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178
public/index.html
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<!DOCTYPE html> <!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html> <html>
<head> <head>
<title>Pablo here</title> <title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8" /> <meta charset="utf-8">
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /> <meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
</head> </head>
<body> <body>
<main> <main>
<h1>Hi, Pablo here</h1> <h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p> <p>
Welcome to my website. Here I discuss thoughts and ideas. This is mostly Welcome to my website. Here I discuss thoughts and ideas. This is mostly professional.
professional.
</p> </p>
<hr /> <hr>
<h2>What you'll find here:</h2> <h2>What you'll find here:</h2>
<ul> <ul>
<li><a href="#about-me-header">About me</a></li> <li><a href="#about-me-header">About me</a></li>
@ -23,187 +24,110 @@
<li><a href="#my-projects-header">My projects</a></li> <li><a href="#my-projects-header">My projects</a></li>
<li><a href="#writings-header">Writings</a></li> <li><a href="#writings-header">Writings</a></li>
</ul> </ul>
<hr /> <hr>
<section> <section>
<h2 id="about-me-header">About me</h2> <h2 id="about-me-header">About me</h2>
<p>A few facts you might care about:</p> <p>A few facts you might care about:</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li>I'm based in Barcelona, although I'm happy working for anyone located anywhere (as long as we can
I'm based in Barcelona, although I'm happy working for anyone find a time to meet).</li>
located anywhere (as long as we can find a time to meet). <li>My career has focused in Data teams and positions, playing roles such as Data Lead, Data Engineer.
</li> </li>
<li> <li>Having said that, I have a lot of weird interests that might mix somehow, including:
My career has focused in Data teams and positions, playing roles
such as Data Lead, Data Engineer or Data Science Researcher. I've
also tinkered quite a bit with many areas and technologies outside
of data, but not in professional, production-grade settings.
</li>
<li>
Having said that, I have a lot of weird interests that might mix
somehow, including:
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li>Austrian economics and its societal and political implications</li>
Austrian economics and its societal and political implications
</li>
<li>Bitcoin</li> <li>Bitcoin</li>
<li>P2P and privacy friendly applications</li> <li>P2P and privacy friendly applications</li>
<li> <li>Self-hosting and lowering the cost of people using advanced IT on a personal level</li>
Self-hosting and lowering the cost of people using advanced IT
on a personal level
</li>
<li>Riding motorcycles</li> <li>Riding motorcycles</li>
<li>BBQ-ing</li>
<li>Being annoyingly contrarian</li> <li>Being annoyingly contrarian</li>
<li>3D printing maps</li> <li>3D printing maps</li>
<li>Teaching</li> <li>Teaching</li>
<li>Film photography</li> <li>Film photography</li>
<li>Tinkering with bicycles</li>
<li>Calisthenics</li> <li>Calisthenics</li>
</ul> </ul>
</li> </li>
</ul> </ul>
</section> </section>
<hr /> <hr>
<section> <section>
<h2 id="contact-header">Contact</h2> <h2 id="contact-header">Contact</h2>
<p>You can contact me on:</p> <p>You can contact me on:</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablomartincalvo/">On LinkedIn</a> <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablomartincalvo/">On LinkedIn</a> for professional matters.
for professional matters. </p>
</li> </li>
<li> <li>
On keybase: <a href="https://keybase.io/pablomartincalvo">https://keybase.io/pablomartincalvo</a>. <p>At this stage I'm not open to other contacts.</p>
</li>
<li>
On Nostr. My npub is:
npub1a29gdc6p7c05az2ka3qwwpl9kfcqmws3xlwmjefmtkulfhgd7u6shuqatg
</li> </li>
</ul> </ul>
<p> <p>If you are looking for my CV, no need to reach out, <a href="my_cv.pdf" target="_">you can fetch it
If you are looking for my CV, no need to reach out, yourself here.</a></p>
<a href="my_cv.pdf" target="_">you can fetch it yourself here.</a> <p>Good reason to reach out include:</p>
</p>
<p>Good reasons to reach out include:</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li>You want to work with me.</li> <li>You want to work with me.</li>
<li> <li>Some of my interests, projects or writings caught your attention and you want to discuss them with
Some of my interests, projects or writings caught your attention and me.</li>
you want to discuss them with me.
</li>
<li>Something fun!</li> <li>Something fun!</li>
</ul> </ul>
<p>Bad reasons to reach out include:</p> <p>Bad reasons to reach out include:</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li>You want to sell me something, and you mostly care about selling that thing to me, not me loving the
You want to sell something to me, and you mostly care about selling thing.</li>
that thing to me, not me loving the thing. <li>You don't like something posted here and want to let me know your feelings.</li>
</li>
<li>
You don't like something posted here and want to let me know your
feelings.
</li>
</ul> </ul>
</section> </section>
<hr /> <hr>
<section> <section>
<h2 id="my-projects-header">My projects</h2> <h2 id="my-projects-header">My projects</h2>
<p>Some of the projects I've shared publicly:</p> <p>Some of the projects I've shared publicly:</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li><a href="https://github.com/pmartincalvo/dni" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">My Python
<a href="https://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-barcelona" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Barcelona Bitcoin package to handle Spanish DNIs better</a></li>
Only, a local Bitcoin meetup and community I've <li><a href="https://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-barcelona" target="_blank"
helped organize and run</a> rel="noopener noreferrer">Barcelona Bitcoin Only, a local Bitcoin meetup and community I've
</li> helped organize and run</a></li>
<li>
<a href="https://github.com/pmartincalvo/ntfy-emergency-app" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A micro
webapp to let your loved ones grab your attention via ntfy</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://github.com/pmartincalvo/dni" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">My Python package to
handle Spanish DNIs better</a>
</li>
</ul> </ul>
<p> <p>There are also some other projects that I generally keep private but might disclose under the right
There are also some other projects that I generally keep private but circumstances. Some notable hints:</p>
might disclose under the right circumstances. Some notable hints:
</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li>That one time I made a lot of money doing something everyone said was stupid</li>
That one time I made a lot of money doing something everyone said <li>Some work around helping people ignore EU regulations around exchanging Bitcoin and Fiat
was stupid
</li>
<li>
Some work around helping people ignore EU regulations around
exchanging Bitcoin and Fiat
</li> </li>
</ul> </ul>
</section> </section>
<hr /> <hr>
<section> <section>
<h2 id="writings-header">Writings</h2> <h2 id="writings-header">Writings</h2>
<p>Sometimes I like to jot down ideas and drop them here.</p> <p>Sometimes I like to jot down ideas and drop them here.</p>
<ul> <ul>
<li> <li>
<a href="writings/a-note-for-the-future-the-tax-bleeding-in-2025.html" target="_blank" <a href="writings/one-efective-but-risky-way-to-find-the-top-budget-for-the-vacancy.html"
rel="noopener noreferrer">A note for the future: the tax bleeding in 2025</a> target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">One efective but risky way to find the top budget for
</li> the vacancy</a>
<li>
<a href="writings/notes-and-lessons-from-my-departure-from-superhog.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Notes and lessons from my departure from Superhog</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/is-your-drug-dealer-a-homophobic-socialist.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Is your drug dealer a homophobic socialist?</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/gresham-law-has-nothing-to-do-with-bitcoin.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Gresham's Law has nothing to do with Bitcoin</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/my-tips-and-tricks-when-using-postgres-as-a-dwh.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">My tips and tricks when using Postgres as a DWH</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/dont-hide-it-make-it-beautiful.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Don't hide
it, make it beautiful</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/the-roi-of-toilets.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The ROI of toilets</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/your-customers-dont-care-that-your-bathroom-is-dirty.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Your customers don't care that your bathroom is dirty</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/if-i-started-a-data-team-again.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">If I started
a Data team again</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/one-efective-but-risky-way-to-find-the-top-budget-for-the-vacancy.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">One efective but risky way to find the top budget for the
vacancy</a>
</li> </li>
<li> <li>
<a href="writings/bitcoin-mining-is-like-adding-the-final-piece-to-a-puzzle.html" target="_blank" <a href="writings/bitcoin-mining-is-like-adding-the-final-piece-to-a-puzzle.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Bitcoin mining is like adding the final piece to a puzzle</a> rel="noopener noreferrer">Bitcoin mining is like adding the final piece to a puzzle</a>
</li> </li>
<li> <li>
<a href="writings/credit-cards-affairs-and-chatgpt.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Credit <a href="writings/credit-cards-affairs-and-chatgpt.html" target="_blank"
cards, affairs and ChatGPT</a> rel="noopener noreferrer">Credit cards, affairs and ChatGPT</a>
</li> </li>
<li> <li>
<a href="writings/when-new-is-not-better.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">When new is not <a href="writings/when-new-is-not-better.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">When new is
better</a> not better</a>
</li> </li>
<li> <li>
<a href="writings/i-want-code-defined-dashboards-so-badly.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">I <a href="writings/i-want-code-defined-dashboards-so-badly.html" target="_blank"
want code defined dashboards so badly</a> rel="noopener noreferrer">I want code defined dashboards so badly</a>
</li> </li>
<li> <li>
<a href="writings/a-simple-solution-to-spam.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A simple solution <a href="writings/a-simple-solution-to-spam.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A
to spam</a> simple solution to spam</a>
</li> </li>
</ul> </ul>
</section> </section>
</main> </main>

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public/keybase.txt
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==================================================================
https://keybase.io/pablomartincalvo
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I hereby claim:
* I am an admin of https://pablohere.contrapeso.xyz
* I am pablomartincalvo (https://keybase.io/pablomartincalvo) on keybase.
