Chris Malayter

In this episode, we are joined by Chris Malayter, the VP of Network and Interconnection at CoreSite. 

Chris shares his 25 years of experience as a network engineer and leader, and his passion for improving interconnection in the internet ecosystem. 

He talks about how he got involved in peering and volunteer work, especially as the chairman of the board at PeeringDB, a non-profit organization that maintains a database of networks and their interconnection data, as some of the challenges and benefits of working in a volunteer organization. 

He reveals how he learned from his mentors and peers, and how he tries to mentor others in his field. He also discusses how he balances his work and family life, and how he copes with stress and impostor syndrome.

Chris shares his tips on how to deal with impostor syndrome, how to keep learning and growing, and how to have fun in your career.

Chris' Links: 

• Twitter
• Mastodon 
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

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Transcript

Machines made this, mistakes and all:

[00:00:00] Grundemann: Hello and welcome to the Imposter Syndrome Network Podcast where everyone belongs, especially if you think you don't. 

[00:00:16] Grundemann: Welcome imposters. My name is Chris Grundemann and unfortunately Zoe Rose is not with us today. She is at Cisco Live doing her thing there. Um, and by that, since you're listening to this on the 8th of August, you now know how far in advance we recorded these, but, uh, she's out for today.

[00:00:33] Grundemann: However, we do have an amazing guest. Uh, this is the Chris Malayter episode. It's gonna be great. Chris is a career network engineer and engineering leader with 25 years of experience. He's an interconnection expert and an all around good dude. 

[00:00:49] Grundemann: Hey Chris, would you please introduce yourself a bit further to the Imposter syndrome network?

[00:00:54] Malayter: Hey, Chris. So I'm currently the Vice President Network and interconnection at CoreSite. I'm the chairman of the board at PeeringDB, a Volunteer Organization, and that's about it for, for right now. 

[00:01:09] Grundemann: Perfect. Perfect. That works. I did mention that you are an interconnection expert and, and you talked about being on the, you know, the chair of the board for PeeringDB.

[00:01:18] Grundemann: So we'll probably get to more of that volunteer work and, and that you do and have done in that space. Plus, we'll obviously talk about that role at CoreSite and what that entails, but I actually wanna start by exploring the bigger picture a bit as this is a space near and dear to my heart as well. When you say you are working on improving interconnection, uh, as I think you do on your LinkedIn profile, what does that mean?

[00:01:40] Malayter: What does it mean? So, you know, basically a lot of this goes to do with my day job and, you know, how, how we take out hops in the interconnection, how we. Improve the fiber, how we lessen the impact of the plant to our customers. It could be anything from splice bypass where we're removing the I D F as a connection point and turning it into a splice point, or, you know, it's as simple as moving to an AC... APC (Angle Polish Connector) MDF.

[00:02:13] Malayter: So rather than having this traditional UPC we, we have APC in our newest facilities. And then, you know, my role in PeeringDB truly everything we can do to reduce the friction of getting interconnection going is what we're focused on. 

[00:02:29] Grundemann: Nice. I like it. Yeah, I mean, and that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's cool that there's, especially at CoreSite, right, these different ways, even all the way down to layer one that can actually make this stuff better and, and bring things together. In a lot of ways...

[00:02:40] Grundemann: I mean, right. Like the internet gets compared to the highway system or railroads or, or stuff like that all the time. And one of the things that railroads and highway systems and, and, and I guess, you know, airplane routes and all that stuff has done is, is shrunk the world. And I'm guessing, right? I mean, at least I, I think the way it works is interconnections kind of doing that as well through the internet, right?

[00:02:58] Grundemann: It's, it's kind of bringing everybody closer together in some ways, whether it's by milliseconds or route miles or whatever. 

[00:03:04] Malayter: You know, I, I couldn't agree more. I think that as we evolve the ecosystem at the edge and we start to see more tier two and tier three, um, cities become traditional, classic interconnection hubs, you're gonna start to see interconnection becoming very, very local.

[00:03:23] Malayter: And I think that that's, we may not be in that position for another five years, but I think, I think fundamentally that that is the direction that we're heading. 

[00:03:34] Grundemann: Yeah, it makes sense. So, you know, diving into that from kind of, you know, or maybe kind of angling off from that a little bit, right? I think your title's VP of network and interconnection at CoreSite and kind of in total, that's almost, you know, almost 12 years in that role or around that company anyway.

