Chris Hallinan, Director of IoT Sales, Author, Speaker, Instructor, Pilot, Army Veteran

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.359
The topics and opinions expressed in the
following show are solely those of the hosts

2
00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:06.040
and their guests, and not those
of W FORCY Radio. It's employees are

3
00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:10.199
affiliates. We make no recommendations or
endorsements radio show, program services, or

4
00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:14.199
products mentioned on air or on our
web. No liability explicit or implies shall

5
00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:17.960
be extended to W FORCY Radio.
It's employees are affiliates. Any questions or

6
00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:21.640
comments should be directed to those show
hosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY

7
00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:34.000
Radio. Churchill said, those who
fail to learn from history are condemned to

8
00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:39.640
repeat it. Kevin Helenan believes that
certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning

9
00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:45.920
Business Radio here at W four CY
Radio. That's W fourcy dot com and

10
00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:54.640
now your host, Kevin Helena.
Thanks everybody for joining in today. I

11
00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:59.119
am Kevin Helenan, and welcome back
to Winning Business TV and Radio on W

12
00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:03.359
fourcy dot com. We're streaming live
on talk for tv dot com in addition

13
00:01:03.400 --> 00:01:07.959
to Facebook and that's at Winning Business
Radio, as well as available in podcast

14
00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:14.159
after the live show on lots of
platforms including YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify,

15
00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:19.159
Apple, and pretty much wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts, the remission

16
00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:22.879
of the show winning business radio and
TV as most of you know that are

17
00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:26.680
regular listeners. It's to offer insights
and advice, to help people avoid the

18
00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:30.040
mistakes of others, right to learn
best practices, the how twos, the

19
00:01:30.120 --> 00:01:34.879
what twos, the what not twos, to be challenged and certainly to be

20
00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:38.319
inspired by the successes of others.
But you know, virtually every successful person

21
00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:42.920
I've ever talked to has had some
form of failure in their lives and careers.

22
00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:45.359
So listen, Well, we all
have to get our knie skin once

23
00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:47.640
in a while. You hear me
say every week, I'm driven to keep

24
00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:51.640
those scrapes from needing major surgery.
Let's endeavor to learn from history so we

25
00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:56.000
don't repeat it today. My guest
is Chris hallenan director of IoT sales,

26
00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:00.159
accomplished author, speaker, instructor,
pilot, and he's my brother. Special

27
00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:05.120
treat for me. Here's his bio. Chris Allen and has over twenty five

28
00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:09.240
years of progressive technical and commercial experience
in high tech companies. He spent his

29
00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:14.439
early years in product development, first
as a hardware engineer and then in firmware

30
00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:17.800
and software development. Chris has developed
a blend of startup and corporate cultures.

31
00:02:17.879 --> 00:02:23.439
Is a recognized team player, team
builder, and team leader. Chris has

32
00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:28.319
been involved in the open source ecosystem
for two decades, selling and supporting open

33
00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:31.800
source solutions. He's currently Director of
IoT Sales for a global producer of Linux

34
00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:38.039
operating systems for desktop, server,
cloud and IoT applications. He's an accomplished

35
00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:40.960
author, speaker, and instructor.
He's an author of three at least three

36
00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:46.960
books, including the popular Embedded Linux
book Embedded Linux Primer. He's a private

37
00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:51.639
pilot, instrument rated and currently owns
flies and maintains on nineteen sixty four Beechcraft

38
00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:55.680
Bonanza. He's an accomplished guitar player. Is a longtime Ham radio operator.

39
00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:00.000
Is a veteran of the US Army
and grew up in Medfield, Massachusetts.

40
00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:04.919
What a coincidence. He has four
grown children and four grandchildren. I'm only

41
00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:07.759
at one one in two thirds.
He is one brother me and we have

42
00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:12.360
two sisters. Chris, welcome to
Winning Business TV and radio, and thanks

43
00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.000
for being here. Well, it's
my pleasure and thanks for that great introduction.

44
00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:19.719
Yeah, I'm I'm not really that
great, but I am the older

45
00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:23.639
brother. So pleased to be here, pleased to be in Massachusetts actually and

46
00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:28.479
looking at here Florida for sure.
So this is a treat for me.

47
00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:30.319
When I knew you were common obviously
you know the story, but the audience

48
00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:32.599
doesn't. I say, hey,
I gotta get you on the radio,

49
00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:38.960
so on TV now in radio keeps
saying that, but we are simulcast all

50
00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:42.000
over the place where it's a worldwide
audience. So kind of fun. So

51
00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:45.919
you grew up in Medfield, mass
I'm gonna let you tell people in the

52
00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:49.280
audience, and many of whom are
not in Massachusetts don't know what that's like.

53
00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:52.879
Tell us about that upbringing. What's
that like? Well? I do

54
00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:58.360
cherish the fact that we grew up
in a small neighborhood where everybody knew everybody.

55
00:03:58.439 --> 00:04:00.479
I mean, our parents knew our
friends parents. And it was a

56
00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:05.039
different time, right. We could
stay out after dark and nobody worried,

57
00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:09.039
We could go to our friend's house
and our parents knew that you knew the

58
00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:12.719
parents, and just a very different
time, right, And I missed that.

59
00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:16.360
I cherished that, you know,
I cherished that that upbringing. We

60
00:04:16.399 --> 00:04:19.720
had a lot of fun as kids, and you know it was a small

61
00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:24.839
school. My graduation from class I
think was one hundred and seventy five kids

62
00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:28.240
in high school. So small town, small school. It's not so small

63
00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:31.079
anymore. I hardly recognized the place, but I know, but I really,

64
00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:34.279
you know, I considered that one
of the blessings of my life.

65
00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:40.000
So so I know the answer to
this question, but the audience doesn't.

66
00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:43.839
What were your early interests? Oh, gosh, I was interested. I

67
00:04:43.879 --> 00:04:46.680
was a geek way way back right. I started playing guitar when I was

68
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:50.560
eleven. We were on vacation in
Connecticut and the babysitter, one of the

69
00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.959
babysitters had a guitar, and it's
like, Hey, I want to try

70
00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.839
that out right, So I've been
hacking around at the guitar. I'm not

71
00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:01.279
a professional guitar player for that long. But also, as Kevin knows,

72
00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:05.560
I was drawn to geeky stuff,
tech stuff at a very early age.

73
00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:11.560
And I had my hand radio license, my first amateur radio license at the

74
00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:16.720
age of thirteen. And you actually
have to pass a test on basic electronics

75
00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:20.639
theory, and back in those days, you had to pack it, pass

76
00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:28.600
a test on proficient resending and receiving
Morse code and I remember I took a

77
00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:30.920
class in a boy Scout camp or
down the cape somewhere, I don't remember

78
00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:35.079
where, but I took a signaling
merit badge and I chose Morse code,

79
00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:39.560
and I kind of learned Morse code
the back doorway through that. But it

80
00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:43.600
has turned out to be a lifelong
passion I still enjoy and I can.

