The Career Built on Course Corrections with Ruben Sarino | Ep053

Manuel Martinez: 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 background and their experiences, to really help uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode. I have with me Ruben Sarino, and him and I met at a networking event. We got to talking, just learning about kind of what he’s doing. He was asking me what I was doing. You know, we connected on LinkedIn, got to know each other, our backgrounds. And I think he has a lot to offer, and there should be a lot of good stories, a lot of good information that people can use, you know, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in the field for a while, you know, and are looking to make a change, either to a different area or, you know, maybe even promotion-wise. So with that, I’ll introduce Ruben.

Ruben Sarino: Hey, how are you?

Manuel Martinez: Good, appreciate you coming on and being willing to share your experiences and your story.

Ruben Sarino: Thanks for having me.

Manuel Martinez: Of course, if you don’t mind, what I tell all the guests is if you want to start off and just tell me a little bit more about you and kind of where you grew up, and then eventually what got you kind of interested in technology.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, that’s a long story. So I think this is the perfect venue for it, right? So let’s see, where I grew up. So my dad was in the military. I was born here in Las Vegas, and right at five years old, moved to about six countries, including Japan, England, and got to travel around, all around Europe, and ended up back in the Philippines for a little bit. Ended up in college in California, went to school in the Bay Area, San Jose State, and then have since moved all around the US as well. So now I’m back in Las Vegas, and that’s where we met.

Manuel Martinez: And what is it that kind of got you interested in technology, doing all that? Because I know that you spend a little bit of time in Japan, the Philippines, and I’m sure living in different countries also gives you a different perspective on not only how different countries, not just culture-wise, but the things that they value, don’t value, and like in Japan, like technology’s a big thing. So I’m assuming that had some influence, possibly on what you ended up doing later on in life.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, I think, as a kid, I was always into video games, always looking for ways to beat the system in the video games, and then I moved to Japan, and here during the 2000s, everybody had these amazing cell phones, and everything was so digitized, and the experience was so seamless. And I remember thinking to myself as a kid, Japan has figured it out, and has solved a lot of our day-to-day problems to make living a lot smoother, right? Let’s say commuting to work or buying things. And again, early 2000s, so ordering from an app wasn’t really a thing then. But then I got to travel also to third world countries, developing countries, and seeing those same human problems without those same solutions, and thinking to myself, there has to be a better way. And so technology has always, I’d say, fascinated me because at the end of the day, we’re ideally using technology to solve human problems, day-to-day problems, and really to make our lives a lot easier, because why work harder, right? So technology is a great way to help bridge the gap.

Manuel Martinez: And you mentioned day-to-day life. Kind of seeing the differences between a third world country or even a developing country and somebody like Japan that is so technology advanced. Did it feel seamless? Like when you go to Japan, it’s not like, oh my gosh, I have to go and do these things because it flows very well. Like I know people that have gone there, and it just, it seems, and you kind of touched on it a little bit, a part of daily life. It’s not like, well, I have to go out of my way to kind of use technology. It’s built into where it almost feels, I’m gonna say, invisible, even though it’s there.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, that’s the best kind of technology, right? And you hit it spot on. I think, I remember growing up and things were just seamless, right? The way you interact with technology, you don’t think of all of the small systems that build it, but you tap a card to pay. This was, again, early 2000s. So this was like revolutionary, but you tap a card and that’s how you pay for things. That’s how you get into the subway. That’s how you get around. And nowadays that’s, or sorry, traveling to a developing country where I still had to then wait in line to get a ticket, to ride the train, if they had a train in the first place or get a taxi. It was, it’s just mind blowing, right? So being able to see the difference, I would say, like that kind of opened my eyes to like asking, I’ve always been a curious kid, right? Breaking things and taking things apart. And like I said earlier with video games, right? Like I’m always trying to see like, what’s the underlying like technology or system underneath so I can make my life easier, right? So at any rate, yeah, that’s what fascinated me about technology is what’s actually going on underneath that’s helping life become seamless. And then kind of seeing that contrast early on as a kid made me realize like, wait, we can apply probably the same systems to a developing country or to our day-to-day lives or at work. And that’s again, what’s fascinating to me about technology.

Manuel Martinez: You kind of grew up, you bounced around and what is it that eventually got your career started? You know, did you think like, hey, I’m gonna go into tech or was it more like, I’m just gonna find a job or go to school or, you know, kind of what was your first step?

Ruben Sarino: My first step out of high school, let’s see, travel a lot. So I traveled all over Europe, got to experience a lot of different really cool things. And then I had to really hunker down, right? And I moved back to California after, you know, living overseas almost all my life. And I started going to school and nothing really interested me, except for cars. And I was just fascinated about cars and, you know, everybody has a great car story, but, you know, I come from a huge car family. My dad was a mechanic in the Air Force. So I’ve always been working on cars. And I eventually got the opportunity to work for a company that took old designs for car parts for classic British cars, and they remanufactured them and went to, you know, various countries to make them and really become the major, if not the supplier for restoration parts for cars. And I got my first job as a, you know, salesperson there and really got to learning what it takes to, and really, I mean, it’s such a small company. You got to learn about the supply chain and tooling and engineering and how do you go from this like, you know, schematic from the 1950s and 60s into a part that sits on a shelf that we’re shipping out to a shop that’s doing a restoration. And at the time, the company wanted to expand the product catalog for the Mazda Miata because they were, they saw, they were sort of ahead of the curve and seeing that the Mazda Miata was going to become a future classic, which now, I mean, you can’t scoop them up for less than 10 grand if they’re in good condition, but I digress. So like, I, yeah, I was working on them, you know, just building them for, you know, the racetrack and doing track days and whatnot. And I got put on this team to, you know, help the marketing team understand how, what parts do we need at our catalog to increase the customer base? And I was just so fascinated about that. Like, wait, you’re telling me that we could just add more products, that we add more sales by adding more sales, we can add more products and we just kind of keep that cycle going. And at the same time, I was still, you know, going to school and I, in the process, started a honey business and I was fascinated with branding and what I learned at that company with, you know, with marketing and getting products on the shelf. You know, I said, hey, why not? You know, at this time I’m 22 and I just dove right in. I learned as much as I could about branding and merchandising and eventually got the honey into Whole Foods and local Whole Foods and other specialty retailers around the central coast of California.

Manuel Martinez: And that came, I’m assuming you mentioned a lot of that from that car parts business.

Ruben Sarino: Yes.

Manuel Martinez: Is understanding, you know, how to build this supply, but you don’t just build the supply and say, I’m gonna make car parts for a Miata and I’m gonna make, you know, ball joints and I’m just gonna make a bunch of these and people will come and buy these eventually, right? There’s a process to understanding what is it that we’re going to manufacture? How did that come about? How were you involved in learning, okay, this is what we’re gonna build because you talked about it like, hey, we build more parts, people buy them, we have more revenue, now let’s build more parts. So how did you kind of go through and determine this is what we’re gonna build or as part of the team?

