👋 Welcome to the February 2025 edition of the Wahl Network newsletter!

The featured image is from a walk I was on with a friend across the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge in Austin. I find sunrise to be such an inspiring and uplifting sight and I wanted to share that joy with you all. ✌️

Ask the Author: Preparing to Leave Corporate Life

👉 Have a question for me? Hit up my Questions Inbox or message me on LinkedIn and I’ll address it in an upcoming newsletter issue! You’ll also get a shout-out. 😊

The most common question I have received in the months since going solo is basically – how did you know when it was time to leave, and what is your plan?

My decision to leave my well-paying job was not an easy one. I have spent years thinking about going solo and even hired a coach to better understand the “why” behind my desires. It’s really scary to make such a big change and I’ve only known the corporate life for my adult career. There’s always been a paycheck coming in from somewhere, which feels safe and secure.

My decision really boiled down to three things that live in my heart:

1. I hate being managed; I can self-direct my own interests without the need for external structure.
2. I want to be heard and feel that I have opinions and experiences to share; I like a one-to-many audience.
3. My greatest source of joy is giving knowledge to others via sharing, teaching, and mentoring.

My grand plan? To come up with a plan. But here’s the thing: I’m a one-speed kind of guy. When I’m in, I’m all in. My job was sucking up every last drop of creative juice, leaving me with zero brainpower for, well, anything else. So, bye-bye day job, hello six months of glorious, uninterrupted planning time.

I’m in full-on exploration mode! Think of it as a personal Renaissance. I’m dabbling in all sorts of art, binge-watching YouTube tutorials to level up my writing and editing game, wrestling with new code (React, JSX, Javascript – the whole shebang!), and even diving headfirst into the world of pro video editing. Every day is a mini-adventure, and I’m getting clearer on what excites me and what just makes me yawn.

The only way to know these answers is to experiment.

My approach is simple: break it down, figure it out, execute. Just like I always have. The patterns will emerge, the revenue will follow. I’m not afraid to ask for help – I know I don’t know everything.

And yeah, I could go back to the corporate world if I wanted. But this isn’t about a paycheck. It’s about me. Giving myself a real chance to build something special. And if I succeed? I’m taking a few people with me. That’s the dream. 😊

Thoughtfully Critical Podcast: We’ve Reached 700+ Streams!

Podcasting is such a new experience this time around. Both myself and technology have dramatically changed since my Datanauts days. In its first 30 days of “being a podcast,” Thoughtfully Critical has reached about 730 streams across all platforms with Deep Work continuing to lead the pack in terms of total streams.

If you’re dealing with technical debt (and who isn’t?), give Tackling Technical Debt: Strategies for Success a listen. One major benefit of my consulting experiences have been seeing dozens of unique companies take on – and struggle to pay off – technical debt. Check it out.

In an effort to try something new, I’ve started publishing a video version of the podcast with 80’s BBS Adventures and Coding Quests! This is a nostalgic look back at my experiences as a kid growing up in the 80s, getting to code on a Apple IIe, and ultimately joining the world of bulletin board systems (BBSs) for discussions, games (MUDs!), and more. Watching the video isn’t required and I’m very new to this artform, but I’m hooked!

Upcoming Podcast Episodes

Expect future podcast episodes to continue offering a video, along with “talking head” commentary now that I’ve setup my home office for recording. I’m working on podcast episodes talking about my horrible experiences buying a PowerMac G4 (the reason I left Apple and never looked back) and my usage of AI tools – you can read more on that in Reviving 15 Years of WordPress Content with NotebookLM.

🔭 Sneak peek to next week’s title: Choosing the Right Tools: Balancing Benefits and Trade-Offs in Tech. There’s a lot of memes buried throughout. 😉

YouTube Channel Updates

Established in 2012, the Wahl Network YouTube channel is where I show people the things I do in my home lab and cloud lab. I spend days tinkering and building, distill that down into short pieces of educational video, and then release the content for free.

Above is graph showing views to the channel. In total, there are 1.5 million.

• 2012 – 2015: I started strong, producing new videos regularly for about the first 3 years.
• 2015 – 2019: Then, at the first red arrow, I got hired at Rubrik as their Chief Technologist and life got super busy.
• 2020: I returned to video creation as the pandemic hit, as shown by the second red arrow, but my mental state was pretty garbage and I burned out quickly.
• 2021 – 2024: I joined Slalom as a delivery consultant focused on building complex systems, which absolutely drained every ounce of creative energy I had.

YouTube Partner Program

I’ve always made videos as a hobby in my spare time while juggling a family and a day job. Now, however, I’m focused and in a great mental state. I’ve rolled up my sleeves and am ready to learn how to make great educational content once more! Editing in today’s world of technology and AI is VASTLY different than when I started – it’s much simpler to edit content because there’s a plethora of amazing tools that compete with Adobe.

I’ve re-signed my YouTube Partner Program agreement and am once again uploading videos. To kick things off, you can find all of the video episodes of Thoughtfully Critical in this YouTube playlist along with some shorts with snipets from the show.

Upcoming Video Content

I’m currently working on an educational series for folks wanting to setup production-like AWS environments for learning, using infrastructure as code tools (e.g. Terraform) and CI/CD (e.g. GitHub Actions) without having to worry about setting their money on fire.

Innovator Tier Memberships Available

Want to support the channel and get a little something in return? I’ve just launched an “Innovator” membership tier. For just $3 a month, you’ll get a special badge next to your name (it levels up the longer you’re a member!) and I’ll personally respond to your comments. Think of it as a super affordable way to get my insights whenever you have a question – way cheaper than booking a consulting session! 😉

I have plans to offer more tiers with early access to content, access to exclusive content, and special Q&A sessions with me once I get the ball rolling.

In the meantime, stay tuned and drop a subscription (it’s free!). 💖

Interesting Links

Here are some fun, interesting, and educational links that I’ve gathered to share with you.

This hilarious folks at Under Studio published this funny short on negotiations during an interview.

I was looking for a good article on flaky tests, and Managing Flaky Tests at Scale: Detection and Quarantining by The Trunk Team is worth a read.

Jennifer Riggins drops a truth bomb over at The New Stack with Developers Unhappy With Tool Sprawl, Lagging Data, Long Waits. Developers are never happy, though, so I guess this is status quo? 😁

I found Enhancing Rovo Chat with Hybrid LLM Approach by Steven Yoo, Senior Principal Engineer at Atlassian, to contain wise nuggets and interesting insights. Atlassian’s Work Life blog is one of the few vendors that actually publishes good stuff.

Rewind the clock to 2014 and listen to Think Like a Child on the Freakanomics Radio. One of my favorite podcasts of all time, this episode hits me the hardest and helped me reset when my mental state was going in the wrong direction.

GitHub has really given their Copilot tool the “juice” with GitHub Copilot: The agent awakens. I’ve spent most of this week giving the new Copilot experience a spin. Will they finally give Cursor a run for the money?

Finally, DevEx as a service: Scaling DevOps teams with Platform Engineering by Matthew Casperson from the Octopus Deploy team. It’s a long title but a really good read. I saw it over on the Platform Engineering Slack.

That’s it for this issue! Let’s talk again soon. ✌️& 💙