What happens when you go through 14 reorganizations and 7 managers in just two years?
In this episode, I sit down with my longtime friend Terrence Ryan, a Developer Relations Manager at Google Cloud specializing in AI, to talk about what it really takes to navigate relentless change without burning out, disengaging, or simply resisting reality.
Terry shares practical strategies he’s learned from nearly two decades in tech, including how to manage uncertainty, what leaders get wrong during times of change, and why radical acceptance may be one of the most underrated skills for success.
We also dive into the biggest change facing nearly every industry right now: AI. Terry shares a refreshingly practical take on how to think about artificial intelligence, avoid the hype, and actually start using it in ways that make you more effective instead of more overwhelmed.
Along the way, we also explore improv, adaptability, office politics, empathy, and why learning to say “That’s interesting… let me think about it” might be one of the most powerful phrases in work and life.
Key Takeaways
A practical strategy for handling uncertainty during organizational change
How leaders can communicate change without causing unnecessary anxiety
Why people struggle more with being blindsided than with change itself
The surprising connection between improv comedy and professional adaptability
Terry’s take on AI: “We’re selling power tools, not robots”
How to start experimenting with AI without getting overwhelmed
Why empathy may become an even more important skill in an increasingly technical world
Relevant Links
Connect with Terry on LinkedIn
Learn more about Avish: Avish Parashar Website
Get Avish’s book: Say “Yes, And! To Change.
Unedited Transcript
Avish Parashar
Hello, Terry, my old friend. How are you? Welcome to the podcast.
Terry Ryan
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here, man.
Avish Parashar
I have stunned you with my opening question.
Terry Ryan
Yes. Yeah, you have. Yeah. No, as you can see, I'm, I'm clearly in an undisclosed location in, in this jury office building.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. Is that part of the Witness Protection Program you're in now?
Terry Ryan
Yeah. No, it's this is a this is a without a window meeting room at Google's office in San Francisco.
Avish Parashar
Ah, well, well, good to know. That's— you work your way up to the meeting rooms that have windows, I guess.
Terry Ryan
Yes. Yeah.
Avish Parashar
Excellent. Well, so you work at Google, which you've now revealed that. But for people who don't know you, could you just give us kind of a quick sort of who you are and what you do? Like a, you know, 30-second, 60-second sort of bio overview.
Terry Ryan
I'll, I'll time it. So my name is Terry Ryan. I am a developer advocate for Google. For those who may not be into the lingo a developer advocate is primarily worried about developers using a technical product. So I work for Google Cloud specifically. I work in the AI space, and my goal professionally is to make sure that developers who are using our tools are able to use it with as little friction as possible.
Terry Ryan
There's a little bit of awareness too. Sometimes I go out and I talk about these things at events or whatnot. But basically, my goal is to get people excited about using our tools and then try to get them to be successful once they're using them. It's documentation, code samples, And then, like I said, sometimes events where I get to do like kind of cool demos.
Avish Parashar
Ah, okay. So, and it's interesting cuz this whole advocate position, I didn't really know it was a thing, but years ago, right, when you used to work at Wharton Computing and like your first job after that, you joined Adobe as an advocate. So you've been sort of in this advocate space for a, for a long time, or did you leave that space for a bit and now you're back in it?
Terry Ryan
No, I, I'm, I mean, So I've been doing this job for about 15 years, so 16, no, 17 years now. 6 at Adobe and now 11 at Google.
Terry Ryan
And I had briefly for, you know, about 2 years prior to about a year ago, had gone into engineering managing, which is related but slightly different. So I was a manager, but for engineers instead of develop. But yeah, kind of long story, but yeah, I was managing people.
Terry Ryan
In developer relations, and we got into engineering, and then we moved back to developer relations. That's part of the joy of corporate life, of sometimes, you know, you put on a different uniform and switch to a different team because a different VP has a need for you to be doing something else.
Avish Parashar
Well, that's sort of one of the reasons I want to chat with you. I've been trying to chat with more on this podcast with as opposed to people like me who've been sort of speaking and, you know, researching, people like you who are in the workforce sort of dealing with this.
Avish Parashar
And when I asked you in advance about, you know, ask me about change, you sent me an email with some information and these numbers. I got to make sure this wasn't a typo. Yeah, you said just in the last few years there's been 14 reorganizations and gone through 7 different managers.
Terry Ryan
Yeah.
Avish Parashar
And, and how long a timeframe was that?
Terry Ryan
2 years.
Avish Parashar
In— how do you reorganize 14 times in 2 years?
Terry Ryan
So what's cool is that Google reorganizes so much that there's an internal tool called Reorganizer that will do a query against our HR, HR systems to show you how many times you change. And that's every time, my management change, my management chain changed. Mm-hmm. So some of those reorgs, you know, like when a VP 7 levels above you changes, it's a reorg, you know, you, you tend to form a new group or whatnot, but it might not have as much impact on you as say when your immediate boss changes, right? That being said, I felt, what'd I say, 14? I definitely felt 11 of them. You know, like it was, it was a lot of, it was a lot of change in a very short period of time.