Ruben Sarino: So I was, you know, kind of, because I was a huge enthusiast and I worked on the cars myself, I was more, I would say, kind of like the marketing teams, like insight into what the actual demand would be, like what could actually, what would actually sell off the shelves, right? And so learning that part and kind of like watching how they went through that analysis was quite interesting, but on the British side, right? So they’ve been in business for about 60 years at that time, 60 years. And so they had this really interesting problem, right? There’s a lot of British car owners, classic British car owners that did not have a place to buy parts and pretty much had to abandon these amazing cars because of that. And so they found this opportunity to essentially fill the quantity and quality problem that, you know, if you know anything about British cars, they break down all the time because the quality is terrible. So they made improvements and essentially re-started that whole supply chain of parts for people to keep their cars on the road. And so now they’re the manufacturer for all those parts.

Manuel Martinez: And then on the Miata side, you talked about, you know, hey, we wanna get into this market. What did they decide? Hey, we’re just gonna start manufacturing every part or, you know, were there specific ones? Like how do you determine, how did you establish the problem instead of just saying, hey, we have a solution, right? Cause it’s a supply and demand thing. Like you can create all this supply and then there’s no demand. And that cycle that you talked about never happens. Or, you know, you’re trying to find like, what’s the demand and then fill it with supply.

Ruben Sarino: So there was already a demand. I would say, you know, when you’re also, car parts are kind of interesting because you sort of like, you know, I’m not an expert on the industry, but so this is like what I know from just, you know, what I’ve done. But when you’re filling a catalog, you’re just throwing cool stuff in there, seeing what sticks and then watching the numbers that ride the traction. We had a great customer base that we could sell to. And from there, we effectively tried to understand what did they want. We wanted to get ahead of, you know, trends that were, you know, coming in like roll bars were a huge thing for the Miata because to get on the racetrack, you have to have a roll bar or roll cage. So that became a huge selling point. But then as the cars aged over time, we saw products that were in demand because they were common failure points. Like a soft top is an example. Or there are common problems that, you know, come about from having such a small car that are loved by Americans that are taller than the average Japanese driver. So those modifications were always like cool add-ons to the catalog because you could now sell these modifications and, you know, people would buy them. So just, if we also listened to what the industry, you know, people on forums were saying, like, if you could, man, I wish I could, and then fill in the blank. And if there were enough of those, we would work with our engineering team and see, hey, is that something we can actually manufacture?

Manuel Martinez: And I’m glad you kind of touched on that point because I think a lot of times people, I write about this a lot, is, you know, solving business problems with technology. And how do you solve this problem? And I see this, and I know that you probably do as well, and the industry is, hey, I built this thing, there’s this cool thing, and then you’re just trying to push instead of a pull. And it sounds like you guys, at least in that industry, and the reason I bring this up is it’s a transferable skill. I want people to know that there are skills that you can pick up along the way in different industries. And that’s the one is, what’s the problem? And you’re looking at forums, looking at, hey, I wish I could blank. You start to see enough of those. Okay, that’s the problem. Now I can solve it instead of saying, well, I’m gonna create, you know, fancy tail lights, and say, hey, everybody, you should get these, you should get these. And people are like, well, I don’t want those, I don’t like those. That’s not what we want. But you kind of looked at what is the problem? People are like, well, I want to, the problem is I want to take this on the racetrack. In order to do that, I need a roll cage. Okay, we can fill that product, or sorry, we can fill that problem or solve that with this solution. Kind of being able to understand that the way to solve problems, whether technology, with car parts, whatever it is, you have to know what’s really the root cause of what’s the problem and not just try and say, well, there’s this cool technology, AI, which we’ll get to at some point. It’s like, hey, there’s AI, and I’m just gonna put something and hey, everybody use it. And I think that’s kind of what’s been going on now as opposed to, sure, what’s the problem I have? Can AI solve it? Maybe it’s just something else.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, I mean, in your day-to-day life, and I think going back to my early experiences, you know, kind of to Japan, I would remember traveling to, you know, for example, the Philippines and just being so annoyed as a kid because, you know, where I was growing up in Japan, this wasn’t a problem, but here it’s a problem. And I’m sure, you know, if you’ve done any traveling yourself, you probably say like in the United States, this would have been solved, but, you know, if you’re traveling, say to Europe, it’s like, this is a huge problem for them. And, you know, I’ve realized, like, sometimes it’s just like looking at the problem, right? But to kind of go back to the whole, like, push and pull of products, now that I’ve, you know, have more of a career, I mean, that was almost maybe, yeah, like about a decade, more than that at this point. That was a long time ago. And now that I’ve had more experience and, you know, I’ve built, you know, two, three businesses since, I’ve realized that the strength that they really had is their distribution network and the customer base. And by having such a strong distribution network, that is really the key to, to a successful business like that, because you don’t really need a push or pull more so, I mean, you’re the manufacturer. So as long as you have a bevy of shops that you could sell to, or a bevy of like, you know, great customers that you can sell to, or a community that you can sell to, there’s always a way to eventually, yes, push it into the market and just kind of see what sticks.

Manuel Martinez: What sticks, that’s cool. So then, you know, you started this honey business, you learned about marketing and, you know, you mentioned you started a couple of different businesses. Is that, that honey business, is that kind of what got you started and said, all right, I want to do something else. Did you always think to yourself, I want to be an entrepreneur or,

Ruben Sarino: Sure.

Manuel Martinez: Hey, I want to try and, marketing’s my thing, sales my thing, technology, what kind of progressed from that point?

Ruben Sarino: So, the honey business was purely by chance. It was part of a lab at the college that I was going to at the time and, met a beekeeper who had terrible packaging and branding. And he had a really modest idea and I wanted to go bigger. You know, and I think the car parts company gave me the confidence, albeit maybe it was also a little like, you know, ignorant, but I was just like, hey, I can do this, if they can do it, I can do it. So I went full steam with it. I had a partner at the time and we, you know, essentially worked with all of these family-owned apiaries, which are, you know, beekeepers, who produce their own honey. And I would go to them, I’d source all the different types of honey that’s native to California. And we packaged it and sold it to, you know, various specialty grocers.

Manuel Martinez: And then, I mean, I’m sure you learned a lot running a business as well, right? Cause it’s one thing, like you said, it’s ignorance, but sometimes that’s a good thing, right? It’s just, you don’t know what you don’t know, and then you kind of run into it. And-

Ruben Sarino: If you know too much, you will never start.

