Justin Garrison wasn't one of those kids who grew up in tech. In fact, he loved cars and wanted to fix cars for a living. He didn't own his own computer until university, and literally didn't know what to do with one once he got one. But then he took a job at university fixing computers, and that's when was exposed to Linux. After that, he was hooked. Since then, his career has been fueled by curiosity, a willingness to learn in public, and a love for technology. Join Adriana as she talks to Justin about his career, what inspires his fun tech content, and more.
About Justin Garrison:
Justin serves as Head of Product at Sidero Labs and hosts the Fork Around and Find Out podcast. He has been called the Steven Spielberg of Cloud Native and the Bill Nye of tech. His career includes contributions to Oscar-winning films, the Disney+ streaming platform, and Amazon EKS. In his free time, Justin enjoys building modern-retro computers and watching Moana.
Key takeaways:
- In the early 2000s, being online was a choice. Nowadays, the tables have turned, and being OFFLINE is a choice.
- Being forced to be offline makes you realize how much you rely on technology not just on a day-to-day basis, but on a minute-to-minute basis.
- The realization that there was a whole tech world out there with "free tools" empowered Justin to learn as much as he could.
- Boring tasks are the best excuse for automation.
- The things that we do throughout our lives prepare us for where we need to be now.
- Learning in public led Justin to his job as a Linux sysadmin
- Almost everything in technology has some physical analogy.
- Inspired by Bill Nye the Science Guy and Elton Brown, Justin comes in with the mindset of "how can I make this entertaining", when creating tech content.
- Making short videos forced Justin to really focus on the important takeaway in the content he was developing.
- The hardest part for a lot of people to learn advanced topics is forgetting the things they already understand.
- Networking at conferences is a powerful tool which helped Justin go from his university sysadmin job, to working at Disney Animation.
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Chapters:
00:00 Opening credits
00:26 Guest intro
03:22 Lefty or righty?
06:07 iPhone or Android?
12:38 Being "accidentally offline" for a business trip
17:30 Mac, Linux, or Windows?
20:48 From zero to Linux hero?
23:25 The least offensive major
29:12 Programming == manual work avoidance
33:29 Becoming a Linux sysadmin
36:25 Making tech content relatable and fun
41:30 Everything we learn is a lie
47:20 Working at Disney
54:31 From Disney Animation to Disney+
58:00 Being a Cloud Native Ambassador
01:01:00 From big enterprise, to small startup
01:10:11 Final words of wisdom
01:13:10 Peace out and geek out
