Show Notes

In this engaging episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Darius Roberts, CEO of UpliftSolar, to explore the fascinating intersection of software development, entrepreneurship, and solar technology innovation.

About Our Guest: Darius Roberts leads multiple ventures in the solar technology space, including UpliftSolar.com, which is developing innovative solutions to expand solar panel accessibility. He also runs the Las Vegas Robotics Meetup (lvrobotics.org), bringing together industry leaders and local innovators in the robotics field.

Episode Highlights:

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• Early career insights and the value of taking calculated risks in your twenties
  
• How an unconventional aptitude test shaped crucial career decisions
  
• Transitioning from developer to technical lead to entrepreneur
  
• The story behind his early car-sharing startup (a precursor to modern services)
  
• Why Las Vegas is becoming an epicenter for robotics innovation
  
• The growing importance of AI literacy in tech careers
  
• Building and managing technical teams effectively
  
• Navigating the challenges of hardware vs. software startups
  
• Finding and working with the right mentors
  

Key Takeaways:

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• Understanding your strengths and working style is crucial for career success
  
• The value of being geographically flexible early in your career
  
• How to approach problem-solving across different industries
  
• The importance of balancing technical skills with business acumen
  

Connect with Darius:

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• UpliftSolar: [website]
  
• Las Vegas Robotics Meetup: lvrobotics.org
  

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #StartupLife #SolarTechnology #Innovation

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Join us next week for another insightful conversation about navigating the evolving world of technology careers.

Transcription

Manuel: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their career, different ways that they’ve managed it, how they’ve moved around, what ultimately led them to take different decisions with the ultimate goal to really help you understand and learn from others so that you can pick up different techniques and tips to manage your own career along the way. So with that for today’s episode, I have with me Darius Roberts and he is an entrepreneur, so he started his own business, but he also has kind of started one early on in his career. He’s also been a developer, he’s moved up into development lead roles. So with that, I’d like to welcome Darius.

Darius: Thank you, Manny.

Manuel: No problem. Thanks for coming along. I appreciate you coming on to kind of share some of your expertise and even just your experiences along the way.

Darius: I’m excited to share my thoughts on how to know yourself, AI and ergonomics.

Manuel: Awesome. And with that, what I’d like to do is if you could just do just a quick summary of kind of what your role is now and kind of some of those responsibilities and then we’ll kind of work backwards up to that point.

Darius: Great. I’m in two different companies. One is my technology company, so I’m the CEO. It’s a new technology that will enable solar panels to be in more places. And that’s a subject for a whole different podcast, but UpliftSolar.com is our website and we are currently trying to put some pilot projects together. Separately, we have a more traditional looking solar company where we put solar panels on roofs. But from a technology standpoint, it’s also very interesting because how do you manage 20 employees with a software back-end? We’re doing some things differently than other solar companies do, so we had to make our own back-end to support our own processes. So I’m managing that project and also have my hands in the code. And then separately, I run the local Las Vegas robotics meetup, so lvrobotics.org. Check it out and come to some of our meetups. We have 40 to 70 members show up and we bring in business people, executives in robotics who have been successful across the country, and internationally actually, to come in and share with our local roboticists. Number one, what’s the cutting edge? Where is the cutting edge of robotics? And number two, how can you get involved? Because Las Vegas is the epicenter of a lot of really interesting robotics initiatives. Pilot projects. So maybe the programming happens in California, but everybody wants to come here to the big leagues.

Manuel: That’s awesome. That’s very interesting. And I know that you and me have talked about that a little bit separately, and it’s something that I just haven’t had the time yet, but I did look them up and kind of see some of the things that you were doing. And it is very interesting and, you know, it sounds like a lot of opportunity to meet people and work on some cutting edge technology. So now if you just kind of briefly tell me kind of where you grew up, a little bit about your background, and then eventually kind of what got you either interested in technology or got you started down that path.

Darius: Great. Well, I’ve always been interested in tech. Like when I was in high school was the late 90s, you know, everything was frothy from 97 to the burst of the first tech bubble. And so I remember thinking at the time, what am I doing here in Oklahoma, right? I, you know, I’m about to go to college. I’m excited about going to college, but I had this nagging doubt like, I know where the real action is. And so that didn’t directly inform it, but over time I just developed this sense that you’ve only got one life and you need to go out and you need to find something big to work on. I can work on technology projects and hone my skills, but unless I have, you know, some some sort of semblance of like, how big do I want? What is big? What does that even mean? I don’t know what skills I need to hone. So I went to college, I then decided to start a startup, but I went to grad school while I was starting that startup. So it was, it was very much keep the day job orval. And you know, started my startup, my research advisor was very supportive of it. It was in the same field as my grad school, didn’t work out. And that’s a lesson I’m happy to share with, with younger people getting into the field today, which is there’s a huge luck component to this. And you know, there’s, there’s things you can minimize that, but ultimately you just got to go out and swing for the fences and you’re not going to hit it on your first one. And if you do, great.

Manuel: Well, and you bring up a good point, right? Is earlier on, you know, you’re not going to hit that, that home run.

Darius: There is a component of luck, but I think the more opportunities you chase, the more that you kind of put yourself out there, the more that you’re doing, the more opportunities you’re giving yourself to get lucky. And even when you fail, people who are investors, so I come at this from the mindset of everyone should be, if not a startup entrepreneur, at least thinking about, you know, where technology is going, because there’s a lot of, you know, you need to be able to understand what’s happening around you. So if you fail, investors in the future will not see that as a negative. So I think that’s a lot of insecurity that young people, even technologists, feel like if they put their selves out there, put themselves out there, and they don’t succeed, well, that was their shot. That’s not your shot. That’s, that’s anti. That’s, you know, that’s showing an investor that you are willing to take their money and run and try and do something amazing with it, even if you fail. So.