[00:03:49] Grundemann: I wonder what do you tell strangers that don't know anything about the internet or, or interconnection what you do when they ask what you do? How do you describe what you do to, to people who don't, aren't on the inside of this? 

[00:04:00] Malayter: Uh, that's a good question. Um, you know, if you ask, uh, if you ask my mom and my dad, uh, I work with computers, um, if you ask, you know, my aunt and uncle, I, I do that internet thing and, uh, to, to, you know, to anyone walking up off the street, you know, I say, Fundamentally, my job is to connect customer A to customer B, whether it be Google, sprint, you know, cogent, it doesn't matter.

[00:04:31] Malayter: My job is to get the customers connected together. 

[00:04:36] Grundemann: Nice. Nice. I think that's a good description. And then what does that mean in practical terms? Like what do you actually do? What, what, what are your days spent doing it? If somebody's, you know, thinking about, hey, VP of network and interconnection, that sounds like a cool job.

[00:04:46] Grundemann: Like, what are they actually in store for? I mean, what, you know, what's the day-to-day actually look like? 

[00:04:50] Malayter: I don't, I don't have a traditional day-to-day. I, I mean, I really don't. We, we have so much work going on. It's, it's not funny. Um, so, you know, Fundamentally, we have buildings, you know, we're getting buildings out there.

[00:05:05] Malayter: So there's, let's start at the beginning. We start at the design. We have, we have a new design that we're gonna use for SV nine and NY three. And in this design we don't have any IDFs, so none, zero. It's just splice trays. And that's a, that's radical departure for us. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, because we won't have any copper in our buildings.

[00:05:26] Malayter: And a couple of data center providers have, uh, have done this already. You know, they've, they've said, we're done, we're done with copper. And, uh, we followed along and we said, Hey, you know, it's been 20 years since, uh, I, I walked into the, the role and people said, you know, T1s are going away and T1s are still here.

[00:05:47] Malayter: So, you know, it, it was time to put a pole in the pole in the sand and say it's time to do away with copper. So that's probably the biggest time suck of, of what my job is, is the architecture and design of, of our new builds. And then the next is, you know, we got a ton of equipment that are, that's out there that we need to maintain.

[00:06:10] Malayter: And so we have various maintenance programs that that are going on at any given time, and that's a big chunk energy. And then we have a group that's dedicated to automation and they're taking old, old processes and automating it. And that's, you know, the other chunk of my day. And, uh, between those three chunks and a couple other groups, uh, within the broader American Tower organization, that's, uh, pretty much what I'm doing.

[00:06:38] Grundemann: Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. That's cool. You know, one thing that strikes me and, and I do want to talk about, you had like a short departure from CoreSite that I want to want to touch on, but, but before that, you know, kind of just in this right, 11 years and six months I think is, is the math I did on full tenure there?

[00:06:53] Grundemann: So in technology, right? That's, that's maybe a thousand years. I don't know. Right? I mean for, for a lot of people's technology careers, that's, that's a hugely long time to be at one organization. So I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about. About building a career within a single organization, because that may be some somewhat foreign to a lot of other technology professionals.

[00:07:08] Malayter: Uh, yeah. You know, I, I, I came in as a director. I got lucky. I applied for a, a senior network engineer job. And, uh, my boss at the time to get my salary where I needed to be graded, me and as a director, which was super cool. And, you know, I moved up to senior director and vice president through the years.

[00:07:27] Malayter: And you know, I'd say you can job hop and make a lot more money. I can guarantee you that. But for me, quality of life has been a big aspect of, of what I'm looking for. And this company is an outstanding company from a quality of life, from um, family oriented, everything like that. It's, uh, I had a new employee start on my team a couple of weeks ago and I said, you know, one of the reasons why, That I like to hear is that assholes don't last.

[00:07:58] Malayter: I mean, and they really don't. If you are, if you are a mean person or you have a negative attitude, you will, you or will not last long at CoreSite. And that, that family attitude, that positive attitude, it's, it's addicting. 

[00:08:11] Grundemann: Yeah. Yeah, I bet it sounds good. We, we talked to, um, Phil Koblence, um, the, the founder of, uh, of NYI, and obviously he's in a little d it's a different situation 'cause it's kind of his company and he is been there for a long time for that reason, I guess.

