The Amber Moment
The podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers.
The Amber Moment
Andrew Kaempfer - Part 2
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The second part of my chat with actor and Global Head of Facilities Andrew. Here, he talks about a tendency to focus on what's NOT working; being a team of one; "not confusing access with merit"; authenticity and unflinching curiosity; being comfortable with not knowing what's coming next...and Kurt Cobain.
Hello and welcome to the Amber Moment, the podcast that tells stories of remarkable careers. My name's Paul Howarth. This is the second part of my chat with Andrew Kempfer, the actor and global head of facilities at Alti Tiedeman Global. So far, we've heard Andrew talk about being born and raised in Las Vegas, having to show up at the dinner table, a seminal onstage moment, and how he very rarely says no. We rejoin him now as he's describing different character types across the USA.
SPEAKER_01But they would always say when I came back from New York, they're like, it takes you three days to get the New York off and come back to being Andy. Right, right. Because that was right around the time where everyone in and my age group was, you know, that was the high school song or like, you know, that they would play when you're graduating. And I also have two sisters, uh, one has since left, but my older sister is lives in NorCal. So we do we at the time had people on both coasts of like, you know, you've you've You've been in North Northern California, maybe you're a little too soft. Yeah, definitely too hard. You've been in New York, you're you know, you just cursed out the coffee guy for being too slow. Like so, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. I want to I want you to think now about you particularly, and you've already spoken so brilliantly about yourself, but but this is this is where you have to leave your modesty at the door, okay? Because you've you've done great things in your career, and I want you to think about what do you think it is it about you? What skills or knowledge or talents or character traits do you have that have helped you to get where you've got in your career?
SPEAKER_01Oh god, you're putting me in such a position. Well, and I'll I'll tell you why I answer that. The way that I approach life, if you if you were to ask me if I would recommend the way that I do things to like my son or anyone like cared about, I would say no, I wouldn't. Yeah. Because I don't ever focus on what's working. Right. And I think there's some of that in acting like a theater background of like, you know, no, that part of the play is working. This part of the play is not working. Right. Don't don't focus on the things that are good. You focus on what's not working. Uh-huh. So I, you know, I think coming out of like using that as kind of a you know, a starting point. I think understanding what your blind spots are and understanding what work needs to be done and throwing endless amounts of hard work at that and saying, you know, I'm I'm not going to rest on my laurels. I'm going to be very brutally honest with you. I don't think I'm very accomplished. I know I am in the back of my head. Yeah. I I know I, but I don't allow myself to think that because that's where you become complacent. Like for me, my own, my own life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it healthy? Probably why I've had a therapist most of my life. Um, she'd probably be upset that I said that out loud, but but that's also part of what drives me. Yeah. Is I'm I'm scared to sit there and go, yeah, man, I I really, man, that was great.
SPEAKER_00So when you when you talk about not focusing on the things that are working or the things that are good, and therefore focusing on the things that aren't working or are less good, is that something you apply both to you and your work? Sounds to me like that might might be quite a useful way of approaching facilities, for example. It's everything.
