Luis Magalhaes: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to the DistantJob podcast. A podcast about building and leading remote teams. I am your host, as usual, Luis, and with me today is German Heller. Did I say that right?
German Heller: Perfect. 100%.
Luis Magalhaes: Well, he is the cofounder at 3DAR, a company that does awesome work in 3D and video producing and all sorts of cool stuff that he will talk to us about in a minute. He started coding very early in life. You were a kid when you started coding, right? And you’ve been a writer, you’ve worked at big companies, but now you’ve been, for a quite a long while, in the company that you cofounded.
And I have to say before I get on that, I spent, a couple of days ago, when I was looking you up for this interview, I spent like 30 minutes on the 3DAR homepage. And that just made my entire day happier. You have some really cool stuff. You produced-
German Heller: Ah, thanks you.
Luis Magalhaes: So why don’t you start by telling our listeners a bit more about 3DAR and what you do and the trajectory that led you there.
German Heller: Of course. First of all, thank you for the opportunity.
I’m really happy to be speaking about, yeah my life experience would be it’s been since an early stage that I started working on this. It was kind of like from a rebelliousness. I just worked in some big companies and it was like, oh my god, everything is so hard to get done.
I was younger than I am now, 16 years ago, and I wanted to create a really agile and creative space which would do cool stuff. I didn’t exactly know what. It was more about feeling exciting about breaking the boundaries, playing with technology, telling stories, art, visual, experiences. This is pretty much from where everything started. I wanted to create a space with friends. To work with people that I trust, and, yeah, make it a fun lifestyle, a fun routine. To be with people that you admire and that you can relate with as friends and learn from. That was pretty much my dream. And I was so motivated. It started happening really quickly.
I ended up partnering my brother and my best friend and we created, at the beginning it was just like technical renderings, 3D images, photo realism, sometimes for architecture, some times for advertising. But it was already creating a space that was later going to evolve into many things that even surprised us. Like, inspirations or market opportunities that we had among the years.
So today, 3DAR is a company that creates content in various forms. Virtual reality is one of the most important ones for us. Although VR is in in a difficult, I would say, between quotes, difficult time because it’s a natural process of VR coming out so much hype and expectation. People watching films like Ready Player One that promised that you’re going to be transported into a different dimension and then, of course, it’s not like that.
But it’s getting somewhere and we’re working on content that is looking into the future of what VR is going to be. It’s content that you have to have like a $4,000 equipment to see that today is expensive and unaffordable for most, but that it’s in a couple of years is going to change. And we’re creating content based on that. It really creates a new experience you haven’t seen before.
It’s like we have this new piece that we created. We premiered it at Sundance Film Festival. [crosstalk 00:04:30]
Gloomy Eyes. Yeah. So we’re really happy. This is a great time for us because it’s like finally we’re breaking the boundaries that we wanted to break the most which is like how to bring a new experience to the people.
Luis Magalhaes: I want to go a bit off script here because I usually talk a lot about managing, but this is something that I find fascinating.
I wrote for video gaming for years. For many, many, many, many years.
German Heller: Me too.
Luis Magalhaes: What did you work on? Video game magazines or video games scripts?
German Heller: When I was 15 that was my first job. For six years I worked with the biggest newspaper here in Argentina, writing for video games reviews. I was the columnist writing a review for a game every week. It was my dream job. I think probably it’s the best job I ever had in my whole life.
Luis Magalhaes: It probably didn’t pay as much as you would like, at least that was my case.
German Heller: Probably. But, I was 15 so, it was three hundred bucks but, dude, that was big money for me at the time.
Luis Magalhaes: Yeah, and you got the games. I still have tons of video games from those times. Like shelves full of review video games.
German Heller: Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. They’re at my parent’s. I left them there. Like the big boxes.
Luis Magalhaes: Nice. So, what was the last video game that really caught your attention?
German Heller: I don’t know, if it was the Diablo but, in a way, the media games that really marked me, in a good way, were Monkey Island, Monkey Island One and Monkey Island Two. That was more like a graphic adventure, or something nice like really doesn’t exist anymore today, but it was something that really took me to a fantasy world in that it really blended with my life and I felt like I was pirate. I really felt inside this world and I was fascinated by it. And there were many games that I really, really liked. Double dragon has nothing to do with that, it was when I was seven, it was my favorite.
