This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. And welcome to another edition of Hawaii in Uniform. I'm your host, Calvin Griffin. And thank you for tuning in to our program again. In the past of individuals who haven't seen the program before, here we talk about things happening with the veterans in active duty community. And we try to get information out or get to the source of a lot of information. Right now, today, it's my honor to have the National President for the Fleet Reserve Association, Mr. William Starkey, and also the National President for the Ladies Auxiliary Fleet Reserve. In the past, we've talked about our local branch 46 here. And today, again, it's a real pleasure to have both of you come on the program. Thank you. It's a pleasure. May I start with Ms. Smith? Ladies Auxiliary, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your Italian with the Navy? Did you serve in the military? I did not. My husband served for 22 years, retired as a chief. He's been retired now for about 30 years. And so I became active when he joined the Fleet Reserve as an auxiliary member. Mr. Starkey, thank you very much again for joining us. Thank you for having me. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you're a former Navy. I'm retired from the Navy. I spent 23 years in the Navy. I retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer. Did you spend any time overseas or any tours? I spent time in Antarctica. Pretty cold out there, isn't it? It was very cold out there. Tell us what a national president does. What is your job title? We know your job title. What exactly do you do and how are you trying to promote the organization? I represent the organization on the national level and on the state levels. We have approximately 300 branches in the association through the 48 continuous... through the 50 states, Guam and the Philippines and in Japan.  Yes, please. As far as the leaves go, I know that both entities fall under the same organization. The ladies auxiliary is a little bit different than the main hub. I mean, it's all the same, but how is it different, the ladies from the so-called main... We have to have their support to become an auxiliary. And we take care of most all of the volunteer work for the branch and unit because they spend their time lobbying in Washington and doing different things. So we take care of the background. We do volunteer work at local VA hospitals. We take care of the homeless veterans and a lot of things like that. We do a lot of community service, so we're their support. Commander, how are things going? I know that with the different organizations, one of the problems they have is the membership seems to be dwindling in a lot of these organizations. What are you doing right now, like, say, as far as trying to bring up the membership or, you know, get the younger troops, you know, more involved in the organization? Primarily, of course, this is a Navy operation, but you have the Marines, Coast Guard. But I know that with the local branch, they have an affiliation with some of the other branches. Could you tell us how that's coming as far as membership and the future? Well, membership in the Fleet Reserve Association at the present time were down from what our membership was 20 years ago. And I believe part of that is due to the passage of try-care-for-life for the members who are on security. Previously, to try-care-for-life being adopted by being passed through Congress and the House of Representatives, the members would purchase their supplemental Social Security insurance through one of the insurance providers that the organization at that time had a contract with to sell low-cost insurance to our members who were on Social Security. The Fleet Reserve Association is a member of the Military Coalition in the Washington, D.C. area. And there are 35 organizations, which we are one of. We fought hard in Congress to get that passed for our members. And now this is only my opinion when that was adopted, the members who were purchasing their insurance through the Fleet Reserve Association for the supplemental insurance for Social Security, they didn't need to buy that insurance anymore. So they dropped the insurance, and not only did they drop the insurance, they dropped their membership. And it took quite a toll on the association. The funds that we would get from the insurance company for the members to purchase their insurance, we would use that funds when we got back for all of our programs. And right now, to fund those programs, we have to take that money out of our restricted reserve funds, and when that happens, the Internal Revenue Service declares that earned income. So we have to pay income tax on money that we earned previously, and it's at the tune of about 35% each year. So it's quite a big chunk of change we have to pay the federal government for using our own money, because we're using it for something that's not intended to be used for. The different funds were set up for different reasons, and different projects, and when we take that money out of our restricted reserve funds, then the IRS says you're using that money for something that's not intended to be used for, so then you have to pay income tax on it. We have a new membership director down at our national headquarters, and it's her job to develop new strategies for getting more members to join the association. A member can join the association if they're serving on active duty and a Navy Marine Corps Coast Guard, or they're retired from active duty, or if they're former members, or if they're members of a reserve component. But it seems like the younger members don't want to join any type of association. Why is that? I think, from what I see in my perspective, a lot of them feel that they have a lot of older individuals who are part of the organizations that sometimes seem a little bit reluctant to bring on any new blood. Do you see that, or am I wrong about that? I see part of the problem. If the younger members join and they have some ideas on doing things differently, the older members will say, we've never done it that way before, and they're on the branch level, and when that happens, the younger members as well, they don't want to consider my way of doing something, so they just drop out. And it's not only with the Fleet Reserve Association, the younger members don't want to join any of the veterans organizations. Take the American Legion and the VFW, they're having a membership problem also because the younger members don't want to join this organization, or any veterans organization. I know with the Ladies' Auxiliary, now with the inclusion of more females in all branches of military. What is being done to make it more inclusive, like if you say it's the Ladies' Auxiliary, sometimes you have a wife that's deployed and a husband who's not in the military that stays at home. Is there anything to bring them into the fold? We are accepting men now. We have changed our name basically to the Ladies' Auxiliary, also doing business as the auxiliary, so that when we take in men into our organization, they do not have to wear ladies on their hat that ladies has taken off. So it's just auxiliary, so it makes them more comfortable. They're very valuable to us actually, the men, and they give us a new perspective because having a man at home when you're deployed as a female makes a great difference because they handle home life much different than the ladies did in my age when our husbands were overseas. I think one of the course with all the organizations seems to extol the values of family and community. It would seem that the more inclusive it is, the better off for all the organizations. I think one great recruiting tool is to let them know that they are welcome. And again, as you see when you talk to different organizations out there that, again, we've seen what happened when the Vietnam vets, when they came back, how they were treated or not even wanted to be included in a lot of these different organizations, and it seemed like over a period of time, it's just like just calling on them, well, why should we even bother to be part of that when we're not really welcome within the group and they do their own thing anyhow. Well, they're very welcome. In fact, in Tennessee, in our little unit that we have, we have a young man who is in college there, the University of Tennessee, and we have already made him our secretary because he's very, he wants to get involved and we want more male components to come into our organization because we have so many females in service now, so much more than we did, I'm not saying really a lot, but we want them to feel comfortable with us. And I think if we start giving them jobs and things so that we can tell them, you're welcome, you do, if you want to take a job, we're willing to give you a job and we want you to feel comfortable. Yeah. One of the things that, I've seen a documentary recently called The Invisible War. I don't know if you're familiar with that one or not.  