RWL221 Exploring the Future of Remote And Tech with DashKite’s CEO, Dan Yoder

Alex from Remote Work Life:
0:00

Hey everybody, it's Alex once again from Remote Work Life, and today I have an exceptional guest, a guest that I've had in the past, that I just had to have back again because we had such an interesting conversation last time around and I can't believe it was the best part of three years ago that we had this conversation. Oh, there you go. So much has happened, so much, so much, and I think, in that case, hopefully, we've got quite a lot to talk about and catch up on. I have Dan Yoda with me today, who is CEO of DashKite. You can find DashKite at dash and kite k-i-t-e dot com. As I said, dan is the ceo of dash kite. Dash kite is the next generation no code and dash kite is developing a revolutionary generative programming platform for building consent driven applications without writing code. Dan, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast again it's a pleasure to be back, Alex.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
1:08

Yeah, it's great. I was just going to say thank you for the chance to be a guest here again.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
1:17

Yeah, the pleasure is mine, Dan, and, as I said, a lot of time has passed since we last spoke. And, as I said, a lot of time has passed since we last spoke and obviously I want to catch up on where you are at the moment with DashKite. You've launched this new startup. You're still with PandaStrike, of course, but, yeah, tell me what's happened, eddie.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
1:45

Just summarize what's happened in the last few years since we last spoke. Well, when we last spoke, so DashKite was there, it existed. It was in research mode that we were researching this idea of being able to do what's quite a mouthful generative programming for consentful applications, so we can get into what the heck that all means. But we were sort of in a research mode, sort of researching the viability of what we wanted to do. Since then, we've moved into kind of a product development mode, and that's why we're talking about that more, and PandaStrike, which is a development services shop that I founded back in 2012, is still is still up and running, uh, but uh, yeah, the focus in terms of you know what I'm, you know what I'm sort of uh talking about these days is is more on the dash guide side, because we're now into doing product launches, and so that's very exciting phase of the company's evolution and uh, as with paddle strike, dash kite, fully remote business as well.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
2:57

I'm. I'm assuming, of course, you've that's. I think, if I remember rightly, you've been developed. I mean it's been over a decade, is it since? You've been building remote development teams and remote tech teams? Is that right?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
3:10

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so we PandaStrike when we started PandaStrike, we decided that was going to be remote development and with remote developers, so so not just remote from the client's perspective, but the developers themselves are remote. One of the interesting things that's happened in the last several years since we last spoke is we've we've branched out more internationally, so it's it's quite fascinating. We have developers now all over the world, so we've really leaned into the remote aspect of it and and so. But Dash, dash kite uh, you know, obviously we just that model works extremely well for reasons that we can get into, and we decided, you know, obviously we're just going to continue building on that experience with dash kite well, as we're on on the subject of dash kite, tell us more than about because you mentioned generative programming.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
4:06

and what is that all about then? What are you building there?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
4:11

Tell us a bit more about that, well you've probably seen some of the hype around generative AI and the GPT and all this, and so, if you think of it, this isn't that, but the word generative is the operative word here. So it's similar in that, instead of providing, like, if you look at something like chat GPT, for example, right, you can say something like you know, tell me a joke and chat GPT will come up with a joke, right, and so the generative aspect of that is that you can give sort of high level direction and you get much more detailed feedback. Right, you go between. The way we think of it is in terms of this notion of integrative levels. So you have, like, in biology, right, we have, you know, there's cells and then there's organs, and then there's the body and then there's, you know, communities and cities, and these are all different integrative levels. Right, when we're talking about cities, we don't have to talk about the cells in our bodies, and so you can think of generative being. I want to give you a description at one integrative level, but you're going to do something at the level, the levels below it. So, uh, when we talk about cities, we can imagine that there are all these people and the people all have, you know, bodily organs and those organs of cells and we know all that there. And that's the idea of generative, right, you say something at a high level and you get this detailed. You know, I tell me a joke and you get a whole joke, right?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
5:47

So the generative that's what the generative is about is being able to provide some general input. I want a website that does these things and you get back an actual website that has a reasonably coherent design and that's in contrast with, say, visual programming, right? So where there are tools like Webflow, for example, where you would go in and you basically you're doing more or less what a code-based programmer would do. You're just doing it visually, right. So generative programming is intended to give you this idea that you're providing this high level direction and the details are taken care of. So it's more like how you might talk to a designer instead of having to learn how to do design.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
6:32

And then the consent part of it. So the consent driven applications, and part of the reason that it that we're able to do the generative programming is we're focused around a specific kind of application that we call consentful, and there's a great movement. In fact, there's a website that I'd like to call out called. It's called Consentful Tech. I think it's Consentful Tech IO, and it talks about this notion of consent in application design. It's a really neat movement.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
7:02