* I have a public key ASDgHxztDlU_R4hjxbkO21-rS4Iv1gABa3BPb_Aff7aNAgo
To do so, I am signing this object:
{
"body": {
"key": {
"eldest_kid": "0120d9bde13d9012e681cef2edd668d70426f1f6ef69ce7dfae20b404096eca5b06f0a",
"host": "keybase.io",
"kid": "0120e01f1ced0e553f478863c5b90edb5fab4b822fd600016b704f6ff01f7fb68d020a",
"uid": "8e71277fbc0fb1fea28d60308f495d19",
"username": "pablomartincalvo"
},
"merkle_root": {
"ctime": 1755635067,
"hash": "4f91af0b9c674e0f1d74a7cfad7abd15a7065cded92b96ac8a6abeb5c8553318599aa1bf7b065a3312e303506256b729b8b60b3a5dd06b68694423f4341a6a14",
"hash_meta": "6472dbf2ed33341fb30b6a0c5c5c7fb39c219dd0ffd03c6e08b68c788e0de60a",
"seqno": 27031070
},
"service": {
"entropy": "LEFJJ4FMmlJQWPPFEO4xHE5y",
"hostname": "pablohere.contrapeso.xyz",
"protocol": "https:"
},
"type": "web_service_binding",
"version": 2
},
"client": {
"name": "keybase.io go client",
"version": "6.5.1"
},
"ctime": 1755635082,
"expire_in": 504576000,
"prev": "37f12270050ab037897ccf6ef9451b1911cb505eca7c3842993b0b8925bc79b8",
"seqno": 31,
"tag": "signature"
}
which yields the signature:
hKRib2R5hqhkZXRhY2hlZMOpaGFzaF90eXBlCqNrZXnEIwEg4B8c7Q5VP0eIY8W5Dttfq0uCL9YAAWtwT2/wH3+2jQIKp3BheWxvYWTESpcCH8QgN/EicAUKsDeJfM9u+UUbGRHLUF7KfDhCmTsLiSW8ebjEIAnIWTmufZ017e9WLdI1LhKBPaZ3HzmTrgyASDvY3PwoAgHCo3NpZ8RA9a3xgkSTU6Ht7M7DCsy4ClMmoWFtDEqzX9/dqskeoH2DrJUZYVymBQE1nyB0p1GuXiZA1cP5WY5SDURWZ5bBC6hzaWdfdHlwZSCkaGFzaIKkdHlwZQildmFsdWXEIEJZ4g4HC5qXcqbFf6sJ8XuZyMtoppazFqr1zPu0LH5co3RhZ80CAqd2ZXJzaW9uAQ==
And finally, I am proving ownership of this host by posting or
appending to this document.
View my publicly-auditable identity here: https://keybase.io/pablomartincalvo
==================================================================

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display: block; display: block;
} }
figcaption { figcaption a {
font-style: italic; font-style: italic;
font-size: small; font-size: small;
text-align: center;
} }

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public/writings/a-note-for-the-future-the-tax-bleeding-in-2025.html
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<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css" />
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>Hi, Pablo here</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr />
<section>
<h2>A note for the future: the tax bleeding in 2025</h2>
<p>
I hate taxes deeply. I fell through the rabbit hole of libertarian and
anarcocapitalist ideas some years ago, and taxes have been repulsive
to me ever since. I go to great lengths to not pay them, and feel
deeply hurt everytime they sting my wallet against my will.
</p>
<p>
I know life goes by fast, and what today is vivid in your memory fades
away bit by bit until it's gone. I'm truly hoping that, some day in
the future, the world will have changed to the better and people won't
be paying as much tax as we're doing today in the West. Since in that
bright, utopical future I'm dreaming of I might have forgotten about
how bad things were on this matter in 2025, I've decided to make a
little entry here making an estimate on how many taxes I'm
theoretically bleeding on a yearly basis right now. So that we can
someday look back in time and wonder: "how the fuck did we tolerate
that pillaging".
</p>
<h3>Inventory</h3>
<p>
Before going hard into the number crunching let's list all the tax
items I'm aware of being subject to:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Income Tax: for the sin of making money, the state takes a hefty
bite of my salary.
</li>
<li>
Social Security: the state runs a forceful Social Security
programme. If you work, it is illegal to not pay for it. It is
specially unnerving since it is quite literally a ponzi scheme. At
least Madoff lured you into it with pretty words, not violence.
</li>
<li>
VAT Tax: for the sin of buying stuff, the state takes another hefty
bite.
</li>
<li>
Real State Tax: for the sin of owning an apartment, the state
charges me rent. Do I own it actually?
</li>
<li>
Vehicle Tax: for the sin of owning a motorcycle, the state charges
me a yearly fee.
</li>
<li>
Wealth Transfer Tax: when you buy real state, you must pay 10% of
its value in taxes. This is a one off fee if you only buy one house
in your lifetime, but it is such a slap on the face that it would be
dishonest to not consider it.
</li>
<li>
Inheritance tax: you thought you were going to keep daddy's loot all
for yourself? When you inherit, you'll go through the register
again. Like the wealth transfer tax, is not a frequent one, but it's
big so let's consider it.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
There may be some other small, less frequent taxes that I'm not
considering. These are the ones that will hit most people in my
country.
</p>
<h3>The numbers</h3>
<p>
Okay, let's go compute the hideous bill. I'll make a hypothetical
profile that's roughly close to mine, with a few assumptions along the
way.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<em>Salary</em>: online sources say the typical salary for my job
position in my area is 70k€ yearly. Including the Social Security
paid by the company, the sum rises to ~85K€. I consider this way of
measuring honest, since I think that all the money paid out by the
employer reflects what's the true salary and value of the employee.
I read it as, "the company is willing to pay 85K€ for this. What
ends up in the employees pocket, and what in the State's, they don't
mind".
</li>
<li><em>Expenses</em>: I'll assume I spend half of my salary.</li>
<li>
<em>Home Purchase</em>: I'll assume that, during my adult life, I
would buy once the average home in my town. From what I could find
online, that's somewhere around 500K€.
</li>
<li>
<em>Vehicles</em>: I own a motorcycle and share the expenses of a
car with my partner, so I'll count 1.5 vehicles.
</li>
<li>
<em>Inheritance tax</em>: I found a figure stating the average
windfall in my country is 250K€. We'll go with that.
