 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Hey everybody, welcome to our podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scott-O-Kataya, CEO and founder of JSA. Along with my fabulous co-host, you know him, love him well, as I do top B2B social media influencer, Mr. Evan Kirstel. Hey Evan. Hey Jamie, hey everyone. Welcome to Data Movers, where we sit down with the most influential men and women of today's leading teleco and data center world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of this new normal. Jamie, have you been had a quiet August? How are you? Really well, honored, humbled, excited. This has been an incredible August. And my friend, you and your amazing community are a huge reason why. Well, enough about me. I wanna talk about you cause you've gotten yet another award. Where do you put all these trophies? There's just so many awards and recognition. What's the latest one I was reading about the Inc 500? Yeah, yeah. For the second year in a row, we are so honored, excited to announce just yesterday actually that we made the Inc 5,000. This is the list of fastest growing private US companies. And it is such an honor to be part of this list. The amount percentage growth that you need to show that you've had in the past three years is staggering. And to be part of this list, which includes some of the most amazing companies before they went public, we're a part of this list. So to be on this list is so exciting. So such an honor. We came in at number 3700, which is exciting for us. We moved up a couple of spots from last year, 3810. And again, it's because of our team, our GSA team members, family members who have been with me for some of them 15 plus years on this wonderful journey. It's with our clients. Some of them we've been with us for 12 plus years. So amazing support along the way. And of course our community, that critical network infrastructure community that just keeps rolling with all of our wacky ideas keeps listening to data movers, keeps attending our virtual roundtables, keeps reading our books, greener data, just really so honored and humbled. Just thinking about the hundreds of thousands and millions of small, medium-sized businesses across the country. That's quite an elite world of the Inc. 5000. So congratulations. So that's just so cool. But we also have a cool guest speaking of cool. Shall we introduce ourselves to Link? Absolutely. Absolutely, guys. Get ready. We are very honored today to have Link Kroger, the president of Night Moves with us today joining us. And Night Moves, if you haven't heard of it yet, is a company working to really empower the next generation of elite technology professional through training. And there's a real interesting focus here too, guys, on including Native Americans and those folks in rural underserved communities. There's something that speaks to our hearts. Thank you. Welcome, Link. Well, thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks for being here. So I guess you would call yourself a social innovator, empowering rural and urban underserved communities, but you also have a deep enterprise tech and software background at the Green Computer Science. So tell us about that journey. It's not an obvious one for the viewers. Yeah, so one of the advantages of being old is you have an opportunity to have a lot of experiences. So I started writing software back in 1979 when the initial like Atari 400 came out back in that era for those who remember Atari and Commodore. And back in the good old days when you could, the magazines would come out and you'd find code in the magazines and then type it in, you'd learn how to code from all the magazines. So people- We're the same generation, so I love it. And I started with the Department of Defense. I grew up in a little rural town. So I just go into college, my older brother and sister, they went to college, got their degrees, came out with this massive debt. And I was like, I saw that commercial on TV where you do the GI Bill and you go and you spend some years in the military then you get your college paid for. It didn't quite go as the advertisement on TV went, but it had a good ending and I did get a computer science degree and it launched into a great 35 year career of from starting in the Department of Defense to consulting, to working for a Seattle based software company, small business, a lot of consulting, a lot of Fortune 500, Fortune 50, enterprise data shops that primarily custom development and package, but a lot of networking in the early years. And well, but the early years were really back in the good old mainframe days, right? We won't even get into all the vernacular of that technology but then it morphed into networks and internet over those years. Amazing, amazing. And I love hearing life journeys, those experiences that led you on this path to make sure really today's generation of high schoolers learn these necessary tech skills. There aren't those magazines anymore that we can learn code from, right? So that these high schoolers really can get the jobs here in America instead of say outsourcing them abroad and be able to afford this crazy economy, afford living. So tell us a little bit about your life experiences that have led you to where you are now. Yeah, unfortunately, I didn't plan it this way but it worked out is I've been fortunate to be part of very high growth companies. So when I was in the software industry back in the early 90s, working for commercial software companies, a little company I started at was about a 20 million a year in revenue and within a few years were 130 million. And when you get to go through those growth spells, you really get an understanding of what it takes to scale an organization, right? And