1. What is the future of tech careers?
There is no one definitive answer to this question, as the future of tech careers will likely be influenced by a number of different factors. However, some analysts believe that the future of tech careers will see a significant increase in roles involving data and digital skills, as well as roles in the development and implementation of cutting-edge technologies.
2. What are some of the best ways to prepare for a career in tech?
There is no one definitive answer to this question, as the best way to prepare for a career in tech will likely depend on your specific skills and preferences. However, some general tips that may be helpful include studying technical subjects in school, obtaining experience working with computer systems and software, and developing strong problem-solving skills.
3. Are there any specific categories of tech careers that are growing rapidly right now?
Some of the fastest-growing categories of tech careers include positions in the information technology (IT) industry, the gaming industry, and the healthcare IT sector. Additionally, many tech professionals are now also finding employment in fields such as data entry and research, marketing and sales, and software development.
4. What are some of the biggest challenges that new tech professionals face?
The biggest challenges that new tech professionals face include learning new skills, adapting to changing industry trends, and building a strong network of relationships within the tech community. Additionally, new tech professionals often have to deal with intense competition for jobs and promotions, so it is important to develop a strong work ethic and stay up-to-date on industry trends.
5. What do you think is the future of tech careers?
The future of tech careers looks promising, as there are a variety of exciting opportunities available in fields such as data and digital skills, software development, and IT services. Additionally, technology is continuing to evolve at an alarming rate, so it is important for aspiring tech professionals to keep up with the latest industry trends. this conversation
In this conversation, Tobias Hooton and Nathaniel Schooler share deep insights to keep you one step ahead of the pack.
Tobias Hooton
00:05:26
But if you go and work as a junior developer for a development house, or you go and work for a, a actual software company, you’ll develop your software skill sets and you’ll development skill sets far faster than you would do in a consulting firm like an Accenture or a PWC or a Deloitte. But in those companies, you would develop your communication skills, your analytical skills, your team skills much faster than you would do a development house. So it’s sort of a quid pro quo where I see lots of success in, in aspiring developers sort of post junior post 2, 3, 4 years, P Q E is where they end up moving into a consulting firm like that. But they have the three or four years of development experience underneath them, which makes them extremely capable individuals.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:06:10
Yeah. That, that makes, that makes a lot of sense there, makes a lot of sense. So what sort of areas then are you excited about the most in, in, in technology at the moment in as far as like growth areas? Cause I’ve been sort of looking, I’ve been looking at like the WEF and you know, there there’s so much disruption, as far as these jobs are concerned. I’m looking over here on my second screen and it’s like, it’s just crazy. Like the amount of jobs, I mean, they say by 2025, this is what they’re saying. They say that 85 million jobs may be displaced and 97 million new roles might appear is basically what they’re saying. But what I also found very interesting was that in parallel, an additional 69 million teachers will need to be recruited in the coming years to reach global education targets. So with that in mind, like what, what, what excites you the most, like in terms of like the way that those are gonna change, do you think?
Tobias Hooton
00:07:12
I think true AI is a really interesting space currently and that’s drawing a clear distinction between what was old fashioned AI ie. machine learning and what now is true AI augmentation. And I watched again the other day, the Alpha Goat video, and you can watch it. You watch Alpha Goat on YouTube, which is a story of a team of developers that built the first true AI application to beat the world’s best players at go. And that application story is really interesting. It starts off with effectively a machine learning application that was trained by watching other games and watching the best masters in the world. And as soon started to play moves that no one had ever thought to play some really radical moves. And it’s like playing a game of chess and moving a piece completely out of the field of you and you go, wow, why has that happened?