Terry Ryan
Part of this is I work in technology, right? And as anybody who, who is reading any news articles, see, and I work, I work in AI, that space is changing incredibly rapidly. And so One of the kind of cool things about Google, one of the positive things they'll say about it is that the idea that like an org, a group, a person could try something, it doesn't work, and like, okay, well, we'll just move you on to do something else, is it's part of the culture. So we reorg a lot. And some of it is that phenomenon. And some of it is, you know, the corporate stuff that happens when you have you know, people that have 1,000 people that report up to them, you know, they kind of move people around.
Avish Parashar
And it is obviously a way of life these days with, with change and rapid change. And, you know, I kind of wanna get your perspective both as someone who's sort of, you know, you've been at various levels on the chain of the, of the, of dealing with change.
Avish Parashar
So both as an employee in such a large organization, you know, how, what sort of techniques do you use? Or what's your kind of mindset around actually adapting to the change instead of feeling totally, you know, just beat down by it or burnt out or just kind of disengaging, giving up on the whole thing?
Terry Ryan
So there's kind of two strategies. And one of the tricks that I learned when I was, when I was kind of training under a mentor of mine to be a manager, was make sure that however the org changes, you can figure out ways, at least in the short term, short term to medium term, move some labels around on your work so that the work you've been doing, 'cause a lot of times what happens is, right, you're on a project and then the reorg happens and then that project falls apart, right?
Terry Ryan
Because it, you know, for whatever reason it doesn't survive. And that's one of the most demoralizing things that can happen to people, right? You know, like, and, and you'll get in this period of time where you're like, the work I'm doing is no longer valued, valued, but I haven't been told what to do. And so now I need to look busy because people want me to be doing some, but, you know, I, I, I, I don't want to spend time on something that's not useful.
Terry Ryan
So one of the biggest things I learned was figure out ways of organizing your work into individual projects and tasks that you can basically slot into other new priorities. So, you know, a lot of my work was creating content or creating content is probably one of the big ones or doing events and figuring out that like, oh, these talks that were me talking about this set of products might no longer be applicable, but like, they're basically talks about Google as a platform. And I can use that to bridge those periods of time. So I don't have those until I get new marching orders and can like, okay, now I'm gonna shift the work into something new. So that's one of the, the big tricks I've learned.
Avish Parashar
Well, I like that. Cuz it's sort of this idea of, you know what I call like yielding to what is, it's like you've been doing this work and then when some changes happen, a lot of people, and myself included a number of times over the years, you sort of just want to put your head down and just keep doing things the same way.
Avish Parashar
Which in that situation, then they'll come along and be like, oh, well, this isn't— but what you're doing there is you're saying, alright, well, here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm good at. Here's what I like. How can I adapt it to this new environment so that— and then it's almost like, I'm not saying fooling, but almost sort of slides it under the radar. Like, you're making the connections for the other people. So you're adapting to the situation instead of just being annoyed by it or being flummoxed by it.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. And then using, using kind of accepting that like this is going to be a bridging period of time. Like, like you're, you're trying to manage the bridging time. Cause like that period of time between when a change happens and you get like a new, a clear new direction that you need to be going in is super demoralizing. Yes.
Terry Ryan
And especially for the people under you, you know, who have, you know, the further you are away from, from one of those reorgs, the less insight you have into it. So, and so the less feeling of control you have. So allowing people to have some feeling of control and agency during that move is really helpful.
Avish Parashar
And doing that for yourself is super, super Yeah, I think that ties into the idea of like, this whole idea that I try to espouse is kind of turning change to your advantage. You know, I think most people look at change as something that happens to them, it's something they have to get through. I mean, as a, as an improv person, right, I had the, you know, I had the phrase in my book, which is that, you know, not all change is good, but all change is an offer.
Avish Parashar
So that middle area, you're talking about that gap between like, you Well, this change is happening, or, you know, I've seen it where it's like, well, this change is coming, but we don't know exactly when.
Terry Ryan
It's just, yeah.
Avish Parashar
And then when it happens, it's like there's that gap. And in that gap you can just sort of say, well, this sucks. Or you can say, all right, well, what can I proactively do so that when it happens, it's actually to my advantage?
Terry Ryan
Yeah. And I think one of the other things, and especially kind of going on your framework I really like your framework of like hostility. To apathy. I can't remember the third one.
Avish Parashar
And then it's hostility, resistance, and apathy.
Terry Ryan
Okay. Hostility, resistance, apathy, and then acceptance, and then excitement. Right. Yeah.
Avish Parashar
And there's hesitation kind of in the middle there, but yeah.
Terry Ryan
Okay. There is. Okay. So I focused on the ends of it.
