This Startup is being Recorded

E10 - All PR is Good PR and Matt’s Peloton

Valerie Garrison Season 1 Episode 10

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0:00 | 31:41

Agenda:

  • Clean up odds and ends from 2021

Takeaways:

  • Matt to have a gentle 1:1 with Rachel
  • Matt going to move his Peloton and get a telehealth visit and some EKGs
  • Complete contracting regarding NCIS cameo
Ben

welcome to this startup is being recorded. This recording is improvised fiction. Similarities between it and the real world are entirely intentional. Now enjoy the recording.

Kate

uh, all right. And recording is on. Hey, everybody happy 20, 22.

Matt

We'll come back. We'll come back.

Kate

I know. I feel like I haven't seen you guys in weeks and weeks and weeks. Um,

Matt

It's been a little bit. Yeah.

Eric

Yeah.

Kate

our first official recording of the new year. Ah, sorry. Okay. So everyone listening, uh, John is still obviously in Bermuda. Um, so he won't be here and yet Thea also is on a holiday. That's what she said. Um, that's all she said. And, but I just wanted to use this since not everyone's back to do like kind of odds and ends. We have a ton of follow-ups I'm realizing, uh, that we haven't gone back to. But for anyone listening, we're um, we're Metta market for now still kind of for formerly known as about a market. It's a little bit of a gray

Matt

I mean the PA the paperwork, the lawyers are still crunching on it and, uh, California's team is still crunching on it. So I hope I forgot when she gets back from holiday, but we're going to start needing those names sooner rather than.

Kate

Yeah. It's getting, it's getting difficult to write things. But anyway, uh, we are a couch marketplace company that, you know, really ultimately will be shaping the future of trade, uh, to give everyone a more comfortable seat at the table. I am Kate Banchett. I am the chief of staff to John, our CEO. Um, and frankly, I, I missed this place. I mean, it feels like I never left in some ways, but I also, I missed it.

Eric

did you leave?

Matt

yeah. Did you end up going on a actual vacation?

Kate

Um, sort of, uh, I found out that there's a break room in the basement of this building. Um, and I just never knew that before. And it felt like a whole new adventure. I brought my passport. Um, there was no one to show it to, but to me that helped me get the feeling I was traveling.

Matt

wow. Um, but you, but you were here in the building

Kate

Yes,

Matt

over,

Kate

though, there is like a separate room you can access through like a tunnel. So I don't know if you would technically consider that part of the building or not, but

Matt

Oh,

Kate

Anyway, uh, introduce yourselves and maybe say what you've been up to the last week.

Eric

Yeah.

Matt

Um, yeah,

Eric

go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Um, yeah. Uh, Eric, uh, Joyce Carter, chief of product had product, uh, and yeah, spent, uh, the last couple of weeks on the open sea doing some, some diving, some fishing, uh, just some soaking in the sunlight as we hurdle around the, the solar system, once more, super exciting, uh, really pumped to get back. Think about some long-term stuff. Um, we'll talk about that when we get into all the odds and ends, but feeling refreshed

Matt

Uh, I'll go. Um, my name is matt.yachts. That is also my website and I am the CTO here at the company currently known as Metta market. Um, for the last couple of weeks, I, um, I don't want to get too into it. Um, Disney vacation planned. Um, that's not a hundred percent what happened? Um, uh, this neither here nor there. Um, and my partner and I are still kind of hashing it out and I know she watches sometimes. So, um, we'll just, we'll leave that there. Um, but I am excited to be back. I know that. There were some members of my team that decided to stick through the break and continue with a parameter parameterizing out our, uh, our apps and, uh, backend code. Cause, uh, we've gosh, we just have met a market hard-coded in a lot of places and, um, whatever the changes though, we're going to be ready. Uh, so there's, there's been just an awful lot of find replacement. And, uh, proud of them and I'm proud, proud of what we accomplished last year, despite a lot of just really intimidating obstacles. And, um, yeah, I mean, obviously I'll save a lot of this for, for the bigger meetings coming up since we're doing odds and ends until more people are back.