81
00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:46.279
I can sit here and have this
conversation with you in Morse code without pen

82
00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:48.399
and paper in my head at thirty
words a minute. Thirty words a minute

83
00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:51.560
to you would sound like just a
buzz, right, So yeah, I've

84
00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:59.319
been tinkering with electronics and devices since
that early. What many people may not

85
00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:02.560
realize is being an extra class radio
operator. At no, you weren't thirteen

86
00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:08.720
as an extra, but you got
your extra sixteen. That's still really young

87
00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:11.319
for an extra class. Most of
those guys are old farts like us.

88
00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:15.720
Now, you know, Yeah,
the extra class license requires it's actually quite

89
00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:19.639
a difficult test. It requires knowing
some advanced theory of electronics and r F

90
00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:24.519
electronics and you know, usually that's
the kind of stuff you get in first

91
00:06:24.279 --> 00:06:27.279
first year, first your college if
you're going, you know, pursuing an

92
00:06:27.319 --> 00:06:30.160
electrical engineering degree. So I was
proud of that accomplishment. You know,

93
00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:33.480
I've had that license that it's they've
now streamlined things, but it is still

94
00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:39.000
the highest class of amateur radio license
that they offer. And so you are

95
00:06:39.079 --> 00:06:43.560
the youngest of many, or the
certainly one of the youngest of many that

96
00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:46.600
ever got that license, and people
I remember people commenting on it, Oh,

97
00:06:46.759 --> 00:06:48.680
well, sixteen, he's got that, So pretty cool. So I

98
00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:55.279
also remember a monster mini bike from
like the Mad Max movies. Built you

99
00:06:55.360 --> 00:07:01.519
built by hanging like a lawn mower
engine on the on the crossbar of bicycle.

100
00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:04.079
Talk about that, and I say
that because you were always at the

101
00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:10.160
building and creating things. Boy,
I haven't. I haven't thought about that

102
00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:14.959
for thirty years. But I remember. It was a red bicycle and I

103
00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:18.519
this was a horizontal shaft Briggs and
Stratton, and it had a little clutch

104
00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:23.000
on it, and I basically tied
the thing up with ropes and change so

105
00:07:23.079 --> 00:07:27.720
that the clutch would drive the tire
directly, you know, And it did

106
00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:30.680
until the tire, you know,
lost all of its rubber and burned out.

107
00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:32.040
But that was a lot of fun. I didn't even remember that.

108
00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:36.279
I haven't thought about that for thirty
years. So here's another one climbing trees

109
00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:43.000
to install him radio and tennis.
I still actually I know, well nowadays

110
00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.199
I rent the lift. I have
a fifty foot tower at home in Florida,

111
00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:47.639
and I rent the lift to get
up there. But yeah, I

112
00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:51.920
mean so far, I've never broken
my leg fallen out of a tree.

113
00:07:53.079 --> 00:07:58.279
And actually in Florida, I built
this. Oh we used to call them

114
00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:01.480
potato launchers as we were tags.
It's a big piece of PVC tubing,

115
00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:07.199
you know that you fill up with
air and then you put this little I

116
00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:09.560
use an egg shinker or one ounce
egg shinker tied to a fishing pole,

117
00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:13.600
and once I let it off,
the thing will shoot a hundred feet into

118
00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:18.160
the air. You know. One
time I tried to do that and it

119
00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:22.839
broke and it put a hole through
the screen enclosure that covers my pool.

120
00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:26.240
That hole was there for years.
Still a hurricane destroy that puts the wire

121
00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:30.000
up in the trade where you needed
to be. Yea, yeah, it'll

122
00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:37.480
shoot up. Talk about so when
you were young, right after high schools,

123
00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.200
I recall you joined the army.
You're in Germany and that's where you

124
00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:45.399
further developed your knowledge of an interest
in electronics and technology. Talk about that

125
00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:50.919
experience. Well, to be honest
with you, I don't say this to

126
00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.200
everybody, but that was the three
best years of my life. I met

127
00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:58.039
a lot of people and had a
lot of fun and it changed me as

128
00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:03.039
a person. But yeah, so
I wasn't quite ready for college for a

129
00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:07.720
number of reasons, and so I
decided at seventeen I joined the Army.

130
00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:13.039
Mom had to actually sign on the
dot and mind information. And I tested

131
00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:16.720
really high, of course in the
electronics in the ASBABS, and they offered

132
00:09:16.759 --> 00:09:22.159
me basically my choice of schools,
and I took a school that was only

133
00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:26.080
one of its kind in Denver.
It was called the Army calls it calibration

134
00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:30.960
Specialist and the Air Force calls it
Female precision Measurement Equipment Labs. And basically

135
00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:37.600
what we did we were trained to
maintain very complex test equipment like oscilloscopes and

136
00:09:37.639 --> 00:09:43.399
signal generators and spectrum analyzers and vote
meters and go around to different bases and

137
00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:50.720
certify that their boxes were making measurements
that were traceable back to what was then

138
00:09:50.799 --> 00:09:56.320
called the National Bureau Standards is now
called NIST National Institut science and technology.

139
00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:01.120
We were calibration specials, so we
could open up a tectronic and troubleshoot it

140
00:10:01.159 --> 00:10:03.919
to the bad transistor and fix it
and put this sticker on it that says

141
00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:07.039
this is now. You know,
when you measure a volt or an home

142
00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:13.759
or a frequency, it's traceable back
to our national standards. And the coolest

143
00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:18.679
thing about that has experiences it was
mobile. Our labs were mobile, so

144
00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:24.000
we got to travel in this big
loop every six or eight weeks and stay

145
00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:28.360
in hotels and eat in restaurants and
basically we were immersed in German society.

146
00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:31.559
We didn't have to do that.
It's the regular army thing, you know,

147
00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:35.159
I mean it was. It was
just such a fun time. So

148
00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:37.120
I think I should know the answer
to this, but I don't. Were

149
00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:41.039
you in uniform, yeah, we
were still newful okay, but I never

150
00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:46.039
saw a gun, right. And
every twice a year, the command that

151
00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:52.120
was called USURER at the time,
US Army Europe that they would call these

152
00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:56.320
alerts where all the soldiers would get
on their backpacks and get their rifles in

153
00:10:56.360 --> 00:11:01.399
their weapons and their aids and whatever
and go out field, set up tents

154
00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:03.440
and pretend and play war games.
Well, we would go to the motor

155
00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:09.080
pool and grab a van and head
out of town. We didn't have to

156
00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:11.159
play those games, which was kind
of We always used a joke we weren't

157
00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:16.519
really we weren't regular army. We
were. We were cheated as such too.

158
00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:22.879
So so that fueled further fueled your
passion for technology. Right, So

159
00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:24.799
now let's fast forward just a little
bit. You get out of the army.

160
00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:28.120
Your your first it looks to me, your first professional job. My

161
00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:31.159
memory is good, but it's not
that good. It was your career,

162
00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:35.759
not mine. Ray Com your first
professional professional position, and I just want

163
00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:39.480
to know describe the work and how
you got that job. I think it's

164
00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:45.320
relevant. Yeah, so ray Com
was actually in Colorado. So my first

165
00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:48.279
job probably not on resume, probably
not on my LinkedIn because the company along

166
00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:52.039
gone. It's probably Oliverant. But
I ended up in Seattle, the story

167
00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:56.879
of itself, and I found a
job at a company that was called Northern

168
00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:01.080
Radio Company. It was a small
all thirty or forty people operation, and

169
00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:11.480
they manufactured shipboard radios for commercial ship
shipping ships. Right, and I was

170
00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:13.720
very you know, I signed on
as a as a as a technician,

171
00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:20.480
to test the boards as they would
come off the assembly line. And you

172
00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:24.240
know, small story, that is
where I met the mother of my children.

