Alter Everything Podcast

MaddieJ · ‎05-21-2019

We're joined by Ryan Carson, Founder and CEO of Treehouse, for a chat about the importance of enablement in tech, and automation and the future of jobs, and Ryan's memories from SXSW over the years.

Panelists

Neil Ryan - @NeilR, LinkedIn
Ryan Carson - LinkedIn, Twitter, Change Wave Podcast, Treehouse

Topics

Community Picks

Ryan:

Neil:

“The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect” by Judea Pearl, Dana McKenzie

Judea Pearl - Turing Award winner

Transcript

Episode Transcription

NEIL: 00:13	[music] Welcome to Alter Everything, the podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Neil Ryan, and I'll be your host. We're joined by Ryan Carson, the founder and CEO of Treehouse, for a chat about the importance of enablement in tech, and the automation and the future of jobs, and Ryan's memories from the South by Southwest over the years. Let's get started. Ryan, welcome to the Alter Everything podcast. It's great to have you here.
RYAN: 00:48	Yeah. Honored to be here. I was privileged to hang out with your CEO, Dean, and I'm a big fan of your product. So this is a fun opportunity.
NEIL: 00:57	Awesome. Well, can you just introduce yourself to our audience for those who don't know you?
RYAN: 01:04	Yeah. You bet. So my name is Ryan Carson, I'm the founder and CEO of Treehouse. We're an online school that teaches software engineering. And over the last eight years, we've taught 850,000 people how to code with computer science fundamentals. And we have an exciting direction that we're taking now, where we're using all that knowledge, about turning people into software engineers, and we're helping companies build diverse talent pipelines. So that they can actually build inclusive balanced teams, but also, invest right back into their own neighborhoods. So really fun and powerful work.
NEIL: 01:46	Very cool. Yeah. I was looking at Treeehouse earlier. It seems like kind of a crowded market space with the code academies and the Khan academies, what do you guys do that sets you apart?
RYAN: 02:02	Yeah. It's interesting because I started the whole business because I got a computer science degree. And then I got a job, and I realized about 18% of what I learned was actually useful. And I thought, "The system's broken." So we essentially distill the computer science degree down into its essence, and just focused on helping consumers learn how to code. And we did that for a long time, like I said, 850,000 students over the years. And we're a fancy code academy and [inaudible] and everyone else. So I think everyone's doing great work. But what we realized is that the tech industry was not really changing. The systematic problem that we have, diversity and tech was really not being changed by all of us creating these accessible online schools. And so we just decided to go a step deeper and try to be a part of solving that deeper problem. And we ended up creating a completely unique program that really is nothing like what other companies are trying to do. So we essentially partner with local communities like the Boys and Girls Clubs or Dress for Success for our source of amazing talent. And then we use our online boot camp, it's called the Techdegree, and the students go through that while they hold down a job for about six/seven months. And then we mentor and support them as well. And then we onboard them as apprentices at a company. So we actually are working with companies like Adobe and Nike and Aquea and amazing companies like that - Mailchimp is a big customer - and then we actually help them run that apprenticeship. We also train the company on equity diversity inclusion so that those apprentices are successful. And the beautiful thing is this is $0 to the apprentices. So the program is completely free to them because it's funded by the company. So it really has turned into something totally different. So--
NEIL: 04:14	It sounds like diversity is just baked into your company from the beginning rather than being kind of an afterthought?
RYAN: 04:22	It is. Yeah. It's becoming our refined company mission now. So our mission is to diversify the tech industry through accessible education and apprenticeship, and we're extremely passionate about it.
NEIL: 04:38	So how did that come to be? How did that become the kind of the principal mission?
RYAN: 04:42	Good question. Yeah. It's an interesting story. So what happened is, two years ago, I signed a diversity pledge here in Portland, Oregon, where we're headquartered. I was raised as a moral person where I wanted there to be equality. I believed everybody should have equal opportunity. So, of course, I signed it. And then, I took a brutal look at my own company. And just realized, "Wait a second. If I believe in diversity inclusion, then why is my company so white and so male? How did that happen?" I am the CEO. So everything, ultimately, is up to me. So I just went into learning mode, research mode, for a year. And I discovered that actually as a white CEO, as a male, I had an important role to play where I needed to, from the top down, help create change. And we decided, "Let's just change Treehouse." This wasn't sort of a mission to change the larger tech industry. It was just, "Hey. Let's change ourselves." And we did a pilot program with the Boys and Girls Clubs because they're right here in Portland. And we kind of put together that four-part system just as a pilot. And it was wonderful. It really blew my mind. We ended up going from 1% to 7% Black African American employees. We went from 27% women to 44% women in our revenue team. It just was fundamentally transformational but also personally very impactful to me. Because I realized I could use all my privilege for good and actually be a part of that systematic change. And then I realized, "Wait. We could do this for other companies." So we started doing it, and that's what we do today.
NEIL: 06:41	That's really cool that you're not only bringing it in-house but using the same principles to help other companies get there. Why--
RYAN: 06:51	It's amazing I love it.
NEIL: 06:54	Why did diversity kind of become so important to you in the first place. I mean--
RYAN: 07:01	What caused that?
NEIL: 07:01	--why do you think diversity is important overall?
RYAN: 07:03	I'm not sure exactly what caused it, other than I was raised by parents who told me over and over again, "People matter the same, no matter who they are or where they're from, what they look like." That was drilled into me. And what's interesting is, I kind of believed the narrative for a long time that America's a land of equal opportunity. That here you could kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And, in fact, that's why I started Treehouse, Because I thought, "If we just bring the computer science education to the masses for 2% of the cost, that should change everything," right, if theoretically it's completely accessible, extremely effective, but the proof is in the pudding. I just looked at the industry and realized nothing was changing. We were helping people, but we weren't changing the system. So I think it's been baked into our mission kind of from the start, but I didn't understand the systematic problems that we actually had to work on. And then once I understood those better, I realized, "Oh. We can be a part of the solution," not because we're the white saviors fixing everything, but just because we can play a role.