</li>
</ul>
<p>With those clear, let's see the actual figures:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Tax</th>
<th>€/year</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Income Tax (IRPF)</td>
<td>22,401&nbsp;€</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Social Security (worker&nbsp;+&nbsp;employer)</td>
<td>
25,375&nbsp;€
<small
>(worker&nbsp;4,445&nbsp;€&nbsp;+&nbsp;employer&nbsp;20,930&nbsp;€)</small
>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>VAT (blended basket)</td>
<td>5,250&nbsp;€</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Real Estate Tax (IBI)</td>
<td>1,000&nbsp;€</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Vehicle Tax (1.5 vehicles)</td>
<td>225&nbsp;€</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Wealth Transfer (10% home, spread 50y)</td>
<td>1,000&nbsp;€</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Inheritance (7% of 250k, spread 50y)</td>
<td>350&nbsp;€</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<th>Total</th>
<th>55,602&nbsp;€</th>
</tr>
</tfoot>
</table>
<p>
So there you go. A peaceful existence as a tech professional living a
normal life leads to bleeding at least 55K€ per year, all while
getting an 85K€ salary. The tax rate sits at a wonderful 64%. How far
away is this from hardcore USSR-grade communism?
</p>
<p>
And this is generous, since I didn't model (1) what gets stolen
through inflation diluting savings and (2) any capital gains that this
profile might end up paying for whatever investments he is doing with
his savings.
</p>
<p>
Then you'll see mainstream media puppets discussing why young people
don't have children. As if it was some kind of mistery. They're being
robbed their children's bread left and right, while getting hypnotized
into believing that protecting themselves against this outrageous
robbery is somehow morally despicable.
</p>
<p>Motherfuckers.</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
</section>
</main>
</body>
</html>

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<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>Don't hide it, make it beautiful</h2>
<p>I'm currently living in a flat, and my internet connection physically comes in through my living room. That's where
my home router is placed. However, my main workspace is not in my living room but in my working room,
which is a few meters away. I would love to have a wired internet connection for my laptop, but unfortunately, with
the router being so far away, setting it up would require running a lot of cable through the walls and
ceilings. I could either leave the cable visible or go through some serious construction work to poke holes through walls and fake ceilings and
tunnel the cable through there. The latter is out of the table, since I don't even know where would I start.</p>
<p>The first option being the only available one, there is one fundamental and unavoidable reason I don't do this: aesthetics. My partner is very conscious about
keeping our home visually pleasing. I care too, though she probably values aesthetics even more than I
do. She likely doesn't find a wired internet connection to be as essential as I do. So, for now, I have to rely on
wifi to connect from my workspace to the home router.</p>
<p>When I was on holiday in Thailand a few years ago, I noticed that Thai homes are far more practical than
European ones in such matters. In Thailand, plumbing, electrical systems, and other maintenance-requiring
installations are typically very visible, just out there on the wall. They don't hide these things behind
fake walls or ceilings. I believe they do this because they highly value the ability to access and work
on their home's systems themselves. Many Thai people build and maintain their own homes, so they leave
everything exposed for easy access.</p>
<p>I sometimes envy this approach. Which is funny because I don't think they do it for pleasure but out of necessity.
Still, when I saw a Thai homeowner fixing their plumbing outside their house, I thought to myself: "Damn, you're so
in control of your home". If something bad happens—like a fallen tree damaging the plumbing—they can fix
it themselves. Meanwhile, if that happened to me, I wouldn't even know where to start. I don't even know
where my plumbing is because it's all hidden behind walls.</p>
<p>That makes me wonder: Is there a way to make these essential systems both accessible and aesthetically
pleasing? Could we have the convenience of exposed infrastructure without it looking ugly? I believe we
can.</p>
<p>I find the problem is that we have decided certain things—plumbing, electrical wiring, visible
infrastructure—are inherently ugly. But they don't have to be. Some household items, like lamps, must be
visible by their very nature. Since they can't be hidden, we put effort into making them look good. We choose stylish designs
that complement our home's aesthetics. Why can't we do the same for cables and pipes?</p>
<p>Imagine if all the wiring in your home was encased in beautifully braided, colorful ropes, arranged in
elegant geometric patterns. The connections, junction boxes, and fittings could be crafted from
high-quality materials like metal and wood with artistic designs. Wouldn't that be nice?</p>
<p>Now, you might think I'm crazy—that these things are just ugly by nature. But they're not. In fact, many
aspects of modern design have become uglier over time, and we've just accepted it.</p>
<p>Consider street lamps. In most cities today, they are dull, industrial-looking poles—rusty, ugly,
and purely functional. Yet, in older parts of my city, we still have beautiful, ornate lamp posts from
over a hundred years ago. They were designed with care, meant to serve a purpose, to be visually
appealing, and to last ages. Take a look:</p>
<figure style="width: 75%; margin: 10px auto;">
<img width="100%" height="auto" src="../static/streetlamps.png" alt="">
<figcaption>On the left, your ugly, could-be-anywhere post 1971 streetlamp. On the right, a 19th century bad body from Gaudí.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same goes for train stations. Modern stations are bleak, sterile spaces—metal, plastic, and harsh
lighting. They resemble hospital emergency rooms. But look at the older ones, like this one.
Those stations are masterpieces, designed like grand halls with chandeliers and intricate details.</p>
<figure style="width: 75%; margin: 10px auto;">
<img width="100%" height="auto" src="../static/stations.png" alt="">
<figcaption>On the left, Sants Station, built in 1975. On the right, France Station, built in 1848.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And talking about hospitals, they are also a good example. Most modern hospitals have the same white, cold, spaceship-like
aesthetic. While cleanliness is important, there's no reason they have to be so uninviting. In my city,
there's a hospital built over a hundred years ago that's so beautiful people visit it as a tourist
attraction. On the other hand, the hospitals I visit personally are plain depressing, soviet style
atrocities.</p>
<figure style="width: 75%; margin: 10px auto;">
<img width="100%" height="auto" src="../static/hospitals-outside.png" alt="">
<figcaption>A random modern clinic in Barcelona vs A small section of the outside of Hospital de Sant Pau. I can skip the left and right thing now, right?</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure style="width: 75%; margin: 10px auto;">
<img width="100%" height="auto" src="../static/hospitals-inside.png" alt="">
<figcaption> Some random room in that same modern clinic vs Your regular corridor in Sant Pau.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I think we can bring things back, if we care enough.</p>
<p>Look at computers. Most office desktop cases are dull, gray boxes—uninspired and purely functional.
Naturally, many of them end up buried inside desks, or if they are small enough, simply hidden behind
the screen on a VESA mount. But gamers, who deeply care about their PCs, go the extra mile to make their
setups look amazing. They invest in custom cases, LED lighting, and stylish cooling systems. They turn
their computers into art. They are testament to the fact that we can make practical things also be
beautiful if we choose to.</p>
<figure style="width: 75%; margin: 10px auto;">
<img width="100%" height="auto" src="../static/computers.png" alt="">
<figcaption> The all-present ugly office optiplex vs A beautiful case from a passionate man.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If we put the same effort into our homes, we wouldn't need to hide cables and pipes. We could proudly
display them as part of our interior design. Infrastructure could be both functional and beautiful,
giving us accessibility without sacrificing aesthetics. </p>
<p>I guess the point I want to make is... Don't hide it. Instead, make it beautiful.</p>
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<html>
<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css" />
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>Hi, Pablo here</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr />
<section>
<h2>Gresham's Law has nothing to do with Bitcoin</h2>
<p>
This is going to be a thorough explanation for a simple thing, but we
will take it slow since this topic somehow causes loads of confusion.
</p>
<p>
Okay, so there are a lot of people in Bitcoin circles who talk about
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gresham's
Law</a>. They often say, “Gresham's Law states that bad money drives out
good money”, then relate it to Bitcoin and the USD, and finally
proceed to reason all sort of of things on top of that. But here's
some very much needed clarification: Gresham's law has nothing to do
with Bitcoin's relationship to the USD. In fact, it actually has
nothing to do Bitcoin, or with the current USD for that matter.
</p>
<p>
Gresham's Law is relevant to a very specific type of monetary system:
when we used coins that contained precious metals (spoiler: we don't
live in that period of history anymore). The law states that bad money
drives out good money, but what a lot of Bitcoiners seem to miss is
the actual meaning of “good” and “bad” in this context. People tend to
interpret “good” and “bad” as meaning “hard” and "easy" money, so they
reason something like: “Because Bitcoin is harder than the USD,
Gresham's law applies here.” But that is not what Gresham's law is
about at all.
</p>
<p>
In the context of Gresham's law, “good” and “bad” refer to face value
versus commodity value. That doesn't ring a bell? Let me explain:
</p>
<p>
Imagine a magic land where there is only one type of coin. There's no
other money — just this one coin. These coin states on themselves that
they contain one gram of gold, and right now, they really do contain
one gram of gold. Everyone uses it, and everyone is happy. There's no
“bad” money, no “good” money — it's all nice and simple.