Tobias Hooton
00:08:02
But the application knew what was happening and it’s the one of the first really elegant expressions of a true AI based application, truly thinking for itself. And of course there’s stories from things like Google as well, where they wrote the code to, to see their AI engine and, and then Google we wrote itself, which is kind of scary, but it’s gonna happen. So the whole AI space is quite exciting in general. Currently there’s also some really geeky technology things happening like, you know, a month ago, the RFC for HTTP three came out to brand new technical standard for how the web will effectively work. And the same is happening in other areas as well of development and, and technology. Currently, there are people are rewriting the rule book of, of how the old fashioned technical landscape used to work and that’s happening because applications, businesses, users now consume data in different ways, big data and big data analytics is also an area that’s actually quite exciting. Although it sounds pretty dull; understanding more from the data that we have, look at climate tech, for example, and an Ecotech and environmental tech right now, what’s really driving the actual coal face development of some of those new applications and platforms and technology is a deep understanding of globalized climate data. And that’s only done via combination of big data and AI
Nathaniel Schooler
00:09:27
I’m nodding away here. Yeah. Because, because like, I, you know, the things that AI can do and the things that, you know, analyzing more data can do that it’s it’s mind blowing. Right. I mean, I know we have a mutual friend like Michael Tobin and we, we did an interview. Let me see probably, yeah. Michael Tobin OBE, and I we’ve done like multiple interviews. Right. And I, and I, when you said you knew him, I was like, oh, he knows him. That’s interesting, cuz it is a small space, right. The cloud and, and, and you know, where, where you are in business, it’s a small, it’s a small area, right. When you get to a certain, certain level. And he was saying that he actually likes the fact that, that, that, that these companies know all about him because it saves him time.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:10:14
And, you know, because it’s like, well, okay, so this company, they know that I’ve, that I’m gonna run out of this or they know the lifespan of this item that I have. And then they get advertise in front of me or just give me a little nudge and remind me that I might need it. And do you know what I actually think that they know us better than we know ourselves, a lot of these companies or saying this to my daughter the other day. And it’s, and it’s just fascinating that, you know, there are other people on the other side of things that are really private and they don’t want anyone to know anything about them. And I, and I just thought it was quite refreshing that he, that he has that opinion around, around data and, you know, having these sorts of openness to it. Right. But, but what fascinates me is that the AI right now, and actually using these models to train the AI and those models can just be put straight in, right. Like it’s like a module, isn’t it? That they just take it. And it’s like, I need this data because I wanna train a model and just stick it straight in there. Right. It’s fascinating. All this stuff it’s it is. It’s incredible. Yeah.
Tobias Hooton
01:11:19
So it’s also, it’s also old hat too. Right? So AI has been around since, as long as things like Tesco club card, we’re first involved. People think about AI as being a new thing. But if we talk about AI as being learning from data for a second, which is in effect what it is that its purest sense, then that concept has been around for a very long time. And I, you know, I come from a security background. My background is all security. And I sort of had this internal conflict a while ago that between security anonymity. And I think there’s a fair balance to be struck. You have to accept that in a modern day and age, you are being trapped. If you have car insurance or home insurance or a mortgage or a bank account, you already have data being collected about you anyway, which is pretty much everybody in the world.
Tobias Hooton
01:11:59
So there’s always a level of data. It’s just how much you’re prepared to share. And actually you are perversely sharing more. If you have less about you. Cause the information that you are sharing is more distilled to draws a greater spotlight. If you’re sharing more data, you sort of disagrigrate by form. So there’s a few nuances that thought process, I think are quite interesting. I, I do agree with, with Michael Tobin’s perspective there about, you know, it is very helpful. There is definitely a fair balance. I suppose, the conversation isn’t really what data you are sharing is what your data being used for. And that’s a whole different conversation, a whole different topic, but yeah,
Nathaniel Schooler
01:12:39
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, I mean, throughout this, this series so far everybody I’ve interviewed, they, they kind of say, look, you know, it’s perfectly normal that jobs are gonna be displaced. The people that are get in essence, be forced into learning something new are the people who, who don’t wanna change and don’t wanna learn. Right. I mean, you are, I know you, you are similar, similar to me and Kim, like we are lifelong learners, right? Like we just wanna learn stuff. Like if there’s something new, that’s exciting and it’s, and it’s important. Like we just wanna learn it. Right. But like, but like a lot of people like complacency is in my personal opinion is like the, the biggest issue for, for people because they’re gonna be displaced and they’re gonna be like, well, I can’t really do anything right now. And, and I’m sort of stuck. And it’s like, yeah. And then they gotta go through this whole cycle of blaming other people and, and, and, and not look at themselves and say, well, actually, perhaps it was me, perhaps I needed to change or, or learn something new myself. Right. So if you got anything to sort of say about that ??
