Jon Detra's life reads like an adventure novel, from martial arts and dance, to the cutting-edge world of mobile technology. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, Jon experienced many twists and turns in a journey that led him to San Diego, CA as a young engineer at Qualcomm. After decades of growth being a creative problem solver and executive leader, Jon shares how his diverse passions have shaped his outlook on life, work, and the importance of staying agile in the face of change.
Jon Detra's life reads like an adventure novel, from martial arts and dance, to the cutting-edge world of mobile technology. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, Jon experienced many twists and turns in a journey that led him to San Diego, CA as a young engineer at Qualcomm. After decades of growth being a creative problem solver and executive leader, Jon shares how his diverse passions have shaped his outlook on life, work, and the importance of staying agile in the face of change.
Welcome to the superintendent's hangout, where we discuss topics in education, charter schools, life in general, and not necessarily in that order. I'm your host, dr Sharetta. Come on in and hang out. Welcome to season two of the superintendent's hangout. I'm very grateful to everyone who made season one such a success. We had 50 episodes in season one and now we're headed into and still going strong in, season two. I'd like to thank a number of folks who are instrumental in this podcast's success my daughter, maya, for helping with editing, and she is a podcaster in her own right. Brad Bacchial for also assisting with editing and production. Tina Royster for helping with scheduling of guests and recruiting of guests. To all of the listeners, thank you for helping this podcast grow and keeping the conversation going.
Speaker 1:In this episode I sat down for a conversation with a dear friend of mine, john Detra. John and I go way back. Our children went to school together. We served on a board as co-chairs for a little bit. John and I cover a wide range of topics, from his foray into dance, his karate pursuits, his adventures in engineering, especially at the dawn of the internet age, the dot-com era, his several decades of work and growth at Qualcomm and much, much more. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did making it happen with John Detra. Welcome, john. Thanks for coming this afternoon. Especially on a Friday afternoon, hang out for a little bit. I was wondering if you could start off by telling us what your origin story is, where you come from, who you are, what experiences along the way have led up to this moment today, as you sit in the office here looking a lot like John Boyd. That's an inside joke. Wait till you see John's photo in the podcast. You'll know what I'm talking about. But in all seriousness, who are you? Where do you come from?
Speaker 2:Well, it's good to be here, dave. It's been a pleasure. I come from Madison, wisconsin. I spent my first 30 years in Madison, basically on the east side, spent 12 years in college, six in undergrad and six in graduate school and then moved to San Diego from Madison. So basically I was kind of a good kid and did really well elementary. Then when the parents get a divorce triggers this big transition. That's the same with me.
Speaker 2:When I was about 11 years old, kind of like in middle school, and basically got edgy and wanted to do everything, wanted to be the good kid, wanted to be the bad kid, wanted to be the athletic kid, wanted to be the everything else in between. Basically I did really well in school up until junior year where things kind of caught up to me. One semester I think that first semester I got a B in math. I thought the world was going to end. I was living with my mom and then I just said, hey, I got to move back to dad. He was kind of a control freak, I know it was kind of like straight and narrow kind of like. Basically, at that point too, I'd started a karate club. After I did, I was in sports. I did football for two years, basketball, tennis, golf, and I decided, hey, I want to do karate, some martial art. There were a couple of gyms in the city but they were kind of edgy, had some drugs and different kinds of things. I found this flyer with a university sports club it was JKA Karate. I'm like, oh, go up to the university and kind of checked it out and really, really fell in love. Really, that was kind of like one of the things that saved me because it kind of introduced me to college and the university scene. Got to meet a bunch of graduate students.
Speaker 2:At that point in my life I found that most of my friends were three or four or six years older than me. I was always the youngest guy in every group. It was just a real learning experience. It really helped me through college. When I graduated I went to university and my dad didn't pay for my school, so I had to kind of figure it out. I had a lot of loans and grants but I found a job as a technician. Basically, there was about five or 10 physics grad students in the club and they said, hey, why don't you come on see if we can get you a technician job in a research lab. It was a plasma physics lab and I had a job. It was great. I worked kind of half time and that kind of got me through school. That's why it took me six years to get through.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you I didn't know if you got multiple bachelor's degrees or you just took the circuitous route.
Speaker 2:No, I had to work. After I did karate for probably about four years up until sophomore in college. I kind of got disenchanted with the politics and the karate club. It was always like who was getting a black belt and who wasn't. I had a black belt but I didn't like how other people weren't or were. I had to start. I need to get a break.
Speaker 2:A lot of people were in dance and they transitioned to karate and they said, hey, why don't you give dance a try? When I was a sophomore I said okay, I'll see if I can do dance. Let me tell you as a male, trying to do dance as a sophomore in college, it's not pretty. It was a big transition but it was humbling. I really learned a lot and kind of also met some amazing people and kind of locked into a dance troupe. I had this multiple-headed life where I was doing this high tech as a technician, I was going through electrical engineering and I was also dancing in a troupe and doing performances. I really love this lifestyle of kind of being exposed to different things. Then I basically got into graduate school and I was still dancing. That technician job really served me well, I basically got a full research assistantship.