SPEAKER_01It's everything, it's it's personal, it's professional, it's just who I am, it's hard-coded in my DNA. Yeah, and it's all and it's also for as great as my father is, you know, we jokingly we refer to him as Mr. Eraser because he would being an attorney, we would write something and he never focused on what was working. It was like, no, no, did you write that with your foot? No, no, no, you know, but you also have to have an to not have that move into pathology, you also have to have an extreme trust in yourself. Yes, because then it's the painting concept of like I'm never finished, then you end up tinkering with it until you paint it into a black canvas. Yeah, yeah. You know, so if there's not a deadline that pulls that from you, but but yeah, I expect the absolute best from myself. Yeah. No matter what the cost, no matter what the time needed to accomplish it, I will give all of my authenticity, my yes, everything I have to give into something, whether that is a project that I'm doing or a build-out. There's always another layer. There's it's from the play Peragund. It's a classic speech about uh life and and using an onion and all of the different layers. And you can keep peeling, like you know, like with the New York headquarters that we built out. Like I was getting to a place of like linking metaphors of like this being the new jumping off point and where the new company takes flight. So I was buying small birds and things and hiding them in rocks and like little, you know, nuggets and easter eggs and putting them around the space and like tying that into emails that I was sending out and like using poetry and like that's that's getting pretty deep into it, and not part of the you know, that those that was not part of the marching orders and going, okay, here's here's what you need to accomplish, here's what it is, just get the space, you know. It's yeah, but you can you can keep there's always another layer, there's always another part to move towards and something to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00And when you when you talk about you you you said that you don't consider yourself to be particularly accomplished. I know many, many people would violently disagree with that, by the way. But can you think of some examples where you look at that and you and you focus on the things that aren't working so well for you personally, or there's a there's a gap in your knowledge or or expertise or whatever? And can you think of an example of where you've sort of filled a gap where you've gone, right? This isn't working for me, I need to add whatever it is. Give us an example of of how you've gone about that and what you did.
SPEAKER_01I mean, using one in I was very, very focused. We were moving the Lisbon office, and I was really, really studying on like, okay, here's here's the local real estate, here's this, and and I at that point had never been to Lisbon. It was my first trip. And so I'm I'm studying streets and currencies and real estate trends and all this other. But then when I when we sit down at the table and then they start talking, and I'm like, oh, right, they use metric. Oh and then so I'm sitting there trying on the fly, like trying to figure it out. Like, luckily, you have you know now AI and chat GBT that can kind of help. Yeah, but there are some things where you're going, oh, okay, well, that okay, I need to figure that out. And so, all right, I need to brush up on this because that's not working. Okay, that would be like one facilities part of it, or going like, and I'm also a team of one.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01A lot of different companies have several different people, you know. It's very rare to have people doing the front-end negotiation and finding the spaces and designing it and doing this. So I really have to be, you know, surgical about looking at my process and going, okay, well, where are you wasting time? Where is their where is their energy waste? Where is their bloat? What isn't working in this? How can I trust my team who I've built out and say, like, okay, you're because I I also think micromanaging people is hugely disrespectful. If you're micromanaging your employees, that means you don't trust them. Or you are too much of a control freak who needs that because you're, you know, it's very, very disrespectful. So it's also something that I work on and try to go like, okay, I've put this group together because I like them, I believe in them. There's something that resonated, this is where we're going, and going, okay, like, and getting out of my own way. And that kind of answered that question bit by going to three different cities, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it always astounds me that you are a team. I mean, I know you obviously got office managers and stuff to to manage across the firm as well, but when you say you're a team of one, that always just astonishes me. Because I how how can one person do everything that you do across 19 sites across the world?
SPEAKER_01It's yeah, you know, it's it's also this is the foolish aspect of saying yes to everything. And to be honest, the the per and the person who who gets the short end of the stick is my wife. I know. But at the same time, like that, but this is also why she comes with me everywhere I go. Like, yeah, you know, she's she's here and we've relocated and whatnot. And um, but if if I need to be answering emails and doing work until nine o'clock at night, that's what I do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01She knows who I am and understands who I am, and that it's that I'm I'm not, you know, and like last night I was I did a 12-hour day and I was working at home, but it was a 12-hour day because I had back-to-back. So yeah, there's a little couch in the room, so she came in and then just sat in the same room with me. And you know, so we we find ways of making it work, but you know, there in that regard, it it is a lot. But I've been at this, I've been at the company for 22 years. I believe in it, I want it to be successful, and I will, you know, do my and this is part of doing my part, and it also overlaps with who I am as a person. And but I also, you know, I love a challenge and I hate to fail. Yeah, failure is not an option for me, no matter what I have to do.
