what programming language were you writing most of that stuff? And then doing Scala, yeah, scala. We had Mirror on the show the other day. A big shout-out to Mirror what up little bit, hello Mirror.

Speaker 2:

I'm on record.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and she was like yo Scala was the language, scala was the language. So how do you feel about Scala now versus you know when you first started working on Scala now versus you know when you first started working on Scala?

Speaker 2:

So the language I was very used to was Java. Yeah, and when I picked up Scala, scala was like what's this? I was really good at. Scala, and so it became much more easy to write as I continued working on it. And one thing, about Twitter is that you also work with very smart engineers, and so the way people write code it's quite interesting. I have a friend who actually would say that some people could write code in such a way that they would make a ball bounce like a physical ball bounce.

Speaker 2:

That's how good engineers were. So when you start reading code, it makes you think in very different ways as well but yeah, I'm very comfortable writing scholar. Right now it's my private language oh, that's what's up.

Speaker 1:

That's what's up, big, big up to you. And and I'll tell you, like um, for me, once I understood the value around choosing the right language to build the type of infrastructure you need, then you start to understand why it's structured in certain ways right and then you take advantage of certain features and abilities. Um, but scala was the first time I've ever heard. It was at twitter. I was like scala. Who I was like what? Like dang?

Speaker 1:

there's another one of these type of abstracted type language code on stack. I was like, all right, then I stayed far away from it. I was on one of those engineers like yeah, you need, you need to go talk to Chris Coco over there, he'll give you a feedback or give you a review type stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I stayed. Oh, it's Bash, python, golang, a little bit of C, but that's about it Other than that, and I stayed away from JavaScript because I wasn't a front end developer. I'm not one of those that likes I can't even put clothes together, so how are you going to ask me to make a web page? But definitely, but one of the other tech that I think I'm really interested in diving in with you a little bit more, because I remember there was a project that you and I almost got to work on. It was with Kafka, right? Yeah, so tell us a little bit about Kafka and that project that we almost worked on, or you probably went off and did it yourself because we were starting to talk about it.

Speaker 2:

But what happened with that? So I remember approaching you guys. I think we needed a dedicated cluster yeah, yeah aurora, um, to be able to run our kafka kafka stuff, um, but then we just uh couldn't get to it um, maybe because the streaming team actually was, um, not that I mean it wasn't the team I was on yeah there's a dedicated streaming team that is actually responsible Messaging team, I think that's exactly what they were called.

Speaker 2:

That was responsible for all of that, right, and so they were able to figure it out. But then the reason why I approached it then was because we needed something dedicated in such a way that we didn't have noise enables that could actually affect the streaming of our own data. But yeah, kafka was good. I think we moved away from EventBus. Eventbus was like the technology that we built in-house ourselves.

Speaker 1:

That was built in-house EventBus.

Speaker 2:

It was built in-house. I think there was a time where Kafka wasn't so stable and we needed something. It wasn't stable to handle the kind of amount of data that we were processing, and so we had to develop something in our so eventboss was developing now, but then eventboss wasn't also catching up, and so it became so good yeah, yeah that we needed to move into kafka as well.

Speaker 2:

So we did that. Um, yeah, but kafka was good. I played with a bunch of things in kafka as well, like, just not just from the streaming point of view. Yeah, um, there was a project I actually worked on which was actually very interesting, which is that, like you know, we add, like um, so we're always streaming data to people, but then, for some reason, we also needed to be in a place where, like, we could replay that data to people, like when they add an outage or something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah and so we had to rejig and retweak kafka in such a way that it was like not just a streaming platform anymore, but then it was somewhere that we could store data for a very long time.

Speaker 1:

Like a DVR, Like oh yo, I'll go right back to the DVR and play it again, Exactly Wow.

Speaker 2:

That was exactly what we thought Kafka to be, so we had to provision, a cluster. So I think all through my career, even up until now, to some extent I look back to that and I think that I was able to think of something in a very different way, like you think of Kafka as a database not necessarily as like a streaming infrastructure. For sure, and it's one of the highlights of my career, to be honest, so I'm really proud, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'm proud of you too, man. It's like when I remember you came to me with this project, I was like what would you work it on again? You, you, you working on kafka. All right, tell me what you got going on. Oh, that's what you want to do. Wow, look at my guy and and I will tell you in terms of just um, the importance of that pipeline or that streaming service that you were uh building, building and enhancing and and supporting by far is one of the biggest money makers over there outside of ads type stuff, right, I mean, in general, it's like the world would not know that someone like you were the one that was holding it down right, that's crazy, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