Kate

right. Yeah. I did notice some of your team was here. I couldn't really figure out who it was. There was a lot of blocked doors, honestly. And, um,

Matt

Yeah. Well,

Kate

modulation, but

Matt

uh, well, lock doors is not too surprising. I mean, we do a lot of our server stuff in-house so, um, you know, there's access controls to, uh, not just the server cages themselves, but also the main server room and a lot of the corridors, uh, in and around that. Um, I did have, uh, something I wanted to ask your advice on specifically, Kate. With, with respect to, uh, the roster of who was on call, um, over the break. Yeah, I, um, so if I understood it right, uh, there were five people, uh, on my roster here. Let me just pull this up. Um, who, um, let's see, Rachel Peegrum, uh, we have, uh, Ray Trello, Raymond. Uh, I've got, uh, Uh, Michelle, uh, have y'all met Michelle she's she's kinda new. Um, she's

Kate

Oh, she had the really like, really specific requirements around which day she got paid something like only prime numbers.

Matt

yeah, she likes to do these beds. Um,

Eric

Uh,

Matt

I'm kind of supportive because it's, you know, it keeps her invested. Like she's more of a problem solver. Uh, anyway, Michelle Palasky, uh, then we have, uh, Ronald, Ronald Peegrum, uh, no relation to Rachel and, um, yeah. And, uh, just, oh, just RP. I'm not sure. I'm not sure who that is. Actually.

Eric

I don't recognize a couple of those.

Matt

Yeah, no looking, actually looking at my. Log, uh, these shifts were claimed under the names of Rachel Peegrum, Ray P shell P RP, grim, and, and then just RP. Uh, then, uh, yeah, the thing I wanted to ask you about is I noticed when payroll went out, uh, after the break, um, Rachel P rim pulled down a lot of over. Uh, and, and looking back at the time cards, um, it looks like maybe this is just a timecard snafu, but like Rachel was the one clocking in and clocking out for pretty much all of those shifts, which I think was, was going to go to five different people. So, um,

Kate

uh, timecard snafu. I,

Matt

maybe.

Kate

I just, I mean, not to say that I couldn't make a mistake, but I mean, I've iterated through that time card. Often, you know, I do my own time cards. I have fake time cards that I test on, on weekends evenings. Um, I have a few alternate, I have a few alternate, you know, fake employees that I use to like test time cards, but how could she get around the system? Well, is that what you're saying?

Matt

Well, gosh, I don't know, like reading back over these. I mean, I have heard Rachel tell people to call her Ray. Uh, I've heard her on the phone, uh, having someone refer to her as shell. Um, and of course just her initials are, uh, RP, grim and RP. It's possible. And let me check my email. I did send out mail to the other employees to make sure they got, you know, paid for they're clocking in, uh, I haven't actually looked at that. Okay. Okay.

Kate

we don't have email addresses for most of those people.

Matt

Uh, what we got let's see Michelle. So she was on vacation, um,

Kate

Yeah.

Matt

approved that. I did approve that. Yeah. Um, okay.

Kate

I saw her Instagram. She was on vacation.

Matt

And Raymond, um, oh, right. Yeah. Raymond was at home, uh, looking after his folks.

Kate

Oh, they're so sweet.

Matt

They are. Yeah. Um, oh, they sent a card in this email. That's very.

Kate

I mean, total separate topic, but I think this year we might want to revive grandparents day. Um, that was so fun. I just raised folks are adorable.

Matt

um, okay. I think I'm starting to get a picture here. Um, and I, I think Rachel used the ambiguity of the signup list to make it look like multiple people would be covering call. And then she just did it in order to get the overtime

Kate

or, or she did it maybe because she didn't have somewhere to go home for Christmas. Or, you know, maybe she was waiting in the office for a serendipitous holiday event to happen and change her life.

Matt

you Kate mentioned, uh, something about hearing someone moving around in the it space. A voice changer in use. Um, do you notice any other activity out of the ordinary

Kate

Um, Most of the snacks were taken out of the S the snack places, uh, refrigerator cabinets, you know, snack places. Um, but then I also saw most of the snacks just unwrapped and thrown back into the trash. Um,

Matt

like not, not eaten just a, the food thrown away.

Kate

some of them have little nipples taken out of them. Wait is, is Rachel the one that has like quite a menagerie of animals?

Matt

on her desk. Yeah.