Monkey Island is definitely the top one for me, even Monkey Island One.
Luis Magalhaes: So I really want to know what are your insights on the future of 3D. I totally get your experience and when I started video gaming in 3D, I got the PlayStation VR. I was considering getting the Steam VR, it was more expensive, it’s like $1,000 for the full set of steam things. The problem was that it comes with a lot of sensors and you need to put them all over your room and then you can’t have objects or the sensors won’t work, and it’s just a mess.
But the PlayStation one it’s lower fidelity but you put your helmet on, you put the camera on top of the TV and you’re done. You don’t need anything else. It’s much more consumer friendly. I remember putting on that helmet and trying the video game, and some interactive movies of the kind that you are working on. And it was just a whole new experience. It was that experience of I feel like I’m there. It really is remarkable and everyone that comes and visits me, I try to put them in the helmet, just for some minutes, and everyone comes out impressed. I really think that it is a game changing technology.
But I worry a bit that it’s going to go the way of the 3D televisions. 3D televisions were awesome and I really enjoyed playing video games and watching movies, and then people just lost interest.
How do you think VR will be different?
German Heller: I think it’s really different than 3D TVs. 3D TV it just adds a little bit of a layer to something and VR is something completely different. The problem with VR is that technology is in a very early stage right now and you have the wires, and you have a heavy headset and everything is so clunky. And, my god, the sensors, like this is ridiculous. You have to put tripods, it’s really, really clunky. But that’s just a matter of time. Maybe a couple of years, you have the chance in VR to create a universe that is just the same as the universe that we’re living in which is 360 and which has like depth and you can move it. [crosstalk 00:09:27]
Luis Magalhaes: And if someone is smoking close to you in VR you tend to kind of push away from the smoke, just instinctively. Stuff like that.
German Heller: Totally. No totally. I was amazed on how the background thinking of the mind works because consciously you are aware that there’s nothing there, but it affects you and there is like a whole layer of the brain that works and reacts to stimulation that you don’t control. And when you’re in VR it’s really clear. Feels like you’re falling and it’s like, oh my god, I’m going to die. We’re really reactive entities, a human being, we just react to what’s going on.
And the thing is like when you’re watching on TV, you’re watching through a window, through a quite small window actually. It’s a square, it’s a rectangle that you just look through and you see things and things are far away. You can forget easier that you are looking something from the distance, so in a way, it’s much closer to you. And that’s one of the most important things in VR. Being much closer to you you can somehow have better access to people core, to people’s emotions.
So, yeah, this is a crucial thing and when we’re creating VR we are aware of this power that we have. Power that is typically misused. It creates experiences that take too much use of the resources that we’re giving. In a way overwhelming people or maybe showing too much, like burning, the sense of mystery.
It’s like the secret of creating VRPs that is successful is moderation and dosage in things. The minimum necessary so you can create like a balance. You don’t create a universe that is not interesting because everything is so much in your face.-
Luis Magalhaes: Yeah, absolutely. I always say when I bring people home to try the VR thing. Before I put them playing any video games, when video games you need to move you need to look, you need to target, you need to press buttons that you can’t see because you have a helmet on and you’re holding a controller. And if you’re not familiar with video games you don’t know by heart where the buttons are so then-
German Heller: Yeah.
Luis Magalhaes: Add another layer.
So usually I just sit them down. There’s an experience in Play Station that’s very good for this. It’s the underwater dive where you’re just sitting on a cage that’s being lowered down the ocean, and you get to see the fishes and then later on there’s a bit more emotion because there’s a shark attack and stuff like that. It’s interactive, you can look around and all of that, and move a bit of the cage, but you don’t really have to do anything. It’s just stuff happening around you.
I always think that it’s good to start there, like in moderation, because otherwise people tend to get overwhelmed. And then I graduate them to a game where they only play by tilting their heads, they don’t need to press any buttons. Then maybe I introduce them to a game where they have to use one button.