Speaker 2:My professor, professor Byer who, I have to say, rest in peace. He just passed away a couple of weeks ago. Amazing professor, he was like I didn't know what I was going to do to go into graduate school. But he's like oh no, you've got this great experience. We need you in the lab. We want people with hands-on experience.
Speaker 2:Boy, he was a mentor, just a wonderful guy, just an amazing human being Just really learned a lot from him. He really had a lot of trust in me and it was kind of tough towards the end because as I was going through graduate school, it was like, okay, I really didn't, the research didn't really turn me on. I think I was always better in teams and working with people and learning things together. My research project was an individual, isolated project that I was working on my own and just didn't kind of carry through. It wasn't something I really wanted to do. I wasn't into writing grants and finishing up. I had my dissertation already. All I had to do was write up this simulation program, kind of finish the dissertation. But some personal things, some love, life issues.
Speaker 1:So that would have been a doctorate.
Speaker 2:That would have been a doctorate. Yeah, so I had a master's.
Speaker 1:So you basically it was like the ABD all but dissertation piece, all but dissertation.
Speaker 2:And then at that point, since my research assistant kind of run out at the fifth year, I was already teaching at a technical college. I had about like a full year of teaching math and computers and I was also working at a pretty high-end restaurant. So I was bringing in some nice tips. So I was living okay and I was like, okay, maybe I'll just move down to Chicago and take this life. It's great, see what life brings me.
Speaker 2:But before I kind of finalized that decision, a couple of people from my research group kind of gave me a call Joe Burke and Jim Thompson and they said, hey, qualcomm is this new company in San Diego. Why don't you at least come down and interview and see what you think? So I had two interviews for engineering jobs. One was Motorola. That didn't really work out, that was probably a year earlier, and then I did this one. So it wasn't like I was really into it, but it was an amazing experience. It was a two-day interview.
Speaker 2:I interviewed with a bunch of people. Some of them went well, some of them didn't, and this one guy kind of decided yeah, yeah, we could use you, because at that point I had stepped outside the ladder of technology careers, because my master's was in 86. This was 92. I was like, wow, what are you going to do? My bachelor's is in 86.
Speaker 2:And it was like 89, I think, was when my master's like, what have you done for the last three or four years? And so basically, you know, they took a chance on me and I just joined a trial, basically a CDMA technology trial team, and I was an assistant project engineer and I was here for like three months and joined Qualcomm. It was an amazing experience coming in San Diego it was probably the first time I was in California and I just basically took hold of a fire hose and learned this test station. You know, there was basically a test system. It was a new device, that new CDMA that was designed to CDMA and had vocoders and all kinds of amazing things. And then there was this infrastructure.
Speaker 2:It was a base station and antennas and cables and a core network behind it and hooks up to the switch network.
Speaker 2:And so I just kind of like Learn that for about three months and then they ship me off to China do this trial with probably about 20 or 30 Chinese scientists descending on us to figure out what this new is 95 CDMA thing was.
Speaker 2:And so it was just it was amazing and I just never look back from college and just kind of got caught up in the whole corporate world of rewards and you know people wanting to get things done real fast and you know my maturity and the fact that I've been around for a while really helped and you know that that that ability to kind of do anything that it took Really kind of kind of served me very well in that position. And so they kept me there for six months. I was there by myself for like about three doing data analysis with some of the seat, the China team and and kind of doing their CDMA report for their standards and I met Erwin and some meetings the founder right, yeah the founder, erwin Jacobs and Alan so Masi, and there would be a lot of executives who come to China and since I was the only guy there, I would be one of the guys they would see and kind of help.
Speaker 1:So you were living in China for a period of time.
Speaker 2:I was living in China out of a yeah, basically the Tianjin early 90s to right, so different environment was incredibly different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a lot of bicycles, yeah, and these small little taxis. And then and Beijing was pretty amazing we were just right across the street from Tiananmen Square, excuse me, and Down the street. Yeah, it was, it was. It was an incredible experience. I was in China longer than was in San Diego, hmm, and so I got back.
Speaker 2:I had another trial in India and at the time Qualcomm was going towards this new commercial space station equipment and doing commercial stuff and Everybody was going off of this trial system. So they really didn't have leaders. And they said, hey, you, you're probably the most experienced people person here Do you want to lead this whole RTS team, roving test system team? I said, oh, I guess I don't know enough to say no, so sure, why not, let me give it a shot. And Basically I was like a senior engineer and I basically was leading this whole team. We did a trial in Russia, we did a trial in Myanmar, we did a trial in Toronto and we just kind of like all around the world to kind of show and showcase CDMA.
Speaker 2:So that was like my first introduction into Qualcomm, that was my first big project and after that, you know, it was basically moving into the CDMA commercial system and Doing kind of gravitating towards tests, gravitating towards deployment, kind of a system engineer, if you will.
Speaker 2:I was hired into the hardware department but then I transitioned into the systems department and at that point Qualcomm really didn't have a system test or a test department, it was just a lot of developers and system engineers making things happen. And at that point they started creating the system test organizations and I was one of the leads of that organization. It was all matrix together and Basically all the way up until 99 and we were talking about earlier when Qualcomm had this big jump in stock and they settled with Ericsson and they had this huge Windfall but they also sold this infrastructure division to Ericsson. So at the time I had moved into a Qualcomm only solution to try to put to bed a Certain part of the infrastructure that was kind of holding everybody back. And it was this core switch that we had. That was also used for global store and I'm probably going into a little no, that's good, I'll ask you that.
