00:00.99
\nJoey the Host
\nAll right, welcome everybody to season three of the half geek half human podcast. We’re back. We’re glad to be here. Uh, we’ve done a couple of little changes to the format. So you might see a slight tweak in how the, the episodes look, but, uh, it’s good to see Anna Kate. She’s going to introduce our guests here in just a second. Uh, I apologize for all the orange you’re going to be seeing on this side of the camera, but it is ah the end of June and the University of Tennessee just won a national championship. So I’m still riding pretty high on that. And so I apologize for all the orange you’re going to see. ah But having said all that, welcome. We’re glad you’re here. Anna Kate, do you want to give a quick introduction for John?<\/p>\n
00:37.89
\nAnnakate
\nAbsolutely. Thank you. um All right. Well, today we speak with John Wark, the founder and CEO of the Nashville Software School. This is Nashville’s community nonprofit coding bootcamp and talent incubator. John founded the school back in 2012, which currently has more than 2,500 graduates, including a few that work here at ATIVA. So welcome, John.<\/p>\n
01:00.09
\nJohn Wark
\nWell, thank you. It’s really great to be here.<\/p>\n
01:03.10
\nAnnakate
\nAwesome. Well, before we get too much into the software school, give us your one minute overview. Who is John Wark?<\/p>\n
01:09.93
\nJohn Wark
\nah Okay. um Well, I’ve been in the tech industry for over 50 years. I started programming professionally when I was 19. We won’t do the math on that, but it’s a day or two ago. I was actually a computer operator on IBM mainframe computers for a year and a half before that. um entrepreneur, getting into tech, getting you know getting started is like as a software developer, yeah one that was trained nontraditionally, just like we do at NSS. So I learned on the job, mentored by you know some very good senior engineers.<\/p>\n
01:52.43
\nJohn Wark
\nwho got me reading things since, you know, back in those days, all we had were books. We were all, you know, that and stone tablets. So, um so ah but I’ve been involved in six startups, five of which have been tech. um You know the software schools are was the first non-profit I’ve been involved in or as I say the first intentionally non-profit Couple mother startups sort of had similar status But I also took you know raised 30 million of venture capital and took one public in 99 so I’ve I’ve seen kind of a wide range of experiences I’ve run product development teams for larger companies and I Whatever, been in Nashville since 2005.<\/p>\n
02:22.79
\nAnnakate
\nMmm.<\/p>\n
02:41.21
\nJohn Wark
\nWe moved here off the West Coast after 10 years out there, and Nashville is definitely home now, and um that’s probably plenty.<\/p>\n
02:55.64
\nAnnakate
\nYeah, that’s a great overview.<\/p>\n
02:55.98
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
02:57.83
\nAnnakate
\nAnd how do you, speaking of Nashville Software School, how what what is your kind of elevator speech to a prospective student? I’m sure you’ve been giving it for quite a while now, but how would you sum it up to someone who’s never heard of Nashville Software School?<\/p>\n
03:08.51
\nJohn Wark
\nYeah, well, trying to get me to do it twice in a row the same way is a little hard. But so the the things i the things I would say is something along the lines of we’re the best way to gain the skills to be job ready for a career as a software developer, data analyst, or data scientist. um in Nashville, yeah you know with the best balance of speed to job, skill level, relevant skill level, um and community connection. you know ah We teach not only the skills you need to do the job, but we also teach the skills of how to get the job. Job search, we support our graduates with job search. We’ve got over 400 local employers who’ve hired one or more NSS grads, a team of being a notable example.<\/p>\n
04:02.94
\nJohn Wark
\num And we’re a very community focused nonprofit organization um that works really as a sort of a second chance gateway to tech careers. If you missed it the first time, right, missed it in college, didn’t go to college, thought you wanted to be a guitar player.<\/p>\n