Seeing that this is the stage where we are, what are you excited about in the next two or three years when it comes to VR?
German Heller: First of all, I want better technology. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but it’s the truth. Better technology means like headsets that have more field of view, more resolution, more processing, and they’re like stand alone, no wires. And they’re like comfortable to use. And something that can be really easy to set up and you just put it on and it’s comfortable and works out and it adjusts to your eyes. I don’t want any wheels to adjust like the focal vista. I want something that is really easy to use. This is on the technology front, of course.
Luis Magalhaes: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
German Heller: On the content side, I’ve been quite frustrated on what I watch. I just came back from like a really big festival tour and I was in [inaudible 00:14:12] France, in Paris, Newimages Festival, then I went to China in Qingdao Sandbox Immersive Festival and then I was in BiFan in Korea. So it was a long trip going to every festival, and it was hard for me to find good content for VR. Even in this top notch first class festivals. Content is not there yet. That’s the thing, and I think a lot of people from the gaming industry is also doing content which is great. But also we need more cinematic, more artsy. Storytellers what I would like to see basically in two or three years from now is better technology and beautiful content. And right now it’s starting, it reminds me the stories of how the movies started and you have the train going to the camera at the beginning. That scene of the train and people ahhhhh. And I think that’s the roller coaster of VR is the same thing.
But I go to the shopping malls now and there are the VR little booths and then I see the roller coaster experience and it’s like, come on man, it’s been five years, lets turn the page in a way.
Luis Magalhaes: Here’s hoping that that keeps happening and that the industry keeps growing.
I want to talk a bit more about your company.
German Heller: Sure.
Luis Magalhaes: Podcast about remote work. What is the set up of your company? I assume you have people that work from home? You certainly work on the road. How is that set up?
German Heller: So we have right now three offices. A couple of them are in the same building even, and then we have one that is four blocks away. And we created modular spaces for different environment and different ecosystems I would say, I don’t know. It’s like a different space to work on a different quality of a project. So we’re doing Gloomy Eyes Episode Two, and it has it’s own office. And you live and breathe Gloomy Eyes there. You’re working only in VR, there’s like people that is like handpicked there. People that work onsite.
And then you have another office that is work more on animation and AR. And then one that is working on movies in [inaudible 00:17:02].
Each one of them has a slightly different dynamics. But we work remotely with lots of artists and people from each one of them. I think it’s always very necessary to have a core that it’s like self sustainable and that core is smart enough to work on the cloud and get feed from teams and people around the world. We’re working with lots of Brazilians. Our best concept artist is in Chile, which is like insane genius. We are very much used to that. We started from there with a company in 2004 when we started the very beginning of it. We conceived the company to work for the US and European markets. So we were here in the south but it was already like remote services.
And from then for us it really depends on the quality, on the communication and the artist. To sustain the challenge of the distance, but I think sometimes it’s even better because it forces you to structure the brief perfectly and then you delegate the responsibility whoever it working. It has autonomy and independence and it’s really results based. It’s not like, oh, I don’t know, I’m sick or blah, blah, blah, it’s like the responsibility. Of course, if you’re sick you cannot work and everything, but he’s going to figure a solution out. That’s something that’s not because of that particularly that situation but all these other minor details, like their responsibilities are clear. So it’s really good when you have a good team that works on the distance there and it’s also necessary for the core creative, for the day-to-day dynamics, for the brainstorming to have people onsite, for the core of the team.
Luis Magalhaes: So all these people that you have that work on the cloud, as you said, it forces the person handling the tasks to structure them very specifically and to create a very specific brief so in a way it forces people to be better managers, right?
My question is, when you’re working with someone and all the work is getting together in the cloud, how do you act in order to get the bird’s-eye view of seeing at which stage things are and identifying the blocker?
German Heller: When you are doing visual work it’s very easy. You just send me a progress and then you see in a second already where things are at.
If you are doing coding, programming and if you’re doing something that is more lower level in a sense, not in a visual. When I say lower level, I mean on the computers terms like more software-y, so then it becomes more tricky to understand how the progress is going and then you need to structure ways in which the person is going to present to you including the front end so you can followup.