Now, they want to go negative, but the thing is there's still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Is there anything that, within the organization, from the national level, the policies that you're trying to change or enlighten people to as far as what's happening with our female members of the military? Well, this is, see, they would be considered as fleet reserve members because they're not spouses or mothers or fathers. So they're more of the FRA members so that they're taking care of that. You're working in Washington for that. Yeah, we have a large percentage of our members are female who have served in the Navy, Marine Corps, or the Coast Guard. Yeah, because I know that, you know, something that is very unique that needs to be addressed, you know, it's just a fact of life anyhow. But speaking of Washington, what is the attitude now with the new administration that's in place right now? We hear that there's going to be some changes within the VA. Do you see anything, or has anything happened that you're aware of that is on a positive vein? I have everything about any changes in the VA. Yeah. We have a legislative team that works on Capitol Hill for us, and they cover all types of issues relating to men and women in uniform and their health care and such like that. My husband goes to the VA. I can tell you that it has improved, not completely yet. There's a lot of work that still has to be done because it's very difficult to get in and see a doctor in the VA. And if they do, they're using a lot of secondary meds and stuff for them so far. So it is improving. I think they're going to have to do a lot more work. All right. We're going to take a short break and we'll come back and continue our discussion with the National President of the Fleet Reserve Association and also the National President for the Ladies' Auxiliary. Stay tuned. We'll be back. The host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veteran's advocate with over 23 years experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to make sure they're on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. And you're back with the Hawaiian uniform. And again, I'm Calvin. And again, we'll continue our conversation with the National President of the Fleet Reserve Association and also the Ladies' Auxiliary National President. And again, thanks for, you know, coming on board with us. I know some of the things we've already talked about. What are some of the things that are important, you know, to your respective positions? With the Fleet Reserve Association, we were founded in 1924 by Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy by the George L. Carlin in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The main objective for those Chief Petty Officers forming an organization in 1924 was to improve the pay and healthcare for the active-duty sailors at that time. The Marine Corps, we brought the Marine Corps into the Association in 1937 and we brought the Coast Guard into the Fleet Reserve Association in 1957. Our main goal is working with our representatives in Congress and in the Senate to improve on healthcare benefits for our active-duty and retired Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel and for the pay and benefit of our active-duty Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel. It's very important that their pay and benefits keep a stride of the ever-rising cost of inflation throughout the country. You mentioned the three branches, the Navy, Coast Guard, Marine Corps. What about Merchant Marines? Are they included in it? They're not part of the organization because they're not in the military. That's a private... There's members who are part of the Merchant Marine because they're civilian employees. Yeah. Okay. They don't... During the Second World War, the Merchant Marine had sailors on board their ship to protect them. Yeah. As far as the Merchant Marines and another point is that they were going to World War II. We lost a lot of Merchant Marines but I didn't know the clarification between the different branches if they were covered or not. Again, what do you foresee for the future for your component? As you said, a lot of us are older in this organization and we've got to reach out to these young people and the one thing that we balk about is that some of us older people don't know how to use a computer and all the new people that we want to get into our organization are very computer-wise and we are going to have to learn computer so that we can put everything online so that it's available to all of our members. So all they have to do is get online and check us out and see what is happening that day or that week and so it's just going to have to lay down the gauntlet and say we're going to get into the computer age and I think we're going to attract a lot more young people that way. You touched what's happening up on Capitol Hill with the legislators and everything else. I think with a lot of civilians we've got one percent of the population that serves the country or in the military if we ever take anyhow and sometimes there's a misconception that everybody in uniform is either doing dire straits or they're raking in the money and there's a lot of issues that are tied in with our active and veterans that could possibly use the support of the civilian populace because I think a lot of times when there's different issues that come up if they're not aware of what's happening they're not going to call the congressman or their senators and say well you guys made a promise to our active duty people or our veterans therefore you need to keep your promise. How do you bring the non-military community into as far as supporting some of the efforts that you're doing? I believe one way we can do that is to have more of this civilian employee serve in the military to defend our country I'm not sure what the percentage is now but the percentage of men enlisting in the in all the services are lower than it was 20 years ago you know when they stopped a draft that stopped a lot of people from enlisting in the act of military you know they can get the firmers now if they they go to school they'll get a firm and there's no draft anymore so they don't have to worry about that and the military is more selective on who they take in anymore years ago when I joined the navy at the young man went before the judge the judge will say either join the military or you're going to go in the prison well they would join the military and they don't do that now you mentioned a lot of people get the impression that almost anybody can get into the military now with the different changes of skin with the transgender issue homosexual issue all these same sex and all that stuff but it's still very selective on who is able to qualify for the military at this point they're more select now because the education of the members joining the military they have to have a high school education or equivalent the job classifications and especially in the navy is more difficult to find qualified people to take those take those courses I apologize I was very ready to get up in the salute I am so sorry that's cool it happens don't worry about it it's cool I'm serious saying that I'm sorry I don't know I've never heard the other thing is that we have a lot of ex-patriots over in other countries what's the membership look like overseas for navy and personal marines overseas we have a lot of people that live in the Philippines for example but obviously we have a lot of former service members who live outside the country do you have branches overseas we have several branches we have seven branches in the Philippines we have one branch in Guam we have one branch in Japan yeah as far as term limits and everything else of course this is your second term this is my first term you plan to go for a second term I have a resolution my branch has submitted a resolution for me to run for a second term as national president and we have another shipmate who is my national vice president he's running for national president so before I submitted my resolution for my second term as national president I called the vice president and I informed him that my branch had nominated me for a second term as national president because they didn't want blindside shipmate washington and I thought that was a fair thing to do put my cards on the table before he wouldn't find out through the back door that I'm going in through the front door this is your first term as national president yes do you plan to run again? I do not we have so many qualified members that are willing to step up and do the job I really am not interested I will help in any capacity that I am asked to do I'm very willing to do that but I think I need to just turn it over to someone hopefully younger people as we go along so again what is your hope what do you want to really accomplish for your term like say that something that has your name on I mean I know that you're doing it for the good of this has my name on it right here okay my project this year is Alzheimer's and 57 