then I went to work for a Fortune 500 company that was a 900 million a year in revenue company. And when I left, it was over four billion. My last company I was at, I started as a COO. It was about a $8 million technology services firm. And then we sold that about two years ago for 55 million. So when you think about these high growth, but all in tech and working with a great span of just from startups, Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 50, Fortune 500, enterprise transformation, any kind of project you can be on. When you're consulting, you do everything. And in that time there, I got a real passion because I saw just how much companies struggled at really, we talked diversity and inclusion, but companies really don't know how to solve it is my experience, right? And so I just kept, and I'm more of a pattern engineer, architect kind of person. So I just naturally see patterns and want to put in frameworks of architecture. And I'd see, okay, well, here's the commonalities between where the companies are not doing well or where the education system isn't. And then, well, how do we patternize that and create scalable approaches to solving these things? Because businesses aren't going to do it, education isn't going to do it, government's not going to do it. So there needs to be that social benefiting layer in the middle, which is what I do now full time is trying to live up to my name of link, right? Of being that glue that pulls it all together, but fills those gaps and helping people that need the most. Awesome. So you are right in the heartland in Iowa, not typically known for the leading edge of tech. And you have a mission of nurturing and keeping jobs locally in Iowa and other rural areas across America. Tell us about that mission and what excites you about it. Yeah, so our top three demographics we focus on are very, very unique contextually and how we work with them, but Native American, which we'll talk about a little, if we'll talk, we can go into any of these that are interesting and talk more, but urban underserved, which would be low income immigrant people of color, right? And then rural, displaced rural communities that we refer to as place equity now, just because you live there, there's a lack of equity because of proximity, right? And education and maybe broadband. So each of those areas we have unique approaches in, but in a lot of areas people go, why do you have an urban underserved focus? The other two make sense because you don't hear anything really about what's happening there. But really, when I say urban underserved, I mean, how do we reverse junk for case, right? So we wanna be in the neighborhoods that are the most distressed. So like recently I was in North St. Louis standing on a corner where four gangs, right? Their areas meet, right? And I mean, and it feels literally like, it feels like a third world country in the area I was in, right? You're walking down the street, buildings are collapsed, right? I mean, this is a common street, classes on the sidewalk, right? You see what's happening and you say, okay, instead of the traditional approach of gentrification, right? You bring money in, you invest, you bring shops in and you push those people out. Let's take the people in those communities, uplift them, upscale them, get them to be the people to invest in their community and build it out. Cause if you look at most urban technology training programs, it's they're not in those areas, right? They may bust people out of them, but we wanna be in them. We're not interested in being in the wealthy suburbs or so send us to the areas that need to help the most in urban. And then Native American, people have a hard time understanding, people understand there's a struggle, but until you really go, like state of Washington, I toured with the US Department of Agriculture on a rural prosperity summit tour and we went to all these rural communities in Eastern state of Washington. And it's the first time in my life, I've seen human beings living out of what I'd call garbage dump conditions, right? In our Native American community. And it's people that are way out, right? That are disconnected. When you're in a tribe, they typically, when they graduate high school, they typically don't leave to go to college. And really the tribe discourages in many cases because when you leave and go to college, you don't come back. Now think about, right? There's approximately 374 tribes, federally recognized tribes in this country. You can say Navajo, Cheyenne, Comanche, Wright, Sac and Fox, Kiowa, you can go down. But in reality, if you're talking to them, there's only 4,000 of us, of our people left on the planet and we're out in the middle of nowhere. So for our young to leave and then go to college and then they don't come back, we're ending our population. So it's such a different until you go and meet people. It's the challenges of it. And then when they say, what are you gonna do? Work at the casino, work at a gas station. So now you get into this, there is no hope these people are so creative just like everyone, right? The abilities are no different, but there's just no way for them to get the education and then to express themselves. And rural is pretty easy to understand, right? You're just the education lack, and most people have to migrate to get their education and then their jobs and they don't go back. But then you get into a whole spiral in rural just to summarize this, right? It's people don't realize when you're in a community that's rural and the population shrinking and the youth all leave, right? What happens is the local hospital can't get enough. People to keep it open, the local grocery store closes. And once you start that