From Selling Steel to Tech CEO: Jovian Gautama on Leveraging The Internet

[00:59] Paul: Welcome to The Pathless Path. I'm Paul Millerd, and in this podcast, we examine the invisible scripts that run our lives and dare to imagine new stories for work and life. Welcome to The Pathless Path podcast. Today I am talking to good friend Jovian Gautama. He is a fellow friend I have known here in Taipei. For multiple years, and he comes from Indonesia, but he spent most of his adult life in Taiwan and is also a citizen of the very American-influenced internet.

We're going to talk about his journey of going from Indonesia, studying tourism to selling steel in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. To now he is the CEO of a podcast app, my favorite podcast app, Castro, and how he navigated his career, how he thinks about life. I think you have a really interesting perspective. Excited to dive in today.

[02:05] Jovian Gautama: Super exciting to join the podcast, Paul, and the Paul Millerd experience. You're like the Joe Rogan of like people who hate 9-to-5 jobs, you know. And yeah, really nice to be here. And yeah, super excited.

[02:19] Paul: That's a— wow, that's a nice compliment. I'll take it.

[02:24] Jovian Gautama: Blue pilled. It's not red pilled anymore.

[02:27] Paul: What were you like as a kid?

[02:31] Jovian Gautama: So when I was a kid, I came from a quite complicated family background, I'll say. Growing up, I was basically treated like a prince, which is really interesting. And just to give you a paint— like a painting, like how absurd it is, like I am still fed, spoon-fed by like third grade because that's how— how to say it— that's how spoiled I am. And that's not necessarily because I want to, but just like my mom will kind of like treat me that way. But then growing up, it's kind of like a messy and complicated family life. And yeah, in a way, it kind of feels detached, but it kind of feels it doesn't fit in with who I am, like this family.

So I kind of like grow up, I kind of erase myself a bit, and with the influence of friends around me trying to fit in. Um, and yeah, it's— I think growing up, I will say I was quite independent, but there's always feel this like I don't belong here, um, feeling growing up.

[03:47] Paul: Say more about that. What, what do you mean you didn't quite fit in? Maybe, maybe a little more about your family background. What was the, the culture your parents are coming from? What was their background?

[03:58] Jovian Gautama: Right. Um, My parents, they never actually had a 9-to-5 job. So I would say they do kind of like scattered jobs here and there. Sometimes they start some entrepreneurial stuff and selling stuff. And but none of them really pan out to be like a long-term thing. And it's just like I will say money is not a concern, so to speak, but it's mostly concern for survival.

There's no pressure of like, oh, you have to be a rich person or something like this. This Asian, you know, kind of pressure, oh, you have to take care of your family or your parents when you grow up, it's always there. But I will say it's come from non-traditional background, even in the Indonesian society, like, you know, in a broken home family. And growing up. Yeah, so it's just really all over the place, so to speak. That's the only way I can describe it.

And of course, in the middle, there's a lot of family drama kind of thing, like some jail time involved. Like, not me personally, but it's kind of like impacted my childhood, like growing up.

[05:16] Paul: So very like, not even working class, just sort of like Having to make ends meet, doing whatever it takes, survival mode.

[05:23] Jovian Gautama: I will say lower middle working class. The way I kind of describe it is like where we don't have internet growing up at home and we don't have any personal computer or laptop because it's too expensive. But we also didn't need to worry about what to eat for tomorrow. So we still have that kind of like buffer. Economically, so to speak.

[05:47] Paul: Awesome. So this combination of like needing to make it, maybe a little scarcity mindset, but also you were like, we were talking about this at lunch before this, you, you were like very praised. Like you have a tremendous amount of self-confidence for as an adult, as I can tell now. And it seems like you weren't criticized much in your childhood.

[06:12] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. So When I grew up, like I mentioned before, I was super spoiled. Like, I cannot do no wrong most of the time, like in my parents' eyes or my family's eyes.

[06:23] Paul: Were you the only child?

[06:25] Jovian Gautama: I am the only child.

[06:26] Paul: So, okay. Yeah.

[06:28] Jovian Gautama: So it kind of explains everything, right? So yeah, so with growing up, it's always this positive encouragement, positive reinforcement kind of thing. So I was never— I heard from— I always will talk about this online, like I never get beaten by my family, which is— I know in the US it's probably like super awful, like beating. But like on our age, like in Asia, like beating your kids is just like staple food, right? Like I've told you, like, I feel absurd because I'm the only kid not beaten in my class. Like, why don't you beat me?

Kind of thing, right? So yeah, so it's always this positive encouragement and positive reinforcement, which is like, I think in hindsight, it kind of built my confidence. But on the other hand, it— in the beginning, it also gave me like, I have to build my own system to handle negative stuff or handle rejection and growing up because I wasn't equipped well to do that. And so yeah, and then in my adult life, whenever that kind of negative stuff happened, I didn't want to like to fall back to my family for either positive reinforcement or actually let me rephrase that. So as I grew up, whenever I had like negative stuff coming in or criticism, I don't have the place to get that kind of positive reinforcement because I kind of like didn't want to get involved with my family more. So I had to build that from scratch, honestly.

Yeah.

[08:07] Paul: So take me to high school. You're working in— are you going to this like very tourism-focused school?

[08:15] Jovian Gautama: Right.

[08:17] Paul: How do you end up in Taiwan?

[08:18] Jovian Gautama: So in high school, so that mindset was that— so Indonesia is like junior high school and high school, like 3 years of junior high school and 3 years of high school. So whenever I— when I graduated junior high school, there wasn't this idea of like going to college. There is nothing— college is not even in the roadmap. It's not even like I need to go to college. There's nothing that came up. And in my family, nobody went to college.

So at that time, the idea was like, I wasn't even sure which high school was I going to go to. And in Indonesia, or at least in Jakarta, like the best high school are usually private high schools and they're super expensive. Like we absolutely couldn't afford it. My family couldn't afford it. And then one day there's this, I realized there's option of vocational high school. It's just called, I think the US you guys call it trade schools, right?

[09:18] Paul: Yeah.

[09:19] Jovian Gautama: But it's more tourism focused basically. Like after you graduate from that school, like you can go work in travel agencies or airlines.

[09:32] Paul: Those are good jobs, right? If you like tourism, you can make really good money in Indonesia.

[09:37] Jovian Gautama: Right. The basic salary is really low. You get it from like taking, being like a tour leader, like you take a tour group abroad. I'll tell you what, my— so I'm jumping around a bit here, but like after I graduated high school, I was waiting for a result of the Taiwan, of if I'm coming to Taiwan or not, right? So I got like a full-time job and my basic full-time salary is like 40 hours per week job salary was like, I'm not kidding you, this is like $100 per month. And yeah, even the same currency, even the currency back is like $100, $150.

That's low-paying job. But yeah, and we're like high school graduate. And so at that time We didn't— I didn't have an idea. So that time my idea was like, oh, I want to make money as quickly as possible so I can get out and then kind of be independent from the family norm, something. And so I went to this tourism high school, and I think kind of there's some luck involved here because my high school had a scholarship program with a sister university in Taiwan. In Kaohsiung.

So every year they chose a couple of students to apply and then you get like full ride from dormitory fee, from tuition fee.

[11:05] Paul: For college?

[11:06] Jovian Gautama: For college, yes. So I was kind of lucky then.

[11:08] Paul: And did a lot of people apply to that?

[11:11] Jovian Gautama: No, actually, this is kind of, it's kind of weird because at that time not everyone can apply. And it's a really small school, by the way.

[11:17] Paul: Yeah.

[11:18] Jovian Gautama: When I said small is like on every year we had like 60 or 70 students for one year.

[11:24] Paul: And I imagine a lot of people just don't want to go to Taiwan.

[11:27] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. And I feel like there's also some— so it's not offered to everyone, basically. So they had master back then to like kind of choose, hey, do you want to apply? If you want to apply, then we'll tell you how to do it. So it's not necessarily open to everyone. But yes, but at that time I had that opportunity and I was like, all right, why not?