SPEAKER_00So let's think about your story then, Andrew. And obviously you are the hero of your own story, whether you like it or not. But every great story, as you'll know from your acting as well, every great story has an anti-hero, you know. So what what are the it doesn't have you don't have to name names unless you particularly want to, but like what has stood in your way? What's what's pulling against you? What are the I don't know, it might be systems or structures or prevailing ideas that you've had to overcome to be successful in your career?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's a great question. I will I will not name the bullies who bullied me in high school, but they don't deserve it. No, no, actually, they don't deserve it. So we're gonna move on from that. The in in some abstraction, I'm I'm both the hero and anti-hero of my life on a personal level, but I mean, the I I think one of the anti-heroes of my story has been the risk of confusing access with merit. Right. I mean, because let's be extremely honest here. I came into a life with some built-in advantages. I'm a white guy who was born into America, who was born in America into a family that valued education, who led with love and empathy and wanted to be to like that's a head start. I did not start from scratch. And my dad would say, um, you know, he comments about people who were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. Gotcha. Um, and so the goal is not to think that you hit a triple to get there, is to understand that concept. And the reality is, is that yes, I've worked extremely hard to get where I'm at. I've sacrificed if if I have to do 18-hour days or two weeks to pull something off, I do it, no questions asked, no matter what consequences it has. But I'm in the position to do that, yes, from hard work, but there hasn't, I I have not had the kind of external barriers that many other people face. You know, so for me it's been a bit more internal. It's been complacency, blind spots, inherited assumptions, you know, and just the the, like I said, the risk of confusing access with merit. You know, it's been trying to stay honest about the fact that, you know, some systems were built in ways that made my path easier.
SPEAKER_00I'd love it if you could just expand a bit on that point about don't confuse access with merit.
SPEAKER_01It is a much different experience growing up in America being white than being a person of color.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01There has been, you know, progress made, but not enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Me getting into college, as long as I have a C, like it's it's yeah, sure, somewhere somebody's gonna take me. Like that reality is not true of everybody else. When I was growing up, I didn't have to worry about you know the police just stopping me for the color of my skin. Right. I didn't have to worry about a lot of different things, not being considered for a job because of my background or my accent or the you know, all of those different factors. We still live in a society that privilege is you know bent towards white folks and being born in America, where we've moved in some pretty uh weird ways in the last few decades, but you know, that can be said about a lot of places on world. But but I think, you know, I mean, I I was I was born in 79, and then I'm as what's referred to as a xenial, where I I'm I'm that gap in between generations where I had an authentic no electronic childhood. Yeah, I remember when my dad got the big brick gray cell phone with the huge antenna, and the first computer came in when I was a teenager, but yeah, I also had, you know, like get outside, go play, come back when the lights street lights come on. Yeah, yeah. You know, so that also informs who I am, but but I think with that, there's there's an old uh a dis a Disney cartoon, and we would talk about it in my family of like, and it's goofy. Um and he's saying it, there's a song, Oh, the world owes me a living. And he's you know, and I think he's taking a pocket knife to tobacco or something. It's like one of the old, like, we don't play these anymore kind of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, and it's it's that of going understanding that I have opportunity and access to opportunity that many other people don't. And but it's my it's I had to make the most of those. Yes, I I was the person who still had to show up, you know, circling back to before I made the choice to get off the freeway where other people who I was with and you know, old acquaintances were still it's 2 a.m. Let's keep going, you know. Like, no, I have I have to keep showing up and doing the right thing. I have to make my parents, you know, like shine up to the dinner table. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you and you've talked about this a bit, but I'd love if you could talk a bit more about kind of beliefs and values. Do you feel that you you have a a pretty strong code that you live by and any principles or behaviors that you particularly treasure in work or life, generally?
SPEAKER_01Authenticity is huge for me. It's I mean, it's interesting. Everyone's doing the best they can with what they have. Using a clunky Vegas metaphor, like everyone's dealt a certain number of cards. Some you know, some people do a fantastic job with the four cards they have. Some people can put you know a flush together and only have enough cards for that, and like they're great. Other people are dealt half the deck and don't know what to do with it.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01You know, so there is that. But but I think the people who I who I become infatuated with, who I pull close to me, who I want to spend time with, are unflinchingly authentic, who are empathetic, who share who they are, even though they know that life is going to kick them in the stomach for it. And it's and not, you know, it's life is an uncomfortable sport. Yes. And I think when you meet kindred spirits who feel that way and go, yeah, but I'm still gonna keep putting myself out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So how do you how do you sort of not physically, but how how do you measure authenticity? How do you spot it and how do you how do you measure it?