type of like in Iowa, even 88% of rural Iowa shrinking in population, right? Iowa's a very prosperous state and that's pretty normal in high rural states is you're gonna see 10, 20% doing well, you know? And then another larger percentage shrinking and the ones that are shrinking are really struggling with how do you stay on? I mean, it's just such a momentum, right? How do you reverse it? It's once it starts going that direction and that's our mission, those three areas. A lot of detail there, sorry about that. No, I love this. Yeah, I love this. So how do you guys help over at Night Moves? I know you're the president there. Yeah. So the first thing we do is if there's roughly, you know, a million, million point four jobs a year that go and fill computer science related to jobs in the United States. So our mission is to fill them with people that are better prepared than four year degree computer science graduates. And when I say better prepared, companies that hire graduates will say things, excuse me, like when we hire your graduate, that's like hiring a four year degree graduate in computer science after they have six months experience on the job. So what we don't wanna do is be the, you know, back to how do you see the gaps in the system, right? You don't, we're never gonna go to a company and say hire our people because they need your help and do the right thing. We're gonna go, we have the best product of the market for entry-level talent. And by the way, this is your chance to support diversity inclusion. So they're not taking, I mean, it's a benefit, right? We still look at it as how do we benefit the company with a better product or service? But then the people to start, imagine having the opportunity to be, say 20 years old, start at 60,000 a year to 70 and have no doubt to start your career, right? And a full support structure that got you there. So we will have a very, we have a very heavy emphasis on getting younger people in technology. When I say younger, we partner at the high school level. So we're gonna be talking to freshman, sophomore, junior, right? Cause like in Iowa, statistically, if you don't get into computer science by the time you're 18, you're 36. 36 is the average age of someone attending like a code camp. Because, you know, if they missed it when they were there. So we go in and we, this I will say we do an amazing job where let's say you're a group of high schoolers. We come in in 30 minutes, almost none of you have a clue of what a career in technology is like. We ignite a spark in you to say, wow, that is so interesting to me. I had no idea what's my next step. And then it's to sign up for a actual computer science, like front end web development course, for them to kick the tires. And, you know, all of us as adults, we realize you don't determine your future. You discover what you love, right? You go try some things. So we say, hey, you know what? Take a course, just take one course. If you like it, here's the next six courses you need to take that are prerequisites to our program. If you don't like it, you know, you're gonna end up being a doctor or an architect or a plumber. You'll have had a software development course. That'll help you your whole career. Everybody needs to understand technology. And they go, well, so we'll get 30 to 40% of the youth we talked to to say, I'm interested in signing up for it. And on our Native American outreach, we'll get 58% of all the kids we talked to to say, I'll sign up for that one course. And with 48% being female, just saying I'll try it and see if it's for me, right? And the way we do that briefly is, so we have these seven prerequisite courses they take, but then when they actually graduate high school and they complete the seven courses, you know, like, you know, like Java, advanced Java, you know, C sharp advanced, you know, database, you know, that kind of seven core computer science you'd see in any program. And then our program is six months long minimum. But what you do in our program is, it's all real world-based, which is, and I kind of prepped you guys before this, we're very genuine and real. So when you talk to like a young African-American man and you say, why aren't you gonna in the inner city? And you say, why aren't you going to college? You know, the number one answer I hear is not remotely, I can't afford it. It's, there's no way I'm going to sitting through four years of memorization and taking tests, I'm gonna die, right? I can't do that. So when, you know, relatability-wise, hey, well, let's look at our program. So for the time you're being trained, all you're doing is working with a team of seven to 12 people and creating real-world solutions. So nothing you do is like college, where you write a program, you give it to a professor, they grade it and throw it away, right? Not a lot of hard on that. I mean, you want to get your grade. So what we do is we team up with nonprofits who need technology and build the technology they need, a technology software product that advances and multiplies their mission. So imagine we're working with homeless or sex trafficking or food hunger, right? But now they're actually working with real people being affected and the leaders of those nonprofits and everything they create goes into production. And they learn all of the commercial, like secure codes, scalability, right? Continuous integration continues to deliver all of the modern software practices, software craftsmanship, right? Test-driven development. So they walk in with experience at most four-year college degree students don't even learn about in college because it's just commercial software development. So that was a mouthful, but again, to give you a spectrum of kind of how we do this