million people in the United States have dementia of some sort whether it be Alzheimer's or and the care that we're spending millions and it's going to go up to trillions of dollars for even just care for these people because right now there is no cure there is no treatment mostly right now the care is given by family members or relatives or someone so they're saving the government money that way but eventually that's going to be done as the dementia patients get older we're going to have to be put in a facility which is going to cost the government so we want to get either a marker that tells us that this is going to be an onset of this disease or in some way trying to figure out what is causing this disease so as my project I want to make enough money to make a little bit of difference right sounds good speaking of medical issues I know that one of the very few things are something very rarely talked about with your experience in the military there are certain issues concerning health of the dependents we're seeing issues where sometimes in someone serving in Vietnam or other areas Iraq Afghanistan things that are in nature when they may be exposed to certain agents then it's being carried on to the next generation I started this subject too far to the conversation anyhow we got about a minute left anyhow so we'll have to table that but I'll get in touch with you but in the time we have left 15 seconds or less how would you contact information or anything you want to pin out there yes prospective members can contact the fleet reserve association at the website www.fra.org toll free telephone number is 1-800-FRA-1924 National President Smith I'll give you the last word I want everyone to know that we are so glad that we're getting information out there about our organization because we really need some members to help support these shipmates because there are so many VA members out there that need help and that's what the ladies are more and less thinking about okay on that note President Starkey President Smith thank you again for joining us and serving the way you do anyhow I really appreciate it anyhow down to the wire thank you very much for staying tuned and God bless them until that time I'd like to thank you for taking the time to have National President Smith and I on your show here today we certainly appreciate that it's been my honor and pleasure to do so and again aloha thank you


Hello everyone. This is Prashant speaking today on the topic of flavors of product management. Welcome to product schools event today and a little bit of an introduction about myself. I'm currently a senior manager of product management with Samsung Research, Big Data Lab. Before that, I led product management for Twilio's data platform team as well as like I've worked with citizen site where I was director of product management for their enterprise as well as their data platform site. Before we go into today's presentation, just wanted to give a little bit of a story about my journey into product management. Product managers typically come from very diverse backgrounds as well as very different paths. I know the standard path looks like, okay, you're a software engineer who went to like a business school or something on the lines of you broke into an associate product management role and then you moved to like, you know, PM senior PM and like so on. I think, yeah, I also wanted to do that but you know, fortunately or unfortunately, things don't work out the way that you plan out to be. So I was working as an analyst with the e-commerce company, which was more focused on manufacturing fragrant soils and delivering it to consumers who are like into hobbies like candle making and soap making. But you know, I was more focused on becoming more into like data science. I joined as a data analyst and was getting myself up killed into like data science. But inadvertently, I focused on like two things which helped me this transition.  And second was like spending more time on like, okay, how do we get this insight? Okay, I inadvertently focused more on data engineering and data platform, which enabled me to like get my next role, which was not in data science, though I was like more focused there. So there was a yearly stage company which reached out to me saying, Hey Prashant, I think, you know, we are looking for a data product manager who comes from like a data background rather than like an application development or a software engineering background. I was like, okay, this is something very new at that point for me at least in 2018, 2019 time period. And that is where like, I was like, okay, yeah, let's hear and see what they are doing. And that's how I get my first break into product management.  So which is what we are going to like talk about today. At the end of this presentation, I want every one of you to take away three things. One is learning about these different PM specializations and flavors of product management, what I call us. And the second piece is like, how do you break into these specific flavors? Okay, you want to be a product manager, you want to be a billing product manager. What does it take to like, you know, break into these flavors. And the last piece is like, I think more personal, which is more like a decision framework. It's just the right choice for you.  Should I be like a data PM and so on. And we'll be going through a framework, which will help you to make that decision. Okay, with that being said, and with my introduction, let's dive deep into like, you know, the different PM flavors, which is what we are all like interested in today, right. So first step is like, you know, understanding that all, whenever someone talks about specializations, it varies very differently between different industries, as well as like different styles. This is like my subject of view of how I was like, you know, I was looking at roles, evaluating roles differently. And they're also like, you know, you can go more finer, more greener, as well as like, you can also like go more generalist in this as well. So with all that being like said, it pretty much comes to your specialization and your interest on how you can like define these roles. Okay, so this is where the dimension is coming. Okay, which is where like some part of it's subjective, some part of it is like, okay, these are roles that are already in the market. And there are some PM roles that are going to like possibly only arrive in the future. Okay, so overall, like in my view, you could like categorize PM specializations through like domains, which could be based on either a platform PM or core PM. I think this is a very common way to like differentiate between PM roles platform will be going through like what are the different parts in the platform PM as well as like what's a core PM. Or the other way is through like, you know, what sort of PM responsibilities you focus more on, like outbound versus inbound, then there are like other roles which are like based on growth PM, which are more on the lines of, Hey, I want to like, you know, drive adoption to our product or not get as many customers as acquire customers for my app and like so on. Then you could also like, you know, divide by business model, obviously a product management for B2C app, which helps you with your weight loss is going to be very, very different from an e-commerce app or your enterprise software app in which you are like, you know, selling healthcare software, for instance. And then there's also like product stage or company stage, which talks about whether it's like a yearly product or something that's like stable maintenance mode or something that's like growing and so on. And as I said before, you know, not everything can like fit into these buckets. Some of these are like, you know, more, more re-specialized or unique to the specific industry that they are from. Or it could be like something that's more like a specific function focused. We'll be talking about like some of those roles as well. So there's just a high level overview of like, you know, how you can like segment these roles. So let's start with like the platform PM, this is the core PM. Okay.  So these are like typical, like, you know, you have like a product ownership at like senior levels and like so on, where you focus on like, okay, hey, my core customer is a sales rep. So these are the main problems for a sales rep, which I'm like solving. And this also involves like, you know, working with product management.  