Kelsey Hightower on Kubernetes, open source and his own journey as a developer

once in a while we all come across someone who inspires us that inspirations comes not only from the work they are doing or the technology they are working on but also from their attitude towards life that inspiration comes from how they treat other people our next guest is one such inspiring person after spending some time with him I've kind of become his fan and I'm pretty sure that after watching this interview you would become his fan tune my next guest today is Kelsey Hightower he's a great technologist and more importantly is a great human being I wish the good clone and have more Kelsey's but for now we have only one so let's talk to one and only one Chelsie Hightower I'm a technologist and the kubernetes community I share what I learned I'm currently working at Google on cloud stuff container stuff and just generally understanding how do we like move compute into error where people can just focus on building things not deploying them right so then they look at kubernetes no it's very related with very new technology and now you know Microsoft Amazon everybody is using it so when you look at this adoption and growth of qubit what do you I mean so so the software project the thing that is saying github that you download and install that is definitely you can price a relatively new it's about four years old now but the ideas are old right these are the ideas from the white papers these are practices from you know the large web scale companies so I think the reason why you see adoption across the cloud providers is because they understand these ideas didn't know that they could probably implement them themselves but why not join a community so kubernetes is more let's take all the stuff that we learned in the last 15 20 years let's roll it into a project instead of a white paper and then if you understand these principles you immediately get it so now you can download an idea and actually use it and now contribute it to it so I think this is why it has such a widespread adoption because it actually solves real problems that people have and I think if you if you look at open-source work yes they've always been about our teenagers but there was no alternative of people this is just little yeah me honestly we look at kubernetes and its design yes it's an API driven project so whether there's a motive around commercial offering or not it's so extensible and every component lives as a first-class citizen through the extensibility so if you're new provider shows up say Microsoft or Azure or adjure or AWS anything they build and extend will look just like the other first-class components that use the same extension points so this is why it is a level playing field because it is right and one more thing is a lot of open source technology when they come they're like relatively new here though it is was used you know for decades at Google already just so that brings the confidence so like you Nerys itself wasn't used internally at Google ideas of it right so we saw Brian grant whatever keynote or soup worked on things like Borg and some of the things that try to attempt to improve Borg internally when you look at those projects a lot of those learnings came out but I think some interesting parts about kubernetes it's not just google right you have Red Hat early on coming in saying you know what outside of Google some people say in the real world you have all of these existing systems existing workflows and then you end up with things like namespaces right a way to take a big cluster and chop it up into individual components or namespaces and that really reflects a lot of the enterprises where some teams just kind of work in isolation but they want to share common resources things like the deployment object and the F people like core OS were heads EE comes from where we store all of our data so it's a combination of like people with great Enterprise experience the new startups that are rethinking existing problems people like Google actually use systems built and failed time's over to produce a system like this are getting also techno that company you know try to so and there are lot of vendors in the world offering kubernetes solution and then there's up a stream so how do one decided whether to buy or build you know honestly depending on where you are if I was a large company that was relatively good at infrastructure like github right gave their keynote get up already had great experience with bare metal they know how to automate bare metal they know how to manage those systems so all of that existing experience when they see kubernetes and they say hey that looks like the right set of patterns they solve the problems that we have they're able then to bring that on so buy versus build for them is building made total sense for github at their scale and more importantly at their expertise level right they can actually get a lot of value just from an open source project now on the other side of the spectrum if your business does let's say running in a grocery store now yeah back in systems to do that you have the company website maybe you get into machine learning but your core business is not infrastructure and in that case that's probably where it makes sense to have a technology partner so we talked about a lot of vendors in the space the way I look at the vendors in a space is almost like restaurants all right some people want to eat local I like the restaurant that's across the street from my house they know my name like I know them I can rely on the menu some regions have different spices that cater to the people that live there yeah I so there's no way that you want to just eat at one global change they don't understand the norms of the local systems so when I'll get these vendors I don't really think of them as vendors anymore i think i'm of like technology partners i need someone that understands my business so sometimes you'll pick a vendor based on the vertical