Philip Has Questions

Chris Pratley, former Microsoft Corporate Vice President, famously invented OneNote, a hugely successful addition to the Office franchise. He shares insights from more than 30 years creating products from a people-centered design perspective.

Things like auto-save are now the norm, but Chris was one of the first people to push computing towards a save-less model back in the day. Discover how Chris led Word to victory in Japan, created OneNote, and shepherded Microsoft Garage as a greenhouse of bottom-up innovation.

0:00 Intro

0:59 From Waterloo to Japan, before the web

4:16 The final interview at Epson

6:30 Getting to Microsoft (and almost saying no)

10:00 Why Word was losing in Japan

14:04 How Word won Japan

17:51 How Microsoft's culture changed

24:07 The birth of OneNote

27:55 No save button: paper was the competition

32:27 Why OneNote couldn't require a tablet

35:10 Searching messy handwriting & the COMDEX launch

40:50 Bill Gates and the pen

43:40 Telling Bill Gates no

45:18 Bottom-up culture vs. the AI rush

50:39 Astronauts on horses, generative video & "AI slop"

55:05 Why he left Microsoft

55:36 Retirement, tennis & a new idea

58:34 One frame to ChatGPT1:02:59 Microsoft Garage

1:06:27 Why good ideas look stupid at first

1:09:23 Bonus: Is podcast discovery broken?

Michael Novati's agents have made 4M lines of code changes YTD — that's 20 KLOCs a day. On Feb 13th alone, he committed 417 PRs to GitHub on a production project. Though KLOCs are a flawed way to measure productivity, it's clear that when Novati codes, his way of operating is qualitatively completely different from most people's.

Get an inside peek into how a unique mind does its best work.

0:00 Intro

0:50 First Day at Facebook (and the PhD He Skipped)

2:49 Two Commits All Summer at IBM

4:53 The Big Brother Bot That Got Him Banned for Life

9:04 Lego Mindstorms and Books by the Pound

15:45 Why Early Facebook Was the Perfect Fit

19:12 What His Day Looked Like Before AI

25:17 The Codebase in His Head

32:45 When Speed Meets a Team

35:42 The 417-PR Day (and Why He Calls It Cheating)

39:37 Overnight Agents and 4 Million Lines

42:52 How Many Agents He Runs at Once

45:56 Why His Agents Read the Docs First

50:22 From Zero Tests to a Million

52:13 Judgment Tests: Testing for Taste

1:02:01 Not Reading Every Line Anymore

1:05:09 AI Went From Intern to Peer

1:07:56 The Beginning or the End of Engineers?

1:12:25 Why "Follow Your Passion" Isn't Enough

1:16:03 Advice to His 19-Year-Old Self

Robert Stanley is an NCAA All-American hurdler who's been coaching track for decades. He shares the secret of the 100m, rationale for relay ordering, as well as insights on what makes some athletes coachable toward success.

0:00 Intro

0:45 Robert's coaching and racing career

2:00 The phases of a 100m race

3:59 The lean: what actually stops the clock

5:24 Hot lanes and lane strategy

9:30 Hurdlers vs. sprinters

10:43 Is there an ideal height for a sprinter?

13:51 Relays: who should run first?

15:25 The handoff: "running by faith"

17:56 Why relay order matters when the math says it shouldn't

19:36 Body position: upright vs. leaning

21:27 How the 100m got 6 meters faster

23:04 Why the world records still stand

24:52 The first thing he tells new athletes

26:20 Why natural talent can work against you

27:38 What makes an athlete coachable

28:45 Advice to his younger self

Cory Ondrejka has had an amazingly varied life: nuclear sub pilot, cofounder of Second Life, leader of Meta's shift to mobile, and CTO of an AI company.0:00 Intro1:29 The Study of Luck2:45 Life on a Cold War nuclear sub4:13 Seven days without sleep7:26 The myth that Facebook missed mobile9:11 Why Facebook had just 3 iOS engineers12:08 Telling Mark Zuckerberg his mobile instincts were bad13:32 Better is always different15:22 What is Second Life?18:34 The magic of Second Life 20:46 Stroke survivors, concerts and a UFO22:08 What is Onebrief?25:16 Why AI works for coding: error signals26:23 Should tech build for the military?28:46 How much should AI decide on it's own?30:20 The Authorization Matrix32:04 Nearly 40 years of code, what's next?35:35 Where did the flow state go?39:32 Is AI bigger than the internet?41:35 Bonus: the C++ test43:34 Bonus: What AI agents are best at

Steve Huynh quit his Amazon Principle Engineer job to run his YouTube channel, A Life Engineered, building it to 200k subscribers. He then launched a coaching business, all bootstrapped from his willingness to take a giant leap into the unknown.

Hear his take on how to bet on yourself and to succeed.

0:00 Intro

0:55 Speed-running YouTube success

8:05 Paying to fast-forward success

12:12 Taking action to reach your goals

18:28 Going all-in on YouTube while at Amazon

26:56 Is an engineering mindset helpful in the content & coaching business?

28:35 Guessing an engineer's level in 5 minutes

31:28 Most common engineer growth mistakes

37:34 Worst career advice ever

40:40 Psychology of careers

42:54 Biggest mistake at Amazon

44:33 You learn nothing from success

46:35 Biggest thing you've changed your mind on

Subscribe to Philip Has Questions for more interviews with tech luminaries and entrepreneurs.

Joaquin Quiñonero Candela has led AI initiatives at OpenAI, Meta, and LinkedIn. But one thing you might not know about Joaquin is his deep expertise in making paella.

00:00 Intro

00:18 Transition from Theory to Practice

03:56 Ethical Challenges and Societal Impacts

14:01 Recruiting at OpenAI

17:01 The Art of Making Paella

43:00 Paella Equipment and Cooking Setup

Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@HiddenTrackPodcast

Ashok Kuppusamy was a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft with decades of experience, including being Bill Gates's technical assistant. In this interview he shares his insights from his 29 years, along with some unexpected thoughts about Debbie Gibson.

00:00 Intro

00:38 Early Days at Microsoft

02:28 Inside Bill Gates's Office

04:19 Leadership and Management Style

10:14 AI in the Workplace

14:56 Executive Isolation and Networks

16:32 Living and Parenting in Norway

22:24 Reflections on Career and Youth

25:39 Pop Fandom and Life Lessons

Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@HiddenTrackPodcast

Making things cheap is the best way to get climate solutions to scale. Mike Schroepfer shares the reason for his optimism behind solving key climate challenges through enabling technology that scales in the physical economy.

00:00 Intro

00:23 Early Facebook, Sun Microsystems, and Firefox

05:20 Facebook's change to mobile and Sun's innovator's dilemma

07:42 Going from Firefox/Mozilla to Facebook

11:48 Founding Gigascale Capital

15:45 Reason for optimism about our future

20:38 Exciting projects at Gigascale

24:40 People need to see things to believe

27:25 Biggest levers to positively impact climate

30:50 Cow burps — 6% of carbon emissions

35:55 Political involvement vs. high-impact career choices

37:37 Offshore datacenters in the ocean

39:52 What is Gigascale's value-add?

43:25 Is it lonely at the top?

48:06 Advice for college students

51:06 How Schrep changed Philip's life

Learn more about Gigascale Capital: https://gigascale.com/

Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@HiddenTrackPodcast