Yodit & Venkat
Yodit: Today I have Dr. Venkat with me, and I'll let him introduce himself before we start.
Venkat: Hey Yodit, it's really great to talk to you. Thanks for having me on this program. It's a pleasure.
What can I say? I get excited about programming. I enjoy coding. I talk about programming, I share what I know, and I learn from others. That's basically what I do.
Yodit: To give a little backstory, I got to know about you in December 2025 from the local Java User Group organizer, Eric.
He was like, "Oh, in January he's coming. One of my favorite speakers is coming to this event, and I'm so excited."
I was like, "Okay, one of your favorites out of everyone?"
He said, "Yes, you should come and listen."
The moment he put it on the calendar, I started researching what you do, the books you wrote, your award winning books, and everything else. I thought, "Okay, I should go to that event."
There was no way I was going to miss it.
So I came to the Java User Group event in January, and I actually won this notebook.
I still use it. One side is for AI notes and the other side is for data structures and algorithms.
I also got to know about Arc of AI. I won one of the free tickets, which was very generous.
It's been a pleasure getting to know everyone there. I had a really good time at the conference.
But I have a question.
What is the thought process behind having two successful conferences in one year? Both of them are demanding, and I don't know the objective of each separately, but why not combine them?
Venkat: First of all, Eric is awesome. He's been running the Dallas Java User Group for such a long time, so I definitely admire all the effort he and others have put into the community.
One of the things I was very interested in, as I've been speaking at conferences for about twenty plus years now, is that I travel around the world. I spend a lot of time in Europe speaking at conferences as well.
One of the thoughts I had in my mind was this:
As I travel to these conferences, especially the ones in Europe, there are amazing speakers from around the world who come and share their knowledge.
My question was:
What if we could bring those speakers in so we can learn from them here at home?
That's basically the idea.
I live in Colorado, so I decided to start the conference in Colorado back in 2020, which, as we know, was the infamous year of the pandemic.
Everything got derailed because of COVID.
But we were persistent. We stayed with it long enough, restarted the effort, and our first conference was in 2024 here in Denver, Colorado.
We've run the conference twice so far in the Denver area, and we've had speakers from the U.S., Europe, Asia, and literally all over the world.
Part of the objective for me to start the conference was twofold.
One was: What if developers here could learn from expertise from around the world?
The second was: What if we could give opportunities to new speakers who are extremely good but just haven't broken into the conference space yet?
In all honesty, one of the things I've really enjoyed over the past couple of years is getting to know speakers who are really, really good, but I never knew about them before we started.
That is one of the objectives.
Coming back to your other question about separate conferences, when we started Dev2Next, as the name kind of alludes to, it was about what's next for developers.
As we know, the world has changed quite drastically over the past few years.
When we first put the conference together, there wasn't much discussion around AI.
The question was: What do developers want to focus on as the next thing?
The focus of Dev2Next has been entirely on architecture, DevOps, current trends, agility, and programming languages.
But more important to me are two other tracks that we don't often have enough of at conferences.
One is leadership.
The other is what I like to call wealth and wellness.
People ask, "Did you mean health and wellness?"
No. Wealth and wellness.
I'm a firm believer that money doesn't bring happiness, but money gives you leverage.
As developers, we spend so much effort on our jobs that we sometimes forget where we're going.
That becomes an issue when we become sixty five or seventy years old.
A lot of things in life take a long time to build.
It's very difficult to wake up one day and say, "I want to be healthy tomorrow."
You don't get to decide that when you're seventy.
You need to start when you're twenty, thirty, or forty.
The same thing applies to wealth.
You can't wake up one morning and say, "I want to be rich tomorrow."
Money takes a long time legally to build.
That's one of the reasons I wanted to focus on wealth and wellness, because both of those things take a long time to build.
Along the way, we had this burst of excitement around AI.
We wanted to create a conference focused on AI, and that's basically what Arc of AI is now.
As we know, the software field is pretty broad today.
We still have concerns like:
How do you get good at architecture?
How do you get good at DevOps?
How do you keep track of current trends?
So Dev2Next continues to focus on those topics, while Arc of AI focuses on AI related topics.
That's basically the reason for having two separate conferences.
As you would expect, there's some overlap.
At Dev2Next, there are talks that involve AI, but they're not AI specific talks.
They focus on questions like:
How do we use AI for DevOps?
How do we create architecture with the help of AI?
At the same time, there are talks focused entirely on architecture, DevOps, and other topics that are not related to AI.