Because I think the mindset was kind of like, I want to kind of break free from the— I'm not necessarily from Indonesia, but like from the society. I'm curious about what is out there, right? Because since I was a kid, I was very much influenced by— I consumed a lot of Western media stuff, like pop culture.

[12:09] Paul: Like what?

[12:09] Jovian Gautama: Like MTV. I love MTV. Like, like—

[12:12] Paul: GRL?

[12:13] Jovian Gautama: TRL. Not really, this is MTV.

[12:15] Paul: I guess you're a little younger than me.

[12:16] Jovian Gautama: I was like this MTV, like MTV Classics, and I'm learning.

[12:25] Paul: And then what stuff on MTV?

[12:28] Jovian Gautama: Oh, it's usually MTV Cribs. Oh, that's really good.

[12:32] Paul: This was this, um, so what, what, like you see Cribs and you see all these mansions in America?

[12:38] Jovian Gautama: Yes, this— whoa, it is Aaron Carter's house. Rest in peace, Aaron. So yeah, no, it's really more like it's a mix of— I had a TV in my room and then it's just a cable. And then I would just watch a lot of like mass media stuff like HBO with subtitles, of course, Cartoon Network. It kind of happens there.

[12:58] Paul: And watching like The Sopranos.

[13:01] Jovian Gautama: I didn't watch The Sopranos, but I watched Sex and the City. Like, I have no idea what was it about when I was a kid. So there's a lot of—

[13:10] Paul: Curiosity about the world.

[13:11] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, this curiosity about the world, which is especially about the English language, especially the Western language, if that makes sense. So I think overall it's kind of like the— it's also laid back to— laid back to, oh, I think tourism will be good for me because I'm always somewhat good at English subjects like growing up, and I'm not sure why. And it's just I have this intrinsic curiosity about the language and also video games, because in Indonesia they don't translate English video games to Indonesian. So you kind of figure out, okay, what the hell is happening in this video game, especially when you play like RPG games, right? And then yeah, sometimes I just play video game and then look at the dictionary, or what does this mean, what does this mean? So, so yeah, and then going back to high school, and it's like a natural fit.

Like, it's kind of built into that. And then I got the opportunity to— the scholarship to Taiwan, and then I got accepted and I was like, yeah, let's roll.

[14:15] Paul: Yeah. And so talk to me about coming to Taiwan. It's actually interesting what you're saying about Indonesia and English. I find Indonesia way easier to navigate than Taiwan. Taiwan is sort of like closed off with the language, like stuff isn't translated to English as much. How did you experience that at first?

[14:40] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, when you say experience Taiwan?

[14:42] Paul: Yeah.

[14:43] Jovian Gautama: Oh, that's very interesting. So at first I—

[14:46] Paul: Did you speak Chinese? I know you have some Chinese background, but you didn't speak Chinese.

[14:51] Jovian Gautama: I spoke zero Chinese. Yeah. So the scholarship also includes some Chinese courses. It's like intensive Chinese courses. So when I first came to Taiwan, I feel like your experience might be different because you're—

[15:05] Paul: I came at 33.

[15:07] Jovian Gautama: You came at 33. And then like you're Caucasian, or is that the proper term right now? I don't know.

[15:14] Paul: I don't know what the proper term is. But yeah, well, that's a very, that's a very like interesting thing in Taiwan. Right. Your experience is totally different because people recognize you as Asian. And sometimes they think you're Taiwanese.

[15:31] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[15:32] Paul: And sometimes they assume you're Southeast Asian. Right.

[15:35] Jovian Gautama: Yes.

[15:36] Paul: Yes. Versus how people treat a white person in Taiwan is different.

[15:42] Jovian Gautama: How would you describe that? Let me ask you.

[15:46] Paul: Yeah. I think it's sort of tied to what you were saying with the Western culture. I think especially among like Taiwanese elites, people put white American culture on a pedestal. Right. And I didn't ask for that. It's a bit weird sometimes.

And in Asia, there's sort of like a hierarchy. People look down on Southeast Asians here. Yeah, it makes me very uncomfortable. A lot of people's exposure to people from Indonesia are through home health workers and aides, right? And how people treat those people are not necessarily the best, right? So yeah, all that for— how does that resonate with your own understanding?

[16:39] Jovian Gautama: And, um, so In general, there is this— I know there is this some kind of condescending view. I don't think it's that bad, actually, but there are some to non-Singaporean, non-Malaysian Southeast Asian. So in Asia, like I mentioned, like a lot of— for those who are not familiar with how it works, is that a lot of— in Taiwan, there's a lot of foreign workers that becomes home helpers, but they're usually not Taiwanese. They're usually migrant workers from Indonesia or Philippines and Thailand. So they work here, work in the factory doing the, like, I won't say dirty work. How would you say that?

Like, like factory work. So there is this some kind of stereotype if you come from that country and you're probably more like a lower class citizen. And again, I have to clarify, it's not everyone thinks about this this way, but maybe for like elder person. But I'm actually kind of lucky because I came to Taiwan in a college environment, right? So a lot of my seniors who are also from Indonesia are super helpful and they already speak Chinese really well. So I was kind of, you know, it was lucky.

So when I come to Taiwan, I don't need to adapt a lot by myself. So there are people who are assisting me and usually college kids at that time, my college friends, they're super, super friendly. So, so yeah, but in usual, like In general, probably because still Asian culture, so I don't have a lot of this, you know, culture shock. Like, for example, the food. Oh yes, like Asian food. Like, at least that's how I see it.

Yeah. And I don't know, but I think it kind of— I kind of like everything's more less messy here and then it compared to back home Indonesia. So I kind of enjoyed it. Not a lot of negative culture shock.

[18:55] Paul: Yeah. And so you've talked before about how you sort of liked the rules, right? And this is why you had— you didn't have a single person you knew growing up that had a 9-to-5 job or an office job. It's completely opposite of my experience. So you were sort of like craving some of that structure, some of the predictability. Talk to me about that and how you were thinking about like finding jobs and thinking about your career?

[19:25] Jovian Gautama: So right after high school, before the scholarship thing, and when I was in high school, the thinking was like, I'm going to get a job. I'm going to get a job. I'm going to work in a travel agency. I'm going to kind of make my way up into a general manager or something. So in my family, there's almost a lack of structure of, yeah, just do whatever you want kind of thing. And I kind of crave that.

Like, I need, in a way, I need people to tell me what to do. I need a mentor. I think the one way to think about it is like that, and a mentor to guide me. Like, every— like, my father come and goes back then. I didn't have a father figure or even sometimes a mother figure to lead me through, to ease me to see how the world works. So I'm kind of craving some structure.

So I'm kind of craving some structure. And that's why I think why Taiwan kind of suits me because there's some like rules. There's a lot of structure here. And I think in Indonesia, there are structures, but like people are more willing to break it. And but yes, in Taiwan, there's a lot of structure. And I feel like there's a lot of constraints in which I can limit myself to in the positive ways.

So to speak. So I kind of, um, I would say, so I kind of like that. So I kind of like that. And then, but the interesting part is when I graduated from university and I realized these kind of structures can also be suffocating, right? Especially some stuff that like, oh, you know, this can be done faster this way, but why are we tied to these rules or what the boss says when I have a better idea? So kind of realized that.

And then I think right now, whenever I'm looking for an opportunity or job, when I was looking, it's really more like, okay, how do I— so I kind of know how to identify an opportunity where there are some rules and constraints, but also I can identify when the rules can be challenged or mended like that. So I think it's really important. I think people don't realize that a lot of rules at their job can actually be discussed and their bosses or managers are actually open to it.

[22:05] Paul: So we're going to get to that. I want to start with selling steel.

[22:10] Jovian Gautama: Dang, this is hard-hitting questions in this podcast. I wasn't ready for that.

[22:15] Paul: But that's one of your first jobs out of school, right?

[22:18] Jovian Gautama: That is my first, technically second job after university. Sorry, first job out of university, second job after high school.

[22:27] Paul: So you're selling steel in Chinese. What were you feeling at the time? You're on a call selling steel to somebody in China, what is going through your day-to-day thoughts in that time?