Avish Parashar
You don't have the thing memorized yet.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. But you know, one of the things I had this problem and this, this problem was actually in my personal life, in my professional life everywhere. So which is I tend to overthink and I tend to like predict what's going to happen a lot, right? So I have got like a pretty good, you know, and that serves me really well. I go into a meeting and like someone brings up like, oh, I was thinking about this. You're like, oh, that's great, I wanted to go that way. Or, oh, I, I don't want to go that way but I've already planned why I don't want to go that way and I'm pretty good about it. But left field stuff threw me for a loop. You know, the, the, oh, I think we should do something completely different. And I, you know, what really, what really helped me tackle this was
Terry Ryan
marriage, was, you know, being, being in a relationship where what would happen is, is my partner would bring up something and I would immediately kind of just say nope. Oh no, no, no, no.
Terry Ryan
Because it wasn't, it was out of left field. And then what would happen is I would sit with it and think about it for a while and then be like, oh man, actually that is a good idea. Or that is, that is, that's probably the right way to do things. Then I have to go back to my partner and like, we all know the dynamics of that in our relationships.
Avish Parashar
Oh yeah.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. Oh man, I thought about it and, and, and then I realized like, oh, I was doing that at work too. And so the first trick I have for that is the, is the That's an interesting idea. I'm going to need to think about that for a while.
Terry Ryan
Yes. Right. And so you've immediately switched from blocking an offer basically to you're not quite accepting it yet, but you're not blocking it. Right. And so that opens up a whole lot of different possibilities for you from both a professional and a personal standpoint. Like, you don't take that hit. Of, of blocking, right? Yeah.
Avish Parashar
And I would think that there's also, you know, I'm not speaking specifically your relationship, but there's like a cost to be paid even if you then go back and say, you know what, I thought about it and you were right. Like, there's— it's not the same as if you say, well, let me think about it, right? Because there's already been a little bit of damage because you kind of immediately shut it down.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. And so, and I think just in general That's kind of how I felt about a lot of this stuff that I've been positive. And what I've done in the last few years is actually kind of being able to push to not quite getting to excitement as my first step, but just radical acceptance as a first step.
Avish Parashar
Yep.
Terry Ryan
So, huh. Yeah. So instead of saying like, let me think about that for a while. Let's put that on the table. Let's, you know, and that's like a, that's like you have to practice it. You have to train it, right? 'Cause it's not, you know, if that's your thing, like someone asked me about, I was talking to someone about this again, like acceptance.
Terry Ryan
It's like if you come to a chasm, you know the way to get over that chasm is to jump over it. There is no way around, you have to learn how to jump over that chasm. And I think acceptance is the same way. Like it's the fundamental thing you have to do You have to learn how to accept things.
Terry Ryan
You have to learn how to say like, yep, this is the way things are. You know, 'cause so, you know, so many people get lost in the like, oh, well, like, you know, I should have gotten that promotion or I should have gotten that project or this shouldn't have happened to me. Or I, you know, and like, you're going to have to accept it anyway because reality is a very stern taskmaster. Like you can't, you know, like reality is reality.
Terry Ryan
And so training yourself to get to acceptance first, like excitement would be better. I absolutely admit that. Excitement is—
Avish Parashar
Well, that's the reason it's a ladder. It's like you're not trying, it's like move one or two steps at a time.
Avish Parashar
It's just, it's so funny you're talking about that because I'm working on a new keynote to go along with the book. I'm delivering it, you know, at the time we're talking, I'm delivering it next week. And I was just going over this section. On— I don't have time to go into all 6 steps of my framework. So I'm going to talk about the first one, the yield.
Avish Parashar
And I literally like was going over this, like, you know, there's a difference between understanding and accepting. And I think most people think they're accepting when all they're doing is understanding. So what I mean is like, like in your example, someone will step to the edge of the chasm and be like, oh yeah, there's a chasm here. But they sort of still are like complaining about it. They have, they understand it, but they haven't been like, oh yeah, here's this thing in my way and here's what I'm gonna do about it.
Avish Parashar
So we get like, so we blur the line and get so caught up in just like, well, I know it's there. So like, no, no, acceptance is a lot more than that. It's like kind of letting go and being in the moment and then sort of responding to things.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. And to kind of flog the metaphor even further, like there's nothing wrong with getting through the chasm and like, can I actually jump? Like, do I have enough room? Do I have enough clearance? Like, do I need to take a running start? It's okay to analyze and, and understanding is, is an important step of that. But like, you know, I think it's a difference between I might need to step back and take a running start to get across it versus, you know, if I drove back to town and got a ladder, I could put it down and like Like, yeah, but you can't, right? Like, yeah.
Avish Parashar
And it's so funny because this isn't even new to the book. I've been saying this for, God, I don't know how long since I've been speaking, 20 years, is that, you know, it's not that you never say no, it's not even that you never say yes, but it's just what's your default, right? And kind of to your point, for so many of us, the default, and I fall into this too, to anything new or unexpected, to immediately be like, yeah, but, and like, shut it down.