NEIL: 08:24	So now that Treehouse has become more diverse and you're helping other companies become more diverse, have you seen an impact on kind of business results one way or the other?
RYAN: 08:38	Yes. It's just amazing. We just had a stand-up, and the group was remarkably more diverse than it was a year ago. And it just brings this joy and this creativity to every meeting. It really is shocking how many more ideas we have, how many new perspectives we have, just by having different people in the room. So that's one thing for sure. The second thing is I've noticed a remarkable difference in our connection with communities that have traditionally been boxed out of tech. The Black community, the Latinx community, community of women in tech, are really connected to Treehouse in a way that I never thought would ever happen. Which is having some great financial impacts for us, great. We are getting an increase in students and business customers, but the moral impact and the creative impact, for me, has just been enough. It's been wonderful.
NEIL: 09:45	Yeah. That's awesome.
RYAN: 09:47	Thanks.
NEIL: 09:48	Well, besides diversity, I also noticed on your website that you offer kind of UX Design courses. That seems a little out of the box for code camps.
RYAN: 10:00	A little different? Yeah. So again, the mission is that we diversify the tech industry through accessible education and apprenticeship. And what's interesting is we just started the with software engineering because it's what I knew. And what we're doing is we're slowly expanding out to a ton of different job roles. So UX design was the next kind of tangential job title. It's elated to software engineering but different. And we're going to continue to launch more and more job titles that don't have software engineering at their core. Because that's where there's more jobs. And In the end, what do people need? They need jobs. They need wealth. That's how we close this gap between the wealthy and the non-wealthy are getting people into tech where the wealth is, so.
NEIL: 10:58	Cool. Very cool. So besides Treehouse, I know that you have your own podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into that?
RYAN: 11:10	Yeah. It's kind of funny. We launched a podcast called Educate Yourself. It kind of came from this gut instinct I had that if you have interesting conversations with interesting people, something good will happen. Something good will happen for them; something good will happen for Treehouse. So we just booted it up and started. And I noticed that at the end of the podcast, we essentially had a relationship with somebody. It was powerful. And we both benefited from it. So we decided, "You know what? Let's really lean in on this and do more. So we've evolved that to be called Change Wave. And what we do is we get amazing guests like Dean, your CEO, on the show. We get fascinating influencers like Patrisse Cullors, who founded the Black Lives Matter movement. We get just really interesting, powerful people on the show, and then have conversations. And it's been a game-changer for me personally. I'm sure, as the host of this show, you've kind of experienced a lot of that. And it's fun.
NEIL: 12:20	Yeah. We talk to a lot of people in kind of the data and analytics industry, but we don't talk to quite as many founders and CEOs as you do in your podcast. So let me take that opportunity to kind of flip things around a little bit and ask you, what is it like founding and operating your own company? Do you have any cool stories about how you guys started with that?
RYAN: 12:48	I do. It's like any great job. There's just tremendous peaks and tremendous valleys. And I think the wonderful thing about being a founder CEO is that you're trying to solve a problem that you really believe in. I mean, Dean, just exuded this, that he truly believes in the citizen data scientist. Let's empower people by allowing them to understand data, to change it, to report on it, to understand it. And so I've felt essentially that Treehouse is my religion. That it is the most powerful important thing I'll ever work on. And that is the wonderful thing about being a founder CEO is that you can do that every day. But then, it's punctuated by these just moments of extreme stress and hardship and loneliness. There's this wonderful and terrible dichotomy of being the most powerful person in the company but the same time the one person in the company where all the responsibilities stop. And you can't ask your employees what they think your strategy should be as colleagues. I mean, they are your employees ultimately, and it's a lonely place to be. So it's good and it's bad. I've been doing this for nine years now, and I think the big lesson I've learned is that even as a founder CEO I need to have discipline and I need to work very hard versus trying to treat it as a job where I work less and less. It's actually more and more intense, but I'm okay with that.
NEIL: 14:49	I listened to an episode of Change Wave the other day, the one with Sameer Dholakia, the CEO of SendGrid, and I remember he characterized his leadership style as I think leader-servant style, being a servant to the employees at his company. How would you characterize your leadership style?
RYAN: 15:19	Sameer is an impressive leader. And I loved interviewing him for that reason. I've become that leader. I would say it didn't start out like that. I think I was a little bit entitled when I started. And I thought the CEO founder title gave me right to sort of not have to be a good manager, not have to be hardworking and disciplined. I just had to have the creative great ideas. And I've since learned that's just not true. You have to be both. You have to be innovative and creative and disruptive. But you also have to be consistent and kind and serving and supporting. And I think you really nailed that. And now I've learned that actually being a good manager is literally about serving people and supporting them and taking care of them, and truly wanting them to win. So we have regularly scheduled one-on-ones. We use a framework from a book called Speed of Trust, to specifically build trust. And then we used the feedback mechanism from Manager Tools. And there's all these important things about being a good manager whether you're in technology or sales or customer service or anything, that you don't get a get-out-of-jail-free card just because you are a CEO or whatever.
NEIL: 16:58	So for our listeners out there who might be thinking of starting their own business, can you give them a little advice or maybe one thing that you did well that you'd recommend and then maybe a mistake you made, something to avoid?