It has to do with things like well, primarily around the idea of of giving and giving applications consent. So if I'm going to use your data for something, you have to give me consent for that, if right, if you're gonna, you know, keep track of something, uh, even if you don't have any nefarious intent with the data, you still have to ask for consent. And so if we think of ourselves as having digital bodies that's the metaphor the consentful tech movement is based around. And just as you would need consent for, you know, with respect to your physical person, we need to embrace this idea that we need to. We need to as, as, as application developers and in the technology business, we should be doing the same thing. We need consent from uh with respect to someone's digital body.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
7:56

So being able to build those kinds of apps, which is highly relevant in an era of GDPR-type regulations, where I think there's going to be more and more of that kind of stuff and more and more not having that consent is going to be a liability.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
8:15

But even if it wasn't, it's the right thing to do, right, so there's an ethical aspect to it. So what we want to do is make it easier to build consentful applications than it is not to. I think part of the problem right now is that it is very difficult to build consentful applications, and so if we can make that the default, the easier thing to do, I think most people would prefer to do the right thing. It's just, you know, when the right thing and the easy thing are at odds, or when the right thing is the hard thing, it, you know, it just makes it less likely that people are able to do that. And, um, and particularly for groups that have not, you know, been historically included in being able to participate in the tech industry or build applications, generative programming promises to make it remove a big barrier to being able to participate and to build applications and make it possible to empower people, and so, while doing that, we want to be empowering them to also do the right thing in the form of building consentful applications.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
9:28

And is there, because I know you mentioned that you're in startup mode is there an example of somebody who, or some sort of use case you can share with us in terms of, or an example case study that you can share with us how you're building something out with DashKite?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
9:48

Well, at the moment we're still sort of doing private beta type, so we don't have an actual case study or a customer, a Lighthouse customer, that we can point to. One company we have been working pretty closely with is the company uh called homeroom, and they're focused on helping people build uh communities around that are sort of consentful communities in discord, and so we've built some of their back-end tooling and that's we're doing some work with them. We've also worked uh, uh, not as a company but uh the you know the as individuals working, you know, bringing our past relationships in. We've worked in on an experiment, uh uh, an experimental community called small town, which was is essentially focused around uh, you know, communities where it's kind of like, imagine it's sort of like a consentful next door, but maybe a little bit more in a federated model. So more like uh like being able to run your own instance of of a community uh platform with moderation and so forth.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
11:01

It's all local, as opposed to being uh something that has one big platform with one one moderation authority or for what might be thousands of individual communities, which doesn't always make sense and the I the last time we spoke um it, you left a real impact on me in terms of the way you approach work and your, your, you know, just your general, your general ethics and and I it made me think something I wanted, honestly I, when I, when we left that particular podcast, there was so many more questions I had to ask you, but obviously we had limited time and this is another reason I wanted to get back, get you back on today, um, and from what you're just describing, that even the fact that you're building something now that it seems as though you know obviously ethics and empowering people is something that is really um, well, people in general are something that's important to you is. Is there a particular I don't know a story or experience in your life that has influenced who you are today and and help you to define who you are?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
12:13

yeah, you know it's. It's funny, uh, I don't know, there's so many, I think, um, a lot of, so there's some that were negative. There were some of. It is like just having experiences where you know you felt like maybe you could do more, or um, or you know um opportunities that that were there to do, you know to do more um in terms of, uh, creating value or uh, you know um just doing the right thing for the customer, and you know those moments of frustration can contribute to it, of of saying, hey, you know, I would like to, I would like to be part of doing something, you know, that makes the world better, rather than just I think everybody kind of has that right People want something that's fulfilling you want to feel like you're contributing, more than just making, know, a paycheck, ideally, and so, uh, seeing seeing that and then, and then just being inspired by seeing people who have just, you know that have done that right, that uh have said, okay, you know um, I, you know people who, in many cases, could have done many, many things, but they chose to focus on trying to make the world a better place. So I don't know that there was a specific you know situation or experience. A lot of it's just people that I've seen that have inspired me and helped me realize, you know, it is possible to do that.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
14:07

It is a choice.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
14:09

It's difficult to get to a position and I think this is, you know, part of part of this idea of empowering people partly comes from realizing in my own life experience just how hard it has been to be in a position where you can and you know this, doing the podcast right, I mean getting into a position where you know you, you can make that choice is, you know it takes a lot to get there and maybe, if part of what we want to do is be working together to, you know, make it a little, make that choice a little easier for people, right, so that more people can say you know what I want to do, something that's, that's meaningful.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
14:49

I kind of had a got a kick out of the quiet quitting phase, right, because I feel like part of what was going on there, right, was people finding that maybe they did have a choice and you know that they weren't. Maybe you know it's like well, okay, there, you could look at that as a failure of the workers, but you know, okay, but maybe it's also a failure of the companies employing those people not to be able to inspire or motivate them, right and uh, so so it's been a. It's all these experiences, I think, um and and so many mostly, I think, just seeing amazing people doing amazing things and then saying, you know, I, I want to try to be a part of that, if I can got it another.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
15:35