So Dev2Next stays focused on what's next for developers.
Arc of AI, on the other hand, goes deep into almost every aspect of AI.
From using AI for software development to using AI within product development and everything in between.
I think these two conferences will continue to grow with different areas of emphasis.
Yodit: That's really good.
So if it had to be only one, maybe Dev2Next would swallow Arc of AI?
Venkat: I don't think the goal is to have one or to have many.
The goal is to provide value to the community.
Where do we provide the best value? That's the question.
One of the things you don't want to do is walk around with size 10 shoes and ask, "What feet can fit these shoes?"
The question is:
"Here are my feet. What shoes fit them?"
That's the question you need to ask.
The angle I take is not from running a conference.
The angle I take is from understanding what the community actually needs and then deciding based on that.
At some point, if we decide one conference is enough and provides the value people need, then obviously we won't continue running another one.
The goal is not to merge them or keep them separate.
The goal is to provide the right value to the community.
Yodit: One of the best things I liked about the conference was how deep it was.
You could go very deep or stay at a higher level depending on the session.
And there were no vendors trying to grab your attention.
It was purely educational content.
I really liked that.
Venkat: That's one of the key things for us.
Sometimes people ask us, "Where are the large companies? Why aren't they involved?"
That's exactly the point.
I'm glad you noticed.
We want practitioners sharing the journey they've taken, where they've benefited, and what struggles they've faced.
We don't want vendors coming in and selling products.
One thing we've heard repeatedly from attendees is that many conferences become marketing pitches from beginning to end.
People have told me:
"I've been to several conferences, but one thing that disappoints me is that everything feels like a marketing presentation."
Whereas here, they feel like they're getting exposure to ideas they can take back to their company rather than listening to a vendor explain why they should buy a product.
To me, one of the most valuable things in the world is time.
You might be willing to give me ten dollars.
But once you spend ten minutes, you're never getting that time back.
I value people's time a lot.
If you're going to give me ten minutes of your time, I want to make sure I give you ten minutes of value.
To me, that's the deepest form of respect.
When people spend time away from work, away from home, and travel to another city to attend a conference, I respect that.
I want to make sure they're receiving what they need to receive.
That's very important to me.
Yodit: Another thing that I liked about the conference was the description for speakers.
For example, if you're speaking, you may get paid or may not get paid depending on the outcome of the conference. It gives a sense of ownership as a speaker. It feels like everyone is working toward the success of the conference together.
I'm new to the conference world, but I hadn't seen that before.
That was another thing that really stood out to me.
Venkat: That was another thing that I really liked as we were thinking through this.
While there are a lot of nice conferences around the world, one of the challenges I hear from being on the other side, as a speaker, is that I get to sit down with speakers and listen to what they're saying.
A lot of times I hear speakers say:
"Hey, I'm spending money out of my own pocket to come and speak at this conference. My company is not paying for me to come. It's a huge burden on me to take time away from work, come speak, and still spend all this money."
The question for me was:
What can we do to support speakers who are not working for these large corporations?
People who are not being sent by their bosses to conferences, but who still have talent, knowledge, and expertise they want to share.
How can we support them?
In that regard, we decided to pay for travel for speakers who need travel support.
Now obviously, we don't have a bottomless budget. We can't spend money we don't have.
And in the United States especially, the conference market is extremely tight right now.
I'll be very honest about it.
Openness is something I really value.
We've been running the conference at a loss for the past several events.
Typically, we're losing about one hundred thousand dollars per conference.
But at the same time, we want to respect speakers who are not able to pay for themselves to come and speak.
So we're paying for speaker travel and accommodations for people whose companies cannot support them.
For those whose companies are able to support them, we're very thankful.
Again, the emphasis is that they're not coming to give a marketing talk.
One thing we've been very careful about is that the program committee has no visibility into which speakers are receiving travel support and which speakers have their companies paying for them.
They have no visibility into that.
The talks are selected entirely on their merit.
You'd be surprised how many talks we reject because they're marketing pitches.
We simply say:
"This is a marketing pitch. We're not going to accept it."
It doesn't matter if a company is willing to pay for the speaker.
We're not taking marketing talks into the conference.
Once the committee finishes selecting talks, then we look at the budget and ask:
How much money can we spend on travel?
Just to give you an idea, we're spending about twenty thousand dollars on travel expenses alone.
With twenty thousand dollars, we can bring a number of speakers, but we can't bring everyone.
If we have ten speakers from Europe who want to attend, that budget disappears very quickly.