and definitely one of my highlights in my career hearing you being one of those, you know, core engineers supporting that platform. Um, and, yeah, mesos and aurora with noisy neighbors has always been one of our biggest challenges. Um, but, um it in terms of who was trying to catch up with us, uh, kubernetes just couldn't get it there yet by the time I was out, so we kept maintaining our stuff, um, um, our own, even though it was open source and stuff like that. Um, but the key thing that I wanted to make sure the audience catch out is like the engineering level, right, it's like, if you know what Kafka is, twitter built our own version of a Kafka. Or streaming a platform called Event Bus and we built it, type stuff, and it's like that level of engineering is who we had opportunities to rub shoulders with. Yeah, yeah, how does how did that really, you know, affect your career, you know, in terms of just being exposed to engineers at that high level?

Speaker 2:

to be honest, I I remember I hadn't worked on a project by myself for a very long time. Um, when I was working at tutor, like it wasn't, like I had a side project, like tutor was my major project and I did it for a long time. And I remember picking up a project that was a side project and when I saw the amount of growth I had amassed over a period of time, then I knew that like yeah, I had done a very good job and it wasn't basically because I knew all these things myself. It was about like having to rub shoulders with, like some of the very smartest people I've ever worked with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Um, and it was, it was good. Yeah, that's what's up.

Speaker 1:

I'm happy that you had that type of experience, cause you know, sometimes when people run into smart people, you know they kind of have the opposite effect of that Right Versus, like really embracing it and understanding, like hey, next to them. Watch the reviews, read the code, start to understand why we're using scala, and then dive deeper. Oh, the light bulb comes on and then you walk into the room and you're the light. That's what's up today. Big shout outs to you. Now, one other thing that I wanted to give you some roses for um is uh, definitely wanted to see um. How did blackbirds, in terms of the erg at twitter, really impact you? And I definitely want to talk about Beats also.

Speaker 1:

So tell me Blackbirds and how that impacted you.

Speaker 2:

I remember Janet. You can't mention Blackbirds without mentioning her Facts.

Speaker 1:

Shout out to Janet. Don't know who she is.

Speaker 2:

Sounds good, people 100% 100% good people 1,000 actually 1,000%.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, she's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Um, so janet actually was what was my recruiter before I was passed on to another one, but then she started as a one of.

Speaker 2:

That actually started my whole recruitment pipelines yeah um, but then afterwards it was, it was quite interesting to see what black birds actually did for me. Um, I can't go into some details about like a bunch of things right here, but then there were so many things that blackbirds actually was there for me. I can't go into some details about like a bunch of things here, but then there were so many things that Blackbirds actually was there for me, like in providing the community I needed, providing the help I needed, in bringing me to. I think one of the things that Blackbirds also did for me was that, like I was having conversations with like vice presidents of engineering and vice presidents I mean senior folks yeah in the organization and I don't think I possibly would have been able to do that without like the opportunity that blackbird actually provided.

Speaker 2:

So it was.

Speaker 1:

It was good yeah, that's what's up. And and a big shout out to to all of, uh, the people that, especially 2015, I don't know if you knew, but when you came in as an intern, uh, janet and company and like a group of 10 of us, were the ones that reignited it. So that's why, when you got there, the flame was hot Because we was right there. We was like, no, we need this, we need that. And then Janet was like I'm going to go find some. And he brought you and Teo here and I was like, oh, we got it. So it's something that I want you to know.

Speaker 1:

Like, um, you were like some of the first reasons why we started to go so hard, um, and then, when we knew how, like inclined in terms of y'all level of engineering and y'all can go ball anywhere, that's when Leslie was still there, right, oh my gosh, we was like we're running with it. We, we got exactly the examples we need the following year. That's when Meryl and them from Brown came through, right, and that's that's kind of like what kicked that and started off engineering, really understanding the value around it. So I don't know if you know that backstory, but janet, big shout outs to janet. Yeah, big, big shout outs to her. All right, but not only did that help impact your career at the beginning with internships, um, and definitely the beginning of your career with the teams that you were on and the peers that you had, um but you also decided to start to give back, too, because you created another sub ERG called Black Engineers at Twitter. So tell me a little bit about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you so much. I think it's also one of the highlights of my career as well. Actually, I started realizing that, like the more I became more senior, there were so many interns and junior engineers that we started getting into Twitter and I also had to have a flashback into how I started. It was so hard for me because so when you are on a team I remember my organization were like 40 folks.

Speaker 2:

And out of those 40 folks I was the only black engineer, and to be there and then asking questions and then not looking like you're really not so smart, especially when people you know back then I don't know what people still say like we can't lower the bar. So it looks as though like when you come in it's like they lower the bar a bit to get you in and it's really crazy.