You mentioned people who have inspired you. Are there any you know, people that specifics that you can share with us? Who who's inspired you in your, in your career or just in generally in life at all?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
15:51

uh, yeah, um, I kind of hesitate to call anyone out because there's just so many people and I.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
16:00

It's like one of those things we're're going to miss it, but, yeah, I'm going to.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
16:02

Yeah, but I'll mention one person just as an example, just because they came to mind, but Laura Weidman Powers, who is an extremely talented person and she could have done a lot of things, and she could have done a lot of things and the things that she's chosen to do she decided to do she founded Code2040, which was focused on addressing DEI in tech, and then has gone on, as I think she's now still, as a partner at Base10 Ventures, where she is working on a fund that contributes the earnings from the fund to hbcus.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
16:51

So I mean, that's just an example. There's lots of other people, but just this just came to mind. Uh, so you know, uh, you know, that's a great example in the sense of somebody who's just extremely talented, could have done anything really, and that's, those are the, those are the kinds of choices that she made, and I find that kind of thing would be very inspiring to know that those people are out there, right? You know, there's there's. For all of the bad news and the negativity that we hear in the world right, that we hear in the world, right, you know, there are an awful lot of people just out there doing great work day by day and they don't necessarily get a lot of headlines or accolades, but collectively we're all making the world a better place. And it adds up all these little things, all these little things that you can do.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
17:47

It may not seem like much in any individual case, um, but it, you know, it adds up and and and in the end that's what it takes, I think and I think that's that's one of the um, the things that inspire me to to not just start this podcast but also continue, because I've had my my share of moments where I think to myself is, am I doing the right thing here?

Alex from Remote Work Life:
18:11

But I think I want to be able to put a spotlight on those people who are doing, you know, the, the work, the you know the ones that aren't necessarily heralded in the media or the ones that aren't necessarily shouting about what they're doing. I want to be able to use this medium to do that Because, like you said, people like Laura, laura Weidman Powell, if she's doing like powers sorry, she's doing that work for DEI, then that's that's really. It's really important. And do you think I mean because there's a lot that's been said about um under representation in tech and lots of people talk about diversity etc. In your do you see any sort of any changes or improvements in, in sort of take up for tech roles from from your you know, from your sort of sphere of your network, or just from a general perspective?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
19:23

I think the tech industry in general has just failed in that I don't think that they've made any progress that's worth. I think the progress has been made. There's individual examples I think of either within companies, where there are managers who, or you know, director or even VP level people who are really trying to do better Um, and outside the tech industry. There are probably a lot of examples I'm not as familiar with. I know the tech industry more uh, but within the tech industry, yeah, I think it's. It's just uh, uh, you know, just not happening and that's sad.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
20:08

It's sad and I think there's, like I said in my because I'm looking from a, I suppose, a recruitment, hiring perspective you see a lot of adverts um saying you know, we do this and we do that, we, we try and do this, we try to do that to encourage people from different backgrounds, etc. But for one reason or another, like as you were alluding to, it's not, it's, it's not quite happening, it's not, it's not quite um, it's not quite getting there but yeah, because if you look at it from a, if you look at it like analytically, there's just no evidence that it's improving.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
20:43

So there's all this talk for sure there's a lot of you know, like, like you said, the you know ads always mention it Um, uh, but, and you know there'll be uh, you know, on uh, like something like black history month or whatever. There'll be a whole bunch of rhetoric and activity around that, but in terms of meaningful change, in terms of the number of people that are being given opportunities, a lot of times, when you actually look at the data, it hasn't changed or, in some cases, actually gotten worse, which is kind of remarkable. Wow, and I? So I, which is not to be, I don't mean to be um, I think there's hope in that, in the sense of we just need to acknowledge that it's that bad and and maybe start thinking about in my view, I think you just got to think about uh outside that ecosystem, right?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
21:40

How do we? You know we can't let that ecosystem right, how do we, you know we can't let that ecosystem continue to determine how our tech industry evolves? It's, it's broken and I don't as far as I can tell, I mean, it's been decades. Now it's not. It's not changed, so it doesn't seem like it's going to be fixed from within yeah, I think it's like you said.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
22:04

I think it takes from a grassroots level to to do things and I what I'm seeing is a lot, like I said, lots of talk around um recruitment and hiring.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
22:16

I am seeing, I guess, examples of sort of gen z, gen z sort of ceos, um trying to I don't well, yeah, they're trying to um be actively involved in either setting up um businesses or setting up um, because you see a lot of uh like coding schools and sort of coding workshops and boot camps.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
22:45