So we have to balance things.
We look at the selected speakers and ask:
How many can we realistically support?
Maybe we bring a few speakers from different parts of the United States whose travel costs are relatively low.
Or maybe we bring one speaker from Europe.
Those are the kinds of tradeoffs we have to make.
If one speaker from overseas costs as much as four domestic speakers, we have to think carefully about how to balance that.
A lot goes into those decisions.
And then, of course, if we end up making a profit, and so far we haven't had that happen, we're not a money making machine.
We're here for the community.
If we make money, we want to put that value back into the community.
That's where profit sharing comes in.
We're doing this from the perspective of what value this brings to attendees, what value this brings to speakers, and what we can do to sustain the conference long term.
Right now we're not in a sustainable mode yet.
We're hoping the market improves and things get better.
But it's a journey.
Every opportunity is an opportunity to learn and improve.
We're here for the long haul.
We're here for the right reasons.
We're not here to make money in the short term and disappear.
That's not our goal.
This goes back to something I mentioned earlier.
Money doesn't bring happiness, but it gives you leverage.
The decisions we've made over the past few decades have given us enough leverage to weather these difficult periods and absorb these losses while building a really good conference.
From the outside, you see a good conference.
From the inside, it's been much harder than it may appear.
But we knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to be easy.
So the challenges aren't surprising.
If it's not challenging, anybody can do it.
Anybody can do it badly.
Our goal is not to do it badly.
Our goal is to do it really, really well.
And we're not going to be any less enthusiastic about delivering that value moving forward.
Yodit: I feel like if I were the organizer and I was trying to balance things while accommodating speakers, I might be tempted to accept vendors because that's where the money comes from.
But the fact that you have a strict boundary and say:
"No, we're not doing that."
and still try to make it work regardless is really impressive.
Venkat: That's the hard part.
It's easy to give in and do the wrong thing.
It's also important to keep costs affordable.
We don't want to charge an enormous amount of money.
At the end of the day, it's not just us making decisions.
There are employees who genuinely want to learn, get better in their careers, and bring value back to their companies.
They're often fighting internally to get approval to attend.
And I'll be absolutely honest.
There are attendees who pay for the conference themselves because their companies won't pay.
Sometimes they even take vacation time to attend.
Keeping costs affordable for them is very important to me.
If someone says:
"This conference will help my career. I'm going to take time off and pay for it myself."
then I want that cost to be within reach.
I don't want people feeling like attending will break the bank.
That's something we're very sensitive to.
We're balancing a lot of competing priorities.
If our goal were simply to make things easy on ourselves, there are a thousand routes we could take.
But the goal is not to be easy.
The goal is to be right.
And usually, the right thing is not the easy thing.
That's where the challenge really is.
Yodit: Speaking of AI conferences, what do you think is the most overhyped or underhyped thing about AI currently?
Venkat: The most overhyped right now is this illusion that somehow AI is going to take over everything and we don't need humans to do anything.
Especially within the programming world, the hype is that we don't need programmers anymore and AI is going to program everything.
I had somebody come to me and say, "You don't understand. I'm able to build software myself. We don't need programmers anymore."
It's a person I know fairly well, and I asked him a question.
I said, "I'm glad you're excited about it. That's great. But can you tell me what the cost of failure is for the software you're building?"
His answer was, "There's really no cost of failure because what I build does a few interesting things, but it doesn't have any impact on anybody's life."
If your software is not managing somebody's bank account, somebody's finances, somebody's insurance, a construction project, or flight tracking, then the cost of failure may be relatively small.
But if any of those systems fail, the cost is enormous.
Cost comes in two forms.
There's financial cost, and there's health or life related cost.
If software fails and prevents someone from getting to a hospital, or misguides them on the way to a hospital, you can imagine the consequences.
A bank making mistakes with transactions can affect people's ability to pay bills or buy groceries.
So when people say AI can generate code, my question is always:
Who is accountable when something goes wrong?
Organizations are still responsible for the systems they build.
They can't hand accountability to AI.
One of the examples I often think about comes from a trip I took in New Zealand.
We had just finished a wonderful day of sightseeing, and our driver said:
"We have two ways to get down."
"Option one will take about ninety minutes."
"Option two will take twenty seconds."
We all laughed.
Then he said, "I think you know which one I'm choosing."
"The ninety minute option."
"Because we'll still be alive to remember the trip."
To me, that's the whole point.
Your goal is not simply to go fast.
Your goal is to go safely.