173
00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:31.879
She was one of the assemblers.
But I quickly gained the admiration of

174
00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:35.120
the engineering staff and they were good
enough to mentor me and teach me.

175
00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:41.320
And that's where I began to learn
about microprocessors and computer hardware and computer software.

176
00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:46.000
Because these radios had for its day, this was back in this was

177
00:12:46.120 --> 00:12:52.399
nineteen eighty one, so for its
day, these had a synthesized RF generator,

178
00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:56.039
so you could plasically plug in any
frequency right, any frequency want,

179
00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:01.519
and it was a microprocessor control synthesizer. And so that's where I kind of

180
00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:07.320
got my start in the you know, sort of microprocessor computer technologies, both

181
00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:11.360
the hardware and the and the and
the software sider. It was an interesting

182
00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:18.600
job. So you've actually spent a
lot of time on hard on the hardware

183
00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:20.279
side of things, I know,
you know, that's after a while,

184
00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:24.240
it was it was software and development. But you're also at kind of a

185
00:13:24.279 --> 00:13:30.000
particular time. And I know this
is going to sound kind of preachy and

186
00:13:30.039 --> 00:13:33.399
whatever. Not preachy, but I
don't know, romantic, but you're you're

187
00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.720
at a time when a lot of
stuff was being developed, including very important

188
00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:43.240
pieces of equipment that made networking possible. Talk about that. Oh absolutely,

189
00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:45.879
you know, so in the days
I can make people. I can make

190
00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:48.159
a hardware engineer who laugh his head
off right now when I tell them the

191
00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:54.399
technology that I worked on. I
used to develop boards and products that had

192
00:13:54.480 --> 00:14:00.759
these programmable chips on them. And
the programmable chips like had twenty four logic

193
00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:05.759
blocks. That doesn't matter what that
means. Today's programmable chips have twenty four

194
00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:11.519
thousand. You know, you can
build an entire microprocessor and an entire Wi

195
00:14:11.559 --> 00:14:16.720
Fi router on a chip and it
has hundreds of thousands of these logic elements.

196
00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:22.639
And I was working on the very
beginnings of that technology that had just

197
00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:24.399
a you know, a few and
we'd use them for state machines and for

198
00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:31.799
driving little bits and pieces of hardware. I remember so fast forward to Raycom

199
00:14:31.879 --> 00:14:37.519
Systems. That was the first time
I ever had an email address. It

200
00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:41.480
was before I want to say it
was before Windows three. That was like

201
00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:48.519
before al Gore invented the Internet.
Yeah, that's right, and I think

202
00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:50.679
it I might have had a darker
Internet address for a brief period of time

203
00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:54.240
during that period. We were working
on a darker program at that time.

204
00:14:54.279 --> 00:14:58.799
But but yeah, that was like
nobody had emails, nobody. There was

205
00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:03.679
no such thing as the World Web
and a browser at in those dates days,

206
00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:07.519
and the PCs were just coming online
as a technology. So I've I've

207
00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:11.039
kind of lived through that whole and
that's fascinating too, and that whole technical

208
00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:16.919
you know revolution, I mean,
one hundred years ago is the industrial revolution.

209
00:15:16.279 --> 00:15:22.120
This last sixty you know, forty
sixty years has been the technological revolution,

210
00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:24.879
and it continues right now. We're
moving into industry for dot oh and

211
00:15:24.919 --> 00:15:31.639
digitization of every process under the sun. And you know, it's just it's

212
00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:35.679
been amazing to be a partner of
that and to watch that evolved, and

213
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:39.960
I can't imagine where it's going.
Well, hold that thought. We're gonna

214
00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:41.639
come back to that. We're gonna
take our first commercial. We'll be back

215
00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:52.080
in about sixty seconds with Chris Allenan. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with

216
00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:58.000
Kevin Helena on W four CY Radio. That's W fourcy dot com. Don't

217
00:15:58.039 --> 00:16:02.480
go away. More helpful information is
coming right up right here on Winning Business

218
00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:10.639
Radio. All Right, this is
Roger mcgwinn. And you're listening to four

219
00:16:11.240 --> 00:16:26.320
Y Radio. Have you ever dreamt
of being on the radio, Well,

220
00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:30.000
now it's your chance. Be a
radio show guest on the number one ranked

221
00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:33.679
internet radio station and promote you and
your business for free. Yes you heard

222
00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:38.960
it, free business advertising right here
on W four cy dot com. Call

223
00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:44.759
five six one five zero six four
zero three one now to get booked on

224
00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:48.720
one of our shows. That's five
six one five zero six four zero three

225
00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:57.639
one. Get your free advertising now. And now back to winning business Radio

226
00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:03.000
with Kevin Helena for ending exciting topics
and expert guests with one goal in mind

227
00:17:03.400 --> 00:17:15.200
to help you succeed in business.
Here once again is Kevin Helena. We're

228
00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:21.880
back again with and it is a
treat my brother Chris halenan very professional,

229
00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:25.680
very accomplished Chris. This is a
big question. You can take it any

230
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:27.880
direction you want. What are some
of the most important lessons I don't mean

231
00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:34.039
technologically, I mean in terms of
business and experience and getting jobs, leaving

232
00:17:34.119 --> 00:17:38.079
jobs, whatever you want, but
more from a business case during those early

233
00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:42.599
early years, most important lessons learned. Well, let's focus it. I'll

234
00:17:42.599 --> 00:17:47.119
answer the question this way. First, is career development. Right, So

235
00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:55.079
I'll just say it publicly. I
never completed a college degree, and I

236
00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:59.720
had to work a little bit harder. I spent many years doing night school

237
00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:02.519
with the family of two of the
group two kids that grew to a family

238
00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:04.640
of four, which is six of
us. Right, took all the core

239
00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:11.279
courses for engineering and physics and calculus
and electronics and all that, but I

240
00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:15.039
never actually finished the degree. I
just ran out of steam doing it at

241
00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:19.039
night, and family demands just became
too great. But one thing that I

242
00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:25.880
have learned over the course of my
career is that if you really want to

243
00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:30.920
advance your career and move forward,
you need to limit your time at every

244
00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:36.400
company. So I think the longest, the longest stint I've ever done at

245
00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:38.880
any one company was six years,
and that's pretty much by design effect.

246
00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:41.359
If you look at my LinkedIn program, at six years here, six years

247
00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:45.839
or six years here, you learn, you become accomplished, you know,

248
00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:52.200
you succeed, and then you the
best way to advance to get more responsibility

249
00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:56.160
and of course more salary that comes
with it more compensation. You need to

250
00:18:56.200 --> 00:19:00.200
be prepared to move to you know, to a new job. And I

251
00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:03.079
you know, a lot of people
hate change, and I've you know,

252
00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:07.359
in my life, I've gone through
a lot of changes, and I don't

253
00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:11.759
hate change. I look at change
as a unique opportunity for a new chapter.

254
00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:15.599
Right. It's like it's I don't
have the fear of the unknown.