Why I'm seeing a lot more is is, for example, the coding boot camps that encourage women, for example, or those that encourage people from you know different backgrounds to to write. I'm seeing a lot of those because a couple of years ago it was a case where I the coding boot camps that you saw, the actual fees to get into them were prohibitively high, whereas now you're seeing probably a few more that either they won't. They'll either charge a much lower fee or they'll encourage people to sign on and won't charge them until they secure a role at the end of it. So I don't know if that's an attempt to encourage more people to get involved with tech and I don't know if there's any data that it's even working, but from the sounds of it it doesn't seem as though it's making an impact where it needs to be making an impact at this point.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
23:50

Yeah, I mean I, I think. So there's a couple things there that are sort of interesting. I mean one there was sort of a predatory inclusion aspect to some of the coding schools, but it's if they're moving towards a model, uh, where they're not charging or they're deferring the fees. Maybe, maybe that, maybe that's a little better. And I also think the generational component is, is possibly a factor.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
24:14

I'm not sure what the you know, maybe things as Gen Z begins to get more you know, authority and is more empowered to make change, maybe maybe then things will really will change.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
24:30

That's I would, I would love that. I hope that's the case, uh, and in any case, I do think that the key is saying well, we just need to invest in the in in these groups that have been historically excluded from the tech industry, because the talent is there right. So if you're, if if you're looking for talent and you have the resources, the smartest thing you could do would be to just invest in developing that talent, because they're really, you know, the idea that you're short on talent is is just a product of the fact that you're not willing to invest in developing it, and so a school where you're not willing to invest in developing it. And so a school where you're saying, okay, well, we'll, we'll defer the fees, or, even better, would be just a scholarship system that evolved from the big. If they're really serious about it, they're saying, well, we don't have enough talent. Well then, you know, develop the talent. They've got the money to do it if they really wanted to solve the problem.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
25:36

Yeah, I agree, develop the talent. They've got the money to do it if they really wanted to solve the problem. Yeah, I agree, and I think and this is why again, another reason for me remote work. I probably didn't realize how powerful remote work is until you know I really got into the sort of conversations like I'm having with you.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
25:46

Um, the power of remote work, because I speak to quite a few people in things like, well, different remote teams, different remote leaders. More and more I'm speaking to women, for example, who have been able to use remote work to get into tech roles or at least continue their career, continue building their careers, and in some cases they say to me it just wouldn't have been possible if I wasn't able to work remotely, for example. So I think if you're aligning sort of the power of working remotely with what you're saying, dan, in terms of the scholarships and the training aspects of tech, I think that's a powerful sort of like combination that can really get people, or encourage people to get into tech and not just get into it, but just really build careers and see a pathway where they can actually build a career.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
26:59

Um, that's a great point about remote. I mean remote removes another barrier, right? Another form of exclusion is saying, well, you have to live in this very expensive city and, uh, or you've got to take several hours out of your day to commute, right, so that just eliminates a whole bunch of people that either don't have that kind of free time to be commuting all the time or don't can't afford to live in San Francisco, or you know, uh, wherever um, remote empowers people to, you know, wherever Remote empowers people to, you know, by removing those barriers. And it's not quite the same and that's why it's been a little bit, you know, predictable maybe, but also a little disappointing to see a lot of the big tech companies insist on having everybody come back, but the same it is. The idea of investing in, in training and skills development is it's just another form of that right, it is just removing these, these barriers.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
28:00

I, I have a feeling that if we were to do that, if we collectively can remove the barriers to people participating in the economy fully, like I don't even think anybody has any idea what's even possible with that. You know, we've been essentially kind of it's a very self-defeating thing to exclude so many people from participating fully in the economy, so many people from participating fully in the economy. If what you want is economic growth, then you want, like you know, maybe benefits a few people, but I think in the end it's collectively just a terribly short-sighted decision to not invest, to not remove those barriers and hopefully over the next decade or two we can obliterate those and see what the economy really looks like when everybody is able to contribute this is it and I think that it was bought.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
28:56

That whole scenario you've just described is the contribution and the pooling resources to get to get the you know, get people exposed to tech, exposed the right trade, so they get back into the market.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
29:08

So over the last couple of years I've been doing a lot of coaching and um. One of the set, one of the areas that has really brought home to me is is, for example, usually um single moms, single mothers so, and single moms between the ages of, say what, 27 and 35, where I had a couple of a couple of my, my clients where they desperately wanted to either rejoin the workforce having worked in tech um, or they wanted to launch their career in tech but there was so many different hurdles and barriers for them to to do that and there was no sort of path, there's no sort of clear pathway for them to to do that and there was no real sort of affordable resource for them to do that. And it just, it just made me think to myself. You know, I think, yeah, I think certainly there could be a lot more done from well, on this side of the channel, anyway, on this side of the ocean.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
30:17

I think the same is true here, yeah.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
30:21

Definitely, because the governments here, for example, the government here is not. I saw lots of holes in the way that they're sort of all these skilled people, as I said, between those ages who are experienced workers that you know, desperate to get into it, but there's no, as I said. So you think it's the same. It is the same over there as well, right?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
30:43

