I’ve learned a lot performing as the API Evangelist over the years. The landscape never fails me when it comes to revealing new lessons, and last year switching from Postman, an API service provider, to Bloomberg, an API producer has been no exception. I’ve been extremely frugal in the conversations I have had during this switch, relying mostly on Zoom and LInkedIn conversations to engage with folks across the API space. These ongoing conversations, while also continuing to lightly stay in tune with the API and wider technology landscape has once again helped me further develop my API industry taste.
I recently finished Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, by Kyle Chayka, where he talks about how taste gets made through experiencing not just what you like, but also what you don’t like. This is how you develop the taste you have for things while injecting more nuance, depth, and awareness behind what you like and what you don’t like-—something that algorithms and the venture backed digital realm doesn’t leave much room or nutrients for. Having the taste for something doesn’t just mean what you like and know it, it also means experiencing things you don’t like and don’t know so that you can reinforce what you know and like. I easily fall into ruts, stick with things I like, and fall for the algorithmic dish that is being served to me, but because of my personality, my taste for the API industry continues to level up and is something that helps me be more confident in what matters most-—regardless of which direction the money winds that may be blowing.
One thing I have heard regularly from folks who are surprised that I would leave a well funded startup for a leading enterprise. This for me, reveals immediately where someone is coming from, and which game they are playing. There is way more opportunity at a startup than there is at an established enterprise. Why would anyone in a lead position at a startup that may experience an exit, IPO, or other magical event on the horizon? Why would someone choose to go work at a large enterprise over a fast moving startup? The answer is simple, I am interested in learning about API governance at scale. I want to learn about the technology, business, people, and policies involved with doing APIs in a leading industry. I want to learn. I want to develop an awareness of what matters. I want to wrap my head around what works and what doesn’t work. I want to find the stories that matter.
Don’t get me wrong, I like making money. I enjoy being comfortable and having money in the bank. However, this isn’t what drives me. I was comfortable and had money in the bank during two previous waves of my life in the 1990s and early 2000s, before I ever established a taste for the API industry. I know money doesn’t make me happy, but it is an essential evil. I started API Evangelist to learn about HTTP APIs. I joined Postman to continue this learning and pay more for my kid’s university. I joined Bloomberg to learn about API governance at scale. The money is a byproduct of all of this. I think money is the primary driver for many who buy, sell, and tell API stories. I just think many of us ignore the realities of capitalism, and become so captivated by our own stories, that we end up getting lost. But for many, I don’t think they are lost, this is just where they operate—-out in the desert, where only money matters.
It is fascinating how we delude ourselves around technology. I am not exempt here. I am not writing this from a position of superiority. I am writing this, as I do with any of the stories here, from a place of complicity. I have a taste for the API storytelling hustle. I love it. I thrive on fattening my ego through the stories I tell. I like perpetually telling optimistic stories of API futures without ever examining the past (unless it supports my narrative of the future). This is how I have developed my taste for what I like and what I don’t like. This is how I determined what I will do for money and what I won’t do for money. This is how I know what I can do for 8 hours, day after day, and what I can’t do. You develop a taste for which parts of your soul you can do without, and which parts are essential to still feeling like you are alive. I know my insistence on these very human things amidst all the digital things that make us money drives many folks bonkers. They don’t like to be reminded of the people they are exploiting and extracting value from, and what matters and doesn’t matter.
It is interesting to learn intimately what motivates people working at startups, within the enterprise, and across the tech storytelling and analyst realms. It is difficult to understand it all at face value. Looking back across all the conversations and relationships I have had over the years—-face value is a hall of mirrors in the tech sector. You have to go multiple levels deep and do your time with people before you understand where they are coming from and where they are ultimately going. What makes it hard is some folks are completely unaware of the strong currents they swim in and are just along for the ride—-inter tubing for the day or weekend, and will often get chewed up and spit out at the first set of rapids you encounter. However, others you realize are out there for the weekend inter-tubing and riding the river, but they are pros, and show up every weekend for the party.
I do not mind a good hustle, especially when there is storytelling involved. I excel at tech delusionalism. I just have a short fuse when it all only becomes just about money, avoids doing the hard work, or doing what is right–hell, or even what is interesting. As I take another leap forward in my taste for the API industry I am much more mindful of my domain and who I let in, but also who I reference and cite. I’ve always been hyper aware of maintaining the lion share of value produced in my domain, but moving forward I will make sure my work is interesting, meaningful, and unapologetically honest, and those I talk with demonstrate their alignment with my views. Which is difficult to prove, and something that will always take time. This is the essence of what I am working to codify in my API Commons work, which includes APIs.json and my partnership in APIs.io–I am looking to leverage Git and overlays to push folks to demonstrate their alignment before I give them too much time in my day. I know what tastes good, and I am always on the lookout for new and interesting API industry dishes, but the bar is high after almost 15 years of this hustle.