that they're in like hey this vendors really good with government or airline i'm gonna work with them even though they may leverage technology that's like provided by a larger community so to me vendors will always be there okay i don't think of as fragmentation i think it is the only way to serve as a global market but we taught these two you know let's help the community the most you know the buyers are the builders both right these things don't work without money exactly if no one's buying it it's not sometimes sometimes your best contribution could be buying a product to support these things - are cool yeah - I like that one so I think by vs. bill it's just one of these decisions where if you're buying sometimes you contribute indirectly again you have a vendor that's serving us particular vertical that vendor now takes on the assumption that hey any changes you need to be successful you can almost delegate that to your technology partner and then they contribute upstream so it's almost this thing no matter whether you're contributing directly or indirectly we're all gonna end up benefiting right kubernetes has been used by almost everybody no talk are using is cloud for reason I mean I don't know who's not using it but that also kind of doesn't pay the concern that so many you know new players are coming in it may kind of given these men lose focus on what it should be doing so we've already identified ourselves we are a platform for building platforms if kubernetes was going to try to be the end game like kubernetes is a product is a project we know what our scope is so yes people come in and want it to do more but we won't like we already kind of drawn that line so it's starting off from a great foundation all the extensibility hooks are there so whatever vision you have whether you want to build a pass or server lists or self-driving car framework go ahead and do that you're not gonna cause friction with the internal core system itself so that gets room for the players to show up to me it's like it's like language everyone's free to speak it some people use it appropriately this is an expression of ideas Cabernets allows you to express your ideas in the new platform that you end up building so yes not everyone will agree but cares as a platform for you to do what you need to do to succeed and that's the end of the story and one more thing that I keep hearing is that like Cuba ladies its to the cloud what Linux is to the server you know Google is like but Linux is kind of traumatized right and I do hear that kubernetes or in our consultation is becoming common eyes is it becoming to monetize or companies want you to think the estimate eyes will get they can sell their services on top commodity right I use it when you're right a white paper you're sharing ideas with the world mm-hmm right these research papers try to crystallize practices that sometimes people never share it's our secret sauce mm-hmm so once you put an idea out there in that kind of form people can read it and then you start to commoditize the idea people can think about it share have a common language but then when you turn into a open source project the fact that it gets checked in you almost can monetize that space if there is someone charging a thousand dollars per node Cabernets comes out in a $0 you've already started the commoditization process the other part of the commoditization process I believe comes from the standardization once we start to say there's kubernetes conformance you can only come out of time you can only can have conformance on something that can actually be understood so whether you say standardized or commoditized it doesn't matter they almost end up in the same way that means the value line is drawn mm-hmm and if you want to be able to charge someone you better go this way right and that's just what that means and that's what happened to the Linux world also you know what happens when things become commoditized they also become kind of boring right so how do you first of all keep it interesting some more people come and kind of word with you more people coming is not always the best result oh okay let me like so I understand what you're saying so it's like listen we want to have great expansion so when new people show up in our ecosystem we want them to say start with kubernetes and they say well the reason why we cannot start with kubernetes and that'll support this use case that's where we say you know what that is a use case Cabernets should support right let's add a new extension point that's one the system should change so now this is about a point where it's the plan itself we need to move all the ideas that's a lot of things still in alpha so while we say it's boring we're meaning that now is time to refocus go from alpha to stable crystallize that idea and kind of cement it and then the things that will drive new things a new work should be real use cases that we think are within the scope of the core they're just missing right one more thing is that as you said you know that new idea I was talking to a lot of vendors here not like IOT the space which is becoming huge so do you think abilities can kind of serve this community as well McCrory is right maybe think about what Cabernets does is the foundation of ease yes if you're gonna start a so service provider that wants to service the IOT community in your core business is the IOT space right so why would you start from scratch to build a distributed systems right IOT is a distributed systems problem so why would you start from zero so if you enter this space you can say hey I need a system that will work globally if I start with kubernetes then I go this way for the value side so I think honestly Cooper days is going to serve as these people indirectly as it should be just like TCP whose services almost everything you touch but it's hidden that's what their value is the strength is in actually being agnostic to the point where you can leverage it without your customers needing to know