</p>
<p>Now, let's spice it up a bit.</p>
<p>
After some time, a cheeky bastard (typically, a king) comes along and
starts making coins that look exactly like the original coins. I'll
call these the bad coins. The original coins will be the good coins.
Both types of coins say on them “one gram of gold,” but the bad coins
only have half a gram of gold actually in them (hence why they are
bad).
</p>
<p>
So, to recap:<br />
- Good coins: one gram of gold on the coin, and actually one gram of
gold inside.<br />
- Bad coins: one gram of gold on the coin, but only 0.5 grams of gold
inside.
</p>
<p>This is where Gresham's Law applies.</p>
<p>
People in this coiny fantasy land are not stupid — they know that the
gold content is what matters. At some point, someone will realize the
bad coins don't have as much gold as they claim and will develop a
preference for the good ones. So, if I'm John the Blacksmith and I
want to buy some iron, and I have a stash of coins — some good, some
bad — I would rather keep the good coins and spend the bad coins. Why?
Because I want to keep as much gold as possible, of course.
</p>
<p>
What happens eventually is that people grow into the habit of trying to get
rid of the bad coins and hold on to the good coins. They exploit the
confusion created by the fact that all coins have the same face value
(it says “one gram” on all coins, so everyone assumes they're worth
the same), even though the actual commodity value (the gold inside)
differs.<a href="#footnote-1">[1]</a>
</p>
<p>That is the quick explanation of Gresham's law.</p>
<p>
Now, back to the original point: what are the face value and commodity
value of Bitcoin?
</p>
<p>
That makes no sense! Bitcoin is not a physical coin with metal in
it. It has no concept of face and commodity value. And neither does the
USD nowadays. Therefore, Gresham's law has absolutely nothing to do
with Bitcoin, the USD and any preferences the world might develop
between the two.
</p>
<p>
Hopefully, this explanation helps make things clear. From now on, if
you want to keep your public image intact, please refrain from
invoking Gresham's law when discussing Bitcoin and USD — because doing it
shows you don't know what Gresham's Law is actually about. Don't feel
too bad if it happened to you though: it can happen even to
<a href="https://river.com/learn/terms/g/greshams-law/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">massive
exchanges with a great reputation.</a>
</p>
<p id="footnote-1" class="footnote">
<em>[1] Not relevant to the point of this post, but it's worth noting
that Gresham's Law situation is not always sure to happen in the
described scenario. If the difference between the good and bad coins
is massive, and no force opposes it, the market might jump into
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law#Reverse_of_Gresham's_law_(Thiers'_law)" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Thier's Law</a>
instead.</em>
</p>
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<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>If I started a Data team again</h2>
<p>
In November 2023, I joined <a href="https://truvi.com/">Truvi</a> (<a
href="https://truvi.com/blog/superhog-becomes-truvi/">back then called Superhog</a>) as the first
member of its new Data team, effectively making my hiring and the team's birth the same thing. The CEO
and COO brought me in to help a young, upcoming and quite chaotic UK SaaS company make it out of the
void of Data darkness, where no one knew shit, figures came in with three months of delay and VLOOKUP
was the closest thing there was to integrating data from two systems.
</p>
<p>
The team is nowadays very much established and critical for the business. We've built our spot within
the org, and many colleagues wonder how life could ever exist before. We can tell many tales on
delivering value to Truvi, and we have ambitious plans to keep doing more and better. And I'm having a
blast leading it.
</p>
<p>
For me, it was quite a journey: it was the first time I started a Data team from a greenfield situation.
Some day I'll make a longish writing on the whole experience, but today, I wanted to focus on a few
regrets I have. I personally think I've done a good work, I'm proud of where the team is at today, and
the words (and actions) of the company board show that they are aligned with this. But still, there's
always room to fuck up, and I do have a few parts of the story where, looking back in retrospective, I
think I took the wrong turn.
</p>
<p>
The first thing I regret is not hiring faster which, taking personal responsibility, means I didn't
focus enough on it and I wasn't as effective as I should have been. When I started the team, I quickly
secured consensus from the founders to go hire two more members for it, and we all agreed it made sense
to spend those bullets to find two Data Analysts. We found <a
href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/oriol-roqu%C3%A9-paniagua-708946158" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Uri</a> and <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/joaquin-ossa"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joaquín</a>, which are still with us today doing a
terrific job.
</p>
<p>
The bad news is they joined in May 2024, which means it took a whopping ~6 months from decision to
result. It didn't feel terrible at that moment. I was very much busy with the onslaught of work that
comes with kickstarting the team (meeting everyone, aligning with other teams, designing and starting
out infra, doing basic, urgent starting deliveries, etc.). But now I realise some of those things would
have been easier to do with the guys already around. So there goes regret number one. Lesson: if you
have agreement to get more hands on the team, make it priority #1.
</p>
<p>
The second thing I'm not happy about is not completely dropping and rebuilding a few legacy bits I
inherited when joining. Truvi had an insane amount of unmet needs in data and reporting right before I
joined, so a bit of capacity from the development teams was derailed at some point to create a couple of
basic reporting and data exporting tools to support other teams. Those were small and done in a rather
crude way, as a result of (1) being done by backend guys with no previous experience in the Data domain,
and (2) in parallel to other very important product development work. I don't blame them, <a
href="https://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=The_Prime_Directive" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">I assume they did the best they could given the circumstances.</a>
</p>
<p>
My mistake was to decide early to inherit and continue those, instead of bulldozering them and building
things from scratch with better tools and practices. It would have been quite easy to do at the time
given that those data products were rather small (and coming back to my first regret, it would probably
have been even easier to bulldozer them if the new hires would have been around already). At the time, I
traded off leaving those be and have a continuist approach to building incrementally in order to get
going with some other fresh new scopes faster. I'm not fully sure that the call was wrong (perhaps in a
parallel universe, I would think we shouldn't have rebuild those from scratch because it delayed
delivering other important things). But I do feel it was wrong right now. As a consequence, today we
have several data products and architectural constraints which are a royal pain in the ass to maintain
and grow with the company. For example, we're currently stuck with a lot of reporting in Power BI, which
I hate for multiple reasons, one of them being <a href="i-want-code-defined-dashboards-so-badly.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">how badly I want to have code defined dashboards</a>.
Bulldozering and replacing now will be much more painful than it would have been back then, so the
velocity of the team is now paying for this mistake.
</p>
<p>
There goes another lesson: if you're inheriting a few, small legacy products that don't fit in your view
and you can afford to remove or re-build them to allow your plans to be pristine, do it now. Don't wait.
</p>
<p>
A third thing I would have done differently is to start working on Data literacy across the company
earlier and more intensely. In part of the work we do in the Data team, we come in with a very polished,
mature result: this is exactly what you need to know, or the exact pristine, read-only grade data you
had to check, or the informed decision you are after. But in many other cases, our delivery ends at the
start of what I like to call the analytical last-mile: we produce some curated piece of insight and/or
data that a colleague will grab and work a bit more before getting to the final business outcome. For
example, I might export a set of KPIs around certain client accounts, and an account manager will pivot
and fuck around with them to decide certain things around how he will handle some comms with his
accounts.
</p>
<figure>
<img src="../static/data-alley-oop.jpeg" width="75%">
</figure>
<p>
This kind of two-step deliveries sometimes are insanely valuable: there are some analysis where
the final user of the data is the most capable of juicing the right way, such as when someone takes
the data to use it in real time in a negotiation meeting.
</p>
<p>
The bad news is that, if John from Marketing fucking sucks at Power BI, Excel, or whatever tooling you
rely on to interact with your colleagues, the whole plot falls down. I'm not expecting John to crank out
a monster workbook with thirty layers of business logic and seven modules of VBA, but pivoting a bit,
filtering, multiply this col by that row, etc. You get the gist. If you're thinking to yourself: "anyone
can do such basic things!", I would kindly invite you to sit down 15 min with some rando in your company
and see them use Excel live, potentially having chunked some tranquilizer down.