[00:08:22] Grundemann: But he talked about this idea of being a creature of comfort and, and, you know, coming in and like, almost having, you know, maybe not quite a family, but, but having coworkers that, you know, you respect and admire and the, and the place you go to every day. You actually enjoy being and being around these people.

[00:08:35] Grundemann: And it sounds like that's, that's a big part of your journey as well. 

[00:08:38] Malayter: Absolutely. Like from, I, I could walk into the CEO's office and I could walk into, you know, the, a security soc in a data center and have the same get it done attitude from the people. And, and I, I love that. 

[00:08:53] Grundemann: That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I think culture plays a lot.

[00:08:55] Grundemann: Well, somebody, I mean some like, uh, venture capitalist person, one of the famous ones said something about, you know, culture eating strategy for lunch or something. And yeah, that culture part matters a lot. 

[00:09:03] Malayter: It does. You know, some people are all about the money. Absolutely. And, and you know, I could have made a lot more money, job hopping, I'll tell you that, but having a family, raising a family, Flexibility that's afforded to me by, you know, doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, school, this, you know, whatever.

[00:09:21] Malayter: I don't need to take time off. It's just, Hey, I'll be back. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. And, and that's, that's a big part of it. 

[00:09:29] Grundemann: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 'cause I mean, I think, you know, people talk a lot about work life balance as if there's kinda these two separate spheres and you've gotta like, draw this line and like keep one on each side and like try and weigh the scales.

[00:09:40] Grundemann: But, but really, I think it's more about work life integration, right? It's really about being able to live your life with this job. 

[00:09:46] Malayter: Well, yeah. I don't like the word integration. Okay, fair. Why not? Because I don't really think that I, I don't want, I don't want integrate. My work into my family. And so I like the balance.

[00:10:00] Malayter: You know, earlier in my career I, it was all work all the time and that didn't leave a lot of room for family. So definitely culture and work-life balance is, is important and I would not Great. 

[00:10:13] Grundemann: Yeah, no, that's fair. I like that. So, so you mentioned that, you know, maybe if you had job hopped you could be making more money.

[00:10:19] Grundemann: I know that there, there was one little job hop, and I don't want to like, um, you went to Deep Edge, but only for about four months. And, and Deep Edge, for those who don't know, is, is kind of, I guess kind of a competitor to CoreSite right there. But the smaller scrappier, like their tinier startup kind of thing.

[00:10:32] Grundemann: What, what, what led you to leave and what led you to come right back? What was that a mistake or was it a learning experience or was it just something, you know, project Yeah, 

[00:10:39] Malayter: it was a learning experience. Um, and I'm not gonna say why I left and what have you, but I will say it was a, an awesome experience.

[00:10:46] Malayter: Deep Edge has some great data centers in some tier two, tier three markets. I think they're gonna be, I think they could be wildly successful if managed properly. And, you know, it was a learning experience for me to get my hands dirty and actually work on the physical plant, you know, the power, the cooling, all that stuff that I don't deal with at all at CoreSite.

[00:11:10] Malayter: And to see that, you know, not at CoreSite scale, but at still a smaller building scale. It was, it was super interesting and, and super experience. 

[00:11:18] Grundemann: Cool. Yeah. Yeah, it is good. Right? I mean, maybe, you know, just getting that different perspective, because I think the downside of, of working at one place for a really long time in my view is you end up almost inherently learning that company's way of doing things or, or the, even the way you do things at that company, and you don't even get to see yourself in this other, you know, environment where, oh shit, there's these other things that can happen and, and maybe you get some new ideas and stuff from, from an experience like that, I would guess anyway.

[00:11:43] Malayter: Absolutely. So we try to promote about 50% within and 50% externally for exactly, for that reason. We do not want only CoreSite em... Like raised employees to be, to be working for us. We want people from outside of our, our organization to, to come in and, and, you know, hopefully set us straight and tell us what we're doing right to what we're doing wrong.

[00:12:06] Grundemann: Yeah. So I'm curious, um, you know, I think I mentioned in, in an intro, right? You're somewhere like 20, 25 years into your career or something like that, and so almost half of it has been at CoreSite, but, but not all of it. I'm, I'm curious as to kind of where you started and, and maybe even not just in technology, but you know, what was your first ever job and then how did that, like how did you end up in technology from, from there?

[00:12:28] Malayter: So my first ever job was working for a little town north of Madison, Wisconsin in, uh, the Public Works department. I worked a summer job there and it was the most backbreaking, hard work I've ever done in my life. It, I, um, I give those people so much respect 'cause I could, I, I I wouldn't wanna do it. And then, um, after that I got a.