Kate

Yeah. Yeah. I really that policy where we allowed people to keep pets on their desks is interesting.

Matt

Wait, live, handle.

Kate

Yeah.

Matt

Oh, I was referring to her collection of, of glass and stuffed animals. Uh, some of those are like pretty good collectors items. She's got several really hard to find beanie babies from back in the day. I didn't, yeah, I've never seen her there with live animals. Um, although if she was just hanging out here by herself, there's a chance. Well this, um, I mean, so I'm not sure what to do about this. Kate, is this like a disciplinary issue or.

Kate

well, we have it written into our contracts that you can bring pets to work. Um, and we don't restrict those by species. Cause I think that would be very unfair. Um, whole like, oh yeah, go ahead.

Eric

I mean, I don't know about you, but a lot of this sounds like pretty unusual behavior. Maybe we should just have one of us, you know, do a one-on-one and see if everything's okay. Maybe we can

Matt

Yeah. I mean, I think I need to have a sit down with Rachel no matter what, and just kind of see, like, if everything's okay. Um, mostly like I'm just interested in the transparency, that said I got no complaints about the work. Uh, every, every PagerDuty notification that went off was answered within moments. Uh,

Eric

very clean.

Matt

yeah, she did get work.

Kate

I just, uh, when you have the, one-on-one just keep in mind that it's, it's definitely a job seekers market right now. So don't do anything that might like get her angry, you know, if she needs more, more concessions at work, like we can always come up with something. Um, Let's, let's keep rolling on these odds and ends.

Matt

Yeah. Sorry. That was a, that was supposed to be a smaller.

Eric

quick one for me. Um, is you mentioned the. The name changed, still being up in the air and Matt, uh, the great work from the team. Parameterizing the code. Um, those two things are still kind of, uh, some gaps in where we're going to be for roadmap planning. So I reshuffled, uh, our yearly roadmap planning meetings a little bit. We're going to start with the 20 year roadmap next week. Cause we kind of assume everything washes out in the noise there. And we got all the reports from government bodies and the, you know, the climate change office and stuff to like inform the long-term. We're going to push the quarterly roadmap two weeks. Um, judge, hopefully we'll get some more information from the lawyers on how much we're actually going to have to change. Uh, and some more info from the end, the team on, you know, brand name, colors, et cetera, and how much, how big of an impact that's going to be. So you should all see that on the calendars.

Kate

Cool. Um, remind me again, how was the climate change report affects our roadmap.

Eric

Well, I mean, w we're trying to predict how efficient our computing systems are going to be, and that's going to have a lot to do with the, you know, processing and availability of rare earth minerals. Um, right now you want to know recycling programs. It's not clear how, how good that's going to be in 20 years. So

Matt

Yeah. And, uh, as the ambient temperatures rise, it's, uh, going to be more expensive to cool a data center. So you're going to see data centers migrating further north and further south, uh, away from the equator. Uh, also, you know, running away from rising sea levels. So excited, excited for that meeting.

Kate

Yeah, it feels like we just had it, but we'll

Matt

Oh, I mean there's. Yeah. And there's, there's a lot of detailed to dive into these are, we're talking high level stuff now. Um, Eric, I've been watching along some of those, uh, Google docs and

Eric

Oh good.

Matt

in areas it's mind twisting. So I'm really glad you got good modeling folks on.

Eric

Yeah. We're really real, like having some technical people with, uh, with that experience. So. Uh, great, great working with some of the people on the front end team on that too. I feel like they've, they've risen to the challenge of, of taking on some new stuff. So I appreciate that.

Matt

oh yeah. I mean, they love this kind of like a two 50 stuff, you know, like data

Eric

Data visualization.

Matt

It's there.

Eric

Yeah. Yup.

Kate

excellent. Okay, well, uh, also Calvin and Carter, uh, are having another baby.

Matt

the, uh, covenant Carter, the investors.

Kate

Yeah. Yeah. They are in their temporary housing. Um, building up models to rebuild. Um, they're going to add an extra bedroom for BB number three and yeah, I don't know. I'm just so excited because I get paid per child.

Matt

Oh, do you?