Avish Parashar
And so like, again, to continue flogging, if you will, with the chasm metaphor, I, it's also completely acceptable, I think, to pause, analyze, think about it, and then ultimately say, you know what? I, I don't need to cross this chasm right now. You know, I mean, from a metaphor standpoint, like, you know, obviously that, you know, sometimes you have to, but there are a lot of situations where, like, you know, if your spouse comes to you with a suggestion or idea, you know, you don't have to say, you don't have to say no right away, but when you say yes, and you're not saying I agree, like you said, like, let me chew on it.
Avish Parashar
That, that doesn't mean you can't then come back in 2 or 3 days and say, okay, well, you know, here's, I thought about it, and here's kind of why. But it completely changes the dynamic. So it's not like you always have to agree and give in to everything. It's like, no, it's just, where's your default?
Terry Ryan
Yeah, it's, isn't there a Jim Carrey movie where he just says yes to everything?
Avish Parashar
Yeah, it's called The Yes Man. Yes, man.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, that's, you know, that's not feasible. To be that, like, to your point. But I think it's— go back to the metaphor. So many people act like, oh no, there's not really a chasm there, or oh no, that chasm isn't the only way across where I need to get to, or like they do so much other stuff than just accept there's a chasm here. I either jump it or I don't jump. Like, and that's what all of that other thought is. It's like not getting to the, the brass tacks of like, this thing is here, I have to, I have to choose how I interact with it some way.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And I don't know how much like anxiety or stress you sort of feel in your life, but I also find that like that level of acceptance is also one of the big keys to not— like the people who don't accept are the ones who seem to be the most stressed out. They're most fearful of the future. They're most guilty about the past because they're just like, they're putting a lot of mental energy into wanting reality to be different than it is, which is impossible.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, no, I definitely would tell you that my personal anxiety levels have gone down. Once I sort of like, I hate to use this word, but sort of the right surrender to, you know, like, nope, this is, this is how, this is how you deal with these sorts of things. You accept, okay, This is the reality.
Avish Parashar
So how did you get to that point? Was it just reminding yourself and practicing? Or do you have any other techniques or ways of like kind of getting to that level of acceptance or as a more of a default response?
Terry Ryan
Yeah, I think, I think to that story before about like, that evolution of stop, let me think about this as an initial step because that's one very concrete thing you can do, right? Like, like changing your mentality is difficult.
Terry Ryan
Changing your behavior is a little bit easier. So setting a rule for yourself— when someone, when someone says something to me and my immediate response is no, I'm going to change those words to, huh, let me think about that— is, for me, was the big first step.
Avish Parashar
Mm-hmm.
Terry Ryan
And then once that also gave up a lot of breathing room in that I wasn't— that, that, that period of time where you're thinking things over, when you're thinking things over after having said no, and like you have all this resistance, you have all this like cognitive dissonance, you have all of those things that kind of come into play. It freed me up to like realize like, oh. You know, like, it, it, it got me to stop fighting it quite as much. And then I think it was just a muscle, right? Like, it just— like, the more and more I worked on and practiced doing that, the more effective it became for me.
Terry Ryan
And like anything else you know, someone told me this story about politics, and it kind of feels the same way. It's a very Zen— it's very also like kind of martial art idea of the of the white belt going through the things and then becoming a black belt and then doing so much that their belt becomes white again. I don't know if you know that metaphor.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. Is so your initial feeling about office politics is like, oh, I don't want to deal with that. That's a whole bunch of BS. And, you know, I'm outside of that. And then you find yourself not very effective at work. So you start saying like, okay, well, I'll play the game, right? I know, I I know if I propose this, this guy will say no. And like, you know, this. So, okay, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna talk to this guy first and like see if I can get him on board before he says no to me in the group setting and derails me.
Terry Ryan
Okay, and then like, and then so you plan it out and you have a little bit of success. And so then you start doing that naturally. Like, so you start talking to that guy and you start, you know, networking, you start, and then by the time you're done, like you'll just find you're good at politics, office politics, and like you won't be thinking about it anymore because it'll just be what you do.
Terry Ryan
And I think it's a lot, a lot of these things are the same thing. Like you, you, you think about them in the beginning and you, you repeat them over and over again as, as things, but eventually what happens is like that just becomes the way you do things and it, it, you know, it changes your relationship to the, the whole thing.
Avish Parashar
Yeah, there's a whole learning model that says you go through like 4 stages of, of learning. The, the first is unconscious incompetence where you don't know what you don't know, and then you get to conscious incompetence. You're like, oh, you're aware of things you're doing wrong or not doing it. And then conscious competence, which is you can do it, but you gotta think about it. And then ultimately unconscious competence was, oh, now you're just sort of doing it.