RYAN: 17:15	There's a lot of the second one. The first thing I'd say is be brutally honest about whether you are delaying showing your idea to people. And here's what I mean by that. It's so hard to get over that hump of just showing somebody something you're working on and saying, "Would you buy this?" Actually, "Will you buy it? I know it's not done yet, and it doesn't look great yet and doesn't really work. But what do you think about it?" And it's so important to get over that. So when we built TalentPath, the apprenticeship product that I'm talking about, thankfully, we did that right. So I basically said, "You know what? Let's just put together the basic pieces here and then let's get it working and figure out what works and what doesn't. And as soon as I have the minimum viable product, I'm going to ask somebody to invest in it and pay us for it." And when I look back at how primitive TalentPath was when we first sold it to now, where it's just light years ahead, it's almost painful to think about how rough it was, but yet it worked. We had four amazing apprentices that got placed at Nike and Envision and Treehouse, and they're successful today. So I guess the message is, "Don't overthink it." And then the most important thing-- and probably a lot of you listening to this are in the engineering space and the data space. Maybe, you don't think of yourselves as salespeople. I would strongly, strongly, encourage you to challenge your perception of what sales is. And it is not cheesy people in suits, it's you. And it's you asking someone to pay you for your idea. And you've got to go out and ask one person to do it. And then what you'll find is actually you'll have to go out and ask 10 people to do it because only one will say yes. And that's the most important lesson I've learned. And thankfully, we did that right the second time around.
NEIL: 19:37	So you're basically-- I mean, your background is in coding, right? So was that hard for you to get over to become the salesperson?
RYAN: 19:44	It was. I hated sales. I mean, I really, really hated it. I felt uncomfortable. I felt like I was trying to get people to do something they didn't want to do. I just hated it. And it majorly hamstrung my career. Looking back, it was my biggest mistake not realizing that all of us are salespeople especially me as a founder. I just wanted to put on my headphones and create the products. There's an interesting story actually that caused this metamorphosis. So we were talking to another company that wanted to acquire us, and I was kind of going through the motions. Every CEO has this happened to them where someone comes along, at some point, and says, "We want to buy you." And it's a good idea always to entertain those conversations to see kind of what happens, whether you want to do it or not. And we kind of went down the road a little bit, and then at a certain point, I decided this isn't the right thing for us strategically. It's not the right thing for our mission, so we're not going to do it. And I was texting the other CEO - I remember I was on the couch watching Friends with my wife - and we were texting back and forth. It was late Thursday night. And I said, "I don't think we're going to do this deal. I really appreciate your time and thank you, for your interest, but let's part ways."
RYAN: 21:21	And he was funny. He said, "Are we breaking up over text [laughter]?" And I now replied. I was like, "I think so. Yeah. Yeah. We are. Sorry." And he's like, "Common men. Let's at least have a phone call." So I said, "Okay. Let's do it." And he said, "Let's have it nice and early." So I think it was 5 AM the next day. I wake up early now, but I didn't back then. So woke up at 5 AM, my whole family is asleep, and I was pacing around in one of our rooms having this phone call. And I said, "I just don't think this is going to happen. I'm sorry." And he said, "Are you sure? This is like a 1 plus 1 equals 10 thing. Common let's do this." And I said, "No. I don't think so." And he got quiet and didn't say anything. And I just kind of waited. And then he said, "We're going to crush you." And it kind of blew my mind. Because I knew we had competitors. I knew that people wanted us to lose and wanted to beat us, but no one had ever said it to my face. And it changed me. Now, what happened is, I realized that I didn't have the right or the luxury to not go out and do sales. As the CEO, it was my job to protect the company, to go out and perform deals, and make things happen and drive revenue. Because if I didn't then this man was going to end us. And I thought, "No." I believe in our mission deeply to the bottom of my soul. I can not allow this to happen. Not because of some man to man ego thing, it was because if he does crush us, then all the students that were serving and placing in jobs, they will lose. And I can't let that happen. And I just almost turned into a different person. I realized at that point I had no choice. And the next morning - I think some of my employees know this, and I'm sure some will listen to this podcast - I googled how to sell [laughter]. I actually went to YouTube, and I found some videos, and I literally taught myself how to do sales. And--
NEIL: 23:42	You can find anything on YouTube, huh?
RYAN: 23:43	You can, now. And the point I'm trying to make is that if you truly believe in your products or your business, you need to do sales. And the beautiful thing is you're selling something you believe in. So you're actually going to help people. So now, I'm fortunate to be doing these massive deals with Adobe and Nike and MailChimp, and we've got a huge deal with a big telecommunications company that I can't say the name of. And all that happened because I eventually just got out the door and basically just started asking people, "Will you buy this thing? Here's how it's going to help you." And got rejected a ton of times and eventually, somebody said yes. So please, if you're listening and you believe in your product, take this to heart. And know that actually if you do sales right, it's actually a wonderful empowering thing. Because you'll literally help people use your product and that will then change their life in some way.
NEIL: 24:49	Well, that's great advice. One thing I wanted to talk to you--
RYAN: 24:51	Learn the hard way.
NEIL: 24:55	I wanted to talk to you about something that I've been thinking about lately. I think everybody has because it's all over TV and blogs and everything, but automation picking up, robotics, AI, you're a coder, you're in tech, do you think that any jobs are safe from that long-term?
RYAN: 25:21	This is the question. It's interesting. And I keep referring back to Dean because I thought many things he said were interesting. And he basically said something to the tune of don't under-represent the power of the human just yet. And when I use Alteryx, it's fascinating because it really is an extremely complex process my brain is going through that's augmented by the tool, right? So I know if I combine these two spreadsheets and then I clean them up and I change the column names and I do some analysis, something beautiful will happen. Now what's happening is, I'm being augmented by technology in a powerful way. But that creative synthesis? We are so far from machines being able to do that. Now, yes, that will happen at some point. But I think at its core-- today actually, my kids are literally in the room with me right now, it's take-your-kid-to-work day. And what I tell them over and over again is that that creativity is the future. As a human, the value that we're going to bring is creative. Data analysis, augmentation, machine learning is going to augment that. And I think we're very, very far away from that being replaced purely by machines. And I think we're going to end up in some sort of cybernetic version of this thing where who knows? But I think right now, that's where the future is. That's where the jobs are going to be, and being creative and then augmenting that with tech. Now, there is an immediate imperative danger where jobs are going to be replaced, driving is one--