[22:42] Jovian Gautama: So on the selling part, I actually still use English because I'm selling steel like internationally.

[22:47] Paul: Okay.

[22:48] Jovian Gautama: So to Russia and to Indonesia and Ukraine. So I use English, cold, doing cold calls in English. So it's still scary, but it's kind of fine, which is funny because I was more scared doing cold calls in Indonesia in my own mother tongue compared to English.

[23:06] Paul: But wait, I think that's an interesting point. I totally get this too. I think some things feel a lot heavier for me in English when I'm in the US because I know exactly how I'm supposed to feel. I know exactly what you're supposed to do. I know what responses mean. When you're in another language, you're almost like— like when I'm communicating in Chinese, I'm not really sure what's going on sometimes.

But like I'm doing, I'm trying and like getting through it.

[23:38] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I think that's correct because when I'm talking to people in English, I'm like super sensitive. What if I say something wrong?

[23:45] Paul: Yeah, you know the correct way to communicate.

[23:48] Jovian Gautama: Exactly. Like, we don't talk like this, you know. So, but in English, I think I kind of like, okay, whatever. And the thing I think about, like the people I'm talking about is also non-native English speakers, like Russians. So it's kind of fine. But go back to your point about using Chinese is actually we speak Chinese in the office.

And when I need to speak, like write an email to supplier, it's in Chinese. It's really challenging because it's kind of—

[24:14] Paul: Google Translate was not as good then.

[24:16] Jovian Gautama: Google Translate is not as good. And like, how do you write business emails in Chinese? Like, if I talk to myself like when I was like 10 years old, hey, you're going to write business emails in Chinese. I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Can I swear on your podcast? Okay.

[24:29] Paul: Yeah. Okay.

[24:30] Jovian Gautama: So yeah, so it was kind of— I would say it is like at that time I speak fluent Chinese.

[24:38] Paul: Yeah.

[24:39] Jovian Gautama: So it's not that hard to communicate like.

[24:42] Paul: But your career, did you see yourself as a steel salesman at 50 years old?

[24:47] Jovian Gautama: Absolutely not. So that's a very interesting one that I was going to talk to. So I think I went there for 2, stayed there for 2 years. And there's this weird urge. At that time, I didn't know how to describe it. Like, it's almost like borderline depression kind of thing.

It's just more like I do the same thing like over and over and over again. So for people who are not really familiar, basically like a steel trading company. So what you do is you find new clients abroad doing cold calls or via emails or joining like a trade show. and then you build a relationship with them, and then every month or so you ask, hey, do you need any commodity, do you need any stuff, and then we report the price to you. There's absolutely almost zero room for creativity there. And I was like, I kind of was kind of like stuck there, but I didn't really know where to go because I didn't know what I'm good at at that time.

Like, I didn't even know that tech or internet stuff is a thing. Like, I really don't know because I was at that time, I was like, oh, I can do sales, I know how to sell, and I speak English, and then my job will be like international sales. So at that time, I was kind of lucky again. So I met a client who was selling steel in Indonesia, and he's now one of my best friends. So he was running his dad's steel company, but on the side, he wants to do some startups, tech startups with his friends. And I was like, he's a really funny guy and kind of like, so what is this tech startup?

And he started like explaining to me about what a startup is and why he's interested in that. I was like, huh, that's interesting. And I basically got super invested to that. And this is at the same time around, you know, the Google Go competition. The one who DeepMind were Google against the Korean Go player. It's kind of like, oh, technology is actually cool.

So that was kind of like my mindset. So I would start, I started looking for jobs for startup in town.

[26:56] Paul: What year was this?

[26:57] Jovian Gautama: This like 2016, I think. 2016.

[27:01] Paul: Yeah. And what were some of the first on-ramps in terms of learning more around tech and stuff?

[27:09] Jovian Gautama: That's a very good question, my friend. This is like trial by fire, honestly. So at that time, I didn't have zero knowledge about tech or how startups work or anything, honestly, or like programming language and whatnot. I just applied to this job and it's called— the company called CodeMentor, which is basically like one-on-one platform for people who want to find mentors for programming. And they're looking for a biz business development person. And I was like, all right, I don't have any experience.

I only have two things that is going my way, and actually only one, like I know English, like I can speak English. Like at this job, it was kind of like a vague job, kind of like they think they need a business development person, but they don't really, they're not really sure what to do with this person, if that makes sense. They just want to grow. So I applied. So I applied and talked to the CEO, Weiting Liu. And yeah, I got accepted, which also nerfed something that you mentioned about like how I'm very like, I know a lot of more American things than Americans.

I talked to my ex-boss at that time, and I think the one thing that he mentioned to me that made me get a job is I mentioned to him the fact that I browse Reddit a lot.

[28:35] Paul: You what?

[28:35] Jovian Gautama: I browse Reddit a lot.

[28:38] Paul: Yeah.

[28:39] Jovian Gautama: And he thought that it's really hard to find this kind of people in Taiwan. So I was like, all right, thank you, Reddit.

[28:46] Paul: Well, I think that's such an interesting point because in Taiwan, there's so much pressure on young people to speak English, right? But they're going to these cram schools that are teaching like textbook English, like speak it correctly, right? And that actually probably doesn't matter that much, especially in the US and in many places. Like your English can be like crappy, but if you know how to like navigate ideas and things like this, that can almost be more valuable. And it seems like that was one of your strengths you had developed pretty early on. Yeah.

[29:26] Jovian Gautama: And honestly, I'm not sure where that comes from. I think it's a lot of like— I think it's a lot of absorbing a lot of American pop culture stuff, honestly. This is what you guys are good at.

[29:40] Paul: Yeah, we put out a lot of stuff.

[29:42] Jovian Gautama: Not all good.

[29:44] Paul: Movies, TV shows. Were there other strong influences for you? TV shows, movies, tech, like influencers you were following, podcasts?

[29:56] Jovian Gautama: No, at that time I didn't. I think at that early time I was like, I think when I was in college, like on the first year in Taiwan, that's kind of like the first year I got like unlimited access to internet. Like I mentioned to you, I didn't have internet in my house until like high school. And I think I got it on my third year finally, but it's like super, super slow. Like you almost cannot load YouTube there.

[30:21] Paul: I think this is something people totally underestimate is how early we are in terms of onboarding people onto the internet. Right? Like how many of your peers you grew up with now are like engaged in technology in that whole world?

[30:39] Jovian Gautama: Oh, I would say not a lot actually. Yeah, not a lot.

[30:44] Paul: I bet if you go to like 10-year-olds now, it's probably pretty profound because in Indonesia now you can get 4G everywhere.

[30:50] Jovian Gautama: Yes, yes, that's exactly it. Yeah, yeah. I—

[30:53] Paul: it's a pretty dramatic transformation in the last 10 years.

[30:55] Jovian Gautama: I remember you told me about the story when you went to high school and then you list out jobs like Uber driver and YouTuber, and then you ask the students like, what are the similarities between all these jobs? And then basically you said that these jobs didn't exist like 10 years ago.

[31:11] Paul: Yeah, they didn't exist when I graduated college. Yeah, college.

[31:15] Jovian Gautama: College.

[31:15] Paul: Yeah, it's crazy. Like, I don't think people really internalize this. Like, podcaster, podcast producer, right? As a job. 10 years ago, maybe there were 5 people on the planet doing that. Was 2013?

Yeah, maybe 5 people on the planet doing that. There are people doing that all over the world now and like actually supporting their families.

[31:42] Jovian Gautama: Right.

[31:43] Paul: So how do you navigate school in terms of like aiming at things? Right. In the past, you could aim at certain behaviors like put your head down and trust that you're going to be okay. That works if the labor market actually can deliver on that. Right. And I think this is I'm really interested in your story because you're so good at being agile and adaptive.

And we're coming from an era when it was like you need to learn how to behave, when to an era where it's almost like you need to learn how to think and evolve. Right. And it's actually not the same. Like, I think living in Taiwan on and off for the past 5 years has really given me a unique perspective. It's like Americans are in such a bubble. They think like full high-paid full-time jobs are like a birthright.