Manuel Martinez: That’s kind of what I was going to get to is, sometimes you, people do too much research. And I’ve done that before where you’re like, evaluating products or like, hey, should I buy this thing or this, you know, like for example, like the cameras, when I was looking to start the podcast, like, should I buy this camera or this camera or this camera? And at some point you’re just like, it doesn’t matter. Like just pick something that meets the minimum requirements or like, you know what, I’ll figure it out as I go and just kind of move along.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, get started and then course correct. Like, you know, it’s always often said, yeah, just get started because getting started is the hardest. And then you realize, well, this camera is, in the case of the cameras, you know, you fall short here. So the next camera I get will have these requirements and maybe I’ll invest in some lighting, you know, on top of that, so yeah.

Manuel Martinez: And the same thing with, and I’m sure that you’ve come across this as I buy, is bouncing around in my career. Like, I think I want to do this. And at one point I was like, I’m going to be a server guy. And I did that for a little bit. And I’m like, oh, networking sounds cool. I’m going to go do networking for a little bit. And I’m like, nope, don’t like that. And you just, again, you course correct. And I think sometimes a lot of times, you and I have talked about this offline, is people who are just getting started or people who have been in a little while and say, oh, you know what, cybersecurity is the big thing. Like, I want to get into cybersecurity. I want to be network, you know, the networking engineer. And I’m like, well, try it and see, because I had that same misconception. It’s like, I want to be a network architect. And I started doing it. I was like, God, I don’t want to do this. This is not for me. I like more of the server infrastructure side.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, actually the car parts, just kind of to put a, you know, round that corner. I initially wanted to go into the car parts company because I wanted to be an engineer and design race cars.

Manuel Martinez: Okay.

Ruben Sarino: And then I realized what the engineers actually do, that design parts. And let’s just say the career lifestyle wasn’t for me. I enjoy the interpersonal, I enjoy the dynamic nature of sales and yeah, engineering just, it sounds cool. And when you’re on the racetrack, it’s really cool. But what I didn’t realize is, and maybe this is just, again, being a little ignorant, is that one day at the track is a whole year’s of research and engineering and developing product or, you know, developing parts that eventually make it to a race car and then eventually makes it to a race. And there’s a whole bevy of teams or engineers and people supporting that effort. And so quickly I realized that wasn’t for me, you know, sitting behind a computer, designing, you know, looking at really small parts all day long, just, it wasn’t for me. And I realized just by kind of, you know, hey, let’s just get started somewhere in the car industry or in the manufacturing industry. I gave it a shot and I realized I had a, I liked another part of it better. So anyways, yeah, to your point, just get started in the general direction and the course correct.

Manuel Martinez: So then now you’ve got this other business, you figured out while, you know, in school and you’re kind of doing this, so then what’s–

Ruben Sarino: So I moved to the Bay Area because it’s 2013.

Manuel Martinez: Okay.

Ruben Sarino: Well, you know, cloud came along, the app stores came along, and I learned that people were making some crazy money, making the silliest apps, you know, apps of all sorts, right? Solving real problems and some solving very, you know, simple problems, right? Like the flashlight app, if we can remember that for the early iPhones, right? And so I was just fascinated with this ability to make money out of just kind of thin air with just an idea. And so San Jose State was where I went. And I suppose just by, you know, I said, hey, like if I’m gonna go anywhere, I should go where there’s tech. And at least I’ll be in the general area, I’ll bump into the right people eventually. And I did, my first semester there, I got straight into, you know, networking with some cool entrepreneurs And I think, you know, I wasn’t ever the best student. I will say school was not for me, but I love rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty, and I’m a very hands-on person. And so my first semester there made sure, I’m gonna network with as many entrepreneurs that are in the Bay Area, and specifically San Francisco in order to get in on this action. Because again, it’s 2013, and there were apps flying everywhere, and people were making money in all sorts of cool ways. And you know, why not? Just figure it out. And that’s how I got, you know, started in the Bay. Eventually the honey business shut down, learned a lot about the importance of distribution, and networks, and really understanding like your supply chain and whatnot. And eventually got a gig at the Apple store, right? You know, just job in college, but learned a lot about how, I mean, in a way like technology works as a whole. Even though it was on the hardware side, it was how do people solve business problems, right? We had a huge emphasis on solving, or like helping local businesses through our business program and learning how to sell without selling, and really uncovering problems. I mean, if, you know, Apple doesn’t do corporate selling, or the corporate sale of sales, but man, I mean, like they teach retail employees how to do proper discovery in a meeting, you know, just one-on-one. And they really teach people how to essentially not make it about them, right? I mean, you don’t, you’re not compensated on, on like how you sell, on, you know, what you sell, there’s no commission. So really it’s about then really understanding what is that person’s problem? Like, what are they actually trying to solve? What are they using the products for? And then making recommendations based on that. And one, it yielded to greater customer happiness, but also two, you end up selling more because you’re actually solving a problem and there are other, you know, add-ons that you can get add to, so.

Manuel Martinez: And is that, when you say that they teach you that, is it like a sort of program you go through? Is it structured? Is it, you know, kind of shadowing people? I’m just curious how they go about teaching that because you’re right. Doesn’t matter what Apple store, I don’t go in there that often anymore, but when you go in, it’s a very similar experience. At every one you go to, like if I go, you know, like I said, if I go in the Bay Area or if I go to a smaller town, let’s say, or not even a smaller town, but if I go to Austin or if I go to New York, again, the building might look different, the size or whatever, but once you go inside, it’s very similar. So how did you go about, you know, like what was that method that they went about to teach you more about sales and really uncovering problems instead of, you know, most people when they think sales, it’s, hey, here’s this new MacBook, push it, push it, push it, and it sounds like that wasn’t the approach.

Ruben Sarino: No, no, no, it was always about the customer. I mean, and I think being obsessed with like your customer’s problems and trying to solve your customer’s problem with the tools that you have at hand, I think that’s what Apple does really well, right? And you can’t do that unless you ask a lot of great questions. So they have a method that they teach and wait, and I don’t know if they still do it this way, but I think then was probably like, it was a great highlight of that, you know, retail program for Apple. Because again, yeah, they, when I went later on into the corporate world, I’m learning all of these skills and it’s like, it’s the same thing, it’s just a discovery. And when you do a really solid discovery, you know, you’re uncovering problems and you’re finding out like the implications of those problems, you can really help guide the customer to a successful outcome.

Manuel Martinez: So then you’re picking up this skill now of really doing discovery and it’s not just selling, right? But it’s selling through problem solving, right?

Ruben Sarino: Sure. And at that point, I mean, like you said, it’s gonna sell itself, right? And you’re gonna have a happier customer. I’ve never felt at an Apple store that they’re pushing a product on you. Like they’ll ask you those questions like, “No, I’m not interested.” You know, okay, if you have questions, come back. They’re always like, if you have questions, if you have questions. So then you get this, you know, knowledge that you probably, I don’t know if at the time you did or didn’t realize that, “Hey, this is gonna come in handy later on.” But what transpires as you’re kind of working your way through college, you’re meeting all these other entrepreneurs. You’re thinking to yourself, like, “I’m gonna build an app.” Like, did you put those three skills together and say, “All right, I’ve got this now.”