255
00:19:15.720 --> 00:19:18.119
Sure, I have trepidations with the
unknown, but but I've done that over

256
00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:22.799
the course of my career and it
has paid off. You know. I'm

257
00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:26.240
I'm in the latter stages of my
career now. In fact, I'm looking

258
00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:30.119
forward a couple of years or two
to that big our word and starting to

259
00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.240
put things in place for that.
But but that's that's something I've done,

260
00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:38.079
and I've done kind of intentionally.
I've been lucky. I've never been in

261
00:19:38.079 --> 00:19:41.880
the layoff situation. I've always been
working, you know, I've always done

262
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:45.240
it on my own terms. And
that's just pure luck. I mean,

263
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:48.000
there's a lot of people to get
in situations that where they can't control.

264
00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:52.279
But that's something that I would I
would encourage and I do. There's a

265
00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:56.720
few people in my company that are
young and kind of scarly in their career,

266
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:00.119
and I encourage them not pay,
don't leave the company. But if

267
00:20:00.119 --> 00:20:03.079
you really want to advance your career, spend a few years here, learn

268
00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:06.759
whatever you can, and then move
on and learn some new things and new

269
00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:10.640
challenges. So that's just the way
I've looked at it. Cool So you

270
00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:15.559
were also self employed, sort of
overlapping some of that, and that's twice.

271
00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:18.960
The first one I see is two
thousand to two thousand and seven,

272
00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:22.880
and again that's probably some consulting,
etc. Talk talk about that. What

273
00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:26.440
made you decide to do that and
what kind of work did you do?

274
00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:32.319
Well? What made me decide to
do that, I probably won't talk about.

275
00:20:32.359 --> 00:20:34.640
It was I got into a job
that I wasn't really satisfied with,

276
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.839
and I said, you know what
I would like to try in my career

277
00:20:41.400 --> 00:20:45.960
self employment. So in the old
proverbial you know line, I quit my

278
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:49.200
job and hung up a sign that
says engineer for hire. And that was

279
00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:52.240
in the dot com boom, and
I named the company. It was a

280
00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:59.079
Massachusetts corporation. I named it dsfour
dot com. At the at the time,

281
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:03.440
telecommunications was one of the big industries
and at the time, a DS

282
00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:07.279
three, which happens to be this
technical designation for a high speed connection or

283
00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:12.880
today's standards it would be ancient,
and so I figured the next big technology

284
00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:17.359
would be DS four, So I
named my company dsfour dot com. And

285
00:21:17.559 --> 00:21:22.359
basically what I did was I helped
companies to build small in bed we call

286
00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:26.440
them embedded systems. What's an embedded
system? You know, it's a small,

287
00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:33.759
often resource constrained device that often has
a single purpose. You know.

288
00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:38.079
A good example would be a GPS
unit. Remember in the day when you

289
00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:41.160
could buy individual GPS is for your
car. Now we don't need them because

290
00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:45.680
they're either built into the car or
built into our phone. But that's a

291
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:49.400
perfect example of an embedded system.
So I'd helped companies. I had a

292
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:55.799
broad expert expertise in a wide range
of technologies from the bottom of these systems,

293
00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:59.839
the hardware to the full stack of
software that runs on them, and

294
00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:03.039
the and the know how to put
all that together in a small form factor.

295
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:07.599
So I was getting paid good money
back then you're doing for doing that

296
00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:11.519
job. And yeah, what was
the hardest part of that consulting and being

297
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:15.759
self employed, Well, the hardest
part is you work out a lot more

298
00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:18.440
than forty hours a week because first
of all, your clients think you know

299
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:21.920
everything, and so you have to
you know, you have to do well.

300
00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:23.839
We do pretty much, Yeah,
we do. I do. I

301
00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:26.839
can almost say that now though I
would never do that. In fact,

302
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:30.079
the more I learned, the more
I know how much I don't know?

303
00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:33.720
But yeah, so you're you're doing
a lot of work to you know,

304
00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:37.319
to discover and learn and research you
know, the methods that you need to

305
00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:41.720
make the you know, make the
solution. And the other thing is you

306
00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:44.359
have to be a marketer. You
know, you have to be you know

307
00:22:44.519 --> 00:22:48.559
this, devote a certain times time
of your week to find clients because that's

308
00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:52.480
what keeps the bills paid. Ideally, you have a backlog, you have

309
00:22:52.519 --> 00:22:56.799
a client's waiting for your time as
you you know, free up. And

310
00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:02.039
mostly I was successful through my network, you know, around you know the

311
00:23:02.119 --> 00:23:07.400
area here of in finding in finding
clients, what was the most Yeah,

312
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:12.559
for sure, what was the most
rewarding part? I won't be I'll be

313
00:23:12.599 --> 00:23:15.400
honest with you. That was a
very good pay. Uh. You know,

314
00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:19.079
it was tough work, but it
was top dollar and I made a

315
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:22.200
lot of money in those years.
And uh, and you know I met

316
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:26.480
a lot of people, you know, I even around this area. If

317
00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:30.680
you look at my LinkedIn profile.
I probably have five thousand people in my

318
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:37.759
network, and I'll bet you I've
met a pretty substantial proportion of those people,

319
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:40.960
or you know, some of them. I haven't, But you know,

320
00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:44.960
I was connected to the local Motorola
office here, which is no longer

321
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:48.640
called Motorola. It's gone through two
different name changes since I was working with

322
00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:52.920
those guys. They make chips,
you know, microprocessor chips for one thing,

323
00:23:55.160 --> 00:23:57.680
and you know, just a lot
of different groups in the area,

324
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:03.839
the different distributor and the people who
sold these chips. You know, just

325
00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:07.799
knew a lot of people, and
that, you know, helped me to

326
00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:11.519
keep keep the you know, jobs
coming in. All right. Then you

327
00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:18.079
started to move over to software and
development monte Vista mentor graphics, and then

328
00:24:18.119 --> 00:24:23.279
you also moved over to what we
like to call the dark side, sales

329
00:24:23.359 --> 00:24:27.119
side. Now you were a technical
resource and sales. But talk about making

330
00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:33.480
that transition. Was it intentional?
Accidental? Purely, purely accidental. It

331
00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:37.599
is a matter of fact I mentioned
this Motorial office here. I don't know

332
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:40.599
what their status is today. It's
been quite a few years there in Wooburn,

333
00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:44.920
and if they're still there, it's
a company called NXP and I knew

334
00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:48.079
a lot of the people, the
sales people there and the faes, and

335
00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:53.799
the fae there actually introduced me to
someone at Montevista, knowing that they were

336
00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:59.279
looking for an FAE at monte Vista
who was really at a deep knowledge and

337
00:24:59.400 --> 00:25:04.599
embedded Linux and all things Linux.
And I met the v vice president of

338
00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:11.079
sales and he made me an offer
and I spent. I ended up spending

339
00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:14.880
six years there, and that was
a good run. I really enjoyed that.

340
00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:18.200
It was a startup. In fact, Monavius the Linux was founded in

341
00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:21.920
nineteen ninety nine. They were bought
out by a semiconductive vendor. They're still

342
00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:26.480
around under that name, but totally
different company now, but they were essentially

343
00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:33.480
a pioneer in commercializing embedded Linux.
For now, I'm going to get technical

344
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:38.680
for non X eighty six architectures.
What's x at six architecture? The computer

345
00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:41.119
you're sitting in front of right now, if it runs Windows, it's got

346
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:48.279
an Intel X eighty six chip on
and ighty six is a microprocessor architecture.