Speaker 1:

That's a womp, womp, womp Facts and that goes to AR-15. And I'll tell you who that is a little bit later.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'll tell you who that is a little bit later. It's like, yeah, when people say like, oh, we can't lower the bar, you're like, oh, yeah, maybe they lower the bar just to get me in. But then so when people start hearing that it wasn't so good, so I felt like, yeah, I think we need an engineering team or a group of engineers where we can help ourselves. So, if we have senior folks or even managers. We didn't have a lot of managers back then.

Speaker 1:

But then if we?

Speaker 2:

have senior folks and maybe one manager. I think we could actually form this group and then talk about a lot of things that we don't know, and then, be able to have conversations around it, because there's a lot of technology that is out there that is very proprietary that we created ourselves and so many people just don't know it.

Speaker 2:

And so asking those questions to people that may not look like you and then you feel like you don't know something, makes it very, you know, not so great, yeah, and so I started it, and then it was great, um, and many people enjoyed it, um, I think, uh, we celebrated, but we celebrated a bunch of promotions as a result of facts and then we also celebrated a bunch of like eyes, like many staff engineers actually started coming into into today, and also yeah, yeah, big shout outs round of applause for today for putting that together.

Speaker 1:

Um, I came there and, you know, dropped a few gems definitely.

Speaker 1:

You know how I move right I just come in, drop a little bit of sauce and then that's it and watch people grow right.

Speaker 1:

Um, and it's always been um, one of my uh step backs, because one of the things that I've always done is even though, with my personality being this way is, like most people always feel like I'm the one that's in the front leading where, I'm the one that's in the back watching y'all lead right, and one of the things that just gave me that feeling, when I heard that you were putting this together and this is the person, this is the team, this is why you're doing it I'm stepping back like and all like.

Speaker 1:

This is the reason why I don't be the one in the front, because I want to see you get that type of moment and understand the value behind it. Because the way that you explain it is exactly the reason why you do stuff like that, so that others don't have that feeling and definitely give you a chance for you to really make that impact. Because the way that I mentor is that I'm not mentoring you, I'm mentoring the mentor, and that's what eventually became and big shout outs to you and thank you so much for those type of contributions because, um, I didn't have to be the one in the front I can be the one in the back dancing like yo who's that back there dancing, don't worry about him.

Speaker 1:

Big shout outs to you, big shout outs to you. And no doubt man, no doubt. So. Black birds, black engineering, black black engineers at twitter, um, and let's just, you know, get it out, because we know elon musk had this time that came there and he tried to shake the tree, ruffle the feathers I got out before I was trying to move.

Speaker 1:

I was like I heard winds of something I didn't know who it was, though, um, and I tell you I was kind of sad when I seen um, who it was, though, and I tell you, I was kind of sad when I seen who it was and the results of that, because I know, in terms of business-wise, that's not the way Twitter operated right, and I'm just more or less just trying to understand how that overall played out for you and definitely just trying to see if there was any feedback for you for Elon next time.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't go to the feedback part.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll leave that space open for later. That's for the what do we have? Patreon, if you want this on Patreon, honestly, yeah, I have thoughts.

Speaker 2:

I think. Anyways, it was quite interesting. He felt as though like I think I was in it while it was going on. I remember one day I hadn't been to the office because I was always working from home, and then one day I went into the office and it felt so dark and sad. I remember myself and some other colleague were just in a room like this and then having a conversation and then went to one colleague of ours not black, it was just there and then he looked so sad.

Speaker 2:

I think he's Asian and he possibly was worried about like his visa situation and all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it was extremely bad. I think there were so many rumors or so many things, and some of them came his visa situation and all. Yeah, yeah, so it was extremely bad. I think there were so many rumors of so many things, some of them came out to be true. Actually, I remember that night where, like everybody's laptops were just like dying in front of their eyes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and everybody was just typing and saying, oh yeah, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out. So many things were. It was was crazy, it was like rumors of war and then so many people getting killed and it was. It was just bad yeah um, my whole entire managerial chain was cut off like um while I was there, um on the in the first round, actually, because there were several rounds after yeah, maybe even five or six, I'm not sure, um, but in the first round I wasn't.

Speaker 2:

I wasn't impacted um. I think the major thing that happened was that, like um, elon started asking and saying that hey, I need people to work 80 hours.

Speaker 2:

You know every, every single week and all of that, and I was like, yeah, sure, I mean I could do that, but maybe it has to be my thing. I can work on your thing for 80 hours. But also in the fact that, like I don't think I saw the vision that you see for this company, yeah even though I feel like there are a bunch of things that we could do. Yeah, um, I think the direction in which you were actually taking it was not somewhere some way I saw it and so um.