Okay. So core PM is like focusing on a specific product. And we go through like, you know, what pretty much like majority of the product management content is about the platform PMs are slightly different in the sense like, instead of like, you know, focusing on instead of focusing your efforts on like, you know, one specific product, you are focusing on a platform. How do you define a platform, right? Which is like, you know, and think about it as like a large scale system that enables your company to build more products. It could be something like your AI platform or a data platform. Or even like it could be like, you know, external products like, you know, Facebook or Salesforce, who have a platform on which other platforms are built upon, which other products and platforms are built apart. So Salesforce as their own marketplace, where people build apps on top of Salesforce, which can like help you with like, you know, automating things with the Salesforce and so on. Similarly, it could be like something like a data platform, which could be more focused on, hey, how do we like store, transform and process the data within your ecosystem, so that you will enable like other teams could like make data products, or you could also enable like AI ML teams to build like machine learning products based on your data platform. Okay, so that's the difference between the platform PM and the core PM. And an important caveat that I want to like bring here is like platform PMs need not be always internal PMs, not focused on internal tools. They can be both internal or external, just like code, like a core PM could also won't like a specific to within, which is very exclusive inside a company. And but the overall, you know, the differentiation is like platform roles focus more on scaling the system, whereas core PMs are focused more on like, you know, a specific workflow and a specific customer and solving for them. Okay, let's go to the next piece in the platform and four PMs, which is like, okay, there are like a lot of platform PMs. So can be like, you know, core PMs and the roles can be very different based on like what sort of scaling that you are involved with, or what sort of problem that you're solving. For instance, there's also, there's a marketplace PM role.  Okay, you're like managing a single, you know, Google sign on for like multiple of Google products, similarly with AWS, Amazon and so on.  How do you integrate or partner with like other apps? Okay, your Salesforce or your Android platform, how do you integrate with like, you know, other things like Google sign up, or it could be even an external company, like how do you put like a zoom integration with G suite and so on. So the domains are like the key differentiator between like different roles. I think more than platform and the core PM, in which it's more diverse on the scale, the domains are make, make like things more interesting. These are like what we could like call us like flavors, each of these specific flavors have like, you know, their own challenges, their own interesting parts, as well as things that are like you see, okay, yeah, this is something that I would love to spend more time on.  Obviously, some of these roles are more technical, some are like, you know, more, you need to be like a subject matter expert. And some are like more about like, okay, I need to be more well versed in the domains of this area, like building and so on. The next piece that we should be going is like on the business model, which will be like the B2B or B2C. Obviously, when you're a PM for DocuSign is very different for like a PM for like Snapchat or Facebook. Similarly, Amazon or Walmart will have a very different experience compared to like someone who's in like an enterprise space like Oracle, ServiceNow, Salesforce, and so on. So which is where like, you know, the reason for the difference is because of the business model, for instance, enterprise is going to be more sales driven, okay, because your customers are going to ask for, hey, we have this custom system, we are a healthcare fortune-finder company, we need this from ServiceNow. That's not going to be the case with Facebook, where it's going to be more data driven, where it's about like, okay, hey, what, how do we like, you know, identify whether these, whether our users are interested in something like Facebook dating and so on. Okay. And next is like company stage, which is where I think, you know, it's also a critical piece, right? Because what you're going to do as an enterprise PM with ServiceNow is going to be very different from what you do with a pre-IPO company like Stride. Similarly, what you do in a yearly stage company is going to be very different from like what you do in like a big tech company. So it's like, you know, fortune-finder, which could be like non-tech, could be like Nike, you're like a platform PM with Nike's e-commerce side, or you could be like personalization and so on, or you could be like working for a manufacturing company. Also, it also depends on, you know, who funds your company. Like, you know, VC companies have very different experience because they have like specific growth metrics that companies typically go after, whereas private equity companies may be more focused on efficiency as well as like the optimal way to like do things. So this is also a very important slide, as well as like a very important way to like determine which companies you're interested in. Okay. The next thing is like based on the products or the company stage. Okay. What is zero to one? Zero to one is more focused on, okay. You don't have a product, you're trying to identify who your customers are and what sort of pain points that you need so that you can build a product for them. Then there could be products which have like the first version out, they have achieved a product market fit, and what should we do next? What do we like now add more features to it and so on. Similarly, okay, you have a successful product. You have like good amount of features and you solve your core user problems very well. What is your, you know, next set of users you're today making for like sales reps? How do you make to like account access or sales managers and so on? Then one to end is again expansion, like what, you know, the previous use case that we talked about Facebook, okay, we're doing well with like first billion users that we have. How do you get the next billion users? And there are things like, okay, I want to do more maintenance. Okay, the product is mature. The product is like stable. How do you like ensure the cash flow is like continuously going through and you make your experience for the users like, you know, as stable as possible. Then obviously you have like, you know, whenever you talk about maintenance, there's also about like sunset or upgrade, which talks about like, okay, hey, we want to like sunset this particular feature or this particular product or we want to like upgrade users into a new platform and so on. So this is a very important product stage as well. Similarly, let's talk about outbound PMs and inbound PMs. I think it's very few companies which do that, but usually pretty big companies like, you know, enterprises like Google Cloud, ServiceNow, Oracle, they have like this kind of a way of doing product management, where the inbound PMs more focus on working with engineering and customers to bring the right product to the market. Whereas outbound PMs work more closely with like, go to marketing, like marketing sales and the inbound PMs to get the right product launched and promoted successfully. So this is also one way to like differentiate PM roles. Next, let's go into like, you know, growth PMs and e-commerce PMs. Growth PMs focus on the customer journey. Hey, how do we acquire customers as cheap as possible? This could become like, you know, you are running experiments, you are running like different campaigns to get users as well as your customers to join your consumer e-commerce or B2B SaaS companies. In certain companies, these roles may like, you know, diverge quite a bit with like, you know, ATTEC PMs or MARTEC PMs. I know this could be a little bit controversial because few people like keep MARTEC and ATTEC PMs as like very different roles. I would combine everything here under the growth and e-commerce PMs for the sake of brevity today. Let's talk about the miscellaneous roles which we talked earlier in the slide was like, you know, not every PM would like fit into that box. There could be something like data privacy, security PMs, things that are related to business transformation, what like, you know, fortune factor companies who are moving to cloud, what do they need to do? MNA integration, okay, Salesforce acquired a company today. What happens like Slack? How do you integrate those products? How do you integrate the platform, the sign-on and like so on? Then very industry-specific roles and like healthcare or logistics PMs which related to like, you know, e-commerce as well as like, you know, other industries, it could be like something like Caravana where you're focused on inventory of your used cars that you're available in the market and so on. So it's very, very tough to categorize every single PM role into a box. This is just a high-level framework that I'm sharing with you so that you can like more focus to like, hey, this are the options. How do I go into these roles? That's the next phase of product management, right? You come in, you get like some experience, then you decide, okay, where do I want to be, right? So which is where I think these are like probably a