Ruben Sarino: Not necessarily technology. So at the time I knew cybersecurity was this amazing, cool part of technology, but I didn’t really know much about it. And I made a friend in one of my classes that had a really quirky teacher and, or professor. And he’s now my business partner, but Emmanuel and I met and he eventually went off to do cybersecurity at NASA and all sorts of cool places. And I’ll let him tell his story eventually, but I learned more about security and kind of like the importance of, you know, at the time Stuxnet was this scary, ominous thing. The OT threat, like as cloud was, you know, becoming a thing, so were, you know, technologies that could control your thermostat as an example, but also like, you know, other parts of corporate life, like, you know, copiers, where you could, you know, or air conditioning systems that could be controlled through a centralized place. But nobody was thinking, “Well, how do we secure that to prevent bad actors from entering that?” So, you know, Target, as we all know now, was compromised because of that. So I had someone in my life that, you know, really inspired me to look into cybersecurity because, you know, coming from a military family understood the importance of security and, you know, kind of the implication of what happens if you don’t secure things. And, you know, cyber also, you know, she, you know, she worked at a great cybersecurity company and she was telling me about the massive paychecks that sales reps were making. And so put two and two together, and I said, “Cybersecurity sounds like a great place to start after college.” So I applied to so many companies and eventually I made my way, I got referred into a company called CrowdStrike. That’s where I got my start in corporate, you know, cybersecurity career.

Manuel Martinez: And getting in there, you started on the sales side, is that correct? Yes. So on the sales side, you know, thinking, “Okay, I want to do security, I want to sell security, but I want to sell security because you know that there’s a problem.” Like similar to, sounds like everywhere else, the problem, you seem to be really good at identifying problems and wanting to solve them. So you talked about the car parts, you know, and then eventually the honey business, like, now there, the problem wasn’t so much on the consumer side, it was more the business side, like, “Oh, the packaging, all this is terrible.” You know, and now you’re learning skills on discovery with Apple and, “Hey, I want to go through.”

Ruben Sarino: Sure.

Manuel Martinez: I would be a fool to say that a lot of the different areas that I tried wasn’t motivated by money. I mean, especially at that age, you know, in my 20s, it’s like, “Oh, I can make money doing this as a network person or as that, like we mentioned before.” But now you get in and I would think on the security side, it’s got to be, “Okay, I can make a lot of money, but there’s a real need for this.”

Ruben Sarino: Absolutely.

Manuel Martinez: So how do you go through and really determine, “All right, I like the cybersecurity, I think I can do this.” You get your first role, kind of what was the expectation that you had going in, and then what was it really like once you were in that role?

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, so I wanted to, I was hungry, right? So like the same, you know, same, I think this is a common theme in my life. I said, “Hey, I just want to get in to the best.” Because I realized, you know, the importance of, even if it was Apple retail, people see Apple and they recognize that it’s just like going to Harvard or it’s just like going to, you know, it’s your part of this community that like, the baseline is really high. And I wanted to do the same in my corporate career. And CrowdStrike at the time was, you know, was a series B startup that was making huge waves because of its EDR product. And I said, “I need to get in, I don’t care how. It’s going to be a big, you know, they’re going to be a great company.” I didn’t realize how big it was going to be, but I knew that they were doing some cool things. So I got a job as a sales development representative, which is, you know, if you can get out of college and become an SDR, I mean, at least, you know, when I did that,

Manuel Martinez: SDR is?

Ruben Sarino: sales development representative, you know, you’re, it’s an entry-level job, you’re just dialing for dollars, as they say, right? You’re just making as many calls. And, you know, at the time the calling was still huge. Now I don’t know what the reps are using, but I’m sure it’s a lot of AI and a lot of outbound that’s assisted by AI. But I mean, talk about learning how to just go through and develop a pipeline, right? That is the foundation of a pipeline. And if you ever work in a startup or if you ever, you know, end up owning your own book of business, like that is what is key to jump-starting that pipeline. I supported four amazing reps in the Texas region. And eventually they, you know, sort of mentored me into, telling, they did a great job of showing me what was on the other side of just like, you know, dialing for dollars and like cold calling people all day long and sending a thousand emails a week and, you know, doing discovery calls, right? What happened after? So they did a really good job of not just like, you know, hey, like give me the leads, but also let me show you what’s going on with the lead and the deal. And here’s what would, here’s how it progresses, right? And that just fascinated me even more because, you know, like as an SDR, your goal is to become an account executive and eventually make it into the field and go close those big deals. So that, I mean, I gotta give it to those guys because they really, you know, did a good job of just kind of like, I don’t know, kind of like fostering that curiosity that I had, even if they didn’t know. But also CrowdStrike at the time did a great job of mentoring all of the people that came in to really, with the mindset of, hey, you will be the next account executive. So we need to ramp you up as fast as possible because these account executives will eventually become, you know, field sales people. And so at that time of growth, it was just like, hey, let’s just get everybody ramped up. So I was learning a lot all of the time. So, yeah.

Manuel Martinez: And a lot of that learning is good and having a, it sounds like they knew and you talked about it before, it’s like a pipeline. They also have like a talent pipeline.

Ruben Sarino: Absolutely.

Manuel Martinez: Because you’re starting here and you’re kind of, they know that the natural progression is people are gonna wanna do more or the next thing. In most cases, like some people are like, all right, they reach a certain limit or hey, this is, maybe I don’t wanna move on there, but as, if they move out, like let’s say they leave CrowdStrike or they move to a different division, they’re still a position to fill. So they didn’t necessarily, or it doesn’t sound like you necessarily went through and asked them and said, hey, can you be my mentor? Was it the types of questions that you were asking them? What like, how did you establish that relationship with these account execs? Cause I’m sure, like you said, maybe they knew or didn’t know, you know, that they were fostering that curiosity, but there’s also in my experience, there’s something in you that makes people open to sharing information because I’ve been on both sides. I’ve been where I’m like you, I’m naturally curious, I’ll ask questions and then that’s probably enough for them to say, oh, well let me here, here’s how this works.

Ruben Sarino: Right.

Manuel Martinez: And, or maybe they pushed information and then now you’re kind of going through like, oh, well tell me more.

Ruben Sarino: Sure.

Manuel Martinez: I’m just curious what your experience was in that because I’ve, like I said, I’ve been on both, where I’ve given information and you see that, that person does nothing with it or they start eating it up and you’re like, oh man, let me feed more, let me feed more.