It's like, yeah, just like get a job. Like why wouldn't you get a job? And like everything will be great. You'll be fine.

[32:46] Jovian Gautama: Do you feel like this is also true for people your age or this more like a boomer thing?

[32:50] Paul: Most people I know have full-time jobs. We might seem like everyone's an entrepreneur in the US. Abroad, but it's not really the case. But in Taiwan, right, if you're just like, put your head down, get an average job, that might be a terrible strategy, right? Because you're not in the US economy, which is the top economy extracting all the wealth from the global economy. Like, you're in this middle-income country where wages are kind of stagnant for 10, 15, 20 years now.

Right. And it's, if you stayed at that steel job, you'd probably make, you wouldn't probably be making much more than you were making. What were you making at the time?

[33:33] Jovian Gautama: In the steel job? Yeah.

[33:35] Paul: I was like 30,000 NTD, which was around like, it's like $900 US a month.

[33:45] Jovian Gautama: $900 US. Yes.

[33:47] Paul: Yeah.

[33:47] Jovian Gautama: $900 US a month. So that's really low when I think about it. Yes. So, but yes, I think in Taiwan, correct, you mentioned about like learning how to think. I don't know, I think as I grew up, when I get more— when I had the time to consume more stuff from the internet, looking back, sorry, at that time it feels kind of a bit like time wasting. Like, why do you spend hours on YouTube just looking stuff?

And then, or like spend hours on Facebook. But I think at that time it actually built my taste in terms of like what I found cool and what I want to work on or I want to be involved in. And as I'm joining tech and I realized, oh yeah, this is kind of— this is what interests me. And then the fact that the tech industry or even any jobs related to internet or the creator economy in general, it gives you a lot of space to do creative stuff and just to do things that you like. It's really liberating, at least for me at the time. And I think in Taiwan, I'm not really sure about like how to say, I think people like younger people or people our age, right, they're just getting more and more they understand more that, oh, the internet is powerful, the tech industry is powerful.

But how I see from the outside, they are still bound by this like top to bottom like structure.

[35:32] Paul: Of the Taiwanese culture?

[35:34] Jovian Gautama: Of the Taiwanese culture. Yeah. Or even like YouTubers, for example, a lot of famous YouTubers are actually under a company.

[35:41] Paul: Oh, wow.

[35:42] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, this is— I might be off on this, but as far as I know, they're like like production agencies and whatnot, which is probably not that weird in the US. But yeah, there's still like top to bottom structure is still kind of exists here, that kind of flavor.

[35:57] Paul: Interesting. Yeah, I think I saw some of this, like I was talking to some creators Andrew was friends with and they were like doing a course, but like they were doing a deal with a platform and they were only going to get like 20 or 30% of the revenue. I was like, this is crazy. Like why wouldn't they just use white label platform? And I think those are becoming more powerful, but I think, yeah, we're very constrained by our scripts, right? And this is in the US too.

People are looking for permission, right? And I think you've been really good at not waiting for permission. So talk to me about working at CodeMentor and then like what are some of the moves you made from there? So you went from CodeMentor, like, You've had so many interesting jobs in the last 7 years since starting at CodeMentor.

[36:48] Jovian Gautama: Right.

[36:49] Paul: How did working in tech start changing your perspective on your life and how to take action in the world?

[36:56] Jovian Gautama: One thing, I think one of the primary things that I learned a lot from working in tech and the internet industry in general is that Not all decisions matter. Like if you— all decisions, actually most decisions are reversible. That's probably it. Like before I joined like a core member of tech industry, I'm a super indecisive person. Like I don't know, should I do this? Should I do that?

I'm just like analysis paralysis for a long time.

[37:28] Paul: You were looking for the correct decision.

[37:29] Jovian Gautama: Yes, exactly. You're looking for the correct decision.

[37:31] Paul: And tech is more just try stuff.

[37:33] Jovian Gautama: Yes, so the startup world is more like just try stuff and I was kind of like, oh, just test stuff and try stuff, you know. If it doesn't work, it's fine, it's just like a small thing. So kind of changed my perspective a lot also in life and it's kind of seeping into my personal life too. Well, these things, okay, what happens if I do this? What's the worst that can happen? So that's kind of changed my life in general.

And the second thing is that the people in the world are more connected than I thought it was. Like for example, when I was in CoMentor, one of the first things we do, I did like business development for the new platform at that time, basically like connecting freelance developers with clients. And I had like sales calls at 2 AM Taiwan time with American clients. And I think for some reason it's just like, oh, these are the untouchable like company or people like cool startups in the Bay Area and whatnot, but I'm in a call with them right now. So I think in my mind it's like, well, everyone is reachable, everything is doable, and we are more connected in ways that I'm very surprised. And I do like stuff like cold email campaigns, like people reply to my cold emails, like you're the CEO of like a Series C round company.

And I was like, oh yeah, we are more, way more interconnected than I thought we are. And it's kind of like snap, like something snapped, clicked in my mind.

[39:08] Paul: So you felt more of like a globally connected world?

[39:12] Jovian Gautama: Yes, yes, we were globally connected world. And there is this, I had this idea about creating a podcast or newsletter about like tech workers in Asia. But it doesn't feel right when I think about it, because I feel like we are like connected, you know, even though you're in Asia or something like that. Does it make sense?

[39:34] Paul: Yeah, well, I think you see yourself as part of the global world.

[39:38] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, that's how I see it.

[39:39] Paul: Right. Whereas a lot of people see themselves as part of a country's labor economy. I think in the US, you tend to see yourself as part of the global world. Every company I worked for had a global team.

[39:53] Jovian Gautama: But for me, it's really more like identity, more like self-identity kind of thing. Like, I know I love Taiwan.

[40:01] Paul: I mean, is it you just found more of a home on the internet?

[40:06] Jovian Gautama: I think I wouldn't say found more of a home, but I'm comfortable with it. I'm comfortable with like reaching out to people on Twitter, reaching out to people on email or DM, and I've kind of know, like, I kind of know like how to get my way through it. Yeah, I know how to make life easier.

[40:27] Paul: How do you make friends on the internet?

[40:29] Jovian Gautama: That's a really good question. For you, you reach out to me. I don't know. You reach out to my personal website. But I think in the internet, I think Twitter is actually still an underrated— or X right now, whatever you call it. It's still an underrated platform to make friends.

Another thing we've talked about is how we are both like a very optimistic person and naturally optimistic person. I think it also seems to me in how I see people like internet, like it's always about— I think most people are good, most people are nice. So if I reach out to them, they'd probably be nice to me. Yeah.

[41:09] Paul: This is something I think too. It's like, yeah, people probably want to hang out.

[41:14] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[41:15] Paul: And then it sort of is like a virtuous cycle because if you think that, then like people are like, oh, he seems pretty cool too. And like it actually leads to—

[41:25] Jovian Gautama: why wouldn't you want to hang out with me? I'm a great person.

[41:27] Paul: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't even know if it's like an ego thing. For me, it's sort of like a naive optimism. Right, it's like, of course everyone will get along. And like, I generally like a wide range of people. I think you're very similar.

You could probably have a conversation with anyone.

[41:43] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I was like, I think making friends, but making friends on the internet, like, it's really more about most people are nice. I think, yeah, of course there are some assholes along the way, but if you filter it out, like, most people are good. Most people want to help you. I think that's what I found.

[42:00] Paul: I think Um, I think sometimes that's not true. I think sometimes in Taiwan, like, I've actually had some difficulty engaging in Taiwan where it's like offering, like, almost like English American internet world is like the assumption is you should help people. It's sort of this pro-social frame of like you should help people. When I've tried to do that a couple times in Taiwan, proactively offered stuff, hey, I'll come and like connect with your group and mentor, they're like— I heard through back channels somebody found Angie and they were like, we felt bad like having him to have to come and do this.

[42:49] Jovian Gautama: Interesting, right?

