Episode 340 | Kurt Mackey - Improvising Opportunity

Guest:

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Kurt Mackey talks with Dave Rael about Fly, family, software, business, and improv

Kurt Mackey ran tech for Ars Technica, then left to build compose.io (prev. MongoHQ, YC S11), which was sold to IBM. Now, he's a cofounder of Fly.io. He also does a little improv at Second City in Chicago to keep things interesting.

Chapters: 2:16 - Dave introduces the show and Kurt Mackey8:05 - The context, history, opportunity, and status of fly.io12:51 - Surprising user behavior13:57 - The reasons for open sourcing fly.io17:03 - Kurt's experiences with Ars Technica18:48 - The similarities and differences between building systems and building teams24:50 - Humility, business, improv, and technical talks30:46 - The tendencies of developers to undervalue themselves and Fly's equity grants to open source developers33:54 - Kurt's story of failure - family difficulties with Kurt's travel, spending time and money of distractions39:15 - Kurt's book recommendation41:57 - Kurt's top 3 tips for delivering more value45:12 - Keeping up with Kurt

Resources: Fly Second City Diminishing marginal utility Content Delivery Network Kurt on Ars Technica Obie Fernandez on Developer On Fire

Kurt's book recommendation: How to Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie

Kurt's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Get over your pride and get something out there Optimize for success, don't try to prevent failure Build real friendships with people who have common interests