SPEAKER_01I th I think if I could answer that question in a way that was tangible, I'd uh I'd have a lot more money than I do and probably have a book and you know, like because I I think it's a gut thing. I think it's and it and it's also being and it's it's a feeling that you have. Yeah. It because it comes in different forms of like, you know, I and they might not be your best friend, where you're like, you know, wow, this guy is really authentically himself, you know. He's he's not my cup of tea. I I you know, I I don't want to have anything beyond this meal with him, but you know, or something. But you also change as you evolve. Like there's there's friends of mine who are still very much authentically themselves, but it doesn't align with where I'm heading now in my journey in my life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so, you know, then and that's a hard decision of going, okay, well, I I thank you for the the gift of the years that we had together, or like the memories and friendship, or whatever it is, and like, or whatever it is you had, but you are you don't you no longer coincide with where the mission statement of my life is the trajectory of my life is what it's heading. You know, but it's my my best friend of 30 years um passed away in a car accident in November of last year.
SPEAKER_00Oh my uh sorry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I also had the a front row seat to almost 30 years. And he he actually he lived with me and my family at one point. We shared a bedroom because he had hit some hard times. He moved out in his young teen years from his parents' home, and yeah, but he was just the most authentic, unflinchingly alive human being I've ever met. But there was something, you know, people who are so in tuned with who they are and don't and share who they are unflinchingly, they their being with them is you know, it's intoxicating. It it's fun, it's it it lets you drop your defenses, and then you can really just kind of you know enjoy being in the moment. You you know, and and I think people who are unflinchingly authentic allow you to kind of you know take the pressure, hit the pressure button on the pressure cooker and let send the steam off. Yeah, and you can kind of sink into a deeper connectivity and of a deeper point of existence between the two of you or the three or four of you. And I think I have that with about 10 years ago, he came to us and he was like, by the way, Bigfoot's real. We're like, wait, what? Like, but he he dove in with both feet, and you're like, love this guy, man. Like, who else is gonna come to you in your 30s and be like, you know who's real? Bigfoot. And like would take the family on trips and go and find Bigfoot, and now it became this whole thing. And now after his passing, like everyone's giving me Bigfoot. I have like an altar of Bigfoot to him in my house, you know, amazing. But it's that kind of that's why I keep going back to authenticity, where you're just like, I don't care what you think of this. Like, I am so authentically myself, I'm gonna share with you that I now believe Bigfoot is real. And if you're not willing to accept it, then you you know, and you're just like, Yeah, those are the you know, it's life life lays ropes out in front of you, and you can either grab them and it pulls you in the direction and you don't know where it's gonna go, but you're like, I want the adventure and I want the ride. And yeah, I've I believe that when you stop grabbing those ropes is when you become complacent and eventually irrelevant. And I think that terrifies me.
SPEAKER_00That was really well explained, so thank you. And I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend as well. That must be awful. I'm gonna ask you about um allies, because even though you're a one-man team, we all need we all need some help. And again, I'm not asking you to name names unless you particularly want to, but which people or groups have been have been those who have been your real allies through your through your career or your careers.
