Authority Issues

Authority Issues

By Rachel Perkins and Kendall MillerBusinessCareersManagement
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Authority Issues episodes

  • Episode 100: 100 means 100 percent done, right?

    In this episode, rachel and Kendall talk about:

    • Crushing Kendall's dreams
    • How much rachel missed her own home and bed
    • All the biking Kendall did in Spain
    • Fraud avoidance via CarFax
    • The varying qualities of our guests
    • rachel's propensity for initial kneejerk low assessment of every recording
    • Our lack of investment in recording quality
    • The breadth and scope of our interviewees and their employers
    • What we've been bad at
    • The frustrations of trying to get guests to talk about themselves
    • How well we balanced each other's extremes
    • Episode highlights
    • Our varying assessments of how well we know each other
    • Unexpected listener vectors
    • Humanizing our heroes, possibly a little too much?
    • Being prepared to stop

      • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

      33 min
    • Episode 99: Sonja Mathews (Nonprofit Exec, formerly VP roles at USAA, PepsiCo)

      In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Sonja talk about:

      • The fact that this podcast is not sponsored by USAA
      • A journey that started with childhood on a "poser farm" in North Carolina
      • Driving the tractor as a path to an enjoyment of adventure and power
      • Discovering that being a defense lawyer meant you would represent a lot of guilty people
      • How Kendall ruins everything
      • Being the data pusher and getting hooked on her own supply
      • The Stephen Covey 7 Habits seminar, aka a sausagefest
      • Early interpretations of leadership as a command and control process, feedback from other managers, being curious, being willing to apologize and grow
      • Kendall gets his due, FINALLY
      • Learning more from mistakes than successes
      • That there's a difference between listening and "waiting to speak"
      • The fun of building and running her own "retail lab" aka fake grocery store theater for research
      • Advocating for the strategic pre-meeting when decisions are being made
      • Reasons to switch to the nonprofit world, including a cancer diagnosis
      • What strong 501c3 nonprofit board leadership looks like
      • That all workers deserve joy in their work
      • The tragedy of over-volunteering, trying to extricate herself
      • Recommendations for exploring the Olympic Peninsula
      • Friends: you should make some and spend time with them :)

        • You can find Sonja at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonja-mathews-63a6a02/

        Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

        52 min
      • Episode 98: Ali Shahriyari (Reality Defender)

        In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Ali talk about:

        • The rarity of a "traditional" computer science background
        • Antique hardware
        • Learning a lot in the fashion business
        • Why startups are more fun than big companies
        • The need for deepfake detection
        • Measuring performance
        • Designing to mitigate the abuse of your product
        • Lack of interest in hierarchy
        • The difficulties of balancing work and life
        • Sailing, and having a skipper's license
        • The importance of remaining calm
        • Getting pwned in your own interview process
        • A recommendation for watching Terminator 2

          • You can find Ali on Twitter at @A_Shahriyari and on LinkedIn at:

          https://www.linkedin.com/in/alishahriyari/

          Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

          48 min
        • Episode 97: Artificial Intelligence, LLMs, ML: is all the hype warranted?

          In this episode, Kendall and rachel talk about:

          • rachel's need to finish things and coping mechanisms around that
          • The recent spate of cold weather/storms and a tale of Kendall's friend and the whisky night
          • (This podcast may be sponsored by Friday Deployment Spirits, i guess)
          • An unsurprising objection regarding terminology
          • How Kendall is obviously a Markov Chain bot, and how have i never noticed this before
          • The fact that AI-directed research is nothing new
          • Public access to AI-type tools and how it has expanded the hype cycle
          • Environmental concerns around resources required
          • Robots and why they should just exist to do stuff humans don't want to do
          • Implications of the mismatch in public expectations vs the reality of what AI is actually capable of
          • Losing the ability of finding the needles of useful information in the haystack of real and generated content
          • How the hype is definitely hype but it should still be in your pitch deck
          • The word rachel was looking for: Captcha
          • Usefulness as a writing tool, but not as an author
          • Kendall's tantalizing taste of socialized medicine
          • rachel recommends: Shelter Point distillery's Smoke Point whiskey (Vancouver Island, BC)
          • Kendall recommends: barrel-finished/aged gins
          • rachel also recommends: The Future by Naomi Alderman
          • Kendall also recommends: Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

            • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

            53 min
          • Episode 96: Lessons learned, values earned

            In this episode, rachel and Kendall talk about:

            • rachel's stuffed animal ownership
            • Podcast homework
            • How busy on top of busy Kendall is
            • Ungulates and double welt pockets
            • The power of understanding motivation
            • Wil Wheaton's first law is also Kendall's first law
            • Context is for kings
            • Digging into bridge burning
            • Unpacking what "I love this job" really means
            • Being a person who works hard
            • An agreement to play a shit-giving game of cards
            • Why rachel retired (redux)
            • Why Kendall is the Patron Saint of Whimsy (hint: it's because he wants to make you smile)
            • Recommendations:
              • rachel is excited about new work from James S.A. Corey (the people who wrote The Expanse Series)
              • Kendall is looking forward to his dad's memoir

                • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                49 min
              • Episode 95: Seif Lotfy (Axiom)

                In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Seif talk about:

                • The pressures of what your parents want, in various cultures
                • Quitting a "good job" because they made you a manager
                • Bringing your team with you to the next company
                • Open source culture and the meritocracy
                • The tensions inherent between product management and innovators
                • Respective hirsuteness
                • When it's the right time to go off the rails
                • Acknowledging a need for the rails
                • A team as a functioning organism, nerdy giant robot references
                • The gravitational pull of excitement and going off-plan
                • Recommendations for "Getting to Yes," "Getting Past No," and "Drive"
                • Smelling things!
                • Reverse engineering what your kid wants

                  • You can find Seif on the Axiom Discord as "Seif"

                  Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                  49 min
                • Episode 94: Kids: What are they good for? (Absolutely nothing/everything)

                  In this episode, Kendall and rachel talk about:

                  • Maritime traffic and the construction of cruise ships
                  • How hard it is to be a foster parent
                  • Kendall's new booze company: Friday Deployment Spirits
                  • Improvements in Kendall's family life post-return from Portugal
                  • rachel's reasons for choosing to not have kids
                  • Why being a woman might impact this perspective
                  • Kendall's awareness of not being an 'equal partner' in the raising of his kids
                  • A lifechanging interaction for Kendall
                  • Why maybe you should get a dog instead
                  • Making the assumption that your kids will take care of you when you're old
                  • The relationship between leadership/management and parenting
                  • Sexism and Kendall's thoughts on having daughters
                  • Not wanting to bring kids into the world we're leaving them
                  • How many kids is enough kids
                  • Recommendations: rachel is looking forward to reading Starter Villain by John Scalzi, Kendall recommends The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and a podcast called If Books Could Kill

                    • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                    50 min
                  • Episode 93: Ilan Rabinovitch (Scale Conference, formerly Datadog)

                    In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Ilan talk about:

                    • Moving from the IT to the Ops side of the house
                    • Being on both sides of "the wall"
                    • Wearing All The Hats at Datadog
                    • The nature of "glue work"
                    • How org size affects leadership roles
                    • Stretching and doing new things vs "fake it 'til you make it"
                    • How product management roles change as you move up the ladder
                    • The relationship between domain expertise and authority
                    • How sometimes it's not a democracy
                    • Taking a break to find out what's next
                    • The pressure of prior successes
                    • Learning how to chill out a bit :)

                      • You can find Ilan at https://www.linkedin.com/in/irabinovitch/

                      Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                      49 min
                    • Episode 92: Edafe Onerhime (JPMorgan Chase)

                      In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Edafe talk about:

                      • An early and enduring love of working with data
                      • Getting a job at JP Morgan Chase because of a tweet
                      • The kind of data problems one solves at the World Bank
                      • Turning a sexist assignment into communication of data issues
                      • Maturing beyond being the complainer
                      • The impact of giving a talk
                      • Gaining context as you go up the mountain
                      • Coming to the universal realization that, yes, people are the problem :)
                      • Style guides for goths
                      • Learning to communicate at the appropriate level, removing jargon
                      • Expressing what's possible to help someone solve a problem
                      • Approaches to decisionmaking
                      • Knowing when to let people learn for themselves
                      • Catering to the needs of a yearning cat
                      • Special contractor time math

                        • You can find Edafe at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekoner/

                        Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                        48 min
                      • Episode 91: Does your life have meaning? Do you know what it is yet?

                        In this episode, rachel and Kendall talk about:

                        • Kendall being back in the US, how many desks he has had to order, and the various benefits of Pickleball vs Paddleball
                        • rachel's reign of terror over a particular kind of cooking pan, being sick, and heading to Vegas to dj at DEFCON
                        • Why people might be pivoting away from their tech careers, looking for greater meaning
                        • What actually is a midlife crisis?
                        • Planning for your midlife crisis, understanding your path forward
                        • What triggers a midlife crisis? What does one look like?
                        • How unwillingness to talk about death as a society makes this a crisis for us
                        • Living life well when you know you're going to die
                        • The impact of having grown up in genX, the assumption that no one is going to take care of you when you're old
                        • Perpetuating a cycle of dissatisfaction
                        • The fallacy of "follow your dreams and everything will be fine" vs "enjoy the work you have because life is short"
                        • Intentionally doing things inefficiently in order to enjoy the process more, thank you Kurt Vonnegut (see https://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/kurt-vonnegut-farting-around/ for the full quote/story)
                        • How does one's belief in an afterlife impact these things?
                        • Whether having some control over the time and manner of one's death is comforting
                        • What living well means to Kendall, and his upcoming book :)
                        • recommendation from rachel: The Witch King by Martha Wells
                        • recommendation from Kendall: Eat something so spicy you leave your physical body temporarily

                          • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                          48 min

                        About Authority Issues

                        From the publisher's feed

                        Welcome to Authority Issues, a podcast about leadership, management, and competitive prescription writing.