Since we’re not a software company we don’t have that problem that much. The only thing we need to do is to have the courage to make the right decision, because sometimes you get like a few bad deliveries really come to the realization that maybe this is not the person for the job.
Luis Magalhaes: As an example, the animation music video. That is an awesome song, that is an awesome music video by the way, and it’s like there’s just so many talent involved there. That there is no way that everyone involved was in one location, right?
German Heller: Exactly.
Luis Magalhaes: What’s it like to produce that? How do you tie all the different strands as a producer?
German Heller: That particular project is a perfect example of working in the cloud. And, also, what I was just talking about, like really dynamic. Because we did that project in four months which-
Luis Magalhaes: Wow! That’s almost nothing. That’s almost no time.
German Heller: Yeah, for the job it’s really a short time. It was probably like an eight months project.
Luis Magalhaes: It’s huge.
German Heller: Yeah, it’s pretty huge. And it’s 60 characters.
Luis Magalhaes: Wow.
German Heller: 60 characters that we had to concept first in pencil, then take it to the illustration, then model in 3D then put in the material then reading and everything, then animate them. Everything going through review process with the client, which was [inaudible 00:22:21] itself, and I think working in the cloud was the solution for it. We had a strong team in-house that was like 50 people that was really burning at the office with everything. But there was a lot of [inaudible 00:22:45] intelligence for like going on a constant recruiting process ongoing during the whole project, in which we were always looking ahead. Okay, so we have the pencil done, but we’re going to have like 15 characters I was going to have ready to be modeled in 3D next week. And we have only five models. But we could be modeling 15 characters at the same time. So let’s go and find 10 more modelers just to do it all in parallel.
Because if we had more time we would never do everything in parallel. But we have four months, we had to be ready for earth day and earth day was not going to move.
Luis Magalhaes: Hey there, it’s Luis. Welcome to the intermission of the DistantJob Pod Casts. If you are listening to this podcast there’s a very big chance that you’re interested in building a great remote team, and to build a great remote team you need great remote employees. That’s where DistantJob comes in.
So, here’s how it works, you tell us the kind of position that you need to fill, we talk to you, we try to figure out, not only what are the exact requirements that that person should have, but also we try to figure out who would be a perfect fit for your company culture because we really believe that that matters.
Then, once we have an exact picture of what we are looking for, we’re off to the races. Our recruiters tap into their global network and we filter people very well so that you don’t waste your time interviewing people that are never going to be of interest to you.
We make sure because we are techies and our recruiters are techies as well, so when people get to you, they are already pre-selected and you just have to decide between the cream of the crop.
And once you make your selection, we handle all the paperwork, we handle HR for you, we handle payments, and you get a full time remote employee that’s among the best of the world and managed entirely by you, by your processes and following your culture.
If this sounds good, visit us at www.distantjob.com.
And without further adieu, let’s get back with the show.
Thank you for listening.
Luis Magalhaes: Recruitment is such an art, hiring and finding people, because if you find the wrong people they won’t make things faster. They will make things slower. They will block the progress. How do you manage to recruit people that accelerate instead of decelerate?
German Heller: You don’t put the project to wait on anybody. That’s the thing. You are always working ahead, and if you really need something, you go and you either get the best, because it’s really good, but you also get a Plan B and a Plan C and you execute all of them at the same time.
You send a model to be done but you send it to three people at the same time and you let them know it’s going to be a test of like two days, in two day’s they’re going to need to present the work in progress, and then you’re going to discover if this artist is really pushing the project forward or holding it back.
And then you have to have the cold blood to say okay, sorry, you’re job is not really good enough for this, your result. But you have the other people that they perform fantastically. So it’s like an unnatural situation and you have to go. We don’t have time for second chances or anything, or learning curves at this level of pressure.
And then we found amazing talent and we started a lot of people along the way of their recruiting constant recruiting. It was like, okay, we sent 10 models but we knew that five of those were going to be not good enough, maybe three were going to be awesome, and two were going to be okay. And then we were planning with that production dynamic in our heads. So, in a way, we were targeting many, many tasks at the same time with different artists and it was a live test that we would do with all the artists at the same time. And we would discover them in action. In the battlefield when they already have real assignment.