little bit, you know, two to three years into your PM career rather than your first one, primarily because of like, you know, the way the domain PM roles and other PMs are structured. So the domain PM roles, what we will call as data PM account or secure data security API platform, PM, AML products, PM and like so on. These are like some sample titles where they really value your domain experience in a specific area. If you have like a data security and a privacy experience, you are going to get this role, even if you're not a PM compared to like someone who's like a PM for a core product working in like, you know, a very different app. So some folks who can easily transition to these roles are like, you know, lateral career roles more specifically, primarily because they require like specific domain experience would be like engineering manager, security, people could come from even compliance lawyer or someone from a customer support team who understands the challenges and like account authentication or other developer experience items. Okay, typically domain PMs are go through like, you know, internal transfer or applying for specific roles which are like very suited in their area of expertise. Next piece that you have is like, okay, next use case is like, I'm a PM in a routing team in Uber. I want to move to data platform or vice versa. How do you typically do that is like, you know, more focus on internal contributions like, hey, I want to like spend more time with the platform team to understand all the data engineering works behind the scenes so that I can I can put this price or, you know, some sort of an ETA that can be delivered in my app or cross team collaborations like work in like more, you know, platform related projects or internal transfer is the best choice in in this case as well or your other options to like, you know, if you want to be like, hey, I'm too focused, I want to go like more generic is like go for fang you typically have like generic interviews and they mostly focus on people who are like, you know, they mostly put you on roles, which could be like very generic as well as they very clearly differentiate between very, you know, deeply technical roles as well as and so on. And another way to like easily switch between PM roles, you're working platform roles, and I want to move to like, you know, more individual product roles would be early stage company early state startups, where they're like more flexible where they believe, okay, your experience can like transition more easily. I mean, my experience other companies want like more specific experience. So it's better for you to like, you know, take this kind of an approach when you're switching between PM roles, it's very unlikely for someone who's like a platform PM to move directly to a customer facing consumer PM very challenging in my experience. Lastly, I know I want to talk about like tailored advice, which I would like say for early career, folks, you know, focus more into like breaking into early state startups. I think it's the competition is a little bit relatively less, as well as like these companies have a challenge to attract senior talent, because the founders are going to be like product visionaries, you are going to be more focused on execution, which senior level PM candidates may not be something that they want. So, but you will also be like, you know, taking these roles, you will also feel like you're very under qualified, primarily because the scope of the roles are going to be pretty huge. So be very careful. So to set the right expectations, it could potentially like open up like, you know, a lot of roles, you could get promoted very faster. You could achieve senior PM roles very quickly. So it's pretty much as I said, lower compensation, but it's successful, very fast growth. And then the next piece would be like, you know, more focused on inbound and outbound. I know outbound, we have like talked about like, you know, quite a few product school webinars as well as like product content is like more tailored towards like, hey, reach out to these people on cold email and like so on. So I won't be spending much time there, but I want to focus more on the inbound piece, which is like, you know, I think there's a lot of generic content these days about like how to craft PM interviews, how to do discovery and like so on. I would like say more tailor your content towards like some of these domains, which will definitely help you to get these roles, especially if you're an engineering manager, if you're someone who's like from a customer success background transitioning into PM, do spend a lot of time talking about like, okay, yeah, your domain and so on. That would like definitely help you to like craft these roles. Last piece, we want to talk about like the last five minutes on like, you know, which of these is the best for me, which suits my style, right? So the first question becomes like, you know, what is your destination? Where do you want to go? Okay, I think a lot of PMs want to be like, you know, GM executive or CEO path, basically, whatever you like call that. I think that's probably very common aspiration for PMs. Next one could be like, you know, I want to be a manager of PMs, which is also goes towards the GM path, but then I don't want to go away from product management, because GM could be like GM of customer success as well, or any role in which you manage PNL, whereas people management could be like more like director of product, I want to just focus on my area. That's it. Okay. And there's also like people who don't like people management. I want to be more into IC, like principal PM or staff for principal PM. And that's pretty much like your where you want to be because I just want to focus on one product and influence my organization rather than like, you know, influencing working on like a large team on like multiple areas. And some people just have like very simple goals, like I'm nothing wrong with it. It's like make maximum money for your experience, which is a solid goal as well. So don't want to like, you know, put anyone down because the reason is like comp for certain roles, which could be like, you know, you could be like less than a senior PM in a hot company, where you could be making more than even senior director products and like other companies. So definitely, you know, it's a very solid goal. So or the last one is also entrepreneurship, very popular with like PM aspirations. I think the GM path is like more owns like, you know, P&L more can be like a non-PM as I talked about GM of customer success management could be director of product. And, you know, where you can like join terminal ICs would be like only very few companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, they would like, they have like, literally positions called terminal positions, where pretty much you can like, spend your entire career being an IC and moving into like different roles or orgs within the company. Or if you want to like go on your own, think about bootstrapping, VCs or private equity, non tech and like work in like those companies, if you want to work in like a private equity company, or if you want to like start a company which is private equity back, go and work for private companies to like learn more about that. Similarly, non tech, you want to work for like a fashion industry or something, please go and like work in that industry first, before you can like start something over there. Lastly, you know, it's somewhat like personality fit. Okay, I'm like someone who likes to work with like, you know, a lot of people obviously, you know, working in bigger companies makes sense. I'm someone who works, want to work on like, you know, scaling things or growth, relative things like, okay, Airbnb, Zoom and so on. And obviously, different companies as I like marked here, Twilio in 2020, different companies go through like different phases during different timelines. Certain companies could be growth earlier, then they could become like more enterprise. They're like Cisco's during 90s was like growth. Now it's like more enterprise. Similarly, you want to like work more with like, okay, I'm gonna work more with small and medium businesses. I want to work with like FANG and like so on. So please choose your organization more accurately. And lastly, I want to just talk about like, no, who do you want to work with? I think that's like the last slide we want to like talk here is like, what do you want to do in your life is like, more subjective, but who do you want to work with?  If you don't like working with engineers, do not, please do not choose like, you know, platform pms platform roles. Similarly, you want to work with sales, please choose enterprise roles. Similarly, it's very subjective. So customer success, B2B and enterprise and so on. So that is like, I think pretty much majority of the flavors as well as like, you know, what, how do you break into like these types of pms as well as and what do you want to do in the end? And this thanks a lot for coming to the presentation today. And yeah,