</p>
<p>
Training more colleagues outside the Data team to be more proficient working with data (let it be
working on Excel, writing SQL or just reasoning) is something we're actively working on now, but I think
we should have started out earlier. I think this because of two reasons: the first, the ROI, measured in
time, is tremendous. 5 hours of working with Jane from Finance to skill her up from 0 to Excel basics
are probably much more impactful than that extra dashboard you are building, which you already sense
won't be that used or valuable. The second is, this is one of the things that has a capped max pace to
it, and won't happen faster than that no matter how hard you would like it to, or how many resources and
money you want to throw at it. People learn at a certain pace, so it's better to start early and slow,
than to trick yourself into believing you'll be able to turn Jimmy into a Power BI God in 2 days if you
try hard enough when the time comes.
</p>
<p>
So, final lesson: I would start running Data literacy initiatives early. It doesn't need to take a big
chunk of your capacity: sprinkling a few open sessions here and there, and running some 1:1 or small
group ones with bright people, should be more than enough. It will compound over time, leading to the
company better leveraging your data and tools, and the central Data team having more capacity to keep
building since more end-users will be more independent.
</p>
<p>
There goes my non-exhaustive list of things I would do differently when starting a Data team from
scratch. I hope it serves you if you are in a similar spot. I'm personally delighted with the idea of
not screwing up in these ways if I ever find myself starting another team from scratch. I would very
much rather screw up in new ways.
</p>
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<html>
<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css" />
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>Hi, Pablo here</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr />
<section>
<h2>Is your drug dealer a homophobic socialist?</h2>
<p>
Lately, I've noticed a branch of
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cancel
culture</a>
I've come to find quite disturbing. I think it has mainly extended in
the US, though I think it's starting to happen in Europe too. It's
this tendency for people at companies to politically and morally judge
business counterparties and come to the conclusion that business
shouldn't be done with them because of it.
</p>
<p>
I experienced this first hand during some afterwork beers, and for
some reason the scene got burned into my retina. A colleague of mine,
beer in hand, said something like, “We're working with this customer,
and they're unbearable because they complain a lot and challenge us
all the time when we run the monthly reconciliation. Plus, they're
from Israel.” I was mindblown at how casually that was dropped, with
not even a footnote-like explanation deemed necessary. I played my 5
year old child attitude card and asked, "What's the problem with them
being in Israel?" She said, "Well, you know, they're in Israel and the
whole thing is happening. It's terrible. We shouldn't deal with them."
</p>
<p>
I couldn't hold it in: I asked her if her hairdresser was from Israel.
She looked at me completely puzzled: “I don't know. Why does that
matter?” I told her, “I don't know. Apparently, you're upset about
dealing people from Israel, so I'm assuming you need to check if
everyone you do business with is from there to not do it if that's the
case.” Silent stood and the air got thick. Someone jumped in with a
nervous joke to break up the tension that my child like questions had
somehow brought to the room, and the conversation moved on.
</p>
<p>
Ever since that day, I've come across this kind of
social-justice-business-censor thinking pop up a lot. Since that fun
first encounter, whenever someone points out at how business should
not be done with &lt;whatever ideology/country/demographic they don't
like&gt;, I started jokingly triggering them by asking, “Actually, are
you making sure your drug dealer a homophobic socialist?” They
generally laugh, not grasping how their stances on politically
deciding to do or not do business with someone sound as ridicolous to
me.
</p>
<img src="../static/homophobic-socialist-drug-dealer.png" alt="" style="width: 50%" />
<p>
Here's what disturbs me: trade is a very civilized act. When we
trade—whether it's goods, services, or anything else—we're putting
aside our differences and doing something mutually beneficial. We both
walk away better off. We hurt no one. We make things a tiny bit better
overall. Deciding not to trade with someone because of some political
detail which is completely irrelevant to the trade itself is
backwards. Even if I didn't like communists, I wouldn't care if a
communist is selling me bananas. It just doesn't matter.
</p>
<p>
Seeing people blow up trade over politics makes me sad. I think it's
ignorant and hateful. And I don't think they realize where that kind
of thinking can lead.
</p>
<p>
In the end, I just hope people can leave politics out of business.
Let's do business and all be better off thanks to it.
</p>
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<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
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</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>My tips and tricks when using Postgres as a DWH</h2>
<p>In November 2023, I joined Superhog (now called Truvi) to start out the Data team. As part of that, I
also drafted and deployed the first version of its data platform.
</p>
<p>The context led me to choose Postgres for our DWH. In a time of Snowflakes, Bigqueries and Redshifts,
this might surprise some. But I can confidently say Postgres has done a great job for us, and I can even
dare to say it has provided a better experience than other, more trendy alternatives could have. I'll
jot down my rationale for picking Postgres one of these days.</p>
<p>
Back to the topic: Postgres is not intended to act as a DWH, so using it as such might feel a bit hacky
at times. There are multiple ways to make your life better with it, as well as related tools and
practices that you might enjoy, which I'll try to list here.
</p>
<h3>Use <code>unlogged</code> tables</h3>
<p>The <a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/wal-intro.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Write Ahead Log</a> comes active by default for the tables you create, and
for good reasons. But in the context of an ELT DWH, it is probably a good idea to deactivate it by
making your tables <code>unlogged</code>. <a
href="https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/postgresl-unlogged-tables" target="_blank">Unlogged
tables</a> will provide you with much faster writes (roughly, twice as fast) which will make data
loading and transformation jobs inside your DWH much faster.
</p>
<p>You pay a price for this with a few trade offs, the most notable being that if your Postgres server
crashes, <a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-createtable.html#SQL-CREATETABLE-UNLOGGED"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the contents of the unlogged tables will be lost</a>. But,
again, if you have an ELT DWH, you can survive by running a backfill. In Truvi, we made the decision to
have the landing area for our DWH be logged, and everything else unlogged. This means if we experienced
a crash (which still hasn't happened, btw), we would recover by running a full-refresh dbt run.</p>
<p>If you are using dbt, you can easily apply this by adding this bit in your <code>dbt_project.yml</code>
:</p>
<pre><code>
models:
+unlogged: true
</code></pre>
<h3>Tuning your server's parameters</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Postgres has many parameters you can fiddle with</a>, with plenty of
chances to either improve or destroy your server's performance.</p>
<p>Postgres ships with some default values for it, which are almost surely not the optimal ones for
your needs, <em>specially</em> if you are going to use it as a DWH. Simple changes like adjusting the
<code>work_mem</code> will do wonders to speed up some of your heavier queries.
</p>
<p>There are many parameters to get familiar with and proper adjustment must be done taking your specific
context and needs into account. If you have no clue at all, <a href="https://pgtune.leopard.in.ua"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this little web app</a> can give you some suggestions you
canstart from.
</p>
<h3>Running <code>VACUUM ANALYZE</code> right after building your tables</h3>
<p>Out of the box, Postgres will automatically run
<code><a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-vacuum.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VACUUM</a></code>
and
<code><a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-analyze.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ANALYZE</a></code>
jobs <a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/routine-vacuuming.html#AUTOVACUUM" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">automatically</a>. The triggers that determine when each of those gets
triggered can be adjusted with a few server parameters. If you follow an ELT pattern, most surely
re-building your non-staging tables will cause Postgres to run them.
</p>
<p>But there's a detail that is easy to overlook. Postgres automatic triggers will start those quite fast,
but not right after you build each table. This poses a performance issue: if your intermediate sections
of the DWH have tables that build upon tables, rebuilding a table and then trying to rebuild a dependant
without having an <code>ANALYZE</code> on the first one before might hurt you.</p>
<p>Let me describe this with an example, because this one is a bit of a tongue twister: let's assume we have
tables <code>int_orders</code> and <code>int_order_kpis</code>. <code>int_orders</code> holds all of our
orders, and <code>int_order_kpis</code> derives some kpis from them. Naturally, first you will
materialize <code>int_orders</code> from some upstream staging tables, and once that is complete, you
will use its contents to build <code>int_order_kpis</code>.
</p>
<p>
Having <code>int_orders</code> <code>ANALYZE</code>-d before you start building
<code>int_order_kpis</code> is highly benefitial for your performance in building
<code>int_order_kpis</code>. Why? Because having perfectly updated statistics and metadata on
<code>int_orders</code> will help Postgres' query optimizer better plan the necessary query to
materialize <code>int_order_kpis</code>. This can improve performance by orders of magnitude in some
queries by allowing Postgres to pick the right kind of join strategy for the specific data you have, for
example.