SPEAKER_01Well, I've talked a lot about family and friends and all of that, but there's a lot of great people everywhere. And there's allies everywhere. Yeah. And part of it is, you know, I think, you know, one one of my life beliefs is like do no harm. And the other is what my mom always told my sisters and I all the time, which was make memories. To do that and to really squeeze uh more juice out of life than normal, is to share who you are. And I think by doing that, other people are more comfortable sharing who they are. Yeah. And well, not everyone's gonna be your best friend, and you're not gonna like everybody, like there are allies everywhere if you're willing to like share the olive branch first, which is something, you know, and and going back to them, this kind of links up with the acting thing. Like, people fascinate me. What like what what had to happen to this person? For you know, there's so many different characters and so many different people. Yeah, and if if curiosity is such an important value in life, is to approach life with unflinching curiosity and say, like, like, what's your story? You know, and like you so I have found allies in every city I've gone to. The entire Lisbon office is full of amazing people who just wanted nothing more than to share like their food and their culture and their lives, and and and some of that is picking up on an energy that you lead with of going, like, I'm curious, like, what what is life here like? Like, what is food here like? What is what does your culture mean? Like, are is the are you religious? Are you not really? Like, what you know, whatever that means for you, like giving people the you know, the the the one of the woke terms of it is like safe space, but it's true. But like I'm I'm authentically reaching out to you and going like I'm interested. Yeah, like people respond to that, and that's where you build relationships and build allies here. Like, you know, I I can always I can talk there's always a baseball fan in some office and you can talk to 'em about a sport, but you know, there's gonna be a f a football fan somewhere. You know, in in Europe where you can I can talk to them about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But there's so many different kinds of people that I think, you know, just you know, asking questions and being curious will will build you a network of allies everywhere. And I generally think that the the majority of people are good and want you to succeed and they want to succeed. And I think an understanding that some people, you know, even the most acerbic, sardonic, you know, people who you're like, well, uh, you know, and some of this comes from my background of but uh and in history, but like a lot of them have crafted their personality as a weapon to keep people away from themselves because they are the most sensitive people, and they're they're scared of being hurt, and it's a defense mechanism.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna kill butcher this quote, but it was something from Mark Marin who was like, The monster I built to protect myself has become impossible to control. Something along those lines.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like that.
SPEAKER_01You know, but there that there's a lot of people out there like that where it's you know, life life did what it did to me early on, where it was like, We're we're gonna put your head in a locker in the football where everyone gets dressed in the locker room. We're gonna put your head in that locker and slam it closed on your face, you know, and now so you can either go, you know, now my way of dealing with it was writing letters, you know. Like I wrote a letter to my family and parents every morning, like a handwritten letter. And then my mom, after we talked about the look back, they're like, We really should have seen the warning signs here. Um, you know, but like hindsight's 2020, and like I give no crap about that, you know. But like, so you can either do that, and and for a while there, I did that, where it was like, yeah, I then was like, I'm going to create a personality that then and have my personality be in a way of like, I'm I I will always have the fastest joke, I will always say something like whatever I have to do to protect myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But then as you grow and you want to mature and continue evolving, like you either let that go, but sometimes life damages people enough that they can't. Um and if you know, and I think even people who do that can understand on an energetic level, somewhere deep down that is not able to be, you know, like I can't, I just know what exists, I can't give any sort of this is where my sister who's a doctor could probably help better than I could. You know, but it's that's why I go back to saying it's just it's a feeling, like there's you know, it it like how you meet a stranger or meet someone new, and you're like, I feel like I could talk to them about anything. Yeah, like what is that? Like, there's that's just a feeling you're operating off of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So what's what's coming next then? What's what uh in both the near and the far future? What does what's coming next for Andrew Genfer?
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess on the work front, so we we're finishing up here at the end of the month. Um, but the way that my my job works is so everything is kind of working in a s in a cycle of yeah. So while well, we really wanted to hear and then I'm executing the construction and working with you know a project management team and the contractors and everything. I'm also designing our office because we're moving our San Francisco office uh where I had negotiated that contract earlier in the year. So you have things in different phases.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So once I complete this, then there will be a small one-week break, and then we'll relocate to San Francisco from June through the end of September, and then replicate the process where then we're going and then we're building it out, and then meet working with a local team and moving them from one office that they've been in for four or five years as a short-term sub-lead, and da da da. And then so, but then I'm starting the process of like finding a new location for another location, and like so it it's just kind of this moving. So, in in that regard, that that's kind of that wheel will keep turning and you'll be staying staying busy for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. What about what about longer term? What what what do you see coming over the horizon? What do you want to achieve?