Speaker 1:I'll ask you the dumb guy question in a minute, please, because I am that guy. But you keep going on that, because I think we're on a good roll.
Speaker 2:Yeah so so, yeah, so when we had this big transition and I would say 90% of my friends that I worked with were kind of left back in in Ericsson and it was a pretty Pretty draconian agreement where Ericsson really wouldn't let anybody have any share of this stock rise, and there was a lot of rumors and a lot of thinking that maybe I had some inside track and I worked out some special deal. But I really didn't and I took it personal and that was big, big transition to kind of like everything was going glory and then all of a sudden, the reality of, you know, commercial business kind of kicks in and you see the impact of some employees and some employees getting this huge Windfall and others, you know, kind of like missing out the boat. So that was a big transition for me and even though I was part of this you know big windfall it was it was not something I really enjoyed and kind of like, you know, being a leader at that point and being in charge of a lot of groups, you know I just didn't know that I wanted to be that leader was I still committed, but I kind of, you know, weathered the storm and Kind of started doing other things. I worked in corporate R&D and did a bunch of demos and Didn't really want to advance like I did before I'm gonna was on this meteoric rise through Qualcomm, you know, just taking over the world, and at that point, you know, the career just kind of like stall, it's like, hey, there's got to be something a little bit more than this. And so that's when, you know, I kind of started Sampling a lot of different types of work here. I started, you know, doing demos. I switched into technical marketing, I tried project management and program management and we did this kind of like consultant services we call the engineering support group. I kind of helped the North America Carriers kind of like enhance their data services.
Speaker 2:This was back in the early 2000s where they really didn't understand how Internet worked on a phone. So Qualcomm had this great data service and then and this was kind of the classic thing with Qualcomm they would come up with solutions before they could figure out the problems, or you know, and it was always kind of like all about the technology but never about okay, how do you take this to market? How do you make some money out of it? How do you make some money out of this? And they made a lot of money selling chips, no doubt, and they had a lot of potential, but I think it ended up catching up to them. You know, in the late 2000s, you know 2010s, where you know, just selling hardware wasn't quite enough and they had a lot of Fantastic ideas. I mean, brew was an idea that was before Google, in terms of an OS on a smartphone, didn't really have the right strategy for business. They had another solution called media flow, which was like mobile.
Speaker 1:TV. I remember that. Yeah, we have a mutual friend who worked in that we do yeah, I think Bo James, I remember him showing me this device and I was like, ah, this will never catch on. Who's ever gonna watch a video and want to carry it around when they're on the go? Yeah, that's why I'm not the wealthy guy sitting here.
Speaker 2:Well, that was a big opportunity and I think you know the big, big miss was is they didn't really recognize how much the Licensing costs would be for that, for that content. They kind of felt like, hey, we're gonna build it and they will come, but there was a lot of competition between putting it on a phone versus having an encable yeah, this is on the TV and you know there was some liability in terms of the pricing. So a lot of learning, a lot of learning that Qualcomm's gone through and never really Transitioned it into a service generating revenue, that both Google and Apple and Netflix and Amazon and these big power Companies that they were able to get that. And that's where I think Qualcomm's really trying to transition, to kind of Overcome that concept.
Speaker 1:So, yeah so before I get into your more kind of the specifics of your leadership and you know you're humble when you talk about Not seeing yourself as a leader or wondering what, because I know in a little bit we're gonna talk about the size of the teams you've led and the different projects and and for how long you did it and with what level of success but before we get there, what fundamentally this Qualcomm do for folks who don't know you know, I again like as a non-tech person, it came on my radar probably Late 90s, probably right around when the newspaper started reporting on overnight millionaires, quote-unquote. Right, we know most stuff's not overnight, right, there was a lot of work that led up to that. That point, sure. But what is? What is qualcomm do? I was understood as being the chip designing and tech licensing Folks, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, they go about. There's a couple aspects that's really where qualcomm shines. One is their system level understanding of deploying. You know the commercial mobile phones. When you look at mobile phones it's not just the phones, it's the carriers, it's the ecosystem, it's standards. So For a long time their IP really drove the company and so they just generated a lot of IP. They got a lot of smart guys. They understand the full system of how that Ecosystem works in terms of a mobile phone operating in a carrier network, globally roaming, all the aspects of like having a phone work and and that's what call come really shines. They really understand the full system and they haven't. You know they have a huge amount of people that are just really smart that you know. Like the system engineering is really smart, their development and drivers, they really feel like they can do everything their own best. But you know, I think that starts to catch up to you at some point. But they also are really strong hardware company.
Speaker 2:So internal qualcomm, they really the hardware is king. That's where they sell money. I mean it. They sell hardware chips. They sell chips. That's really where their revenue comes. They have licensing for their chipsets. That's another big source. And then they have this IP.
Speaker 2:They really don't sell software. I mean they are now. They're trying to sell software but as part of your licensing agreement you get that software for free. So it's really all about the hardware. That's kind of. And so over the last 1015 years even 20 years I think, since Since I joined qct, which is about 15 years ago, there's been this okay, we need to kind of understand the impacts of software and how this can. Can really you know how drive the company. It's kind of, but that's kind of what they do.