</p>
<p>Now, will Postgres auto <code>VACUUM ANALYZE</code> the freshly built <code>int_orders</code> before you
start building <code>int_order_kpis</code>? Hard to tell. It depends on how you build your DWH, and how
you've tuned your server's parameters. And the most dangerous bit is you're not in full control: it can
be that <em>sometimes</em> it happens, and other times it doesn't. Flaky and annoying. Some day I'll
write a post on how this behaviour drove me mad for two months because it made a model sometimes built
in a few seconds, and other times in >20min.
</p>
<p>
My advice is to make sure you always <code>VACUUM ANALYZE</code> right after building your tables. If
you're using dbt, you can easily achieve this by adding this to your project's
<code>dbt_project.yml</code>:
<pre><code>
models:
+post-hook:
sql: "VACUUM ANALYZE {{ this }}"
transaction: false
# ^ This makes dbt run a VACUUM ANALYZE on the models after building each.
# It's pointless for views, but it doesn't matter because Postgres fails
# silently withour raising an unhandled exception.
</code></pre>
</p>
<h3>Monitor queries with <code>pg_stats_statements</code></h3>
<p><a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/pgstatstatements.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">pg_stats_statements</a> is an extension that nowadays ships with Postgres
by default. If activated, it will log info on the queries executed in the server which you can check
afterward. This includes many details, with how frequently does the query get called and what's the min,
max and mean execution time being the ones you probably care about the most. Looking at those allows you
to find queries that take long each time they run, and queries that get run a lot.
</p>
<p>Another important piece of info that gets recorded is <em>who</em> ran the query. This is helpful
because, if you use users in a smart way, it can help you isolate expensive queries on different uses
cases or areas. For example, if you use different users to build the DWH and to give your BI tool read
access (you do that... right?), you can easily tell apart dashboard related queries from internal, DWH
transformation ones. Another example could be internal reporting vs embedded analytics in your product:
you might have stricter performance SLAs for product-embedded, customer-facing queries than for internal
dashboards. Using different users and <code>pg_stats_statements</code> makes it possible for you to
dissect performance issues on those separate areas independently.</p>
<h3>Dalibo's wonderful execution plan visualizer</h3>
<p>Sometimes you'll have some nasty query you just need to sit down with and optimize. In my experience, in
a DWH this ends up happening with queries that involve many large tables in sequential joining and
aggregation steps (as in, you join a few tables, group to some granularity, join some more, group again,
etc).
</p>
<p>You can get the query's real execution details with <code>EXPLAIN ANALYZE</code>, but the output's
readability is on par with morse-encoded regex patterns. I always had headaches dealing with them until
I came across <a href="https://dalibo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dalibo</a>'s <a
href="https://explain.dalibo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">execution plan
visualizer</a>. You can paste the output of <code>EXPLAIN ANALYZE</code> there and see the query
execution presented as a diagram. No amount of words will portray accurately how awesome the UX is, so
I encourage you to try the tool with some nasty query and see for yourself.</p>
<h3>Local dev env + Foreign Data Wrapper</h3>
<p>One of the awesome things of using Postgres is how trivial it is to spin up an instance. This makes
goofing around much more simpler than whenever setting up a new instance means paperwork, $$$, etc.</p>
<p>Data team members at Truvi have a dockerized Postgres running in their laptops that they can use when
they are developing on our DWH dbt project. In the early days, you could grab some production dump with
some subset of tables from our staging layer and run significant chunks of our dbt DAG in your laptop if
you were patient.</p>
<p>A few hundreds of models later, this evolved to increasingly difficult and finally became impossible.
</p>
<p>Luckily, we came across Postgres' <a
href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/postgres-fdw.html">Foreign Data Wrapper</a>. There's
quite a bit to it, but to keep it short here, just be aware that FDW allows you to make a Postgres
server give access to some table in a different Postgres server while pretending they are local. So, you
query table X in Postgres server A, even though table X is actually stored in Postgres server B. But
your query works just the same as if it was a local genuine table.</p>
<p>Setting these up is fairly trivial, and has allowed our dbt project contributors to be able to execute
hybrid dbt runs where some data and tables is local to their laptop, whereas some upstream data is being
read from production server's. The approach has been great so far, enabling them to actually test models
before commiting them to master in a convenient way.</p>
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<html>
<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>Notes for myself during my departure from Superhog</h2>
<p>I'm writing this a few days before my last day at Superhog (now called Truvi). Having a few company
departures under my belt already, I know a bit on what will come next. I know one part of the drill is
that 99% of the details of what happened during my tenure at the company will completely disappear from
my memory for the most part, only triggered by eerily coincidental cues here and there every few years.
I will remember clearly a few crucial, exciting days and situations. I will also hold well the names and
faces of those with who I worked closely, as well as my personal impression and judgement of them. I
will remember the office, and some details of how my daily life was when I went there.</p>
<p>But most other things will be gone from my brain, surprisingly fast.</p>
<p>Knowing that experience is a great teacher, and regretting not doing this in the past, I've decided to
collect a few notes from my time at Superhog, hoping they will serve me in making the lessons I've
learnt here stick properly.</p>
<ul>
<li>Growing really fast an organization without an incredibly solid vision you're going to stick to is
terrible. Time, money and effort will be wasted left and right, and unless you have some magic tric
up your sleeve, you'll run out of money and panic. Growth is about having a great vision, going for
it and hoping for the best, not about collecting resources and hoping that they will somehow align
themselves towards making money.</li>
<li>
If you're in the leadership of a company, you make decisions, and then things go badly because of
them, people are going to think you've fucked up and won't be happy about it. Should you publicly
retrospect in an intelligent way and clearly show you've learnt the lesson, you have a chance at
some degree of redemption, and you might even make some of the employees hopeful again that there's
still a second chance to go for success. If you don't retrospect at all and pretend the mishaps have
nothing to do with your management, they won't just think you're incompentent: they simply won't
take you seriously anymore, and won't be honest to you because smart people don't invest calories in
arguing with people who they consider idiots.
</li>
<li>
If you're in a B2B business where customers will have a long-term relationship with you, and you
have sales people, giving them incentives that are all about getting people onboard, and not about
long term performance, might be an expensive mistake. I've observed sales people who only care about
scoring deals engage in undesirable behaviours such as:
<ul>
<li>Sell to anyone, regardless of whether there's a good fit between your offering and the
customer needs.</li>
<li>Cut corners, surely do and say things that are in moral gray areas. If you're unlucky, even
clearly cross moral red lines.</li>
<li>
Drive the people who build and deliver your offering crazy. Since they have no incentive to
care about what happens after a deal is signed, they don't care if their actions in the
sales pipeline turn into landmines during the long-term business relationship and execution
of the service.
</li>
</ul>
I think many of these issues get solved by structuring compensation so that sales people do well
once the leads they convert have been doing well for some time, however you want to measure that.
Not only nasty behaviour can be avoided, but even new, good and constructive actions might arise.
For example, your sales people will care more about building a great product, and so they'll
regularly feedback to engineers and operations and care deeply about collaborating in improving
things.
</li>
<li>
If you're lucky to find talented employees, go crazy about retaining them.
</li>
<li>
The unexpected death of collegues can be a great blow to the business.
</li>
<li>Non-technical founders need CTOs with strong characters nearby to protect them from themselves.
Soft-hearted CTOs with a pleasing attitude and aversion to conflict will feel sweet at first, but
their lack of fightning back on certain topics will lead to sour consequences down the line.</li>
<li>During my tenure, my team and I managed to deliver astonishing amounts of value with extremely
simple tooling that was just enough for what we needed. This had many advantages and was a silent
win. It's not sexy, but I think it should be.</li>
<li>If you are silently efficient budget wise, as in you manage to achieve something consuming way less
money than whatever is average for your context, but you don't explain it are notably noisy about
it, nobody will give a damn. Even worse, your levels of efficiency may be taken for granted and you
might encounter trouble when asking for more bucks, even if you're still way below average.</li>
<li>When there's a feeling that a ship is going down, I've observed there's a direct correlation between
how talented an employee is and the chances he departs early. The less gifted will stay until the
end.</li>
<li>
If you're a SaaS and want to scale, don't leave your Finance team orphan of IT resources. Invoicing,
gathering customer payment details, the most frequent accounting journals, etc. should be treated as
first class requirements of your architecture, not as an afterthought. Your finance team needs to
grow in engineers, not accountants. And if you have the feeling that the number of accountants is
growing linearly with the volume of the business, you are in serious trouble and need to do
something. Failing to do this will lead to some very nasty tech debt that will kill your speed and
potentially make you lose a lot of money.