Ruben Sarino: I did a lot to ask questions. I would say, I probably asked more questions than I really needed to and, you know, eventually they were like, well, you know, if you’re so curious, let me just like share, you know, what’s going on. So I think the cadence kind of, it wasn’t just like a, hey, here’s all the sales updates. Like it was more about like, okay, how do we like, you know, how can I help this guy out? You know, I don’t know if, yeah, I don’t really have a good answer for that. I never really thought about that. I mean, I just like to ask a lot of questions because ultimately what they’re doing, I want to understand too, if that’s the direction I want to go. Like it sounds cool and the outcome is cool, but you know, what I learned kind of in the engineering, right, is the day to, is like, you know, is getting, is racing for a day, 364 days of pain that I don’t want to go through. And so I wanted to know what does the day to day look like for you? And is this a career that I would actually like to pursue? So I was always asking questions, you know, and kind of testing my hypothesis.

Manuel Martinez: And I like that, that you were going through and said, well, I think I’m going to do this, right? And is the payoff worth it, right? And it sounds like for most engineers, that one day is worth it to them. For you, you’re like, it’s not worth the trade off. For CrowdStrike, I’m assuming it was worth the trade off. And did you kind of end up moving into one of those roles?

Ruben Sarino: So I didn’t stay at CrowdStrike, but I did continue the pursuit to become an account executive. And I did it more so because that was the path that I thought I wanted and I continued down it. Ended up at another startup, Series A startup. They did not make it, so I got laid off, ended up at another company, and realized I did not like selling to the SMB persona. And after that, I was kind of rethinking like, man, what do I actually want in a sales career? Because I thought I liked selling. And then I realized, okay, I don’t like selling to this persona. I like selling to the enterprise. And I don’t like selling this type of product or a product that sells this kind of perceived benefit. I wanna sell something that actually makes a huge difference. So I stumbled upon by chance. I got in touch with, how did I get in touch with them? Anyways, I got a contract role. Initially it was supposed to be for 30 days, turned out to extend to six years. (both laughing) And I ended up, as the go-to market, I don’t know what the actual title was, because I had so many hats. But at the end of the day, I put together the internal processes and the HubSpot and the marketing. And eventually I took over the marketing for a while, thanks to the pandemic. And it was just a really amazing experience to learn so many things, so many inner workings that go behind a startup. And, you know, as a seven, eight person startup, on the US side, and it was a very, like, just eye opening experience. I don’t know if you have any questions around that.

Manuel Martinez: I do, because one of the things that, and I didn’t realize it at the time is, you know, you mentioned you went from, you know, CrowdStrike, was it, again, Series B, but it’s still a startup, these different startups. What is it about either that culture, or is it really trying to be on the cutting edge that called to you and said, “Hey, I wanna do that,” as opposed to saying, especially after CrowdStrike, like, “Okay, I’m in here, sure, they’re a startup. I’m gaining the experience,” right? Probably because they’re a startup and they, you know, they’re growing at a rate that they’re willing to take on these people that maybe have a little bit less experience. Now that you’ve gained some, what made you continue to stay in the startup kind of ecosystem as opposed to saying, “You know what? I think I’ve established enough of, enough experience, enough knowledge. I wanna go more to an established company.” (both laughing)

Ruben Sarino: You know, actually, one thing I loved about Apple is, you know, you’re, especially in the Bay Area, you’re always selling to somebody that works in tech. Right, big tech usually. And I remember he’ll never know that he gave me this advice, but I spoke to, he had just retired like the day before, final day of his career, CFO of a large company. And I was like, “Hey, you know, you’re the CFO of a large company, like, you know, somebody that’s trying, that’s hungry and trying to get into the corporate game. You know, what advice do you have?” He was like, “Don’t go into a startup.”

Manuel Martinez: Don’t, go? You’re like, “Sounds great, I’m gonna do that.”

Ruben Sarino: Yeah. And at this time, I think I’d already gotten the interview for CrowdStrike or, you know, and he, and I said, “Why? Why not? That’s, you know, I mean, it kind of like, especially with the culture in the Bay Area, it’s like, you know, especially at the time, it was like, everybody had a startup. Why wouldn’t you do it? Right? And he effectively said, “You have nothing to offer. You don’t have skills that were kind of like created and hardened over time that you would have like, say working at like HPE or something, like, you know, IBM, Any old legacy company, you know, you spend six years there and then you go to a startup and you take all of those processes that you learned at IBM or HPE and you add that to the startup.

Manuel Martinez: So it’s more about adding value to the startup.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, yeah.

Manuel Martinez: Okay.

Ruben Sarino: So anyways, I don’t know why, I just, I thought about that conversation I had with that guy. I don’t even remember his name, but man, I haven’t thought about that in a really long time. But yeah, so against better advice, I suppose, I did exactly what he told me not to do. And I think what’s always drawn me to the startup is that my impact is greater. I feel is greater, right? Because if you are playing on a smaller team, your impact is also, it’s more seen. So I think like having that pressure and that accountability has always, in a way, I’ve enjoyed it. I love the entrepreneur story and I’ve always been an entrepreneur. So I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. And I think, I don’t know, I just, I didn’t feel like I fit into the Cisco’s of the world. I had friends that went into Cisco and, you know, that’s amazing, right? There’s nothing wrong with going to the amazing corporate route or the established corporate route. I don’t know, maybe I’m a little bit of a maverick. I just didn’t draw, I wasn’t drawn to it, to be frank.

Manuel Martinez: Right, and that’s fine. I was just kind of curious why, because again, some people are drawn to it for a reason and some people aren’t. And, you know, there’s, especially when you talked about, you know, hey, this is where the money’s at. I was just curious, sometimes I’ve seen people that go through, it’s like, I’m gonna go to the startup realm because if it takes off, boom, I’m good. Whereas it sounds like you, like I just wanna have more of an impact. Like I wanna know that the work I’m doing has an effect, whereas not that it doesn’t in a big corporate environment, you know, like I’ve worked for them. So it is, it just doesn’t always feel like that, like I’m a smaller cog, right? Like there’s impact, but it’s not like, like you said, I’m a smaller team, like I’m not that person.

Ruben Sarino: But on the other hand, I think maybe if the large company structures it in a way where, is structured in a way where your inputs, like you can see the outcomes, you know, the bigger outcome directly. So I think there’s like kind of that give and take. But I also knew in my gut that I always wanted to be a startup founder or found something like my own company. Like to be an owner, right? From day one, like I remember driving to San Francisco to go do this corporate media event. And for the startup that I was being, that I had to get mentored by for my class. And I just remember thinking to myself, like I wanna be those guys. I don’t want to be like forever, just, you know, like in the sales career. I mean, I love sales, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted to, yeah, be an entrepreneur. I mean, just found my own thing. And like I said, I mean, I guess the common theme is I like to just get in, I like to learn. And then, you know, how does that help me towards my greater mission, right? And so that’s why the startup made sense because I got to see more of the inner workings. Whereas I felt that going to a large company insulated me from a lot of the, like the minutia that I wouldn’t otherwise get to see, right? Yeah.