Speaker 2:So they sell hardware. They understand the system aspect of it. They're really big and driving the standards and all the drivers that impact the, the ecosystem that this hardware is in. And then they're just amazing at developing hardware chips. So sees modems, really excellent modems are f. They've got a tremendous are f hardware team transceivers, even power management.
Speaker 2:I mean they really just they just look at things. They have a style within the company where information is shared. I mean it's a real free, open. People Kind of like talk about stuff. They have reviews.
Speaker 2:Now doesn't always work smoothly, you know. Yeah, because it's human beings. Human beings there's turfs and people want things to happen, but At the core there's. There's always this sense that you know things you know get reviewed and it's open access and I think that helps drive the speed of how they get things done, as well as the quality and being able to solve problems once your customers aren't getting what they need. I also have a good operations in terms of producing hardware and, and you know, their hardware testing team is really strong and I think, as you commercialize, I think the software testing in the system testing is kind of the. I think the testing aspect is some of the secret sauce in terms of how to make sure these commercial products kind of go out, and that's kind of a common quote within the within the company, but definitely even on the software side and a tremendously smart people doing software as well.
Speaker 1:So when you and I first met, yeah well, our kids went to school together and so we'd met kind of casually. But then when we first kind of started work together is when we were Cobored chairs on a, on a board for the, for the senior wall of school, and I remember that you would tell me that you get, that you would get you know three, four, five hundred emails a day or some ridiculous number and you had a team of, I think at that time, two or three thousand engineers and Various time zones and you're always jetting off to china and india and and all these different places and just working what seemed to be around the clock.
Speaker 1:Can you talk to us about your philosophy and approach to leadership, how you both a practical matter as well as philosophically and kind of the soft skills how you manage job like that where you've got a big Sprawling team, multicultural, multilingual, multi continental if that's a word transcontinental, transcontinental?
Speaker 2:global global right global yeah well, it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can try Basically about fifteen years ago when I joined the qct division, which is chips. That division, that's when the teams got pretty massive. Up until that point, when I was in corporate, r&d is a media flow. There are reasonably size teams twenty, fifty, maybe up to a hundred, the line management aspects and so you kind of knew everybody by person. But as you grow into these massive organizations it's still the same principles. You really you've got your circle around you. Really you know it's really understanding.
Speaker 2:I think the one thing that I took from being through qualcomm Is I really wasn't afraid to talk to anybody. You know, I talked with technicians when I was doing trials. I was in the factory making sure that the factory was meeting schedules and talking to the planners and talking to the line people and hey, what are the problems? How can I help you to talk to paul jacob's working on the vocoder? I'd go and hey, what is the vocoder? What is the vocoder? Talk to him for a few hours and just figure out what's going on. You know who he was and you know. You know being able to be in that environment where it is open, like that, coming from academia, and you know. Just, you know you don't have those boundaries and Hierarchy is that are there.
Speaker 2:So I think one thing is understanding your team and being able to talk to people and listen and listening is so important and, and you know, being sincere, so if they, you know when you're listening to what they have to say and actively listening and you know kind of giving him help when they need help.
Speaker 2:I think that's that's one piece is like managing down and up and being there for your team.
Speaker 2:But I think it's also networking around what is the environment, your teams, and being able to kind of Work with the people around you to make sure that the environment your teams working in is meshing with other teams, that you understand what these other teams need for your team or what they need to give to yours, how you work within the organization and what the organization is trying to do. And you know that big picture is really important for leads. You know it's and it's at every level. It doesn't have to be the whole organization that you know, but you know your customers and your vendors. You need to understand that pipeline and that helps with trying to motivate your team To do what they need to do and most everybody really wants to do a good job. You just have to find those common goals that people can kind of rally behind and you know, make sure that you're honest and you know you try to be sincere so that those are kind of like the principles.
Speaker 1:Can you think of one of the biggest challenges that you faced as a leader that might, at the time, have seemed like an intractable challenge, insurmountable, and and how you overcame it? I'm sure you faced a lot of them because you have a long, you had a long career, but you know, just thinking about again teams that have a full of Motivated, intelligent people from around the world. You had a lot of engineers from India, from China, from, yeah, yeah. Is there a challenge that stands out for you in your mind and how did you work through that as a leader?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a few key big challenges. I think one of the challenges was I was working on media flow and we were doing these trials and kind of. You know probably had like three or four deployments and we were doing a big deployment with USA and I went in and talked to my boss and came in an update of how we were planning all the stuff and he's like John, you're doing these five things I want you to think about twenty. You're gonna take over the world. I want this to be huge. How can you do that? You need to expand your mind and my head just. I could feel the top of my head like pop. It was like, oh, my god, that's crazy. But you know it took a little time, but it wasn't impossible to think that it's not like we ever did that much, but it was just like a moment is just.