Manuel: Yeah, no, and that makes sense. And I’ve, who was it, I want to say that it might be Bezos and I’ve read a couple of different books, but, you know, their big thing is fail fast, fail often, right? So, it’s okay to fail. Don’t take 10 years to do it. If you’re going to go through, take that opportunity, fail, fail fastly and say, okay, what did I learn from it? What can I do better for the next one?

Darius: And not, not just you personally learn, but like, what did you test in the market that is now a secret inside your organization that you guys know this thing over here definitely won’t work? We’ll let everybody else do that.

Manuel: Oh, yeah. I didn’t think about it that way. So even if you’re not doing it as an entrepreneur, you can do it as somebody working for an organization like, hey, I want to test this. I want to try that. And even within your organization, they’ll see that you have that ability to try things and they’re more willing to, you know, apt and say, hey, we’ve tried this, it didn’t work and, you know, document that somewhere. Cool. And, you know, so as you’re kind of going through and, you know, you went to college, is there anything else that kind of made you decide what avenues to go through?

Darius: I think all of that is just so specific. Like when you see a startup or, you know, you know, something that just excites you, like the idea is exciting. There’s something different about this one. You just know it. And that’s a fleeting thing as, as people try new things, as technology changes, new things become possible, chips become faster, AI appears on the scene, and suddenly people need to go back and revisit their earlier thoughts about what was possible. So it’s not, I think that that’s, that’s where human creativity comes into play is recognizing what’s exciting to, what’s exciting now. I don’t think there’s any formula to it.

Manuel: What is some of your background?

Darius: Absolutely. And I can tell you about my specific background, but I think that, you know, there’s, there’s different ways to get to the technology field. And I’ve, you know, had the privilege of working with a lot of talented technologists and they all come from very different directions. So I always knew that I wanted to do something, you know, cutting edge or, you know, I basically wanted something where I could take a big swing, you know, not just, you know, hit something and get to first base, but take a big swing, you know, you only got one life, so you got to do something with it. So I don’t know where that idea came from, but I grew up in Oklahoma and probably one of the most valuable things that I did early on was, I took this battery of tests that was like, I mean, I already knew that I wanted to do something like that, but I took this battery of tests and it really changed my perspective about what I was good at and what my strategies should be as I went out into the career world and tried to do things. So this, the name of the organization is Johnson O’Connor I am not paid in any way, but just a fantastic experience, two full days of tests and they don’t ask you what you like. At no point is it, you know, what do you, Manny, like to do? So instead, everything was with a stopwatch or, you know, tallies and so they would give you tests like fill out, you know, fill out this, these image recognition sheets or, you know, like, do you, you know, can you recognize these things? It’s like a, where’s Waldo, but a little bit more analytical or stopwatch, how fast you can move things with your hands. Really fascinating. So I had, I had actually just come back from studying abroad and I thought I was really good at learning languages, you know, and I took this test and they’re like, no, you’re Darius, you’re not good at learning languages. I was like, but I just, I just did all that and I said, no, you’re good at learning vocabulary. That’s different. So that really, that helped me because, you know, later on in my career, I had the opportunity to go abroad and I had a couple of different options and, you know, I realized that I would be much, much more able to learn Chinese than I would be able to learn Arabic. So that, but they did a lot of.

Manuel: And that’s, and that when they said vocabulary versus a language, you know, kind of how, what’s the difference? So I mean, I just know language is a language. Obviously there’s probably some sort of, you know.

Darius: Chinese, Chinese has very little grammar. It’s the words you use that you can mix and match, whereas Arabic, there’s a lot of sentiment that’s conveyed in which order you use the words. And so the, the, the pattern matching, the other thing that I think might be more relevant to your audience is they told, they said, well, you have all of these engineering aptitudes. So you have, you have the ability to break down systems, you have strong spatial memory, but you should not be a civil engineer. So that’s the, that’s the resolution with which this test gave me insights as a young man. I said, screw you, I’m going to go be a civil engineer. So I did get my degree in civil engineering and, but I never really, I never used it because then I immediately started my first startup. And so I, you know, that test allowed me to think deeply about my career, but still, you know, pursue things that were interesting to me.

Manuel: Right. And so there was an interest in civil engineering, and that’s why you just decided to go anyway. Or was it really one of those, you know, especially when we’re younger, it’s like, when somebody tells you, don’t do that, or you can’t do that, it’s like, well, I’m going to go improve your wrong.

Darius: I think it may have been a little of that. I also, I took programming first. And at that, in that time, programming is not what it is today. This is before web development had taken off. So I took programming. I was like, well, this really isn’t that much fun. But right after I graduated is when all of these web frameworks sort of started to emerge. So around the 2000 era. And that was a lot of fun. So that was really what, what took me back to the, to the tech world.

Manuel: And then so then in that, in that exam, so they said engineering, but they didn’t really say, hey, go into like the technology or the coding space at that point.

Darius: Well, I think what they said was you have the ability to break down problems analytically. So that was, that was what they were identifying. And that’s useful in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or computer science. The thing that specifically they said don’t become a civil engineer is because I, I find it easier to engage one on one. And in, you know, in short bursts, communicating with people, whereas large organizations where you, you have to keep track of meetings and all of the, you know, the subjective politics of, of, you know, am I saying this thing in a way that every, all of this audience will be on my side. That’s something that, you know, this said, this test said, based on other people that we have tested, you will not enjoy that part of civil engineering.

Manuel: Got it. Okay. So that makes sense. So then you went into some, assuming at that point, once, you know, all these different web frameworks came into play, you decided to kind of start building that skill set and eventually, so what did you kind of focus on? So I mean, there’s a number of different, you know, web frameworks at that point. And I know that you started your first startup, it was like the Dartcar. And then what, you know, I guess what led to what was it? Hey, let me learn these skills and then now apply it to Dartcar, or did you have the Dartcar idea and then say, these are probably the types of technologies that would be beneficial to implement that.