Eric

Oh,

Kate

Yeah,

Matt

Wow. I still can't believe that you babysit for the investors that, that feels like too much, you know, but then again, you're, you're Kate. You do too much.

Kate

it just, it brings so much joy to my life. Also extra income. So.

Matt

Yeah. Uh, just, um, you know, between us, I mean, I guess in the, the streamers, but, um, is there any word on the investigation into their, uh, the fire in their previous home?

Kate

no, I mean, at this point, uh, it's pretty tightly pinned on flakes, uh, by Jorge and I don't know, they're kind of accepting that that's it. And I mean, with every box of cereal you buy for flakes with Jorge, there was an extremely long like form you have to sign to exempt, uh, floats from or hay from any potential home damage. So, yeah, they're a little out of luck, but, uh, also really rich.

Matt

Yeah, that's good. Well, it's weird. Um, the, I saw, I don't, I don't know if y'all follow. Flakes by Jorge had a tweet that where they actually like claimed credit for this, which I thought was a really bold brand move.

Eric

Yeah, I was going to mention it and I. I kind of pushed it out of my head, but I've read a, a blind item in the Washington post about some, some papers that came out. I think it was like the park off papers. Um, let me see this. It was, you know, some, some uncovered, uh, spy program, um, documents that were leaked and there was a mention of, uh, connections. Yeah, Silicon valley investors, the verge picked it up. Um, nothing really seemed to come out of it, but, um,

Matt

Yeah. I mean, that could be anybody

Eric

could be anybody, right?

Matt

because there just because when you were babysitting, you heard their kid talking about their friend party.

Eric

Yeah.

Kate

that's probably a really common Soviet.

Eric

I mean, it's not Karpov, but it's close.

Kate

It's close.

Matt

um, well, um, related, but not related. Let's let's say, um, I have an update on, uh, Des Moines. Um, the.

Kate

ah,

Matt

Yes, the, this sort of, um, zombie data center that we had there, that we were having some, uh, some real issues, uh, getting closure on. Um, Chelsea informs me that, uh, we're all good there. Um, it took some, some doing, but a developer recently purchased a whole chunk of that subdivision and they're going to be building a super target there. Uh, and, um, from what I understand it. Uh, it's already been leveled. So, uh, and I can confirm the, you know, no pink packets, uh, data center, a hundred percent offline. Um, so any backups we had there are couplets.

Kate

Amazing there. That's a really fast moving developer.

Matt

Yeah. Um, Chelsea really kind of understands the socio-political situations in de Moines. Um, Which reminds me. And I know we're, uh, waiting for an update on this, but, um, I want to understand more about what happened with the, uh, the couch mayoral campaign that we had running.

Kate

Yes. Yes. Um, I will find an update on that.

Matt

great. Thanks. Yeah. Chelsea was pretty cagey about it. She didn't want to give me details, but that's like, she's like a former seal, so everything's need to know with her.

Kate

Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's difficult to give an update because I think it's gotten to a point in Iowa a lot that really hasn't ever happened before. Um, so there's just like a lot of interpretation happening, uh, and it seems like no one is satisfied.

Eric

is it going to get, is it going to keep going up the court system? You think

Kate

it seems so

Eric

a boy.

Kate

yeah, it's a little bit problematic that we not only brand the couch under our brand, but you know, we, as a corporate identity, we're essentially running. So, I mean, there, there is a chance, uh, for us to make it to the Supreme court, but you know, you know, these things work. It's a couple of.

Matt

Well, you know, this is, this is what happens. The citizens United pretty much guaranteed that something like this will be done if it's, if it wasn't us, it would be somebody else.

Eric

Yep.

Kate

Yeah,

Eric

And we'll, we'll be, we'll be good with it. We'll we'll. Do wrong with our mayoral power.

Matt

Yeah. I mean, you know, not, not what, uh, assuming we actually get, get the spot.

Eric

Yeah.

Kate

Yeah., Matt, I did want to ask if you were still using the screaming room for your Peloton, uh,

Matt

Oh yeah. Uh it's um, it should be back tomorrow. I had a shipped with me on vacation and.

Eric

oh my God.

Matt

Yeah.

Eric

You're going to, you're going to keep using it.

Kate

yeah.

Matt

Yeah. Why?

Eric

You didn't, you.