NEIL: 27:25	Trucking.
NEIL: 27:26	Trucking. I mean, I believe Elon Musk that he's going to release a fleet of Teslas from people's driveways, and it'll be autonomous. That's going to happen. So I think there is a desperate need to retrain people into high paying jobs. And that's part of the reason I'm so passionate about what we do. The wealth is in tech. So we need to get people out of these jobs that are going to be automated in the next five years, and we need to get them into tech as software engineers, as data scientists, as UX designers, as marketers, as salespeople. That's where we have to get people. Because that's where the jobs are going to continue to be, I think, for decades. So that's kind of where I stand on it.
NEIL: 28:16	Yeah. So it sounds like you're thinking about that already when you're designing coursework. And working with kids is pushing them to those areas where they'll be able to thrive regardless of the machines.
RYAN: 28:29	Exactly. It's creative. Got to get creative and then figure out how the tooling augments that. There is huge value creation there.
NEIL: 28:38	Very cool. Well, we are at the point of the show where we move on to our final segment, community picks. So Ryan, can you give us something that you've read or seen lately that would be interesting for the listeners?
RYAN: 28:56	You bet. I have two things. The first is a powerful paper that was written by the Kapor Center in Oakland, and it's called The Leaky Tech Pipeline. There is massive misunderstanding primarily by engineering leaders about the talent pipeline and why it's not diverse. And people generally believe that they hired the best talent and that it will sort itself out. There's actually research and data that prove that simply is wrong. And it's really fascinating and enlightening. So I'd encourage you just google Leaky Tech Pipeline and it's a free PDF, you can download it. And it's really cool. Because once you understand it, you can start to be a part of the solution. And it's not hopeless. It's not gloom and doom. These things can be solved. So that's one. And I'm going to cheat by saying a second one that really changed my life. So if you're listening to this and you're kind of thinking, "Oh. I'm interested in learning more about diversity inclusion." Maybe you're even a white guy like me who kind of thinks, "Wait a minute. Why can't people just pull themselves up by their bootstraps? What is going on here? I work hard." I would listen to a podcast called Seeing White. And the neat thing is you can do it by yourself. So it's not stressful. You don't have to do it around other people. And it really taught me about what it is to be white and how that affects the world and affects other people and it's really powerful. So those are my two picks for you.
NEIL: 30:37	Awesome. Yeah. We'll put those in the show notes. My pick, it's a little off-topic, but it's just a book that I started reading recently. It's called The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. So it's by Judea Pearl, who is a winner of the Turing Award which is basically like the Nobel Prize for computer science. So he's a smart guy. But he's been working on something. Well, I think he's been working on it for decades, but trying to bring causation back into statistics. So if anybody's ever taken a statistics course, they drill into you, correlation is not causation. And he argues that that drilling into everybody's head has caused people to just avoid trying to figure out what is causing things, especially in data science and statistics. So he's kind of developing some math to be able to mathematically figure out what cause things.
RYAN: 31:46	How cool.
NEIL: 31:46	It's fascinating.
RYAN: 31:48	Oh, gosh. I love that. I should read that.
NEIL: 31:51	Well, Ryan, anything else you want to leave our listeners with? We'll certainly put everything we've talked about in the show notes and your Twitter handle, and links to your company and your podcast. Anything else you wanted to talk about?
RYAN: 32:07	No. Just appreciate people checking out TalentPath, which is our apprenticeship program. If you just google Treehouse TalentPath, you'll find it. And if you ever want to talk about these things, you feel nervous about it, just direct message me on Twitter or Linkedin. Don't feel bad about asking questions. Because if you're someone like me from a majority group and it feels pretty uncomfortable to start talking about diversity inclusion, you're not alone. And I'm happy to chat about those kind of things, probably just to take the edge off. And that's about it. I appreciate everybody listening, and I appreciate you all having me on the show.
NEIL: 32:45	Awesome. Thanks so much, Ryan.
RYAN: 32:47	Take care.
MADDIE: 32:59	[music] Thanks for tuning in to Alter Everything. To share your thoughts and ideas for future episodes, join us at community.alteryx.com/podcast or reach us on Twitter using the hashtag #AlterEverythingPodcast. Have you a unique story to tell? Send us an email at podcast@alteryx.com. Catch you next time.
NEIL: 33:31	Actually, Ryan, one thing I did want to ask you about is South by Southwest. So that's where you interviewed Dean, right?
RYAN: 33:39	It is.
NEIL: 33:39	Are you a South by Southwest regular or was that your first time?
RYAN: 33:42	I have a funny history with South by. So my wife and I, she's the co-founder of Treehouse with me, we went way back in 2006. And that was the year that Twitter launched. And I remember distinctly because there was TVs everywhere and Evan Williams and Biz Stone were there walking around and saying, "This is this Twitter thing, tweet." And it appears on the TV. We're like, "What is this? So weird." And then, oh, gosh, a gentleman named Chris - I'm blanking his last name - invented the hashtag at the same time which is so weird if you think about. The hashtag feels like it always existed, but. So that was a fascinating experience. And back then the web was so much smaller. I ran into Tim Ferriss there, just before he was about to write the 4-Hour Workweek. And then we kind of chat to people like Mark Zuckerburg and-- it was just so small back then. And so that was kind of fascinating. And then I didn't go again until 2019.
NEIL: 34:53	That's almost like eight-year break. Is that what it was?
RYAN: 34:55	Oh. My God. Yeah. And it is a totally different thing now. I think there's something bonkers like quarter of a million people at a time, interactive. And it was hilariously different but fun. And we used it as a great chance to interview. I think we interviewed 40 guests or something wild, which was fun because everybody's there.
NEIL: 35:18	So you don't have to record another podcast for months.
RYAN: 35:20	No. We're still going. It turns out there's a lot of interesting people in the world, so. So it was fun but exhausting. The secret that I don't tell many people is that I'm an introvert. And I probably don't sound like one, but I'm totally an introvert and it exhausts me. I love a conversation, but at the end of it, I feel exhausted. And--
NEIL: 35:43	Yeah. The 250,000 people sounds a little too much for me I think.
RYAN: 35:46	Oh, my goodness. It was intense.