that give you enough to dig in some different areas that are interesting. Oh, that's so incredible. And I do have a question. What inspired you to name your organization NightMove? That's K-N-I-G-H-T, like Night and Shining Armor. So nightmoves.org. Are you a chess player or what's happening there? Yeah, that's the background. So it's NightMove's like the chess piece, not like the Bob Seager song. So if you look at, like talking earlier about companies and them just knowing, I mean, not really knowing how do we really support diversity? Because diversity inclusion in companies is really moving diverse people between companies and not adding more diverse people to companies, right? That's such a great observation. Yeah, I will totally agree with that. So our focus is on adding to the group. So the night is representative of if you play chess, a night is the only piece that moves non-linearly and it's the piece that jumps other pieces or barriers to get to its destination. So it's that strategic piece that's just not gonna conform to the linear standards and it's gonna jump over barriers to get things done. And that's my brief, there's a lot of other, if you're an experienced player in chess, the night is also the piece that plays from the center of the board. Like I said, we wanna be in them. And you put a king in a position where they're either gonna lose a king or another piece. So just that night is a really strategic piece and that's why it's called night. And it's night moves, not night sets. So we are gonna be actively and kind of like data movers, right? We're a good match there. Yeah, yeah. Data sitters. No, that's right. That's right. So tell us also about these night moves, code camps that I was reading about, what sets them apart from traditional coding camps that night moves produces? Yeah, so I've described it, I touched on it a little earlier, but one thing we don't do is we're not a code camp at all because code camps are still about curriculum and teaching language, right? They've already had seven computer science courses before they come. Everything you do in our training program is building real world software. Think of it as a six months plus like capstone project that goes live in production, right? So that's what's different is you're working as a team, like an agile software craftsmanship team, building real product, using build servers. I mean, you could be, you would not know a difference between a team working for us or a team working for Google or Microsoft or a modern tech company, right? It's the way that they build software. I mean, in fact, Google's education department has reviewed our program and said your graduates meet or exceed the requirements of a four year computer science degree graduate. So you can send them right, because they have two programs at Google. One is an apprenticeship program for like associate degree grads, which is what most diverse candidates go through, right? Because they're not gonna have a four year degree. And then they have a pathway that's for four year degree graduates and our graduates go the four year degree path with them because, right? I mean, you're literally walking out of our environment and day one, you can code on a commercial team. You're just gonna say, what's your source code system? What's this? What's that? Let's rock and roll. Let's start coding. And it's- Amazing, I love it. And tell me, how do you spark that initial interest or curiosity with those freshmen or sophomores in high school to, you know, get into tech? I mean, I assume like my children were basically on Instagram and TikTok and online, you know, and really consuming content, not creating content. And my kids obviously are quite privileged and I couldn't get them interested in learning to code or develop software at that age. What's your process for sparking that interest? Well, it's really sparking what they're interested in. And by that, I mean, you know, my generation growing up, we were told, you need to go to college, you need to get a degree and you get a stable job, then you're gonna get a house with a white picket fence and you're gonna have labor after, right? The generation of today is cause driven, right? It's making a meaning, having a meaningful career, making a difference in society. So when we come in and we, when we talk to students, we don't talk about, we don't start off with, we're training, we don't start with it. We say, hey, we're night moves. We're the Silicon Valley of social innovation. And then we just give them examples. Like, let's look at what we do in disaster relief or how we would support this cause. And then we wow them with, it's kind of like the green piece of technology, right? Of, wow, you guys are actually doing this. And then, and that's where we start reeling them in because they're excited about looking at, you know, mobile solutions and these different kinds of, how do we solve these real problems, right? In society. And they're like, it's amazing instead of somebody investing money in Silicon Valley become a billionaire, you do it to enrich other people's lives. And then they're excited. And then we go, yeah, well, why don't you, why don't you be part of it with us? And they go, well, I don't know anything about technology. Great. Next semester of this course, it's free. Sign up for it. If you like it, keep going. If you don't, gosh, you've had that one course. It'll be great experience for you. Can you make it easier than that? Just part of your normal next semester schedule. Take one course and see if you like it. So it's such an easy sell to kids. That's why, you know, Native American kids would say 58% would say, I'll sign up for a course. I've got, why wouldn't I? I got to sign up for some