Darius: I’m a big fan of journeyman learning. So I set a big hairy audacious goal for myself. And I just learned the skills along the way. And I knew it was going to be inefficient, but I wanted to, rather than try to aim at a very specific problem and, you know, improve on that small problem, I wanted to find a large enough problem. So this is ancient history to me now, but I’m still very passionate. So in 2005, I was in grad school studying how cars could be shared between people, whatever the behavioral aspects of car sharing. So I started a peer to peer car sharing where people could rent their own cars and be insured for that. So the big hairy audacious goal was to create a model for insurance that would allow people to be able to share their cars. Now Uber and Lyft came along and, wow, blew that market out of the water, but that’s technology for you.

Manuel: Well, but I mean, it sounds like almost this is more kind of like that, was it Turo?

Darius: Yes, exactly. Getaround and Turo are now the two companies that are doing that in this space today.

Manuel: And that was something that you were doing obviously before Turo came around. But did you kind of decide to drop that because Uber and Lyft came about, even though there’s still, obviously it turns out now, like hindsight, right? There is a market for, you know, that peer to peer.

Darius: I, as a young man, was just really wasn’t able to find the right mentors to take that off the ground. I do believe that with the right mentors, I would have been able to raise enough funding to succeed in that. But this is the game, right? You have to know what game you’re playing. And at that time, I just wasn’t getting the traction. And so I decided to go find a different goal in life.

Manuel: Okay. And then, and I’m going to dig in just a little bit there. So when you’re saying not having the right mentorship, and that’s something, especially as a young man, right, like I had like a similar experience, right? I didn’t have a mentor. I didn’t really know to reach out to people or how you go about doing that. So did you not have any mentors? Or did you just, is that something that you just weren’t aware of? And that’s kind of,

Darius: No, I was aware of it. I mean, I picked up and moved to San Francisco, right? I was, I was in it to win it. I went there. I was around a lot of people who were doing, you know, innovative things, which, you know, I think that I was in the right environment. But sometimes there’s just a huge amount of luck to the process. So I never found somebody who was engaged at quite the right fundraising level. I now know many of those people, but

Manuel: just at that time, timing, that makes sense. So then you decided not to pursue that, right? Because it’s not going well. And then you went in to be a developer, having picked up the skills, building your own environment, right?

Darius: Right. So I did a few things, but the next, the next really serious thing that I did was I moved to Washington, DC, and started working in technology for large organizations. So the logic there was, I need to build up my skills a little bit more and just think about, you know, what big goal I’m going to do next. So I was working first for Boeing on their computer side. So they have a computer side that does a lot of database work and dashboards for the government and that sort of thing. And then for the FCC where I built an auction platform that they use to, so it’s more like a website, but it’s a website where people enter in, like when I say people, AT&T, Google, Tesla, you know, a bunch of smaller companies that you may not have heard of are all bidding on spectrum auction. So there’s a portion of the spectrum that the government is releasing this year. And so there’ll be like 2000 bidders in the auction and maybe 200 will win some portion of that.

Manuel: Got it. Okay. And then that was just obviously a good learning experience, right? So you’re, you’re working for somebody else, you’re understanding, you’re kind of more following their, their vision and their goal. And at the same time, building your skill set and probably also being in Washington, DC, you know, especially within the government sector, you’re starting to make connections and kind of learn who people are, right?

Darius: Yeah. And I do think that that was probably like, I think my, my reasoning was exactly what you, what you’re saying. I do think that technology advanced so fast during those 10 years that it probably would have been made more sense for me to be working for startups rather than these larger organizations. But, you know, that’s, that’s history. There’s no way of knowing how the world is going to turn out until you, you go do it.

Manuel: Right. And so that, that’s a big move, right? Especially like you said, being in San Francisco and, and knowing that, you know, there’s all these technology people. So what kind of prompted that decision to go to Washington, DC, right? So now, especially at that young of an age, so it sounds like the big motivation is, hey, I’m trying to build that skill set. I want to hit that, that homerun, right? I want to hit something big. But what, that’s pretty drastic, right? San Francisco, a lot of technology, a lot of startups, a lot of that, those type of people to DC, more government, especially having that aptitude test that says, hey, in those longer, in those bigger organizations, right? Based on the civil engineering test, that that wasn’t kind of an area for you. So what kind of prompted that?

Darius: Well, let’s, the, the projects that I worked on for these larger organizations, they were smaller projects. Civil engineering would have like 100 people. These projects are 10 people. I mean, it’s much more, so it’s more like intrapreneurship. You’re taking a small project, and you’re, you’re trying to advance that project to the degree that it can get its own government contracts as opposed to, you know, being associated with the original, you know, place that was spun off. And there’s a backstop there, right? So first of all, you get to play with the big toys, which is great for a young engineer. But secondly, if that project fails, you just get recycled into another project. You don’t get fired. There was the logic to go back to your question. When you’re young and footloose and fancy free, big decisions shouldn’t be such a big decision, right? So I, I just, I thought that that would be a good place to climb the ladder. But there’s I don’t, I don’t think anyone should hesitate about moving when they’re young. I mean, once you have kids, that’s a whole different ball game. But I just didn’t think twice about it.

Manuel: And then so you built that, that platform, work for Boeing, you’re working in these areas. And then what is kind of sound like that that project was successful, right? So, you know, this auction platform that they’re able to, you know, implement it, and they’re still in use today. So then did you just kind of keep working on additional projects, move your way up? What was kind of like the next logical step for you?

Darius: Well, you know, I can go through, you know, my current startup, because that’s when I started that I became, you know, interested in the big hairy audacious problem of solar. But I think, I think for advice that I would give to career people today is number one, not everybody is me. So, you know, I think that there’s a lot of more general advice that I could give to young people that would help them. And number one, absolutely, you don’t have to take that specific test, but know yourself, like come up with a strategy in your career that, that fits what you’re good at. So I think that’s absolutely something. Find a mentor is something you’ve covered extensively on your past guests. So I won’t go on that too much. But the other thing, I personally believe that everyone should become very AI literate very quickly. So for people, right now, considering where they’re going to put their career in the next few years, I think that there’s lots of, you know, exciting opportunities to work in AI. And nobody knows anything about AI, right? There’s such a small number that you can pivot hard and get some expertise in AI right now. So I, you know, that would be my redirection, I think of this conversation, because I think hardware entrepreneurship is, is fun and I can see it, you know, it can succeed. But hardware entrepreneurship plus AI or software entrepreneur entrepreneurship plus AI, that’s where the larger number of opportunities will be.