347
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:52.079
But there are other architectures, most
notably ARM. I should remember what that

348
00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:57.039
stands for, but I don't.
But ARM has just taken over the world

349
00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:03.759
in high performance power computing. So
they're the king of like every router you

350
00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:06.480
buy. You know, a lot
of routers you buy are gonna have most

351
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:08.960
I would say most get best buy. For example, they're gonna have armed

352
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:17.319
chips in not X six. So
monte Vista was a pioneer in commercializing embedded

353
00:26:17.319 --> 00:26:22.920
Linux solutions for non x eighty six
architectures. So that's what they did,

354
00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:26.559
and we were around for ten years. We never hit it out of the

355
00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:30.279
ballpark, so to speak, as
a company. It was very early days

356
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:33.680
in the in the in embedded Linux
business, but it was a great run.

357
00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:37.920
I've got lifelong friends from that,
you know, from that engagement.

358
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:41.039
So in fact, it's just out
in Austin a few weeks ago and at

359
00:26:41.079 --> 00:26:44.839
dinner with one of them. So
so we're going to come back to what

360
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:48.599
Lynx is. But for now my
computer runs M one. Just don't tell

361
00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:55.839
anybody, right, Oh so the
minds an M two. I love it.

362
00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:57.960
So An Fae, you were not
You're on the sales side of the

363
00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:06.960
of the house, so you're customers
commissioned resiz commissions. I supported a sales

364
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:11.319
account manager essentially, so we would
be he or she was doing the sales,

365
00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:15.400
the business, closing business, getting
in fun of people. You would

366
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:18.880
come out as a technical resource.
And yet my job is get a technical

367
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:22.240
win, get the technical win.
You said the words, right, you

368
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:23.240
took the words right out of my
mouth. That was my job, get

369
00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:27.160
the technical win. Yeah. So
there another couple of companies there, and

370
00:27:27.160 --> 00:27:33.440
then some more self employment which is
going on before we take the next break,

371
00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:37.319
which will be about two minutes.
You're currently at a company called Canonical.

372
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:41.799
If I'm pronouncing that correctly, you
are talk about the work that you

373
00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:45.160
do now. So yeah, so
I joined about a year ago. I

374
00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:48.960
am the director of Biot Sales,
as you mentioned when you on that great

375
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:56.519
introduction you made at the start of
the show, and I basically sell one

376
00:27:56.559 --> 00:28:02.799
of the world's most popular embedded Linux
up reading systems that specifically optimized for the

377
00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:06.480
IoT market. And unless you are
born, you know, unless you live

378
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:10.680
under a rock, you probably have
heard the term IoT Internet of things,

379
00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:14.319
right. I mean, there are
so many things in our daily lives that

380
00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:18.680
are example of IoT ring doorbells,
and you know, uh, you know,

381
00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:23.400
devices like that that are ubiquitously connected, you know, always connected to

382
00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:30.079
the Internet. Those are Internet of
Things devices. And the coolest thing about

383
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:34.319
this job is because Canonical as a
company is not so well known, but

384
00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:38.480
our product, which is called you
Buntu, you Be You n to you

385
00:28:38.599 --> 00:28:45.039
Buntu Linux is probably the most popular
Linux on the planet. And I get

386
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:51.000
to talk to companies that are household
names, people that you have in,

387
00:28:51.400 --> 00:28:55.599
Companies that whose appliances you have in
your kitchen, whose technology you have in

388
00:28:55.640 --> 00:29:02.799
your automobile, Who whose technology are
in you know, airplanes and farm equipment

389
00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:07.480
and retail restaurant chains and you name
it. You know, I don't want

390
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:11.680
to go and you know, yeah, you know, talk about prietary things,

391
00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:17.119
but everyday customers, you know that
household names, and it's really cool

392
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:22.359
to be involved with with with those
companies. Right all right, we're gonna

393
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:27.279
take our second break now and we'll
come back and talk about IoT and you've

394
00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:32.559
kicked this around, embedded Linux,
what linux is. We'll come back in

395
00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:40.559
just about another sixty seconds. We'll
be right back. You're listening to Winning

396
00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:45.960
Business Radio with Kevin Helena on W
four CY Radio. That's W fourcy dot

397
00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:49.920
com. Don't go away. More
helpful information is coming right up right here

398
00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:59.240
on the Winning Business Radio. Hey, this is Elliott Lewis of Holland Oates

399
00:29:59.240 --> 00:30:07.319
and you're listening to W four C
Y Radio. The YP dot com website

400
00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:11.519
is your local search engine. If
you're looking for a good restaurant, it

401
00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:15.279
can help you find the right one
nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if

402
00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:18.839
your car breaks down, you can
use the ypapp to find the closest repair

403
00:30:18.839 --> 00:30:22.200
shop. Or maybe you're just looking
for something to do on a Friday night.

404
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:25.720
While it has great local coupons for
all sorts of things in your area,

405
00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:29.000
no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something,

406
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:32.400
YP local search can help you find
it. So go to YP dot com

407
00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:36.240
or download the app to search local, find local, and save local.

408
00:30:40.839 --> 00:30:45.559
And now back to Winning Business Radio
with Kevin Helena, presenting exciting topics and

409
00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:49.799
expert guests with one goal in mind
to help you succeed in business. Here

410
00:30:49.799 --> 00:31:03.480
once again is Kevin Helena. We're
back with Chris hallinan director of IoT sales,

411
00:31:03.559 --> 00:31:07.279
accomplished author, speaker, instructor and
pilot and he's my brother from the

412
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:12.200
same mother. Talk about I don't
get to say that a lot. Talk

413
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:18.000
about define for the audience. Now
non technical business audience. What embedded Linux

414
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:23.160
is perfect, I'll start with Linux
itself, because embedded in just a special

415
00:31:23.160 --> 00:31:29.920
case. But okay, Linux is
an operating system exactly. It does the

416
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:36.880
exact same functions as Windows ten for
example, right, or Windows eleven or

417
00:31:36.920 --> 00:31:42.240
whatever you happen to be using Windows. Yeah, iOS is an operating system.

418
00:31:42.279 --> 00:31:48.799
The thing about Linux is that it
is. It is what we call

419
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:52.119
open source. Now, what is
open source? The best way I can

420
00:31:52.119 --> 00:31:56.279
describe it to tell you what it's
not. Microsoft produces a number of really

421
00:31:56.400 --> 00:32:00.279
nice packages, software packages. Windows
eleven is their just operating system. They

422
00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:06.519
produce Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint,
Microsoft Excel, etc. Those are what

423
00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:13.079
we call closed source software programs or
proprietary software programs. You cannot look at

424
00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:16.319
the software, at the source code
that makes those up. They're controlled solely

425
00:32:16.359 --> 00:32:23.519
by Microsoft. In contrast, open
source projects like Linux operating system are controlled

426
00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:29.799
by no one in a commercial sense. There's no company that owns the rights

427
00:32:29.880 --> 00:32:34.319
or controls the destiny or open source
software. And it's a fascinating movement.