Manuel Martinez: No, and that’s good because, you know, you hear both sides of it, right? Like everybody can be an entrepreneur, but not everybody’s built for it, you know, different things like that. So maybe if you, this might be another area where if somebody’s like, “Hey, I think I want to start something.” Like, well maybe work for a startup and see if that’s really, you know, get that exposure. Well, we talked about it, right? Course correct. “Hey, let me try it. Not for me.” Or, “Hey, maybe this is.” And you know, you kind of develop from there or you say, “Hey, you know what? I like more of that established, that corporate structure. I want that structure.” Again, that’s, there’s no one right way. It’s just try different things. And that’s why I’m glad that you talked about what drove you to do that. And that’s, again, the whole reason behind a lot of this podcast is expose people to, you know, different, just different mindsets, different people, because I’ve run into you and like, “Hey, I’ve gone start up to start up to start up and I’ve talked to other people.” And like, “I’ve been at the same place for 20, 25 years.” Again, there’s no wrong or right way, but hopefully just explaining that I’ve always wanted to have an impact. I’ve always had that entrepreneur, like, “I want to do stuff.” There’s someone that’s listening that says, “Hey, you know what? That’s how I think. Maybe this is the route to give it a try.”

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, if there’s any takeaways from this podcast that I’m seeing, you know, coming up, it’s, you know, and I’m reminding myself, like, just go in, try it, of course, correct. Because, I mean, look, like in the startup world and even in just general sales, your initial attempt is not, it’s 98% not going to be correct, right? Generally, you have to pivot to somebody else if you’re selling or if you’re, you know, maybe your messaging is off and you get a ton of, “Hey, stop calling me. You need to pivot,” right? So I think it’s always just get started. And, of course, correct, but also have that bigger vision in mind, right? Like, what is, I always actually ask myself once a year, you know, it’s around that time of the year, I kind of have a one-on-one with myself. And I say, you know, how do I, I always start with like, how do I want to feel next year? Not like, what do I want or what do I want to do? I always kind of start with, how do I want to feel? And from there, it’s like, then I kind of understand, okay, what do I need to do to feel that way? And so that’s how I course correct, I suppose. I don’t know. I don’t know why I brought that up, but.

Manuel Martinez: Well, no, it’s good, because I have a friend and he’s been on the podcast where he talked about something similar. He has like three criteria, right? Where he’s like, you know, I don’t remember them, of course, but it’s something like, you know, do I enjoy the people I work with? You know, am I able to kind of go through it? And he says he does this on a regular basis and that’s what he goes through. He’s like, here’s my three things. Do I like the people that I work with? Do I, you know, am I able to make a good living? And I don’t know what the other one is. Maybe it was something like, am I learning a lot? Or do I feel stagnant? So it sounds like you’re doing something different or something similar. It’s a little bit different. It’s like, well, how do I feel? And then you kind of start to work back from there. Like, I want to feel like I’m making an impact. Okay, well, how do I do that? Okay, well, maybe I go to a startup or, hey, I want to feel like I’ve, you know, I’m established. Okay, well, maybe it’s no longer the startup realm. I mean, I’m not saying that that’s what you’re thinking, but kind of working backwards that way and establishing what that end goal is. I like that approach.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, because I think the worst thing that we can do for ourselves is do something for extended periods of time that don’t excite us. So I think, you know, if you’re feeling kind of stagnant or bored or, you know, you’re looking for that next challenge, but you don’t know how, I think just start with, that’s a great place to start. It’s just, how do I want to feel next year? I want to be excited. Well, excited about what? I’m excited about what I’m working on. I’m excited about the people I’m with. I mean, you know, there’s so many ways. And then from there, it’s like, well, if it’s just the people, but you like what you’re working on, okay, maybe switch teams, find a different initiative. If it’s the company, maybe it’s time to try something entrepreneurial or start a side gig or start, you know, especially with vibe coding and AI. I mean, there’s so many ways to take, you know, years and years of expertise and turning it into a prototype software that you could then, you know, commercialize. I mean, if you want, you know, there’s so many things you could do nowadays to kind of like, you know, just dip your toe into the entrepreneurial realm, right?

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, and I hope that people start, for people who don’t know exactly what they want to do. I think the way that you frame your, you know, your yearly check-in is a great way to do it. Well, I don’t know what I want to do. Okay, but maybe you have an idea of what you want to feel.

Ruben Sarino: Yes.

Manuel Martinez: Hey, how do I feel now? Okay, I feel stagnant. Okay. Well, how do I want to feel? Do I want to feel like I’m learning something? Okay, where would I learn something? And it doesn’t necessarily have to be that. So I think a lot of times, and I’ve run into people like, hey, as a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? Or what do you want to do? And your just always like, ah. I want to be an architect, a policeman, you know, things like that. And people are like, well, I want to get into cybersecurity. Hey, why? Like, what is it about cybersecurity that excites you? Well, that’s where all the jobs are. Okay, is that really a good reason to get into it? I mean, maybe it is, but again, you have to determine that for yourself.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah. Yeah. So for me, like this year, like feeling secure is one, is what I want to feel like in 2026. And that can come from a multitude of things, right? And so to use the cybersecurity example, I think, you know, being able to provide for your family as an example is a great way to feel secure. So anyways, that’s why I like to keep it very open-ended because, you know, I kind of go through life and maybe like from month to month, like, oh man, this month was like particularly, I felt particularly bored or I felt particularly like insecure about one part of my life, right? So how can I, you know, address that one part of my life so that I don’t, you know, maybe I need to shift some priorities. But yeah, that’s just how I look at it. I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s like a huge quotable, you know, part of the podcast, but that’s how I like to start my check-ins.

Manuel Martinez: No, I like it.

Ruben Sarino: I don’t even know how we got off. Sorry.

Manuel Martinez: Well, and that’s why I kind of like this forum, right? Is because it’s like something you said kind of brought me there. And we start going through as opposed to…

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, don’t let me derail your podcast.

Manuel Martinez: No, no, you’re good. Like this is, I kind of like that. Like I have a general sense of what I want to do and what I want to cover. But then again, I never know what you might say or what thought or question that might trigger. So then in this go to market position, sounds like you learned quite a bit, especially because you’re doing everything. Like you became the marketing, you became, you know, the salesperson, a little bit of everything. How much of that was just kind of your prior experience, like the little bit with the honey, right? I see in that position, like how much of that do you think was prior experience versus I’m going to learn and build skills that maybe not that you didn’t have them, but maybe you had them, but they were very, maybe they weren’t as strong.

Ruben Sarino: I would say I really… So the initial expectation for the contract was, you know, that 30 day contract was, take your SDR skills that you knew from back in the day and use them so that we can prove, you know, that the leads are not garbage. And so I said, okay, that’s easy. I could do that for 30 days. Ended up converting a lot. And the CEO of the company said, hey, do you want to just come on full time? And so I did. And six years later, that’s sort of what happened. And in the process, it was really organic. I mean, their HubSpot instance was a mess. So I went through and kind of cleaned it up and added some processes and added, you know, kind of just shaped it up to what I had seen in prior startups. And it just really, it just makes sense. When you, once you know the cadence and like how to sell and you know, what the outcome is, then everything else kind of falls into place. I don’t know if there’s anything specific you want to dive into.