But we were very aware to do this selection properly because when you find out if somebody is really good at what they do is when you actually get them to work on something very concrete. We have so many assignments to give them so very concrete assignments.
So we just have to be really precise on discovering who is going to stay and who is going to get a ton of work, because when we found somebody that was responding really good, it was like, okay, dude. 10 characters for you to model next week. And they’re like, oh my god.
The thing is this project was a very exciting project. It had so many celebrities, a crazy sense of humor, so everybody wanted to work on it and also we got the best people, we got the best talent so it was a privilege for people to be a part of it.
And became like, the rumor in town was, oh my god, Leonardo DiCaprio video is being done here, I really want to work here and people were reaching out, offering themself to collaborate whichever way they could.
Luis Magalhaes: That was probably a boon for recruitment for sure.
German Heller: Totally.
Luis Magalhaes: Again, you talked about working in the cloud and the importance of getting a good brief, and then the importance of sticking to deadlines. How did you transmit the specifications and the deadlines? What was the conversation like that you had with them so that you could be sure that, on your end, you were providing them with the absolute best guidance they could because I bet you were stressed about making your deadline as well. I’m sure that this was something that you talked a lot about.
German Heller: So the thing was, first of all we need to really organize internally, because if it’s 60 characters and each one of them has like 10 faces and approvals, and then it’s these scenarios and then you have like 80 scenarios and then you have like the simulations and you have the visual effects. So many things and they’re dependent on each other because people can’t put materials to a character if it’s not modeled. But the modeler cannot model if he’s not designed and drawn with a technical drawing.
So first thing we had to do is really organize with really smart spreadsheets that were with a lot of programming on them so they can be linked to each other. Like they send notifications so we used Google Sheets and we used Google Scripts a lot. I designed all the spreadsheets for the project so that would be kind of like the production structure and the spreadsheets themselves would be the window on the production health of the project. Because spreadsheets needed to be alive in the sense that if there was a field that was not used either we did a huge meeting about lets use this field or we took it out. So they can be really clean and compact, and efficient.
And then you can be very aware of who’s moving past the deadline. Because it’s not so much about communicating the deadline, right, it’s first about you have to know the deadline yourself and then you can communicate it efficiently. And some artists were going to be past their own deadlines because that’s the way it goes. Sometimes it’s not such a precise project when you are doing something that involves a creative design and stuff.
So, on one side it’s like how you organize internally for keeping track of the production and then it’s how do you get the creative brief right on something that gives all the information that the artist needs? And I think that comes down to, we had the director was Frederico Heller, is my brother, and he was 24/7 working on the project. I mean, it’s like he would get a WhatsApp message and he would reply right away. A lot of presence from him on the direction and we would have assistants telling him we need briefs on this, this, this, this, this, this. And then he would record the video, talking about the particular scene or the animation acting that needed to happen and then he would create these packages which were videos of him talking and showing the screen and references and blah, blah, blah. And even thinking out loud about things. And then you have like a creative capsule and you can send to an artist, or even to many artists. And I think this video brief and video feedbacks were like the key aspect of this vessels of creativity from the director.
Luis Magalhaes: Wow! That’s so interesting because what I’m used to companies doing is they write a word document and then they email it or they share it on Google Docs or something like that. But you are saying that you actually, your briefs were actually video. You know, it amazes me how I’ve got, we’re close to like 40 episodes of the DistantJob Podcast and you’re the first person that came up and told me that you do your briefs in video. And I suppose he shared the screen and talked them through the tools the [inaudible 00:33:34] tools.
German Heller: Exactly.
Luis Magalhaes: And wow. That’s-
German Heller: And it’s so much simpler, and so much faster, and so much richer because when you’re seeing the person talking about things, you get much more information than if you flatten everything to text that takes longer to write.
I’m surprised that for remote working people don’t use these kinds of things. Because it’s key and it’s so quick and if you have to have so many briefs it would be so boring and tiring to have to be writing documents and documents one after each other.