Manuel: And then when you say AI and just so that people kind of understand, because it is broad, right? It’s like saying technology. So that’s something that I, similar to you, I agree that being literate in AI, and I’ve had exposure to that, to machine learning, I understand I’ve taken, you know, courses and, you know, work towards certifications. So what, what is the benefit that you see? So when I go through, I see, for example, like, maybe I’m not a software developer, right? But AI can help me, you know, at least get probably like a, like an MVP, a minimal viable product to say, okay, hey, here’s an idea that I have, I’m looking around, I don’t see software. And when you say literate in AI, what are, what would you mean if, if I’m trying to pick up what type of literacy in AI to say, hey, I’m really into software engineering, I have an idea for an application, how would you go about kind of marrying those two?

Darius: Yeah. Well, obviously, read, and I have my opinions about what exactly AI, you know, is and what is good for. So the short version would be, if you get enough data, and you come up with a fast and automated way of labeling what’s good and what’s bad in that data, then you can create a sort of a flyware, flywheel where you can be ahead, you know, your product could be ahead in the field. And thus, you know, you’re the only one that really has the data and everybody else’s data is tainted because they’re just following along behind you. So there’s a lot of strong first mover effect in specific ways. But going back to how one would get the expertise in AI, I think, learn the basics. So there’s, there’s, you know, I think any engineer would, would benefit from just going through and understanding what the categories of AI are and what they agree with or disagree with in the startups that are trying to do things in the market. But number two, go set up some meetings with startups, they’re pretty easy to get to. And so if you find some startups that excite you, go meet them. And they will give you there behind the scenes of what is it the cutting edge of AI, right? It’s like in, in robotics, you wouldn’t think of robotics as AI necessarily. I’m not talking about like humanoid robotics, although obviously that’s, that’s going to talk to you. So that’s like LLMs and that sort of AI. But robotics are seen as the forefront of gathering data for the next wave of AI. So that’s the sort of thing that going out and talking to startups will, will introduce you to. And like I said, anybody can really get to a startup.

Manuel: So you bring up a good point, though. So if I’m not familiar with startups, so how would I go about going and finding these startups? Like, is there a website that you just type up startups? Would you, is it as simple as a Google search to say startups in Las Vegas? I mean, what, what’s kind of?

Darius: Well, okay, so that’s a, that’s a really good question. So a startup is not a small company that makes money. A startup is something that is aiming at a disproportionate reward for the risk. So, you know, making something that allows people to schedule haircuts more easily. That’s a viable way to make money. It’s not a small business, and it’s, it’s a viable way to make money, but it’s not the same thing as, you know, a world changing idea that will change entire economies. So when I think of startups, that’s really what I’m, I’m like Uber blew up. Okay, so that’s a bad example because people, you know, the politics behind Uber got messy. But, you know, something that will have a disproportionate reward. So the only, the only way to find those people is to go talk to people at meetup groups and identify people that have, that are thinking in the same way about disproportionate startups. And they will, there’s a map of them. There’s a network. They’re out there. And so you just have to go find one of those people, get in front of them, explain what you’re interested in, and say, Hey, I’m trying to, you know, I’m trying to get into the startup world. You know, I’m, you know, I’m clay mold me. That’s, that’s the, the hard part about finding a mentor is you know, obviously you have to create that warm connection. And then separately, just you have to be vulnerable.

Manuel: And so making those connections, obviously communication skills are just going to play a big part, right? So I’ve had other people on here where they’ve talked about, you know, definitely similar to finding a mentor is building communication skills. So if I go up and talk to, you know, building up the confidence to go up and say, Hey, here’s what I’m trying to do, be vulnerable. And I don’t want to speak for you. But my understanding is when you’re saying being vulnerable is saying, Hey, I don’t know, I have an idea. This is what I think I want to do. And vulnerable in the fact that not like, well, I know exactly what I’m trying to do. You don’t, go into that conversation acting like you know everything.

Darius: Exactly. And there’s different, even within that, there’s different strategies. Again, know yourself, right? If you’re, if you’re older, you probably want to emphasize your, you know, that you have management skills or, or at least that you’re mature in a workplace. Whereas if you’re younger, you can be full of enthusiasm and maybe overplay that just a little bit. But, you know, this is just everybody meets everything, people every day. So this is no different. But I think that the, the insight that I would share is if you can find one of those people, even if they’re in a completely different field, right? I’m in solar, what if they’re in medical devices, right? They know each other. So if you go to somebody who is an entrepreneur in medical and say, Hey, I’m just, I’m trying to get into the, to the, you know, to, to a startup. Like I don’t know exactly what startups are, but I want to get in there. They will be able to help you find your way to the right,

Manuel: the right people. And one of the things that I’ve seen, you know, I just, I listen to different podcasts and just kind of reading, if I follow the different people. And in that, and I want to get your, your, your take on it just because what I see is when they’re saying, when you’re going to go find mentorship or when you’re going and asking these people who are probably, you know, if they’re higher up in the ladder and they’re probably busy is you want to also provide them with what type of value you’re doing. You can provide to them. Is that something that you would recommend? Because they always say like, Hey, if you’re going to go in, you’re going to again, have this goal and I’m going to find an entrepreneur that’s in medical devices and say, Hey, I’m really interested. I’m really eager. And they’re going to be like, Okay, that, that’s great. So is, you know, 20, 30 other people. Would you at that point recommend that they also see what they can do like, Hey, I’m, I’m new, but I’m, you know, I’m hard of working. I’m willing to, you know, not necessarily I’m willing to sweep your floors, right? Like I think that’s a bit extreme, but say, Hey, I’m willing to kind of go through and can I follow, you know, I don’t want to maybe follow you around is the answer. Maybe it’s not, but you know, is there somebody I can go in with? Can I work with your admin assistant? You know, something, is that something you would recommend it?