Manuel Martinez: So I guess the specific, and this will probably lead the conversation is, so in that role, like you said, hey, you had experience on the HubSpot and some of these other things, like how in those first 30 days, it sounds like it’s just the lead qualification. But then after that, as you started kind of moving up and gaining more responsibilities, would you say that as you moved into like, and they gave you the marketing, or you became a full-time employee, how much, like what percentage of the skills that you currently possess, do you think attributed to kind of moving in like, all right, for the SDR position, like 100%, right? Like I, for what they were asking, that was 100%. But then when they gave you marketing, you’re like, ooh, well, I have maybe 25% of the marketing and the other 75% I learned, or maybe it’s 50% and I learned the other 50%. So I’m just curious like, how much you learned combining all these different jobs.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, so going into, now that I think about it, I had to learn probably about like 50%, 60% outside of what I already knew. And only because, yeah, like marketing, I had no idea about marketing. Like what is PPC? What is SEO? How do blogs impact an inbound campaign, all of the campaign management? I didn’t understand any of that. And shout out to HubSpot because they make it so easy, but coming from previously from Salesforce, run environments, like the operations there were so much more complex that if you kind of understood that, then it made HubSpot a breeze. And then because your CRM kind of mimics your operations, like your actual operations, like what you’re doing, then it kind of just, for me, I extrapolated, well, what should we be doing? So, yeah, but yeah, as far as the marketing was concerned, look, I’m not a marketer by any means. So I had to learn how does blogging impact, I guess, all of your organic marketing and how does that convert into leads that then convert into opportunities that convert into deals. That was difficult. I will say probably, I still don’t have any, I would say I’m still like maybe a very advanced novice at it. If I have a marketing team, I definitely use them over my own marketing skills. But I would say after that, that engagement ended. And after six years, I said, well, what do I do next? So I took a month off in the process, I had a heart attack and then I kind of checked in with myself and I said, hey, how do I wanna feel this year?

Manuel Martinez: Is that kind of when it started or like that checking in with yourself and how do I feel, how do I wanna feel? Was it after that?

Ruben Sarino: No, no, no, I was already doing that. But after I had a heart attack, it wasn’t a large one, it was a small heart attack, but I spent four days in the hospital because they wanted to make sure I, my heart wasn’t failing on me. And I make a joke of it, but it was very serious. And I joke, but there’s, I always say to myself, when I travel or do questionable things like racing cars, the number one rule is don’t die. And so I almost broke that rule. So don’t die. But yeah, I had a small heart attack and I was listening to some, I love audio books and I can’t read books because I don’t have the patience, but I love audio books. And I was just listening to this audio book and it was like making me think, like what do I want to…out of the other side of this? Like, I’m in my late thirties now, like what do I wanna do? There’s this whole AI thing coming up though, what’s happening with that? And I don’t know if it was just by sheer luck, but Emmanuel, my friend from college who went off to NASA to do cyber, we had stayed in touch and I knew he was doing cyber stuff and I knew he was really knocking it out of the park. But he was, he hit me up out of the blue and said, “Hey, there’s this AI stuff, there’s this cyber stuff. I have this idea.” And in college, we had this wacky idea to start a sriracha business. That is a whole other story for another day. Did not work obviously, but we kind of vowed from that point on, like, hey, we do work well together. We like to create cool things. And I kept up with him and his entrepreneurial, his ventures outside of like his day job. So he reached out and said, “Hey, I’m working on this thing.” And, you know, can you just look at it and see if I’m, make sure I’m not crazy? And so when I get out of the hospital, he said, “Hey, you missed the call the other day. Is everything okay?” I was like, “Oh yeah, I just spent four days in the hospital, don’t worry about it.” He’s like, “Okay.”

Manuel Martinez: Like, “Oh, okay, no big deal.”

Ruben Sarino: I was like, “What do you have to show me? It sounds really exciting.” And ended up, he pitched me on this idea where we would take AI and apply it to cybersecurity. This was like 2020, early, late 2023. So kind of on the like ChatGPT, had just kind of come out. There wasn’t a lot of intelligence or information on the internet. And so we, I don’t know how to go into it without like divulging a lot of stuff, but pretty much he pitched me on this idea, this big vision and he showed me this very like, we call it the super secret slide, but this very like confidential slide that shows the architecture of this whole idea. And I was like, “Whoa, wait, this is really cool.” And then I thought, remember Ruben back in 2016 when you were like looking at CrowdStrike and kind of what they did with cloud and how they took advantage of this new technology. And said, “Hey, we’re going to streamline the way they, we gather intelligence and telemetry and help for incident response and EDR and all that.” And whatever actually became CrowdStrike, right? I said, “This might be our time. This is our moment every 10 years, right? There’s like a new shift in technology. Gen AI and AI might be the way to do it.” So yeah, so I hopped on and just course corrected and we’ve had some wins along the way. So I don’t know if you want to dive into that, but…

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, it sounds like, again, you’re always looking for that thing that’s kind of, how are you going to feel? And it sounds like, “Hey, this is my moment. Hey, I work well with this person.” And having that connection. So obviously he also had some connection with you, right? Because it’s not you reaching out to him and saying, “Hey, I want to be a part of this.” It’s like, “Hey, let’s kind of go through.” And those different skillsets there, which I’m sure also compliment each other. It’s like, “Hey, you’ve worked at these CrowdStrike. You have experience in the industry. He’s doing more of the technical work, but that’s a good compliment.” It’s like, “I know the marketing, the sales, I’ve done that. And I can kind of help you.” Is that kind of how that came together?

Ruben Sarino: Absolutely, yeah. And I think back to being bold, right? You have to be bold with yourself first. You have to believe in yourself. You have to have that confidence, maybe even arrogance to say, “I can do this. I got this, no problem. And if anything comes in my way, I can course correct and overcome it.” I think that’s the, I would say the personality traits that he and I possess that honestly really help us as founders. But yeah, I mean, when he pitched it to me, I said, “This, it would be foolish to not give it a shot.” You know what I mean? So yeah, all of those experiences really kind of are coming together.

Manuel Martinez: And that’s what I was exactly gonna ask is, it sounds like at an early age, right? Kind of moving around, you’re comfortable with change. And not to say that that’s the only way to do it. I know people that have been in the same place for a long time and they’re still comfortable with change. Now it’s change within their organization or whatever that might be. But that confidence that, like you said, sometimes it is an arrogance. Do you think it is a combination of just everything that you’ve built and kind of gone through and saying, “Okay, I can do this.” Even if it doesn’t work out exactly how 100% and how I think it might, I think it’s worth pursuing and here’s why. And I really think that I can get to that point.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I won’t credit it all to my childhood, but definitely it doesn’t hurt to be comfortable with change because I mean, with life, right? The only constant is change, but also, you know, like… (sighs)

Manuel Martinez: Just even your experiences, I’m sure, like going for these different roles, you know, being in the car industry, to thinking I want to do this and, you know, being comfortable with saying, “Hey, you know what, I did well in this role. “I did well in this role. “Like, why can I not?”