428
00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:37.920
Gosh, I wish you could remember
the book. I will in a minute.

429
00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:42.000
It's a fascinating movement and its started, you know thirty some odd years

430
00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:47.359
ago, twenty five someone years ago, and it has grown immensely. Most

431
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:52.640
every company on the planet is using
some sort type of open source, and

432
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:55.839
open source is freely downloadable. You
don't have to pay for it. You

433
00:32:55.880 --> 00:33:00.400
can modify it for your own use. You can redistributed if you want to.

434
00:33:00.960 --> 00:33:06.640
You can look at the source code. It's it's developed by a community

435
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:09.880
of like minded people that could be
and usually are spread all around the world.

436
00:33:12.039 --> 00:33:16.319
So now let's talk about Linux and
specifically what Linux is. Linux just

437
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:22.279
happened to through a bunch of circumstances
that went the right way, become the

438
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:30.279
most popular operating system outside of the
Microsoft Windows world. And you got everyone

439
00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:36.119
that can hear my voice has touched
Linux in some way. For example,

440
00:33:36.640 --> 00:33:42.000
Linux is the length is the operating
system that powers the Worldwide Web. Okay,

441
00:33:42.440 --> 00:33:45.119
who uses Linux? Google is a
Linux house. When you interface with

442
00:33:45.160 --> 00:33:50.440
Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, we'll get back to Amazon to a

443
00:33:50.440 --> 00:33:57.720
special case. IBM McDonald's NASA,
Netflix. Right, those are just ones

444
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:01.640
that come off the top of my
head. Every automobile you step into modern

445
00:34:01.640 --> 00:34:06.920
automile today has got Linux under the
hood. It's everywhere, It's in your

446
00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:10.679
home, routers, it's in your
coffee makers, it's in your you know,

447
00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:15.519
you know, going to best Buy, and half the products in there,

448
00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:17.800
three quarters of are going to be
running some version of Linux. So

449
00:34:19.119 --> 00:34:23.800
it has become immensely popular, partly
because it's decentralized and companies, you know,

450
00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:29.239
are not beholden to any other company
for its future. And it's you

451
00:34:29.280 --> 00:34:32.960
know, support, etc. And
it just has it's taken over the world.

452
00:34:34.519 --> 00:34:39.239
And embedded Linux is simply an application
of Linux that's usually a little bit

453
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:45.800
smaller and runs on resource constrains constrained
devices, often devices which have no human

454
00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:50.800
interface or very minimal ones, likely
even interface on your microwave oven, right,

455
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:53.760
you know, no keyboard and screen
in the traditional sense of the word.

456
00:34:55.159 --> 00:35:00.800
And and and it's which you can
move with the book. It'll come

457
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:04.960
to me. But yeah, it's
open sources of movement, and Linux is

458
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:12.320
probably the most visible and most popular
products to be produced by this open source

459
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:17.079
software movement. So, work product
that's written in Linux, can it be

460
00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:24.320
copywritten? Can it be proprietarily protected? Linux cannot. Linux has been licensed

461
00:35:24.440 --> 00:35:30.400
by what we call a viral license, and by viral license, Linux is

462
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:37.719
copyrighted. But there are probably ten
thousand or more copyright holders. But it's

463
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:44.599
copyrighted under a very specific license that
happened to be designed here in Cambridge,

464
00:35:44.599 --> 00:35:51.039
Massachusetts, and that license is viral. It says that if you distribute this

465
00:35:51.360 --> 00:35:58.159
software, it must be distributed with
this license, and therefore the downstream users

466
00:35:58.199 --> 00:36:00.920
of it are bound to the condition
of that license. And it's what we

467
00:36:01.039 --> 00:36:07.199
call a copyleft license. That means
it gives the user the freedom to to

468
00:36:07.800 --> 00:36:13.840
have it, to modify it,
to examine it, to change it,

469
00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:17.760
to redistribute it. So it's a
viral license. So no, there's no

470
00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:23.360
possibility that anyone could take Linux.
They would have to convince you know,

471
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:29.719
thousands and thousands and thousands of copyright
holders to change and they would That would

472
00:36:29.719 --> 00:36:35.440
never be even physically possible. But
the code in the keypad of my microwave,

473
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:45.800
that process is that copyrightable. So
that's a good question. And I

474
00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:50.159
am not a lawyer, but I
do know a little bit about copyright.

475
00:36:52.039 --> 00:37:00.559
A particular arrangement of things can be
copyright right, like art, like a

476
00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:05.679
poet, like a book, like
a song. And it's very likely that

477
00:37:05.719 --> 00:37:10.159
an arrangement of software and hardware bits
inside of a microwave could be copyrighted,

478
00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:17.880
but copyright does not necessarily imply proprietary. It often does, But there are

479
00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:22.000
plenty of copyrights, like the Creative
Commons is a very very you know,

480
00:37:22.039 --> 00:37:29.199
you'll see that, Oliver, Wikipedia
is creative Creative Commons copyright and it's it's

481
00:37:29.239 --> 00:37:34.320
a permissive copyright license. So all
right, you mentioned Amazon as a unique

482
00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:40.119
case, thank you. Yeah.
So, so Amazon started out life as

483
00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:45.039
a couple of servers, you know, in a garage somewhere, selling books,

484
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:51.840
and those servers were running Linux.
And as the business grew and it

485
00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:53.960
was successful for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is

486
00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:59.519
the timing was right. The Worldwide
Web was becoming a big thing and bigglehead

487
00:37:59.559 --> 00:38:02.559
access and they could get online and
order a book. I remember well,

488
00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:07.440
I think one of the first years, I spent a ton of money on

489
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:10.920
books as part of my consultancy at
the time, and at the end of

490
00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:15.599
the year, they sent me this
tumbler, this Amazon tumbler, right,

491
00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:19.559
because I was such a great customer, imagine that, you know, I

492
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:22.920
spent them easily three thousand dollars on
books in literature in one year, and

493
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:27.840
they sent me a tumbling I think
can happened today. As the business grew,

494
00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:32.920
they moved. They grew from like
two computers running this service to two

495
00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:37.960
hundred computers running this service, to
two thousand computers running this service, all

496
00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:44.679
running Linux, to twenty thousand computers
running the service, and god only knows

497
00:38:44.719 --> 00:38:47.639
God on Amazon what the final them
what they run today. They have multiple

498
00:38:47.719 --> 00:38:54.840
data centers around the world, but
essentially Amazon is a company that's run on

499
00:38:54.880 --> 00:39:06.239
this giant, worldwide, world class
cluster of Linux PCs, of ordinary PCs

500
00:39:06.440 --> 00:39:09.960
running Linux. And what a lot
of people don't know is one of the

501
00:39:09.960 --> 00:39:15.599
bigger revenue contributions that Amazon has every
year is they actually have what we call

502
00:39:15.639 --> 00:39:24.119
a cloud service, so they you
can, what's a good example, Twitter

503
00:39:24.199 --> 00:39:28.119
runs as a cloud service, so
you know, you know, all of

504
00:39:28.159 --> 00:39:31.800
the all of the data and and
and the you know, the interaction from

505
00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:37.159
the user is managed on a remote
computer somewhere out in the cloud. They

506
00:39:37.199 --> 00:39:42.920
call it the cloud. And Amazon, you know, having these twenty thousand