04:25.64
\nJohn Wark
\nthe Nashville special case, um we we provide a second ah second chance um to to launch a career in the tech world.<\/p>\n
04:35.93
\nAnnakate
\nAnd since you’ve been around for, what is it, 14 years now or so, I know that there is a significant chunk of your student base that is a second career, but there’s also ah a percentage of your base that’s fresh, you know, either out of college or out of high school. Have you seen that change over the 14 years or has it kind of stayed a similar percentage?<\/p>\n
04:58.09
\nJohn Wark
\nI’d say the mix of um the mix of career changers versus career seekers.<\/p>\n
05:06.80
\nAnnakate
\nUh huh.<\/p>\n
05:10.72
\nJohn Wark
\nright so So people who have who just have never found a career yet, right who could be right out of high school, could be right out of college, but they could also be two years of college and then<\/p>\n
05:21.42
\nAnnakate
\nUh<\/p>\n
05:22.12
\nJohn Wark
\nyou know that wasn’t working for them and whatever I don’t think that mix has changed a lot over time I mean it you know from class to class it changes I mean we we didn’t in the beginning we we didn’t have 18 19 20 year olds usually that has been a newer thing but that’s still a relative you know that’s relatively smaller percentage of our student population<\/p>\n
05:24.52
\nAnnakate
\nhuh.<\/p>\n
05:47.79
\nJohn Wark
\nYou know, our sweet spots for software development is kind of 24 to 35, but lots of 35 to 45. And even we’ve had at least three 60 year olds who got their first programming jobs after graduating NSS when they were in there when they were 60. And then, you know, we’ve had a lot of 18, 20 year olds.<\/p>\n
06:09.68
\nAnnakate
\nWow.<\/p>\n
06:12.14
\nJohn Wark
\nSo that’s been a little more recent. But I’d say, you know,<\/p>\n
06:14.80
\nAnnakate
\nGotcha. Okay.<\/p>\n
06:18.80
\nJohn Wark
\nThat’s still not the most common thing for us.<\/p>\n
06:22.39
\nAnnakate
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
06:22.47
\nJoey the Host
\nI think it’s funny you mentioned the the guitar player into the software school, because I’m pretty sure that’s how Caleb, one of our team leads, it’s exactly what he did.<\/p>\n
06:31.83
\nAnnakate
\nI think you’re right.<\/p>\n
06:31.85
\nJoey the Host
\nHe wanted to be a musician in Nashville and didn’t make it.<\/p>\n
06:32.38
\nJohn Wark
\num yeah so yeah yeah Oh yeah, caleb was Caleb definitely had a music background, just just to pick one example. um But it’s fun you know we’ve always, i ah I’ve said since we started the school, that Nashville’s untapped, latent talent pool of tech people, it’s it’s all the musicians. Right?<\/p>\n
06:54.86
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
06:55.62
\nJohn Wark
\nI mean, how many people have you worked with in the tech world who were musicians as well, right? And that was always true in my career. I knew lots of great engineers who were musicians. Almost every software company I ever worked for had a great in-house band or sometimes more than one. um<\/p>\n
07:12.71
\nAnnakate
\nAttiba is one. we I’ve heard stories that at one point there was a 16-person band that was currently filled with folks on staff at Attiba.<\/p>\n
07:21.05
\nJohn Wark
\nWell, I haven’t heard 16. I’ve heard the great in-house band. Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n
07:25.58
\nJoey the Host
\nI wouldn’t say great.<\/p>\n
07:27.55
\nJohn Wark
\nWell, hey, we, you know. ah But, you know, that’s actually one of the one of our best predictors, right? Because we bring in people who’ve never programmed before, right, to school, who are looking for a career. And, yeah you know, people worry about, oh, do I have to have taken a class or should I have done some study and stuff? And it’s like, well, yeah, that would help you feel more comfortable, for sure, do it. But We’ve interviewed thousands of people now and we have learned a lot of things that are reliable predictors of aptitude, because we’re always looking for aptitude.<\/p>\n