Well, certainly that aspect, yeah, I mean, if you look at, I mean I'm like you, I'm speaking anecdotally from from people that I've talked to and but it's sort of also just logic that kind of makes sense. I mean, child care is a thing, so if you're um, you know, if you go back to the commute scenario, right, so, um, if you've got a commute in that you're paying for child care for that time, right, so there's an actual cost. And so now, whether you're actually paying higher rent or you're paying more child care, either way, there's this cost for you to participate, not to mention you're not able to be present around your kids. And I think remote is one of the one of those things that fundamentally changes that dynamic. Right, the commute's gone, um, the a lot of times.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
31:33

Remote makes sense in contexts where flexible hours make sense, which helps me, helps, you know, if you're a single parent, it helps you be more present in your, your, your kids' lives, which I think is, you know, a good thing obviously, and kids' lives, which I think is you know a good thing, obviously, and you know so. And then, and then you get into things, like you know, the training aspect of it, right, which is again, if you can do the training online in the time that you have right, the time that you can make. It makes it just much more, much more likely that people are going to be able to get the training and then participate and then get a good job if they can work remotely. So it's a complete game changer for some people, absolutely.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
32:23

It is. In fact, it's one of the words that somebody I interviewed the other day used. She said it was a game changer for her. That somebody I interviewed the other day used. It was a game changer for her. Not just mothers, but myself. I'm a good example myself because there was a point where I was at home looking after my daughter and remote work enabled me to continue with my career, not have any sort of real gaps in my career, but at the same time, you know, see my daughter take her first steps, for example, or even just just take her to school. Things I used to take, I used to take for granted taking her to school, you know, to be honest with I, mean, how do you right, how do you even put a price on something like that?

Alex from Remote Work Life:
33:06

yes, that's amazing it is, it's, it's, it's. I was looking back on some pictures and I was thinking to myself this would not be impossible had I not been able to work on a remote basis, because I was a point, there was a point where I was working sort of in an office and I was doing, you know, it was quite is very heavy sales environment, heavy sort of client pitching environment where we had to stay late to do these pitches and sometimes if, if we did a pitch after, we would, you know, we'd go out after the pitch with the client, that sort of thing, and not get home till sort of nine or nine o'clock in the evening sometimes, or even if there wasn't a client pitch, it was sometimes actually just just the work itself would mean, you know, not getting home too late and not, you know, go going, leaving in the morning whenever before everybody got up, and when I got back home everybody's in bed.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
34:04

So it was just, it's incredible right, right, yeah, yeah, they put such a constraint around things because you, you know, you, you can't sort of take a short break from work and then hang out with your kid and then go back to work because there's an, there's a commute involved or there's, you know, there's things like well, can you get to the meeting on time, right, on time Right, and uh it, you know, I think one of the things that, um, I had always sort of accepted, cause I'd heard this a lot from people when I would, you know people who are, in, uh, office bound environments, if you will, and they would sometimes say well, you know the kinds of things that we're doing. You know, we have a lot of meetings. It's really would be really hard to do remote, and I always kind of accepted that lot of meetings. It's really it would be really hard to do remote, and I always kind of accepted that. And I think one of the things that the pandemic did is it exposed that as as not being the case. We might've I'm not going to say it was a lie, because I think a lot of people really actually didn't believe that it was possible for them to do their jobs without being in an office, but a lot of people were able to do their jobs right and it turned out. I mean, you know, the whole economy didn't just collapse, like a lot of things just kind of kept going and certain sectors actually boomed, and so it turns out that that's a myth. It's not really the case that in fact it's.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
35:26

You know, I think for a lot of people what they discovered is that they could actually do their jobs better than they were doing before, and so what's interesting has been a little bit disappointing is to see a lot of companies say, well, okay, everybody, it's time to come back in the office, but I don't think you're ever going to like that's never. You can't unsee that. You know, like, even people that are going back into the office are kind of like well, I, I now, I know, right now, I know this isn't really necessary, yes, and I think that's going to. It may not things still playing out, but I think, because the discussions now are different, right, people before and you would know this even better than I, because you were doing this podcast and talking to all these different people about it, not to turn this around start interviewing you, but I'd love to hear your perspective on whether this has changed, because before it seemed like there was a lot of people saying, well, it sounds nice and everything, but I don't think it would work here and I don't hear that now anymore.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
36:32

It's more like, well, the company's making us come back. There's not really as much of a thing of saying nobody's even really pretending that it's necessary, at least that's so. My question to you would be is that what you're seeing in these when you're talking to people on the podcast or outside of the podcast, I guess?