</li>
<li>If you've had employees rotating through various departments in your org, doing very different jobs,
their views and opinions are worth solid gold and should be valued as such.</li>
<li>Right befores starting in this company, I had just read the book It doesn't have to be crazy at work
by Jason Fried and DHH. At that time I thought I believed by then that it's worth creating a calm
environment to think clearly, since doing the right thing is way more important than executing fast,
and fast paced environments are not great to keep your head clear. After my time here, I'm a x100
times more of a believer.</li>
<li>Giving people in the business some basics on SQL is really useful, but that usefulness gets
multiplied by the tidyness and documentation of your DWH. If they need to call you up every time
because there's no way they can find and understand what they need in the DWH, teaching them SQL is
pointless and only leads to frustration.</li>
<li>
If you were part of the decision to hire someone, and then they decide to leave, you should talk
with them. Even if you're not working together every day anymore and the org has changed quite a
bit. You had a stake in this person's entrance, they remember it vividly, and not calling them to
grab a coffee and say bye properly will disappoint them.
</li>
<li>If a manager gets fired and you get their direct reports now reporting to you, and you know they had
strong respect for him, make sure to recognize that feeling the first thing. Saying something along
the lines of "Guys, I know you respected X and were fond of working with him, and that you might not
be happy with his departure and having to report to me instead. I understand that and think it's
natural", will go a long way in helping with the grieving and making them feel more comfortable.
</li>
<li>
Engineering leadership is quite a bit like parenting when it comes to mirroring. Regardless of what
you say should be done, people will ignore that a lot and tend to do what you do. If senior
engineers do patchy shit on the database, don't document a thing, cut corners instead of building
properly, mindlessly submit to absurd requests instead of collaborating productively with their
non-tech colleagues, etc, the rest of engineers will do it as well, regardless on how many training
sessions on best practices you run. Conversely, if you focus on quality, give time and room to do
things right, reward ingenious solutions to problems, treat incidents in professional and serious
ways, push back from stupid managerial situations to work things out in a way that is good
for everyone, document your work properly, etc. you will soon find the rest of your colleagues
(specially, the most junior ones) following your lead, often times without you even needing to
insist on good practices.
</li>
<li>People care little about having an office on the beachfront.</li>
<li>If you manage to raise a team to have team-ownership mentality (as in, they know what's their high
level goal and will always strive for it, even if you don't provide strict guidance or are not
around at all), you might get an ego hit because it suddenly feels like you are not needed. Rest
assured, even if you're not immediately needed, your team values you, and other managers and
executives will notice the work you've done with the team, even if they don't voice it.
Unfortunately, it's likely that the appreciation for your achievement only becomes visible when you
decide to leave and people panic.</li>
<li>People with cowardly and anxious characters might seem harmless. But don't undersestimate their
ability to allow terrible things to happen precisely because stepping up and acting would require
courage and they have none. Basically the way <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW9Q1cm_Tnw"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Upham gets Mellish killed in Saving Private Ryan</a>.
The attrocities that can be tolerated or even supported by cowards in this manner can be terrible,
and even more depressing that the loud acts of bold, evil men. Plus, if there are many cowards
clustered together, group thinking will give them comfort and normalize the behaviour in the fashion
of the bystander effect.
</li>
<li>
Only badmouth a colleague in front of others if you are going to eventually raise the issue to
either him or his superiors. Don't ever pointlessly complain with third parties if you will never
act on the issue. Specially with your direct reports. It generates a nasty victim culture, and once
you get it started, it's hard to stop.
</li>
<li>
I have found that the lack of easy access to data and skills like SQL and data analysis are orders
of magnitude less of an issue to organizational data literacy compared to managers who don't expect
a data-driven approach from their reports. People start caring about data when their boss demands
they do their work using data. People continue ignoring data when their boss tolerates the lack of
data. And when observing this, it's vital to also keep in mind that reports adjust their behaviour
to what their manager actually rewards/punishes, not what their manager <em>says</em> he will
reward/punish.
</li>
<li>Joel Spolsky wrote <a
href="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/">this thing
you should never do</a>. The company decided to do it anyway. We fucked up and we paid for the
consequences exactly as Spolsky lays out.</li>
<li>Employees with little retrospective capacity are dangerous. Partly related to the previous point.
This quote from Spolsky hits right on the nail: <em>It's important to remember that when you start
from scratch there is absolutely no reason to believe that you are going to do a better job than
you did the first time. First of all, you probably don't even have the same programming team
that worked on version one, so you don't actually have “more experience”. You're just going to
make most of the old mistakes again, and introduce some new problems that weren't in the
original version.</em> I would only nuance that if you can retrospect deeply and learn from the
mistakes you made on the first run, perhaps there's some hope you may do a better job starting from
scratch. But I guess if you manage to retrospect and learn properly, you could also do a better job
working yourself out incrementally from the fucked up situation you failed yourself into.</li>
<li>If you set up a variable/bonus scheme, refrain from changing the structure frequently, even if you
are not really making it more stingy. Too much shuffling on that area will get employees thinking
you're playing games on them, even if it's not the case.</li>
<li>When an engineer who designed, deployed, and since then operated a non-trivial production system is
about to leave, ask him to finish his handover and lock himself out days before his actual last
working day. Challenge him to a nice treat by making it clear that, once he's locked out, he doesn't
have any other duties other than help his colleagues should something not work after his departure.
This way, you provide him with an incentive to handover as perfect and fast as possible (paid
holidays), and you make sure that you get a chance to try to operate the system without him
<em>before</em> he leaves. Not doing this, and instead simply waiting for his last day to remove his
creds and users from the infra, is dangerous.
</li>
</ul>
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<title>Pablo here</title>
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<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>The ROI of toilets</h2>
<p>Years ago I worked under the organizational umbrella of this COO. He was my boss' boss. Sometimes we
bumped into each other for big meetings and presentations.</p>
<p>The COO had a background in finance and audit, which gave him certain management quirks that coupled in
rather funny ways with the nature of our data and analytics departments. There was this specific one
that was always itchy to me. At the time I was still a very junior and inexperienced professional, and
my default stance on things was to humble out, shut the fuck up and listen. But I always had my opinions
locked in my brain, and in cases like this one, I couldn't hold them back.</p>
<p>
The quirk this gentleman had was to try to measure the ROI of every little thing. He would ask for the
ROI of projects, the ROI of developments, the ROI of acquiring licenses, the ROI of going out for a
smoke. It was an understandable quirk for a financier who had never actually built or serviced anything,
but rather always looked, judged and measured from the outside. He wasn't that interested in the things
themselves, but rather in measuring them in units that would fit in his Excel sheets.
</p>
<p>
I generally thought (and still think) that assessing ROI is a good thing to aim for. But intuitively, I
found his obsession with it misplaced and counterproductive. I now have much better words to critique
and argue against his stance, but at the time I lacked those and only had a gut feeling of "this is
stupid".
</p>
<p>
One day we were in one of those meetings where he would start asking about the ROI of something while I
thought to myself: "We just need this thing and it's obviously more valuable that the money it will
cost, why are we having this conversation uuuugh". As I spiritually (not physically) rolled my eyes, I
couldn't hold it in anymore and just shot: "What's the ROI of the office toilets?"
</p>
<p>
The COO and my boss suddenly stared at me, mouths open, eyebrows pressed down as they squinted their
eyes: "What?"
</p>
<p>
"We have toilets. We have to pay for them. We could use them for desk space, but instead we put toilets.
Then we have to do plumbing and stuff. We need to pay people to clean them. it's a nuisance. How can we
know that they are the best use of shareholder funds? Who has measured the ROI of those toilets?". It
all came out naturally out of the blue. I had a great relationship with these people, but I still was
clenching my but, wondering if I had gone a bit too hard. Oh how nice it is to be young.