507
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:45.000
or one hundred thousand, one of
the numbrous computers, they had a lot

508
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:51.239
of spare computing capacity, so they
decided to take that spare computing capacity and

509
00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:55.960
they created essentially the public cloud business
with this spare computing capacity, and they

510
00:39:55.960 --> 00:40:01.159
were renting out computer capacity. I
use it once. I was in monte

511
00:40:01.239 --> 00:40:06.280
Vista and I had to go overseas
to make a training course, and I

512
00:40:06.360 --> 00:40:12.360
actually put together a package so that
each of the people in the class could

513
00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:16.360
use an Amazon Compute cloud because it
required a lot of compute power to run

514
00:40:16.400 --> 00:40:20.199
this little class I was running,
and I couldn't count on the fact that

515
00:40:20.199 --> 00:40:23.719
they'd come with laptops could run it. So I actually used configured twenty four

516
00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:30.119
of these Amazon computer compute systems and
the class would log into those and do

517
00:40:30.159 --> 00:40:36.719
all their work there. So they
rent not only storage, but compute resources,

518
00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:40.519
compute time, and the business has
grown to this just enormous. They

519
00:40:40.519 --> 00:40:45.480
have dozens and dozens and dozens of
services. I have lost track on what

520
00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:52.480
they zillion resellers of it as well. Yeah, and all running on spare

521
00:40:52.519 --> 00:41:00.239
capacity on these giant farms of ordinary
PCs running Linux operating system. So right,

522
00:41:00.320 --> 00:41:05.039
So, last couple of questions.
You're on the advisory board of the

523
00:41:05.119 --> 00:41:09.639
YUKTO or YUCTO project, and that's
a giveback. What is that? Yeah,

524
00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:15.039
get back, that's something you do
to support that community. Yes,

525
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:21.280
yes, yes, I was employed
for a company called Mentor Graphics and I

526
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:24.360
kind of inherited the role. But
but yeah, So the Yakto project.

527
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:29.519
Yakto is some kind of atomic particle
or I don't even really know what it

528
00:41:29.559 --> 00:41:36.800
means. But the project is an
open source project that helps people build Linux

529
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:45.960
operating systems for their specific gadget.
Right, whatever the gadget might be.

530
00:41:45.320 --> 00:41:51.559
You know, whether it's a Wi
Fi router or a ring doorbell or any

531
00:41:51.599 --> 00:41:54.639
of a million other things. Right, a printer, a three D printer.

532
00:41:55.800 --> 00:42:00.400
I'm working with one company that's making
a lobster cutting machine. They're they're

533
00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:05.039
in Canada. Yeah, they cut
the clause before you get to eat either.

534
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:10.840
Yakto helps people build build Linux if
they want to do it themselves.

535
00:42:12.360 --> 00:42:17.559
And yakto also was adopted by all
the major chip vendors Intel has made.

536
00:42:17.639 --> 00:42:21.079
Intel was one of the founding members. They put a lot of money into

537
00:42:21.079 --> 00:42:25.480
the Acto project. NXP Semiconductor,
which used to be Motorola and then was

538
00:42:25.519 --> 00:42:32.199
Freescale and now was NXP and others
the arm ecosystem have contributed to the y

539
00:42:32.199 --> 00:42:36.599
Octo project, but it is a
community driven project. That makes help make

540
00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:42.599
helps make it easier for people with
not a lot of resources to build a

541
00:42:42.679 --> 00:42:49.440
demonstration prototype, proof of concept gadget
with an Linux operating system running on All

542
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:52.679
right, we're gonna switch gears.
We're gonna talk about your other passion.

543
00:42:52.840 --> 00:42:54.320
We talked a little bit about music. You're better than you say you are.

544
00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:58.880
But every time we get together as
a family, you and your boys

545
00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:02.960
have guitars and you know, always
entertaining everybody and we all sing along.

546
00:43:04.239 --> 00:43:08.800
But you're a pilot. How did
you get into flying? And I've got

547
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:12.239
a couple of other questions I think
the audience will appreciate, but how did

548
00:43:12.239 --> 00:43:16.159
you get into flying? Originally?
Okay, so I like this. One

549
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:20.280
of my favorite jokes is, you
know, in a party, cocktail party

550
00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:22.000
full of fifty people, how do
you know who the pilots are in the

551
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:31.280
room? They're gonna tell you?
So answered that way. No, this

552
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:35.159
is really this is really true.
I was on a business trip. I

553
00:43:35.199 --> 00:43:37.480
was in Atlanta. It was late
at night. I was watching TV,

554
00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:40.360
which is something I haven't done in
years and years and years, and up

555
00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:45.599
comes this AD one eight I can
fly, and I called was bored called

556
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:52.440
nineteen ninety didn't think anything of it. Two and a half months later,

557
00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:58.039
I get a letter from believe it
or not, Spencer Airport, which is

558
00:43:58.079 --> 00:44:04.000
just five miles west of which,
Massachusetts, a little old Spencer, and

559
00:44:04.199 --> 00:44:07.320
with an invitation to come down and
take a twenty five dollars introductory ride.

560
00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:12.480
So I did that, and I
met this gentleman who is someone who I

561
00:44:12.559 --> 00:44:16.119
admire as a person and as a
flight instructor to this day. His name

562
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:21.199
is ed Urbanowski and he still works
in the business. And he took me

563
00:44:21.280 --> 00:44:24.159
up for my first ride, and
I couldn't get the grin off my face.

564
00:44:24.920 --> 00:44:28.559
So I said, Okay, we're
going to figure out how to do

565
00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:31.559
this. You know. I got
a family of six and trying as making

566
00:44:31.599 --> 00:44:36.159
okay money then in those days,
but nothing wasn't knocking to get on the

567
00:44:36.159 --> 00:44:39.239
ballpark. But so I signed up
for lessons, and a year and a

568
00:44:39.280 --> 00:44:46.320
half later I became a private pilot. And over that time I have owned

569
00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:51.000
four different airplanes. I've kind of
moved up the pecking order, if you

570
00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:55.480
will, in the airplanes, and
anyone that knows aviation appreciates that the airplane

571
00:44:55.480 --> 00:45:00.440
an owning today. The beachcraft Bonanza
is kind of the king of the single

572
00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:05.559
engine family of airplanes. It's retractable
gear, high performance, you know,

573
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:08.880
three hundred horsepower, go fast,
go high type of an airplane. So

574
00:45:08.920 --> 00:45:12.559
it's it's it's the top of the
tier before you would move, say to

575
00:45:12.559 --> 00:45:15.880
a twin engine, propeller driven plane. And it's been a big part of

576
00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:21.679
my life. It's a big part
of my social life. Many of my

577
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:27.360
friends are pilots or have been pilots. As part of that, I've also

578
00:45:27.400 --> 00:45:30.920
lost a couple of good friends,
one of whom was the owner of that

579
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:35.239
Spencer Airport. But yeah, it's
been a it's been a big part of

580
00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:37.480
my life and it's a it's a
passion that I will always always have.