07:55.59
\nJoey the Host
\nI’m<\/p>\n
08:00.13
\nJohn Wark
\nNot capability already, but at least aptitude. And the single best positive predictor of aptitude is, are you a musician?<\/p>\n
08:09.74
\nAnnakate
\nHm.<\/p>\n
08:09.97
\nJohn Wark
\nbecause there’s just so much cognitive similarity between software development programming and music. and And I didn’t understand this until after we’d started the school, we got some experience. The learning process is so similar because to be a musician, it’s constant repetition, right? It’s constant practice. it’s It sounded like crap for a while until you start to sound better.<\/p>\n
08:28.26
\nJoey the Host
\nyeah<\/p>\n
08:32.10
\nJohn Wark
\nWell, coding is a lot like, yeah Yeah, it’s pretty crappy for a while, and but you learn how to fix your mistakes, right? And you learn how to fit into the band, or in other words, you learn how to fit into a development team, right? So there’s the the learning processes are so similar, so repetition-centered, so practice-centered. The musicians just kind of fall into the rhythm naturally.<\/p>\n
08:53.59
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah. Hmm.<\/p>\n
08:54.95
\nJohn Wark
\nSo, you know, and and yeah, you guys mentioned Caleb. Caleb’s a great example. and we’ i don’t I don’t know how many others we’ve got, hundreds.<\/p>\n
09:03.31
\nAnnakate
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
09:04.17
\nJoey the Host
\nI’m sorry to indicate I know you’re, but I’ve had had a question that kind of popped up because a friend of mine, he went through national software school um and landed himself a ah very good job.<\/p>\n
09:04.51
\nAnnakate
\nwhat<\/p>\n
09:14.83
\nJoey the Host
\nBut ah you know, I see out there too, there’s a lot of like the boot camps. So like Vanderbilt has a boot camp, UT Knoxville has a boot camp. So I guess like in your opinion, if you could give us from your perspective, like What is the difference between NSS and a bootcamp? Is there one preferred? Is it kind of in conjunction with each other? But ah what have you seen there?<\/p>\n
09:36.22
\nJohn Wark
\nYeah. Well, and, you know, we fit under that general heading of coding bootcamp, right? Although, you know, when we started 2012, that wasn’t the common term yet. We were one of the first six or seven in the country and we were the first nonprofit anywhere in the country and we’re still one of only a small handful of nonprofits, you know? So, so, I mean, to the extent that a coding bootcamp is an accelerated hands-on vocational learning experience, we sort of fit there. Where we’re different, I think it’s a few things. Our programs have tended to always be a little bit longer than like the ones at Vanderbilt. I want to pick on Vanderbilt, but their boot camps are run by a for-profit company that get to rent the Vanderbilt name.<\/p>\n
10:25.04
\nJohn Wark
\num And they’re just shorter. they they you You don’t get as much practice.<\/p>\n
10:30.14
\nJoey the Host
\nyeah<\/p>\n
10:31.29
\nJohn Wark
\nYou don’t get as much depth. um you know We designed a curriculum originally, our six month full-time bootcamp, which is twice as long as most full-time bootcamps. 12 to 14 weeks is the most common length. There are a few others, longer like ours. But yeah we we talked with local employers, right? I mean, I talked to JJ back in the day, you know and we talked to, you know eight I think a total of eight or nine companies around town.<\/p>\n
10:55.16
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
11:00.01
\nJohn Wark
\nwhere basically we said, hey, you keep complaining there’s not a enough tech talent. OK, what if we train some? What would they need to look like? What skills would they need to have for you to be at least willing to interview?<\/p>\n
11:09.41
\nJoey the Host
\nMm.<\/p>\n
11:11.93
\nJohn Wark
\ndon’ don’t no No guarantees on hiring, but would you at least be willing to interview? and And we got those requirements. Several of those companies worked really closely with us to sort of map out a good ah curriculum. And it ended up being six months. I mean, and that was partly based on my experience. I just didn’t believe three months would do it.<\/p>\n