Alex from Remote Work Life:
36:55

Yeah, I think what I'm seeing. I mean, like you're saying, dan, I think the data shows in terms of productivity, productivity it confirms that people are certain sectors were just as productive, if not more productive, working remotely, working from home. Um, I, I tell you what, as well it it's see what the pandemic has done, is it obviously emphasized that the emphasize that it was possible. It's also, um, like you said, pushed remote work to the forefront as a possibility for the future. Um, and again, anecdotally, I I think we're not just anecdotally but I think lots of in terms of the job seekers now. Job seekers now perhaps in a situation where they're probably more um specific about the kinds of roles that they want now. So they're asking for, if they can't do remote, then they're, they're fully, fully remote, that is, they're being a bit more specific about the, the sorts of work, so the sorts of arrangements that they want. So if it's, for example, a couple of days here in the office, a couple of days at home, you're seeing a lot more um, in fact, you're seeing a lot more companies, and this is I don't. I don't like this aspect, but you're getting lots of companies advertising roles as remote, but then, when you get to the actual point of the interview, um, they start saying well, actually it's two days, you know, two days at home, or one day at home and the rest of it is in office. So they they're realizing that more people are asking for remote opportunities and they're putting those sorts of things in the job adverts, but it feels like it's under false pretenses and it feels like it's kind of like a bit of a bait and switch going on to attract people and then sort of change the goalposts because they realize that, you know, remote roles are basically the flavor of the month, it's not the flavor of the decade, to be honest. So, yeah, right. And the other thing is as well is Speaking to somebody else on the podcast, somebody who's fully into remote work.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
39:23

He's the CEO of Time Doctor and he was.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
39:26

I don't know what you think about this, but in terms of the predictions, obviously you're getting lots of um bosses now telling their workers to come back into the office.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
39:37

That has been a bit of a trend in 2023, um, but what he predicted was that that's going to play itself out through 2023, start 2024, mid 2024, but beyond 2024 and 2025 you're going to see a lot more companies, for example, the companies that establish themselves as fully remote. In 2020, at the sort of the end of pandemic or the height of pandemic, you're going to see a lot more of those types of companies as a matter of course, so to speak, or kind of. Those will sort of companies will be more popular, so that, in turn, will mean that the you know there's gonna be more companies offering fully remote opportunities, for example. Um, I don't know what your thoughts are that. Do you think there's going to be a more of a uh, more widespread remote opportunities into the future, or do you think there's still going to be a demand by bosses to get people back into the, into the office?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
40:44

well, a little bit of both. I think a lot of the established companies, particularly in tech, are probably going to continue to insist on having people in the office and they have, you know, enough momentum from a you know scale and revenue standpoint that they can probably get away with that. But I do think what's gonna, what that really is going to mean, is they're going to lose a lot of talent over the next few years and a newer generation of tech companies that is remote friendly or not even remote friendly, just remote like as the default right. Yes, before the pandemic, I mean, part of PandaStrike's whole strategy was just that because we were remote, we could get talent. That you know. It's not as much of an advantage though. So, to the point of the Time Doctor CEO, we don't recruit that way anymore. I mean, we still recruit as remote being a feature, but it's no longer an advantage for us. There's enough other companies saying that they're fully remote, that that doesn't distinguish us anymore, and so I think that does speak to the sheer number of opportunities that are available for people that are fully remote. And I think, between that and the pandemic, exposing as a myth that you know that you can't really, you know, I think people now realize I can do my job remotely. They now are acquainted with the benefits.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
42:20

Like, I just spoke with a friend of mine who during, you know, while his company was remote, uh, he took the opportunity to move to a location that where he preferred to, he wanted to place, that he wanted to live, and uh, the company is now saying that they want everybody to come back to the office and, um, you know, so he's commuting. You know, I don't like that's changed the equation for him. He's now realized, like I can just live wherever I want, I can live where I want, I can have the lifestyle that I want, and whether that means spending more time with your kids or living in as part of the country that is, you know that you prefer. It's different for everybody. But everybody now realizes that you know, they know whether or not, they know firsthand now whether or not their job really does require them to be in an office.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
43:16

And for the people who kind of know that it's a myth that they have to be there, I think it's changed the way that they're thinking about it and they're much more likely to say, well, maybe I should just go find a company that is that will embrace this. So I do think it may take a while to play out, but I do think it's going to be. It's going to continue to shift and I also think it's going to be a big advantage for companies. If you're, you know, in terms of being able to track talent, it's a bad if you're're, if you're still in that mentality that you're saying, well, we're going to have everybody come back into the office. I mean you're, you're going, there's going to be a cost that you're going to pay in terms of the talent that you have available to you to execute, and it'll eventually. It takes a while, especially for these big companies that have, you know, just such massive revenue streams, but they're, you know it'll.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
44:07

It'll eventually start hurting them competitively I think so, and in your case I mean not the questions I get about, not in your case, but the questions I get a lot about remote, because there's there's a whole heap of people looking for remote opportunities, um, and not necessarily knowing how to, whether that's I don't know, whether that's sort of being employed, or even freelancing, or this is kind of three questions in one, I guess. So, for people looking for for employment in remote, freelancing, or even just to do something, um in remote, you know, in a remote aspect, maybe we should just start with those are employed how would you then because obviously you hire for your different teams um, how would you suggest that people start looking for remote opportunities that suit them?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
45:09

in terms of, I'm not sure, like what do you mean? How, how to start looking so?