Darius: Yeah, I mean, I think I wouldn’t recommend people have that in the forefront of their mind when they first meet that person. But yeah, absolutely. That’s, that’s something you want to, you probably want to approach on the second meeting.

Manuel: Okay. So on the first one, it’s really just trying to make sure you establish that connection. And then kind of going, and you’re going through establishing that mentor, finding somebody to go through and kind of break into that space. You mentioned reading for picking up those AI skills. And now when you’re saying AI skills, what does that mean? Does it mean just understand what it is, how it works, or also ways that you can apply it? Like, what’s the difference between, you know, like an LLM versus, you know, creating your own model based on that, kind of just to kind of give people at least a general understanding. There might be some people who’ve been in the industry for a while, but, you know, I know that I’ve talked to different people and they hear AI and, you know, it’s, it’s a big scary thing. And other people are like, Oh, they’re very interested in it. They just don’t know where to start because it’s so vast. So

Darius: There are, there’s a, there’s a site called Hugging Face. It’s a funny name, Hugging Face. It’s a place that you can download models and they make it like super shiny and easy to get those models up and running. And the models do different things. So we think of LLMs as language based models, but you just have to, you have to tack on a little bit to the model and now suddenly that same language based model is controlling a robotic arm. So this is all going to get easier to download and do in the same way that, you know, right now people can order an Arduino kit and get something up and running that moves a motor and crawls around. That integration of these very, especially small models that are just lightweight is coming. So if, for anybody who’s looking ahead in their career, go to Hugging Face or other sites like Hugging Face and just download it and play with it. And that will give you enough to have a conversation with somebody when you’re, you know, trying to create rapport and be like, I did this, this very simple and playful thing. I mean, I encourage everybody, there’s a, there’s a book called the four hour cookbook or the four hour, four, four hour cooking chef, Four Hour Chef. I knew it was there by Tim Ferriss. And he has the most elegant way of learning out how to, laying out how to learn something that I’ve seen, which is number one, find an expert. That’s important. And that expert should lay out a number of small milestones. And it’s called the Four Hour Chef because it’s about his journey learning how to cook, but it’s really not about cooking. It’s about how to learn. So have a, have a mentor or an expert lay out a small number of milestones that you can hit along your learning journey. So they start out easy or more advanced, introducing new topics. And then you could be a journeyman’s project at the end. And then number two, have it so that if that project fails partially, you can still be proud of it for each of those milestones in the cooking example. Make sure that, you know, that dinner party that you’re going to host in two months has five dishes because you’re probably going to burn two of them. But if you can still bring out three, then, you know, you’ll be, you’ll feel good about yourself. Your guests will feel good about you because that, you know, they can see your progress towards cooking. And it creates that social excitement. And that, that’s, you know, statistically what will help you learn is this the social, the social aspect to it. So basically, come up with some small projects and have, and have somebody who really knows the field help you design what those projects are going to be in the future would be my advice to anybody learning anything really.

Manuel: And with that, and I know it probably is only helpful to people here in Las Vegas, but you mentioned that you also help with that robotics. You know, you mentioned the Ardeno’s and kind of doing that. So in that type of group, is that something that, like kind of what goes on there to be able to tie in like AI and kind of maybe pick up those skills or at least start to kind of build a community and see if that’s something that’s of interest. So what, if I were to go through and show up to this, what would I expect as I’m going to say as a new member, and again, maybe not just, not necessarily just that first meeting or that first interaction, but maybe the first couple.

Darius: We are trying to give people access to the robotics revolution that’s happening. So Las Vegas is sort of an epicenter because all of these companies in the Bay Area and on the East Coast, they get their robot up to working till they have like 10 of the robots. And then they want to come to Las Vegas to launch it because we have more tourists, lots of dollars flowing through. It’s a great place, sort of how rental cars were the first places that you started to see screens in the dashboard or SiriusXM or all of those things. It was exposing people to this thing that they should buy for themselves. And robotics companies think of Las Vegas that way. They think that’s where we need to go to get our product and tested in front of a bunch of people that will use it for a weekend. And it’ll be viable. And that’s the way that they can refine their mass marketing strategy. So we’re trying to invite those people to come speak at our Las Vegas Robotics Meetup. And as they’re launching their pilot projects here, get involved to showcase it, make sure that the community is aware that these things are happening and can show up to events and be in front of these companies, which are hiring here in Las Vegas because they need a technician workforce, for example. And that’ll give you the opportunities with the company. We’re hoping that in the future, as we develop the ecosystem and the economy here, that more the AI jobs will also be here.

Manuel: That makes sense, especially, and I never thought about it that way, but I have been, you know, there’s a group here that where they test out a lot of new technology for hotel rooms, right? So they have it set up there. And I remember that’s one of the first times that I had seen like like a robot, I want to say, food server the person that would come out and bring you the food. And I’ve seen them, I don’t know if it’s Applebee’s, Chili’s.

Darius: They’re now at Denny’s.

Manuel: It’s Denny’s. And I’ve seen.

Darius: Yeah LG Robots actually Robot Lab is the company here in town.

Manuel: Yeah Robot Lab and I do remember seeing those in, you know, those test environments. And then when I went to, again, it was one of those, a couple of those different restaurants that they have at Denny’s. I’ve probably also seen them at like Applebee’s, Chili’s, just different events.

Darius: Another Las Vegas company is going into Walmart’s right now. They’re creating restaurants that are robotic. The food is prepared by robots, not just brought to you.