11:32.18
\nAnnakate
\nMmhmm.<\/p>\n
11:32.99
\nJohn Wark
\nMost of the three months boat camps would also tell their students back in those days, and some of them still do, you’re going to work 70, 80, 90 hours a week for for for three months. And I just do not believe that you can learn 80, 90 hours a week without burning yourself out, right?<\/p>\n
11:52.29
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
11:52.57
\nJohn Wark
\nAnd we’ve since certainly learned through cognitive science research, learn what’s called learning you know learning science now, that yeah, in fact, that doesn’t work. that That’s not the way the human brain works for most people. And people need breaks. And so actually our are our pace and length gives more time for immersion, gives people more time for practice, gives them a little bit more time to feel more confident, although no newbie ever totally feels confident. um So, you know, I think it’s the, you know, kind of the depth, the the hands-on, the the ah<\/p>\n
12:29.92
\nJohn Wark
\nBut also, you know, our connections, you know, we aggressively work to connect our students into the community back before COVID, right, when we had 50 or 60 meetup groups meeting every month.<\/p>\n
12:30.04
\nAnnakate
\nThank you.<\/p>\n
12:42.47
\nJohn Wark
\nI miss those days. But, um but that you know, we’ve still got meetup groups and we, you know, there’s still ways for us to connect students with community people and stuff, you know, so And then the job search piece, and are we actively support our students after graduation. And I’ll guarantee you, if you talk to graduates of most of those other boot camps, you’ll find that does not happen in the same way.<\/p>\n
13:04.16
\nAnnakate
\nYeah, not as hands on.<\/p>\n
13:04.60
\nJoey the Host
\nMm.<\/p>\n
13:04.68
\nJohn Wark
\nso<\/p>\n
13:06.41
\nAnnakate
\nYou mentioned getting input and insights into building your curriculum. One of the other things we wanted to talk to you about was how Nashville Software School is planning for AI and how your curriculum will evolve to accommodate this growing need.<\/p>\n
13:19.44
\nJohn Wark
\nRight. Well, we asked chat GPT what we should do and it said no. um So that’s it that’s a question weve we have been asking ourselves for, you know, a year, year and a half. I mean, certainly since chat GPT came out.<\/p>\n
13:34.92
\nAnnakate
\nUh<\/p>\n
13:35.38
\nJohn Wark
\num and And we’re approaching that in ah in a couple of different ways.<\/p>\n
13:40.40
\nAnnakate
\n-huh.<\/p>\n
13:40.48
\nJohn Wark
\nyou know We started out a year ago by just surveying our alumni, right? Because we’ve got hundreds of alumni that work now as developers or data analysts or data scientists. So roughly a year ago, we did a survey and and got a lot of feedback in terms of, well, what are people actually doing on the job, right? There’s all the hype. There’s all the all the people who have an interest in getting us all excited about gen ah gen generative AI. But we asked our students, what are you doing on the job?<\/p>\n
14:13.32
\nJohn Wark
\nAnd we published a couple, three blog posts last year on stats. What are people really doing? right And we asked our grads, what should we be doing in the curriculum? right And the you know the feedback was pretty broad, including a lot of don’t teach it, because you still have to know how to code. You still have to have the fundamentals. of analytics or or software development in order to wrangle one of these generative AI tools because they can’t be trusted to generate good working code.<\/p>\n
14:43.32
\nAnnakate
\nMm hmm.<\/p>\n
14:45.90
\nAnnakate
\nMm hmm.<\/p>\n
14:46.04
\nJohn Wark
\nI mean, there’re they’re useful and there’s, I mean, and also, oh, by the way, there’s a bunch of employers, including most of the largest ones in town that are in like the healthcare industry who won’t who won’t let their people use these tools yet for all the risk reasons. So so we kind of looked at it, but we started to integrate teaching our students how to use a generative AI tool. And so when when you ask about AI, I’m really speaking here about a subset of AI. I’m talking about generative AI or LLMs.<\/p>\n