[42:50] Paul: It's like this burden of like, oh, we might have to owe him some, or we might not be good enough. And it's like, there's all these hidden layers of friction I find in Taiwan, which is why like it's just easier to engage with people on the internet first. The internet is almost like a filter for like people that are willing to engage.

[43:09] Jovian Gautama: Well, I'm very curious about that friction that you mentioned. I never experienced it personally myself, but I probably just never had, you know, offered something up. But I'm super curious about that though. I wonder if that's common or is because mostly because you're a foreigner.

[43:28] Paul: It could be. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I think, yeah, I mean, one time Angie was like embracing some of these principles. One time she reached out for a fitness, a head of a fitness course thing, and there's like a fee. It's like a very famous person.

And I think people are— he's used to people seeing him as an authority, right? And she was like, oh, could I volunteer doing this in exchange for this? And he sent her back like a nasty email. It's like, how— wow, how could you, um, think— I don't know the frame. It was very like condescending. It was like, this is silly, this is not something we would do, that kind of thing.

And so all you all you need to do is experience that once and then you sort of just like, not worth engaging.

[44:22] Jovian Gautama: Exactly. I think that's the thing, right? You got to try stuff. You got to try stuff and see if it works or not. And I think there's also something I kind of learned in the tech industry too. You got to try stuff or else you're kind of just assuming how people will react about this stuff you're doing.

[44:41] Paul: Yeah.

[44:41] Jovian Gautama: And if it's the worst they can do is like say no. So I would say so, yeah.

[44:47] Paul: So how did you go from there to hosting a podcast about remote work?

[44:53] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I think this also relates to what I mentioned about a lot of things are negotiable even if you have a full-time job. So I was in CodeMentor at that time, they had another product called Arc and until like for 4 years at that time. And I was kind of got in that stuck, like, oh man, I'm kind of stuck. I feel like I need to do something different. And at that time, I was discussing with my CEO, with the CEO about like, can I be part-time? And can I do like part-time job here instead of like full-time?

Because I want to spend the other half of my time to explore different kinds of stuff. And first thing, I know this is doable because the company had done before with other team members. And the second thing is that I know to get this approved, I needed to propose something. I need to propose a project. I think that's people— we've talked about this, but I think people don't think about how to make it— when you discuss something or you want to propose something, you have to make it easier for the other parties to say yes. And make their lives easier.

So I think at that time my approach was, okay, I'm going to work part-time, like 2, maximum 3 days a week. But okay, so I cannot work very closely with a full-time team member. So what can I do which is kind of independent? And it was a podcast. And at that time I was also like super curious about podcasts, like how do you create a podcast? And what's the process and was fascinated by it.

And I just, okay, what if you do remote work podcast? And at that time, remote work was like kind of like booming. This is before, this is pre-COVID.

[46:43] Paul: It was still pretty early.

[46:43] Jovian Gautama: It's super early. And then I was like—

[46:47] Paul: In 2018, people were like, I talked with some clients and they were like, yeah, we just don't do remote stuff. You would need to be in the office.

[46:55] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, yeah.

[46:57] Paul: They still have some of those people, but eventually most of the boomers will retire.

[47:01] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, they're like Fred Flintstones. Anyway, so, so, so at that time I proposed, okay, let me do this remote work podcast. And I was, okay, let's do that. And then I just started, like, I was the— I learned everything from scratch, basically how to produce. Podcasts and how to do interview research and just reaching out to—

[47:26] Paul: So you're doing that for CodeMentor?

[47:28] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[47:29] Paul: And so you did the podcast on remote work, you were— you proposed to them you would do that instead of your job. And then what was your plan to do with the other work on the side?

[47:40] Jovian Gautama: This is very interesting. So it's funny because the plan that I had was like, I want to create something by myself, right? But then it led me to get another job.

[47:49] Paul: Yeah.

[47:49] Jovian Gautama: So at that time I was like part-time and I was very— I wasn't super involved, but I found the IndieHackers community. And at that time I was like, oh, I want to be an indie hacker, but I can't code. And I didn't really have an idea how to do that. Okay, let's take it step by step. The first thing I want to do is like Okay, they have like this local meetups and I think in London or Lisbon or something like that. And they didn't have one in Taipei.

Okay, and let me be your IndieHackers ambassador and let me just do a meetup. And then when I started meetup, I met a couple of IndieHackers, some Taiwanese, some foreigners, and one of the attendees was Cameron, which is the founder of the fitness app Strong. And then we met there and then I joined them full-time. So, so that's one of it. And the other, the other way, the other stuff, I just got started freelancing stuff.

[48:50] Paul: This is the crazy thing. This kind of stuff happens to you all the time.

[48:54] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[48:55] Paul: What do you think contributes to like these sort of opportunities sort of emerging for you all the time? Are you paying attention better than other people? Are you more likable than other people?

[49:05] Jovian Gautama: I think it's my looks, man. I'm just kidding. I know, I don't, I think it's just like trying out new stuff. It's like—

[49:13] Paul: Do you think you're trying like 10 times more stuff than most other people?

[49:16] Jovian Gautama: Absolutely not. Absolutely not 10 times. I think—

[49:20] Paul: 3 times?

[49:21] Jovian Gautama: 2 times at least. It's really just like, it's— I think about like, I think it's the surface of luck, right? It's like the surface of luck and just trying to do new stuff and then be there. And honestly, if I'm like objective, I think I'm quite good at conversations. I'm not gonna give a first impression that I'm likable, and this might change in like 2 months or so. But like, I think it gives a good first impression.

And I don't know, I think it's all of the education that from my childhood in tourism high school.

[49:57] Paul: And yeah, what do they teach you in tourism school?

[50:00] Jovian Gautama: There's actually a lot of— it helps a lot. It's basically like One of the reasons—

[50:05] Paul: How to be likable is like Cialdini influence skills?

[50:08] Jovian Gautama: More like how to handle customers, how to handle clients. So one of the biggest in Indonesia, I don't think it's a lot in Thailand, probably in Asia. So there's a job called tour leader. So it's not necessarily a tour guide, but you bring like a tour group abroad, like Europe for 14 days or Japan for like 8 days. So just like 20 or 25 people group. It's really— so being a tour leader is a really tricky job.

It's kind of fun. It's good for if you're extroverted people. People has to like you, and you have to be able to adapt and deal with random shit all the time. And, and you need to learn how to say no without it sounding like you're saying no, kind of like. So this kind of There's a lot of emphasis on hospitality, how to be likable, how to win your customer's heart at that time. Well, not necessarily selling, but just trying to be polite and to be likable in a sense.

I think this is something that—

[51:15] Paul: Any specific things they teach you?

[51:16] Jovian Gautama: That's a very good question. I think when it's a very basic thing, but it's really more when you bring like a tour group, you need to anticipate what your tour members might need afterward. Very small stuff. For example, when you go into like a tourist spot, for example, you're at Buckingham Palace or something like that. First thing you do, go down the bus, find out where the restrooms are. That's it.

Find out where the restrooms are. And then so if you don't want to ask where the restroom— because that's an urgent thing, right? And then you know where is it. And then real small stuff like table manners. And then sometimes how to deal with random situations. Like there's the one test that basically the question was, okay, you're bringing a tour in Berlin.

You're in Berlin, right? In Berlin Airport. And one of your customers, one of your team tour members lost their credit card. What do you do? Like, how do you handle that kind of stuff?

[52:21] Paul: It's pretty, it's pretty interesting because it's, it's like this should almost be the sort of like role-playing simulation type stuff most people learn. Yeah, like, because that's actual life skills.

[52:35] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for example, another one is like if you go, let's say you bring a tour group to an airport and and the airport is on strike right now. What do you do? What's the next step?

[52:45] Paul: Step by step by step.

[52:47] Jovian Gautama: You're in Europe. Join the strike. And so yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that.

[52:55] Paul: Yeah, so, all right, so you left your job. Were you concerned about money when you were thinking about renegotiating from 5 days a week down to 2 days a week?