about it and and then you look at communities and the growth is there new in use cases are there what is the challenge that you see are you are selling yourself for new challenges are setting me at the we very receptive this Cabernets can't be everything to everyone so new people may come in from years from now say kubernetes should be coronated evolve into right hey you gotta say listen the API is will always get cleaned up and become better you will always increase performance we always do the things to make sure that you can focus up here but overall that's where the innovation will starts we have new comers show up and say I don't have to think about that problem anymore look at all these new ideas we get from people changing their workflows being able to move between different environments let that innovation take off we do not need to concentrate innovation way down here one more thing that is about kubernetes it and a you also open source I saw you know you are like kind of celebrity here you know so how does it feel like you know because as you said earlier not helping those people this is how this thank you so what do you feel being part of the open-source community I always tell people at the celebrity stuff I want to check your picture the thing is I'm not necessary of celebrity just more of if you're helpful for people uh-huh this is their expression of gratitude hey I want to say thank you some people want to take a picture to say thank you it means a lot to them and I'm I don't let it go to my head right honestly the community gave it to you and the community can take it away so I respect it as one of these things that says hey people are encouraging me to keep it going so honestly when people tell me thank you or they express their gratitude it's almost like a payment for my service right I have a job they pay me in dollars but people actually help me keep going right sometimes you need a boost to bring light so people help you indirectly all the way here to this interview there was a gentleman that says hey yeah I was looking for a career change I was watching your videos I've been in this and she went like 35 years and I haven't had this much fun since like that's amazing when people can say hey I watched your videos indirectly I don't get to meet everybody and the chance like that where a person walks up to me and says hey I want to tell you thank you in person that means a lot for me he's a lot to that person and it really helps when people have criticism for me like hey I don't like your style I don't like your approach and I can tune all that out because I have real users that have value and I can just concentrate and focus on that now you give some example but in the open sources or you have no kind of have impact on how it's open source impacted your life honestly when I was growing up I didn't see a world where anyone in my family was in the tech world you know the mean I play sports I just hung out as a kid I didn't have an imagination that I would be in an industry like this at all so now that I'm in the industry like this is kind of amazing that you can have this opportunity right where I can also learn new things I can also grow in skill set and then be rewarded for those things something open-source is like you don't have to prove yourself first I don't have to show some degree to say hey I belong if I can contribute whether it's documentation talk or source code I'm accepted in this community no one can validate that no one can say hey you're not allowed to contribute because of X background show up in you contribute I don't think there's been a movement as impactful for me personally as like open source right and can you record a moment where you actually met somebody from the open source just the way people are meeting you and you are it met somebody from the open source word or you saw video or you look you're like oh yeah this is honestly like people like Brian Grant's right so why people don't know who Brian grant is he works at Google he's a principal engineer there and what Brian does is he thinks very deeply about these problems and make sure that large systems work well together when all the pieces are brought together there's very hard distributed system problems I remember in Paris in another person's like Arrington also works at Google these are people from the board paper so back then no one had access to those kind of systems unless you worked at Google so if you ever want to be at that level you will read these research papers you and ask yourself like what level do you have to be at in order to produce such a document in a way that teaches other people indirectly so you might put a lot of respect onto that so then we meet them for the first time right you sit with them for the first time me dinner with them for the first time and what's amazing though is when you get this fresh cut of your gratitude but also when they express gratitude and things that you do and you understand that people can actually be at this level and not be yeah that to me is like what it really said hey I can actually operate in the space and be humble and focus on actually executing and that having this prima donna mindset about it and let's just you know one last wish would be that nowadays companies and you know the community they're working together so how much culture is changing me that within the companies to kind of encourage you know people who are doing open source because the totally different in the mindset has used to be the legacy I mean any company of any size preggers have multiple cultures everyone talks about a single culture I've never really seen it I mean I've seen culture change based on the pay scale yes I've seen the culture change based on the position or what department you work on and I think honestly that's end of the day as an individual you get to choose what culture you want to participate in if you see something that doesn't align with your values you can speak up against it you can be on a outing