NEIL: 00:13 [music] Welcome to Alter Everything, the podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Neil Ryan, and I'll be your host. We're joined by Ryan Carson, the founder and CEO of Treehouse, for a chat about the importance of enablement in tech, and the automation and the future of jobs, and Ryan's memories from the South by Southwest over the years. Let's get started. Ryan, welcome to the Alter Everything podcast. It's great to have you here. RYAN: 00:48 Yeah. Honored to be here. I was privileged to hang out with your CEO, Dean, and I'm a big fan of your product. So this is a fun opportunity. NEIL: 00:57 Awesome. Well, can you just introduce yourself to our audience for those who don't know you? RYAN: 01:04 Yeah. You bet. So my name is Ryan Carson, I'm the founder and CEO of Treehouse. We're an online school that teaches software engineering. And over the last eight years, we've taught 850,000 people how to code with computer science fundamentals. And we have an exciting direction that we're taking now, where we're using all that knowledge, about turning people into software engineers, and we're helping companies build diverse talent pipelines. So that they can actually build inclusive balanced teams, but also, invest right back into their own neighborhoods. So really fun and powerful work. NEIL: 01:46 Very cool. Yeah. I was looking at Treeehouse earlier. It seems like kind of a crowded market space with the code academies and the Khan academies, what do you guys do that sets you apart? RYAN: 02:02 Yeah. It's interesting because I started the whole business because I got a computer science degree. And then I got a job, and I realized about 18% of what I learned was actually useful. And I thought, "The system's broken." So we essentially distill the computer science degree down into its essence, and just focused on helping consumers learn how to code. And we did that for a long time, like I said, 850,000 students over the years. And we're a fancy code academy and [inaudible] and everyone else. So I think everyone's doing great work. But what we realized is that the tech industry was not really changing. The systematic problem that we have, diversity and tech was really not being changed by all of us creating these accessible online schools. And so we just decided to go a step deeper and try to be a part of solving that deeper problem. And we ended up creating a completely unique program that really is nothing like what other companies are trying to do. So we essentially partner with local communities like the Boys and Girls Clubs or Dress for Success for our source of amazing talent. And then we use our online boot camp, it's called the Techdegree, and the students go through that while they hold down a job for about six/seven months. And then we mentor and support them as well. And then we onboard them as apprentices at a company. So we actually are working with companies like Adobe and Nike and Aquea and amazing companies like that - Mailchimp is a big customer - and then we actually help them run that apprenticeship. We also train the company on equity diversity inclusion so that those apprentices are successful. And the beautiful thing is this is $0 to the apprentices. So the program is completely free to them because it's funded by the company. So it really has turned into something totally different. So-- NEIL: 04:14 It sounds like diversity is just baked into your company from the beginning rather than being kind of an afterthought? RYAN: 04:22 It is. Yeah. It's becoming our refined company mission now. So our mission is to diversify the tech industry through accessible education and apprenticeship, and we're extremely passionate about it. NEIL: 04:38 So how did that come to be? How did that become the kind of the principal mission? RYAN: 04:42 Good question. Yeah. It's an interesting story. So what happened is, two years ago, I signed a diversity pledge here in Portland, Oregon, where we're headquartered. I was raised as a moral person where I wanted there to be equality. I believed everybody should have equal opportunity. So, of course, I signed it. And then, I took a brutal look at my own company. And just realized, "Wait a second. If I believe in diversity inclusion, then why is my company so white and so male? How did that happen?" I am the CEO. So everything, ultimately, is up to me. So I just went into learning mode, research mode, for a year. And I discovered that actually as a white CEO, as a male, I had an important role to play where I needed to, from the top down, help create change. And we decided, "Let's just change Treehouse." This wasn't sort of a mission to change the larger tech industry. It was just, "Hey. Let's change ourselves." And we did a pilot program with the Boys and Girls Clubs because they're right here in Portland. And we kind of put together that four-part system just as a pilot. And it was wonderful. It really blew my mind. We ended up going from 1% to 7% Black African American employees. We went from 27% women to 44% women in our revenue team. It just was fundamentally transformational but also personally very impactful to me. Because I realized I could use all my privilege for good and actually be a part of that systematic change. And then I realized, "Wait. We could do this for other companies." So we started doing it, and that's what we do today. NEIL: 06:41 That's really cool that you're not only bringing it in-house but using the same principles to help other companies get there. Why-- RYAN: 06:51 It's amazing I love it. NEIL: 06:54 Why did diversity kind of become so important to you in the first place. I mean-- RYAN: 07:01 What caused that? NEIL: 07:01 --why do you think diversity is important overall? RYAN: 07:03 I'm not sure exactly what caused it, other than I was raised by parents who told me over and over again, "People matter the same, no matter who they are or where they're from, what they look like." That was drilled into me. And what's interesting is, I kind of believed the narrative for a long time that America's a land of equal opportunity. That here you could kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And, in fact, that's why I started Treehouse, Because I thought, "If we just bring the computer science education to the masses for 2% of the cost, that should change everything," right, if theoretically it's completely accessible, extremely effective, but the proof is in the pudding. I just looked at the industry and realized nothing was changing. We were helping people, but we weren't changing the system. So I think it's been baked into our mission kind of from the start, but I didn't understand the systematic problems that we actually had to work on. And then once I understood those better, I realized, "Oh. We can be a part of the solution," not because we're the white saviors fixing everything, but just because we can play a role. NEIL: 08:24 So now that Treehouse has become more diverse and you're helping other companies become more diverse, have you seen an impact on kind of business results one way or the other? RYAN: 08:38 Yes. It's just amazing. We just had a stand-up, and the group was remarkably more diverse than it was a year ago. And it just brings this joy and this creativity to every meeting. It