SPEAKER_01I don't know the answer to that question. And I think that's like one of the things that in college really excited me about the concept of acting and being an actor is that you know, they're and when you would do a when you do a play, like the people who you're in the trenches with doing that play become your absolute best friends for that two, three, four, five, six-month period, however long the thing is. But then it's this like cataclysmic just ripping off the band, it just stops. And you never know what's happen what's gonna come next. Yeah, and I think that's kind of part of some of the theme that's arisen here of like being comfortable with not knowing what comes next. Like because realistically, I could finish San Francisco and they're like, you need to be in DC, you need to go to London, you need to go, you need to go here. So you have to find comfort in the uncomfortable, but it it links up to that concept of but uh there's something that is beautiful of going, man, six months from now, I could be sitting in I could be in a flat in London doing whatever, you know. Yeah, six months, six months from now, I could be unemployed. Like, hopefully not. I mean, this is what I work as hard as possible, you know, and you're like, you know, like try to deliver, but like you knew, yeah, it it could it could all go sideways, and then I could be going, all right. But like I've talked to my wife and stuff, and I'm like, you know, I could always drive an Uber, and then while I'm figuring out what it is, like I could consult do a consultant business, I could do this, you know, I could do that. But I've also been at this company for 22 years, and realistically, I'm still gonna be employed here and figuring out like yeah, okay, what what is you know, we my friends and I uh shot a short film that we're putting into uh that's currently running the film the festival circuit. We've been lucky to win a couple awards and fantastic. So we're working on that, you know. So there will always be some art project, and you know, and this is and this is part of also being creative of like, yeah, you know, well, and if if you have a roadblock somewhere, pick up a guitar. If you have if you're not figuring out like anybody's a painter, art is subjective. You can go buy a canvas and you can throw some paint at it, and like there's something very cathartic and fun about it, as long as you can get out of your way of judging it while you're doing it. Um, you know, it it there's you're you're the only thing in your way. So so in in that regard, you know, it's and I and I think that ends up feeling like you know, a happy ending for in the end, where you're like, Yep, man, I I I squeezed as much out of this as I possibly could. I I did the absolute best I could. I have absolutely no regrets.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because it's it's a journey.
SPEAKER_00Left it all out on the park, as they say.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and there was, you know, it's like it's like in college where you're reading all of you know, we're reading like on the road in Kerouac and all of these different authors and whatnot, and like Camus, and but ultimately, like our big takeaway was you're responsible for who you become. Yeah, and like you and now obviously there's the confusing access with merit part of it. Some people have more opportunity to do that, and it's like someone could be hearing this and being like, Oh, that's very easy for you to say. Um they're right, you know, but at the same time, like you can, you know, what your whatever every you know, in the in your individual version of that is is your responsibility.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like that squeezing the most out of squeezing every last drop out of whatever it is you're squeezing. I think it's great. And I'm gonna ask you a bit now, we we're very close to the end, you'll be relieved to know. But um, I want to ask you, we'll we'll take your family and friends and loved ones as red that they're important in your life. Outside of all of that and outside of work, what's important in your life, like what passions and hobbies and interests. I mean, I I I kind of named a lot of them. Uh oh, you did, yes. So painting you mentioned was one. Is it do you do a bit of painting then?
SPEAKER_01I do uh uh yes, it's mostly uh I I do not have any training in it. It's mostly like a uh college infatuation with Jackson Pollock and just the idea of you can throw you know paint on a on, you know, if if you say it's art, it's art. It's yeah, and it's kind of how I came up with the concept of using some of our marketing materials is art. Like yeah, if if you throw a light, if you put something in a frame, you could rip a uh rip an advertisement, rip a picture out of a magazine, cut it, frame it, and put on your wall. It's art. Who's to say it's not? Yes, this is why, you know, and like in a lot of it, it's just you're the first person to do it. But I was actually in a band and play guitar, and like I was I did that before even acting, that was the first thing. So I'm a huge fan of music. I would say my greatest artistic influence of all time, and the earliest was Cobain, was Nirvana and like the the crunch era and all that, because that was kind of like oh man, like, and I think that's where some of the authenticity of that kind of came from, where it was like um, because hair metal and all of that, it's just like uh I was really like, where am I gonna find a woman with a cobra wearing leather? Like this this doesn't really matter how hard you try. Yeah, like this just was my reality. I'm like, okay, you know, like hot for teacher, all of this nonsense, you know. It's like, but then when that came along and you're like, whoa, man, like the it felt and it just hit it was and it hit that sweet spot of your life for me.