Tobias Hooton
01:13:49
Apart, I agree. I mean, so if people want to complain because they haven’t learned a new skill and their jobs have being displaced cause of that, I mean, these things don’t happen overnight, right? This will take time and it’s, it’s taking time. Yeah. It’s almost a generational change here. I mean, there is, there is no such thing as a job for life anymore years ago, there would’ve been and industries, all industries are moving so fast now, not just technology, but innovation in every industry is moving so fast in ways we’ve never thought of before. So if you are not open to change, that’s okay. You can, you can be that way. But there has to be a level of expectation setting that there will be some displacement of some type or your job role or form may need to change your career direction will, will just naturally deviate.
Tobias Hooton
01:14:37
Or you will unfortunately be pushed gently to one side is a fairly polarizing opinion. I know, but you know, change, we’ve been changing for thousands of years. Why does anybody believe it’s gonna stop now? And I understand the anxiety for some people that that’s uncomfortable, but actually some of the most positive things in life come from great change, certainly in career. And that we are so fortunate now that we have the opportunity in the modern world to try our hands up two or three different careers, if you so wished if not more in your, in your working life, that’s something that some previous generations never had the opportunity to do. So I think actually it’s a really fortunate position to be in.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:15:17
Yeah. I’m, I’m agreeing with that. Absolutely. I think that, you know, when, you know, I talk a lot about chatbots and stuff like that, cuz I kind of, I kind of studied marketing for a long time and, and I kind of really interested in, in the chatbot operative kind of roles. I think that’s quite exciting because you know, then you’re gonna be like, well actually this job’s not just a chatbot operative, you’re actually analyzing data. Right. So, so these people are gonna become really sought after, right? Like if you can, because the way that things are going, I don’t wanna talk to someone. I don’t wanna phone someone and speak to them or, or, or listen to a recorded message. Right. I just want to type a question and I want an answer. Right. So that’s just like one example, but there are, there are like absolutely like masses of these examples of, of things that people could just learn about.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:16:07
And I, I talk to loads of people and loads of people are like, really like, they’re like, oh, I’m really not happy in my job. They say to me quite a lot actually. And I’m like, well, you know, what, what excites you? Like what, what, what do you wanna learn about, right? Because you know, we can, you can go and learn about pretty much anything. Right? I mean, like you can, you can take a Mooc course, which is like an MIT kind of program 20 years. They’ve been doing these they’ve delivered like millions and millions of hours of free courses to people all over the world. And it’s like, well, but, and then the people are like, well, I can’t really do anything. It’s like, well, yeah. But what do you do with your time? Right. Oh, I sit there, I watch, you know, Coronation street, Emmerdale, or, you know, like just trash.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:16:50
Right. They just sit there, watch trash. And then they’re like, well, I don’t really, I’m not really happy with my life. It’s like, but what are you doing about it? Right. You could learn anything that you’re interested in. And I’m really fascinated by like this way of learning of, of being enthusiastic, like a child. So, you know, when we were kids, right, we, we would, we would lo like, we’d find something and we’d be like, wow, I love this. This is really exciting. And then, and then we’d like, just get into it and enjoy that kind of childish enthusiasm in my opinion. And I think that can be applied to all areas of tech, right? Like if you look at blockchain, you look at, you know, AI and automations and, and anything, you don’t have to be a coder. Right. But if you, if you are interested in something, you read 10 books or 50 books in a couple years, you’re gonna know more than like 99% of the population in that sector. Right. You know, so yeah. It’s just makes me smile when I, when I think about it, because it’s actually that simple, you know,
Tobias Hooton
01:17:53
It is, it is that simple, it’s pure form. It is that simple, you know, picking up on your point there about people about whereas time priorities and effectively, as you said earlier on together, people happy sit on their phone and browse through Instagram or Facebook for hours on end, but when invest half an hour, their own personal development. And what you see is that, you know, in companies and every company has these challenges, individuals will, will pass each other at different moments and you expected them to. And what normally sets them apart is that ambition to learn. And to further themselves, we talk about it is trying to create the environment for people to succeed. So we try and create the framework. So people have some time where they’re given a pocket of time, which they can choose what to go and do. And one of the be I, I sort of picked that up many, many years ago, by watching a man called Ricardo, send, do a speech.