[53:06] Jovian Gautama: I was actually. I actually was. But this is how I think about it. So at that time, I'm going to be transparent about numbers here. So my salary was like 60K NTD, like $1,800 US a month. Yeah, US a month.

Right. And when I—

[53:25] Paul: but in a country with universal healthcare and cheap food.

[53:28] Jovian Gautama: Right, right. But at that time, but I already have to like, I don't want to go down in lifestyle. I cannot go down in lifestyle. This is like, this is Chris Rock bit about it. Like people can't go down in lifestyle. But so, but the idea is The thing is like this, so at that time, okay, it was around June.

So it's like halfway through the year.

[53:48] Paul: And okay, if I go part-time, I think I remember you explaining this to me at the time.

[53:57] Jovian Gautama: I think, right? So, okay, so I think, or actually it's not part-time, like two-thirds of the time. So some 60, my salary goes like 40K.

[54:07] Paul: For 3 days a week?

[54:08] Jovian Gautama: Yes, it's pretty good.

[54:10] Paul: And you just got a raise, right?

[54:12] Jovian Gautama: That's true. That's probably true. And then I was like, okay, so I'm thinking like, okay, to make my own, to have the same lifestyle or income that I need to make the 6 months left in the year, right? So I need to make like $20K times 6 months, like $120K total. Yeah, 120K NTD, that is just like $4,000 USD, $4,000 US dollars. And I thought to myself, can I, can I, Jovian, make $4,000 USD in 6 months?

Yeah, I was like, that doesn't sound too bad. I think I can do it.

[54:51] Paul: Well, and I love that because so many people discover this when they become self-employed, is you start thinking about money differently, right? And it's actually easier to make $4,000 over 6 months if you're not working 3 days a week than if you were.

[55:07] Jovian Gautama: Right. Yeah.

[55:09] Paul: Right. So this is where things start getting confusing because you shift from I get paid for this hour of work to I might work for weeks and then get paid in 3 months from now, which is a hard shift when people become self-employed. But once you start thinking that way, you start thinking about money totally different.

[55:30] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I think at that time my— it's also a mix of like I was exposed to how people on the internet can make money at that time. Even I think—

[55:42] Paul: You're just like browsing Twitter and people are like, I made $100,000.

[55:45] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, holy shit, this guy's like $20K in MRR. Holy shit, Peter Levels make like $5 million, something like that. And it was kind of like, all right, it's kind of that kind of exposed, even though it's like indirect. And then I was like, I kind of have some kind of confidence about my skill level. And it's like, I can make this. So that's kind of like gave me a sense of comfort.

[56:10] Paul: And so you went from making about $1,800 a month to then finding a job making $5,000 a month.

[56:21] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[56:22] Paul: That's incredible.

[56:24] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[56:24] Paul: What did that feel like? Did it feel like you tapped into some cheat code of the world?

[56:31] Jovian Gautama: In a way, yes. But even before that—

[56:33] Paul: And to put this in context, $5,000 a month in Taiwan is amazing. Yeah. Right. You can basically have like a really nice apartment for $1,000 a month.

[56:46] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. I think that's— Yeah, I think for me, it's It's a bit of a cheat code kind of thing, but it's really more like, oh, I can do this. And once you get that first thing, the first time, first opportunity, and it feels like I can do anything. But actually, just before that, before I found that full-time job— so that $5,000, to put into context, is with my previous job, full-time job. But before that full-time job, I had like freelancing opportunities and one of them was to be a podcast editor with, I told you this, with Louis Grenier from Everyone Hates Marketing and his friend Andrew Michael from Churn.fm. It's interesting because he's super nice because I listened to his podcast like even way before.

I like how he thinks about marketing and stuff and not being shady, not so much marketing bullshit. And I just actually just asked him opinions about marketing and stuff. And then he sent me like a long Loom video about my questions and super nice. But I think that put me on his radar in a way. And after like literally, I think a month after I proposed like the part-time thing, he reached out to me, hey, do you want to work as like podcast editor for me? Like we need someone.

To do this. I was like, oh, right, that's interesting. And so I did that, editing podcasts and creating like blog content. And so yeah, so that's a kind of good paying job, adding, added to my part-time salary at that time. So yes, and then go from there, I find a full-time job in Strong. And yeah, it's really more about once you got this opportunity twice, Sorry, once or twice, it's just like it's unlocking cheat code.

Oh, I can do this. Yeah, it's just opened like a new whole opportunities.

[58:46] Paul: And I think one interesting thing is you're tapping into the American like tech ecosystem, the hive mind. Right. And like actually like all that time, like quote unquote wasted, like watching silly TV shows was probably one of the most valuable things you did.

[59:07] Jovian Gautama: I will say yes. I'll say yes.

[59:09] Paul: Right. Yeah. You're like my most American friend in Taiwan.

[59:15] Jovian Gautama: Like, you just insult me.

[59:18] Paul: No, you just drop some of the, like, deepest references. You're like, have you heard about this cafe?

[59:23] Jovian Gautama: And about this John Mulaney bit?

[59:26] Paul: Yeah. So, but it's very interesting because that is sort of what you need to— like, learning perfect by-the-book grammar English is fine, but actually, like, watching comedy and listening to podcasts is probably going to help you get a job more.

[59:46] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[59:47] Paul: And honestly, how many days have you spent in the US?

[59:50] Jovian Gautama: 30 days.

[59:51] Paul: Yeah.

[59:52] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. And it's like, I think 30 days. So I went to the US in 2017 for a business trip. Mostly stayed in San Francisco, in the Bay Area, in Sunnyvale to be exact, and went to LA to meet like high school friends. And honestly, I like the US, at least at that part. I haven't been to other parts yet, but yes.

So yeah, a lot of things I learned about the US are mostly from like, honestly, like pop culture. I think even Americans don't really realize how big of an influence they have around the world just from the, um, the entertainment stuff that they churn out like every day or like even before the influencer stuff. And I think I want to add like there's another side of this. I think there are a lot of people smarter than me that can communicate in English better than me, but they don't know that there are opportunities out there they can do remotely.

[01:00:57] Paul: Yeah.

[01:00:57] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[01:00:58] Paul: Well, I think you just start working for people too, right? And you just keep helping people. And I think it's like learning that behaviors. I'm guessing like your childhood experience was super valuable because like growing up, my experience was you needed to get accepted by a company to do work. Your experience was you just do whatever you need to do. I think that, and this is the crazy thing, we look at people as lower middle class or poor people.

It's like they're actually entrepreneurs.

[01:01:38] Jovian Gautama: Yes.

[01:01:39] Paul: Right? The person selling food at a food stand or in a market, they're literally entrepreneurs. Yes. We just have all these class markers caught up in these things.

[01:01:48] Jovian Gautama: I think my childhood experience of being like a bit like off the beaten path actually, and from that child experience and when I grew up, I seek structure and constraints. But as of now, I feel like I calibrated it quite well. Like, I know, even though I know that I'm under a certain kind of structure, limitations, I think there are some ways that can circumvent that or negotiate it with the right person, like the street smarts kind of thing. I learned that.

[01:02:27] Paul: So, so this is a great transition to, you go from selling steel to sales for CodeMentor. To running a podcast, to running marketing for a strength training app, and then you become CEO of a podcast app. Did you expect you'd have the title CEO at this age?

[01:02:59] Jovian Gautama: Right. So I don't know how to answer it. I think it's weird. I mean, honestly, CEO is just really just like—

[01:03:10] Paul: I think you're downplaying it. Like, I understand it's a small team and it's not a major app, but you just end up in, you keep, you sort of just keep like wandering about trying stuff and just keep ending up like succeeding more and more.

[01:03:29] Jovian Gautama: I'm like the Forrest Gump for small startups.

[01:03:34] Paul: Yeah, I think Forrest Gump is a great American reference.

[01:03:40] Jovian Gautama: Shout out Tom Hanks. To— no, no.

[01:03:43] Paul: Yeah. How, like, just how does that happen? So tell me actually how it happened and talk to me about how that experience is done.

[01:03:53] Jovian Gautama: Earlier this year, this is 2023 for people listening in like 2067.