Speed without discipline is not sustainable. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
The biggest hype today is around the speed of AI.
People are excited because they can generate code quickly.
But sustainable software development is not about how fast you can write code.
It's about how quickly you can deliver value to customers while maintaining quality.
The good news is that this isn't hopeless.
There are good engineering practices that allow you to use AI effectively.
You just won't get that uncontrolled speed people are talking about.
You don't want the twenty second ride down the mountain if the result is disastrous.
You want something in the middle.
You want sustainable speed.
I think over the next few years the industry is going to go through that learning process and realize how AI should really be used.
To me, the speed of programming isn't important.
Business agility is important.
How quickly can I deliver results for the business?
How quickly can I deliver value to customers?
Delivering value doesn't just involve writing code.
It involves writing code that is maintainable.
When changes happen, you need confidence that those changes didn't break what was already working.
All the feedback loops we talk about in agile development become even more important when using AI.
AI combined with sustainable engineering practices will give us better results.
Not AI alone, but AI combined with good engineering practices.
Yodit: That's really nice.
So that's the overhyped part.
What would you say is the underhyped aspect of AI?
Venkat: One of my biggest aha moments has been realizing that while AI is not super good at writing code, it's fantastic at identifying issues in existing code.
I call AI an awesome investigator.
That's my definition of AI.
AI is really good at analysis, much more than generation. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
I truly think that's underhyped.
We've already seen examples where AI has found bugs that have been sitting in systems for years, sometimes even decades.
I think that's where companies are going to gain tremendous value.
If organizations use AI to analyze existing code, detect problems, and analyze operational data, they'll gain much more value than many people realize.
The analysis aspect of AI is something we're going to benefit from significantly.
I don't think people are talking about that nearly enough. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
Yodit: Speaking of thirty years ago, I was watching one of your interviews. I don't know if you remember it, but you talked about your first speaking event in Phoenix.
Let's go back in time.
If you could do that speaking event again today with everything you've learned over the last thirty plus years, what would you do differently?
Venkat: Oh my gosh. A lot.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
That was back in 1993.
Venkat: I was working on my PhD at that time, and as part of my PhD, I had a paper accepted to speak at a conference that was being held in Phoenix.
The entire talk was twenty minutes long, and I cannot even tell you how much time I spent practicing for that talk over and over and over again.
What I realize today is that when you're nervous, you practice very differently than when you're an expert.
That has been one of the biggest aha moments for me.
As a novice, you're practicing the talk repeatedly. Sometimes you're even trying to memorize exactly what you're going to say.
Then everything gets derailed because once you get there, you're absolutely nervous.
You're like a deer in headlights.
You're not really able to think through how to present because you're overwhelmed by the opportunity to stand in front of people and give a talk.
As an expert, you prepare very differently.
Today, I still prepare for talks, but I prepare very differently than I did thirty years ago.
So what would I do differently?
That's actually a difficult question to answer because as a novice, you cannot behave like an expert.
And as an expert, you shouldn't behave like a novice.
Part of life is going through that journey.
Part of life is going through the experience, learning from it, succeeding, failing, and getting better.
If I were to rethink it, maybe I would tone down the amount of practice I was doing and instead focus more on the subject I wanted to deliver.
I would internalize the topic more than the exact words I planned to speak.
That's really my focus today.
I want to internalize the topic deeply and then be able to speak about it.
The words get generated on the fly.
I don't spend time memorizing what I'm going to say.
I spend time understanding what I want to say.
There's a huge difference between those two things.
Yodit: So the reason I ask is because I'm going to be giving a speaking event. I'm going to be speaking at a conference in September.
The distinction you gave and the specific interview that I mentioned was the difference between storytelling and a tale.
Do you have an example of how to approach it? This could be the storytelling version, but this would be the tale version, and we should avoid that one.
Do you have a story?
Venkat: Yeah, I always say, tell a story but not a tale.
Stories are very useful to ground ideas in people's minds. Stories are very important.
A tale, unfortunately, distracts the audience from the main point, and they will lose interest in it.
For example, I could say AI is great for finding issues.
As an example, I was working on a production system where the team was struggling for six months. They couldn't find the issue, but we unleashed AI on it, and within a matter of seconds, it was able to point us to areas that we didn't even consider.
Sure, the programmers had to investigate further, but it really gave us focus and areas of interest.
That's storytelling right there.
A tale would be:
"Oh, you know what? This was in Flagstaff, Arizona. There was this company. I had to take a flight. I got there. My flight got delayed. I ended up being late..."