Speaker 2:

so when he put out like the old label of, like choose yes or no, um, I didn't click on yes, I just I just left it, and so he told me to go and I was like, yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, hey, that's how it plays out, and the part that I really feel in terms of just you talking about it is the emotions associated with it, because people just don't know how we rode for that blue bird. It was different, right. We held it at a different level in terms of our contributions and also our commitment, right. Somebody's asking us to do more for something else that y'all don't even ride like that for. It's like yo.

Speaker 1:

I don't think we can keep that same momentum and I definitely want to show you respect for you know, being one of those that be like hey, I'm done, because a lot of people, like you said, were forced to be in that situation because they had visas issues, family issues, medical issues and stuff like that, um, and and a lot of people don't know what that feels like to stand for something like that and then obviously understand the results of it. So big round of applause for him to have that experience, uh, be able to tell your story, and I don't know if you know, but I'm working on a documentary movie stuff like that so tunday is gonna be, you know, one of our guests.

Speaker 1:

You know we're to pull up with you and definitely catch you. I will for sure. But let's go to some brighter topics here. So, after leaving Twitter and obviously having that type of level of impact, engineering-wise and technical and experience, what was your thing afterwards? What did you end up getting into?

Speaker 2:

So I decided to start a company.

Speaker 1:

Big shout-outs, big shout-outs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I decided to start a company. It was quite interesting to start and I always saw a gap in people being able to transfer money internationally and I felt like, yeah, I think this is a gap that I think I can actually feel at this point in time. And so that's exactly. You know, it's been good so far you want to shout out the name?

Speaker 1:

it's causal how do you spell it? So there we go, we're all gonna check it out and let me tell you when you, when your uh hit rate increases, it's because we dropped this podcast all right, but congratulations on that. So making the decision to start your own, obviously, is definitely requires some level of like all right, I'm ready to make this jump. So how did it feel, you know to to really jump into an entrepreneurship? Uh, from an engineer at the keyboard?

Speaker 2:

um, it's a different life altogether. Uh, you're both an engineer and, at the same time, you're the ceo of a company and at the same time, you're someone who needs to. There's just a lot of things that you have to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2:

So engineering is just maybe 30% of what you have to do. Like there's a lot more that you have to do. You have to worry about taxes, you have to worry about, like you know, getting funded. You have to worry about like so many things, and all of that is quite interesting like it makes you think about things in a very different way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, I think, um, I think I was talking, I was talking to you earlier, like even if I ever go back into a place where I'm working for some company yeah, yeah, there is a different way I'm going to view it, until they say I'm a different type of dude now I'm not the same type of.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm different type of dude. Now you need to.

Speaker 2:

You need to. When I think about things, I think not just about, like you know, um the code I'm writing, but then how does this affect the bottom line? Yeah at the end of the day, if the company doesn't succeed, you are not succeeding and you're the first out of your company, and so you need to worry about like what is this? How is this affecting the bottom line of the company? You have to to worry about like how much money am I spending?

Speaker 1:

on AWS instances. Oh, there you go how much money he's spending up on AWS.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have to worry about so many things and all of those things are quite important in being able to like run I mean run a very effective company.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And first of all, I want to commend you because, at the end of the day, starting a business or stepping away, like you said, the roles and responsibilities you didn't even know exist. And then there's the other part, in terms of just spending. It's like, hey, at Twitter, we spin up instances in Mesos and Aurora. We're like I forgot, I left them running. Now, nowadays you cannot forget stuff running in AWS, so that check is going to be looking crazy, but, um, I'm more or less what I'm really getting to is. I want to say congratulations, um, because I think, in terms of just iterating, where I know you have the capacity to go to, this is an iteration that I know you got. You got, um, and definitely I know you got a good team behind you, um, and yo, the tech hustle's here to continue to support. We'll make sure we blast your link.

Speaker 1:

I'm telling you when you see the numbers come up, you make sure you let me know. You say I was like what's up? I was like why is my financial system or my payment system in Nigeria is getting popping? Now it's because Bobby D dropped a new album. He dropped a new podcast. But he dropped a new album, he dropped a new podcast.

Speaker 1:

But definitely congratulations, and I always want to be here to support and, like I said, the next generation, the people that are listening to this. This just gives me even more ability to tell them that they can reach for them stars. I don't think that is just at the keyboard, but we have the capacity, the knowledge, the experience. Like you, were working on some of the not some one some one of the world's largest computing system building pipelines that if that thing went down, we had a tricker right there on how much millions were losing. Right? That knowledge, that experience.