But then you, in this case, you’d just sit with the camera and start talking about it and really get excited talking about it. You don’t even know who you’re talking to sometimes. But it’s just you’re looking at the project and you’re putting words out in the easiest way and you can also show reference live and maybe it’s going to take a little bit of time because you’re going to think of things and stuff, and then you record a video which is like 10 to 15 minutes. But 10 to 15 minutes and that’s it. It’s done. And it’s brief. You don’t have to do anything else for it and it can go to anybody and it doesn’t get lost.
Luis Magalhaes: Yeah, yeah. That’s super interesting.
So working with people, I mean after writing I graduated to editor-in-chief, I managed teams of writers and now I manage marketing person. And it really strikes me as one of the main issues is that creative people, writers and graphic designers and stuff like that, they tend to be, not bad, but they don’t like paperwork. Right?
Those spreadsheets, they don’t like filling them in. They keep putting it off and then you know, I have to play the bad guy and annoy them. I feel terrible about this but I have to say, come on, fill your spreadsheets. I have no idea if the work is proceeding or not.
What’s your remedy for this situation? What’s the conversation like when you’re trying to impress upon people the importance of showcasing their work and updating their progress?
German Heller: In an ideal world, everybody’s doing only what they want and what they like to do. And when you’re creating a company in dynamics it’s very important that you’re aware that if you don’t structure things in a way that points in that direction, you’re going to get worse results. Because people that do things that they don’t like to do, or if they do it, they do it less good than something they’re very excited and passionate about.
The thing is that you have to find the right people to do the production and coordination aspects, and the right people to do the creative and then team each other. The mature artist has a little bit of a producer inside because it’s not like all completely loose and everything, so, he’s going to be feeling supported by the producer if the producer is doing it’s job right. Which is keeping track of all the other things and getting to the artist what he needs. If you have a good coordinator, the artists are really thankful because they’re going to get them the right asset, they’re going to let them know of their responsibilities, they’re going to feel like somebody has their back on what they cannot do.
And I think even with remote work, it’s something that can be done the same way. Because if you have a very smart producer or coordinator that has spreadsheets and keeps track of everything and is taking care of the whole process, then the artist can maybe just send an audio message and say, okay I’m doing this, and then the producer can put it on the spreadsheet. And I think that’s the ideal solution. To have a producer every six to eight artists that can structure things out and, yeah, then you will get the artist to do more of what they do best, and the producer is going to do what he or she does best too.
Luis Magalhaes: Awesome. That’s an awesome perspective and it’s really nice to talk with someone that has both the development background and the creative background of your industry which I guess I would classify it as cinema, right? I mean it’s across a variety of mediums but it’s actually a storytelling, storytelling is what you do. And storytelling is a visual medium which is so powerful and I can see how that background really influences your perspective. It’s really nice.
I promised you, we booked one hour, I want to be respectful of your time so I’m going to move on to some rapid fire questions. Now you don’t need to answer them rapidly, they are simple questions. You can take as much time as you feel you need to answer them.
So, if you had $100.00 to spend with each person working for you to improve their work/life. What would you give them? And this can be software or it can be tools or whatever you feel could be.
German Heller: Probably would be like a good keyboard and a good mouse.
Luis Magalhaes: Oh, do you have any favorites? Favorite brands, favorite types?
German Heller: I have the Apple keyboard but it’s more than $100.00. And I use a Microsoft mouse that I have since probably 15 years now.
Luis Magalhaes: That’s a good mouse. If it’s lasted 15 years.
German Heller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the first optical mouses. It’s like I’m looking at it right now and it’s like, it used to be white and now it’s yellow.
Because what I see sometimes is people are doing 3D design and they have a mouse and it sucks. And it’s incredible, like dude, this workstation sucks. And it’s slowing you so much because of the most basics. You’re running a race but you have a stone in the shoe.
With only $100.00 I would do that. And with the rest I would buy some sweets or something, or maybe I would save some money and get like a good coffee machine, something like that.
Luis Magalhaes: Nice. And as for yourself, what purchase, and it doesn’t need to be $100.00 it can be higher, what purchase that you’ve made in the past year or six months has made your work life easier or more productive?