Speaker 2:You get kind of contained within what you know and how things are working and everyone. You gotta be challenged to kind of like Expand it out to something bigger and your mind just gets comfortable in this space. And if you just let it go out, it's just, it's just awareness and it takes a little while and it kind of hurts at first but it's not too bad. So same thing with leading like a big team. You know it's like, okay, there's 300 people, but you know you have you have lieutenants, you have captains, you have directors and senior directors and you work within that circle. You kind of like instill your principles and why those are good and you know and you try to try to Make sure you have reviews and that things are going through. You really have to have people that you trust, people that you respect, in those positions.
Speaker 2:So I would have weekly meetings in India with lead there and we just really hit it off. I had a weekly, bi weekly meeting in Germany and you just ask questions about what's really happening. These people also had that full centered. You know they would tell me what was going on and they knew how to tell me what was important and we would share priorities and what was happening here and that would help them understand.
Speaker 2:And so you just have to trust and delegate to the point, but also verify and make sure that they're you know they're doing the right thing and that you're there to help them and you're able to protect them. You know in terms of you know when they get in trouble. So when they trust that you've got their back and they, you have to have that rapport. And if you've got like somebody who's got their own agenda, you really need to find people around that that you can confirm and verify. It's like okay, well, let's work with that and be sincere with that person and kind of pull them into the fold, you know, be able to have some checks and balances. So I know I'm kind of ram, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's some of the pieces that I pulled out of there are Certainly this the balance between delegation or the Tension really between delegation, full blind trust and trust. But verify, yeah, and really depends on the setting and who you're working with. I'm gonna think that's something I wrestle with in my leadership to is there are times when we know, we think we know we could be wrong as leaders that we could do it better.
Speaker 1:There's a task and you're like I could, I could just jump in and do that, yeah, but then the other person doesn't have an opportunity to grow and they also don't have an opportunity to demonstrate that they may be better at the job than we are, and it takes time away from you. That's right. And then you're down a rabbit hole that you didn't even want to get near At the you know, and I think that's how did you? How did you? I mean, now you're in a very peaceful retired state, but for decades, how did you manage your time and how did you balance work and home and and I'm gonna say, kind of going back to the other big challenge was laying off doing layoff I was gonna.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to just throw that out there about laying people off, because I remember many nights we meet up for a drink and you look like you just been dragged through the car wash.
Speaker 2:Those are tough, those are. You know, that's where you're really trying to be objective for the company and you know the company's gotta make money and there's budgets to be made and when you make layoffs, you know it's it's it's a matter of sometimes it's a matter of how many people and a lot of times how much salary they have and there's a lot of hard trade offs and and you know, kind of pulling back and the human aspect. And I've really I've had to lay off some very close wonderful people, you know, and and those are super painful when, and you know, luckily, for financial reasons, for financial reasons, and you know, maybe some of the decisions weren't quite, you know, could I take them back maybe, but in general I think they've worked out and you know I've been able to kind of work through and help. You know, see, these people have successful careers after Qualcomm or after the job layoff. So those, those are really those are painful and there always are. I don't think anyone can say that those are easy to do.
Speaker 1:I think if someone who says that's easy is either not trying the truth or they need some extended therapy. So, speaking of therapy and self care and balance and time, management, all that you.
Speaker 1:How did you do that? I remember I was used to say, john, you're not gonna make it to sixty. I'm glad to see. I don't want to out you on your age, but I think you made it there and you look, you're looking good and you're moving forward, because I knew the hours that you worked and I knew the pressure that you were under and I knew the the global aspect of your job, where, when you were asleep, someone else was waking up on the other side of the world and they may have questions. You wake up and your questions, they're waiting for you. How did you do it all?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's kind of like a frog in a boiling water, you know kind of aspect where you really just don't know. It's also this kind of how much you can do, and you don't really want to think of what you can't do. You're always thinking what you can. A lot of responsibility. I mean it was never 3000 people, but it was more like 1500, maybe 2000.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:It's a lot.
Speaker 1:It's still a lot but you know, you feel A mid-sized town in the Midwest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you feel this responsibility to these people and there's a little bit of pressure you want to like succeed and a lot of these things really make a difference. I mean, it's a lot of it's yeah, and the email. You just work out ways to filter and keywords that you search through and you can kind of tell what's important and what isn't. You kind of keep your tabs on you know. Basically you have good project schedules. You have good, you know, to-dos. Never really was good at setting up to-do actions, but I always kind of drove things through email and scheduling meetings and had good administrators that would kind of like take care of me. And yeah, it was. You know. You just kind of there's a lot of late hours, a lot of you know, and you can't really work that late unless you kind of like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And just so. In some ways it was stressful, but in other ways it was rewarding. So, and you?
Speaker 2:know, you kind of get caught up, and when you, the one thing at Qualcomm is everybody's kind of doing it, so is this kind of like group pressure, if you will, and you don't really think about it. But when your team's working really hard and they're working over the weekends, you're thinking. Well, I'm one of my leadership principles lead by example and make sure and there's a little bit of catch 22, because you don't want to be working late, because then that pulls your team in.
Speaker 2:But, there's this. There's definitely. You know, you never know when you should stop and so or how you pull back. And I think with COVID it really did kind of calm everybody down a little bit at Qualcomm, where, you know, people kind of realize that there's a little bit of a health risk here and mental risk. So things have kind of calmed down a little bit, I think.