Alex from Remote Work Life:
45:16

I think one of the the the biggest, uh, I guess, um difficulties. I guess there's lots of competition for remote work and there's so many different. There's different people professing to, to have remote roles. There's some unscrupulous people sort of posting roles that are remote and it can be quite difficult actually to differentiate between the businesses that are offering legitimate roles and those that are not. So I guess what I'm asking is what? What would you say? You know somebody who's looking for a remote job, a remote role? Um, how would you sort of recommend they go about not only looking for a role, but also they're engaging with a potential employer?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
46:13

I see, yeah, as far as the first part of that, I actually am not that. I mean, we we still just kind of run ads and we have our network that we put the word out when we're looking for something. So there's nothing. I don't have any particularly useful insights there as far as like, where do you go? I think remote is now common enough that pretty much you know any job board or any any recruiter is. You can tell them, you can hit the flag I'm looking for remote or tell a recruiter I'm looking for remote, um and um and just look for the remote opportunities. But then when you're really engaging, I think there is some questions you can ask that can help sort of differentiate.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
47:01

You know, one of the most simple things is you know how much of the company is remote and you know what's the commitment to remote. Is it, you know? Is there any? Is there any plans to whether they're in the next six months or year or in the indefinite future? Is there any plan to say you're going to want people to come back into the office and you know if hopefully they'll, they'll be honest about that response. But if, if you're, I mean and I would say if you're kind of concerned that maybe they're not being honest, then you know that's a whole different problem. But there's also sometimes the fact that the hiring managers themselves may be being misled. So to take that into account, I think you know one of the things that you know is useful is to kind of get a sense of to what extent has the hiring manager completely adapted to learning how to manage remote, because managing remote means you're not doing bodies and chairs right. You don't look around your office and go okay, everybody's here. They appear to be working.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
48:10

I mean, it's funny because I don't know how many times people would ask me or raise the objection. You know, how do you know that people are working? Which I always thought was we might. I think we might've talked on this in the last, uh, the last time I was on your show. Uh, because it's a strange question to ask in the sense that it sort of implies that there is that you don't have a way of measuring the productivity of your team, like even on a just even on a gut level. I don't necessarily mean that you know you're sitting there counting widgets, but just having a sense of you know well how productive are people being, that's part of being a good manager. So I think if you ask people about how do they assess things like how do you measure or assess productivity, you know how do you give and you know how do you provide feedback, so that I know what I need to improve on or do better. And those are good questions anyway.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
49:09

But remote managers will tend to give, I think, much more concrete answers because they will have been and they will be, they will have adapted to say, okay, well, I can't see everybody, I can't just go around and chat with people. So I got to actually kind of know how to determine who's getting what done. And if they've got good answers to those questions that don't depend on people being in an office, then there's a good chance that at least the hiring manager is completely committed to remote. You know whether or not. I think at that point, if you, if you're not sure, if it's a big, sometimes these big companies, um, you know are, you know it's hard to the hiring managers don't always know for sure. So I think in those cases you can always say well, know, let me ask some questions of the HR people. And if they're like yes, we're 100% committed to remote, but if they start dancing around the issue, then probably they've been in meetings or something where there's been discussions about, you know, the possibility of asking the employees back of asking the employees back.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
50:32

Yeah, it's uh, I think the the process of job search, and it's always been about asking questions, but I think even more now it's it's even more important because of the there's so there's so many different uh, there are so many different questions to ask now. Uh, just so you're clear on um you're you know what you're getting into as a job seeker or somebody who's looking for an opportunity. So I like that question what commitment do you? What's the commitment to remote work? That's a pretty good one and it tells a lot. That should tell you a lot, I think. So, yeah, thank you for that, dad. And in terms of um, in terms of dash kite, then, um, what, what's on the horizon for for you, dan? What's on the horizon for for dash kite, uh, in the future?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
51:19

well, so we have our first um. Well, thank you for asking that question. Uh, first of all, uh, we have our first product out, which is a, a simple. It's called dashkite db and it's a simple, doesn't require any programming type of database that you can create the database very easily. You go in, click, boom, you have a database and um, and then you can, you know, put things in and it's not. There's not a lot of tooling around it to make it easy to put things in and out. It's really just part of a roadmap that we have.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
51:52

The next product we're going to be launching in July is called Sites, and Sites is a. It's a generative website builder, meaning you know, you can essentially just start putting content in the site and the the application figures out, you know how to, how to display it so that it looks very nice. So it's kind of it's kind of like a cms that also knows how to do web design is maybe the way you can think about it. Well, we'll hopefully have, you know, a nice. Well, we'll have that, that playing. We're planning to do that in a launch that in July and maybe have a little bit of a little how to video that goes along with that, to show people how to use it. Uh, and then and then from there, uh, we're going to make it so that it's more interactive, which is why the where Dash Guide DB comes in, because, uh, you know, just to be able to do simple things like a form, like a signup form.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
52:56