We'll do it another food video. Oh cool. Brains.  Go subscribe to him. It's his channel's the best ever food review show. Wow. Yeah. I mean he's the best one we've seen. Where am I? But in the last one we saw it was the exotic food. Right. The exotic street food. Flaming Pond. Was it New Delhi? I think it was maybe? I think it was. It was. It was New Delhi and it was the ice cream with the noodles in it. Yes this one's called the exotic India street food tour in Mumbai India. Ah and in parentheses he says I did not expect this. Don't know what that means. That's a nice little clickbait for you.  I would also like to address all of you jerks who thought that like I just am insulting your food by not like when I was quivering in fear from some of these they were offended that and one person which was particularly funny he was like I don't make I don't say anything to you and how disgusting your mashed potatoes are I said one why would I give a shit if you don't like mashed potatoes people have different taste did you not understand that what seriously like I don't care if you don't like any food from America or anywhere I don't I really don't might like they could somebody somebody could eat my favorite food and say it's the most disgusting thing they've ever tasted and anyone who eats it there's a moron and I would laugh and think there's something wrong with you I wouldn't be offended by that why are you offended if I don't like what you like that doesn't make any sense to me doesn't make any sense people have different tastes that's what being a human is it's true you should wear that on a shirt but anyways I do enjoy the videos and also I said most of these look good not the gross noodle yeah and I mean he's been saying over and over again how badly he wants to do the hundred dollar street food challenge trying to try them but doesn't mean I'm gonna like them yeah but anyways I'm looking forward I'm looking as forward to tasting I don't recognize doing double chili as I am watching you eat the things yeah I think it's especially I don't know what was the movie we just saw there's a movie we just saw where somebody's eating with their hands and then they feed their kid yes I know yeah how'd that how'd that grab you yeah not enjoyable my wife can attest I think I was squirming when it was happening but yes here we go I want all you're about to feed you so bad she will never feed me here we go I don't know I'm dying over here food review show we are going on another fun food adventure and we are trying out some of the most exotic food that we can find here in Mumbai India foods at a little boy from central Minnesota might have found to be a bit unusual in the past that's a goat heart that's smaller than I would have thought for a goat heart and the brain is bigger than I would have thought there's no that India is full of mind-bendingly delicious tasty treats but in these next two videos I've searched Mumbai and Delhi it's like the most unique food in this country like what are the issues they can't get to you yeah I think it doesn't work for this danger of the universe I'm determined to prove that one man's weird is another man's delicious milk I wonder what that's like so many people from India were like sorry man no weird food here I think I found a couple special things I'm not going to say they're weird but they're extra special wrong tried buffalo taste let alone chick milk a special name given to the nutrient dense milk produced immediately after a buffalo has given birth also this place housing 375 buffaloes is not exactly in the countryside India actually is one of the biggest exports of beef these buffalo are in the middle of the city here's a giant buffalo and you ever eat a buffalo next to a apartment building right next to a main highway right here in the middle of the city until I have to be quiet so we're going to be with our buffalo voices there's a guy in milk in here so there's no tea in the air but they're doing it by hand man that's gotta be such a relief to get all that milk out she looks very satisfied right now look at it look at that face oh don't be shy now come on buffalo they're feeding they're eating and then they're a little bit curious too because maybe they've never been on a youtube show so right now we're going to milk the buffalo and um you know back in that I knew how I bet it smells great I love the smell of livestock you've never been in I love it but it smells like poop yeah okay I have no idea what's happening I love the smell in the door it's great sure yeah squeeze it man oh I thought one of these nipples was broken it's just me come on come on don't be so sunny I'm trying to be like gentle this buffalo like that a little bit rough I think they brought me to a dry cow what is that no you need to eat this is like the most bizarre feeling trip I've ever been on this I wish I could smell it actually boys boys boys you don't try to knock the boy I don't think I should milk this one because it has a piece can I drink it one liter of milk that's absolutely gonna give me gas instead of trying the plain buffalo milk I've been told to wait for the rare chick milk from a mother who had just given birth that morning but first I'm heading into gosh what I like dessert is from the same kind of milk females don't even give birth they have a different type of milk that has more nutrients yes yes here you go that's called the first thing I spotted here was they have some special geeky is like the clarified butter and this is a classic email every personal question to ask is from the town they're cheeky and they have goat geek we also have goat cheese fresh camel milk we're not going to try it today because it's uh frozen solid they prepared a dessert that we're going to try right now but it's uh we've had that it's uh barbie barb that special buffalo chick or chick milk they've made this dessert here we have the plain version just straight up white and then this yellow one is made with saffron this is supposed to be super nutrient dense healthy I mean after this like you lift a car or maybe at least a buffalo let's try it out that's really good oh it's very creamy I don't believe between like we're going to say it's a beer cheese and cold milk if you combine all those things that's what it tastes like no buffalo at all you like this one yep so let's try to bite with the saffron it kind of changes the texture somehow that's really almost crumbly you know yeah and it looks like it's blonde it looks like you're going to like property on the uni too next one is come here to grab milk by the bag but a bag of chick milk costs three times the standard variety and right now the owner of this stable has invited me for a warm frothy cup there's a baby cat and the mother we're gonna go try that milk now we'll take the The milk comes from this coffee, it was pregnant in the morning, now we had given the cake to the baby today morning after the baby and this baby after 3 hours or after 4 hours, the baby will do the running. So the baby gets some milk and we get some milk. See, I thought we were taking away the baby's milk and everyone gets some milk. We are having the milk right now, now it is trying to help you out. It is colostromylic has a 99% calcium. That's almost dangerous. It's very nice. The milk just came right from the teeth, it's very frothy on top, it's creamy, it's body temperature, very warm. And you just take it down. Yeah, and it is a free form of bacteria. How do you say cheers? Yeah cheers. Cheers. We asked the same question. How do you say cheers? It is some water, so salty and like that. Yeah, it's saltier than you need. Creamy. I wish you, now for my wife. He says it's delicious. A very special experience. Cheers. Next up, we're heading to the suburbs for a local snack that's prepared and eaten in a very unique style. We're in this residential area here in Mumbai. And just on the street corner, these guys pop up out of nowhere. Buddy, hurry. And then immediately people who knew the stand started coming up and ordering some food. What is special about this place? How many do you usually eat? 10 to 15. 