Now you're doing a tale, and people are wondering where this person is going and how this is related to the topic.
A lot of times people get derailed into the story, and the focus becomes the story.
That's when it becomes a tale rather than keeping the story relevant to the topic.
You have to surface back to the topic.
That is the distinction between those two.
You want to make it lively.
One of the key things is when you read good books, what do good books do?
Good books don't lay out facts and walk away.
Laying out facts in a talk is like giving vegetables to children and saying, "Eat it."
No child likes eating vegetables because vegetables are bland.
A mild amount of spice adds to the taste.
Your stories are the spice you bring to the food, to the facts, to the data, to the topic.
You want to sprinkle anecdotes and metaphors into your talk. Then people get attached to it.
Otherwise, the facts become too bland and people get bored listening to your talk.
You really want to look at these as two extremes.
On one side, you're delivering a set of facts.
You walk in and say:
"Here are the things you should do. Write tests. Have continuous feedback loops."
You plow through concept after concept.
People are sitting there thinking:
"I would rather paint my toenails than listen to this person."
Then you go to the other extreme.
You walk in and start telling jokes and endless tales.
For the first few minutes people chuckle and think it's funny.
Then after a while they start asking:
"Why am I here?"
"If I wanted a comedy show, I would have gone somewhere else."
This goes back to what I mentioned earlier.
As a speaker, I have to value the time of the people sitting in front of me.
One thing I often talk about is information density.
Information density is how much value you're providing within a given amount of time.
If I spend too much time telling tales, I'm lowering the information density.
If I only deliver facts, the information density may be high, but it becomes difficult to consume.
You have to strike a balance.
That's where stories and metaphors come in.
Stories and metaphors become carriers for the facts.
Think of them as a capsule.
You take medicine inside a capsule because it makes it easier to consume.
It's like the famous Mary Poppins song.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
A little story helps the facts go down much better.
That's the balance we need to strike.
Yodit: I heard this was designed by your son. The logo, right?
Venkat: Yes, the logo. He's a graphic designer.
Yodit: Did he come up and say, "Okay, I want to design it," or did you say, "Okay..."
Venkat: Oh no. I am better than that.
I'll tell you the true story.
I am good at a few things in the world. I am terrible at a whole lot of other things.
I was on a ten hour flight from Europe to the US.
I got on the flight and designed a logo.
It took me about an hour and a half to two hours.
When I finished designing the logo, I sent it to my family and said:
"Here's the logo for this new conference we're going to start."
Within a few minutes, my son replied back saying:
"Dear God, no."
So all I did was create an absolutely terrible design.
His reply was:
"Dear God, no."
And I'm like:
"What do you not like about it?"
He said:
"Dad, just chill. I'll get back to you."
I made him so angry that the only thing he could do was create a logo.
So he created one and said:
"What do you think of this?"
I'm like:
"I love it."
He kind of had these elements in mind about what I wanted in there.
Maybe one day in a museum we'll have my original logo, which only three people have ever seen in this world, and nobody else should ever see it.
Of course, that's the logo he designed.
Not because I asked him, but because I created a terrible logo.
That absolutely made him angry, and he had to go create a really good logo.
Yodit: The reason I bring that up is because some companies are staying away from hiring junior and mid level developers.
What do you think the cost will be if that pipeline starts closing?
Because now, because of the trust you had in your son and the opportunity he was given, we're all enjoying this amazing design.
If nobody had given him opportunities earlier in his career, maybe we wouldn't have this.
What do you think happens when companies stop investing in junior developers?
Venkat: I wouldn't say he's a beginner in this specific case because he has quite a bit of experience already.
But he got where he is because companies gave him opportunities.
They hired him and said:
"Hey, we see potential in you."
And that's important.
To go back to your question, think about the pipeline.
Today's juniors are tomorrow's experts.
Ten years from now, who are the experts going to be?
The juniors we have today.
If we don't give them opportunities to practice, to make mistakes, and to learn from the experts around them, eventually our current experts are going to retire.
They won't be here forever.
Then all of a sudden we wake up and realize we have a huge gap in the pipeline.
You can't wake up one morning and say:
"I need experts tomorrow. Where can I find them?"
Well, we prevented those experts from ever being developed.
Where are they supposed to come from?
Now, there will always be people who work very hard despite having fewer opportunities.
Some of them will still become experts.
But there will be fewer experts overall.
And guess what's going to happen?
Large companies have large budgets.
When they have large budgets, they can hire whoever they want.