581
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:43.119
And you're in the middle of a
project. You're building a van's RV fourteen

582
00:45:43.239 --> 00:45:46.239
A. People that know airplanes will
know what that is. But the dirty

583
00:45:46.280 --> 00:45:52.960
little secret, So I did I
am? I have the project in my

584
00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:58.159
workshop. I think I bought it
in August at at the Oshkosh EAA flying

585
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:00.880
in Oshkosh, Wisconsin every year,
which just happened a couple of weeks ago

586
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:06.800
this year. And yes, I
bought a I bought a partial kit.

587
00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:08.760
They call it the Infanagi kit,
and I began to work on it,

588
00:46:09.119 --> 00:46:15.159
and I didn't own a plane at
the time, and I spent you know,

589
00:46:15.239 --> 00:46:17.920
many weekends and evenings in my shop
putting it together. So I have

590
00:46:19.039 --> 00:46:22.559
the horizontal stabilizer, the vertical stabilizer, the rudder, and I got the

591
00:46:22.559 --> 00:46:25.639
elevator mostly put together. And then
I did something really stupid. I went

592
00:46:25.639 --> 00:46:30.360
out and bought this bananza. And
I haven't done any work on it since,

593
00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:36.239
so I don't know that I will
continue. It's a decision I haven't

594
00:46:36.440 --> 00:46:40.000
made yet. I may sell it. I may contain valuable to sell.

595
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:45.960
Somebody would buy that. Yeah,
yeah, it's it most certainly has value.

596
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:49.280
But but yeah, just to be
fair to the audience, especially to

597
00:46:49.320 --> 00:46:52.039
the audience that may be builders,
I'm not a builder. I can't I

598
00:46:52.079 --> 00:46:55.519
can't put that label online. I
can't wear that hat a T shirt.

599
00:46:59.440 --> 00:47:02.079
Oh that's that's fair. So a
couple of last questions, who in the

600
00:47:02.119 --> 00:47:07.679
listening and viewing audiences should reach out
to you? And why? Thank you

601
00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:16.840
appreciate that opportunity if you are a
developer building products for this vast world of

602
00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:24.239
Internet of things, right, which
so, and I'll comment on what that

603
00:47:24.280 --> 00:47:30.239
means in a minute, you know, and you're looking for a super secure

604
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:36.800
solution with over the year firmware updates
and you know, uh, you know,

605
00:47:36.920 --> 00:47:40.440
ready to ready build off the shelf
operating system for that environment. We

606
00:47:40.599 --> 00:47:45.079
there's there's there's no competition for what
we are product called Ubuntu Core. But

607
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:47.519
let me let explain what people are
doing today, this IoT, this whole

608
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:52.079
IoT think there's this I mentioned at
the very early part of our conscious of

609
00:47:52.199 --> 00:47:58.719
timement, just trend to digitize everything, and another buzzword called industry for dot

610
00:47:58.719 --> 00:48:02.480
O. And these industries are now
putting in these processes, these measurement devices,

611
00:48:02.519 --> 00:48:06.599
like retail chains, the ones you
know and love, the fast food

612
00:48:06.599 --> 00:48:12.480
restaurants and restaurants. They're putting in
these computers to measure every single measurable thing

613
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:16.280
about that operation and then sending all
that data up into the cloud. And

614
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:21.400
then data scientists are crunching all that
data to figure out how to make their

615
00:48:21.440 --> 00:48:27.239
process is more efficient, how to
imcruse profits. And that is across every

616
00:48:27.280 --> 00:48:31.000
industry. Okay, And the other
thing that's hitting really big is artificial intelligence

617
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:36.920
machine learning. And I'm not afraid
of AI like others might be it's already

618
00:48:36.960 --> 00:48:39.920
in our lives, right, I
mean, you know, AI is going

619
00:48:39.960 --> 00:48:44.800
to be just an amazing technology for
a lot of different things. If you've

620
00:48:44.800 --> 00:48:49.960
played with Chat DPT, if you
haven't played with chat GPT, google it

621
00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:52.079
and give it a try it.
We'll write a song for you, a

622
00:48:52.119 --> 00:48:55.079
poem, and do a lot of
other things. But that's what's driving.

623
00:48:55.280 --> 00:49:00.679
So if you're involved in that industry
for Doto and digitization of your processes and

624
00:49:00.679 --> 00:49:05.639
your factories, your stores, your
your restaurants, that's that's where we play.

625
00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:10.000
We're an enabler of that technology.
Last question, how do people best

626
00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:15.719
reach out to you? Well?
Good question. So LinkedIn is probably the

627
00:49:15.719 --> 00:49:22.039
best, the best bet for for
publicly if you just search for Chris Actually,

628
00:49:22.119 --> 00:49:25.960
if you just search for Christopher hallin
an UH and throw the word Linux

629
00:49:25.960 --> 00:49:30.079
in there, I'm probably the first
hit and you'll probably find my LinkedIn profile

630
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:37.400
and I accept virtually every connection,
uh mostly and uh, And that's probably

631
00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:40.159
the best way to reach me from
a public point of view. Excellent.

632
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:44.320
Well, this has been fun for
me. I hope it's been good for

633
00:49:44.360 --> 00:49:49.719
you. I really appreciate you taking
the time, and it's been fun for

634
00:49:49.760 --> 00:49:52.000
me too. I was a little
nervous when you first asked me to do

635
00:49:52.039 --> 00:49:55.159
this. What do I know?
But I guess I do know a few

636
00:49:55.159 --> 00:49:59.360
things, and I'm old enough to
know a few things, old enough to

637
00:49:59.400 --> 00:50:01.239
forget a few Thanks, but thank
you for the opportunity. Of course,

638
00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:05.519
of course, thanks for being here. Thanks everybody for watching and listening.

639
00:50:05.519 --> 00:50:07.800
This is a show about business and
business challenges. Often. If you've got

640
00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:12.039
concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me

641
00:50:12.159 --> 00:50:15.880
on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business
Radio. You can drop me a note

642
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.760
Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com
is one of my several email addresses.

643
00:50:19.960 --> 00:50:22.719
Our company is Winning Incorporated. With
part of Sandler Training, we say we

644
00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:28.519
developed sales teams at the high achievers
and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors.

645
00:50:28.920 --> 00:50:30.480
We're not right for everybody, but
maybe we should have a conversation.

646
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:35.000
Thank you as always every single week
to produce our an engineer want thank you

647
00:50:35.039 --> 00:50:37.079
one for another job well done.
Be sure to join us next week That

648
00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:40.719
will be Monday, August fourteenth for
another fun and interesting guest. Until then,

649
00:50:40.920 --> 00:50:46.400
this is Kevin Helena. You've been
listening to Winning Business Radio with your

650
00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:51.599
host Kevin Helena. If you missed
any part of this episode, the podcast

651
00:50:51.679 --> 00:50:57.519
is available our Talk for podcasting and
iHeartRadio. For more information and questions,

652
00:50:57.599 --> 00:51:01.079
go to Winning Business Radio dot com
or check us out on social media.

653
00:51:01.199 --> 00:51:05.159
Tune in again next week and every
Monday at four p m. Eastern Time

654
00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:10.960
to listen live to Winning Business Radio
on W four c Y radiowfourcy dot com.

655
00:51:12.079 --> 00:51:16.000
Until then, let's succeed where others
have failed and win in Business with

656
00:51:16.079 --> 00:51:21.480
Kevin Hallinan and Winnie Business Radio