SPEAKER_00Like I was in that age and it just yeah, no, they I think they influenced a lot of people, they had a big effect on a lot of people. What about Pixies? Because they were sort of yeah, maybe in a year or two before, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, Pix yeah, Pixies are great. I mean, it's fascinating to see like everything that came out of that whole Seattle region, uh, you know, like from postal service and all of these different, you know, it's not it's not just the classic grunge bands in Seattle. Um, and I'm obviously bringing that up in in since I'm in Seattle currently, but yeah, but I I'll really do any kind of music. The only one I'm really not a huge fan of is country. Okay. Which is I know, you know, it's I it I just it's it all feels the same to me. Okay. And I am I'll yeah, I'll leave I'm gonna go on some political rant about it, and I don't really want to go there. That's fine. But yeah, going to concert and sporting events. I'm an experienced junkie. Um, you know, being having grown up in a desert, being on a boat blows my mind, being on the water. Yeah, you know, like if if if if I could teleport my wife and I to a cafe in Montreal right now, uh Jardine Nelson, I would love to do that. Like I I want to I I have a little Dionysus in me, probably a little bit too much, where it's I just I want to ingest as much of life as humanly possible in all forms and just enjoy the hell out of it while I'm here.
SPEAKER_00What a great ambition to have. Very last question. Uh since we're on a podcast, I'd love it if you could give us a podcast recommendation.
SPEAKER_01That's a good um, so I've been he does have a podcast, but I'm not really familiar with it. But I will give a shout out to John Kiriaku, who is I do have a pot one podcast that I do go back to, but Kiriaku is he's a uh former CEI agent. He was like from early 90s into early 2000s, but he was the whistleblower on the CIA using waterboarding and like who went in front. I think that was 2007, if I believe, but he was this he was a controversial, ended up in America being a control a controversial figure in the debate over torture and secrecy, and was the whistleblower who was like, no, the CIA is torturing people. And eventually they got him on some trumped-up charges, and he ended up spending time in prison, and but has since come out and is doing you know some fascinating conversations on podcasts recently. And it's just such and it's an interesting insight hearing it from a CIA agent who you know who who did the right thing, yeah, and his own people kind of were like, Oh, you you're leaving the club, huh? Yes. Okay. But the but a podcast I do always go back to is Diary of a CEO. Okay. Which I I do like for a lot of the different points of views and a lot of the guests, you know, you one episode it's you know, a Harvard mathematician, and you know, and the next is talking about peptides, and it's there's so many different it it fits my kind of mind state of like, yeah, like I'm not a Joe Rogan guy. Okay, you know, I I went through my period with Joe Rogan of going like, oh yeah, you know, and like I do love comedians, I love comedy, but like once it gets into some of the like he's just not my guy. I I do like some of the more thoughtful and I I like that every episode ends where the guest leaves a question for the next guest, and then it kind of has a not only a through line, but it makes people think and all and do you want to do you want to do that for my next guest then?
SPEAKER_00No, I'm not about I can't be stealing ideas from other podcasts, that's not a good thing to do, is it? No, exactly. But I like it's a good one. I do like that. Well, and thank you for those recommendations, Andrew, and thank you even more for being so generous with your time and for telling us some great stories about your remarkable careers in the plural. It's been absolutely wonderful to have you on the show. And listen, best of luck with the next chapter.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, my friend. It's been wonderful to see you, and I really appreciate uh you having me on.
SPEAKER_00It's been a gift. Join me next time on the Amber moment, when we'll be hearing another story of another remarkable career. Until then, stay amber.