The companies that will suffer the most are small businesses and medium sized businesses.
When they need talent, they're going to struggle because larger companies can attract whatever talent remains.
To me, the biggest challenge is the gap in the pipeline.
When the pipeline breaks, it takes a long time to repair.
People need time to grow into that level of expertise.
I hope we recognize that and continue creating opportunities for the next generation of developers.
Yodit: That's very true.
You speak all over the world.
Recently I saw you in Kenya. Other times you're in Europe and different places around the world.
What are the pros and cons of nonstop travel while also teaching, writing books, organizing conferences, and doing everything else?
Venkat: I would say the biggest advantage is that you continue learning.
To me, that's one of the most exciting things.
You continue to learn.
You broaden your mind.
You come back with new energy and new ideas.
I can't tell you how many ideas I've gotten for books, articles, talks, products, and projects simply from being around people and learning from them.
That's one of the reasons I keep going to user groups, conferences, and events.
It's a great learning experience.
And honestly, you don't always have to travel far.
Sometimes your local user group is one of the best places to continue learning.
On the other hand, there are downsides.
Time away from family is a big one.
That's a sacrifice.
You have to coordinate things differently.
You have to plan much further ahead.
You can't just jump into a meeting whenever you want.
You can't always meet a friend or relative on short notice.
Travel also affects your health.
You have to be careful about what you eat and where you eat.
If you're not careful, you can gain weight and develop other health issues.
One of the things I run into is hotel gyms.
Sometimes a hotel says it has a gym.
Then you walk in and discover there are two dumbbells and a treadmill that doesn't work.
So you have to get creative.
Maybe you find a nearby gym.
Maybe you run outside.
You figure it out.
There are times when I go to the gym at two in the morning because I have to leave for the airport at three thirty.
You work out, take a quick shower, and head to the airport.
Those are the sacrifices that come with it.
If you're someone who likes predictable schedules, regular sleep, and everything planned perfectly, travel may not be for you.
There are advantages and disadvantages.
It's like two sides of the same coin.
You don't get one without the other.
Yodit: Have you ever worked in a corporate environment as an employee?
Because when someone looks at your LinkedIn, it feels like you've always been doing conferences, consulting, training, and writing books.
Venkat: Yes, I did.
A long time ago.
My last job was in 1999.
I did have what I call a real job.
I've been gainfully unemployed for about twenty six or twenty seven years now.
Yodit: What is your job at the moment?
Venkat: I do consulting, training, mentoring, conference organizing, and corporate work.
I also teach part time at the University of Houston.
But that's only a small part of what I do.
My primary work is corporate training, consulting, and mentoring.
Yodit: How do you manage your time?
You have conferences, training, travel, writing books, family responsibilities, and all these different commitments.
How do you allocate your time?
Venkat: That's one of the things I've learned over time.
I would say my superpower is my ability to focus.
I am extremely focused on what I do.
I compartmentalize things very clearly.
I'm very self motivated.
When I start my day, it literally begins with a piece of paper that contains the things I need to work on.
I write down what I need to do.
Then I pick a task.
Until that task is done, I don't do anything else.
I don't check email.
I don't respond to messages.
I'm not on Slack.
I'm not constantly being interrupted.
One thing people don't realize is that I have notifications turned off completely.
My computer doesn't ping me.
My phone is configured so it only rings when my wife calls.
That's it.
Nobody else can interrupt me with a phone call.
And my wife knows she only calls if it's important.
We built that discipline intentionally.
As a result, I can focus.
If I want to write a chapter, I can sit down and focus for ten hours.
If I need fifteen minutes, I can focus for fifteen minutes.
If I need thirty minutes, I can focus for thirty minutes.
I don't multitask.
I compartmentalize.
When I decide to work on something, that's all I work on for that period of time.
When I'm done, then I move on to the next thing.
Another thing I do differently is I don't ask:
"How much time will this take?"
Instead, I ask:
"What can I get done with the time I have available?"
Maybe I have ten minutes.
Okay, what can I accomplish in ten minutes?
That's a different way of thinking.
When I'm at the airport, for example, my flight may start boarding at 10:30.
The worst thing I can do is sit there wondering if I'm going to miss boarding.
So I set an alarm for 10:30.
Then I open my laptop and start working.
At 10:30 the alarm goes off.
I close what I'm doing and walk to the gate.
Having that ability to focus helps tremendously.
Yodit: Were you always like this?
Venkat: No.
Not at all.
These are things you learn over time.