Avish Parashar
I think kind of that's what you're describing. The problem is pushing through that conscious competence. Because that can be hard to keep reminding yourself and change. But obviously, you know, we think it's worth it.
Avish Parashar
So, let's talk about— I know I'm not sure what your position is now, but I know you have been a manager. I'm not sure if you're currently a manager or not. I know you kind of move around, obviously.
Avish Parashar
So, how do you see this applying or rolling out when it comes to you leading others through change, whether the change is you're the new manager or the change is, hey, you're leading a team and all of a sudden, they're being asked to do something different. Kind of what have you found works, or by contrast, what doesn't work when you're leading a team?
Terry Ryan
So there is a— you have an interesting relationship with disclosure, transparency, and honesty when you're a manager. Because from a personal point of view, you want to know as much as you possibly can about the reality. But, and so that's, you know, your instinct as well. I'm going to give other people the exact amount of info that I have so that they're not in the dark.
Terry Ryan
But the thing is, is that in a lot of, a lot of change is hinted at or suggested or floated whatever weasel word you want to use for people think like, oh, we think we're gonna make this change. You know, we think we're gonna reorg your team into another group, but don't tell any of your people that report to you yet.
Terry Ryan
And so you find yourself in this bad spot of like, how do I— and, and the, the mistakes are to tell them nothing, and the mistakes are to tell them everything, right? If you tell them nothing, then they're going to feel betrayed, they're going to feel a lack of trust, and rightfully so. If you tell them everything, all you're going to do is increase their anxiety over something they have no input into.
Terry Ryan
Yeah. And so one of the big things I've always done with my people is basically said like, look we're in an environment where there's a lot of change. I am not telling you that— like, I'm not telling you that we're in danger of being laid off. I'm not telling you any, any of these things, but I'm going to tell you some concrete things that I, I want you to be doing.
Terry Ryan
One, I want you to be caught up to date on LinkedIn and your resume. Just, you should always have that ready, because that's, that's, you should always be ready to deal with that level of change.
Terry Ryan
Two, typically what I'll do is I'll see the kind of future where we possibly might land and figure out, are there skills or products or technologies or whatever that it would be really advantageous for you to learn. And bonus if multiple paths in the future might rely on this thing. You know, like for example, we were in the midst of some reorgs and we were on an engineering team and one possible outcome was that we could start using this product that we had internally. It's an external product, an open source project, but we would be using it internally called ADK. Not that the name matters, it's just, you know, so I have a label on what I'm talking about. So there are multiple possible things that came in front of us. One of them was working directly on ADK as DevRel. One of them was working as an engineer that would deliver products, Google products, using ADK. Either way you spin it, learning ADK was a good step forward for my people.
Terry Ryan
And so I, started gently encouraging them. And that's the other thing— start gently encouraging them when you see it off in the distance. And then as it gets closer and the possibilities dwindle and it becomes more likely that one of these things is going to happen, then start pushing it harder and harder.
Terry Ryan
So so to sum up, like you know kind of balance transparency with not causing anxiety. Figure out what's going to be necessary in the future and try to start suggesting it ahead of time. And, and, and doing a slow bleed, you know, like, basically, if you're always talking about change as possible, and you're always discussing the nature of it, it never slams somebody out of left field. Because like, oh, we knew this was possible. We were already prepared for it. And that I think gives people a lot of, a lot of, a lot of confidence.
Avish Parashar
Well, what I—
Terry Ryan
stability.
Avish Parashar
What I like about that is that it's very consistent with what you said earlier from an individual standpoint, right? You talked about that, you know, we talked about that gap between the beginning of the change and when something actually happens and people don't like that.
Avish Parashar
And so this approach it gives people something to focus on and prepare for. So instead of just, yeah, there might be a big change, there might be layoffs, you might be reorged.
Avish Parashar
It's like, yeah, there's something coming, we're not sure what, here's how you could start preparing. So in— and it— so it refocuses people instead of just that, just put your head down and keep doing nothing, we can do about it. So it's like, it prepares people.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, I think, I think in general I mean, there is an inherent instability to change, and people don't like instability. But I think more than that, what people don't like about change is when it blindsides them, right? You know, and that it seems to be a recurring theme of what I'm saying today. Blindsiding people— blindsiding is what people have the most trouble dealing with. And so, you know, if you— and it's because people feel out of control. It's just, you know, feeling like, you know, and, you know, like in reality, like, you know, your house gets hit by a storm, it's that you have no control over it is one of the factors of it that's so, so difficult to deal with mentally.
Terry Ryan
So allowing throttling the change so that it does not, you know, like you get people that they're, they're, they're not expecting particular outcomes, but they are not shocked by particular outcomes, I think really does a lot to help them during, during change.
Avish Parashar
Yeah, I agree. I mean, obviously my whole topic is Ding Happens, right? So it's like the blindsiding is one of the big things. And yes, people, do not like that. So the more you can do to prevent that.