15:18.13
\nAnnakate
\nMm hmm.<\/p>\n
15:18.14
\nJohn Wark
\nah You know, we’ve been teaching other parts of AI. We’ve been teaching machine learning in our ah data science class since 2017, natural language processing stuff. So i’m I’m talking here, you know, Gen AI. But um so the first thing is we’re teaching our students how to responsibly and effectively use generative AI as a so really a search tool or a learning tool, right? I mean, we’ve always taught our grads how to use Google searches to look stuff up, how to use<\/p>\n
15:48.11
\nAnnakate
\nHmm.<\/p>\n
15:48.30
\nJohn Wark
\num you know, all of the websites that are out there that can provide answers to programming questions. Well, you you can use, you know, Claude or chat GPT or Gemini or whatever for that stuff. So we’re teaching them how to use those tools effectively, but you still got to write your own code. You you know, you still, you’ve got to learn the fundamentals yourself.<\/p>\n
16:07.11
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
16:09.78
\nJohn Wark
\nWhat we’re now integrating and in all the programs, and we’re doing it varies a little bit from program to program, exactly how we’re doing it, but late in the program, usually it’s the last group project before capstones, is the students get permission to actually generate code and get some experience with prompting. right, um not just prompting alert, but prompting to generate code so they can understand just how precise they have to be, just how many ways the code that’s generated can be screwed up, ah what to look for.<\/p>\n
16:46.62
\nJohn Wark
\nBut also, so they can experiment with things like generating tests, or generating documentation, or you know all the other things.<\/p>\n
16:50.47
\nAnnakate
\nMm hmm.<\/p>\n
16:53.40
\nJohn Wark
\nand And so they can go out in their job search and say, yeah, I’ve got some experience. using this, but i but I’ve also seen the mistakes and stuff. So that’s kind of the next step. And then the that the thing that we’re looking at next is, and I know from talking to JJ, I think you guys are are starting to get some experience doing some of this in some projects, is how do we build applications that integrate LLMs, right, or that integrate, you know, retrieval augmented, you know, retrieval augmented generation techniques with an LLM to embed, you know, that kind of maybe a chat customer support capability or, you know, to to put LLM features into another application, you know, because there’s lots of tools out there, but OK, well, how do we use the APIs and what are the things you have to understand?<\/p>\n
17:35.04
\nJoey the Host
\nAnd you sir?<\/p>\n
17:35.71
\nAnnakate
\nRight.<\/p>\n
17:46.23
\nJohn Wark
\nSo we’re, you know, moving in that direction and we’re we’re beefing up expanding some of the things we’re doing with machine learning and the data science program to include some things around LLMs and stuff. and That’s probably way too long an answer, but we’re<\/p>\n
18:01.95
\nAnnakate
\nNo, no, that’s fine. I mean, yes, we are having a lot of these conversations internally as well. And these large language models are certainly something that our clients are interested in and are kind of coming at us. How can we do this? and How should we incorporate this? And so we’ve got some plans ourselves for how we can can better integrate that. But can you talk to a little bit about what are some of the things you’re most proud of with the software school? Maybe something that surprised you or just kind of overall what what comes to mind as something you’re most proud of?<\/p>\n
18:28.11
\nJohn Wark
\nWell, I mean, the easy answer to most proud is is our our graduates, our students, right?<\/p>\n
18:33.44
\nAnnakate
\nMm hmm.<\/p>\n
18:34.24
\nJohn Wark
