Jared Santo

I'm Jared Santo, and you're listening to The Change Log, where each and every week we have conversations with the hackers, the leaders, and the innovators of the software world. We pick their brains, we learn from their mistakes, we get inspired by their accomplishments, and we have a lot of fun along the way. Today we are joined by Barrett Huber.

I'm Jared Santo, and you're listening to The Change Log, where each and every week we have conversations with the hackers, the leaders, and the innovators of the software world. We pick their brains, we learn from their mistakes, we get inspired by their accomplishments, and we have a lot of fun along the way. Today we are joined by Barrett Huber.

After over 30 years in the software industry, Barrett has experienced a lot. He founded PowerDNS, published articles for places like IETF and IEEE, and built his own parliament monitoring system. That just scratches the surface. But recently, Bert wrote about what it takes to build software for the long term. We dig in.

After over 30 years in the software industry, Barrett has experienced a lot. He founded PowerDNS, published articles for places like IETF and IEEE, and built his own parliament monitoring system. That just scratches the surface. But recently, Bert wrote about what it takes to build software for the long term. We dig in.

But first, a quick mention of our partners at Fly.io, the public cloud built for developers who ship just like us. Yes, Fly is the home of changelog.com. Check them out at fly.io and tell them changelog sent you. Okay, Bert Hubert on the changelog. Let's do this.

But first, a quick mention of our partners at Fly.io, the public cloud built for developers who ship just like us. Yes, Fly is the home of changelog.com. Check them out at fly.io and tell them changelog sent you. Okay, Bert Hubert on the changelog. Let's do this.

We are here with Bert Hubert, a geeky entrepreneur from the Netherlands with a 30-year track record in commercial and open source software. Bert, welcome to The Change Log. Thank you for having me. Happy to have you. Excited to talk about what you're up to these days and what you've been up to historically. 30 years, that's a long time.

We are here with Bert Hubert, a geeky entrepreneur from the Netherlands with a 30-year track record in commercial and open source software. Bert, welcome to The Change Log. Thank you for having me. Happy to have you. Excited to talk about what you're up to these days and what you've been up to historically. 30 years, that's a long time.

I read that you landed your first job hacking a cable internet provider. Do you want to tell that story?

I read that you landed your first job hacking a cable internet provider. Do you want to tell that story?

All the nines. So what were some of your learnings as you scaled up? These are kind of like the first time things are scaling up. So you can't exactly go read a book about it, right?

All the nines. So what were some of your learnings as you scaled up? These are kind of like the first time things are scaling up. So you can't exactly go read a book about it, right?

Well, unintended consequences, right? You just don't know what's going to happen. Shut that laptop, think you're done for the day.

Well, unintended consequences, right? You just don't know what's going to happen. Shut that laptop, think you're done for the day.

This is why I've been trying to convince Adam to run our Zulip community from his home office. Just host it for us. Self-host that sucker. We only got a few hundred people using it, but they're using it all throughout the day. For the learnings? Yeah, and for that upgrade of yourself, just what it feels like to have people depending on your service. It just changes you.

This is why I've been trying to convince Adam to run our Zulip community from his home office. Just host it for us. Self-host that sucker. We only got a few hundred people using it, but they're using it all throughout the day. For the learnings? Yeah, and for that upgrade of yourself, just what it feels like to have people depending on your service. It just changes you.

I'm not against it necessarily.

I'm not against it necessarily.

Yeah, for sure. So straight out of university, I ran some mail servers on a Linux network for a company, maybe a few hundred people. And there were two servers and they worked in conjunction and there was spam assassin and it's all kinds of stuff. It was post fix.

Yeah, for sure. So straight out of university, I ran some mail servers on a Linux network for a company, maybe a few hundred people. And there were two servers and they worked in conjunction and there was spam assassin and it's all kinds of stuff. It was post fix.