with your co-workers to say hey I don't agree with that behavior I won't participate you can also take opportunities to correct bad behavior in public in a way that's actually benefiting people so I think coaches what you defines I have a set of things that I believe in and I do those things regardless and you try to teach people your cultures I think if you get to a point where you're visible right it's one thing to kind of lead by example but sometimes you got to explain it right someone sometimes you gotta say Kelsey why do you spend so much time one-on-one with people that's not a very scalable way of doing things like well honestly it doesn't start in with me so if I spend the one-on-one time with people don't go on and teach other people how to behave and what the coaches should look like so I think everyone has to define the culture from themselves or you participate in that culture and at some point you may actually find yourself having to explain it yeah you like ten people and you know just say I I mean since you're also part of a sort we have seen there are sometimes there are some hostility towards new users or it was some kind of colorful languages so what is your advice or you know that most everybody as you said earlier everybody's helping each other though you are not charging so honestly you know I don't use that kind of language huh to anybody right so I don't that's just that my individual culture right so I just don't go around doing that kind of thing I find more I find more personal fulfillment and watching you smile that's what I get out of it right if I see you smile it makes me smile so that's the way I want to be so I want to be around that that's what I want around me so I'm a new user comes I want to see those smile first okay and then when they win and they go on Twitter to say yo I'm winning I see them shine I got that promotion I got that job I find value in that yes so that's what I want to see now maybe people have you know they find value in like jokes or giving people tough love that might be for them and I that's too stressful for me personally yeah right I think there's a way you can break the ice and say hey man you know that commit wasn't that good come on now and you joke with them you say hey let's walk through this one so there's a time you can kind of introduce it and then say hey but also on the flip side if you work with a lot of people it can be draining and yeah that's the one I think as a new person you gotta kind of respect the level of work that people put in to be able to help you so make sure you at least go around make sure that you bang your head against the wall for a week or two sometimes is required so that way you can actually put some skin in the game you can't just turn around and say hey someone owes me a response if I see someone I said hey I've tried these seven things he or I'm stuck I can I find it much easier to go ahead and help them so I think a lot of times for people that helped millions of people thousands of people hundreds of people on a daily basis having people that don't even try sometimes the human plant has to come out say hey hunt on you're not even trying so you want me to put in all this extra effort and you do zero that's not gonna work so I think as a new person make sure you understand that there are things you can do to make it easier on a person that has to onboard a lot of new people on the other closing note what is your advice to all those people who are watching this video you know do it from the point of the open source to really know how to encourage each other how to work with each other how to inspire each other and create opportunities for everybody be a better person that's it all this I want to be the best programmer I want to be the best speaker just be the better person because everyone starting at a different point you could have been an before doesn't mean you give up and continue to be an once you recognize that you can just be a slightly better person then tomorrow just be a better person you know the mean so if you had a conflict with someone and you thought you were the person that caused the conflict tomorrow learn how to apologize authentically and just be a better person so everyone starts from somewhere so if you're just learning the program and you get a little bit better the next day it doesn't matter what everyone else is doing if you just become a better person at whatever the timescale that works for you at the end of the day five years from now you're probably gonna be very impressed when you go look in the mirror at the end of the day all the advice all that just be a better person make sure you understand what good means to you might need to check on what what good means but then work towards that period don't be making excuses there's no excuses required to be a better person just do that and that's all I already have yeah it's and if that's it excellent yes just be a good human being that's the baseline for everything there's a matter between to see you are what people make good developers if you will make mentors because people make good politicians good people make good managers yeah good yeah civilizations you know and all those things yeah yeah that's keep going up thank you cuz it's so much you know for spending your time with me and it was really pleasure in the fellow pencils user a little kid thank you thanks for watching and I would also like to thank all my patron it's really amazing to see such great support around the new open source media property that I am working on those who are not aware of it please visit this link and and support the open source work that I am doing thanks for watching please subscribe to this channel and don't forget so support me at patreon see you next time with another great interview bye for now

Channel: TFiR

Views: 6,787

Rating: 4.9371729 out of 5

Keywords: Kelsey Hightower, Kubernetes, KubeCon, OpenSource

Id: cH3Nj-MLlWM

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2018