Avish Parashar
I want to pivot a little bit, ask to talk about something a little bit different. Obviously, the big change we are all dealing with right now is artificial intelligence. And with your role, your job, you're sort of at the forefront of a lot of that. So it's a little bit off topic, you know, this is a little bit less about, you know, talking about, you know, my brilliance as an improv speaker and more about You know, the world at large.
Avish Parashar
So what, what do we need to be doing to, to har— you know, one of the subtitles of my book is Harness Change, right? So what do we, the average listener, need to be doing to start harnessing this change? Cuz some people are, some people are like so far on board with it. They're like completely outsourcing all their thinking to it. Others are so resistant to it, they're refusing it. And in my opinion, foolhardily just advocating for it to stop, which Yeah, that's the chasm, right? Like, what should we be doing to sort of prepare and make the most of this change so we don't fall behind?
Terry Ryan
So the first thing I would say is in sharp opposition to a lot of the leaders in my field I think that the executives in this space are selling robots— sorry, are hyping robots— when in fact we are selling power tools. And so what I mean by that is the power tool analogy is really easy, right? Like, I've got a team of 10 carpenters, I give them a nail gun, right? The reality is, after I give them a nail gun, I probably need much less carpenters, but I still need the carpenters because the carpenters are the people that know where to put the nails, right? And I know that's overly simplistic, but like, it's a, it's a, it's a good way of thinking about this.
Terry Ryan
So, are— is AI, especially in my field where we're coding, is AI going to reduce the need for individual developers on any given problem? Yeah, I do think it's going to increase the number of problems that we try to solve. And so it really does, it really does depend on that.
Terry Ryan
I also think in our field right now there's a lot of Someone just put this great tweet about CEOs have AI psychosis right now, which is it's really easy to take AI and build something that's a proof of concept, but to get it from a proof of concept to something that is actually used by people in production still takes a fair amount of labor. I have been building apps with AI that I then push to production. I can tell you there's still a lot of gaps between what you can build.
Terry Ryan
This is a problem with business decision makers in general. It's one of the reasons why, like, one of the tips of a designer is to not show them— if you ever build a prototype, don't make it pretty, because if it's pretty, they'll think it's done.
Avish Parashar
Oh, interesting.
Terry Ryan
Because like, oh, I see it's, it's working, like, it must be done. It's like, no, there's no there's no database here, right? Like, as, as you know from your, you know, experience, like That's a big part of a lot of major modern apps. And you can definitely write frontends that don't have databases that just do the behaviors so that you can show people. And then wiring that up is a challenge to put all the safety and security and business rules and everything in there. So, yeah.
Terry Ryan
So, the first thing I would say is don't buy the overhype. Definitely question people that are saying Oh, we don't need this function anymore, we can just replace it with AI. They are likely thinking that they're buying a robot when in fact these are still just power tools.
Terry Ryan
The second thing I would say is definitely play around with this stuff and don't— for it took me a while to be successful with it, mostly because I was also managing at the same time and I just didn't have time to really focus. But like realize that like just because a particular workflow flow works for someone else doesn't mean it will work for you. So like, I— it took me a while to find my rhythm where like I go and I have a conversation with, with I work for Google, so it's Gemini. I have a conversation with Gemini and basically at the end, you know, saying like, hey, I want to build an app that does X. At the end of it, I have an implementation plan and I tell it like, hey, take everything we talked about, turn it into an implementation plan that I could hand to Gemini CLI. To turn it into code. And then I go to Gemini CLI and I have it read this thing and do it. And then I go through and kind of talk with it. Like, that workflow works really, really well for me. And everybody— like, no one else that I have met does that particular set of workflow with a particular set of tools and whatnot. So don't get, you know, play around with it, experiment with it.
Terry Ryan
So, and this is the other thing. Solve problems that you know about.
Avish Parashar
Because the temptation is to go on the thing you know nothing about and be like, oh yeah, I can help me do this, but then you won't know if it's doing it right or not.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, exactly. My first foray into building these apps, I built a suite of sailing apps. My hobby is sailing on the side. What had stopped me from writing these apps in the past is I understand all the database part and all the user interface part, but like map-based applications, there is a, there is a specialty there, right? But now I can use AI to bridge that gap. So, and so I can check all of the other work it's doing and know like, oh, it's good, it's good on this stuff, but then add one bit of a component to it so that I could go that extra step. So that's another thing of like use it to augment, yourself one, use it to do the stuff you know how to do but have to do much faster, right?
Terry Ryan
Like, you know, we're seeing this in law, we're seeing this in coding, and we're seeing this other places where like a lot of this stuff, like, you know, a lot of times I went to code something and like I knew like, ah, I made this change, I really should go and make this change every other place where I'm dealing with this thing. You're just like, no, I just, I'll skip it for now. I'll come back around to it. Now you just tell, hey, I, I added this piece to the interface, find all the places where I'm using this and just turn it into a shared function and like it'll just do it for you. Yeah, some of those tools were already there with IDEs and whatnot, but like you can go a higher level conceptually, you know. Like I'm working on a problem, an app that I'm building for work. And like I've just told AI, like I told Gemini, like, hey, we don't seem to have fixed duplication problem.