really is shocking how many more ideas we have, how many new perspectives we have, just by having different people in the room. So that's one thing for sure. The second thing is I've noticed a remarkable difference in our connection with communities that have traditionally been boxed out of tech. The Black community, the Latinx community, community of women in tech, are really connected to Treehouse in a way that I never thought would ever happen. Which is having some great financial impacts for us, great. We are getting an increase in students and business customers, but the moral impact and the creative impact, for me, has just been enough. It's been wonderful. NEIL: 09:45 Yeah. That's awesome. RYAN: 09:47 Thanks. NEIL: 09:48 Well, besides diversity, I also noticed on your website that you offer kind of UX Design courses. That seems a little out of the box for code camps. RYAN: 10:00 A little different? Yeah. So again, the mission is that we diversify the tech industry through accessible education and apprenticeship. And what's interesting is we just started the with software engineering because it's what I knew. And what we're doing is we're slowly expanding out to a ton of different job roles. So UX design was the next kind of tangential job title. It's elated to software engineering but different. And we're going to continue to launch more and more job titles that don't have software engineering at their core. Because that's where there's more jobs. And In the end, what do people need? They need jobs. They need wealth. That's how we close this gap between the wealthy and the non-wealthy are getting people into tech where the wealth is, so. NEIL: 10:58 Cool. Very cool. So besides Treehouse, I know that you have your own podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into that? RYAN: 11:10 Yeah. It's kind of funny. We launched a podcast called Educate Yourself. It kind of came from this gut instinct I had that if you have interesting conversations with interesting people, something good will happen. Something good will happen for them; something good will happen for Treehouse. So we just booted it up and started. And I noticed that at the end of the podcast, we essentially had a relationship with somebody. It was powerful. And we both benefited from it. So we decided, "You know what? Let's really lean in on this and do more. So we've evolved that to be called Change Wave. And what we do is we get amazing guests like Dean, your CEO, on the show. We get fascinating influencers like Patrisse Cullors, who founded the Black Lives Matter movement. We get just really interesting, powerful people on the show, and then have conversations. And it's been a game-changer for me personally. I'm sure, as the host of this show, you've kind of experienced a lot of that. And it's fun. NEIL: 12:20 Yeah. We talk to a lot of people in kind of the data and analytics industry, but we don't talk to quite as many founders and CEOs as you do in your podcast. So let me take that opportunity to kind of flip things around a little bit and ask you, what is it like founding and operating your own company? Do you have any cool stories about how you guys started with that? RYAN: 12:48 I do. It's like any great job. There's just tremendous peaks and tremendous valleys. And I think the wonderful thing about being a founder CEO is that you're trying to solve a problem that you really believe in. I mean, Dean, just exuded this, that he truly believes in the citizen data scientist. Let's empower people by allowing them to understand data, to change it, to report on it, to understand it. And so I've felt essentially that Treehouse is my religion. That it is the most powerful important thing I'll ever work on. And that is the wonderful thing about being a founder CEO is that you can do that every day. But then, it's punctuated by these just moments of extreme stress and hardship and loneliness. There's this wonderful and terrible dichotomy of being the most powerful person in the company but the same time the one person in the company where all the responsibilities stop. And you can't ask your employees what they think your strategy should be as colleagues. I mean, they are your employees ultimately, and it's a lonely place to be. So it's good and it's bad. I've been doing this for nine years now, and I think the big lesson I've learned is that even as a founder CEO I need to have discipline and I need to work very hard versus trying to treat it as a job where I work less and less. It's actually more and more intense, but I'm okay with that. NEIL: 14:49 I listened to an episode of Change Wave the other day, the one with Sameer Dholakia, the CEO of SendGrid, and I remember he characterized his leadership style as I think leader-servant style, being a servant to the employees at his company. How would you characterize your leadership style? RYAN: 15:19 Sameer is an impressive leader. And I loved interviewing him for that reason. I've become that leader. I would say it didn't start out like that. I think I was a little bit entitled when I started. And I thought the CEO founder title gave me right to sort of not have to be a good manager, not have to be hardworking and disciplined. I just had to have the creative great ideas. And I've since learned that's just not true. You have to be both. You have to be innovative and creative and disruptive. But you also have to be consistent and kind and serving and supporting. And I think you really nailed that. And now I've learned that actually being a good manager is literally about serving people and supporting them and taking care of them, and truly wanting them to win. So we have regularly scheduled one-on-ones. We use a framework from a book called Speed of Trust, to specifically build trust. And then we used the feedback mechanism from Manager Tools. And there's all these important things about being a good manager whether you're in technology or sales or customer service or anything, that you don't get a get-out-of-jail-free card just because you are a CEO or whatever. NEIL: 16:58 So for our listeners out there who might be thinking of starting their own business, can you give them a little advice or maybe one thing that you did well that you'd recommend and then maybe a mistake you made, something to avoid? RYAN: 17:15 There's a lot of the second one. The first thing I'd say is be brutally honest about whether you are delaying showing your idea to people. And here's what I mean by that. It's so hard to get over that hump of just showing somebody something you're working on and saying, "Would you buy this?" Actually, "Will you buy it? I know it's not done yet, and it doesn't look great yet and doesn't really work. But what do you think about it?" And it's so important to get over that. So when we built TalentPath, the apprenticeship product that I'm talking about, thankfully, we did that right. So I basically said, "You know what? Let's just put together the basic pieces here and then let's get it working and figure out what works and what doesn't. And as soon as I have the minimum viable product, I'm going to ask somebody to invest in it and pay us for it." And when I look back at how primitive TalentPath was when we first sold it to now, where it's just light years