Speaker 2:But there's still this kind of peer pressure that happens and I don't know. You kind of just get used to it. I almost kind of, now that I am retired, I almost miss it in a way. It's just like, hey, there's not. You know, I don't have this big long list of email to look at. It's not bad, it's definitely a fun challenge to kind of get used to. It's not too bad. But I don't know it was just kind of being connected and understanding what's going on and kind of being aware of what the priorities were and really having a good sense of prioritization. That really really helped like what needed to get done, listening to your team, and it wasn't any like special skills or calendaring or some app that I used, it was just kind of brute force and getting just getting used to it.
Speaker 2:This is really driven by email a lot actually, and understanding who people were. We have a photo, ph. It's basically a library of all the employees and in this library there's all the email lists that they attend. So you can go and search anybody in the Qualcomm. You can find out who they line report to. But if you go through their email lists you kind of get a little picture of what they are, some of their. You know which teams they're on, what they're working on. I really miss that pH because it really told me a lot. It would help me kind of navigate the whole organization and figure out who to go and who's working on what, and even with people I knew I could kind of catch up with them just by looking at their profile.
Speaker 1:So you also had pretty amazing support at home.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did.
Speaker 1:And so that's important, right, because you know that that's being taken care of while you're working late hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's one of the challenges when and now you're in her hair all the time, so she's not too bad, not too much Not too bad.
Speaker 2:She's busy, she's going through acupuncture school. Niku, she's an amazing woman. Oh. It's amazing when things don't work or you start feeling like, oh, there's tension. That's something. You really gotta get settled because it's such an anchor to be able to do what I was doing at Qualcomm. I mean, she was really. She was the reason I was able to. I mean, up until the time I got married and started dating Niku, things were just topsy-turvy and I wasn't really taking care of myself and it was kind of ragged. But it's amazing having her and she's just such a supporting health nut, just really all about, and she really takes the family so seriously and she nurtures the kids and she nurtures me and it's just yeah, what a wonderful person.
Speaker 1:Yeah you gotta have that. That does help.
Speaker 2:You definitely lucked out. It's kind of a secret sauce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you lucked out, so I wanna pivot a little bit. We touched on our service on the Waldorf School Board as co-chair I think neither of us was too much into being the chair, and then we talked each other into co-chair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But you chose the Waldorf School for all your children, for their preschool through eighth grade education. So why Waldorf education?
Speaker 2:Well, coming from Madison, wisconsin, kind of the Berkeley of the Midwest or Berkeley of the Big Ten, you know I was kind of a left-wit leading, I'd always kind of on the side and then being in dance and having this kind of spiritual connection to, and really we just lucked into it. I mean, niko found it, she was looking at Montessori and Waldorf and she basically kind of did the legwork and when I found out about it I'm like wow, this really makes sense. I didn't really know too much about Steiner and the whole foundation behind it at that point. I don't know that that would have scared me away, but it was.
Speaker 2:I just like the social aspect that it brought to the children and how it grounded and how they looked at them in a wholesome, whole full approach to childhood and immersive, and how they interact with this class and the rhythms that they induce and the well-rounded education of you know your rhythm and handwork and orchestra and math and physics or science could be a little bit beefier, especially in the grades, but in terms of their creating their own workbooks and the amount of richness and the mythical stories and how they bring that through the curriculum, I really, you know, I just I've really enjoyed and the community around, I mean the people that you find within Waldorf and you know the relationships I've had with other parents at Waldorf have been very rich and they've also kind of carried me through this crazy high-tech company world. It's always been kind of a Like a counterbalance, counterbalance. I've always had counterbalances when I was in throughout my whole life and-.
Speaker 1:Dance and science lab.
Speaker 2:Dance and science lab exactly, and so Waldorf kind of provided that cultural counterbalance to the high-tech world. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was interesting. I'm glad you mentioned that counterbalance piece because for someone who's in a high-tech career and you know, and I think several of your children are in the math and science orientation in college now and we're headed into college I know that's been one of the questions I've had about the Waldorf school, even in regards to my own daughter and her journey there, and there were a lot of wonderful things that came out of it, but the math piece was a weakness. So it's interesting to see. Even despite that, I think you would put your kids in again.
Speaker 2:If you had a I think I would we did some tutoring, kind of helped them through the math and they've caught up during one of them's in math major Other one's coming to lawyer oh okay, that's right, I'm still a junior, but yeah, I think. And high school, junior and high school. So I think I would definitely put my kids back through. On Waldorf, I think there's definitely a capacity within Waldorf to teach math. I did a high school training and was focused on math and physics back before I joined QCT.
Speaker 2:It was like a summer up in Sacramento and it was you had your midlife crisis.
Speaker 1:I guess you could call that Midlife career crisis.
Speaker 2:Little bit. Yeah, I was thinking about being a teacher, maybe holding up, and then we bought a house and that went to the waste.
Speaker 1:The numbers didn't work out, that's probably when we met probably. Probably right around there Can. I thought who is this dude Like? Well it's called Comm2. Okay, well, we'll see. What is that all about?