Matt

Uh, I didn't see what I mean. Did, did y'all see, like I hit a 52 week streak. Um, I'm really sticking to it. And, uh, this power zones program I'm doing is like really changing my endurance really.

Kate

have to be careful you can't. I what about your heart?

Matt

Uh, what about it? I mean, this kind of cardiovascular exercise is excellent for my heart.

Eric

Yeah, but, but not always. Didn't didn't you see? Didn't see, he died a few weeks ago

Kate

Yeah.

Matt

Sorry.

Eric

on a Peloton, Mr. Big,

Matt

I don't know who that is. Who's missing.

Kate

what

Eric

what do you not watch

Kate

Carrie's husband

Matt

like a Marvel character, right? Mr. Big.

Eric

Um, Marvel character, no sex in the city. New York.

Matt

Oh,

Kate

there's the revival happening?

Eric

Yeah.

Matt

got into sex in this.

Kate

Well, that doesn't matter. The point is that Mr. Big died on his Peloton or as a direct result of it. And it's just, we can't

Matt

Remind me, Mr. Big, you said is Carrie's husband

Eric

Carrie's husband after a long back and forth relationship, powerful investment banker eats steak smokes, cigars, drinks, a lot of red wine and crushes the Peloton. And,

Matt

First three things sounded really bad for your heart.

Eric

but he died on the

Matt

drinks, smokes a lot and eats steak.

Kate

It's and then, I mean, but how could, how could you keep going after what it caused for Carrie? You know,

Matt

Uh, remind me, Carrie is she's the main character in that

Kate

wife? Yeah. Yeah. She's a sex columnist. They almost didn't get married cause he didn't show up. was rough and now he's dead and you just keep riding the death machine in our office. Like, how do you think that's going to make us.

Matt

Sorry. So the, the like long suffering husband of the main character of a fictional TV show died, uh, in a, in a scene that was written by fiction writers. And you're worried about. The Peloton bike in that scene can kill people in real life.

Eric

it could be anything.

Kate

it's not worth the risk.

Matt

That's that's not how it works. I mean, any, any kind of strenuous exercise can put strain on the heart. Uh,

Kate

What other

Matt

is already in bad shape, I mean, does this, I hate to even ask this, does this character have a history of heart trouble?

Eric

yes,

Kate

I mean, when it comes to love,

Eric

does it?

Matt

Have they, I mean, have they like had heart issues before in the show?

Eric

Again. Yeah.

Kate

he could never commit.

Matt

Okay, listen, um, I, I can take if it, if it makes you feel better, I can keep the Peloton at home. Okay. Or, uh, make a corn for it in my office. So nobody has to see me riding it. Uh, but I'm definitely. Writing. It's really good for you. It's a great habit to be in a it's really smooth way to get an aerobic workout.

Eric

It at least at least have a tele-health appointment with our, our insurance folks or

Matt

Okay. Yeah. I mean it's new year. I'm due for a doctor's checkup anyway. Um,

Eric

would, that would really help us.

Kate

They have a series of EKG that they can do, um, for people just for free it's part of our package.

Eric

oh, wow.

Matt

Oh, that's pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to do, I've never done a, like a, a stress test like that before, so it sounds fun. Wow. Uh, I, I hope is this. This is like a pretty common feeling like this thing happened to a fictional TV character, and now everybody's freaked out about the real life exercises.

Kate

Yeah. Things that happen in TV have a huge impact on, on reality. So I mean, huge.

Matt

okay. Well, I'm sorry. You were both worried about it. Um, let me just assure you, it's going to be fine and I will take steps to prove that.

Kate

Okay. Okay. Um, let's see. Ya. Okay. Currently I have a couple other quick things. Um, oh, speaking of the pet policy, um, I, my mantis shrimps will be arriving tomorrow. So if you see something new on my desk, um, just don't worry, but also don't eat them.

Matt

Yeah. Well, don't mess with them. Right? Mantis shrimps pack.

Eric

Yeah.

Kate

Yeah. I just know now that Eric does fishing. So I guess I just want to preface Eric that if you ever feel like fishing, um, any of my aquariums should, should not be, uh, subject to your fishing.