course next semester. Let's see if I like it. Just a side note, not on the script per se, but, you know, when we were learning programming, it was Pascal and Fortran and Basic, and then you get into Assembler and all the advanced stuff. It looks like this next wave of coding will be citizen developers and low code and no code and all these kind of platforms. Will the current approach to learning software development be obsolete by a lot of this new technology or do you have to sort of learn the basics before thinking about those platforms? Yeah, so if you look at really getting into how we help people learn how to think, right, and approach problems, it's, we're gonna go after low code. We're gonna go after these, because, you know, if you're writing a program, like continuous integration, right? It's all about understanding you've got a system talking to a system and what do you expect that data to look like, right? And how do I, you know, data quality and it's not just crapplication. So we're teaching them software craftsmanship, which you can take those skills, like test-driven development, right? Like, why do you write tests before you write the code? Well, you know, here's all the reasons, right? If you really, you know, we won't break all that down on your show, but, you know, it's not just about writing the test first. It's, you know, there's a long list of very valuable benefits you get from doing that, right? So by teaching them, you know, what is security? How do you write secure software? How do you write scalable software? All of that translates to whatever technology. I mean, we are a polyglot mindset, right? Meaning poly, meaning many, glot, mean language. We don't care what technology you use. You're solving a business problem or a problem that benefits society with technology. And a polyglot mindset is what value am I producing and what technology best solves it? Whatever it is, I'll learn it. And I can learn it. So we teach them that no matter what technologies, you know, I started out with Fortran and Basic and Pascal myself. So, you know, whatever the language is, they come and go, but in the end, you're creating something of value and there's an approach to doing it that no matter how the technology changes, you still need to understand those. I love that. Software craftsmanship. We can have more developers and, you know, shift a few of those plumbers and electricians and carpenters may be into crafting software. Fantastic. Absolutely. And I want to shift the conversation a little bit here too, Link. We've been talking a lot about inspiring the next generation, but there's so much inspiration, passion that we're hearing from you personally. So my question to you would be, you know, what inspires you to just jump out of bed every day and do this work? And how has this inspiration perhaps evolved throughout your career? Yeah. Well, you know, we, that should be an easy question. You know, we all have our deep, what drives us, what makes us wake up? Well, for me, it's, you know, and while this is a techie background, right, this is actually a photography backdrop, but the reason this is in my office every day is it reminds me of why I'm here on earth, right? It's, you've heard the metaphor on earth as it is in heaven, right? So to me, it's, if it's in whatever your spirituality is of what heaven is like, you know, there's not poverty, there's not racism, there's not, you know, all these things that whatever there is in heaven should be here. And if, and vice versa, right, is there shouldn't be poverty and there shouldn't be these problems on earth. So that's my mission every day is to say, how do we create that experience on earth for people, right? How do we walk in love for each other? Like one of our videos that, one of our training approaches that we use for kids is kindness. And this sounds really simple, right? But we start out and we say, hey, you all have physical needs, right? I have physical needs. Like I need to eat, I need to drink, you know, share your physical needs, right? Well, the kids start chiming into kids, right? High schoolers, I shouldn't call them kids, but they start chiming in while I need clothing and I need a house and I dis and you know, when that slows down in the group, you go, okay, great. Well, what are your emotional needs, right? This is kind of like Maslow's hierarchy, right? As you kind of go through that. And then people share that. And then they share, well, you see, what are those deeper spiritual or meaning? Well, I need a life with dignity. I need meaning, I need purpose, right? And then you say, okay, simplistically, what kindness is is when you see another human being who doesn't have one of those things or who is not going to have them and you do something about it, you move, that's what kindness is, right? And everybody goes, oh, right? And you just see this pause of, I didn't know that's what kindness was, right? We've got a lot of divisiveness now. We were politically, whatever side you're on or not on, which I'm not on either side is, you know, creating wars with our people to divide each other. How do we come in and get back to commonality, kindness, love, right? So that's my mission and what motivates me is in the end, if we can come in and just say, how do we help each other, right? We're, and actually do something and not just pontificate it, right? That's what motivates me. Oh my goodness, I love that. Awesome. Yeah, and that's actually a good segue into our rapid fire section here at Data Movers where we just wanna learn even more about you as a person, Link. So we'll ask you a couple of fun facts type of questions and go ahead and respond with the first thing that comes to your mind. So first question up, when