You want to store that data somewhere. So we that's the, that's the immediate roadmap we're pretty excited about. Well, by getting our first product launch, that's always exciting, exciting milestone. There was a long period of time where we were kind of in research mode, trying to um, you know, figure out what we wanted to do and whether we could do what we, what we wanted to try to do, and I think we've had some really good results come out of that, and so it's exciting to get to this point and we're really excited about, you know, sites and the roadmap from there which will build on that and get us move us towards this vision of just empowering people to who don't have traditional programming skills, whether they're visual or coding, to be able to create interesting applications.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
53:50

No, it sounds good and, of course, we'll be keeping an eye on DashKai on you as well, dan. There's one more question I wanted to ask you before we start to wrap up, because we've talked a lot about work, we've talked a lot about remote work. But when you're not working, what kind of things are you generally? But when you're not working, what kind of things are you generally? You generally do if you're not, when you're not working, or do you work all the time?

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
54:13

well, I try to. I do work a lot, but I try to make it sustainable and I I think actually one of the things that I often tried to counsel other entrepreneurs on is to get out of the grind mindset. I think the startup grind thing is is a somewhat toxic and harmful mentality to be in. Uh, because it it's not, it's, it's not usually. I think there's maybe times in your life or you know, I don't want to say that if you're doing that, that it's you know. Maybe you know what you're doing and it's okay, but for a lot of people it's pretty unhealthy and there's just so much talk about grind, grind, grind.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
54:54

That's how you get an advantage, and the reality is, a lot of times, past a certain point, there's kind of diminishing returns. Right, there's only so much productive energy that you have, and then you have to kind of recharge and live to fight another day, uh, so you know, I, I live out here, marina del rey, which is I'm very fortunate to be able to live here, and so I can go down. You know, I go down to the beach. Uh, you know, just sometimes just stare at the water and that becomes part of.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
55:22

I find that very. It's a strange, I don't know why, but for some reason the just being around the ocean has this effect on me of just refreshing me and clearing my head and, um, you know, and uh, I enjoy, you know, I I've been watching, uh, some, some shows. I watched the last of us, which thought was great, and uh, been watching succession recently, which is, uh, which is a kind of a fun, if, if, very warped, uh, I don't know, I don't know if you're, if you're keeping up with any of those, any of the shows, but well, there's one show that I was watching.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
56:03

I mean it is quite warped, um, it's quite old but breaking bad. Oh, that's one of my favorites. Oh my gosh. I, my, my wife started watching that and I was thinking what's this that she's watching, because I don't normally watch netflix. And then I started sitting down to watch it and I was thinking this is really. It was really addictive for me and I've actually started to watch it from the beginning again.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
56:27

It's great, yeah well, it's one of those shows where that actually there's a lot of little things that you notice the second time, yeah, that are hinting at what's going to come down the road and uh, it's. It's a rewarding show to watch twice plus the. The visual storytelling in that in that show is is just kind of fascinating to watch. It's very engrossing just on its own, but if you enjoy that, when you're done with that you got to watch better to call saul okay better calls.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
57:00

Okay, I'm making a note of that. My trusty pen yeah, he was a good character in that, but I mean, for me there was, there were so many characters in that you could just create a film around. It's like even mike, you know, the mike, the guy with the bald head, um dang, yeah, I could be. Yeah, but anyway that was like my.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
57:20

That's kind of what better call saul sort of picks up on right. It's not just about saul, it sort of dives into like how did all those characters get to where they were at the beginning of Breaking Bad? And Mike is definitely featured. And, yeah, we need to do another podcast, or you should do another podcast on Breaking Bad.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
57:45

I could easily do that. I could. That might be a podcast idea for me. Bad, I could easily do that. That might be a podcast idea for me there. I'll make a note of that as well. It's a podcast idea for the future, but no, it's been great. Dan, the thing is, whenever I interview you, I've always got more and more questions that I want to ask, but of course I don't want to take up too much time because I know you're busy, so maybe there's a part three to it, who knows? But thank you for being with me again on the Remote Work Live podcast and I hope to again speak to you in the future and I'll be sure to keep up to date with what you're doing.

Dan Yoder, CEO DashKite:
58:16

Yeah, it's a pleasure. First of all, I always enjoy these.

Alex from Remote Work Life:
58:29

And the two that we've done have been great, and let's maybe not wait, uh, three years. Definitely the next one. Absolutely not, absolutely not. Once again, thanks, dan, and I will be in touch. I'll be speaking to you again in the future and keeping an eye on what, uh, you, pan strike and dash kite are going to be doing. Thank you well. Likewise, take care.