Speaker 1:

I'm so grateful to see you continue to make that iteration. And hey, man, I gotta. I got a few things I'm working on too. So you know, I'm always trying to see how I can make some more. I can shave off a little bit of AWS, right, no doubt? No doubt, alright, tunde, so this is getting close to the end of our conversation and this is an opportunity for you, just like when you're in an interview. You know at the end of the interview they'd be like yo, so do you have any questions for me? So definitely, d H d hustle's queuing up because he's trying to see how true for other people says has said good things about me but do you have any questions?

Speaker 1:

for me is more or less, uh, the space that I'm giving you here.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think the question I have for you is what's your why for tech hustle?

Speaker 1:

oh, what is my why, forle? That's a great question. One of the things that I think for sure we're ready for it. One of the things that I think a lot of people have never got the experience is to experience what we experienced at Twitter in terms of the culture we created for you to feel comfortable asking questions and know that the response is coming from somebody that looks like you, but also that you know is not judging you based on your type of question that you have. So my why is to really impact the next generation, as physical, as direct as possible, and building a community like the Tech Hustle has proven so far that this is something that's missing in our industry. It's missing from like hey, I heard about AWS. They say I got to go attend this six week course, but can you tell me what AWS really does and how they really making money or how we can develop the skills to close that gap? And it's definitely been able to prove my why. Why am I doing it? Because I'm influenced that next generation.

Speaker 1:

I have a saying that I tell a lot of people when they ask me why and what is? I have this personal legend that I'm pursuing. I don't know if you've ever heard that before, it's written in a book that I recommend. It's called the alchemist and it's talking about you defining your purpose in life. So one of my personal legend in life is to teach the next generation how to store time. Teaching them how to store time. Imagine time being stored in a Kafka pipeline. We'll never lose that. We'll never lose that data. We'll never lose the ability for us to recall, and that's really the foundation why this community is so that I can teach the next generation. So that's my why? Player.

Speaker 2:

I'm out here, I'm out here, I'm out here. You have, you have this very um lovely, great that's, that is very um, it's palpable, so yeah thank you, I'm sure you're good.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, but d hustle what. What was you? This is my guy Before you know. He was trying to pay Meryl To see what she was Really gonna say. Myesha, he asked her two times the same question To see if the answer Was the same thing.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna ask you now. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Let's get the real gritty. Let's see how it is we're working with Bobby Tell me the truth. There's times that you Wanted to drop. Kick him. Nah, no, no.

Speaker 2:

Kick him, no, no, no um, bobby was too awesome to say anything bad about him I appreciate you all right.

Speaker 2:

Um, I don't know if you've got anything very different, but I'm I'm countering everything. I'm sure it's a good job, but bobby's so good. Um, he has a very different way of actually doing a bunch of things. It makes you feel very comfortable around him and it makes you feel as though, like you belong. Um, and those things are quite not. I mean, you don't really get it, and to get it in such an environment as we walked was very was different, and it made it very easy for people to be able to feel like oh yeah, we're actually in this together, yeah um, yeah, so bobby's awesome for sure, I'm giving you 40 dollars to tell the truth.

Speaker 2:

See the thing is that D Hustle don't know see.

Speaker 1:

D Hustle. Don't know that? It's like on a cruise ship, right? Yeah, you don't know that there's an engineer in the back watching the motor turn and making sure it's turning right.

Speaker 1:

You don't know that that's the level of engineering that I had to go down to. And then I also get invited up to the captain's table at nighttime so we can talk, I have a drink and have some really good food. But it was definitely an honor to be a part of your journey and, like I said, I'm always here to support and obviously I pull up to SF and it's like who do you want to talk to? Send Tunde a message because, he's definitely somebody.

Speaker 1:

I want to make sure I give a chance for the audience to hear your voice, hear your journey, understand your impact and we're all here following along. So I definitely want to say thank you so much. My man always alright D Hustle. I think we're closing now. We're getting to the end. Turn it up a little bit more player. Oh, that's my jam right there.

Speaker 2:

I want to thank.

Speaker 1:

Tunde for coming in, yeah for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1:

The truth, the truth, the truth. So I want to say thank you all so much for tuning in. Our episode of Backstage with Bobby D, I told you I'm about to go see some peoples. I told y'all I'm going to bring that tech with me. We're really talking some high level stuff and definitely want y'all to tune in because we're leveling up as we go. And now you heard my why. My personal legend Teach y'all how to store time. If y'all ready, come and holla at your boy, as always, d Hustle. Thank you so much player. Thank you for having me Always always, and thank y'all so much.