[01:03:59] Paul: Shout out from the past.

[01:04:01] Jovian Gautama: Shout out to—

[01:04:01] Paul: We don't have full AI yet.

[01:04:05] Jovian Gautama: Shout out to President Joe Rogan. So I was transitioning to— I was looking at some new opportunities like earlier this year, right? So I had like some freelance gigs that I'm running with Insight.com. Are you familiar with it? Yeah.

[01:04:27] Paul: Insight is the tracking app with like buttons?

[01:04:30] Jovian Gautama: No, no, no. Insight is— the news forum website owned by Jason Calacanis.

[01:04:37] Paul: Okay.

[01:04:38] Jovian Gautama: Anyway, so I had a writing gig, writing newsletters, like 2 newsletters a week. Imagine that.

[01:04:44] Paul: You were doing that as another side experiment?

[01:04:46] Jovian Gautama: Another freelance gig.

[01:04:48] Paul: Okay, so you've done a bunch of freelance stuff. You did some stuff for Zapier. You've written humor. You're basically experimenting nonstop throughout this whole period.

[01:04:57] Jovian Gautama: So at that time, I was just looking at different kind of opportunities. Like at that time, I was— I'm not sure what I want, but I'm pretty sure what I don't want. So I know what I don't want in a job. And you wrote about this in your book, right? It's really important for you to have, like, to know what— understand what life you don't want anyway. So one of them is I bumped into a Taiwanese website.

For those who don't know, Tiny.com is a holding company that owns the Castro podcast app along with other companies like Aeropress and Letterboxd. Actually, they acquired Letterboxd.

[01:05:35] Paul: They own Aeropress?

[01:05:36] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[01:05:36] Paul: Nice.

[01:05:37] Jovian Gautama: And for designers out there, Dribbble. So I follow the CEOs like Andrew Wilkinson's Twitter for a long time now. Very interested. About how they think about managing small companies. Like, it's not like 10x growth. It's just like—

[01:05:55] Paul: They have a radical approach.

[01:05:56] Jovian Gautama: Yeah.

[01:05:56] Paul: Just like profitable companies.

[01:05:58] Jovian Gautama: Yes. So radical. Making money. Damn. This is like some anarchy is going on here. Like, look at this.

Young kids want to make money.

[01:06:06] Paul: I always say like, I am so successful. I've made billions more than Uber.

[01:06:12] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it.

[01:06:15] Paul: Of course, my income is a rounding error, but billions more.

[01:06:19] Jovian Gautama: Hey, it's like morale victory for your wallet. Think about it.

[01:06:23] Paul: Anyway, so Tiny is this holding company by Andrew Wilkinson. It owns a collection of profitable ventures. One of them is Castro. From what you've told me, it was kind of just running in the background, had a developer team, and you ended up reaching out to work on it.

[01:06:41] Jovian Gautama: Right. So this is another example that I think might be interesting. An interesting story is like in Tiny's website, there's this form where if you want to work on one of their— if you want to work for one of the portfolio companies, you can fill out that form, right? And ask questions like, where are you from? What are your interests? And which other company, which are the companies which you like to work at?

And so I was filling it out. I was in Japan, like, having like a career break at that time. And I filled it out, the submit button doesn't work. I think it's like a Webflow page, something like that. The submit button doesn't work. And so what I did was like, I emailed Andrew with my resume with the subject line, "Broken link on Tiny's website." and then I told him, hey Andrew, I was using Tinybird because I always want to submit my resume for any tiny company, but I realized that the link doesn't work, just FYI.

And by the way, this is my resume, this is my resume attached. And I think a couple of weeks later, I think he replied, hey, do you want to work for Castro? I was like, oh sure.

[01:07:58] Paul: Did you say you want to work for Castro?

[01:08:00] Jovian Gautama: No. But like, that's one. I think there are two companies that I'm super interested in working in, in tiny's portfolio is like, the first one is like Castro and Supercast. And I'm not saying this because I'm not working in Castro, it's actually the one, the two that I had in my mind. Supercast is, I think one of the sister companies that work with podcasts like Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia, and that generally was the one that was I'm thinking about when I was applying. So yeah, and I was like, oh sure, and then let me learn more about what is up.

[01:08:34] Paul: Castro user. Yes, for years.

[01:08:37] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, so will you link Castro on this podcast? Yeah, absolutely. You're right. So anyway, so I, at that time, I kind of learned, okay, that's interesting, and I learned more about Castro. About what's happening right now. And I used Castor like years ago, honestly, but I didn't use it recently.

And then I understand how it works, how different from other podcast app. And I was like, sure, but then I realized it's like CEO position. I was like, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, like CEO or general manager position, like wait, wait. At that time, my first thinking was it's not the positive way of thinking about it, well, it kind of fits my experience. When I say it's not like the CEO thing fits my experience, but I'm very much, I'm very much a generalist. I don't identify my— I did marketing before, but it's weird for me to identify myself as a marketer.

[01:09:37] Paul: Yeah, you did a lot of stuff for Strong and other companies.

[01:09:41] Jovian Gautama: So, and then I was like, this kind of fits my interest and experience. Like, I did a bit of design, I did a bit of, um, like marketing and sales and stuff. This kind of fits my, um, my skill set. And okay, let's try it. We try it out for a trial period, couple of months, and it works well. And yes, I think right now, as of now, I'm still running it.

I don't know when will the podcast be launched, like So yeah, it's really been an interesting experience so far because it's a great product. Let's say like the previous founder is like, it's a really, really, really good product and it's an opinionated product.

[01:10:25] Paul: Yeah, I like it. Like the queuing function is a killer feature for me, but I realize that may not be ideal for everyone, right?

[01:10:33] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. So I think for us it's really more like just trying to figure out what's next and update new features. But yes, that's how I'm in this position right now. So I think a lot of these are this accumulation of pursuing things that I'm curious in, to be honest. Like, I'm not sure, like, I didn't know, I'm not sure why Andrew asked me like, do you want to work for Castro? Like what's in my resume?

But in my resume, I mentioned that I had an iOS app experience with Strong, like the previous strength training app that I was working at. And I had a podcasting experience. So I know it's like a mash between those two.

[01:11:20] Paul: Yeah, this is the same thing about like aiming at a career, right? Like you couldn't have aimed at this when you graduated college.

[01:11:27] Jovian Gautama: Exactly. It's— I'm very skeptical about the word career and successful and right now. So, okay, when you say career, when you hear the word career, do you feel like it's— how to say it? Like, what do you think about it?

[01:11:46] Paul: I've thought a lot about this.

[01:11:47] Jovian Gautama: Okay. Yes. The Careerless Path by Paul Millerd.

[01:11:53] Paul: I think about the definition as a first-person story in your head about how you relate to work over time. Right. And when I think about it, I think about the past. I think about committing to a company and building a career, a series of narrative-driven steps like, oh, I do this and then I do this and I accumulate this experience. Like my first job was at GE. When senior people would come in, they'd be like, look, young people, this is what you need to do to succeed at GE.

You need to work in these functions and these functions. And like, the most important thing I did was like, I took this hard role. I knew this role would suck and it'd be hard and be long hours, but that's actually what you need to do to succeed at this company. So it's sort of like this whole story world people invent around like what you're supposed to do. Right. And I think what's happened in the modern world is people are no longer with one company.

Right. So people are trying to pair career with jumping between companies, which puts the entire burden on the individual to craft this story. And it's always fragmented. Right. And I think, like, for me, the solution has just been to, like, to actually disconnect from job to job to job to actually just trying a bunch of stuff. So now, like, a lot of the stuff I do, like, doesn't— might not make sense over a year, but like, the principles are I just want to be interested in the things and like stay energized.

And yeah, I don't— which is a long answer, long way of saying I don't think about a career at all anymore. I don't think I have a career.

[01:13:47] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, and in a way, your book is kind of like the culmination of all your previous experience, right? That's like one milestone.