Being successful is about learning what works and changing what doesn't.
You try things.
You keep what helps.
You get rid of what doesn't.
Take notifications, for example.
At first they seem useful.
Then you realize you're being interrupted every few minutes.
That interruption comes at a cost.
People often tell me:
"Venkat, you reply so quickly."
The reason is I follow a simple rule:
Tell me now or tell me when.
I actually wrote about this a few years ago.
If you send me an email, I'll either reply quickly with the answer or I'll reply and say:
"I got your message. I'll get back to you on Tuesday."
Then it goes onto my calendar.
Now I know exactly when I'll handle it.
You know when I'll handle it.
Nobody has to keep following up.
I don't like having things hanging over my head.
If I don't respond for three days, people are going to email again and ask what happened.
Instead, I tell them when they'll hear back from me.
Being disciplined is also a way of respecting other people's time.
And when you respect other people's time, you're also respecting your own.
Those are lessons I learned over the years.
I wish I had learned them earlier.
But as they say, better late than never.
Yodit: Actually, when I reached out to you about doing this LinkedIn Live, I expected you to say:
"I'm traveling. I'm busy. I don't have time."
Instead, you gave me two options.
I picked the earliest one.
At the time, I didn't even know how to set up LinkedIn Live.
I had to go figure it out afterward.
So thank you.
I really appreciate it.
It means a lot.
Venkat: Thank you.
Honestly, I don't believe anybody is busy.
You'll never hear me say:
"I'm busy."
Nobody is busy.
We're just disorganized.
If we're organized, most things become manageable.
Yodit: You've written several books.
I might be off on the number, but is it fourteen or sixteen books so far?
Venkat: Something like that, yes.
Yodit: How does the writing process work for you?
When you're writing a book, do you stop your other commitments, for example speaking at conferences, events, training, and consulting?
Or do you still manage to work on everything in parallel?
Because that's a lot of books.
Even writing one book feels like a lot, dealing with publishers and everything else.
I was wondering how you manage to publish so many books.
Venkat: Most of the books I've written, I've written the first draft in one week or maybe one and a half weeks.
Usually I'll find a week like Thanksgiving.
That's a holiday week, which is great.
I lock myself in a room.
And I'm not saying that metaphorically.
I mean literally.
My family would pass food under the door.
For one week they don't see me.
I sit there and write the first draft.
I've done that for a few books.
For a few other books, I use travel time.
I go to Europe about twice a month.
That means I spend about eight to ten hours on a flight three or four times a month.
That's roughly forty hours right there.
Flights are great because nobody is calling you on the phone.
Nobody is pinging you.
Nobody is knocking on your door.
You get this moment of isolation that you normally don't get.
Typically, I get on a flight, open my laptop, and start writing.
I can often complete the first draft of a chapter during a flight.
If a book has eight chapters, that's eight flights back and forth to Europe and you've got a first draft.
The key is not being tempted to watch movies.
Instead, you sit down and write a chapter.
A lot of flights today have internet access, but years ago they didn't.
You got on a flight and there was no internet.
You either stared at the TV screen or stared at your laptop.
I preferred the laptop.
People often ask:
"Don't you need internet to write a chapter?"
Usually not.
By the time I'm writing, I've already done enough research on the topic.
There may be a few gaps I need to fill later, but I can leave placeholders and keep moving.
A lot of writing is really staring at the ceiling and trying to come up with a better example.
You ask yourself:
"Does this example work?"
"No."
"Maybe this example works better."
You're constantly refining your thinking.
On a ten hour flight, you can build a pretty good collection of examples and material for a chapter.
Yodit: Do you have a favorite book from all the books you've written?
Venkat: Every one of them is my favorite.
All of them.
Yodit: No hierarchy?
Venkat: No.
All of them.
To me, one of the reasons I write books is because I have a story to tell.
Usually I'm working on a topic, learning about it, or using it in practice.
Then I realize it's something interesting to write about.
I start seeing stories that would make the topic exciting and useful.
That's when I get excited about writing it.
Every one of the books came from that kind of experience.
So every book was my favorite while I was writing it.
Yodit: Should we expect a book on AI?
Because I feel like there are so many stories there.
Venkat: No.
I never plan books ahead of time.
I don't sit down and say:
"I want to write a book."
There is one book I want to write, but it's not technical at all.
And it's probably not going to get written anytime soon.
Other than that, I don't think about writing books in advance.
Usually a book idea comes to me minutes before I start writing.