ahead, it's almost painful to think about how rough it was, but yet it worked. We had four amazing apprentices that got placed at Nike and Envision and Treehouse, and they're successful today. So I guess the message is, "Don't overthink it." And then the most important thing-- and probably a lot of you listening to this are in the engineering space and the data space. Maybe, you don't think of yourselves as salespeople. I would strongly, strongly, encourage you to challenge your perception of what sales is. And it is not cheesy people in suits, it's you. And it's you asking someone to pay you for your idea. And you've got to go out and ask one person to do it. And then what you'll find is actually you'll have to go out and ask 10 people to do it because only one will say yes. And that's the most important lesson I've learned. And thankfully, we did that right the second time around. NEIL: 19:37 So you're basically-- I mean, your background is in coding, right? So was that hard for you to get over to become the salesperson? RYAN: 19:44 It was. I hated sales. I mean, I really, really hated it. I felt uncomfortable. I felt like I was trying to get people to do something they didn't want to do. I just hated it. And it majorly hamstrung my career. Looking back, it was my biggest mistake not realizing that all of us are salespeople especially me as a founder. I just wanted to put on my headphones and create the products. There's an interesting story actually that caused this metamorphosis. So we were talking to another company that wanted to acquire us, and I was kind of going through the motions. Every CEO has this happened to them where someone comes along, at some point, and says, "We want to buy you." And it's a good idea always to entertain those conversations to see kind of what happens, whether you want to do it or not. And we kind of went down the road a little bit, and then at a certain point, I decided this isn't the right thing for us strategically. It's not the right thing for our mission, so we're not going to do it. And I was texting the other CEO - I remember I was on the couch watching Friends with my wife - and we were texting back and forth. It was late Thursday night. And I said, "I don't think we're going to do this deal. I really appreciate your time and thank you, for your interest, but let's part ways." RYAN: 21:21 And he was funny. He said, "Are we breaking up over text [laughter]?" And I now replied. I was like, "I think so. Yeah. Yeah. We are. Sorry." And he's like, "Common men. Let's at least have a phone call." So I said, "Okay. Let's do it." And he said, "Let's have it nice and early." So I think it was 5 AM the next day. I wake up early now, but I didn't back then. So woke up at 5 AM, my whole family is asleep, and I was pacing around in one of our rooms having this phone call. And I said, "I just don't think this is going to happen. I'm sorry." And he said, "Are you sure? This is like a 1 plus 1 equals 10 thing. Common let's do this." And I said, "No. I don't think so." And he got quiet and didn't say anything. And I just kind of waited. And then he said, "We're going to crush you." And it kind of blew my mind. Because I knew we had competitors. I knew that people wanted us to lose and wanted to beat us, but no one had ever said it to my face. And it changed me. Now, what happened is, I realized that I didn't have the right or the luxury to not go out and do sales. As the CEO, it was my job to protect the company, to go out and perform deals, and make things happen and drive revenue. Because if I didn't then this man was going to end us. And I thought, "No." I believe in our mission deeply to the bottom of my soul. I can not allow this to happen. Not because of some man to man ego thing, it was because if he does crush us, then all the students that were serving and placing in jobs, they will lose. And I can't let that happen. And I just almost turned into a different person. I realized at that point I had no choice. And the next morning - I think some of my employees know this, and I'm sure some will listen to this podcast - I googled how to sell [laughter]. I actually went to YouTube, and I found some videos, and I literally taught myself how to do sales. And-- NEIL: 23:42 You can find anything on YouTube, huh? RYAN: 23:43 You can, now. And the point I'm trying to make is that if you truly believe in your products or your business, you need to do sales. And the beautiful thing is you're selling something you believe in. So you're actually going to help people. So now, I'm fortunate to be doing these massive deals with Adobe and Nike and MailChimp, and we've got a huge deal with a big telecommunications company that I can't say the name of. And all that happened because I eventually just got out the door and basically just started asking people, "Will you buy this thing? Here's how it's going to help you." And got rejected a ton of times and eventually, somebody said yes. So please, if you're listening and you believe in your product, take this to heart. And know that actually if you do sales right, it's actually a wonderful empowering thing. Because you'll literally help people use your product and that will then change their life in some way. NEIL: 24:49 Well, that's great advice. One thing I wanted to talk to you-- RYAN: 24:51 Learn the hard way. NEIL: 24:55 I wanted to talk to you about something that I've been thinking about lately. I think everybody has because it's all over TV and blogs and everything, but automation picking up, robotics, AI, you're a coder, you're in tech, do you think that any jobs are safe from that long-term? RYAN: 25:21 This is the question. It's interesting. And I keep referring back to Dean because I thought many things he said were interesting. And he basically said something to the tune of don't under-represent the power of the human just yet. And when I use Alteryx, it's fascinating because it really is an extremely complex process my brain is going through that's augmented by the tool, right? So I know if I combine these two spreadsheets and then I clean them up and I change the column names and I do some analysis, something beautiful will happen. Now what's happening is, I'm being augmented by technology in a powerful way. But that creative synthesis? We are so far from machines being able to do that. Now, yes, that will happen at some point. But I think at its core-- today actually, my kids are literally in the room with me right now, it's take-your-kid-to-work day. And what I tell them over and over again is that that creativity is the future. As a human, the value that we're going to bring is creative. Data analysis, augmentation, machine learning is going to augment that. And I think we're very, very far away from that being replaced purely by machines. And I think we're going to end up in some sort of cybernetic version of this thing where who knows? But I think right now, that's where the future is. That's where the jobs are going to be, and being creative and then augmenting that with tech. Now, there is an immediate imperative danger where jobs are going to be replaced, driving is one-- NEIL: 27:25 Trucking. NEIL: 27:26 Trucking. I mean, I believe Elon Musk that he's going to release a fleet of Teslas from people's