Tobias Hooton
01:18:39
And he talk about, he talks about his terminal days. And my other half who listens to this one, I’ll be rolling our eyes. But what he basically says is that now we imagine as a company, if you were told you have six months to live, what would you do at that time? And you know, you’d go and climb a mountain or learn to pay the violin or whatever else. And they take that and they divide that into an hour a week where you are given that hour back to go and do something. And some employees use that to go in further themselves and better themselves. And some use that as vocation. But the overriding change in the business was anybody who took that hour to go on the better themselves or to learn a new skill was more productive. Cause they felt more fulfilled. That option was given to everybody. And some people just didn’t take it and both didn’t take, it had lower satisfaction. They weren’t progressing the way they wanted to. They weren’t having the engagement they wanted personally and, and professionally. So it is really interesting actually, if you create the space and time for people to go and do something about personal development or to learn a skill or to read, actually they will for fulfill more fulfilled and they will benefit themselves both professionally and personally.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:19:44
Wow. I can believe that. I can absolutely believe that. And it’s, it’s, it’s like if you don’t do sport, right. And you don’t have any hobbies, if, if you, if you’re lacking in, in that area, then generally you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be dis you know, disappointed with your life. Aren’t you really? Because you’re missing, you’re missing a key element. And like, this is really important. Like sport is like just, it’s a fundamental thing that you you’ve got to do. You know? And what I wanna do is I wanna find Pratikh job because you don’t know about Prathik do you? I’m gonna tell you, right. So the inspiration behind this series of, of technology jobs, this is with the blow your way. Right. So Prathik is, is in India. Okay. But he, he actually worked in the UK in cyber security. He’s a penetration tester.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:20:32
Right. So, so he’s an ethical hacker. And, and basically I spoke to him, I’ve been giving a little bit of encouragement, just coaching him a little bit to kind of just help him in his life. And he’s like, well, I really wanna go back to the UK and, and, and get a job there. And I’m like, okay, so, you know, how, how are you gonna do that? Well, you know, I need a visa and I need these things and I need this and I need that. I said, okay. And the beauty of it is Prathik is actually in a wheelchair. Right. And he has, he uses a one handed keyboard. Right. And, and literally, I was just blown away by him as a person. Like he’s so inspirational. So yeah. So he’s, he’s actually the inspiration behind this entire series. So I’m trying to help him to, to get a route into the UK, so into cybersec.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:21:22
So if you can kind of point him towards any, any directions, like he’s looking for a charity to write, to do some sort of freelance, like free, like volunteering at the moment. Okay. Cause there’s a government program. That’ll give him some sort of help when he fulfills three, three things out of this, the criteria they will help him to get. They’ll give him a visa, I think, to go back and work in the UK. So, and, and the reason he needs to be there is because he, he basically lives in rural India and he lives in, he can’t look after himself, his mom and dad have to help him, but in the UK, he’s completely self-sufficient. And it’s just seeing him talk about this. And my goal is to see him learn how to swim. So that was the, that was what got my brain thinking about telling you about Prathik.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:22:11
Right. And that will be an amazing moment, right. When, when I can say, look, I help Prathik to get a job in the UK, and now he’s learning how to swim. Like, can you just imagine that? Right. It’s like, it’s like, just, just incredible. And do you think that, that people need this sort of purpose in, in their jobs, do you think it makes, it makes like their work better and, and as well as like, you know, the exercise thing and the hobbies and a meaningful, do you think it’s like it needs to be meaningful their, their, their career or??