I'll be on a walk or a hike and suddenly think:
"This would be a really good topic to write about."
Then I can't stop thinking about it.
I rush home and start writing.
That's usually how books happen.
I don't plan them ahead of time.
Yodit: Nice.
We covered a little about working with family.
I know you organize the conferences with your wife.
How is it working with family?
And by the way, the food was amazing.
I heard she's the one who created the buffet and organized everything.
The balance of healthy food, snacks, and everything else was really good.
Venkat: That's one of the things I've honestly enjoyed in this journey.
We've been married for more than thirty years now.
We're getting close to thirty five years.
But when she decided to work on the conference, I started seeing aspects of her that I didn't even know about.
You see somebody in a completely different role and with a different set of responsibilities.
It's been wonderful to watch her take on those responsibilities.
She'll suddenly send me a text or an email and say:
"We need to talk about this."
"I've got an idea."
Then she'll explain it and I'll think:
"Wow. I didn't even think about that."
That's amazing.
There's a lot of creativity that she brings to the table.
Raising a family is one thing.
But now that we're empty nesters, the question becomes:
"What are you going to do next?"
She's busier than ever.
She's running conferences and taking on so many responsibilities.
Honestly, I don't think I could do any of this without that kind of help.
It's been a great experience and I'm very thankful for it.
Yodit: Yeah, she was very welcoming.
I was really happy to get to know her as well.
I think there were around one hundred seventy five people at the conference.
It was amazing.
I got to do my first interview at the Utah Java User Group because of your recommendation.
That experience made me realize:
"Okay, I should do this more."
It's been a really fun journey so far.
Venkat: That's wonderful.
It's been great to see you take on these opportunities as well.
Thirty years from now, you're going to be on the other side talking about these same journeys.
Make sure you create good memories along the way.
Yodit: You're also a Java Champion, right?
I think we can close with that one.
How was your journey?
I know everyone's journey to becoming a Java Champion is different.
How was yours?
And if you have any message for developers who are just getting started, especially with AI and everything changing so quickly, you can wrap up with that as well.
Venkat: One of the things I often say is:
Get recognized for what you do, but don't do things to be recognized.
There's a very important difference there.
If you do things in order to be recognized, there are two problems.
The first is that you may not get recognized, and then you're going to be disappointed.
The second is that if you do get recognized, then you may feel like you've reached the finish line.
You might think:
"Okay, I got recognized. I don't need to do this anymore."
To me, that's the wrong reason.
I go out and do what I do because I genuinely enjoy it.
I enjoy being part of the community.
I enjoy sharing what I know.
I enjoy learning from others.
I help the community learn a little from me, and I learn a lot from them.
That's why I write books.
That's why I speak at conferences.
That's why I go to user groups.
That's why I continue showing up.
Today I probably speak at twenty five to thirty user groups every year.
If you look at my website, you'll see that I continue doing that consistently.
I didn't stop going to user groups because I became a Java Champion.
I continue doing it because that's something I've cared about for a very long time.
I go to events.
I volunteer my time.
I offer whatever help I can.
Then one day someone says:
"We've decided to recognize you as a Java Champion."
And my reaction is:
"Thank you."
But I'm not doing it because I want recognition.
And I'm not going to stop doing it because I received recognition.
To me, the idea is simple:
Be recognized for what you do, but don't do things to be recognized.
When you think that way, your focus stays in the right place.
You're working on things because you care about them.
The recognition becomes a bonus.
It's the cherry on top.
But it shouldn't be the reason you're doing the work.
Yodit: And what advice would you give developers?
Venkat: Help and be helped.
That would be my advice.
Help others.
Everybody benefits from helping.
But also be willing to receive help.
Don't be stubborn and think:
"I shouldn't ask for help."
There are people all around you who are willing to help if you simply ask.
I'm often surprised.
I'll go to a group and say:
"I'm here. If you need help, ask."
And very few people actually ask for help.
Even when they could benefit from it.
So don't hesitate to ask.
Help others and be helped by others.
That's one of the most valuable things you can learn.
Yodit: Amazing.
Thank you so much.
I know I booked one hour, but we're way past that.
Thank you so much.
Hopefully we'll get to do this again.
And hopefully we'll get to meet again at a conference or at a Java User Group here in Dallas.
Thank you again.
Venkat: Sounds good.
Thank you very much for having me.
And best wishes for all the things ahead for you as well.
Yodit: Thank you.
Have a good one.
Venkat: You too.
Bye bye.
Yodit: Bye.
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