10 to 15. My kind of snack, I like that. Do they usually just give you one by one? Yeah, we ate like 30 some. Oh, that sounds like super fresh. And then suddenly when you're on that end of the month. The Pani Puri here starts with a round wheat crisp. We know. That's stuffed with some beans. We ate so many. And dipped in a sweet blend of sauce. And finally it's completely submerged in this green flavored water. Yeah, totally submerged. And they just serve you one at a time. They create this assembly line. And then while you're chewing, they're creating the next one. Let's try it out. It's not really exotic. Oh. Right. No, it's not really. Let's knock them out. There's something in there that's exotic, I don't know. It's perfect. Perfect. Oh no. This is dangerous. Like whatever they put in here, I'm eating it. Okay, thank you. It is like Indian chips and salsa. Now, give me a second to explain. They have so many flavors I'm used to from something like Mexican food. With the beans inside, cilantro, the spiciness. So it almost tastes like a corn chip full of pico de gallo bean. And some spicy like soupy salsa. They kind of get for free at a Mexican restaurant. And then a little bit of sweetness from some tamarind sauce. And together it's just so amazing. You didn't try this guy when you went to Coca-cola? No. Yeah, we'll try it. Let's go. Okay, seriously I've had like eight or nine already. Last one. Get on our level. They're whipping up some said foodies. Starting with flat wheat crisps, potato, onion, cilantro, spicy chutney, tamarind sauce, cilantro again, chickpea flour, shadings. No one has said plenty of that. More tamarind sauce, cilantro, and it's topped with some fresh lemons. And it's lemon. That one's tasty. Yes. Thank you. It's like heavy. And look, I can't help but to compare it to Mexican food because that's kind of my basis of knowledge. I'm very new to Indian food. I'm learning a lot about it. This feels like some kind of nachos without the cheese. So we've got the chips on the bottom and it's just stacked with toppings. There's the potato, there's the chutney. I'm hungry now. Okay, I'll stop talking. Yeah, look at that. It's tasty. I know it's going to be too spicy for me, but that looks tasty. This is my new favorite thing ever.  It is like carbon. A lot of the food I've had here so far has been fairly heavy, but this with like nice fresh herbs, bean with the very fresh sauces, onion which is very light, very fresh, full of flavor. It's salty, it's spicy, it's sweet all at the same time. It's a profession. I love it. I've been doing double chilies. I'm dying over here. We are continuing our journey finding the most exotic and interesting foods here in Mumbai, India. And right here we have a food stall serving what is essentially the Indian hamburger. You can see there is a line. We've had that. Not that good. Not that good, but we've got that.  This is like a real workman's lunch. So let's go check it out. Called Vada Pah. Yes, Vada Pah. We had that. We had that.  It's more delicious than Indian.  This particular stand lets patrons mix and match the inner workings of their burger. One dude got theirs loaded with potato chips. So other people would touch his mind, right? Yep. Right after they went to the bathroom. Some of this fresh fried potato ball and then that can go inside of the bread inside the sandwich. This is like a fried spinach fritter. And you can mix and match a couple of those too. Here for dessert, they have the jelly beans. So right here is just fried a load of hot chilies, putting some salt on top. That looks intense.  Today my Vada Pah starts with bread that's sliced. I remember the Vada Pah we had here. And that's an American Vada Pah. Yeah, it was delicious. Yeah, really good. Then a newspaper. So I have something to read. Also some spinach fritters, potato chips, and chilies on the side. All this for 20 rupees for about 30 cents. It looks like the bread is just a holder. You can hold it in your mouth. I forgot about this. Chili. You're supposed to be supplementing the flavor with the chili. A little snack like that would be six dollars, right? American dollars. And you'd be like getting, that's a bargain. Yeah. Not hot. Not hot. Like, a little hot chili. It brings out this great sweet taste. It's so different from a raw chili. It's small, so it's like a snack. It's around six bucks. If it was in Beverly Hills, it was Hollywood, it might be more exciting.  Oh my God. What, double chili? All right, double chili. The chili, you haven't had it with the chili. Yummy. All right. I'm not going to lie. The inside of my mouth is on fire. I don't want to die. But otherwise, it's really good. And no, I'm okay. Look at what I've already got. That's exactly what I said. My mouth is on fire, but it's delicious. I'm heading back to Muhammad Ali Road. This road is famous for its huge varieties. Give a Muhammad Ali Road. Especially heavy non-veg delights. My body, Azar, leads away as we order up some Beja's pot containing some special beauty. Convergill. These are fantastic. You're going to enjoy me more in an hour. Okay. That's liver. That's red. That's hot. What animal is it from? It's all the goat organ section. How are they going to cook it? I'm going to fry it. I love it. Lots of iron in there. What's the most disgusting thing about that? The texture. Have you eaten brain? Yeah. I might have. It's not good. It's cow head. And it's a mixture of cow head. Let's try it now. It's umba and spaghetti. You're going to make this part of umba. It's very yummy. When you eat the brain, like when you talk about the brain, the texture, right? It's always soft. It's really good. The texture. Yeah. It's soft and gooey. Like figures. So let's get some brain. And let's get some kidney. You're right. Kidney. Baba beans. Brain on one side. You got it finished. Cumin seeds. Tomatoes. You're going to mix the brain and the kidney? No, no, no. On one side he's going to put the brain on the other side he's going to put up. Okay. So I'm going to mix in my brain and kidney on this side and kidney like that. We ordered like six of these kidneys and they really do put down to nothing. That was six of those things, guys. I don't know that. It looks like mushrooms almost. Right. Our main courses are served with an assortment of bread.  That was amazing. Yeah. If I didn't know that was brain, they would... But the brain is really just kind of fatty. It kind of looks like chicken almost. That is delicious. Cheers. Sancho. That is delicious. That is a goat brain. Yeah. It's a goat doing that. That's kind of a stronger flavor. I don't think I've ever actually on purpose had any kidney. Do you have a letter? Sure. Unless it was in something and not in your writing, you just realized it. Oh, that's it? That's it. That went by fast. That did go fast. Oh, man. Yeah, the brains actually didn't look as bad cooked. Yeah. Like, I think I would be able to... Like, if somebody just handed me that, not that I would just eat something, somebody handed me. But then it's cooked version. I might try. Would you do a blind tasting? No. Where you didn't even know what it was. You had a blindfold on and they're just going to put stuff in your mouth? No. I don't trust people. I do not trust people enough to put anything in my mouth except for one person. Okay, so if she's the one feeding you? Oh, I wasn't talking about food. Yeah, no. Yeah, the... most of the stuff looked delicious, kind of similar to... like, my mouth, I know, is going to be on fire. And that is true.  Yeah. It's not really the taste that I don't normally like. It's the fact that my mouth is now dead on the inside, kind of like my soul. That's what I don't enjoy about spicy food. Yeah. It's the fact that I can't taste anything after it. And texture-wise, what are the texture things that just undo you? Like, you don't like spongy, do you? Oh, yeah. I've never seen that. I can't. The flavor of Bob Drummond is delicious, but I can't handle the texture. The spongy inside? Yeah. It literally feels like the old-school kitchen sponges you put in your mouth. And that's what I'm chewing on. And it has old... like, sink water. No, not because of the taste, just because of the texture. The texture, and then it squashes out and so in my head, now this is the sink water that I'm eating. Got it. But then the slimy stuff I can't do, I can't... Anything that has, like, a weird... like, it's crunchy and then you get some weird um... I don't like nuts and brownies or anything like that. Right. Because you don't like mixing the textures. I don't like... It's too much. It's too much. Yeah. Honestly, I would prefer, like, I know a lot of people with chicken, they're like crunchy. Like, almost like roasted... Oh, I love it. Turkey leg? Always, yeah. So would you eat a giant turkey leg like they do at Magic Mountain on the Bone? I don't normally. I enjoy the flavor. The flavor's delicious. No, I don't like... Yeah, I don't normally eat it because I don't like holding the thing. I do. The flavor's tasty, but yeah, I mean, I would have a hard time getting over the fact that I know it's a brain. I know that. Well, you can eat the slimy things as long as they're cooked. Like, as cargo is typically cooked up and no, I would hate it. No, it's delicious. But the texture looks awful. It's not. It's actually a quite firm texture.  No, it's just a snail. It's a snail. It's a firm, rather firm, almost somewhere in the middle between... It's more firm than a mushroom, but less firm than like meat. Yeah. Like steak. It's disgusting. It's delicious. As cargo is great. So oysters are not on the... On your poor soul. I've never... Actually, I can't remember if I... No, I have had oysters because I lived in Hawaii as a kid, and my dad... I love oysters. ...handed me some oysters, and I did it, and I was like... Ice cold oysters. Oh my... Hmm? I love them. Ever had mussels? I think so. Yeah. Who is it? And that was our show. Goodbye, we have to go.