[00:12:54] Malayter: My mom knew a guy that did this internet thing and thought maybe I'd be interested. And uh, it was back, you know, in the days where dial up was king and Darrel Budic is his name. And he is still in the industry today. 

[00:13:08] Grundemann: Yes, he is. I was on a call with him earlier today. That's funny. 

[00:13:11] Malayter: He was my first boss. He hired me to do tech support for an internet service provider that he owned and that internet service provider merged into.

[00:13:21] Malayter: You know, a bigger internet service provider slash phone company. And then that phone company got bought by TDS, a large nationwide phone company. And, uh, it was there that, you know, I learned how to, how to scale and how to, to leverage traffic to get what you wanted and peering relationships and, uh, cut my teeth on doing interconnection for real.

[00:13:46] Malayter: Then after that took a job hop to BroadWing, strictly for money, and I had to get outta Madison. Yeah, yeah. You couldn't, uh, make money in Madison and do this, this internet thing. So a job hopped to Chicago and, uh, went to work for Broad Wing who had, it would, it was recently after the focal integration.

[00:14:09] Malayter: Uh, or focal acquisition and, uh, okay. I was actually working at the focal pop for Broadwin, so that was, that was interesting. And I did that for a couple years. Um, 2, 3, 4, something like that. So long ago. I don't remember. Yeah. And, uh, they announced that they were getting bought by level three and uh, I didn't wanna stick around for that bloodbath.

[00:14:35] Malayter: So, uh, sure. I job hop to, uh, a financial services company called Seven Ticks. That's now like interactive data or something like that. They, they've done several iterations. Um, they've done really well with it for themselves, but when I was there, it was like nine of us. Oh, wow. Yeah. Busted our butt day and night.

[00:14:54] Malayter: That was a, that was a good treat back to startup life. Yeah. And then I jumped to, from there to Switch & Data and that started my, uh, Um, probably, I don't know, 16, 17 year career with data centers. So I, uh, yeah. Okay. Started with Switch & Data and we built out a bunch of new sites while, while I was working there, and then Equinix acquired us and, uh, I worked for Equinix for a while and then I decided, uh, my time had come to an end with Equinex.

[00:15:27] Malayter: And I, uh, jumped CoreSite and I've been here ever since. Well, other than the, the little sabbatical. 

[00:15:32] Grundemann: Cool. So, you know, one of the things that I think about a lot is I think, you know, the entry into careers has changed quite a bit from when we got in, um, to, to, like, what's going on now with, with somebody who, you know, maybe young and trying to get in Now, I wonder along that path, I mean, obviously, and the reason I say that is I think folks of our generation within the industry had to kind of self-learn a lot of this stuff because there weren't, there weren't books, there wasn't YouTube videos.

[00:15:55] Grundemann: I don't think there even was YouTube at the, at the time. So, you know, in all of that, in that kind of, you know, bootstrapping self-learning, did you have any mentors along the way that kind of helped along? Or, or was this really just kind of you paving your way and finding your path, or, or how did that work?

[00:16:09] Malayter: No, I mean, I, I, Darrell Darrell's a huge mentor to me for a long time, and, uh, so Simon Atwell, you don't know him. He, he lives in Australia and works there now. He was another mentor for me at TDS, David Cook and Kevin Roberts, um, definitely looked out for me while I was there. Tony, um, God, what was his name?

[00:16:31] Malayter: I'm just blanking on his name at Broadwin. He's at, um, neutral tandem now, or no, Peerless. He's at Peerless. Tony was a big advocate of me at Broadwin and, uh, at switching data. Um, some, uh, monsters there, uh, Wayne Rio, Chris Casada, um, were both instrumental in, in my progress and my hires at, uh, Switch & Data.

[00:16:56] Malayter: And, uh, you know, I'd probably say since I've been at CoreSite, I, I've probably been a mentor to more people than had been a mentor to me. Sure, sure. Yeah. In terms of management and not management, you know, skills and stuff like that. My first boss, who's now retired, his name was Dominic Tobin, was, uh, a big impact on how I manage people and, uh, you know, just, he helped structure my management style.

[00:17:22] Grundemann: Nice. How would you describe that management style? 

[00:17:26] Malayter: I give you enough rope to hang yourself and, uh, you know, hopefully you, hopefully you don't. That rope wisely. Yeah. 