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, it's. I think it definitely has the capacity and I think I met some really amazing math teachers through that experience. If you will, I think it's just kind of like how the school kind of handles it and in any try it's just, you know, it's definitely tough, but yeah, I think it's something that's easily overlooked.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask the question that my daughter has told me to stop asking. She's my editor and also unsolicited commentator. She gives me feedback in real time almost I'm seriously good the AI question Do you think that we're gonna get to a point where AI will replace so let's just say you had 1500 people on a team in the height of your the QTC work? Are we gonna get to a point where AI does a lot of that work instead of individual humans?
Speaker 2:Well, I think AI can really enhance how we do that work.
Speaker 1:The way.
Speaker 2:I look at AY is it enhance. It basically allows us to do innovation, to do more work. So, yeah, I think AI might be able to take a lot of the mundane aspects of even doing software development, even doing any kind of large language model kind of thing, coming up with, doing text, doing, translations, doing. There's a lot of aspects that can be enhanced with AI. But I also think it allows us to expand what it is that we can work in and really innovate in terms of areas that we can grow. So I think we're in in store for a massive you know evolution of what we can do with chips and how systems can come together.
Speaker 2:I mean, right now there's multiple chips that are getting combined. Now there's stacking chips together. They're really looking at. You know, murphy's Law is kind of coming to. You know we're getting close to the edge here. But you know, now we're doing 3D chips and there's a lot of other aspects that are going to be enhancing and kind of packing this in pretty moving. Soon Maybe we'll have cubes of chips. It won't be just a single or multiple layers, it'll be stacked on top of each other. So I think the complexity is going to require people to kind of design those and I think AI will kind of like be our help to help design those. So I think the surface area is going to grow bigger, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, in terms of today, I think the jobs that we have, it's definitely going to be going to AI and I think AI is going to help us do those so that we can do more.
Speaker 1:I really look at it as an opportunity, as opposed to something that's going to be taken by jobs away personally, it's fascinating to see I think I've been playing around just with chat, gbt yeah, version 4 or whatever for the last year or so Even to see the advances that it's made and then also the limitations in terms of I was laughing because the platform that we upload this podcast, we upload it to this platform and from there it goes to Spotify and Apple and whatever.
Speaker 1:So it's like a feed and we put the show notes in there and everything, and so there's an AI option. You can click AI and AI will actually enhance the sound quality, but also it writes show notes for you based on the content. So if you're rushed for time or whatever I like to write and I have a couple of folks helping me and we like to just listen to the episode and write it. But I noticed one recently that was up in there and I thought there's no way I would say that it's good but it just doesn't sound like me and doesn't sound like anyone else on the team, and it was because it was AI.
Speaker 1:It was just a little bit too heavy on the ad verbs and adjectives, right, just like, almost like writing ad copy for something like late night TV ads for something like one of those as seen on TV commercials, like the most amazing thing.
Speaker 1:Just put this belt on, You'll lose 20% of your body fat before you wake up in the morning. Do it right now, You'll get a free carrying case, that kind of thing. And so it was the show notes for that and I was laughing. But maybe in a year it might be indistinguishable from our style of writing for our team, right? Maybe it's learned that I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's interesting even to think about analyzing big data sets. I've recently been playing around with taking a spreadsheet, having AI analyze and say give me top three data patterns that are in this spreadsheet. How long? That takes me A long time. It takes this thing three seconds. So I think in those areas, of course, we're going to need to go back and verify.
Speaker 1:And I had a guest on here last calendar year and I'd gone on in advance and I said list the top most cited articles that this guy wrote. He was a college professor. Give me the top 10 most cited articles that he wrote. It gives me top 10. I have them ready. And so before the interview I'd say hey, can I ask you, did you write these? And he's like no, that one sounds like something I wrote, but I never wrote it with this co-author. So it's because in some ways, it was almost creating this thing out of thin air. The format was perfect, right, so it looked really official, but the facts were still squishy. So I think the thinking person, the critical thinker, is going to wade through this and go OK, it can be a powerful tool over here and over here. It's just not ready yet, but we've had it around a long time If you have a self-driving car or you have a Lexa or a Siri. You've been using it for years. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I spent it for a long time I was talking to somebody who was working in AI back in 95. He was a graduate student and I was like whoa, you were in AI. Yeah, I was back then Now everybody wants to. No, it's just taking off. It's taking off everywhere. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how can schools K-12, prepare students for a career like yours, schools in K-12. Like in my line of work, how can we at least position students to be able to have the opportunities based on a lot of hard work that you put in and study, but position students so that they could conceivably end up where you are?
Speaker 2:I think it's executive management. I think as you get into a company, I was like a system engineer, a test engineer, you could say, but it was somebody that really it was. Basically, I think it's the skill set to do what it takes. I don't know how to really define it, but it's being open to. It's more like a skill set of getting things done and having these fundamentals you need to have. Whether I did electrical engineering or aeronautical engineering, I could have done physics. It probably would have been a little tougher to get this job, but with Qualcomm, just being an intelligent person and being able to having the desire to get things done, that really helps. Then, as you get into a business and you want to be a leader, if you're saying, how do I lead like 1,200, 1,500 people, how do I get into a? Not all companies it's easy to do that. Not all of them need that. Not many need that.