Tobias Hooton
02:22:45
I think people need to feel fulfill. And whether we phrase that as, as the job being meaningful, I think it might be in my view slightly wider than that. I think it’s, they need to feel professionally fulfilled or like they’re being supported and what they wanna be achieving themselves. But actually as an individual, I said this to Kim in someone’s moment in life, we’re only there for a snapshot of it. And we have to remember, we try and support that individual know outside the professional confine, everyone’s got challenges at home, everyone’s got their own personal and family struggles and in a commercial environment, in professional setting, we’re only aware of particular moment of someone’s day. I think people need to feel supported and fulfilled outside of the professional bubble, but invariably it’s, it’s intrinsically linked, right know, employers and good employers. I don’t like the, the term employer and an employee, but leader and team members slightly better for me, finding people that you can support and grow with is important. And I think, yeah, people should feel supported and, and somewhat driven. I think it’s important. Just know to feel valued as well. Right. And people need to feel valued. And you only really have that when you, you strike that cord of yes. I’m being understood and I feel supported really. And then you sort of feel valued and you give more. So, yeah, it’s, it’s an important two way principle. I think
Nathaniel Schooler
02:24:09
It’s interesting. Isn’t it? How we, how we sort of investigate like motivation and, and stuff like that. Right. I know over the last 17 years, you’ve, you’ve done all sorts of different roles in different industries, you know, and, and you’ve, you’ve, you’ve also been involved with recruitment, like at high level. Right. So what, what did you learn from that? Like, and, and take into your current like, situation, like what you’re doing now. Cause I know you build, you build tech businesses, right. And you grow them. Right. So, so what did you learn from recruitment in order to help you to do that? Do you think?
Tobias Hooton
02:24:44
I found, I used to find recruitment really hard; arguably one of the hardest areas of business when I was younger. Certainly I really struggled with it. Never really put my finger on exactly why that was, but I found it really, really difficult. I mean, everyone says don’t employ your friends or family. Actually. I don’t agree to that. I mean, I’ve employed some fantastic friends who have been fantastic supporters and huge advocates, certainly when times and business have been very, very difficult, they are absolutely fantastic. And I I’m a complete open book, right? I’m not gonna sort of shield people away from things. I’ll take this good. I’ll take this bad. Yeah. Well, if I learned more recently, I do subscribe to the basis that as long as someone is willing and able and they are, they possess strong personal skills. You can almost train anybody to do anything with the right level of leadership time supports.
Tobias Hooton
02:25:35
I think the question for businesses is really, are you able or willing to invest the time and energy and support in training that person to do the task or to enable them to do the task you’d like them to do? I do subscribe to trying to find people that fit culturally and ethically with what you are trying to achieve as a business. So, you know, in some of our businesses, we we’re fully remote or fully hybrid and fully flexible people come and go. They please we’re completely outcome focused. They care about what happens as a business, as the outcome, not how you get there. And we employ smart people that can make their own decisions and can do that for themselves. If you possess those sorts of skills, then you know, you’re rewarded effectively with flexibility to choose what you want to do when you need to do it.
Tobias Hooton
02:26:13
And that that’s fantastic for people, but not everyone can work that way. So some of the things we look for when we are recruiting is, you know, people that are driven personally and, and are able to communicate clearly what it is they would like out of the relationship as well. Cause a job is just a relationship, right? Just got a contract around it. Often when you recruit people, we’ve recruited people. Certainly it’s a lot of asking about, you know, what we need from the employee, what we need you to do for us. This is the specification. These are the sorts of tasks you’ll be completing. We encourage your recruits to ask us questions about what they would like to know. And we do things like trial periods. So no come and get to know us. Are we the right hand for the right glove? Who knows if this marriage is gonna work, let’s find out, you know, it’s stuff like that, which is a bit new.