Manuel: That’s pretty cool. So then, you know, I understand people, you know, getting into AI, this is all very, it’s all new. So there’s plenty of opportunities for them to go through and establish that skill set. So kind of going back to kind of your career and other things that you recommend. So obviously, there’s the robotics piece. And you spent quite a bit of time as a developer. One of the things that I know that you moved up into being kind of like a lead developer. So one or what are one of the things or one of the challenges that, you know, it’s one thing to learn a skill set, know how to apply it. But as you become, again, you’re not really even a manager, but you’re a lead, you’re in charge of a product. What are some of the challenges there with, you know, communication is going to be one of them. And then also kind of keeping that technical acumen at the same time.

Darius: Yeah. I think that the answer to that is really tools and processes. So the difference between a senior developer and a junior developer is understanding why tools are important and how to use tools. Because that’s that you can’t manage. Developers are all super smart. So you can’t, you just can’t control six of them. That’s not possible. So what you have to do is develop a tool and get, or so JIRA would be an example of a tool. When I’m talking about a tool, I’m talking about something where the lead developer can look back at the end of the month and have graphs that show how we compared to the month before that, and, you know, get his team excited about that result, or at least aware of that result. Because anything that you measure is what gets better. And that tool is what allows senior management or your investors, if you’re a startup and there is nobody above you, your investors to get excited about it, like and see that this team could be bigger, we could do more, we could apply this in different ways. I mean, team building is a whole different subject that unfortunately is going to change a lot in the next couple of years, because tools are going to change very quickly with AI. There’s a great book on that subject called The Skill Code, Matthew Bean. So it’s a great book about the relationship between senior developers and junior developers is changing in not good ways. And ergonomic mice. Because, you know, senior developers are using AI to do more of the job of junior developers, and sometimes they’re not allowing junior developers to try their hands and do big, you know, big problems. Because now the senior developers start doing exercises. But this book is about how do we fix that problem. How do you run an organization so that the entire organization, you know, they’re built that way for a reason. I have one other high level piece of advice. So know yourself, AI, ergonomics. So this was something I did wrong in my career, which is I typed on my keyboard like this, and I thought I was invincible would never have wrist problems. Don’t do it get an ergonomic keyboard and an ergonomic chair or whatever else you need.

Manuel: So what were some of the challenges or what actually, hold on, before I get back to the challenges, what was the opportunity that you saw there that you said, you know, this could be a homerun for me. Instead of kind of developing here, I’ve picked up enough skills because you’ve been doing this for quite a few years now. I’m assuming you’re making contacts. You’re growing your network. What made you kind of go through and say, you know what, this is worth taking a chance on?

Darius: I tried a couple of different things. I was looking at a few different things. And so I saw a couple of different things that I saw were taking a chance on, like things that could really change everything. So this is just the one that when I got in there with both hands and was messing around, I was like, okay, well, nobody else is thinking about this correctly. So it was, going back to that analytical logic, I was going in and taking apart different areas that I saw potential problems. And I’d be like, oh, okay, well, this is why they do this this way. So there’s really not much of an opportunity there. Or this is, you know, there’s too many scammers in cryptocurrency. So that’s not where I, it’s, there might be, there’s a big hairy audacious goal there, but it’s not well suited to my personal strengths, because I do not want to scam anyone, which is, I think you had the phase you have to go through before it actually creates a real currency, not for me. And but with solar, I was not only did I see that there really is something there, but the first people that I was working with to establish whether or not there was something there were very good. So I got validation on the problem. And I got, I had very good, a very good partner. And so that was why I, why I chose to go into solar.

Manuel: And that partner that you’ve found, is that somebody that you met kind of working before? Is it somebody you just kind of reached out to? How did you, how did you establish that partnership?

Darius: They were in town actually working on an athworks project here in Las Vegas. And so I just got to know them very superficially, socially. And then when this, this potential, I was looking at it, I was like, wow, this, this could really be a big market, you know, market, decided to market size first before you decide the solution. And he, so I hired him and he just was really good.

Manuel: And when you say hired him, you hired him to help you build the technology? Was it because you mentioned partner and then, but you said you hired him. So I’m just kind of curious how that took place.

Darius: Yeah. And this is the, you know, early stage startups, relationships are nebulous, right? You don’t really know how this is going to work out. So there is no good advice for that. That’s relationships between people. In my specific, in my specific case, I, you know, I had enough confidence that there was a real problem here that I put some of my own money into it. And that, that factored in when we came up with our, our partnership fair shares when we actually incorporated the company later. But I just, you know, I put in some initial exploration funds, seed funding.

Manuel: Got it. Okay. And then so, you know, you go through and you start to develop this. So what are kind of, what are some of the challenges? Did you find it harder to run the business side of it? Because I’m assuming at some point, you know, you’re testing, you’re exploring to see if this is worth, you know, exploring. It sounds like it is, you put that seed money in. So you’re developing it, you know, from a technical standpoint, but then you’re also having to build the business. So what are some of the challenges that you had there and kind of?

Darius: Oh, it all just went so smoothly. No, everything was hard. this is why you have to know your strengths and figure out which partners you want on sides, on side singular. I, yeah, I don’t, I don’t have much advice other than startups are messy. Hardware startups are different than software startups. You’re generally better positioned in the market. You don’t have to worry so much what the market size is, because the everything, the real world is just everything’s expensive. So the size is much larger. So people can make money in hardware. On the other hand, it takes so much more, there’s so much more execution risk. So you have to hire more people and fire more people and just get lucky as well. So basically to simplify things, software startups can either have market risk, like how big is the market going to be not today, but in five years, or they can have marketing risk, which is can that team reach the market? So basically, can you create the strategic alliance that allows you to get in front of a bunch of people? Hardware startups have execution risk. So there’s no, there’s no doubt anything is possible in software. You can make anything under the sun. And LLMs have shown that. But in hardware, there’s a lot of risk. Can you make the thing that you think you can make and will it last 25 years? So they’re just different beasts. Right.