[00:17:34] Grundemann: Oh, I like it. I like it. That makes sense to me. 

[00:17:37] Malayter: I have a really laid back style, you know. 

[00:17:40] Grundemann: So are you able to have a laid back style because you hire Well, or, or just, I mean, I'm, I'm guessing, maybe I'm inferring there that if you, if you have the right team, then you don't have to be on top of 'em every day, so, What do you look for when you're hiring somebody to, to, to know that they're gonna use the rope for the right thing?

[00:17:54] Malayter: Um, well, so for one, I got gifted an awesome employee. His name's Jerome. He's one of my direct reports and, uh, I haven't had to do much. He, uh, he gets it. He has a sense of urgency. You know what I look for, what I look for when I hire is, are you nice, are you gonna fit in with the team number one? And number two, a sense of urgency.

[00:18:19] Malayter: And those are two things I can't train. Pretty much anything else besides those two things? I can train and if you got it, you got it. And if you don't, I don't want you. 

[00:18:30] Grundemann: That makes sense. I like that a lot. I talk about passion, but I think sense of urgency may even be a better way to talk about it. Or maybe, maybe they're, you know, they're related parallel pieces.

[00:18:39] Grundemann: Yeah. Because I find that if people genuinely want to do the job that you're giving them, They have that sense of urgency, right? They'll, they'll, they'll drive it forward, they'll push it. They'll be the ones coming to you asking for more and asking for the next thing and making sure things happen.

[00:18:53] Grundemann: Cool. Well, so on the side, you know, I find it interesting, at least you know, again, for me, the stuff I've done like within the industry and volunteer work and that kind of stuff has, has really driven my career. And obviously you said, you know, you're, you're the chair of the board of directors at Peering DB and you've done other volunteer work before that.

[00:19:11] Grundemann: Is that volunteer work, you know, has that, is that something that's been going on for a long time that's kind of helped build your career or stuff you're doing now to give back? Or how, how do you view volunteerism? In the industry, kind of, you know, alongside your career? 

[00:19:24] Malayter: Uh, I'd, I'd say both. You know, some of it is a way to build my career, but some of it is, obviously now it's not about building my career anymore, it's about giving back.

[00:19:33] Malayter: So I'd say, you know, I, my, my first volunteer effort in the community was to be the chair of the NANOG mailing list, uh, admin committee. The most thankless job in the world. Um, and this was, I bet this was back in the merit days. This was, this is pre NewNOG and, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, uh, Susan Harris was, was still there.

[00:19:56] Malayter: And it was Susan and Randy and Randy Bush and all 'em, and. It was no fun. 

[00:20:02] Grundemann: And you're trying to moderate that, that mainly list to some degree. Yeah. I can imagine. I, 

[00:20:06] Malayter: I unsubscribed and went to digest after I did that. 

[00:20:10] Grundemann: Once you were off the, you're like, alright, I, I've had enough with this mailing list for a while.

[00:20:15] Malayter: Um, but uh, and then I went to, uh, Open-IX. Yeah. And, uh, I volunteered for OpenX for two years. Again, trying to improve interconnection. Uh, definitley. If you, if you look at it consistent Yeah. Through my career. Um, and then, um, you know, I've been on the board of directors for PeeringDB for two years and, uh, reelected for a second term.

[00:20:42] Malayter: And, uh, I was elected, uh, president this for this term and it's a little crazy. We're gonna have to choose a new secretary treasurer soon. And, uh, big decisions. So we gotta put on, gotta put out our big boy pants. 

[00:20:55] Grundemann: Yep. Yeah. And that's nice. I mean, that, that is cool, right? Like being able to have, for lack of a better term, right, that synergy of, of doing multiple things, that all actually have the same goal.

[00:21:04] Grundemann: Yep. At least for me, I'm able to do a lot more when I'm doing things like that. Right. Because, you know, if, if you're, if you're volunteering and working, and for me now kind of out on my own, I'm, I'm actually doing like kind of two or three jobs, but they're all in that same vein. Mm-hmm. And so it, it all kind of fits together.

[00:21:18] Grundemann: And it sounds like that's been the same for you. Yeah, absolutely. Really focused on interconnection. Yeah. So, you know, obviously I've had a pretty awesome career. The position you're at is enviable by, by many. I think it's a great spot to be at, at a great company. Um, doing a lot of work, giving back, you know, through, so through all that success, I'm really curious if you could tell us about a time when you failed completely.