German Heller: I’m really a big fan of optimization. And I think something I’m enjoying a really wide monitor that I have right now. I used to have many monitors and now I have like a very big, very wide one, and that’s something that makes me happy, but, like I’m a big fan of creating a space that you really like for work, so, yeah.-
Luis Magalhaes: What monitor is that? And, I’m with you, I love just having a big monitor where I can open several side by side. It’s almost like having two or three monitors at once. I love that.
German Heller: Totally. This one is a Dell. I don’t have the model, but it’s a Dell, like super wide. Very nice.
Luis Magalhaes: Cool. So, what book or books have you gifted the most?
German Heller: Two books. It’s like the Power of Now from Eckhart Tolle and also one of the books that I like the most was the Biography of Steve Jobs. I think it’s so exciting.
Luis Magalhaes: What caught your eye the most in the Biography of Steve Jobs?
German Heller: The word that was the exciting context of the transition from analog to digital and the character with the vision of what was going to happen and to be working on something that is like such an uncharted territory. Also liked the motivation the impulse, the force of life that was behind Steve Jobs on that crusade for technology. Very interesting.
Luis Magalhaes: Interesting. Interesting. So, bonus question for you. I don’t usually ask this for my guests, but, bonus question for you.
Do you see a future where instead of doing this we put our VR helmets on and we have a business meeting, or an interview, or work with our teams as Avatars in a virtual reality setting?
German Heller: I do, but it’s not a headset. Headset is like a really bad word. Picture like glasses, that almost announce able. And then all of a sudden you have a call. It’s not a headset, it’s not something heavy and it’s not something clunky, it doesn’t have any wires. It has to be like super easy.
Luis Magalhaes: Well. Okay. Yeah I guess that making it easy is the important part.
German Heller: Totally.
Luis Magalhaes: Okay so final question. So if you were hosting a dinner/round table about remote work, about leading remote teams, about the future of work. You were inviting all the top executives from Silicon Valley and tech companies, and you’re doing it in a Chinese Restaurant so you get to decide, as the host, what is the message that comes inside the fortune cookies at the end of the dinner. What message are you putting inside the fortune cookie?
German Heller: What a tricky one.
Luis Magalhaes: I saved it for last.
German Heller: I don’t know. It’s so many things that you can say. It would be like consider today as the only reality that you have for now. Something like that that is not looking to the future so much all the time. And not looking at what’s going to happen or it’s more of what your life is today because it’s like the most relevant thing to pay attention to how you’re feeling today, and how you’re feeling right now actually.
Luis Magalhaes: Makes you think. This conversation has made our listeners think and if they want to continue the conservation with you, if they want to talk about these topics or others and also if they want to know more about 3DAR, where can they reach out to you? Where can they find out more about the company, etc.?
German Heller: So the company’s website is 3DAR.com. Yeah, shoot me an email, my email is [email protected].
Luis Magalhaes: All right. All right. Thank you so much. Also thank you to JP who introduced us. Our mutual friend JP. And thank you so much for all the fun. I really had a lot of fun looking at the content that you produced, that you showcase on your website and I’m looking forward to experiencing Gloomy Eyes. So thank you for that and thank you for being here. It was a pleasure.
German Heller: It was a pleasure for me too and really appreciate the invitation. Thanks. I really enjoyed it too.
Luis Magalhaes: And so we close another episode of DistantJob Podcast. And, if you enjoyed the episode, please you can help us out by sharing it on social media. That would be great, it’s how we reach more listeners and the more listeners we have, the more awesome guests I can get in touch and convince to participate in this conversations that are a joy to have for me and I hope they’re a joy for you to listen to as well.
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And, of course, if you need to find a great employee for your team, a great remote employee, you should take the whole world into consideration and not just look to hire locally. Not just look to hire in your country. Look around the whole world because that’s the talent pool that contains the best talent.
And to help you with that, again, DistantJob.com is the perfect place to start. You will tell us who we need and we will make sure that you get the best possible candidate 40% faster than the industry standard.
And with that I bid you adieu. See you next week on the next episode.
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