\nTo see now hundreds and hundreds. I mean, we’re now at, we’re now over 2,700. graduates um one more graduating class tomorrow night for this month we graduate we’ll graduate five classes this month alone June’s a big graduating month for us so but to see them go out on the job and then to see the things that that they’re doing right and<\/p>\n
18:41.63
\nAnnakate
\nWow.<\/p>\n
18:52.08
\nAnnakate
\nGreat.<\/p>\n
18:59.93
\nJohn Wark
\nand then to see them growing in their careers and become, you know, I mean, again, you guys have Caleb and he’s not the only NSS grad at Atiba, but since we mentioned him, you know, he he’s now a team lead, right? He’s now a senior engineer, ah you you know, just just to see, you know, our our students who had, who were just, you know, in a lot of cases, just freaking clueless about tech and stuff, right?<\/p>\n
19:10.97
\nAnnakate
\nMm-hmm.<\/p>\n
19:25.32
\nJohn Wark
\nI mean, I can remember<\/p>\n
19:25.91
\nJoey the Host
\nCaleb was clueless not a note in that one I’m kidding ah<\/p>\n
19:29.08
\nJohn Wark
\nYeah, well, I ain’t gonna touch that. Okay, anyways, but yeah, I remember interviewing one young lady who, you know, was like, you know, she was interested in learning C sea pound. And I’m like, what?<\/p>\n
19:45.33
\nAnnakate
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
19:45.37
\nJohn Wark
\nC pound, what is C pound? And I finally realized she’s talking about C sharp. and ah you know And then she ended up killing it in class, working as a junior instructor from us for us. And you know so to just see this the progression both as technical people, but also the changes that they’re able to make in their lives, when they get into these great career, single mom, three kids, four kids, right? And and you know being able to be on a much sounder economic path to support their kids in support of their lives. I go back and forth, it our students and then our staff.<\/p>\n
20:29.55
\nJohn Wark
\nparticularly our, you know, not our instructors, all of our, you know, our instructors have to be professional engineers, software developers, right?<\/p>\n
20:35.57
\nAnnakate
\nof<\/p>\n
20:36.61
\nJohn Wark
\nWe’ve got instructors who’ve had, you know, 50, 20 years of experience.<\/p>\n
20:37.86
\nJoey the Host
\nOkay.<\/p>\n
20:40.52
\nJohn Wark
\nAnd I guarantee you, they could all make a lot more money as an engineer someplace than they can teach in an NSS, as a nonprofit, as a, you know, we we can’t, Matt, particularly the salaries the last four or five years.<\/p>\n
20:46.24
\nAnnakate
\nfor<\/p>\n
20:53.42
\nJohn Wark
\nOh my God, why did I ever stop being a developer? Anyways, um<\/p>\n
20:58.26
\nAnnakate
\nYou know, speaking of that, actually, I was going to ask you, what what did you want to be when you grew up?<\/p>\n
21:02.87
\nJohn Wark
\nI was a, well, yeah.<\/p>\n
21:07.83
\nAnnakate
\nWhat was your first kind of childhood ah ambition?<\/p>\n
21:08.29
\nJoey the Host
\nyeah<\/p>\n
21:10.83
\nJohn Wark
\nYeah, that, I don’t, i you know, I don’t know because my childhood is so far back in the dim dark days of antiquity that, you know, dinosaurs were still roaming the earth with their little short arms.<\/p>\n
21:23.07
\nJoey the Host
\nbut<\/p>\n
21:23.71
\nJohn Wark
\nbut<\/p>\n
21:24.18
\nAnnakate
\nbut<\/p>\n
21:24.51
\nJohn Wark
\nah um um But my out is my college major was I was going to be a creative writer. I was going to be a novelist. I was going to be a a writer.<\/p>\n
21:33.20
\nAnnakate
\num<\/p>\n
21:35.32
\nJohn Wark
\nRight. And thank God the university made me a programmer um and saved me from a life as a starving artist. So.<\/p>\n
21:44.67
\nAnnakate
\nGotcha. I wondered, the are you surprised that you are where you are now? And I know you’ve taught at Belmont University also and now leading Nashville Software School. Is this is this feel like a path that was natural or is it kind of like, if you took a step back, like, a here we are, you know?<\/p>\n
22:01.17
\nJohn Wark
\nOh, yeah, no, it’s always felt a little weird. Well, you know, yeah i grew up and you know graduate when I graduated high school in central Indiana, We didn’t know words like entrepreneur and stuff back, right?<\/p>\n