Terry Ryan
And like you're just running and duplicating things over and over and over again. Can you look and review the code and see where you're duplicating? I think it's here and here. But, and that's where me understanding this stuff helps. And like it just, it went off and found where it was duplicating stuff. Which is a much higher level than you've been able to have stuff be automated in the past. So that's my thing for experiment with it, play with it, try it.
Avish Parashar
Well, I love two things in there you said, 'cause essentially the play with it I love, and I think that is very like, you know, in my language it's very much like almost treating it like an improv partner, not as like the expert you're going to to give your solutions, but play with it, right?
Avish Parashar
I'm the same way. Like, I've developed over time some workflow. I don't use it nearly as much as you, but I use it for a lot of workflows, and it took me a while to figure out. And, you know, I, I got some AI app year, like, before the GPT thing happened. I bought some AppSumo product that was like, oh, and it was terrible. It just gave me back such crap for my writing.
Avish Parashar
Now, in retrospect, I went into it thinking, oh, I'm gonna be able to tell it what to write, it's gonna write. What I needed to do was play and work. So now with these new tools, it's like, all right, the first go, you don't get the results you want. So then you, you know, you adapt and try again and you adjust and try again. And so I love that playful attitude.
Avish Parashar
And the other thing you said, which I sort of unrelated, but I love the line of, if it looks too polished, people will think it looks too pretty, people will think it's done. Which, you know, all of us improv people and speakers and creatives, we're always talking about like, just get the first draft done. And this is saying not only is it okay to not be pretty, but it's almost to your advantage to have it not look pretty because people will then know it's a, it's a draft or a work in progress. That's such an interesting— I never really thought of it that way, but it is actually a benefit to making it not pretty.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, no, absolutely. And you said something I want to riff on and I can't— I, I've, I forgot the— so I'm just gonna accept your offer and say, yeah, yeah, really good point.
Avish Parashar
All right. Well, if it comes back to you, let me know. You know, it was about the improv thing. Well, let's talk about the improv thing for a minute. So, you know, you've, you know, way back in the day, we did improv together. And, you know, just kind of how have you seen that sort of, you know, because you're in a very technical field, how, if at all, has the improv experience kind of benefited you?
Terry Ryan
Yeah, so a couple things. Like, one of the best things that improv did is— you remember this— that like when a new performer starts, you want them, you want them practicing a lot because when they first start doing improv, everything out of their mouth is scatological or sexual, right? Because those are the things that we repress, and like it's, um it comes out once you, you sort of open the floodgates for people.
Avish Parashar
Once you tap into that creative flow, a lot of the surface level stuff.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And then you, you know, you, you do it for a while and you get it out of your system, and then you're ready to be— and so then you can trust yourself, you can trust your humor
Terry Ryan
because you've gotten that out of your system. And so I think being able to trust what— like, so, so much of work is dreary boredom, you know, just like, you know, I remember you, you and I used to complain about this of like work humor, the, you know, you see somebody sitting at a desk that isn't theirs and you're like, oh, Sandy, you look different today. Or it doesn't feel like a Monday. Right? Like, and so being able to be a person who comes to work this often dreary environment and bring, you know, mirth is really helpful.
Terry Ryan
And then a lot of my early Debrele experience was speaking at events. And the ability, you know, I have bombed on stage with you improv-wise. I have bombed, you know, like you just go out and you try something. Sometimes it doesn't work and the audience goes, no. Yeah, right. And like you do that a bunch of times and like it doesn't embarrass you anymore, you know?
Terry Ryan
And so having done events where I was trying to show live stuff Like that's one of the most exciting things you could do technically is doing a live event, a live demo of your stuff. And if it bombs, like I've intentionally made a fool out of myself in front of people that this thing that everyone knows sometimes, you know, you have connectivity problems, doesn't work, doesn't faze me and didn't faze me for the longest time. So I would say, the confidence to show up as yourself and the the ability to weather any sort of bad public embarrassment because you've intentionally publicly embarrassed yourself in the past have been huge things that I brought from improv.
Avish Parashar
I love that, like sort of a desensitization. And it's funny with improv and, and things in general, say, you know, you can't— what I like about improv is, you know, it's impossible impossible to prepare for everything.
Terry Ryan
Yeah.
Avish Parashar
But improv sort of helps you prepare for anything. Yeah. So it's like, you know, some people drive themselves crazy trying to think of every branch on the tree of what could possibly go wrong. Like, you're never gonna, cuz you know, Murphy's gonna throw you something. But then improv's like, no matter what happens you know, I'll, I'll figure it out. Like, I'll do something.
Terry Ryan
Yeah.