Tobias Hooton
02:27:01
And we would do this for like five years, right? So this isn’t like a new thing. Certainly the new ways now of recruiting are kind of tricky. So we have a development team, a large development team and a growing a development team and everyone’s fully remote. And that’s kind of tricky how you recruit people that you’ve never even met face to face. I like to shake hands and see people sort of get a judge of character. It’s kind of hard to do that over teams or slack. So still overcoming those challenges. And I think that’ll be a challenge for a little while longer yet, but certainly I subscribe to the basis of, can I bring someone to the company who fits culturally with what we’re trying to achieve? And if yes, then we can help that person fulfill the tasks for role we need to fulfill. As long as they’re bound, culturally will be okay.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:27:47
That’s fantastic. Interesting. Michael Tobin says a lot of the similar things right about, I read one of his books and he talks a lot about, you know, you can, because it’s hiring people who could be friends or are friends, right. It can work really well because then actually your job becomes more fun. Right? Cause you, you want your friends to succeed. Like this is, this is, this is the thing like you want them to do well and they want you to do well. Right. And that’s, and that’s something that can build a great culture, I think. But it’s, but it’s unusual. It’s not, it’s not something that it’s not something that many people actually suggest. Right. But it may be love. I talked to, I read his book, one of his books and he said something about, he hired this chap and he’s like, right, you’re gonna do a merger and acquisition.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:28:30
And this guy had never done a merger in acquisition before. Right. And he hired him and he’s like, look, you’re gonna do it. Right. And he’s like, sure, I’m gonna do it. And he went and he did this M and A right. And it was like the first time he’d ever done it and he listed it and it was just, it was just amazing. And so, so yeah, I, and he says a lot as well about just train, like finding the, the people who are hungry. Right. The people that wanna get somewhere. Yeah. And then literally just saying, well, okay, you need to learn this and this. All right, sure. Go, go and do it and then get on with it. Right. And it’s, and it’s, it’s just linking that together. Isn’t it with, with the intrinsic, like motivation and excitement of learning. Right. And, and linking that together.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:29:09
It’s, it’s fascinating. This, this whole stuff, right. It’s just really, really interesting. But I think, you know, a lot of people they’re very worried, you know, but I mean, I was, I was reading this WEF thing. Right. And to come back to that, they said a recent analysis of jobs across the United States shows that most jobs performed in 2018 did not exist in 1940. Right. And, and, and close to 60% of jobs done in 2018 had not been invented in 1940. Right. So it’s, so it’s like, you know, know, there’s so many people that are sort of panicking and it’s like, but actually, if you just look at what you’re doing now, think about, you know, what you actually enjoy in life and just focus on that then, you know, and keep learning. I think it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be great for a lot of people. You know,
Tobias Hooton
02:29:57
It is WEF position. There is focusing on jobs that are created, but also the, the other side of that is what industries no longer exist? At the same time is creating these new spaces. They forget the fact that actually large amounts of position no longer exist, no industries exist. No coal mining is a falling apart. Industry, chimneys re plant exist anymore. You know, there’s so many things that are falling away and that’s fine. Even if you take a no 20 or 30 year progression, look at the last 10 years, you know, look at the rise of social media and some of the roles around those sorts of things. So things like social media is an application you interface with. There’s an entire ecosystem off the back of that, you know, in the marketing side, in product development and development itself of application technology and people in process and all these now integrated applications.
Tobias Hooton
03:30:42
So that one little drop, one little pebble drop in a river has such a rippling effect. And that’s the same for all of these new industries. So we are right on the edge. Now, things like, okay, blockchain, development’s been around for a little while now, how that’s integrated to applications is building a whole nother ecosystem and while some development jobs. So we don’t talk about the technical resource falling away in the industry. There are technical roles that no longer exist. There’s a whole bank of programming languages that are no longer in active development. They’ve fallen out, but they’re still used. You don’t see many developers qualifying into those areas anymore. So it actually happens even in a smaller field of view. It’s just not quite so acutely aware. So, you know, I think evolution’s gonna, it’s gonna keep happening. Right. We’re in tech. And this happens all the time. The roles change development changes. The layout of industry changes, individual requirements change. It happens all the time. And over an 80 year period there from the WF, that’s one view, I think, you know, on a macroscopic scale, you can probably take a 10 year view of the tech industry and say, actually, we look at what’s happening in 2010 right now. It’s a very different place where we are right now.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:31:46
Oh yeah. Like the way things have come forward since 2010 has just been insane. Like just, just like WordPress is one example. Right? The, the, it was awful using back, like using it as a, as someone that doesn’t code back then, but now if you know what you’re doing, it’s actually really easy platform to use. Right? Yeah. But, but people still need help with it. It’s just like, just because tech improves doesn’t mean that those jobs disappear. It means that people still don’t wanna do them themselves. So they hire someone to do it. Right. And it, and then your job becomes easier and more fun because actually the platforms are, are kind of better as well. Right. So quick question, are you in a rush to scoot off? Cool. Cool. So, so we talk for like another 5, 5, 10 minutes. Yeah. On, on, on this, if that’s okay. So
Nathaniel Schooler
03:32:37
It’s, it’s interesting. Like if you, you think about like our kids, right. And when, when they’re gonna, when they’re gonna say reach the age of 20, like the jobs that they’re doing, they haven’t even been invented most of them. Right. And that’s, that’s just that blows my mind, like to pieces. Yeah. So, so what sort of, you know, apart from adaptability, right? Cause adaptability is like the, is like key, right? What, what sort of, I’m not gonna say skills, I’m gonna say what sort of abilities. Yeah. Do you think that, that, that, you know, young people can kind of nurture so that they’re not gonna, you know, struggle too much when it get, when they get to 20 or something in employment.