Speaker 2:I think it's either being a software developer, computer science, electrical engineering. Once you get into an engineering field, that's really when you get this business training and figuring out how to lead From K to 12, it's just being good at the fundamentals, being open to, you know, to what's happening in the world, understanding the systems or how things connect together and how things operate, getting a little exposure to what academics I mean. When I look at my career, it was getting exposure to all these different things, these anchor points where all of a sudden, academics, the university opened up, all of a sudden. You know math, where I had an opportunity to go see a company, and when you see a company, ask questions like, okay, who's in charge, what are the outputs, who's your customer, how do you get this done? I think those are the kind of questions that demystify these industries or and it just kind of like opens your eyes that there are these positions out there and there's multiple ways to get there.
Speaker 2:And just as you get to a certain point of leadership, you know you have to have a core skill set that helps you kind of manage these people around you. But that management capability is something that you know, you can learn it. But you know there's an empathy component, there's a listening component, there's a awareness of your surroundings and networking, being able to network around. There's, you know, kind of asking questions and not being afraid to, you know, really listen for the answers. There's a lot of aspects to so K to 12, I say that you know, I think, being in technology, just understanding that there's all these trees that you can kind of follow, you can be high tech, you can be an individual contributor, you can work on patents, you can really, you know, be a real technical contributor, or you can be like an executive leader and make sure that things get done, that things get commercialized, they go to market. And I tell you it's, there's, there's a lot of branches in between those two, even of trying to do something within the high tech field. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah, it does make sense. And as much the soft skills as it is the hard skills no matter what, the industry is right Exactly. So I have two more questions for you. You've been very generous with your time. What would the 60 year old you say to your 25 year old self? Other than I don't think the dance is going to become a long term career.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I would say enjoy the heck out of that dance. I mean once when I was dancing, I mean that just basically, once I was 25, I was like my life is so great, everything can go downhill, it's fine. I've reached my peak, I'll be happy if I get to 40. I don't even want to live past 40. Everything is gravy or change. So I would just tell my 25 year old just not to be so emotional, to try to calm down on women, Try not to feel like you know, just relax and keep that fire and just try to get things done and help people. I mean, that's really that's kind of what I would hope to tell that person, but I don't know if he would listen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably not. What is it? What is it? Youth is wasted on. No, wisdom is wasted on. I don't know. My mom has some saying about if youth should, an old age could or something, but it's a very real thing.
Speaker 1:But yeah, the things we wish we knew. And if we'd known them then we wouldn't have paid attention. So the last question. Before I get to the last question, I want to see if there's anything you'd like to add that's been kicking around in your head before we wrap for today with my last question, peppering around a bunch of topics. That's how these go. It's a reflection of my brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's not linear. Your brain or my brain, both of our brains?
Speaker 1:There's nothing linear going on here.
Speaker 2:I don't feel anything I missed. I'm sure there's a bunch of things I'd like to say hi to a bunch of friends. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1:There's tens and tens of listeners out there.
Speaker 1:We have our friends and some of them it may actually get to them because we have mutual friends who, I think, listen to this. The last question is you're given the opportunity to design a billboard on the side of the five freeway and remember people are driving by it 70 miles an hour and it's just one billboard, it's not pages and pages of text. But what does John Detra's billboard say about the message that he wants to get out there to the world? Something about your life, something about your beliefs, something about your work, something about your family, your dreams.
Speaker 2:This is one of those things you don't want to think too hard about you, don't you just got to.
Speaker 1:There's two groups of people who. Some people immediately go oh, it would say this. Some people like it would have an image of this and I'm going. Ah, I think you cheated on this, you heard it somewhere.
Speaker 2:Other people it takes them a while and in both of those, I could have cheated and I forgot, because it's not the first time I've heard the question. But I was going to think about it and even when I heard it I thought about it a little bit and I thought, oh yeah, um, I don't know. I mean, the world is just so crazy right now. I mean, if there's anything to try to get people to just work together, I mean it just seems like something so simple. Everybody, I know there's all these divisions, but at the ground roots, everybody wants to do what's right. And you know it's just. And I don't know, it's not.
Speaker 2:I don't want it to look like some religious kind of like church thing, but gosh, that just would be. So, you know, just some kind of image to just get along and give each other a chance. And you know, just, I tell you that's something I'd like to get out to the world personally, just to you know I'm just so tired of all this division.
Speaker 2:and you know being a leader and seeing all these different personalities and you know being at a company like Qualcomm and getting all these personalities to work and finding those common grounds it's possible.
Speaker 1:It is possible.
Speaker 2:There's so many cultures at Qualcomm and we're able to make it work. I mean, there's so many different right and left rings and you know if you've got these con goals, it's just you know, and it's not just one side or the other, it's really so yeah, that would probably be it.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you, john. I think that's an apropos place to wrap for today, and I really wanted to thank you for coming in and chatting, and now I've covered both of two of my very dear friends, who both were former Qualcomm employees you and Bo James.
Speaker 1:And so I know we've got a little head to head competition going on between the two of you for this podcast, but, in all seriousness, it was a pleasure to chat with you and learn some new things about your life that I didn't know, so thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you, dave. Thank you for listening to the Superintendent's Hangout. You can follow me on Twitter at DVS1970. Please be sure to share this show with friends and family on social media and in the real world. Thank you to Brad Bacchial for editing and production assistance and to Tina Royster for scheduling and logistics. Thanks for hanging out and have a great day.