22:14.71
\nAnnakate
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
22:14.75
\nJoey the Host
\nThank<\/p>\n
22:15.23
\nJohn Wark
\nI mean, it’s like who knew and who knew tech, right? I mean, there were mainframe computers that, you know, the the big companies use, but, you know, none of us grew up learning anything about that kind of stuff in this. I mean, I graduated high school in 69, so, you know, it just wasn’t a thing, right? And and so to just fall, to fall into something as early as I did, you know, as as as a mainframe computer operator in early 70 and then programming by the end of 71, you know, so early in the evolution of all this, really before there was a software industry, before right?<\/p>\n
22:41.01
\nJoey the Host
\nyou.<\/p>\n
22:52.65
\nJohn Wark
\nAnd to just, I mean, you know, sometimes it’s just way better to be lucky than good, you know, because it’s just right, you know, it got ah got, so no, it is kind of hard to believe, right? ah it it yeah It really is. and and And just, you know, it’s amazing the path and how the the technology side and the people side sort of go, you know, kind of go back and forth and interweave because<\/p>\n
23:20.27
\nJoey the Host
\nThank<\/p>\n
23:22.18
\nJohn Wark
\nyeah while in I’ve always loved the technology, and NSS is absolutely technology-centered in skills, but we we we focus as much on helping people learn the soft skills<\/p>\n
23:26.91
\nJoey the Host
\nyou.<\/p>\n
23:34.71
\nJohn Wark
\nwhich I don’t know why we call them soft skills, because they’re really the hard skills of teamwork, communication, you know, all of those things.<\/p>\n
23:37.95
\nAnnakate
\nYeah, they are just what you.<\/p>\n
23:42.25
\nJohn Wark
\nAnd it’s one of the things that employers tell us is that one of the reasons they like to hire from us is because because we do work with our students on that those aspects of the job. And so, because the people side is every bit as important in our grads being effective. once they get on the job, or even getting the job, right? I mean, you guys know how that works.<\/p>\n
24:02.10
\nAnnakate
\nRight.<\/p>\n
24:03.71
\nJohn Wark
\nSo anyways, I don’t know, you started me on something and I went off on a about four tangents.<\/p>\n
24:07.16
\nAnnakate
\nknow what you wanted to be when you grew up. And actually, as you know, this is called the Half Geek Half Human podcast. We wanted to ah finish up with kind of a, you know, how would you describe yourself? Are you more half geek or half human, would you say?<\/p>\n
24:22.21
\nJohn Wark
\nOoh, I’m not sure I think of that as a half and half thing, because I think I think all of us are are humans who have something we’re a geek about, right?<\/p>\n
24:34.10
\nAnnakate
\nlike<\/p>\n
24:34.80
\nJohn Wark
\nBecause I think everybody you i think every all my friends, for sure, they’re a geek about something.<\/p>\n
24:40.06
\nAnnakate
\nMmhmm.<\/p>\n
24:40.06
\nJohn Wark
\nIt may not be tech, right? But man, they’re a geek about something. They’re a guitar geek or they’re, I’ve had a hobby since I was really young that I occasionally actually have time to practice of model railroading, model trains. I got friends who are super geeks on model trains, right? And they could tell you the history of the Nashville Chattanooga and St. Louis railroad and how they’re modeling, so right? So, I mean, I think we’re all, we You know, geeking out is where a lot of the fun in life is, particularly when you can do it with other people, which is the human part. So I don’t know. that That’s kind of i how I kind of think of that, right?<\/p>\n
25:21.61
\nJoey the Host
\nI love that answer. Personally, I mean, I geek out to a lot of different things in life. I don’t know if I would, if someone would look at me and say, Joey’s a geek might call me a nerd. that Those that know me, uh, know that underneath all this, you know, very manly appearance that I, that I’ve put forth is that I’m just a big closet nerd on, on anything. So, uh, nor am I manly.<\/p>\n
25:41.84
\nJohn Wark
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