Tobias Hooton
03:33:23
So some fairly polarizing opinions for me, you’ll be shocked to, to hear one of the things I think that is no longer developed enough or say nurtured enough is true. Grit, determination. If something doesn’t work out, doesn’t just mean you put it down again and walk away from it. Right. No one got very far by doing that. So damn well, sit down and stick it out and find out way to make it work that I I’ve got. I, I grew my first company, the exact position. There’s there’s no, one’s gonna do this for you. So actually get off your awesome. Make it work. So one of the things, you know, sort of telling people is, you know, sometimes it’s not gonna be okay, right. This is not gonna be easy. You’re not gonna have a perfect life. Everything falls into practice. It’s gonna be bloody work sometimes, but that’s okay.
Tobias Hooton
03:34:12
So I think one of the characteristics is actually some true grits and determination and getting out of what is sometimes perceived as a relatively passive momentary fleeting culture where know you, everything is just for three seconds on Instagram. If you got, if you’ve got a really good idea, you are bitten by the bug or something, go and drive into the ground for five years, go and down. Well try. The other thing is, I think it’s, it’s slightly lost now and it it’s conflated with a number of other terms is the actual art of lateral thinking properly. So we teach people in technology and people, technology is sort of, and maybe they’re more acutely exposed to it. They fall into a hole. And I keep saying to people, you know, you’ve become siloed. We need to pull you out of being siloed again. Can you, you’re so good at this here.
Tobias Hooton
03:34:57
You’ve forgotten. What’s just outside. Your field of view is there and actually reeducating people about, okay, how do we take a particular position and think naturally about it properly. That’s a unique skill that, you know, certainly when I was at school, you sort of, you did the weekend away class. If you were lucky, you were asked to know, do you wanna go and do sort of further education? We don’t seem to be doing that anymore too. So for me, you’re right. No problem solving sort of a thing that should be done automatically anyway, really the ability to think laterally about situations. Not everyone can do that. That’s kind of hard, but certainly determination is, is something that is a skill that should really be grown and developed with young people. And it’s a cultural thing I think.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:35:38
Yeah. It, I, I can’t agree more on, on that determination and grit. Yeah. And it’s like, if you wanna get somewhere and you give up like, look at Edison, right. And he like 10,000 tries to build, to create a light bulb. Right. It’s like if he’d have given up, but like 500 or even a hundred, right. We like someone else would’ve invented the light bulb and it’s, and it is, it is crazy. Yeah. But it’s, it’s, it’s this from, from, from where I sort of sit, I think it’s the ability to understand what is happening with your technology and your brain. That’s, that’s kind of how I sort of look at things because, you know, we are in tech, right. So we understand that we’re addicted to screens. We understand we’re addicted to platforms, we’re addicted to notifications. We’re, you know, even email. I mean, even the guy that wrote that created the email box or whatever for Google, right.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:36:33
He he’s addicted to email. He said in, in, in the social dilemma, when I was watching that the, the other day again, for the second time, trying to get my daughter to watch the rest of it, she’s a bit bored of it. She wants to watch stranger things instead. Right. Which we will, we will get back to, but it’s, it’s actually quite, quite crazy that, that we have this sort of, it’s like we just give up at the first, the first hurdle a lot of the time. And, and I agree with you completely on that. And it’s, but it’s a lot linked to sport. Right. And, and the more sport we do, the more determined we are and the more focused we can become and we can, and we can then just see growth right. And achieve things like I’m a big believer in sport.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:37:12
Like, like just massively and, and, you know, I mean, I have a friend who, who, you know, he cycles a lot, right. So when he’s cycling, he doesn’t have his mobile phone. So I, you know, I’m into jujitsu now and I, I ride motorbikes and, you know, so I don’t, I don’t, I don’t look at my phone for a certain amount of hours per day. Right. And, and, and or I go swim or whatever. And that’s just amazing to like, to have that knowledge that you have to remove yourself from these platforms for a substantial amount of time, I think is gonna help these people. Because if they can’t concentrate, how are they gonna get a job anyway? How are they gonna deliver what their boss wants anyway? Right. You know,
Tobias Hooton
03:37:52
I completely agree. I mean, I same things to you, right. So weekends, or I have my phone on me, I’ve got two phones. One is who work one personal. Wow. I’m not on social media at all on my personal phone. It’s literally just in case someone really me like a family member. So I won’t look at my phone time. Right. I’m two or three tech companies right now, or that have high demands or 24, 7 base businesses with distributed teams, running complex products and multiple industries. If I can do it, anybody can do it. It’s if you have to want to do it. And I think that’s the thing, really, you have to want to distance yourself from it. I I’m C to various people, I’m trying to constantly reduce what’s in my field of view. Right. So I I’m as anybody else. Right. You get distracted.