Eric

absolutely. That won't, that won't be an issue

Kate

Okay, great. I mean, we just had that problem with, with Paul last year and

Eric

Oh, right. That was bad. That was bad. That was, that was not very nice.

Kate

I mean, granted people probably shouldn't have chickens in the office anyway, but I also think when someone has a pet, you shouldn't eat it.

Eric

yeah, that's a, I shouldn't have to write that into the policy, but we did.

Matt

Yeah.

Eric

Um, yeah. Speaking of, of holiday gifts, I got a new coffee machine, uh, for my desk. So if anybody wants to try that. That's great. If you want to have the team, put it on, uh, our, our login system. That's fine. I think it supports that, but no, no, no pressure. I'm happy to keep it off, off the network. If that's better.

Matt

Yeah. Well, that's fun. Oh, I I'll bring in some roasts to try out

Eric

Okay. Yeah, that sounds

Matt

have a, do you have a grinder to go with? Okay. Do you like it? Cause I've cause I've got some suggestions.

Eric

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I'm

Matt

Oh, sweet. Okay. Oh, nice.

Eric

go along for the

Matt

It's a, it's a, just a, it's a bird grinder, right? That you have. Oh man. All right. You're already out. You're in good shape. I don't. All right. I'm looking forward to this. Okay. That's

Kate

Looking at you to bonding. I love it. Okay. So last, last quick thing, we got an email, um, from NBC ABC, one of those, um, they'd like to use one of our couches in uh NTIs. So

Eric

really?

Kate

yeah, they didn't give details, but I mean, Any product placement on TV as a good product placement. Right. So I figured why not? So we've got the docs in the lawyer's hands and, uh, CIS and February's what's coming.

Matt

wow. It's CIS. Huh? That is a, just what a L a history show do you know? They're in their 19th year.

Kate

Yeah.

Eric

Wow. On CBS and USA. That's that's, that's going to be everywhere.

Matt

That's cool. I wonder what that's going to be like. Yeah.

Kate

Good. Just good. Just

Matt

of our couches, do you think? Uh, oh man. Califia might I wish she was here. She would probably be really. Cause. Cause what if, what if canonically did they really? Because like, what if canonically bugs me and the NCI S universe, like the Metta market and NCI universes, man.

Eric

oh,

Kate

yeah, they fortunately, um, I mean, bugs be, we've already spun them out into its own independent contractors, so, um, yeah, he's already connecting with them, um, uh, you know, via. MI slash lawyers, but I figured, you know, no need to bother Thea about this. We'll just get bugs. We signed up and, uh, all PR is good PR. Right.

Eric

Do you see, he has an IMD page now?

Matt

no, I haven't

Kate

bud speak.

Eric

Yeah. Bugs me. Pre-production NCIS

Matt

It's going to be exciting. It's such a, it's such an action packed show. Uh, and I mean, just like, you know, it's a team of really well-meaning folks working really hard to catch just like really hardened, violent folks and people who just like, they are willing to do the most. Uh, that's gonna be exciting to see our couch on that.

Kate

Well. Uh, okay. Well that was all the odds and ends. I had anyone have any.

Matt

uh, I think that's all I've got for now. Looking forward to digging into the bigger chunkier stuff. When more people are back.

Kate

We love the chunks. All right, let me stop the recording.

Ben

This meeting has ended. To subscribe to this startup is being recorded. Go to the podcast player of your choice and tap a button that likely says subscribe. More content is on Twitter at startup recorded, or shoot us an email with ideas, feedback, or your personal startup horror story. At hello@startuprecorded.com. Kate is played by Valerie Garrison. Valerie is a health tech product manager and regularly plays with the improv troupe letters to chicken online. You can find her on Twitter at thevalgarris eric has played by Barry wright Barry is a product manager at Spotify and a co-founder of high-wire improv. Find him by his name on LinkedIn, where he holds regular office hours or@highwireimprov.com. Matt is played by Martin Mcguire. Marty is a senior web engineer and improviser in New York city. You can find Marty's comedy code and cats on his website at M M G dot R E. Califia is played by Robyn Stegman. Robyn is a digital campaign manager for ocean Conservancy and is a comedian mostly found at Highwire improv. You can find her on all the social medias. And she does mean all at rsteggy thank you for listening.