driveways, and it'll be autonomous. That's going to happen. So I think there is a desperate need to retrain people into high paying jobs. And that's part of the reason I'm so passionate about what we do. The wealth is in tech. So we need to get people out of these jobs that are going to be automated in the next five years, and we need to get them into tech as software engineers, as data scientists, as UX designers, as marketers, as salespeople. That's where we have to get people. Because that's where the jobs are going to continue to be, I think, for decades. So that's kind of where I stand on it. NEIL: 28:16 Yeah. So it sounds like you're thinking about that already when you're designing coursework. And working with kids is pushing them to those areas where they'll be able to thrive regardless of the machines. RYAN: 28:29 Exactly. It's creative. Got to get creative and then figure out how the tooling augments that. There is huge value creation there. NEIL: 28:38 Very cool. Well, we are at the point of the show where we move on to our final segment, community picks. So Ryan, can you give us something that you've read or seen lately that would be interesting for the listeners? RYAN: 28:56 You bet. I have two things. The first is a powerful paper that was written by the Kapor Center in Oakland, and it's called The Leaky Tech Pipeline. There is massive misunderstanding primarily by engineering leaders about the talent pipeline and why it's not diverse. And people generally believe that they hired the best talent and that it will sort itself out. There's actually research and data that prove that simply is wrong. And it's really fascinating and enlightening. So I'd encourage you just google Leaky Tech Pipeline and it's a free PDF, you can download it. And it's really cool. Because once you understand it, you can start to be a part of the solution. And it's not hopeless. It's not gloom and doom. These things can be solved. So that's one. And I'm going to cheat by saying a second one that really changed my life. So if you're listening to this and you're kind of thinking, "Oh. I'm interested in learning more about diversity inclusion." Maybe you're even a white guy like me who kind of thinks, "Wait a minute. Why can't people just pull themselves up by their bootstraps? What is going on here? I work hard." I would listen to a podcast called Seeing White. And the neat thing is you can do it by yourself. So it's not stressful. You don't have to do it around other people. And it really taught me about what it is to be white and how that affects the world and affects other people and it's really powerful. So those are my two picks for you. NEIL: 30:37 Awesome. Yeah. We'll put those in the show notes. My pick, it's a little off-topic, but it's just a book that I started reading recently. It's called The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. So it's by Judea Pearl, who is a winner of the Turing Award which is basically like the Nobel Prize for computer science. So he's a smart guy. But he's been working on something. Well, I think he's been working on it for decades, but trying to bring causation back into statistics. So if anybody's ever taken a statistics course, they drill into you, correlation is not causation. And he argues that that drilling into everybody's head has caused people to just avoid trying to figure out what is causing things, especially in data science and statistics. So he's kind of developing some math to be able to mathematically figure out what cause things. RYAN: 31:46 How cool. NEIL: 31:46 It's fascinating. RYAN: 31:48 Oh, gosh. I love that. I should read that. NEIL: 31:51 Well, Ryan, anything else you want to leave our listeners with? We'll certainly put everything we've talked about in the show notes and your Twitter handle, and links to your company and your podcast. Anything else you wanted to talk about? RYAN: 32:07 No. Just appreciate people checking out TalentPath, which is our apprenticeship program. If you just google Treehouse TalentPath, you'll find it. And if you ever want to talk about these things, you feel nervous about it, just direct message me on Twitter or Linkedin. Don't feel bad about asking questions. Because if you're someone like me from a majority group and it feels pretty uncomfortable to start talking about diversity inclusion, you're not alone. And I'm happy to chat about those kind of things, probably just to take the edge off. And that's about it. I appreciate everybody listening, and I appreciate you all having me on the show. NEIL: 32:45 Awesome. Thanks so much, Ryan. RYAN: 32:47 Take care. MADDIE: 32:59 [music] Thanks for tuning in to Alter Everything. To share your thoughts and ideas for future episodes, join us at community.alteryx.com/podcast or reach us on Twitter using the hashtag #AlterEverythingPodcast. Have you a unique story to tell? Send us an email at podcast@alteryx.com. Catch you next time. NEIL: 33:31 Actually, Ryan, one thing I did want to ask you about is South by Southwest. So that's where you interviewed Dean, right? RYAN: 33:39 It is. NEIL: 33:39 Are you a South by Southwest regular or was that your first time? RYAN: 33:42 I have a funny history with South by. So my wife and I, she's the co-founder of Treehouse with me, we went way back in 2006. And that was the year that Twitter launched. And I remember distinctly because there was TVs everywhere and Evan Williams and Biz Stone were there walking around and saying, "This is this Twitter thing, tweet." And it appears on the TV. We're like, "What is this? So weird." And then, oh, gosh, a gentleman named Chris - I'm blanking his last name - invented the hashtag at the same time which is so weird if you think about. The hashtag feels like it always existed, but. So that was a fascinating experience. And back then the web was so much smaller. I ran into Tim Ferriss there, just before he was about to write the 4-Hour Workweek. And then we kind of chat to people like Mark Zuckerburg and-- it was just so small back then. And so that was kind of fascinating. And then I didn't go again until 2019. NEIL: 34:53 That's almost like eight-year break. Is that what it was? RYAN: 34:55 Oh. My God. Yeah. And it is a totally different thing now. I think there's something bonkers like quarter of a million people at a time, interactive. And it was hilariously different but fun. And we used it as a great chance to interview. I think we interviewed 40 guests or something wild, which was fun because everybody's there. NEIL: 35:18 So you don't have to record another podcast for months. RYAN: 35:20 No. We're still going. It turns out there's a lot of interesting people in the world, so. So it was fun but exhausting. The secret that I don't tell many people is that I'm an introvert. And I probably don't sound like one, but I'm totally an introvert and it exhausts me. I love a conversation, but at the end of it, I feel exhausted. And-- NEIL: 35:43 Yeah. The 250,000 people sounds a little too much for me I think. RYAN: 35:46 Oh, my goodness. It was intense.

This episode of Alter Everything was produced by Maddie Johannsen (@MaddieJ).

Alter Everything Podcast

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33: Don't overthink it

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