[00:21:41] Malayter: Oh, oh man. Failed completely. I dunno. I mean, we'll go back to the intranet days. There were many times where we failed completely. Sure there weren't any. There weren't any, like you said, there weren't any books. There weren't any guides. There was just us, you know, it's like we had, we had a router in Baroo, Wisconsin that just forgot static routes, periodically fun.

[00:22:04] Malayter: Hey, cool. You wanna add that static route back in there? Um, or, you know, we had, we'd be, uh, Cleaning up a pop, whatever, and oops, it got the power.

[00:22:20] Malayter: Yeah. Put that back on. You know, I mean, so stuff like that happened all the time when, well, in the old days, the days beyond time. Can't do that anymore. 

[00:22:33] Grundemann: No, no. Everything's, uh, five nines and, uh, you know, yeah. Synthetic testing going on all the time. So even if nobody notices, somebody still notices. 

[00:22:42] Malayter: Yeah. If you have a switch, reload took three minutes.

[00:22:44] Malayter: Say we need a, we need ACO R C A for that. Yeah. Right. So absolutely. On the more recent times, I mean we have some had doosey outages. Not recently though. We've been pretty good recently. I mean, we had some in LA where we had some software bugs that just cascaded through our. Threw our core and took the whole core on for 24 hours.

[00:23:12] Malayter: Oof. We had, we had a DWDM platform in New York that just randomly would turn channels on. Turn channels off. Was crazy. 

[00:23:21] Grundemann: The ghost in the machine, that's, that, that's us. That stuff's the most frustrating, I think, right? When it's just, it was, it shouldn't even be, shouldn't be possible. No one screwed up. It's just, uh, 

[00:23:30] Malayter: yep, yep.

[00:23:31] Malayter: That one was special because, uh, me and, uh, one of my, one of my employees, Actually, it was Saturday. It had, you know, this, it happened three or four times. This, this time it happened on a Saturday. And we literally, I literally went to the airport and he, he got in his car, he was in, he was in Virginia. We flew to New York, or I flew to New York.

[00:23:51] Malayter: He drove to New York. We went and like cut the customers onto a new platform to get Oh, it was, yeah, we decided, nope, we're done. We're going to go unbox it and just do it. 

[00:24:05] Grundemann: That's a heck of a weekend, uh, or week or whatever it was. Yeah, 

[00:24:08] Malayter: no, that was in the heck of a day. 

[00:24:11] Grundemann: Yeah. Nice. Well, that's just about all the time we have for today. Uh, I know that's a bummer.

[00:24:20] Grundemann: Chris, we talked about a lot of the stuff you're working on. Is there any other projects or, or things you're, you know, working on that you want people to be aware of or, or stuff, you know, anything to promote or what's going on that, uh, folks in the Imposter Network should know about beyond what we talked? 

[00:24:34] Malayter: No, I mean, I, I think people should know about, you know, if you're in interconnection space, you should definitely know about PeeringDB.

[00:24:40] Malayter: You should definitely be, um, registered on peeringdb.gov and be active and participate in what we're doing. And other than that, um, and have a great week. 

[00:24:52] Grundemann: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well thanks for sharing your story with the Imposter syndrome Network. And thank you to all of our listeners for your attention and your support.

[00:25:00] Grundemann: If you found this conversation informative and entertaining, please consider sharing it with a friend, uh, a colleague, a family member, or a student who could benefit from the insight our guests bring every week. 

[00:25:11] Grundemann: But wait, Chris, I do have one more question for you, if you don't mind. Over 25 years of working around networks, being on teams, building teams, and, and all that that entails, what would you say is the most valuable lesson you've learned in your career so far?

[00:25:26] Malayter: Be nice. Seriously, you don't know who you're dealing with half the time, and all you can do is be nice and be a genuine person, and that's my advice. 

[00:25:36] Grundemann: I like it. I like be nice. That's good. I actually, uh, have it in, I, I have this little, uh, like sheet where I keep track of kind of my personal goals and stuff that I try to look at at least once a week.

[00:25:46] Grundemann: And at the top of it, in bold, it says, be nice. I like it because I need to remind myself sometimes. I'm not always great at it. I don't know about you. 

[00:25:53] Malayter: I, I hear you. 

[00:25:56] Grundemann: Awesome. Well, we will be back next week.