Avish Parashar
Yeah.
Terry Ryan
And it's also, you know, like one of, especially working for Google, one of the things I get in public appearances is a little game I— we all like to call in, in the speaking biz stump the chump, where like one person against an audience of 200 or 500, like the odds that someone in that audience knows something I don't know is, you know an absolute certainty, right?
Terry Ryan
But you're the one on the stage, right? And so like someone will try to ask you questions not because they have legitimate questions, because they want to show they're smarter than the guy on stage. And when the guy on stage is from Google, it gets even worse because like we're just humans, but like there was this, you know, perception of Google as like a, you know, a smart place.
Terry Ryan
And like my ability to just have no ego and just go, oh yeah, no, that's interesting. I've never heard of that. Or that's an interesting thought. I don't have an answer for you. Being able to do that, like not being flustered by, you know, left field in that regard, it was super helpful. And that I think came from improv.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And just the ability to say, I don't know, and not have it be the end of the world. I think that's something all managers can like, you know, kind of, you were talking about the transparency versus oversharing.
Avish Parashar
It's like, I think the ability to say, I don't know, cuz I think we've all seen experts, managers, leaders who just start babbling cuz they don't wanna say. I don't know. And it's like the most roundabout doublespeak and they leave and you're like, they don't know what they're talking about.
Terry Ryan
And it's just like, well, yeah, there are, there are issues that are really pertinent here. I don't know that we can get into all of them, but the ones that I am aware of, I think we're very clear that things will happen and, you know, you know, we'll, we'll continue to persevere.
Avish Parashar
Yeah, well, I'm going to write that down. I'm going to say that next time someone asks me a question.
Terry Ryan
I could do that for hours.
Avish Parashar
Well, the improv helps with that too.
Terry Ryan
Exactly.
Avish Parashar
Alright, cool. Hey, this is, it's been fantastic. We're kind of gonna wrap up here in just a, just a few moments. I got one kind of final question I want to ask before we get to that. If anyone wants to learn more about what you do, connect with you, follow you, what are the best places to reach you?
Terry Ryan
God, so I would say LinkedIn right now. Terence P. Ryan on LinkedIn. I used to be much bigger, much more involved with Twitter. Like many people, I've kind of got away from that in the last year. Sure. So LinkedIn is probably the best place if you want to get in touch with me.
Avish Parashar
You know, I was going to make a joke about an out-of-print social media platform that is so old now that I can't remember what it was called. So let's say you work at Google. What was, what was Google's Facebook alternative thing? They—
Terry Ryan
oh, Google Plus.
Avish Parashar
Google Plus. You're not, you're not active there. That's not where people should go connect with you.
Terry Ryan
So Google, Google Plus has, has been defunct for quite a long time. It was, it was defunct when I— like, it was dead man walking when I joined 11 years ago.
Avish Parashar
But you know, that's the whole thing about, you know, you try stuff. Google's willing to try stuff and it doesn't work and you, you know, and you just— Google+ doesn't work, you just put on your Google Glasses and go somewhere else.
Terry Ryan
Nice one. Zing!
Avish Parashar
You know, I do what I can. I don't want to get you in trouble with your bosses. Excellent. Well, cool. We'll put that LinkedIn link there too if you want to connect with you, get more info about you, maybe want to learn about AI or Google or anything like that.
Avish Parashar
So I want to finish up by asking a final question. This is kind of how I try to wrap up all my podcasts here. You know, I talk about the idea of saying yes and instead of yes, but because I think the world would be a better place if everyone just started with a default response of yes and kind of one of the things we talked about, the default response.
Avish Parashar
So what is one small thing that you think if everyone did, it will make the world a better place?
Terry Ryan
God, learn how to drive.
Avish Parashar
You know, that is an answer I get when I ask that question on stage.
Terry Ryan
I think the older I get, the more I wish other people would value develop, cultivate, and use empathy. I know that seems kind of squishy and granola-y, but like, I think one, empathy is is underrated.
Terry Ryan
Like, being able to understand where someone is coming from, understanding why why someone is behaving a particular way, one, allows you to control yourself so much more, right? You know, like, oh, this isn't personal, or this is cultural, or whatever. Like, it's nothing about me is hugely helpful. And then just being able to better interface with other people because you, you have empathy for them.
Terry Ryan
So, so my bet my vote would be if people could, you know, empathy doesn't have to mean sympathy, right? Like, you know, but if I could just understand where other people are coming from better, if more people understood where everyone else and valued understanding that, I think the world would be a better place.
Avish Parashar
Well, I love it. That is a great answer. Not squishy at all. I think it's very, especially in this world that gets more technical, I think it's an incredibly important skill. It's gonna be a differentiator, I think, moving forward. So Terry, thank you very much. This was great, and hopefully we will be able to chat again soon.
Terry Ryan
Yeah, it's great. Thanks for having me.
Avish Parashar
Did that sound