Manuel: Yeah. And when I asked the question, I wasn’t really looking for like advice, but just kind of some of the challenges that you went through and just, you know, if there’s any stories that come to mind and say, man, one of the things that really stood out is this was a, it’s a big problem. And but eventually you learn from it, right? And it doesn’t have to be like advice, but just, hey, relationships was a big problem, right? Just understanding. And, you know, maybe that big problem was the hiring and firing, right? Like, that’s something that most people, you understand when you need help. Or I would think that you, you do, because sometimes you want to try and do it all yourself, especially if it’s something that you’re passionate about, or you have this energy. But I’ve talked to people that have been up and one of the, or that have moved up into like, you know, leadership roles. And that is something that I hear a lot, right? Hiring, usually for them is easier than firing. So just, just kind of curious what your challenges around that is, you know, you say you hire a lot and you fire a lot. What, what would you say is kind of the challenge in doing both of those? Like, there’s obviously challenges in hiring, right? You have to vet people, not even just technology, you know, technological skills, but personality skills. And then in firing, you know, there’s challenges in that, right? You don’t want to be the person that say, well, I’m sorry, we have to let you go. But at the same time, you may not see it and they may not see it at the time, but it probably is beneficial for both of you. So I was curious if there’s anything there that, that would be, you know, interesting to share.

Darius: It’s very, I think it’s just so specific. So with our solar installation, like not the technology, solar technology, but the solar installation company, setting the expectation early on that this is not a small business. This is something that could, you know, could really expand because you really want people’s buy in at how exciting this could be. And so everyone that has not continued on with that company. Really, what the fundamental problem was is that either we failed to establish that excitement in them or, you know, in the process of hiring, they just, you know, said what we wanted to hear. And so I think that was, that’s always been the mismatch.

Manuel: Just in hiring in general, right?

Darius: Obviously, we hope, we hope we are continuously successful in raising funding for the next stage of expansion, but all our employees know what the risks are.

Manuel: So, okay. So then now you’ve also worked in a number of different industries, right? So at one point you said, you know, he had mentioned learning, you know, Chinese learning these languages. You are like a research developer helping, you know, kind of do translations for, you know, patents and things of that nature. You did development work.

Darius: Let’s just be super clear. I was clarifying English. I don’t speak Chinese well enough to do it the other way. Oh, okay.

Manuel: Got it. So you’re just clarifying English. Okay. And then, you know, you’ve got the development portion, you became a lead. Now you’re also kind of, you know, starting your own business. And, you know, you even had the dart dash, you know, that all those things. So what are some of the skills that you think that across industries, across different types of roles, what’s a skill or skills that you feel have kind of crossed over through all of those?

Darius: My interest in breaking down problems analytically has been the, you know, the skill that at least in that phase of technology allowed me to have deep conversations with people and create deeper rapport. That’s what gave people the confidence that, you know, I’m not just a really enthusiastic junior developer. So I think that that’s been my one strength throughout my career is having deeper conversations, which I love having with you as well, by the way. So that’s, you know, there’s different strategies for different people. I can’t, can’t hold a conversation and they, they are very successful technologists. But it’s, you know, that that’s been my path to success.

Manuel: And kind of looking back at that exam that you took, right, and just kind of understanding and knowing yourself, do you think that that’s something that’s carried on throughout your career, just based on what they said, Hey, I’m a problem solver. And just, is that something you’ve taken on throughout each of these different avenues? But then also, it’s not just problem solving and analytics, but how did you learn to be able to communicate those problems, right? Because that’s, that’s something that’s difficult, even to me, right? I’ve had times where it’s just understanding the right way to convey to somebody else what it is that I do, right?

Darius: So I think this, The Skill Code is the book that answers all of these questions. So The Skill Code says that there’s challenge. So giving, giving someone or yourself a challenge, you know, that’s defined and technical and has scope, there’s complexity, giving them enough involvement to understand the problems around that challenge. So if you’re a, I don’t know, a chef trying to cook a meal, you can be a really, really good at that very specific thing, but you’re not a real chef until you understand when it makes sense, you know, what’s happening at the market affects what’s going to, going to happen in your, your food preparation. So there’s the complexity around the edges. And you can only get that by doing. And then number three, there is the, the warm connections between, between people. So specifically, I think in tech, in technology, we, we think of the connection between lead developers and junior developers. So that, you know, that just read The Skill Code. That’s, that’s my book recommendation for the day.

Manuel: Okay. I did, I’ve seen it. I’ve come across it a couple of times, but I’ve never actually read it. So I’m definitely going to add that to my, to my list to read. And as you’re kind of growing your business, you know, is there, are there any challenges that you’ve found with keeping it? And I guess I, I don’t know at what stage you’re at, you know, are you still very hands on, you know, with the learning, coding, developing, or now are you more in the kind of marketing more on the business side of it? And is there that challenge of keeping that technical acumen to be able to speak to, you know, the people that are doing this, but then also, you know, you still have to kind of show the business acumen. So that’s, you know, how do you balance keeping both up? Because at one point in my career, when I decided to go into management, I thought that’s the route I wanted to go. At some point, it becomes difficult to be a good manager and also be a good, you know, person that’s good with the technology, right? Whether you’re a network person, infrastructure, whatever it might be, there’s a trade off. So how do you balance those two?

Darius: By thinking about it as little as possible, like the way that startups run is they think about a milestone in the future and anything goes. If you can, if you can cross that finish line, like, so my challenge right now with my technology startup is I have to get a pilot project with a relatively large, you know, residential developer. And this is not technology. This is not what I was trained to do. I mean, so I do keep my hands in the code just a little bit, because that’s the only thing you can know what’s going on. But what happens in the code doesn’t actually matter for the business right now. What I need to do is figure out, am I social enough to break into these networks of residents, exactly like I was talking to you before. Some people want to break into startups and develop their skills that way. I need to go find the connectors in the residential space and find one of them, even if they’re in hospitals or whatever. Hopefully they can direct me to the right place. So it’s, if you ever heard the expression, it’s turtles all the way down?