you first started coding at 14, what was your earliest coding creation? Well, I fit the profile of the typical male who gets into software development. I wanted to be a video game developer. So I was coding games and starting with out of, you know, magazines and typing a manual and just like little simple shoot each other kind of games or stuff like that back in the days of very minimal graphics, right? Yeah. I love the one where you just kind of bounce the ball on the two sliding. Long. Yeah, right. Breakout, long. Well, you and Elon Musk, you know, had similar start. So that's pretty funny. Well, still the number one reason we ask, we get from men, young men on why they wanna do this is I wanna be a video game developer. It's still number one today. That's one of our surveys. What is it for women just out of curiosity? Do you know? I couldn't give you one for women. It's just it's so dominant and prevalent with male it stands out. Interesting. But we have time, I will share a female insight on how we recruit though. Please, yeah. Well, so I was listening. So Avid podcast listener and I was listening to a podcast of an individual talking about, you know, equity with jobs between men and women. And I'm more of the type of just, I just sit back and parking lot everything and just listen to it and don't make beliefs, don't make decisions and just kind of let the data sit there. And he was sharing and it was Jordan Peterson and he was sharing that, you know, that women are more motivated by relationships and men are more motivated by things. Therefore, you're going to have more men and jobs like engineering and fewer women because engineering's related to men. So I listened to him, but I didn't believe his conclusion but I wanted to, because, you know, he's someone who has a lot of data, a lot of research, but I was like, I'm gonna listen to this and I go, well, I'm just gonna change the way we present. So whenever we present in all of our training materials, we always train with both my, with things and relationships. So when we speak and present to classrooms of high schoolers, we will always talk about when you do this, this is how it affects other people. This is the relationships, right? And we're very focused on software developments, not about things, there's things, but it's to help people. And we're always connecting relationally on the impact. And I can just say that one thing I learned while the conclusion of men and women may not all choose the right jobs, some of that to me is marketing, right? Like software development today is really a team-based collaborative approach, right? This solves problems for other human beings. It's not a, when I started, it was put somebody in the basement, slide a pizza onto the door once in a while and code pops out, right? Today it's a very collaborative process. So we get, normally we'll get around 38 to 40% female participation rate, which is off the charts. If you're from here, it's normally seven to 10%, like in high school participation and in the Native American culture to 48%. So I will say that I think it's a technique that works, but it's really just sharing the truth, but in a way where you've just consciously thought about it, right, of making sure we're talking about how this affects other human beings, right? Anyway, I don't know if there's truths to that, but I can tell you our numbers on women being interested increased when we took that approach. Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, I love that. Love the approach and the whole girls who code movement and similar ones like yours, it's fantastic. So you're a techie. Tell us about a recent tech purchase or piece of software or gadget that you bought or plan to buy. What's on your mind? Oh gosh, I waste so much money on tech gadgets. My wife just laughs at me. Well, the one I'm probably gonna buy that I'm putting off is the metagoggles, right? Because there's so much advancement around training and we do work in rural communities and distressed communities that you just physically can't get a person to. So I think it's time that I really delve into it. I've just intentionally waited for it to kind of mature and develop some on its own, but that's gonna be the next gadget I'm sure is diving. Yeah, I have Oculus and it's kind of a cool platform. If you have some rudimentary developer skills you can create apps as well, which is so fun as a way to get started. Well, also Facebook Meta did these sunglasses with a sunglass company that's famous I'm blinking on the brand. Yeah, I had those Jamie, but I was wearing them to meetings and kind of people freaked out when they realized. Freaked out, people noticed? They, well, eventually they're like, are there cameras in your classes? Yeah, why do you keep taking my picture? Are you recording this? So what was awesome though is the other day we went to a concert and a new trend is they force you to put your phone into this digital pouch that keeps them quiet and so you're not taking photos of the performer. Oh, so now we have the glasses, you can't escape. So it was like, oh, we can't do any selfies. We can't do, I went with another couple and he had his glasses on and he was like, so we actually got some picks out of an experience that was totally unlocked down, which was kind of neat, but yeah, probably not what it was tended for, but. Anyway, back to you, Ling, so sorry. So as someone with a software development background, what at the top, say two to three software programs you just can't live without? So for me, YouTube's number one, because I'm listening to six hours of other people's thoughts. And when I say other people's thoughts, you don't know diversity of thought until you've looked at my YouTube feed, right? Of