</p>
<p>
They chuckled and got my point. The COO stopped insisting on specific figures for the cost
element we had at hand, although he didn't surrender a good old "write a business case for this so we
can refer to it later", which probably was a wise thing to do.
</p>
<p>
I've faced similar situations a few times since then, and I've found myself in many others where it was
up to me if and how precisely should the ROI of something be measured. I now have a much clear mental
model and opinion of when it should and shouldn't be done. But that's for another day.
</p>
<p>
Nobody ever told me what was the ROI of the toilets, though. Perhaps we should remove them?
</p>
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<meta charset="utf-8">
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<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>Valuating data teams output</h2>
<p>
- Freedom and fucking up
- How work looks like
- This is an economics problem
- Fairy tail organizational designs
</p>
<p>
In 2023, I had the chance to do something not a lot of people get to do: I started a Data team in a
startup (<a href="https://truvi.com/">Truvi, formerly Superhog</a>) from scratch.
</p>
<p>
Being in a greenfield situation, both in organization and technical terms, was equally challenging and
rewarding. It gave me the right space and craving to spend time thinking on stuff I hadn't before. This
included very foundational questions such as... what should the Data team do? The kind of stuff you
don't think about much when you land in a cruise ship that's already been rolling for a while, and you
get told your job is to pull that lever up and down when the light tells you to. Ever since, I've had
the
chance to learn and think a lot about embedding a Data team in a small SaaS company.
</p>
<p>
One of the hard and interesting topics is how do you measure the success of the team. How do you look at
what the team has done and answer the following questions:
</p>
<ul>
<li>How valuable is this thing we delivered?</li>
<li>Was it the most valuable think we could have done?</li>
</ul>
<p>
These are not trivial questions. Because it's easy to fuck up. Being a nimble team in a small company,
the amount of flexibility you enjoy is ecstatic. You can (and usually need to) pivot a lot, very fast.
But with freedom comes responsibility, and the pleasure of having many choices comes with the pain of
wondering if you're screwing up in what you choose.
</p>
<h2>
How work looks like
</h2>
<p>
I find experience and real situations make abstract rants like this one much more interesting, so let me
explain a bit what the Data team at Truvi faces on a daily basis to give some context.
</p>
<p>
Truvi is a SaaS company that services short-term rentals (STR) hosts and guests. Our goal is to help
both parties reduce and manage risk in their bookings. Risk here means, for the other part, the other
party doing something nasty to you (e.g. your guest burns down your BnBs kitchen, or your host let's you
know the property you booked is flooded right when you show up at the door on a Monday night at
11:30PM). We offer multiple services, like screening and protection, to help both parties manage this,
and we charge fees for it.
</p>
<p>
We deliver our services through a couple of in-house developed applications and some API integrations
with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_management_system">PMSs</a>, <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_travel_agency">OTAs</a> and other funky acronym-named
types of companies involved in the STR industry.
</p>
<p>
The Data team's main responsibility, as defined by me, is to ensure people in the company know what they
need to know. We deliver this in multiple ways:
</p>
<ul>
<li>We maintain a lot of reporting. Some of it might be company-wide KPIs all management looks at,
some others are more operational detail that only affect certain teams or functions.</li>
<li>
We keep ourselves available for adhoc, quick and dirty, one off requests. We rotate this through the
different members of the team since it's quite disruptive for one's agenda and focus.
</li>
<li>
We deliver adhoc, slow and steady, brainy reports whenever people not only need Data, but someone
who knows what he's doing because the analysis requires above average data literacy.
</li>
<li>
We support data heavy projects, such as A/B testing or the acquisition of external data sources.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Even if this categorization looks neat, the reality is more of a barrage of a million different things,
coming through the door all at once without any order.
</p>
<p>
Given our humble capacity for delivering and our colleagues heavy appetite for asking, only a sliver
of what gets requested will be done soon. One of my jobs is to decide, together with the company
leadership, what makes it in. It's a tough job at Truvi, and it's been a tough job at previous companies
I've been at. I think that is the case because of poor organizational design. And I think we have a lot
to learn from economics.
</p>
<h2>Economic calculation</h2>
<p>
The situation we have in my team is an economical one. We have lots of needs and we can't satisfy all
of them.
</p>
<p>
This is the same situation society faces at scale: there's plenty of capital and man hours we can put up
to good use, but we have infinite options. What do we do more, hospitals, more schools or more beers?
</p>
<p>
In society, despite what statists and bureacrats would like, these decisions are not made by a bunch of
all knowing intellectuals in their parties office. They are made on the streets, by individuals that
decide how to spend their own money and time.
</p>
<p>
People spend their own very wisely. Even if it might look like they do stupid stuff, they don't. They do
what's good for them, with their resources and preferences. Even if we don't share their choices. Even
if we think we know better than them.
</p>
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<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
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<section>
<h2>Your customers don't care that your bathroom is dirty</h2>
<p>The other night I went out with the missus and we went to a fancy pants restaurants, which is unusual for
us. We prefer neighbourhood, simple places.</p>
<p>
During the dinner, she went to the bathroom and came back horrified: "God, their bathroom is fucking
disgusting". "Much worse than the usual one?", I asked. And she said: "No, but I would expect an upscale
place like this to have it squeaky clean".
</p>
<p>
I then laid down my thesis on why all restaurant bathrooms, even in really posh places, are always
terrible: "They don't care because you don't really care". "I do care!", she hit me back. "No, you
don't. You think you do: you obviously don't like it, and you would love to see it clean instead of all
filthy. But the truth is, when next month you're thinking about where to go out for dinner, you'll judge
this place and remember the meal, the waiters, how you felt. But not the bathroom. What was the last
time you discarded a restaurant because the bathroom was gross". At this point she agreed, and quickly
drew her attention to the desserts menu. Sometimes I invest too much energy and talk in things people
find boring.
</p>
<h2>The bathrooms of products</h2>
<p>
There are a couple of things we can learn here.
</p>
<p>
Your product surely has <em>bathrooms</em>. Those little corners that are not the main course, and
your customers don't care about much. You need them. Not having them would be problematic. I don't fuss
over a dirty bathroom in a restaurant, but I'm pretty confident I would remember a restaurant not having
a bathroom at all if it was responsible for some desperate run-for-it trip in search of a place to drop
my bombs.
</p>
<p>
Your product's bathrooms are those secondary features your customers kind of need, but don't care much
about. It's that export to CSV button. Your customer John needs it to push the data into his accounting
books. The formats of the date columns are weird, and the columns names are confusing, and the fact that
you send a link to his email to download it instead of just triggering a download in his browser the
moment he hits the button, make it all quite cumbersome. But, all in all, it's minor pain. The moment he
uploads it into the accounting software, he forgets about it.
</p>
<p>
I think it's important to be aware of what those are in your product, so you can prioritise accordingly
and avoid some feature-prioritisation bike shedding. Theoretically, it should be obvious, because you
know what's important (right? Right?!?), and whatever is not important, is probably not important. But
then somehow I still see mistakes made around this type of feature.
</p>
<p>
I recently had a conversation with my company's CTO about a situation like this. I had some frustration
to vent. We had invested so much time and effort in improving the UI of one of our applications. And it
was so pointless. "There's a good chunk of our customer base that pretty much never go into this UI", I
told him. "They only contact us through a form when they need the service they hired. I don't think they
care about this, and I don't think the nicer UI is going to bring any value to them, nor any money to
us".
</p>
<p>
That UI has to be there. It's where they check some settings. Reset their password. The boring stuff.
But having achieved being functional, there isn't much more value to provide in improving it.
</p>
<p>
I think it's important to identify which are your bathrooms and make sure you act accordingly. I find
it's not enough to only care about making the important stuff top priority: it helps to also make it
clear what's not important, and be explicit about it being low priority. Just like when I define the
scope for something, I like to both think in terms of what are we including, and also making a explicit
list of what we are NOT including for the sake of clarity. Theoretically, just listing the positive list
should be enough. In reality, my experience tells me making the negative helps a lot.
</p>
<p>
So, what are your bathrooms? Are you cleaning them with a toothbrush? Or you have them nice and dirty?
</p>
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