Tobias Hooton
03:38:33
So things that I do, like my phone has got rid of all this clutter, like my desktop is completely clear, but I know that I need to remove distractions, that I can be productive and do what I need to do. We’ve all got the same amount of hours in the day. Look at what Elon Musk can achieve. Right. If people like that can achieve those sorts of things, you, I can down, but achieve a lot more than we are. So you’re, you’re absolutely right. It’s that distraction principle, I think, is kind of difficult for people these days and that we have to find ways of, of working with it because it’s gonna be here forever. So we can’t sort of say, cut it out. It’s not, not acceptable. It’s quite difficult to integrate that distraction piece.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:39:07
Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. So just to finish up, what, what, what do you think then about people who are perhaps sitting there thinking, you know, well, we know everything and, you know, we, we, we’re gonna be employed and we don’t have to learn anything. Like what, what do you think about those people? What do you want to tell them
Tobias Hooton
03:39:26
That attitude won’t get you very far?
Tobias Hooton
03:39:35
Honestly. I mean, I, I understand there’s some sort of some expectations, right? And I understand where that comes from. I really do, but in order to be successful in whatever you, you deem as being successful, you need to be a little bit humble and realize that right now, you know, X and you will need to learn more. If you think you already know everything you’ve already lost. No one knows everything. And I I’m fortunate enough to have some fantastic mentors and have had done for a while that have accelerated my knowledge in certain areas of business over the last 10 years. But no, they still don’t everything. And neither do I, anybody right now looking for a new career in any industry that already believes they know everything needs to sit down and I think have a, a bit of a think really by what it is they want to get outta the position because that sort of attitude is very difficult for an employer to deal with. And I go, as far as to say, almost makes you unemployable for some people cause you, you won’t integrate to a wider team very easily.
Nathaniel Schooler
04:40:34
Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. And, and if people are sort of changing jobs and changing careers, I, I don’t think they should be scared. Like, you know, a lot of people are sort of frightened that they’re, they they’ve, they don’t have skills right. In a new, in a new industry perhaps, or in a new segment. And it’s like, well, actually transferable skills are just huge. Yeah. Like, I mean, you, you know, you are into whiskey. Right. And I know a lot about the drinks industry. Right. And so, but I’m not in drinks industry anymore. Right. But like, I know a lot about it, you know? And so there are certain people that can, that can just fit really beautifully into, into businesses, but they just need to ask more questions, I think. Yeah,
Tobias Hooton
04:41:16
Absolutely. Right. Fit anybody. Who’s got any experience working, any company adds value massively in any other company, you haven’t got to know anything at all about how that company actually operates. You just need the ability to ask questions and you are by asking simple questions, you may help other people crystallize the reasons why they’re doing certain things in certain ways, some of the best C level executives know nothing about the industry. They’re a C level executive of cause they have the innate ability to ask questions. They genuinely dunno the answer to, they have no ability to reference that answer against is this actually true or false? They have to go and find out for themselves, which makes them a fantastically, able C level executives. So, you know, don’t just because you have no transferable skills that’s in your view, doesn’t mean that your receiving employer doesn’t believe that there’s fantastic benefit to both yourself and the potential employer by knowing nothing at all by actually you want to move into and communicating. That’s a really powerful tool.
Nathaniel Schooler
04:42:12
Very much so. Well, thank you, Tobias. It’s it’s been, it’s been a joy and thanks to everyone for listening.
speaker 1
04:42:22
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