Manuel: No.

Darius: It was, I think it’s probably a faux Buddhist belief that you know, Zoroastrianism, I don’t know, that the universe, you know, the world is resting on the back of a turtle and that turtle is on another turtle and that turtle is on another turtle. So the expression is turtles all the way down means, as soon as you think you know what’s going on, you have to do it all over again at just a different scale.

Manuel: No, and so then now you’re obviously you’re having to kind of still continue to do what you’re recommending other people, right?

Darius: And learn how to do it all over again, because having done it once gives you a false sense of confidence that you know how to do it again.

Manuel: So I’m assuming you’ve done it, you did it once, and you thought it’s going to be just as easy. It’s a repeatable process, but I’m assuming it’s not, and is that because of the different industries, just different personality types?

Darius: I don’t know. Actually, there was a, I think a Jeff Bezos quote, like the hardest thing he ever learned how to do was, you know, or he ever recognized was not just, you know, was instilling a sense of rigor in his lieutenant. And he realized that even if you get your lieutenant to be rigorous about one specific aspect of operations, they have to learn that all over again for another aspect of operations. And then another one, and it gets easier to learn that sense of rigor, but it’s nothing about that is generalizable in the human mind. So did that answer your question?

Manuel: I think so. It was just kind of understanding like, hey, I guess the question was, is it based on technology or is it based on industry or person? And really the answer is, it could be any of those and it could be all of them. It could be one of them. Okay. And as you’re kind of going through and, you know, establishing this, these connections, is it, is the problem finding the right person? Or is it being able to sell that, that enthusiasm to them to say, Hey, this is why this is important?

Darius: I mean, going back to, you know, the challenge is clear. The complexity around the edges is what I’m trying to figure out. Like what, you know, another quote is from Michael Lewis, the author of the Money Ball. And he says, the first rule to winning is understanding that you are playing a game. So I need to know what game these residential developers are playing. Like why, why do they want solar? Is it because of the electricity prices? Or is it because they want, they get, need to get this development processed through some, some, some final approvals. And to do that, they need to, you know, have more green stuff on their property. So there’s a local, you know, zoning boards look more favorably on that, you know, they get more points. And so a lot of these things have come up. And that’s, so I think it’s, you know, learning the complexity around the edges is what I think I need to do better at.

Manuel: Got it. Okay. I think we’ve covered quite a bit. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you or I haven’t thought of or just an area that I didn’t touch on that you think would be important or just even now as the conversation has progressed to be like, Oh, I remember, you know, this is something that, that would be good.

Darius: You know, I’ll call you up if I think of anything.

Manuel: Well, then I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. I think you shared a lot of valuable insights about just for one, especially if you’re early on in your career and you really don’t have a family is just taking risks. That’s something that I, I didn’t do often enough, you know, early on. Do I regret it? No, would it have been a good opportunity to learn and experience and, and have a better understanding? Yes.

Darius: Right.

Manuel: It’s just, it’s one of those things that are part of the reason I’m doing this is just to talk to people and say, Hey, what’s your experience and see what did you, what did you learn? What did you wish you would have known earlier in my, in your career? Now, having been in here for 20 years, I wish early on I would have known to take those opportunities or even look for them. I didn’t look for opportunities outside of my, you know, my immediate area to go on and say, Hey, you know what, I’m interested in this and, you know, let me go to North Carolina or, you know, Florida, wherever it might be. That’s something that I didn’t get exposed to until afterwards as I started doing more training, you start to build a network. But by then it does make it harder because the opportunities I did have to leave, you know, as a single person, it would have been a no brainer as a married person with kids who are already in, you know, even, even if you have kids, if they’re early on when they’re not in school, once they’re in school, then it becomes harder to kind of make those decisions. And then I guess one last question that I would have for you is,

Darius: Oh no, here it comes. The gotcha question.

Manuel: The gotcha question. What do you think is the biggest thing that you’ve learned throughout your entire career? Like what’s the one skill, the one lesson that you’ve learned that you say, man, this is the one thing I learned and it took me 10 years to figure out, but would have been helpful to know. Again, maybe not when you first started, but within those first, you know, couple of years, you know, as you’re establishing yourself.

Darius: I think that the biggest lesson that I wish that I had understood a little bit better is to be a little bit more, you know, think of myself more as an operator. Because I thought of myself as, you know, somebody service oriented, somebody trying to go out and help people through this startup or in a big company, you know, trying to fit within the machinery and, you know, figure out how to do cool projects to make things go. But it’s that mindset hasn’t been as helpful as I’ve come to understand in running my own startup with funding and all of the pressures of employees. Is that earlier on, I wish that I could have understood to, you know, to be an operator, you just have to be more aggressive and more assertive and think of it as, think of it, think of yourself as going out there to, you know, to make it happen. So I had, I just, you know, partially because of my upbringing with a service, you know, service class parents, it was much more about how do we help in the larger scheme of things. And I think especially in this day and age where things are going to be more aggressively popping, like the startup is going to go and the startup is going to go. If you want to get into the leadership of startups, not just, you know, down in the basement, you have to be aggressive.

Manuel: Okay. That’s good to know. I appreciate that. And then one last thing is that test that you took early on, is that a company that’s only based there? Do you know if?

Darius: No, I think they have, I think they have six offices across the United States. They originally started in the 20s. So they’ve been around a while. So Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, it’s like, it’s now like $1,000 to take two days of testing. So it’s not, it’s not a cheap price tag. But I have to say, it provided a lot of insights that were very valuable throughout my career.

Manuel: And I would think so. And the only reason I brought that up is because, you know, having an understanding, especially if you’re early on, or if you’re looking to make a career change and just understand like, well, what, what do I want to do? You know, I, you know, have an ADHD, I see a lot of shiny things. And I think I can do all of those. But I think having a better understanding of how I think what I do would help narrow that, you know, those options, or at least make me think about it