Ruben Sarino: I believe that I’m huge on transferable skills because in my opinion, I mean, when cloud was happening, I always looked at what’s the underlying, what is the underlying goal that this solution is trying to achieve, right? And during cloud, I mean, I remember everybody was a platform. Everybody was consolidating multiple tools into one thing. So everybody’s pitch was the same thing. So no matter what company I went to, whether it was CrowdStrike or the other startup that provided workforce intelligence or this healthcare company, at the end of the day, they consolidated multiple tools to provide a unified look on the underlying data, right? Et cetera. And with that, I mean, it’s like, we’re seeing the same thing again in GenAI. So I like to look at the underlying, what are you actually doing? And then once we get past all the marketing fluff and all of the perceived value, then we can, okay, now let’s go. So I guess that’s why I’m not scared to change because I know that underneath all of what could be uniquely different, really, it’s all kind of the same. It’s very approachable.

Manuel Martinez: Got it. So we’ve kind of gone through all of your career. You’ve answered all my questions and been able to kind of help me understand just your thought process and kind of sharing why you took certain, I don’t wanna say risk, but certain changes and kind of stuck a little bit longer in other ones and taking all of those different skills and different things that you learned from each role and applying them into the next one. Now, like the marketing, like did you become a marketing expert? No, but that’s not the role. Yes, you had to do it, but you weren’t like, I have to be the chief marketing officer, right? Is there anything that I haven’t asked you, anything that we didn’t touch on or maybe we glazed by that you’re like, hey, you know what, I really wanna talk about X or Y.

Ruben Sarino: I think for folks that are maybe just starting their careers, I would say just give it a shot. I mean, I have so many ways I could go with this. I mean, AI is this big new thing that everybody’s trying to, maybe they don’t know how to enter it. Maybe you’ve been in your industry for a really long time and you don’t know how to enter it or you’re looking for ways as somebody who’s early in their career getting into AI.

Manuel Martinez: I mean, I guess we could even go back to like how you said, like what’s your theory on AI.

Ruben Sarino: Sure, yeah, I mean, so my thesis on AI is the most successful companies coming that will really last over the next 10 years and really dominate their space are the ones that are helping companies truly transform. And in my opinion, the companies that have, that are being founded by founders with like deep subject matter expertise and are coupling it with services, those are the companies that will really do well over the next decade. And the reason for that is I think just my opinion, I mean, there’s, if you kind of remove all the hype that is surrounds AI, you still need that underlying expertise to really get it to work and really get the organization to adopt it. And ultimately that’s what is going to give you that edge over your competition.

Manuel Martinez: And it’s really understanding like the problem, right? You and I have talked about this offline and even during this conversation is, okay, AI and everybody’s like, hey, AI, AI, we wanna implement it, but why, right? Like what are you trying to solve or what is that expertise? What is it, how are you gonna use it that makes you different or makes you better, faster and really understanding and asking that question like, okay, hey, we’re gonna implement AI and we’re just gonna use ChatGPT.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah.

Manuel Martinez: You’re using AI, but you’re not really implementing into the process. Going back to what you talked about, with being in Japan is it should make it seamless. Like when you implement it, it shouldn’t be like, oh man, we’re using AI, but we’re doing these five other steps just to get to this end result as opposed to being like, hey, I just wanna tap my card, be able to pay hop on, hop off and not have to think about it instead of, well, I’ve got a wait in line, I’ve got a call for a cab, gotta wait for them to show up, right? It’s all those steps. It’s really going back to what you said is, I need to be curious. I need to develop that expertise. And it’s not necessarily the expertise to be the technical person, right? Like understand what the technology is. Maybe you are a great marketing person and say, okay, hey, I’m a great marketer. Here’s the problem I see in marketing. Let me find somebody that has this expertise in AI or in a technology and say, here’s the problem, help me fix it.

Ruben Sarino: Right, AI really ought to help marketers in this example become better marketers, right? Because there’s a lot of things, like funny enough, I was actually speaking to my chef friends, just a group of them talking and they were telling me about, they love being a chef, but there’s a big part of being a chef that also you don’t think about, which is just like an engineer. (laughing) To run, to have a service, this like amazing 2000 seat service, there is so much orchestration that has to go behind the scenes. And I was just thinking to myself, man, isn’t there a way to build a technology for that? So, I mean, you don’t even have to be in technology to these days have an idea that would be great. Sorry, to create an idea that would become later a great app or a great piece of software.

Manuel Martinez: I’ve had this conversation with a good friend of mine, I would say it probably is what’s going to help. The fact that you’re not in technology. And like you said, you’re a chef, it’s probably gonna spark those ideas. Cause we’re in tech, you’re like, you know the technology, like it can do these things. Whereas if you were like a chef and say, “Hey, you know what, to run this 2000 seat restaurant, here’s all these things that we have to do. Here’s the manual process. Here’s the problem. Here’s the thing like a hostess, when she comes down, I see this now and just as you talked about it, they go and they look at a board, what’s open, what’s not, sometimes they’re looking back.

Ruben Sarino: Sure.

Manuel Martinez: Maybe I just, I’m gonna give away a million dollar idea, but is how do I know if this seat or this table is open without me having to go through it?

Ruben Sarino: Sure.

Manuel Martinez: Yep, they are. Hey, I marked it off on this board, now I have to erase it. If there’s just like an iPad that says, “Here’s the open seat,” boom, and I just, I walked them over there, right? I mean, it sounds simple, but again, I’m not in the restaurant industry and maybe it’s that way for a reason. Maybe there’s something else that can be automated.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, and it’s not, you know, not everything needs AI. That’s the other thing is, you know, let’s actually solve the problem, right? And if that means just keep it on paper, let’s keep it on paper. Yeah, I think, yeah, I couldn’t have ended it better than that, I think. Yeah, you summarized it really well with the whole understanding the underlying problem, yeah.

Manuel Martinez: Well, again, I appreciate you kind of coming on and sharing this information and kind of your theories. And again, I know that people are going to find, you know, a lot of value and hopefully spark some sort of creativity that maybe they didn’t think about before, or at least give them the confidence to say, “You know what, I’m gonna go for it “’cause I can course correct, “’cause, you know, Ruben did it,” and, you know, it worked out for him.

Ruben Sarino: Yeah, I hope this inspires many of your viewers.

Manuel Martinez: And for everybody, again, that continues to watch and listen, or, you know, if you’re new, again, thank you for continuing to plug in and download the knowledge, and until next time, thank you.