I don't care where it comes from, I'm at least gonna chew on it and think about it, but not listen to their conclusions. I wanna hear what their data, right? And then think about it. I'll link then just because it's, you're connecting with people all the time. And then I'd say my current like, if you wanna call it FAD is health related type thing. So I'm just totally enamored by traditional healthcare and functional medicine like Dr. Mark Hyman and all the people that are out there. So like I have a FitTrack Pro, which I've lost over a hundred pounds in the last two years. Oh, I can show you my fat link pictures and this, but it's, I get obsessed, which is why I haven't gotten the Oculus or Madagoggles, right? As I know, as soon as I get them, I'm gonna get obsessive compulsive about it, which is what I do until I master it and then get bored and then move on to something else. But right now my current is really bridging because I have both doctors I work with is like traditional and functional. And I work with ones that say, it's okay to work with the others, but like the tests they do and they're a thought approach on it, it's like two different planets, but they're gonna come together. And when they do look out because they're both not succeeding individually, but they both have elements of working together. So the answer of the FitTrack Pro and the reason is when I started, I had 18% fatty liver, right? And I was taking two types of insulin every day, the fact that I was on two high blood pressure medicines, high triglyceride, high cholesterol, two insulins for being type 2 diabetic. 11 months later, after starting intermittent fasting and getting into all the new understandings, I was off 100% of all meds and have been off all meds for 13 months now. And the whole focus was on how do you not reduce your body fat but your liver fat, right? Because that's what's making you insulin resistant. So the technology that you can stand on the scale and it tells you your percentage of fat in your liver. So all of those little devices that can give me sensor feedback on things like that would be my current kind of fad or study area. Or podcast. Oh my God. That's a whole nother podcast episode. I wanna hear a little bit more about it. Okay, we're gonna do a part two. We're gonna do a part two of this episode because it's too fascinating. Unbelievable, yes. Not too. So I'll hold that thought because I wanna share what I'm doing with my aura ring and my Apple watch and my Wu Band and all that stuff. And I'm fascinated by speaking of OCD. I guess final question for this round. One word that people use to describe you, Link. PG-13, please. So only... Well, it would be Link, but with an L-I-N-K because that's what I do is just what's the piece that's missing and how do I link and bridge together for that to happen, right? How are you named Link? That's a question I'm curious about. That is not a usual name. So a short funny story with that. My dad named me Link, right? So growing up as a little kid, I'd say, Dad, there is nobody named Link, right? And it's Link, it's not Lincoln, it's just Link. And I said, Dad, why did you call me Link, right? Mom said, you name me. I mean, that's a cool name. I like it. I love a one syllable name too. It's easy. And he goes, when I was stationed in Germany, it was popular in Germany, you know? And I thought it was cool. And I did the exact same thing. I said, oh, that's cool. And then when I was in college, I was taking German classes. The instructor was actually from Germany. I mean, this is a long time later, right? I said to the instructor, I go, oh, I'm Link. You've met a hundred links. And he goes, never heard of it. So I go back to my dad, right? He's now in his like sixties. I said, Dad, he told me when you're in Germany that you named me Link was popular. I go, that wasn't true. Why'd you do that? He goes, God, remember that? I didn't know what to say. I just panicked and I made something up. I don't know why I named you. I just went, I go, you look like Link. And I go, why didn't you just tell me that? So anyway, that's the funny story around it is I lived like 15 years of my life thinking it was because it was popular in Germany. And here my dad just was like, it was the pizza he ate. He thought it was cool, right? Well, it's cool. You're cool to us. So thank you so much for joining. And you're quite the Renaissance man. We're really excited by what you're doing. And I'm inspired to volunteer. So I'd love to chat after the show about how you might be able to leverage a washed up Fortran developer. But I'd love to help with the mission at Nightmove. So let's chat. Well, thank you. I can say, hey, telecom and data center, tech, tech business owners and leaders out there. If I hope you're as inspired as we are with Nightmove's and you're looking for some great talent that really true embraces the DNI mindset that I think we're all really striving for these days, check out link. Yeah, thanks. And we also do full spectrum in the DevOps space, which is overlaps in your space in that area. Awesome. Because you've got to know DevOps if you're going to be a software craftsman, you can't not know it. Absolutely. Wow. So fascinating. Thank you so much, Link. And Evan, thank you guys for joining us here. And if you've enjoyed our Data Movers podcast today, as much as we did, go ahead and check us out at jsa.net slash podcast for more episodes releasing every other Wednesday morning. And follow us on Twitter as always at Evan Kirstel and Jay Scott, are you on Twitter? Are you a Twitter guy? Just LinkedIn. Okay, we're going to change that. So follow us all, Link will soon be on Twitter. And until then, everyone take care. And as always guys, happy networking.