25:43.88
\nJoey the Host
\nA lot of things. So just sit by the computer all day.<\/p>\n
25:46.53
\nAnnakate
\nTell us more.<\/p>\n
25:46.83
\nJoey the Host
\nUh,<\/p>\n
25:47.27
\nAnnakate
\nTell us more, Joey.<\/p>\n
25:48.51
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah, but no I do love that answer. And so yeah, it’s just, I was going to ask you, what do you geek out to? But I i love the the train modeling. That that is, that’s an art that I feel like there’s not a lot of anymore. I bet there is a community somewhere, but it’s just not one that’s very prevalent, ah at least that I see.<\/p>\n
26:03.61
\nJohn Wark
\nOh yeah.<\/p>\n
26:08.93
\nJohn Wark
\nOh yeah, it’s it’s not super visible unless you’re looking for it, but like um you know I belong to a model railroad club here in town. you We’ve got a basement under an old apartment building that’s full of like train layout and I go to a couple conferences every year that are what they call railroad prototype modelers where we actually are trying to So and some some of the guys I know you know uh 570 was at 573 the old steam engine that was in centennial park right that got pulled out of centennial park what’s that now three or four years ago now maybe more which you know they’re rebuilding down in the old uh tennessee central shops by the tennessee central railway museum on the you know east side um you know i’ve got guys that go down there<\/p>\n
26:41.02
\nAnnakate
\nOh,<\/p>\n
26:53.17
\nAnnakate
\noh cool.<\/p>\n
26:57.90
\nJohn Wark
\nfriends that go down there several times a month to work on Helping to restore the old steam engine so we so I can get running again So, you know so there yeah, but it’s it’s like everything else right?<\/p>\n
27:06.24
\nJoey the Host
\nHmm.<\/p>\n
27:09.10
\nJohn Wark
\nIt’s like old cars, right? It’s like old motorcycles. It’s like art. It’s like Craft cocktails. It’s like home brewing. Oh my god. I got home brewing friends. So You know, I mean there’s just so many things I<\/p>\n
27:23.70
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
27:24.61
\nAnnakate
\nWell, John, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a really fun conversation. For those listening, if you want to learn more about the Nashville Software School, you can visit their website. But they also have stories from the Hackery podcast as well as a separate podcast to celebrate the school’s 10-year anniversary. It’s a 10-episode series that really takes you on a deep dive of Nashville Software School’s origins and ends on what’s next for the school. And and and all the episodes are great. The first one is really neat just to hear kind of the origin story and the conversations that took place to launch the school in the first place and a lot of characters from around the Nashville entrepreneur and tech scene, how they were involved and how everybody got started in the first place. So we’ll drop the links to those in the show notes. And John, thanks so much for having us today.<\/p>\n
28:09.65
\nJohn Wark
\nWell, thank you so much for for yeah inviting me and giving me a chance to talk a little bit about NSS. It’s great. It’s great to share with you guys since Atiba’s been yeah a really good partner for NSS for, geez, years to see. When did Caleb, you guys, yeah, 2013, 2014, you must have hired you.<\/p>\n
28:30.61
\nAnnakate
\nI think seven or eight years ago, yeah, for sure.<\/p>\n
28:31.36
\nJoey the Host
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
28:33.69
\nJohn Wark
\nAnd so you hired at least one before Caleb, if I remember right, maybe two, so.<\/p>\n
28:34.27
\nJoey the Host
\nOkay.<\/p>\n
28:38.09
\nAnnakate
\nYeah, we were kind of going through the list. There’s been several over the years.<\/p>\n
28:41.91
\nJohn Wark
\nYeah. All right. Well, so thanks.<\/p>\n
28:43.19
\nJoey the Host
\nThat’s awesome.<\/p>\n
28:44.58
\nJohn Wark
\nEnjoyed it.<\/p>\n
28:44.73
\nJoey the Host
\nthank Thank you, John. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n
28:46.00
\nAnnakate
\nThanks, John.<\/p>\n
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