[01:13:54] Paul: Yeah, it's, it's also like a deprogramming guide for people that are in the career mindset. Yeah, and we crave this like consistent story, right? But, and it can be hard, right? Now you have the CEO title. It could be a trap to think like now you can only do that next, right?

[01:14:17] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I think how I think about it, even though I have the CEO title, but I'm really— I mostly think about it is I don't think about it in the frame of a career as in, okay, if I am CEO now, then I can be a CEO of a bigger company later on. I don't think about it like that. It's just really more about, okay, I'm in this position right now. What can I learn and what can I create or build with the other people in the team which can help me pursue future opportunities that I'm curious about? Does it make sense? So it's kind of like—

[01:14:58] Paul: just keep your curiosity alive.

[01:14:59] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, just keep your curiosity alive. I think I want to design this kind of thing and this kind of feature and I mean, It can branch to something, but I don't think about it as, as, as a path to a bigger career title, business title, if that makes sense. I probably think about it as a way how can I expand my curiosity and try new stuff, but not necessarily how do I get like a bigger position and make more money. So it's not necessarily a thing. Like that.

[01:15:33] Paul: That's awesome. And I think the trap of like aiming at success or like putting yourself in that career mindset is you see things as like I'm doing X for Y later.

[01:15:43] Jovian Gautama: Yes.

[01:15:44] Paul: And you're basically just saying I want to enjoy the X and I want to keep enjoying the X.

[01:15:48] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, because I think it's also an experience from the past. Like I knew for a fact when if I just pursue something without a goal, but like fulfill my curiosity, it would lead to something in the end. Like, I think I'm kind of lucky because that thing became a fact very early for me.

[01:16:09] Paul: Well, it's like this optimistic mindset sort of feeds upon itself. When good things happen, you expect good things to happen. Therefore, you engage with the world as if good things will happen.

[01:16:19] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:16:19] Paul: And then good things keep happening.

[01:16:21] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I think this is really underrated trait, honestly, I think. There's a lot of miserable bastards on the internet. Like, I feel like in Twitter, especially like in people in our circle, I think there's a lot of optimistic people that do a lot of thinking. Yeah, they do a lot of thinking about their life and like creating or building or even a way, some career path. But it's not that they just like autopilot through their career, but they really think about how to build the best and create a happy life. So yeah, I think that's interesting.

I think a lot of people don't really understand. I'll say especially people in Indonesia or Taiwan, they don't really realize that there's an option to be happy without keep pursuing career. I feel like even though you mentioned in America, there's the script that you have to have a job, but at least from my interaction on Twitter, it already has this, or even Zoomers, maybe there's this conscience that, oh, I don't need to have like a fantastic career to be happy. I can just pursue my curiosity and I can make money. Yeah, I think this is awareness.

[01:17:39] Paul: That's very Twitter mobile.

[01:17:40] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, really.

[01:17:42] Paul: Yeah, I think there still is this pervasive career mindset in the US. I think One challenge in the US is expectations are so extremely high. People want the 3,000-square-foot dream home, right? They want the nice cars. They want to put their kids in fancy schools. So like there's been a ratchet of like what people expect and people see other people doing that on social media and always feel like they're behind.

Whereas like when I'm in Taiwan, like I don't feel that pressure as much. I think part of it is like, yeah, everyone lives in the same cities and has access to the same food, which is like reasonably priced.

[01:18:24] Jovian Gautama: I think that phenomenon is also— I've told you about this, but I've also found a similar phenomenon in Jakarta, in Indonesia. People just get influenced by the social media of, oh, they have this like 3-story houses, I have to like 4-story houses. This kind of thing. And I think it's because Jakarta is like growing up, growing really fast right now, developing really fast. So it's kind of like a byproduct of that, like keeping up with the Joneses. Yeah, kind of thing.

And I agree with you, in Taiwan there's less of that kind of pressure. I mean, there's probably— there probably is, but I can just be happy having a nice, okay house and then I just spend my time in coffee shops and then do work. If you've never been to Taipei, come here. There's tons of coffee shops here.

[01:19:16] Paul: Yeah.

[01:19:16] Jovian Gautama: Great.

[01:19:17] Paul: Do you think you must get exposed to a lot of Americans complaining about the country and the situation as well online? What is your reaction when you see that kind of stuff?

[01:19:30] Jovian Gautama: You should see my list of like puted Twitter words.

[01:19:36] Paul: Does it shock you though? Like, I think from traveling and living in other countries, I think sometimes people don't understand the access to opportunities they have in the US.

[01:19:47] Jovian Gautama: You mean for Americans?

[01:19:48] Paul: Yeah.

[01:19:49] Jovian Gautama: Oh, that's interesting. I think a bit, yes. I think a bit like some part of me, I'm not trying to trivialize some social issue stuff, but some part of me kind of like see some Americans complaining about some very trivial bullshit. Like for me, like for me, it's super trivial. It's like, why? Why are you doing?

You know that this thing is like normal everywhere around the world and not your, and not your country. And you know what I mean?

[01:20:17] Paul: So like healthcare.

[01:20:19] Jovian Gautama: Yeah. Healthcare is a bit like, I don't know, just right. I can't think about like my mom. It's just like, how is it? Culture war stuff.

[01:20:28] Paul: Oh yeah.

[01:20:28] Jovian Gautama: I mean, I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole. But like, I think they're part of this like If that's your— just again, not all of them. There are some social issues that I feel like it's really like some unique in the US, and I feel like this probably you guys have to deal with this shit kind of stuff. But there's someone that really likes trivia, super trivial, um, and I'm like, yeah, why, why are you guys fighting about this right now kind of thing? So, and you don't know you're having it Really, you're having it really good up there.

[01:21:03] Paul: And so it's like once you've met all your basic needs, you need to create drama in your life.

[01:21:10] Jovian Gautama: That's true. And again, I'm not saying for people who really struggle, I'm not saying that your problems is not meaningful. But I think in the grand scheme of things, there are times where the people just don't they take a lot of stuff for granted. I will say that.

[01:21:30] Paul: Yeah.

[01:21:30] Jovian Gautama: In the US.

[01:21:31] Paul: Yeah. And I think, I mean, I've experienced this, you've experienced this, just living in other countries keeps resetting your expectations and really has humbled me in terms of like a lot of your opportunities are so dependent on like where you're born or where you are or what you have access to. And I think you have a really good perspective on this. Like growing up in Indonesia, people do not have great access to a global labor market or even things like travel, right? Because there are visa restrictions. You can't just travel to the US, for example.

Yeah. You need a visa.

[01:22:11] Jovian Gautama: You know how hard it is to get a visa in the US? Visa? Dang.

[01:22:16] Paul: I don't think people know. Yeah. And despite that, you've sort of built this life engaging with the global world and tapping into the internet and like taking such an optimistic mindset. I just think it's really inspiring.

[01:22:31] Jovian Gautama: Yeah, I think what I think about is like, I know a lot of Taiwanese and Indonesians, they're way smarter than me and can communicate better than me. But I don't think they're just not aware there's this opening that if you want to do it, you can collaborate with people around the world creating stuff you like. And not necessarily even in the context of creator economy, but really just finding a job that you like. You know, there's a lot of great remote companies like Zapier, Buffer, and whatnot. So yeah, I think we're very lucky, like we live in the era where like the internet started growing and then we kind of know our ways around that. Because if I had to do this like depends on my passport, it's just, it's not possible.

So when I said like the Indonesian passport is like the travel equivalent of like a unicycle, you technically can go anywhere with it, but goddamn, isn't it hard? Like, Jesus, it is hard. Like, but yeah, um, that's something I kind of want to tell people it's possible that your opportunities are actually way more diverse than just in the small island of Taiwan or the island of Indonesia. And yeah, I think not a lot of people understand that. And it's probably a mix of like they don't know how to reach out. Or they speak English, but they don't really understand how to communicate in a non-Taiwanese or Indonesian way, I guess.

I don't know.

[01:24:20] Paul: Yeah, that's beautiful advice. I love what you're up to. How can people support you, reach out, connect? Sign up for the Castro Pro subscription. To keep Jovian working on Castro. How else can people support you or reach out?