So this is a new feature we're just inventing. Person of the month, the basic idea is to highlight personalities of the Python community, international or local, so that when you start being a member of this community, you see names thrown around. And this guy is the author of this, and this person is this organizer. And with these five minutes highlights, I'd like to introduce names of the community to you so that you can relate and know who they are and maybe in conferences you can connect with them because you know something. So any feedback is very welcome after, because it's the first time we're doing this. So if you want to do it, you can. If you have any feedback, it will be welcome. All right. For this first segment, I chose Quido and Russell. So Quido is the inventor of the Python language. I have a few dates. So in 1989, he started Python. And 14 months later, there was the first release. So it was December and then February. So you can see our favorite language has 20 years. You can see along the history of Python things from the community which have like Quido's participation, like with the creation of a mailing list, actually a newsnet discussion group. The process became more open and more focused around the community, not just one person. The same thing with the PEP process. It's a balance between heavy standardization and just an actual discussion in mailing lists where you get an actual chaos and you don't make progress. So with the PEPs, that's how the community defines a big change we want to do and people can have objections and counter-proposals. And big syntax changes or big module additions are discussed with PEPs. I don't know if everybody familiar with PEPs. And this process was invented by Python and it's been taken in a lot of other communities. So it's a very good legacy from Quido van Russell and other people for free software in general. This is also the year of Python 2.0, which is mostly a big license change from the previous generation. It's not like Python 3. A good date, Python Software Foundation was founded in 2001. So it's like a nonprofit organization which holds the moral rights. So you see, Quido is still leading the language evolution but not coding as much. And in these big steps, you can see how he's making sure that the community does not depend on him only, which I think is a really good attitude. In 2005, he was hired by Google and he left in the end of last December, so seven years. You may know this logo, Google App Engine here, which is Google's platform so that you can run your applications on a hosted platform without renting your own server. It's a modified Django. Now he's working for Dropbox, that was the other logo. A big contribution from Quido is also ReadVeld, which is a code review tool. You can use it for free at codereview.appspot.com. And of course, that was the year of the Python 3 release. And another big change, like more recent, using Macriol as version control system instead of subversion. Some reasons were like ease of use for the developers, but mostly the change was done to ease contributions by other people because it's much more easy to maintain your fork and your patches with a DVCS than with subversion. And it took a year to be implemented. A few interesting links. That's Quido's core plate. It's in Virginia. It's Python. That's his website, his homepage on the Python.org site. This is his current web blog when he talks about Python or tech or many things. And this is a really interesting blog about the history of Python. You can learn why he used indentation to name it blocks or meta classes. How did they come to invent that? It's really interesting to understand more about how things were implementing. And the big surprise is that the first version of classes is just like how we know them today. It's really fun to understand the history. This one is an article about the history of Python, which you don't find from the docs at Python.org or his web page. So I put the link. It's an interesting one. I'd like to leave with a quote from Quido. The joy of coding Python should be in seeing short, concise, readable classes that express a lot of action in a small amount of clear code, not in realms of trivial code that bores the reader to death. Thank you.


You know about the Robloxed Stambots, right? I mean, you probably do, if you've been playing for more than 15 minutes at least. If you don't know what they are, they usually advertise some free Roblox website that's total BS. Seriously, don't go to these websites. Anyway, Stambots are everywhere, from badges, to groups, to even games. There's so many Stambots out there. For one genuine human player, there's like 40 Stambots throwaway accounts. But maybe not all of these Stambots are the same. Like the saying goes, for every herd of sheep, there's always one with a different color of wool. I was playing Roblox High School, when a Stambot joined the game. It had the same qualities every Stambot usually has. The random username, the green skin, the rainbow spiral t-shirt, everything. But he didn't speak a single word. None. Nada. Nothing. And he stayed there longer than usual as well, to add on to that. At first, I thought it was just an error with the system the person behind this Stambot epidemic made, and moved on with my Roblox High School day. But then, the Stambots started moving around. It was following my friend, Irene. Irene, obviously weirded out by this, said, What do you want? The Stambot said, But what it said was probably keyboard gibberish. What the heck? If this is a glitch, it's a pretty big one. I later recognized it. It was base 64. I put it in a base 64 decoder, and it translated to, Hello? Are you there? Can you hear me? Can you help us? Okay. What the actual heck is going on? This has to be some troll account, that was made to trip people into thinking it was a buggy Stambot, right? Right? Wrong. Oh, so wrong. The screen started to have a red tint. Other Robloxians were dying. They didn't make that tooth sound either, they didn't made a sound at all. They never respond either. The ground was rumbling, and the buildings were being destroyed. Wow, this guy is one clever explorer. Meh, just kidding. The Stambot then said something, which was base 64 again. And this time, it's bent. Oh no. Hurry. He's coming. Run. Hide. I left the server then and there, but Irene wasn't as quick. Here's what she told me. A giant demon had come to the school, and mercilessly killed everyone who had happened to survive. Every Robloxian he killed would never respond in the game, never be able to join any Roblox game again after that, and would get their account terminated three hours later. Irene was one of the demon's victims. Irene has been playing since 2009, and has collected a ton of limitations, and bought a lot of Roblox over that time. And she hated to see all of that to go waste. After that situation, I just had to look up more info about this. Apparently, it has happened to other people in other online games, such as Vantage, spelled with an F, before that shut down. My account still exists, obviously, although I don't know if this entity is nothing more than a myth, and Irene is lying to me by spreading it to me or not, though she's my best friend, and I know she would never do that. One creepy thing to note is that the same spam bot from before, is now following my Roblox account. This mysterious entity has hopped from game to game, and all of the same things had happened to players of those virtual worlds. Irene no longer plays Roblox, and has migrated to Animal Jam, however she is afraid that the same thing will happen there, and the event will occur all over again.